Earl Eustace fled fast.

Earl Eustace, we know, is a wise man: small rest took he, little bread broke he, till he pulled rein at the gate of Gloucester, where my lord the King then held court.

He made his complaint.

My lord the King, naturally hearing but one side, thought the burghers in the wrong; and, scandalised that such high persons of his own kith should be so aggrieved, he sent for me, in whose government the burgh of Dover is, and bade me chastise, by military execution, those who had attacked the foreign Count.

I appeal to the great Earls whom I see before me--to you, illustrious Leofric; to you, renowned Siward--what value would ye set on your earldoms, if ye had not the heart and the power to see right done to the dwellers therein ?" "What was the course I proposed?
Instead of martial execution, which would involve the whole burgh in one sentence, I submitted that the reeve and gerefas of the burgh should be cited to appear before the King, and account for the broil.