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Pr. Henry. Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal; what a brawling dost thou keep!
Falst. Where's Poins, Hal?

Pr. Henry. He is walked up to the top of the hill; I'll go seek him. Pretends to seek POINS.] Falst. I am accursed to rob in that thief's company; the rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have foresworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years; and yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines.—Poins! Hal! a plague upon you both. Bardolph! Peto! I'll starve ere I rob a foot further. An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is three score and ten miles afoot with me; and the stonyhearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon 't, when thieves cannot be true to one another! [His companions whistle.] Whew! a plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues: give me my horse, and be hanged!

Pr. Henry. Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down ; lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.

Falst. Have ye any levers to lift me up again, being down? 'Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus ? Pr. Henry. Thou liest; thou art not colted-thou art uncolted.

Falst. I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king's son !

Pr. Henry. Out, you rogue! shall I be your ostler?

Falst. Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters. If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison. When a jest is so forward, and afoot too,-I hate it. [Enter GADSHILL.]

Gads. Stand!

Falst. So I do, against my will.

But we must here close the quotation. The reader will readily imagine himself a spectator of the scene, where the thieves rob the true men, and where retaliation is made upon the thieves by "two of their own gang, in forcibly taking from them their rich booty ;" and he will again enjoy the conceit of Falstaff with his cups of limed sack, telling "incomprehensible falsehoods," in order to cover his own cowardice; his long rencounter with the two rogues in buckram suits, growing up into eleven," all of whom he peppered and payed till three misbegotten knaves in "Kendal green," (" for it was so dark, Hal, thou couldst not see thy hand!) came at his back and let drive at him!" Thus, on the stage, in the closet, on the road-as a local writer has well observed-Falstaff's adventure at Gadshill is likely to be "not only an argument for a week, laughter for a month, but a good jest for ever.”

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of Kent.

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AUTHORITIES:-Radcliffe.- Caumont.-Culmien. - Grose. Denne. Kilburn.-Local pamphlets.-Hasted. - France Monumentale.-Matth. Paris. Dallaway.-Milit. Archit.-Discourses, Antiquities -Hist. Angl.-Hist. of Eng. Civil and Milit.- PicHardynge. Registrum Roffense, by torial Hist. of Engl.-Hollinshed.-Fabyan.-Hist. Thorpe. Eadmer.-Polyd. Virg.-Selecta Monuand Antiq. of Rochest.-Hist. of the Castle and Cathed.

Lambard, 1576.-Kentish Tourist.-King.

menta. Camden. Somner.
Itiner., etc. etc.

All the views here introduced were taken on the spot within the last six weeks.

Battely. Antiq.

N. B. The result of a new Investigation of Rochester Castle, which will shortly take place, will be given in the APPENDIX to this volume.

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FOUNDATION. IN his desire to do more especial honour to Tewkes

bury, William of Malmesbury has fancifully traced its etymon to the Greek word theotocos-the Mother of God-because the monastery which was built here was dedicated to the Virgin Mother. It is certain, however, that the town occupied the ground long before the monastery was erected. The

Simul et videbatur voluntati religiosæ nomen Græco et Anglicano composito. Will. Malmesbur. applaudere, quod Theokesberia dicatur quasi Theo- Edit. fol. 1596, p. 162. tokos-biria, id est, Dei genetricis curia, vocabulo ex

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popular tradition is that a religious recluse, named Theocus, had a Christian cell or chapel in this place about the end of the seventh century—" ubi quidam heremita manebat nomine Theokus, unde Theokusburia "—and that from him the "Curia Theoci" was in process of time modified into Tewkesbury. In Weever's Funeral Monuments, however, there is an ancient Saxon inscription, discovered in the church of Leominster at the close of the sixteenth century, which states that in the Saxon era, Tewkesbury was called Deotisbýp3, that is, Theotisbyrg, from which it would appear that Tewkesbury was the town, castle, or borough of Theot. Others, by conjectures equally vague or plausible, have laboured to prove that the name is derived from Dodo or Thodo, one of the first lords of the manor, and founder of the monastery, adducing as corroborative evidence that the D and th are frequently substituted for each other in the Saxon language; wherefore, say they, from Thodo comes the Latin derivative Theodocus, and from that, Teodechesberie, as in Domesday Book. But further, it has been conjectured that Theocus and Dodo, or Thodo, were one and the same person; and those who are curious in the investigation of such questions will find the subject elaborately discussed in all the principal histories of the county* and abbey.

The foundation of this Abbey takes precedence of most others in the kingdom, and dates from the first fifteen years of the eighth century. In the reigns of Ethelred, Kenred, and Ethelbald, kings of Mercia, two brothers, with the euphonious names of Odo and Dodo, flourished in this beautiful district, and adorned their high station by the practice of many Christian virtues and pious examples. Of their zeal for the honour of God they were resolved to leave some permanent evidence to posterity, and with this view selected a suitable spot on their manor of Tewkesbury, and there erected † the monastery which in after times became famous throughout the land. They endowed the abbey with much landed property-Stanwey cum membris, sic dicta, Tadington Prestecote et Didcot -which continued to form part of the abbey revenues till the Dissolution. The institution gradually extended its authority temporal and spiritual, and acquired a reputation for so much sanctity, that to obtain a grave in its sacred enclosure became an object of devout competition among the pious, and brought no little treasure to the prior's exchequer.

