At this council the earl gave instructions concerning the distribution of the booty, and restored to the former ruler the crown, scepter, and royal robes. He himself immediately put on again the garb of the Franciscan order. The reinstated king begged him to remain at his court. He offered him the principality of Wales, but he would not accept it. All the members of the council besought him to stay, but he answered that he must return to serve God. When the king realized that he could not induce him to dwell amongst them, he gave half of the kingdom of Cornwall to the earl’s son, to whom was also granted the privilege of wearing an iron crown. The hermit gave thanks to the king for the gift and the honors bestowed on his son, and then bade farewell to His Majesty and his court. He went to a small villa in his county, where he remained several days. The king sent him thirty carts loaded with the most precious things contained in the booty captured from the Moors, but he refused to accept any of it. When the king left the city of Warwick he sent for the earl’s son, and, at the city gate, he appointed him Grand Constable of all England. Then the king departed for London. (Chap. 27)
The Countess visited her husband, the hermit, in the villa, and finally persuaded him to have a hermitage built, which was to consist of a church, with an apartment on each side of it, one for him and the other for her. After its completion, and just about the time that they were going to live there, the Earl of Northumberland came to them as an ambassador of the king. His mission was to request the noble couple to come to London. The king was going to marry the daughter of the King of France, and was anxious that the Countess should instruct the queen in the practices and customs of England. The hermit replied that he must keep the vow that he had made to serve God, but he should be very happy if the Countess would be willing to go. And the Countess, moved by the wish of her husband and by a sense of duty to her sovereign lord, expressed her willingness to comply with the king’s request. And thus, William of Warwick and his wife were again separated; she went to London, and he entered the new hermitage, which stood in a dense grove, in which there was a clear spring, whose waters flowed with a gentle murmur through the flowers and green grasses of a beautiful meadow. And every day after the hermit had finished his hours he would come out under a beautiful pine tree that stood in the center of this meadow, to watch the animals that came to drink from this crystal spring. (Chap. 27)