Of Sir Falkes de Bréauté’s reported machinations against the King he knew nothing; he had only seen and observed Sir Falkes bear himself patiently under the King’s anger, as one who desired nothing else than to appease it by his own endeavours and the help of his friends. For his own part Ranulf was (he continued) ready now, as ever, to protect the King’s interests as much as in him lay, and accordingly he had, on receipt of the King’s letter, immediately gone to confer with Llywelyn, and obtained his promise to leave the King’s land in peace for a month from 4th August. Having secured this, he was, agreeably to Henry’s command, coming back to the royal presence as quickly as he could.[1086] To Llywelyn the King related the capture of Henry de Braybroke and the steps taken in consequence of it; and he forbade the Prince to harbour Falkes or his men or to give them aid or counsel. Llywelyn answered by repeating Falkes’s version of the story as it had been told him by Falkes in a flying visit of less than a day’s duration, and refusing to recognize an excommunication against which he declared that Falkes would be justified in defending himself even if it came from the Pope in person.[1087] Baffled in his attempts to capture Falkes, the King swore “by his father’s soul” that if Bedford castle were taken by force, he would hang every man who was in it. The garrison retorted by bidding his messengers see to it that no one came with any more demands for surrender.[1088] Formidable as was the King’s siege train, its work progressed but slowly. A stone-caster and two mangonels stationed on the east side of the castle hurled stones all day long at the keep; two other mangonels battered at the “old tower” on the west side; two more were gradually making as many breaches in the outer walls, one on the northern and the other on the southern side; a “cat” sheltered the ingoing and outgoing of miners who were digging their way underground to the foundations of the keep; other machines concealed crossbowmen and slingers whose missiles, despatched thus by unseen hands, caught the besieged at unawares; at last two moveable wooden “castles,” towers, or “belfries,” so lofty that their occupants could look down into every part of the castle enclosure, not excepting the keep itself, were constructed and filled, the one with scouts to watch all the doings of the garrison, the other with crossbowmen from whose quarrels, shot down like bolts out of the sky, no man among the besieged was safe for a moment without his armour.[1089] Nevertheless William de Bréauté and his men continued to hurl projectiles at their assailants;[1090] in the eight weeks of the siege the King lost six knights and, it was said, more than two hundred men-at-arms and labourers working the machines.[1091] At length an assault was made upon the barbican; it was taken, and four or five “foreigners”[1092] were slain. A second assault