I will not write it, but will go on to the time when we came safely in sight of Winchester town.

I could not enter it with my charges, but must needs go by myself, for here I should learn more sure news than anywhere.

And what I might learn would decide whether I could take ship in Southampton Water or turn eastwards a little and go to Portsmouth or Bosham havens.
Now I knew that the Danes held the place in force, and so I told the queen.

But to pass by her royal city seemed more than she could bear, and she wished and commanded us to ride in and call on her citizens to rise and protect her.
"Queen of England I am and will be," she said.

"I have borne indignity long enough." "My queen," I said, "if you see Winchester you will not see Normandy." Then Elfric spoke with her, and at last she wept, saying that she was deserted, and the like, and so turned sullen, bidding us give her up to the Danes, who would respect a queen in distress.
Having seen this manner of submission to counsel not once or twice before, I put on a franklin's dress, and gave sword Foe's Bane into Eadward's keeping, and took a hunting spear instead, and went down into the town, leaving my party ten miles away in a nook of the wooded hills.
The scarlet-cloaked Danish thingmen at the gates paid no heed to me, for it was market day, and many countryside people were going in and out.