[622] "Acceptam ab eo injuriam rex caute dissimulabat, et tempus opportunum quo se ulcisceretur, observabat." [623] "Subtili astutia ingentia moliens." [624] "Nisi enim hoc egisset, perfidia consulis illius regno privatus fuisset." [625] Compare the words of the _Gesta_: "Ubique per regnum regis vices adimplens et in rebus agendis rege avidius exaudiretur et in præceptis injungendis plus ei quam regi obtemperaretur." [626] "Tandem vero a quibusdam regni majoribus, stimulante invidia, iniqua loquentibus, quasi regis proditor ac patriæ dilator erga regem mendaciter clanculo accusatus est.... Vir autem iste magnanimus subdola malignantium fraude, ut jam dictum est, delusus" (_Mon. Ang._, iv. 142). [627] "Tum quia Galfridus, ut videbatur, omnia regni jura sibi callide usurparat, tum quia regnum ut in ore jam vulgi celebre fuerat, comitissæ Andegavensi conferre disposuerat, ad hoc regem secreta persuasione impulerunt, quatinus Galfridum de proditionis infamia notatum caperet, et redditis quæcunque possederat castellis, et rex post hinc securus, et regnum ipsius haberetur pacatius" (_Gesta_). [628] "Rege multo tempore differente, ne regia majestas turpi proditionis opprobrio infameretur, subito inter Galfridum et barones, injuriis et minis utrinque protensis, orta seditio" (_ibid._). [629] "Cumque rex habitam inter eos dissensionem, sedatis partibus, niteretur dirimere, affuerunt quidam, qui Galfridum de proditionis factione in se et suos machinatâ, libera fronte accusabant. Cumque se de objecto crimine minime purgaret, sed turpissimam infamiam verbis jocosis alludendo infringeret, rex et qui præsentes erant Barones Galfridum et suos repente ceperunt" (_ibid._). [630] This story, being told by Mathew Paris alone, and evidently as a matter of tradition, must be accepted with considerable caution. He makes the singular and careless mistake of speaking of Earl Geoffrey as William (_sic_) de Mandeville, though he properly terms him, the following year, "Gaufridus consul de Mandeville." On the other hand, it is possible to apply a test which yields not unsatisfactory results. Mathew tells us that the Earl of Arundel was unhorsed "a Walkelino de Oxeai [_alias_ Oxehaie] milite strenuissimo." Now there was, contemporary with Mathew himself, a certain Richard "de Oxeya," who held by knight-service of St. Albans Abbey, and who, in 1245, was jointly responsible with "Petronilla de Crokesle" for the service of one knight (_Chron. Majora_, vi. 437). Turning to a list of the abbey's knights, which is dated by the editor in the Rolls Series as "1258," but which is quite certainly some hundred years earlier, we find this same knight's fee held jointly by Richard "de Crokesle" and a certain "Walchelinus." Here then we may perhaps recognize that very "Walchelinus de Oxeai" who figures in Mathew's story, a story which Richard "de Oxeya" may have told him as a family tradition. Indeed, there is evidence to prove that this identification is correct.