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 therefore, a long series of events within narrow limits: the roads on every side of Winchester were watched by the queen and the earls who had come with her, lest supplies should be brought in to those who had sworn fidelity to the empress. The town of Andover also was burned. On the west, therefore, necessaries were procured but scantily and with difficulty; some persons found on the road, being intercepted and either killed or maimed; while on the east, every avenue towards London was crowded with supplies destined for the bishop and his party; Geoffrey de Mandeville, who had now again revolted to them, for formerly after the capture of the king he had sworn fidelity to the empress, and the Londoners, lending every possible assistance, and omitting no circumstance which might distress that princess. The people of Winchester were, though secretly, inclined to her side, regarding the faith they had before pledged to her, although they had been in some degree compelled by the bishop to such a measure. In the meanwhile combustibles were hurled from the bishop's castle on the houses of the townspeople, who, as I have said, rather wished success to the empress than to the bishop, which caught and burned the whole abbey of nuns within the city, and the monastery which is called Hyde without the walls. Here was an image of our Lord crucified, wrought with a profusion of gold and silver and precious stones, through the pious solicitude of Canute, who was formerly king and presented it. This being seized by the flames and thrown to the ground, was afterwards stripped of its ornaments at the command of the legate himself: more than five hundred marks of silver and thirty of gold, which were found on it, served for a largess to the soldiers. The abbey of nuns at Warewell was also burned by one William de Ipres, an abandoned character who feared neither God nor man, because some of the partizans of the empress had secured themselves within it.

In the meantime, the earl of Gloucester, though suffering, with his followers, by daily contests with the royalists, and though circumstances turned out far beneath his expectation, yet ever abstained from the burning of churches, notwithstanding he resided in the vicinity of St. Swithun's. But unable to endure any longer the disgrace of being, together with his party, almost besieged, and seeing fortune