Note 131 — Chapter IX · MINESTEAD AND RUFUS’S STONE.

Baxter, in his Preface to his Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, Ed. 1719, p. 12, entirely misquotes Alanus de Insulis (see Prophetica Anglicana Merlini Ambrosii cum septem libris explanationum Alani de Insulis. Frankfort, 1603. Lib. ii. pp. 68, 69), and completely misunderstands the passage. Alanus, however (p. 69), seems to have no doubt that the King fell by treachery,—“spiculo invidiæ,” as was foretold by Merlin, though he gives no other reason; and which by itself, resting on nothing further, would carry no weight. His account, though, of the general detestation of the Red King immediately before his death, as also the conversation of Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, with Anselm (p. 68), is very suggestive, especially by the way in which it is introduced. Alanus must have possessed far too shrewd an intellect to have believed in Merlin; though it might have suited his purpose to have appeared to have so done, as a veil and a blind, so that he might better say what his high position and authority would not in any other form have well permitted, but which still give to many points, as here, enormous significance and weight.