"Perfumes, such as never had been seen in England before; jewels, but more especially emeralds, the greenness of which, reflected by the sun, illumined the countenances of the bystanders with agreeable light; many fleet horses, with their trappings, and, as Virgil says, 'champing their golden bits;' an alabaster vase, so exquisitely chased, that the corn-fields really seemed to wave, the vines to bud, the figures of men actually to move, and so clear and polished, that it reflected the features like a mirror; the sword of Constantine the Great, on which the name of its original possessor was read in golden letters; on the pommel, upon thick plates of gold, might be seen fixed an iron spike, one of the four which the Jewish faction prepared for the crucifixion of our Lord; the spear of Charles the Great, which, whenever that invincible Emperor hurled in his expeditions against the Saracens, he always came off conqueror; it was reported to be the same which, driven into the side of our Saviour by the hand of the centurion, opened, by that precious wound, the joys of paradise to wretched mortals; the banner of the most blessed martyr Maurice, chief of the Theban legion, with which the same King, in the Spanish war, used to break through the battalions of the enemy, however fierce and wedged together, and put them to flight; a diadem, precious from its quantity of gold, but more so for its jewels, the splendour of which threw the sparks of light so strongly on the beholders, that the more steadfastly any person endeavoured to gaze, so much the more dazzled he was--compelled to avert his eyes; part of the holy and adorable cross enclosed in crystal, where the eye, piercing through the substance of the stone, might discern the colour and size of the wood; a small portion of the crown of thorns enclosed in a similar manner, which, in derision of his government, the madness of the soldiers placed on Christ's sacred head. "The King (Athelstan), delighted with such great and exquisite presents, made an equal return of good offices, and gratified the soul of the longing suitor by a union with his sister. With some of these presents he enriched succeeding kings; but to Malmesbury he gave part of the cross and crown; by the support of which, I believe, that place even now flourishes, though it has suffered so many shipwrecks of its liberty, so many attacks of its enemies."[20]