William was startled at this second escape of his long-haired captives, and by no means easy at the idea of their being at liberty. He immediately contrived to convey to them promises never intended to be kept, and Morkar was sufficiently credulous to listen. Yielding to the temptations held out, the young earl abandoned the camp at Ely. Scarcely, however, had he left the intrenchments when he was seized, bound hand and foot, carried to a Norman castle, put forcibly in irons, and left under the custody of Robert de Beaumont--one of those men from whose keeping there was small chance of escaping. Edwin, hearing of his brother's imprisonment, became somewhat desperate. He resolved to leave Ely, not to surrender, but to struggle so long as life remained. With a few adherents he wandered for six months from place to place, vainly endeavouring to rouse his countrymen to a great effort for their deliverance. While thus occupied he was betrayed by three of his officers, who basely sold him to the Normans. Warned of his danger, Edwin was one day riding, with twenty attendants, towards the sea, with some notion of reaching the coast of Scotland, when a band of Normans suddenly rushed upon him. Endeavouring to escape, the Saxon earl galloped on; but stopped by a brook so swollen with the tide that it was impossible to cross, he dismounted from his steed and turned desperately to bay. Nor in that hour did the young and popular Saxon earl bear himself in a manner unworthy of his position as one of the great race which for six centuries had given kings and war-chiefs to the British isles. For a long time he defended himself with heroic courage against a host of assailants; and at last--when overborne by numbers and forced to his knees, he fell as, in such circumstances, a brave man should--he died without fear, as he had fought without hope. The death of Edwin was lamented by Normans as well as Saxons; even the grim Conqueror's heart was touched to the core. When the head of the Saxon earl, with its long, flowing hair, was carried to London, William could not restrain his tears. The king, says the chronicler, wept over the fate of one whom he loved, and whom he would fain have attached to his fortunes. XXXI. [Illustration: OLD FOREST LAWS] IVO TAILLE-BOIS. Among the martial adventurers of the Continent whom William the Norman, before sailing to the Conquest, allured to his standard, and whose services he rewarded with the lands and lordships of the Saxons, slain, imprisoned, or expatriated during his progress from the coast of Sussex to the verge of "mountainous Northumberland," one of the most unpopular with the vanquished islanders was Ivo Taille-Bois.