Note 166 — THE ABBEY OF TEWKESBURY, Gloucestershire.
Reading edition
Robert of Gloucester, in commemorating these objections on the part of the Lady Mabilia, and their removal and adjustment on that of King Henry, gives the following shrewd and amusing dialogue. The king having proposed to the heiress, as a state measure, that she should give her hand to his son Robert, the lady, who was fully sensible that the grand charm which made the King suitor for his son was her princely “heritage,” answers him thus:
Mabel. Sir, she saide, ich wote your herte upon me is More for myne heritage, than for myselfe, I wis; And suche heritage as ich have, itt were to mee grit shame To take a lorde but he haddé any surname. K. Henry. Damoseill, quod the Kingé, thou seest well in thys case, Sir Robert Fitz-Häyman thi faders namé was; As fayre a name he shall have, as you may see, Sir Robert le Fitz-Roy shall his name be. Yea, Damoseill, he sayd, thy lorde shall have a name For him and for his heires, fayre without blame: For Robert Earl of Gloucestre his name shall be, and ’tis Hee shall be Earl of Gloucestre, and his heirés, I wis.
This declaration on the part of the king having instantly removed every possible objection, the heiress no longer hesitates, but in great and amiable simplicity answers—
Mabel. Inne this forme, quod shee, ich wole that all my thyng be hys.
Robert, a monk of Gloucester, is supposed to have finished his rhyming Chronicle about 1280.—Campbell’s Essay on English Poetry, note, p. 37. This extract from the Chronicle is slightly modernized; but in Hearne’s edit. vol. ii. 431, the reader will find it in its original purity.