fame were perishing. The Saxon commonalty were stupified with amazement and terror,—_Pavefactus est Populus_.[31] The Normans were making war even upon the dead or upon the tombs of those who had done honour to their country as patriots, warriors, spiritual teachers and saints. Frithric,[32] the right-hearted Abbat of St. Albans, had been driven from his abbey with all his brethren; and Paul, a young man from Normandie and a reputed son of the intrusive Archbishop Lanfranc, had been thrust in his place. And this Paul, as his first act in office, had demolished the tombs of all his predecessors, whom he called rude and idiotic men, because they were of the English race! And next, this Paul had sent over into Normandie for all his poor relations and friends—men ignorant of letters and of depraved morals—and he was dividing among this foul rapacious crew the woods and the farms, all the possessions and all the offices of the church and abbey of St. Albans. Crowland was threatened with the same fate, and he, the abbat, was sick and brokenhearted, and could oppose the Normans only with prayers—with prayers to which, on account of the sins of the nation, the blessed Virgin and the saints were deaf. The brethren in the succursal cell at Spalding must look to themselves, for he, the abbat, could give them no succour; and he knew of a certainty that Ivo Taille-Bois had promised the cell to some of his kith and kin in foreign parts. The reading of this sad letter was interrupted by many ejaculations and expressions of anger and horror, grief and astonishment; and when it was over, the spirits of the community were so depressed that the superior thought himself absolutely compelled to call upon the cellarer and bid him fill the stoups again, to the end that there might be another short _Biberes_. When the monks had drunk in silence, and had crossed themselves after the draught, they began to ask each other what was to be done? for they no longer doubted that Elfric had seen the forty men-at-arms in the neighbourhood, or that Ivo Taille-Bois would be thundering at their gate in the morning. Some proposed sending a messenger into Spalding town, which was scarcely more than two good bow-shots distant from the cell, lighting the beacon on the tower, and sounding all the blast-horns on the house-top to summon the whole neighbourhood to their aid; but the superior bade them reflect that this would attract the notice of Ivo Taille-Bois, and be considered as an hostile defiance; that the neighbourhood was very thinly peopled by inexpert and timid serfs, and that most of the good men of Spalding town who possessed arms and the art of wielding them had already taken their departure for the Camp of Refuge. At last the superior said, “We cannot attempt a resistance, for by means of a few lighted arrows the children of Satan would set fire to our upper works, and so burn our house over our heads. We must submit to the will of Heaven, and