great castle-problem undiscussed _usque ad aetatem regis_. Still more natural was it that Beauchamp’s claim should get no hearing till Falkes had incurred forfeiture in his turn. Then King and Council decided that it would be prudent to satisfy Beauchamp without giving him a chance of treading in Falkes’s steps or repeating his own act of 1215; and they did so by pulling the half ruined castle down altogether and granting him the site, with leave to build himself _not_ a castle, but a dwelling-house, out of its stones (_Close Rolls_, vol. i. p. 632, 632 b). NOTE XI THE HANGING OF THE BEDFORD GARRISON Eight writers tell this grim story very briefly--seven of them in almost identical words--differing only as to the number of the victims. A ninth--Falkes--has a longer and more elaborate version. (1) “In crastino autem, cum omnes vulnerati et plagis lethiferis afflicti exiissent et ad presentiam regis adducti fuissent, addicti sunt ad suspendium universi; suspensi sunt itaque, inter milites et servientes, qui propter superbiam suam quam regi ostenderant in obsidione jam finita non potuerunt misericordiam impetrare.” Here, in the only two known MSS. of his history (Douce ccvii. and Cott. Otho B. v.), Roger of Wendover’s sentence ends. Obviously it is incomplete, and was meant to have been completed by the addition of a number; but the omission appears to have been an oversight in the original text, for in neither of the extant copies is there any blank between “impetrare” and the first word of the next sentence, “Henricus.” The addition “[viginti quatuor]” in the printed editions (Coxe, vol. iv. p. 98; Howlett, vol. ii. p. 281) is derived from Matthew Paris. (2) Matthew Paris in his _Chronica Majora_ (vol. iii. p. 87) copies Roger exactly; but opposite “impetrare” he has written in one margin of his MS. “viginti quatuor,” and in the other margin “dub. de numero” (_ib._, note 1). In the _Historia Anglorum_ (vol. ii. pp. 264, 265) he says: “Suspensi sunt itaque inter milites et servientes circiter xxiiiiᵒʳ.” In both works he adds: “Tamen, multiplicatis intercessoribus et intervenientibus quibusdam rationibus excusatoriis, pepercit rex tribus, qui tamen propter regis jusjurandum salvandum laqueati a terra suspensi sunt, sed non usque ad mortem.” (3) “Capto igitur castro, in Assumptione Beatae Virginis Mariae fere omnes in eo repertos, tam milites quam servientes, vita privavit sententia ignominiosa. Nam jussu regio circiter lxxxᵃ in patibulis sunt suspensi.” W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 254. (4) “Mane vero sequenti, ante tribunal regis exhibiti, et per episcopos ab excommunicatione absoluti, ad mandatum regis et justitiarii sui suspensi sunt in patibulis octoginta et plures. Tres vero ad preces principum rex indulsit Templariis, ut in habito suo in Terra Sancta Domino militarent.” _Ann. Dunst._, p. 88.