Perhaps the Prior John had spoken a word to him, and he guessed what was coming.
"Speak," he said to Godwin.

"The gift is great that I would not give to either of you if it be within my power." "Sir," said Godwin, "we seek the leave to ask your daughter's hand in marriage." "What! the two of you ?" "Yes, sir; the two of us." Then Sir Andrew, who seldom laughed, laughed outright.
"Truly," he said, "of all the strange things I have known, this is the strangest--that two knights should ask one wife between them." "It seems strange, sir; but when you have heard our tale you will understand." So he listened while they told him all that had passed between them and of the solemn oath which they had sworn.
"Noble in this as in other things," commented Sir Andrew when they had done; "but I fear that one of you may find that vow hard to keep.

By all the saints, nephews, you were right when you said that you asked a great boon.

Do you know, although I have told you nothing of it, that, not to speak of the knave Lozelle, already two of the greatest men in this land have sought my daughter Rosamund in marriage ?" "It may well be so," said Wulf.
"It is so, and now I will tell you why one or other of the pair is not her husband, which in some ways I would he were.

A simple reason.