The first personage of royal dignity who was buried in the abbey was Brictric, king of the West Saxons, and son-in-law to King Offa. The next was Hugh, a Mercian noble, and patron of the abbey, who had procured for

* Sir R. Atkyns, Rudder, Camden, Dyde, and the various "Directories;" Notes on the Great Charters, Dugdale's Monasticon. Chron. of Tewkesb., etc.

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+ PANC AVLAM · REGIAM · ƉODO · DVX · CONSECRARI · FECIT. IN. ECCLESIAM IN · ÞONOREM · SANCTÆ · MARIE · VIRGINIS Monast. f. 154.

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Dugdale, Leland.

OF TEWKESBURY.]

FOUNDER-PATRONS-BRICTRIC.

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it the distinction of a royal mausoleum in St. Faith's Chapel; to which his

own remains were afterwards

consigned, with all the monks attending in solemn procession, and chanting his requiem.

Towards the middle of the tenth century, Haylward Snew, descended from King Edward the Elder, founded a monastery on his own manor at Cranburne, in Dorsetshire, and to this he subjected the priory of Tewkesbury, of which he was patron. Historians give him the credit of having possessed in an eminent degree the virtues of personal valour and earnest piety; and of the latter no better proofs could be adduced than the fact of his having bestowed much of his substance upon the church. Algar, his eldest son

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and successor, did not long enjoy his inheritance; and to him succeeded hist younger brother, Brictric, of whom the annexed adventure is recorded +.

Speaking of the cell of Cranburne, belonging to Tewkesbury-Alredus Meauw, Comes Glocestria, primus fundator.-Fabulabatur huic antiquitus monasterium Theokesbyri: sed Robertus, filius Haimo. nis, comes Glocestriæ, dedit prædia hujus domus monasterio de Theokesbirie.-See Dugd. p. 163.Chronic. of Tewkesburye.

† Being sent as ambassador to the Court of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, Brictric made so tender an impression upon the heart of the Count's daughter, Matilda, that, unable to disguise her partiality for the English noble, she resolved to unite her destiny with his. No object could delight her eye, no sound could charm her ear, but the figure and voice of Brictric! But here the course of true love did not run smooth -it ran all on one side; for, occupied perhaps with politics, or haply with some early predilections nearer the Severn, Brictric was obviously insensible to the tender appeal, and so ungallant, moreover, as to treat the affections lavished upon him by the fair Maud with a callousness of look and expression which

proved almost a death-blow to so doting a heart. The ambassador, however, little consulted his own interest when he slighted these tender overtures on the part of the maid of Flanders. But he lived in times when plenipotentiaries were not so wise as they are in the present day; for on the very first protocol being submitted to his consideration, he broke off the negotiations and returned to England. For a time the daughter of Baldwin was inconsolable. Like Queen Dido of old, she exclaimed in great bitterness-for Latin was no mystery to the ladies of her time

"-Siquis mihi parvulus aula

Luderet Æneas, qui te tantum ore referret,
Non equidem capta ac deserta viderer,
Crudelis

"

But while the lady was thus giving vent to her love in pathetic hexameters, Brictric had arrived at Tewkesbury, little thinking of that storm which was soon to burst on the shores of Britain, and in which he was to be stripped of his ancient patrimony.

When the Battle of Hastings had secured a vacant throne to William the Conqueror*, Brictric was among those patriotic chiefs who survived that decisive field, and afterwards retired to the banks of the Severn to concert measures for the recovery of the Saxon throne, or

to bury his vain regrets in the bosom of his faithful friends and retainers. By one of those strange accidents, however, which frustrate all preconcerted schemes, Brictric's hopes of freedom were completely blasted. Great as the grief of Maud had been at his abruptly quitting her father's court in Flanders, as stated in the preceding note, it was not of long duration; for the Duke of Normandy having shortly after solicited her hand, and as such a union offered her no distant prospect of avenging herself, she at once assented. The marriage was solemnised. She was carried in triumph to Normandy; and now, when the subjugation of England had been effected, she did not lose the opportunity thereby afforded of resenting the slight which the impolitic Brictric had offered to her beauty. He was accordingly denounced as an enemy to the new dynasty; and the strongest argument produced against him being that he was a brave man, with a broad tract of country which he called his own, the evidence in proof of his disaffection to the Conqueror was conclusive. Maud, the queen, too, was actively employed in expediting the measures instituted against him

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Could she forgive him!-no! it was her duty

To crush a wretch that could resist such beauty.

RHERMAN

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One night, therefore, while returning from vespers, Brictric was seized at the door of his own manor of Hanley, and sent under a Norman guard to Winchester, where he pined for some time, oppressed with the double weight of degradation and imprisonment, and at length died without issue. His estates, in the mean time, had been given to Queen Maud, who enjoyed their revenues till her death; after which they were incorporated with the other royal demesnes of King William.

At the death of the Conqueror, they passed to his son Rufus, who some time afterwards bestowed Brictric's Honor of Gloucester upon Robert FitzHamon, son of Hamon Dentatus, Lord of Corboile in Normandy, as a reward for many important services performed in defence of his father's crown †.

* In "France Monumentale" there is a full-length portrait of the Conqueror, which bears a striking resemblance to that of Henry the Eighth. † Dugd. 154, 50.

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