"I must confess," she said, "that I have sometimes appeared veiled, but only for this reason: in my youth, when I was under the care of my aunt Christina, she, to protect me, as she said, from the Normans--who then assailed the honour of every woman they met--used to place a piece of black stuff on my head; and when I refused to wear it, she treated me harshly. In her presence I wore this cloth, but as soon as she left me I threw it on the ground, and trampled on it in childish anger." In order, however, that the position of Edith might be formally investigated, an assembly of clergy and lay lords was convoked at Rochester, and this assembly decided that "the girl was free to marry." Accordingly she was united to Beauclerc, and exchanged her name of Edith for that of Maude. Even envy itself could not discover a flaw in her conduct as wife; but it is said that the Anglo-Norman barons favourable to Curthose affected to regard Henry's marriage with a princess in whose veins ran the blood of the vanquished race as a _mésalliance_, and, in derision, nicknamed the regal pair Godrick and Godiva. Beauclerc, perhaps, did not relish the joke, but, like a man of sense, he laughed at the allusion. In fact, Henry had more serious business to think of, for the partisans of his brother were watching their opportunity, and only awaiting the presence of Curthose to do their utmost to overturn Beauclerc's throne. And where, in reality, had that eccentric son of chivalry been at the time of the crisis of his fate? Had he been carried away to Fairyland, between death and life, like King Arthur, or borne to another region on the backs of fiends, like his grandsire, Robert the Devil? In order to ascertain his "whereabouts," we must follow his steps on an expedition which at that time excited universal interest, and which was destined to exercise no slight influence on the destinies of Europe and of Asia. [Illustration] LIII. [Illustration: Peter the Hermit preaching the first Crusade] CURTHOSE AT THE CRUSADE. In the autumn of 1095, a little man, of mean aspect and eccentric manners, arrayed in a coarse woollen mantle, and mounted on a mule, rode about Europe, exhorting Christians to arm for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. Sometimes he preached in a church, or at the market-cross; at others, under a tree by the wayside; and wherever he went people crowded round him, hung on his eloquent words, and seemed delighted if they could touch the hem of his mantle, or pluck a hair from the mane of his mule. This remarkable man was known as Peter the Hermit, who had recently visited Jerusalem as a pilgrim, and vowed to deliver the Holy Land from the domination of the Turks. [Illustration]