“Necessity, Walter--a stern necessity.” “However,” continued Merley, more calmly, “I do not recognise the necessity; nor, credit me, will the country long recognise it. Meanwhile I can take no part in the struggle. King John I abhor; Prince Louis I abhor still more than I do King John. I have, under your counsel, De Moreville, taken such a course as to involve in ruin the house to which I belong. My brother and my mother are exiles north of the Tweed, dependent on our potent kinsman for the very bread they eat. All that I could have endured to behold; but to think that this was suffered to place a Frenchman and a Capet on the throne of Alfred and Edward maddens me. But, farewell! I go to Flanders to seek oblivion in the excitement of war; and may God pardon you, De Moreville, for having brought this wretched foreign prince and his rascal myrmidons into England, for I own that I cannot. I have said.” De Moreville was much affected, and buried his head in his bosom to conceal his agitation. This was not the kind of language he expected to hear from an eager partisan of the baronial cause; and he certainly began to view the matter in a different light than when he was at the court of Paris, and thinking only of vengeance on King John. However, he felt that every awkwardness and inconvenience must be endured, and every reproach borne, now that the great step was taken, and it was too late to recede. He raised his head resolutely, with the intention of bringing his young friend over to his view. When he did so, he found that he was alone. Walter Merley was gone. CHAPTER XXVII THE INVADER AND HIS DUPES Meanwhile King John had left Dover for Guildford, and marched from Guildford to Winchester, and from Winchester to Bristol, having taken the precaution of strongly garrisoning the castles of Windsor, Wallingford, and Corfe; and Louis of France, after landing at Sandwich, in spite of the legate, led his army to Rochester, and on the 30th of May, 1216, took that fortress from the garrison which John had left within its walls six months earlier. Having thus inaugurated his career in England with a conquest which raised the hopes of John’s enemies, Louis, accompanied by the Lord de Coucy, the Viscount of Melun, the Count of Nevers, and the Count of Perche, marched his army towards London.