ng had left,
she altered her course, and went to Oxford. There tarried we one day,
and went to our duties in the Church of Saint Martin [Note 1], where an
homily was preachen by my Lord of Hereford [Note 2]. And a strange
homily it was, wherein Eva our mother stood for the Queen, and I suppose
Adam for the King, and Sir Hugh Le Despenser (save the mark!) was the
serpent. I stood it out, but I will not say I goxide [gaped] not. The
next day went the Queen on toward Gloucester, pursuing the King, which
had been there about ten days afore her. She put forth from
Wallingford, on her way between Oxford and Gloucester, a letter wherein
she earnestly prayed the King to return, and promised that he should
receive the government with all honour if he would conform him to his
people. I had been used to hear of the people obeying the King, as in
duty bound to him whom God had set over them; and this talk of the King
obeying the people was marvellous strange to mine ears. Howbeit, it was
talk only; for what was really meant was that he should conform himself
to his wife. And considering how much wives be bidden of God to obey
their lords, that surely was as ill as the other. Which the King saw
belike, for instead of coming nearer he went further away, right over
the Severn, and strengthened himself, first in the strong Castle of
Chepstow, and after in the Castle of Caerphilly. For us, we went on,
though not so quick as he, to Gloucester, and thence to Bristol, where
Sir Hugh de Despenser the father was governor, and where the citizens,
on the Queen's coming, opened the gates to her, and Sir Hugh on
perceiving it retired into the Castle. But she summoned the Castle also
to surrender, which was done speedily of the officers, and Sir Hugh
delivered into her hands. Moreover, the two little ladies, the King's
daughters, whom he had sent from Gloucester on his retreat across the
Severn, were brought to her [Note 3], and she welcomed them motherly, or
at least seemed to do so. Wala wa! I have no list to set down what
followed, and will run by the same as short as shall serve truth.

The morrow of Saint Crispin, namely, the 26th day of October, the Queen
and her son, now Duke of Aquitaine--whom man whilome called Earl of
Chester--came into the great hall of Bristol Castle, and sat in state: I
Cicely being behind the Queen's chair, and Jack in waiting on my Lord
the Duke. Which done, they called council of the prelates and nob