Note 190 — THE MINORITY OF HENRY III CHAPTER I THE WAR WITH LOUIS 1216–1217

“Mes soufrez que entor la tor Augent dui home tot entor De chascune de nos batailles Qui enquerront les repostailles,” ll. 16563–66. La tor ought of course to mean the castle. But the castle was known to be surrounded on three of its sides by enemies in open action against it; to send men to look for “ambushes” round it seems therefore absurd, and would certainly have been impracticable. Can la tor be a scribe’s error for le mur, and did the poet mean “round the wall of the city”? Or can “entor la tor” be a sheer blunder for something wholly different, and should ll. 16564–5 be construed together—“Let two men go all round each of our battles,” &c.?