A council of the nobility was held at Oxford on 24 June, which the prelates aforesaid attended. The bishop of Salisbury was most unwilling to go. I heard him say: “By my Lady St. Mary, I know not why, but I have no liking for this journey. This I know, that I shall be of as much use in the court as a foal in a battle.” For so his heart foreboded ills to come. Fortune, as it turned out, seemed to favour the king’s desires; a riot arose between the men of the bishops and the men of Alan, count of Brittany, over a claim to quarters; the end was melancholy, for the men of the bishop of Salisbury, who were then sitting at table, left their meal unfinished and jumped up to fight. The affair was settled with curses first and swords afterwards. The retainers of Alan were driven off, his nephew barely escaping alive, while the bishops’ party did not secure a bloodless victory, many being wounded and one knight killed. The king seized the opportunity and ordered the original instigators to summon the bishops to satisfy his court for their retainers’ breach of the king’s peace; the satisfaction demanded was the delivery of the keys of their castles as pledges of their good faith. They were ready to give satisfaction, but hesitated to surrender the castles, whereupon he commanded that they should be closely confined, to prevent their departure. So he took them to Devizes, bishop Roger unbound, but the chancellor, his nephew (or more than his nephew), in fetters; his object was to take the castle, which had been built at a great and almost incalculable cost, not for the glory of the church, as the prelate himself alleged, but, in sober truth, to its detriment. Upon investment, the castles of Salisbury, Sherborne and Malmesbury were surrendered to the king; Devizes itself was given up after three days, bishop Roger voluntarily imposing abstinence upon himself, that by his personal suffering he might induce the bishop of Ely, who held the castle, to yield.[38] Alexander, the bishop of Lincoln, gave way also without more ado, purchasing his delivery by the surrender of the castles of Newark and Sleaford.