William had little reason to complain of the paucity of surrenders; the Kentishmen, we are told, crowded into his camp and did homage "like flies settling on a wound." But the even course of his success was suddenly interrupted. On the last day of October, he took up his quarters at a place vaguely described by William of Poitiers as the "Broken Tower," and was there seized by a violent illness, which kept him for an entire month incapable of moving from the neighbourhood of Canterbury.
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