[121]Very much against my inclination, I give a sketch of the iron case of the Stone, which the artist has certainly succeeded in making as beautiful as it is possible to do. The public would not, I know, think the book complete without it. It stands, however, rather as a monument of the habit of that English public, who imagine that their eyes are at their fingers’ ends, and of a taste which is on a par with that of the designer of the post-office pillar-boxes, than of the Red King’s death, for the spot where he fell is, as we have seen from the previous note, by no means certain. We must, too, remember that there is no mention made by the Chroniclers of Castle Malwood, but the context in Vitalis, as also the late hour mentioned by Malmesbury when William went out to hunt, show that he was at the time staying somewhere in the Forest. [122]See, as before, Lappenberg’s _History of England under the Norman Kings_, pp. 266-8; and Sharon Turner’s _History of England during the Middle Ages_, vol. iv. pp. 166-8. [123]“Tabidi aëris nebulâ” are the words of William of Malmesbury. (_Gesta Regum Anglorum._ Ed. Hardy, tom. ii., lib. iii., sect. 275, pp. 454, 455.) [124]_Gul. Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannorum_, lib. vii., cap. ix. To be found in Camden’s _Anglica Scripta_, p. 674. [125]This seems to be the meaning of a not very clear passage in William of Malmesbury. Same edition as before, p. 455. Vitalis, however, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, pars 3, lib. x., cap. xi. (in _Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus Completus_, tom. clxxxviii. pp. 748, 749), says he was shot by a knight, who expiated the deed by retiring to a monastery, and speaks in high terms both of him and his brother William, who fell in one of the Crusades. [126]Ed. Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 45. Lewis, in his _Topographical Remarks on the New Forest_, pp. 57-62, is hopelessly wrong with regard to Richard, the son of Robert, a grandson of the Conqueror, whom he calls Henry, and confounds at p. 62 with his uncle; and makes both William of Malmesbury and Baker (see his _Chronicle_, p. 37, Ed. 1730) say quite the reverse of what they write.