Agitated by these thoughts, he could only bid the unfortunate Rowena be

comforted, and assure her, that as yet she had no reason for the

excess of despair to which she was now giving way. But in this task of

consolation De Bracy was interrupted by the horn, "hoarse-winded blowing

far and keen," which had at the same time alarmed the other inmates

of the castle, and interrupted their several plans of avarice and

of license. Of them all, perhaps, De Bracy least regretted the

interruption; for his conference with the Lady Rowena had arrived at a

point, where he found it equally difficult to prosecute or to resign his

enterprise.

And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer some better proof

than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate the melancholy

representation of manners which has been just laid before the reader. It

is grievous to think that those valiant barons, to whose stand against

the crown the liberties of England were indebted for their existence,

should themselves have been such dreadful oppressors, and capable of

excesses contrary not only to the laws of England, but to those of

nature and humanity. But, alas! we have only to extract from the

industrious Henry one of those numerous passages which he has collected

from contemporary historians, to prove that fiction itself can hardly

reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period.

The description given by the author of the Saxon Chronicle of the

cruelties exercised in the reign of King Stephen by the great barons and

lords of castles, who were all Normans, affords a strong proof of the

excesses of which they were capable when their passions were inflamed.

"They grievously oppressed the poor people by building castles; and when

they were built, they filled them with wicked men, or rather devils, who

seized both men and women who they imagined had any money, threw them

into prison, and put them to more cruel tortures than the martyrs ever

endured. They suffocated some in mud, and suspended others by the feet,

or the head, or the thumbs, kindling fires below them. They squeezed the

heads of some with knotted cords till they pierced their brains, while

they threw others into dungeons swarming with serpents, snakes, and

toads." But it would be cruel to put the reader to the pain of perusing

the remainder of this description. [29] As another instance of these bitter fruits of conquest, and perhaps the

strongest that can be quoted, we may mention, that the Princess Matilda,

though a daughter of the King of Scotland, and afterwards both Queen of

England, niece to Edgar Atheling, and mother to the Empress of Germany,

the daughter, the wife, and the mother of monarchs, was obliged, during

her early residence for education in England, to assume the veil of a

nun, as the only means of escaping the licentious pursuit of the Norman

nobles. This excuse she stated before a great council of the clergy of

England, as the sole reason for her having taken the religious habit.

The assembled clergy admitted the validity of the plea, and the

notoriety of the circumstances upon which it was founded; giving thus

an indubitable and most remarkable testimony to the existence of that

disgraceful license by which that age was stained. It was a matter of

public knowledge, they said, that after the conquest of King William,

his Norman followers, elated by so great a victory, acknowledged no

law but their own wicked pleasure, and not only despoiled the conquered

Saxons of their lands and their goods, but invaded the honour of their

wives and of their daughters with the most unbridled license; and hence

it was then common for matrons and maidens of noble families to assume

the veil, and take shelter in convents, not as called thither by the

vocation of God, but solely to preserve their honour from the unbridled

wickedness of man.




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