- This chapter's epigraph comes from Oliver Goldsmith's play <em>She Stoops to Conquer</em> (1773). It's a line from one of the play's main characters, Tony Lumpkin. He pretends to be unable to read a letter that will get someone else in the play into trouble.
- De Bracy and Bois-Guilbert meet in the main hall of the castle.
- They both complain about their failed love affairs.
- Front-de-Boeuf comes to join them.
- A messenger delivers a letter in Saxon to the Normans.
- Bois-Guilbert reads it, but at first he thinks it's a joke.
- It's written by Wamba and Gurth on behalf of Locksley and the Black Knight.
- The letter demands that Reginald Front-de-Boeuf free Rowena, Cedric, Athelstane, Isaac, Rebecca, and their pack animals.
- The letter is signed with a drawing of a rooster's head (Wamba's mark), a cross (Gurth's mark), an arrow (Locksley's mark), and the words "Le Noir Faineant" (a.k.a. the Black Sluggard, who we call the Black Knight).
- De Bracy and Bois-Guilbert burst out laughing.
- Reginald Front-de-Boeuf is not amused. This whole business is causing him more trouble than it's worth.
- One of the squires informs Reginald Front-de-Boeuf that there are about two hundred outlaws waiting in the woods.
- Bois-Guilbert and De Bracy want to ride out immediately to fight.
- But Front-de-Boeuf reminds them that the outlaws know the forest and have ten times their numbers.
- Front-de-Boeuf decides to write them a nasty letter.
- In the letter, he suggests that they send one churchman into Torquilstone Castle to hear a last confession from the captives.
- The next day, Front-de-Boeuf is going to execute all the captives and place their heads on spikes outside the castle.
- The heads will prove what he thinks of outlaws trying to bully him.
- The Normans send this letter out to the outlaws.
- The Black Knight reads the letter to his friends.
- They are enraged at the idea that the Normans plan to execute Cedric.
- Locksley thinks the Normans are just trying to buy time.
- They decide to send Wamba into Torquilstone, dressed as a friar.
- (The actual Friar won't do it because he's in his outlaw outfit now.)