"Four nobles a week, then, I will give thee, For this merry jest thou hast shown unto me; And tell the old Abbot when thou comest home, Thou has brought him a pardon from good King John." THE LAST DAYS OF KING JOHN (1216). +Source.+--_Matthew of Westminster_, Vol. II., pp. 127, 128. G. Bell & Sons. Prince Louis and all his followers embarked on board the ships, and came with a fair wind to the isle of Thanet, and anchored in the place which is called Stanhore, on the 21st of May. King John was at that time with his army at Dover, but as he was surrounded by a band of foreign mercenaries, who loved Louis more than John, King of England, he did not dare to encounter Louis in a hostile manner, lest his troups might perchance desert King John himself in his necessity, and transfer themselves to Louis. From which considerations he preferred retreating at the time to engaging in a doubtful battle. Therefore, he retreated, and withdrew to Canterbury, and left and entrusted the Castle of Dover to the custody and good faith of Hubert de Burgh. And soon afterwards, Gualo, the legate, landed in England, for the protection of King John and the kingdom against Louis and his partisans. But King John fled as far as Winchester, and Louis, when he found that no one offered to resist him, disembarked from his ships, and landing at Sandwich, subdued immediately the whole of that district, with the exception of the town of Dover, and hastening towards London, he made himself master of the Castle of Rochester, and on the 2nd of June he arrived in London, where first of all he offered up prayers at St. Paul's, and was afterwards publicly received by the clergy and laity with great joy, and received the fealty and homage of all the barons. And shortly afterwards, namely on the 14th of June, the city of Winchester was surrendered to him; and on the day after the feast of Saint John, he took the castle of the city, and the bishop's castle also; and on the 9th of July he received the submission of the Castles of Odiham, Farnham, Guildford and Reigate. The Castle of Windsor was besieged by the earls and barons of both France and England, but they were forced to retreat from before it, without succeeding in their object. But the Castle of Cambridge was taken by the barons, with twenty esquires which were found in it.