And rudest Age are subject to the thrill
Of heaven-descended piety and song.
I think you will never go under the wondrous arches of Ely Cathedral—and you should go there if you ever travel into the eastern counties of England—without thinking of King Canute and of that wondrous singing of the monks, eight hundred years ago.
The second historic incident of which I spoke, is the murder of King Duncan by Macbeth in the year 1039, some twenty-five years before the Norman Conquest. I don’t think you want any refreshing about Macbeth.
The third incident is of humbler tone, yet it went to show great womanly devotion, and lifted a tax from the heads of a whole towns-people. I refer to the tradition of Earl Leofric of Mercia and the Lady Godiva of Coventry, based in the main, without doubt, upon actual occurrence, and the subject for centuries of annual commemoration.[11] Tennyson tells, in his always witching way, how
She rode forth clothéd on with chastity:
The deep air listened round her as she rode,
——the barking cur
Made her cheek flame; her palfry’s foot-fall shot
Light horror thro’ her pulses: