They had received ward of the castle, they said, not from Simon but from the Countess, and to none but her would they give it up.

The refusal was not likely to make Simon's position an easier one.

On his return to London the award of the arbitrators bound him to quit the realm and not to return save with the assent of king and baronage when all were at peace.

He remained for a while in free custody at London; but warnings that he was doomed to lifelong imprisonment drove him to flight, and he finally sought a refuge over sea.
[Sidenote: Ban of Kenilworth] His escape set England again on fire.

Llewelyn wasted the border; the Cinque Ports held the sea; the garrison of Kenilworth pushed their raids as far as Oxford; Baldewin Wake with a band of the Disinherited threw himself into the woods and harried the eastern counties; Sir Adam Gurdon, a knight of gigantic size and renowned prowess, wasted with a smaller party the shires of the south.