Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete by Lytton (an ebook reader TXT) 📖

connected Thorney Isle with the mainland is said to have been built by Matilda, wife of Henry I.

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We give him that title, which this Norman noble generally bears in the Chronicles, though Palgrave observes that he is rather to be styled Earl of the Magesetan (the Welch Marches).

50 (return)
Eadigan.—S. TURNER, vol. i. p. 274.

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The comparative wealth of London was indeed considerable. When, in 1018, all the rest of England was taxed to an amount considered stupendous, viz., 71,000 Saxon pounds, London contributed 11,000 pounds besides.

52 (return)
Complin. the second vespers.

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CAMDEN—A church was built out of the ruins of that temple by Sibert, King of the East Saxons; and Canute favoured much the small monastery attached to it (originally established by Dunstan for twelve Benedictines), on account of its Abbot Wulnoth, whose society pleased him. The old palace of Canute, in Thorney Isle, had been destroyed by fire.

54 (return)
See note to PLUQUET’s Roman de Rou, p. 285. N.B.—Whenever the Roman de Rou is quoted in these pages it is from the excellent edition of M. Pluquet.

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Pardex or Parde, corresponding to the modern French expletive, pardie.

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Quen, or rather Quens; synonymous with Count in the Norman Chronicles. Earl Godwin is strangely styled by Wace, Quens Qwine.

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“Good, good, pleasant son,—the words of the poet sound gracefully on the lips of the knight.”

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A sentiment variously assigned to William and to his son Henry the Beau Clerc.

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Mallet is a genuine Scandinavian name to this day.

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Rou—the name given by the French to Rollo, or Rolf-ganger, the founder of the Norman settlement.

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Pious severity to the heterodox was a Norman virtue. William of Poictiers says of William, “One knows with what zeal he pursued and exterminated those who thought differently;” i.e., on transubstantiation. But the wise Norman, while flattering the tastes of the Roman Pontiff in such matters, took special care to preserve the independence of his Church from any undue dictation.

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A few generations later this comfortable and decent fashion of night-gear was abandoned; and our forefathers, Saxon and Norman, went to bed in puris naturalibus, like the Laplanders.

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Most of the chroniclers merely state the parentage within the forbidden degrees as the obstacle to William’s marriage with Matilda; but the betrothal or rather nuptials of her mother Adele with Richard III. (though never consummated), appears to have been the true canonical objection.—See note to Wace, p. 27. Nevertheless, Matilda’s mother, Adele, stood in the relation of aunt to William, as widow of his father’s elder brother, “an affinity,” as is observed by a writer in the “Archaeologia,” “quite near enough to account for, if not to justify, the interference of the Church.”—Arch. vol. xxxii. p. 109.

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It might be easy to show, were this the place, that though the Saxons never lost their love of liberty, yet that the victories which gradually regained the liberty from the gripe of the Anglo-Norman kings, were achieved by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. And even to this day, the few rare descendants of that race (whatever their political faction), will generally exhibit that impatience of despotic influence, and that disdain of corruption, which characterise the homely bonders of Norway, in whom we may still recognise the sturdy likeness of their fathers; while it is also remarkable that the modern inhabitants of those portions of the kingdom originally peopled by their kindred Danes, are, irrespective of mere party divisions, noted for their intolerance of all oppression, and their resolute independence of character; to wit, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Cumberland, and large districts in the Scottish Lowlands.

65 (return)
Ex pervetusto codice, MS. Chron. Bec. in Vit. Lanfranc, quoted in the “Archaeologia,” vol. xxxii. p. 109. The joke, which is very poor, seems to have turned upon pede and quadrupede; it is a little altered in the text.