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captors with violation of their pledge, threatening them with 

 discomfiture in all future enterprises. To all this they 

 answered with jeers, and reminded him of his simplicity in 

 supposing they were pledged ; then throwing back perhaps a little 

 of the Bishop's own teaching, they argued that, being already a 

 perjured lot, their pledges went for nothing. 



The robberies and cruelties of the Bristol garrison becoming 

 too notorious, King Stephen determined to reduce it. Setting 

 out hurriedly, he unexpectedly arrived at Bath. The Bishop on 

 his approach went out to meet the royal cavalcade ; and at once 

 had to soften the King's anger against himself, for having let 

 Geoffrey go. After telling his story, how grossly insulted he 

 had been and well nigh hanged, he was restored to favour, and 

 the King accompanied him into the city. Stephen examined the 

 entire circuit of the walls, commanded them to be raised higher 

 and outworks to be constructed, and marked a special spot very 

 capable of defence which would defy assault (ideoque muros altius 

 sustain, propugnacula in devectum surrigi). Then, says the 

 Chronicle, he marched to Bristol — "the seat of fraud." The 

 Bath men, meanwhile, gallantly and vigorously maintained 

 themselves, using every means to make the walls and ramparts 

 impregnable (muros et aggeres omni resistendi artificio inexpugnabiliter 

 jirmare.) Keeping the walls always manned, they sometimes 

 sallied out at night, placing parties in ambush, whilst by day the 

 country folk and the men at arms overran the Bristol lands, 

 sometimes appearing in force even at the gates, or setting fire to 

 churches or houses, or whatever would burn. 



Bristol, however, was not taken, and the King marched on to 

 other work. 



Our own records are few for this date. Passing, then, some 

 seventy years, we come to the reign of King John. The custom 

 of the Kings to journey with their Courts from place to place 

 prompts a search for the movements of John, as, after the year 

 1200, documents may possibly be found. In 1206 some arrange- 



