“The Danes confided much in the Fylga or Guardian Spirit.”—They have certain Priestesses named Morthwyrtha, or worshippers of the dead.
Note M.—[Page 29.]
Edgar Atheling, dreading the insidious caresses of William, escaped into Scotland, and carried thither his two sisters, Margaret and Christina. They were well received by Malcolm, who soon after espoused Margaret, the elder.—Hume’s History of England, vol. 1.
Note N.—[Page 29.]
“The laying waste of Hampshire.”—There was one pleasure to which William, as well as all the Normans and ancient Saxons, were extremely addicted, and that was hunting; but this pleasure he indulged more at the expense of his unhappy subjects, whose interests he always disregarded, than to the loss or diminution of his own revenue. Not content with those large forests which former kings possessed in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new forest near Winchester, the usual place of his residence; and for that purpose he laid waste the country in Hampshire for an extent of thirty miles, expelled the inhabitants from their houses, seized their property even, demolished churches and convents, and made the sufferers no compensation for the injury. At the same time he enacted new laws, by which he prohibited all his subjects from hunting in any of his forests, and rendered the penalties more severe than ever had been inflicted for such offences. The killing of a deer or bear, or even a hare, was punished with the loss of a delinquent’s eyes; and that, at a time, when the killing of a man could be atoned for by paying a moderate fine.—History of England, vol. 1, p. 214.
Note O.—[Page 29.]
“Odious Danegelt, and still more odious Couvrefeu.”—William, to prevent the people of the land from confederating together in nocturnal assemblies, for the purpose of discussing their grievances, and stimulating each other to revolt, compelled them to couvrefeu, or extinguish the lights and fires in their dwellings at eight o’clock every evening, at the tolling of a bell, called from that circumstance, the curfew or couvrefeu.—Queens of England, vol. 1, p. 57.
Note P.—[Page 30.]
“Lanfranc will absolve thee from thy oath.”—Lanfranc exchanged his priory for the Abbey of St. Stephen, at Caen, in Normandy, and when William, the sovereign of that duchy, acquired the English throne by conquest, the interest of that prince procured his election, in 1070, to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, then become vacant by the deposition of Stigand.—See Encyclopedia.
Note Q.—[Page 41.]