the two Despensers, the only magnates of mark who remained faithful to
him were the brothers-in-law, Edmund, Earl of Arundel, and Earl
Warenne. On Edward's retreat from London, Bishop Stratford made his way
to the capital, where he joined with Archbishop Reynolds in a hollow
pretence of mediation. The Londoners gladly welcomed the queen's
messengers and soon rose in revolt in her favour. They plundered and
burnt the house of the Bishop of Exeter, who fled in alarm to St.
Paul's. Seized at the very door of the church, Stapledon was brutally
murdered by the mob in Cheapside, where his naked body lay exposed all
day. Immediately after this, Reynolds fled in terror to his Kentish
estates, where he waited to see which was the stronger side. The king's
younger son, John of Eltham, a boy of nine, who had been left behind by
his father in the Tower, was proclaimed warden of the capital.

On hearing of Edward's flight to the west, Isabella went after him in
pursuit. On the day of Stapledon's murder, she had advanced as far as
Wallingford, where, posing as the continuer of the policy of the lords
ordainers, she issued a proclamation denouncing the Despensers. Thence
she made her way to Oxford, where Bishop Orleton, who had already
joined her, preached a seditious sermon before the university and the
leaders of the revolt. Taking as his text, "My head, my head," he
demonstrated that the sick head of the state could not be restored by
all the remedies of Hippocrates, and would therefore have to be cut
off. This was the first intimation that the insurgents would not be
content with the fall of the Despensers. From Oxford, Isabella and
Mortimer hurried to Gloucester, whence Edward had already fled to the
younger Despenser's palatinate of Glamorgan. From Gloucester, they
passed on through Berkeley to Bristol, where the elder Despenser, the
Earl of Winchester, was in command. The feeling of the burgesses of the
second town in England was so strongly adverse that the earl was unable