Note 157 — THE ABBEY OF TEWKESBURY, Gloucestershire.

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—

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.