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Battel Abbey, in Sussex, where bones are yet to be seen piled up, supposed to be those of the fallen in that memorable fight.

Doomsday-book, is a register now extant, of all landed possessions, introduced among the feudal regulations by the Conqueror.

The author hopes he has not exceeded the reported character of William's coarseness and vulgarity.—When ten Englishmen had been cleared by the ordeal of fire, for the charge of killing dear, Rufus exclaimed, “Pretty justice above, indeed, to let “ten such scoundrels escape!”

J.P. Andrews.

Yet William exhibited a mixture of firmness and naivete, when a pilot was fearful of embarking with him on an expedition in tempestuous weather; the Monarch asked, “whether he had ever heard of a King being drowned.”

Queen Maud, or Matilda, was the delight of the English, both on account of her descent and goodness of heart. To her we owe the first stone arched bridges England ever possessed:— she built two at Stratford, in Essex, (thence called De Arcubus, or Le Bow,) where she had nearly been drowned for want of such a convenience. What follows is part of an eulogy on her, preserved by Camden:

J.P. Andrews.

“No, no,” said the irritated King to a great foreign Prince who interceded for the wretched poet, “for this man being forsooth a Wit, a Bard, and a Minstrel, hath composed many indecent songs against me, and moreover hath sung them openly to the great entertainment of my enemies. Now, since it hath pleased God to deliver him into my hands, he shall be punished to deter others from the like petulance.” So the sentence took place, and the imprudent poet died of the wounds he receiv'd in struggling with the executioner. Ordericus Vitelis.—Vide Andrews.

Hest—Command.

Maud, or Matilda, first married the Emperor Henry IV. and afterwards Geoffry Plantagenet, Earl of Anjou, by whom she had King Henry II. of England.

It was in this battle Stephen used the words above quoted.

Several historians represent a coffin as the vehicle in which the Empress was reduced to make her escape.

This was attributed by the superstition of the times (when David I. with his son Henry, invaded Northumberland, in 1136,) to the holy banner of St. Cuthbert, under which the English marched, and owed to its efficacy the great victory they obtained in the bloody battle of Northallerton, or Arton Moor. Vide Margerion, Notes to Canto II.

“Is there not one of the crew of lazy, cowardly knights, whom I maintain, that will rid me of this turbulent priest, who came to court but t'other day on a lame horse, with nothing but his wallet behind him?” These words unfortunately animated to action Reginal Fitz-urse, William de Tracey, Hugh de Morvil, and Richard Brito.

Berington's Life of St. Thomas a Becket.

The vulgar of Glocestershire have proverbially assigned a whimsical punishment for one of the families concerned in the assassination, thus:

James Petit Andrews sportively adds, “No very severe judgment on a summer's day.”

His ill-bred haughtiness was such, that when the English prelates, in one body, represented to him the consequences which must inevitably attend his turbulent obstinacy, he answered only, “I hear you.” Nothing could exceed his pride, or the splendor of his household. Before his advancement to the primacy he had been used to travel attended by two hundred knights and other gay domestics: eight waggons were in his suite, two of those bore his ale, three the furniture of his chapel, of his bed-chamber, and of his kitchen, and the other three carried provisions and necessaries. Twelve pack-horses bore his money, plate, &c. to each waggon was chained a fierce mastiff, and on each pack-horse there sat a baboon.

The following Epitaph, among others, was made on Becket:

Imitated by J. P. Andrews.

At this coronation, young Henry, on his father's humility being pointed out, arrogantly replied, “A great honour truly, for the son of a King to be waited on by the son of an Earl!” At other times too, he requited his father's tenderness with most unfilial ingratitude, a sense of which, is said, at length to have broken his own heart. His body was carried towards Roan, but the clergy and citizens of Mans took it by force and interred it in their cathedral, near the Old Geoffry Plantagenet, whence it was ultimately taken and re-interred at Roan. King Henry, in allusion to the ingratitude of his sons, had an allegorical picture painted for his palace at Windsor, representing an old eagle, his young ones fighting with him, and one scarcely fledged striving to peck out his eyes; the last he used to say was John, whom he loved best of all. Giraldus Cambrensis.

