Tradition reporteth that the wrath of William the Conqueror was a thing fearful to behold; that the rage of the Red King was a consuming fire; and that the slower and stiller but deeper hate of Henry the Beauclerc was like unto the grim visage of death; yet do I doubt whether the wrath of all these three preceding kings, if put all together, could be so dreadful as that which the choleric daughter of the Beauclerc did now display: and certes the extreme passion of rage in a woman, even when she hath not a regal and tyrannical power, is fearful to behold. From the redness of the fire she became pale as ashes; but then she reddened again as she shouted "Ho! my men-at-arms, gag me that old traitor!" "Tyrannous woman, that the sins of the land have brought into England, the truth will endure and be the same though I speak it not. Thou hast violated the sanctuary--thou hast dishonoured and plundered the very grave of thy father! See that he rise not from the grave to rebuke thee." "Drag the traitor hence; put chains upon him; cast him into the dungeon," cried the unfaithful wife of the Angevin count; and the men-at-arms who had laid their rude hands upon the prior to gag him, did drag the prior out of the Aula Magna. And when he was gone, Matilda swore oaths too terrible to be repeated, that, seeing she must herself away on the morrow, she would leave a garrison of her fiercest fighting men in the abbey, and devastate all the abbey lands that lay on her march, if our fathers did not forthwith elect and appoint a lord abbat true to her party and obedient to her will. Most of the officials and cloister monks held down their heads and were sore afeard. Not so the sacrist and cellarer, who cried "Charter! Charter!" and repeated that such election could not be, and who were thereupon dragged forth and put in duresse with the bold prior. And now the sub-prior, who never doubted that the choice was to fall upon him, did entreat those who had the right of voting to submit to the will of God and the commandment of the queen, and so save the house from ruin: and some he did terrify, and some cajole, talking apart with them, and telling them that he would be good lord and indulgent abbat unto them all. At last the timid gave way, and the monks of delicate conscience would resist no longer; and the sub-prior, with a smile upon his countenance, said to Matilda, in his blandest voice, that the community was ready to elect whomsoever her grace might be pleased to name. "'Tis prudent and wise in the community," said Matilda; and then she clapped her hands thrice, as great lords or ladies use to do when they would summon a menial or call in their fool to make them sport; and as she clapped her hands she said, "Come in, my Lord Abbat elect!"