The bridal of Ralph de Guader to Emma Fitzosbern is very fully described by the chroniclers, and I have endeavoured to keep as closely as possible to history. But though I have searched at least half-a-score authorities, ancient and modern, every one of whom states that many abbots and bishops were among the company, in no case is the name of any ecclesiastic recorded. I have therefore taken a liberty with the Abbot of St. Albans, of whom Freeman says: 'All that certain history has to say about Frithric is, that he was Abbot of St. Albans, and that he died or was deposed some time between 1075 and 1077.' These dates would make it not impossible that he attended the bridal, and tradition represents him as a very active worker in the patriotic cause of the Saxon Church, and the untiring opponent of Lanfranc. NOTE B. NORWICH CASTLE. Harrod, _Castles and Convents_, p. 145. Some later archæologists are of opinion that the castle built by William the Conqueror was so injured in the siege that it had to be rebuilt, and the chronicler, Henry de Knyghton, under date 1100, ascribes its erection to William Rufus. All agree that a fine Norman castle was built on the old Saxon earthworks by the Conqueror, though they differ as to whether the existing keep is the one then erected. NOTE C. DE GUADER'S DEFEAT. It is to be remarked that none of the chroniclers, Norman or English, say anything of this encounter of Odo and Ralph. Nor do they notice Ralph's wound. What they do say is that De Guader was defeated at a place called Fagaduna. Lingard suggests that this name is probably a translation of Beacham, in Norfolk, and the theory is rendered more probable by the fact that Beachamwell St. Mary was anciently divided into two parishes, Beacham and Welle. But eight miles from this is the village of Fouldon, which name, according to Blomefield, is a corruption of its old Saxon cognomen. 'At the Great Survey, this town occurs by the name of Fulgaduna, Fulendon and Phuldon, and takes its name from the plenty of wild fowl which frequented it, it being seated in the midst of fens and morasses. _Fugol_, in Saxon, signifies wild fowl, and in some antique writings 'tis wrote Fugeldune.' What a slight misunderstanding of a strange name, or slip of the pen, might change this word into Fagaduna! NOTE D. DE GUADER AND WALTHEOF. The chroniclers called Ralph's embarkation from Norwich a flight; while modern historians accuse the stout earl of not _daring_ to stand the siege in his own person, and of leaving the bride for whom he had risked so much to sustain dangers he feared to face.