The phrase of letting a person know “Who's at home,” has (unless the oustom is very much out,) since obtained considerably in domestic circles.

Rosamond was buried at Godstow, and the following quaint Epitaph inscribed on her tomb.

Once, during this campaign, Richard was dangerously sick, and his disorder required fresh fruit and snow to render it cool: the generous Saladin sent both in profusion, and thus preserved the life of the only foe he dreaded. Vita Saladini.

The Saracens so dreaded his name they would say to their restive horses, “What do you start at, do you think you see King “Richard?”

To encourage the soldiers in repairing the ruined wall of Acre, (a spot which has since acquired such additional celebrity from the distinguished gallantry of Sir Sidney Smith and his brave associates,) Cœur de Lion not only laboured in person, but appointed hours for other leaders to work at the head of their men. All chearfully obeyed, except the Duke of Austria, who sent word that his father having been neither bricklayer nor mason, he had not learned either business. The English King hearing this insolent speech repeated to his face by the haughty Duke, “cum pede percussit” Anglice kicked him out of his tent, and ordered his banner to be disgraced. Brompton.

King Richard was a passionate lover of poetry, and bears a rank among the Provencal Poets or Troubadours, who were the first of the modern Europeans that distinguished themselves by attempts of that nature.

Crescimbini, in his Commentary on the Lives of the Provencal Poets, says that Richard composed a sonnet which he sent to Princess Stephanetta, wife of Hugh de Baux, and other sonnets, while a prisoner, which he sent to Beatrix, Count of Provence; the whole of one the latter productions is given in the Catalogue of Royal Authors, one or two verses will be sufficient here to give an idea of the supposed softness of the Provencal dialect.

While besieging the Castle of Chalons, or Choley, where it was supposed a treasure lay concealed, which Richard claimed, and where “an Arbalaster standing upon the wall, and seeing his time, charged his steel bow with a square arrow, making first his prayer to God that he would direct that shot and deliver the innocency of the besieged from oppression, mortally wounded the King in the left shoulder: the anguish and peril whereof was extremely increased by the unskilfulness of the chirurgeon.” Medulla Historiæ Anglicanæ.

Griffons.—Heathens.

Frapp'd—Knocked down.

Argentre, in his “Histoire de Bretagne,” says that, John came late one evening, and took his nephew out of prison; that he rode with him to a cliff that overhung the sea; that there he stabb'd him, and drawing his body by the heels to the brink of the precipice, threw it into the ocean.

Shenstone.

Eleanor, of Bretagne, the lawful heiress of the English Crown upon the death of Arthur,—esteem'd the beauty of her time, she died in Bristol Castle, after suffering forty years imprisonment.

The following short sketch of what the people gained by Magna Charta, is an abridgement from Hume, by the ingenious James Petit Andrews.

“Immunities granted to Barons, are extended to their vassals.”

“No Baron to levy money from his vassals, except for attending the King to war, repairing his castles, and the highways and bridges.”

“Measures to be equal through the realm.”

“Merchants not to be illegally taxed.”

“Free egress, and regress to Freemen.”

“Cities to preserve their privileges, and only to be taxed by Parliament.”

“Bridges to be equitably built or supported.”

“Freemen to dispose of goods by will, or, if intestate, their next heir to succeed.”

“The King's Purveyor not to sieze goods, &c.”

“Courts of Justice not to follow the King, but to be stationary, open, and equal to all men.”

“Justice not to be paid for, nor refused to any one, (this was a necessary proviso in a realm where bribes were received by the King to a great amount, and shamelessly set down in books kept for that purpose,) Sheriffs not to put any one on trial without good cause and lawful witnesses.”

“No Freeman to be in any way injured in person or goods, except by the law of the land. [Query,—would that be an injury, D.] Redress to be given to those who have suffered illegally. No extravagant fines to be levied on Freemen. No villain, i. e. rustic, to be deprived of his cart or other instruments of husbandry by fine.”

At Reigate, in Surrey, it is still called “The Baron's Cave.”

The story of John's being poisoned at Swinestead Abbey is of a late date, and deserves no credit. Anderson.