Of the ancient lords of the manor of Tewkesbury we have given a brief account in tracing the descent of that honor; but in a future portion of the work, the “doings and sufferings” of the De Clares and the Le Despensers, with various biographical anecdotes, will be introduced. In the meantime, we take leave of this venerable Abbey--every feature of which is eloquent of the past--with a legend which, as connected with its founder, Robert Fitz-Hamon, has often been told and listened to in these very <g>Cloisters</g>, and with that implicit belief which nothing but the revival of miracles and monachism can restore! These apartments are now laid open to the blast; and over the grave of the beadsman “the stones of the sanctuary” are piled in mouldering heaps. Through the fretted shrines and casements, the March winds are now whistling a cold and shrill matin. The labourer has paused from his toil to discuss the merits of the New Parliament, the Gloucester Railway, and the Corn Laws! Shade of Fitz-Hamon, beholdest thou this! [Illustration] <g>Legend.</g>--“On the day preceding his death in the New Forest, King Rufus had a dream, and behold he felt as if grievously wounded by a javelin, and that forthwith there gushed a stream of blood which reached even to the sky, cast its shadows over the sun, and diminished the very light of day. Starting from his sleep, the king invoked the name of the Blessed Virgin, and calling for lights, ordered his chamberlains to stay by him, and so passed the remainder of the night wide awake, being sorely troubled with the vision. “But in the morning very early, a monk from beyond seas, who was then in attendance upon the king for certain affairs of the church, beckoning to <g>Robert Fitz-Hamon</g>, a man of great weight and influence about the king, said unto him that his rest had been troubled with a frightful dream, which he thus related:--‘As I lay on my pallet in sound sleep, methought I saw the king enter a certain church with a proud step and haughty demeanour, as is his wont, and shewing his contempt for those who were there gathered around him. Anon, seizing the crucifix with his teeth, he gnawed off its arms (brachia illius corrosit), and left it hardly a limb to stand upon. Now, when the crucifix had quietly borne with this horrible treatment for some time, at length, provoked beyond sufferance, and drawing back its right foot into a kicking attitude, it spurned the king’s person with such terrific strength that he fell prostrate on the pavement; and there, issuing from his mouth as he lay insensible, I beheld a flame widely diffused around me, and a cloud of smoke, like chaos, rising towards the sky.”