from Malling to Guildford”; his baggage could not get beyond Reigate. On this day he was joined by Enguerrand de Coucy and the greater part of the garrison which he had left in London. Next day (Thursday, 27th) he reached Farnham, but only to find it prepared for defence against him, and to learn that Winchester castle was lost to him,[141] its castellans having surrendered it before they knew of his return to England.[142] No sooner did the Marshal hear that Louis was back than he gave orders for the immediate razing of all the castles which had been retaken, except Farnham.[143] It was Farnham that Louis now turned to attack. The outer bailey was speedily captured by assault; but the keep, as a foreign chronicler quaintly says, “heeded it not.”[144] Next day (Friday, 28th April) Earl Saer of Winchester came to Louis asking for help to relieve Mountsorel.[145] Its garrison of ten knights and some men at arms under Henry de Braybroke had held out manfully for nearly a month, but had now found it needful to ask their lord, Saer, for succour.[146] After some consultation Louis, “being unable to get rid of him otherwise,”[147] sent him to London with orders that some of the leaders there should supply him with troops and accompany him to Mountsorel for the twofold purpose of relieving that fortress and “subduing the whole province” to Louis himself. Under the joint command of Saer, the count of Perche, Robert Fitz Walter, and some other barons, a large body of knights and men-at-arms, some English, some French, and “all coveting their neighbour’s goods,” as an indignant chronicler says, set out accordingly from London on Monday, 1st May.[148] From S. Alban’s, where they halted for the night, the French mercenaries went about plundering churches, desecrating cemeteries, and putting “all sorts of people” to torture and ransom; at the abbey they got nothing but food and drink, Louis having apparently given it to be understood that he was “satisfied” with the larger sum which he had recently extorted from the abbot, and that they must exact nothing more. A marvellous experience which befell some of the sacrilegious spoilers at Redburn[149] probably sobered them somewhat, for they passed through Dunstable “without doing much harm.”[150] When, a few days later, they reached Mountsorel, they found that, so far as that castle was concerned, their work was done. The leaders of the besieging force had had timely warning from their scouts, and had withdrawn to Nottingham.[151]