Hereward the Lord of Brunn, who held that nephew in duresse, and who had for so many years prevented Ivo from enjoying the wide domains of his spouse? Perhaps Ivo had not been an altogether unkind husband, or it may be that the two children which she had borne unto him carried a great weight in his favour in the mind and heart of Lucia, who, certes, had long been very anxious for the liberation and return of her French husband. Some good Saxons at the time thought that this was un-Saxonlike and mean and wicked in the fair heiress of Spalding; but there were many young dames, and not a few Saxon dames that could hardly be called young, who felt much as the Ladie Lucia felt about their Norman husbands. But go and read the story of old Rome and the Sabine women! Nay, go read the Evangil, which tells us how the wife will give up everything for her husband. And, _crede mihi_, these womanly affections and instincts helped more than anything else to make disappear the distinction between the conquering and the conquered race. Now after that many of her kindred and friends had supplicated Duke William to offer to the Lord of Brunn such terms as might procure the release of her husband and the pacification of the fen country, the Ladie Lucia herself found her way to the court, and at the most opportune moment she knelt before the Conqueror with her two fair children. The hard heart of the Norman ruler was touched; but politic princes are governed by the head and not by the heart, and it was only upon calculation that William determined to set at nought the opinions and the opposition of many of his advisers, and grant unto Hereward the most liberal terms of composition. In the presence of Lanfranc and other learned priests he caused to be written upon parchment, that he would give and grant friendship and the protection of the good old laws not only unto Hereward, but also unto all his friends, partisans, and followers whatsoever, of whatsoever degree; that the life, eyes, limbs, and goods of the poorest fenner should be as sacred as those of Lord Hereward himself; that Lord Hereward should have and hold all the titles of honour and all the lands which he had inherited from his ancestors or obtained by his marriage with the Ladie Alftrude; that he should be allowed to administer the Saxon laws among his people, as well at Ey as at Brunn; and that, in return for all these and sundry other advantages, nothing would be required from him further than that he should liberate, together with all other his Norman prisoners, Ivo Taille-Bois, viscomte of Spalding, and give the hand of friendship to Ivo, and restore to him the house and all the lands at Spalding, which were his by right of his marriage with the Ladie Lucia, and live in good cousinship with Ivo as became men so nearly connected through their wives, living at the same time in peace and friendship with all Normans, and pledging himself by his honour as a knight and by his vow