confessor--“monachiliter somniavit”--dreamed to good purpose. It is truly remarkable, that, so far as the interests of their order were concerned, these worthy monks always slept with their eyes open-- “By day with praying, plotting, scheming; By night o’er beads and reliques dreaming; They still contrived to lay their hand Upon the fatness of the land.” The <g>Fitzalan Family</g>, Text, p. 10.--The account of this Norman family is taken from that of Dugdale and the monastic writers, on whose report the genealogy is founded, namely, Ord. Vital., Matth. Paris, &c.; and the reader who may be curious in such matters, will find the whole subject fully detailed in the Baronage, i. p. 314, and Monasticon, vol. i., the sources from which the materials of all the later accounts which we have seen have been taken. As progenitors of the royal family of Stuart, the claim is supported by Chalmers in his _Caledonia_, vol. i. p. 572, 573. Alan, the son of Flaald, a Norman, acquired the manor of Oswestrie, in Shropshire, soon after the Conquest--married the daughter of Warine, the famous sheriff of Shropshire--had two sons, Walter and William. Influenced by the Earl of Gloucester, the powerful partizan of his sister the Empress Maud, William seized Shrewsbury in September 1139, and held it for her interest--attended her at Winchester in 1141--adhered to her interests, and was rewarded by her son Henry II. By the marriage of his son with Isabel-de-Say, Clun in Shropshire was added to the Fitzalan estates. Oswestrie, or Oswaldestre, was the original seat of Alan on the Welsh border. Lord Hailes acknowledges that Walter (the son of Alan), who flourished under David I. and his successor Malcolm IV., was indeed the Stewart of Scotland. John Fitzalan, Lord of Clun and Oswestrie, by marrying Isabella, second sister of William de Albini, became Earl of <g>Arundel</g>. <g>De Albini</g>, p. 9.--William-with-the-Strong-hand.--Dugdale gives the genealogical history of this family in the work above mentioned, vol. i. p. 118. The following anecdote, highly characteristic of the age in which he lived, is narrated with amusing gravity by our old Norroy king-at-arms, as one of the credible adventures in the life of this hero:--“I now come,” says he, “to William, who was called WILLIAM-WITH-THE-STRONG-HAND, in regard that, among his valiant exploits, he slew a fierce lion, the occasion of which was thus: It happened that the Queen of <g>France</g>, being then a widow, and a very beautiful woman, became much in love with a knight of that country, who was a comely person, and in the flower of his youth: and because she thought that no man excelled him in valour, she caused a <g>Tournament</g> to be proclaimed throughout her dominions, promising to reward those who should [Illustration]