which, next to Chateau Gaillard, would be of the greatest value to the
French for an advance upon Rouen. To Rouen itself he returned once
more on November 9th, and stayed there four days. On the 12th he set
out for Bonneville, accompanied by the Queen, and telling his friends
that he intended to go to England to seek counsel and aid from his
barons and people there, and would soon return. In reality his
departure from the capital was caused by a rumor which had reached him
of a conspiracy among the Norman barons to deliver him up to Philip
Augustus. At Bonneville, therefore, he lodged not in the town, but in
the castle, and only for a few hours; the Marshal and one or two
others alone were warned of his intention to set forth again before
daybreak, and the little party had got a start of seven leagues on the
road to Caen before their absence was discovered by the rest of the
suite, of whom "some went after them, and the more part went back."
Still John was reluctant to leave Normandy; he went south to Domfront
and west to Vire before he again returned to the coast at Barfleur on
November 28th, and even then he spent five days at Gonneville and one
at Cherbourg before he finally took ship at Barfleur on December 5th,
to land at Portsmouth next day.

It was probably before he left Rouen that he addressed a letter to the
commandant of Chateau Gaillard in these terms: "We thank you for your
good and faithful service, and desire that, as much as in you lies,
you will persevere in the fidelity and homage which you owe to us;
that you may receive a worthy meed of praise from God and from ourself
and from all who know your faithfulness. If, however--which God
forbid!--you should find yourself in such straits that you can hold
out no longer, then do whatsoever our trusty and well-beloved Peter of
Preaux, William of Mortimer, and Hugh of Howels, our clerk, shall bid
you in our name."

An English chronicler says that John "being unwilling"--or
"unable"--"to succor the besieged, through fear of the treason of his
men, went to England, leaving all the Normans in a great perturbation
of fear." It is hard to see what they feared, unless it were John's
possible vengeance, at some future time, for their universal readiness
to welcome his rival. Not one town manned its walls, not one baron
mustered his tenants and garrisoned his castles, to withstand the
invader. Some, as soon as John was out of the country, openly made a
truce with