Earl Hubert's Daughter: The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th CenturyHolt, Emily Sarah
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Earl Hubert's Daughter: The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century
Holt, Emily Sarah
England -- Social life and customs -- 1066-1485 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
One month later, in the chapter-house at Canterbury, King Henry the
Third stood, an humble and helpless suppliant, before his assembled
Barons. There he was forced, utterly against his will and wish, to sign
an additional charter granting liberties to England, and binding his own
hands. It was Simon de Montfort who had brought matters to this pass.
But Simon de Montfort was not the tall, fair, stately man who forced the
pen into the unwilling fingers of the cowering King, and who held out
the Evangelisterium for the swearing of his hated oath. King Henry
looked up into the cold steel-like glitter of those stern blue eyes, and
the firm set expression of the compressed lips, and realised in an
instant that in this man he would find neither misgiving nor mercy. It
was a great perplexity to him that the man on whom he had showered such
favours should thus take part against him. He had forgotten all about
that April morning, twenty-three years before; and had no conception
that between himself and the eyes of Richard de Clare, floated
"A shadow like an angel's, with bright hair,"
nor that when that scene in the chapter-house was over, and Richard
returned his good Damascus blade to its scabbard, he murmured within his
heart to ears that heard not--
"I have avenged thee at last!"
But Richard never knew that his heaviest vengeance had been exacted one
month sooner, when, with that bitter mirth which Anselm had misnamed, he
left an unknown Jew to perish in misery.
The sun was setting that evening over Lincoln. Just on the rise of
Steephill stood a handsome Norman house, with a garden stretching
behind. In the garden, on a stone settle, sat an old priest and a very
handsome middle-aged lady. Two young sisters were wandering about the
garden with their arms round each other's waists; a young man stood at
the ornamental fountain, talking playfully to the hawk upon his wrist;
while on the grass at the lady's feet sat two pretty children, their
laps full of flowers. A conversation which had been running was
evidently coming to a conclusion.
"Then you think, Father, that it is never lawful, under any
circumstances, to do evil that good may come?"
"God can bring good out of evil, my Beatrice. But it is one of His
prerogatives."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. _Rot. Exit., Past_., 41 Henry Third.
APPENDIX.
Historical Appendix.
FAMILY OF DE BURGH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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