[636] See N. C. vol. v. p. 600.
[637] Hen. Hunt. vii. 21. “Quam [novam aulam] cum inspecturus primum introisset, cum alii satis magnam vel æquo majorem dicerent, dixit rex eam magnitudinis debitæ dimidia parte carere. Qui sermo regi magno fuit, licet parvi constasset, honori.” This is copied by Robert of Torigny, the Waverly Annalist, Bromton, and most likely others.
[638] Matthew Paris (Hist. Ang. i. 165) copies Henry of Huntingdon with a few touches, and adds, “nec eam esse nisi thalamum ad palatium quod erat facturus.” The foundations of the wall which he designed extended “scilicet a Tamensi usque ad publicam stratam; tanta enim debuit esse longitudo.”
[639] Ann. Wint. 1099. “Rex venit de Normannia, et regis diademate coronatus est apud Londoniam, ubi Edgarus rex Scotiæ gladium coram eo portavit.” The authority is not first-rate; but it is the kind of thing which can hardly have been invented.
[640] The Chronicler (1098) records the deaths of Walkelin, Baldwin, and Turold. Florence (1097, 1098) adds that of Robert, and in one manuscript that of Abbot Reginald of Abingdon, who (Hist. Ab. ii. 42) would seem to have died somewhat earlier, in the year 1097. This prelate is said to have been in the King’s good graces, and to have been employed by him in the pious and charitable distribution from his father’s hoard at the beginning of his reign (see vol. i. p. 17). There is also just before in the local History (ii. 41) a writ of Rufus to Peter Sheriff of Oxfordshire, witnessed by Randolf the chaplain, in which the Sheriff is bidden to let the Abbot and his monks enjoy all that they had T. R. E. and T. R. W., and specially to make good the wrongs done by his reeve Eadwig and others his officers. Here are the reeves again; but this time an English reeve oppresses a Norman abbot.
[641] See vol. i. p. 586.
[642] See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 372–816.
[643] Will. Malmb. Gest. Pont. 172, copied in Ann. Wint. 1098.
[644] William of Malmesbury (u. s., and see N. C. vol. iv. p. 817) marks the change in him. The local annalist who copies him gives Walkelin a warm panegyric; “Erat vir perfectæ pietatis et sanctitatis, immensæque prudentiæ, et tantæ demum abstinentiæ ut nec carnes nec pisces comederet.” (His brother Simeon (Ann. Wint. 1082), afterwards Abbot of Ely (see N. C. vol. iv. pp. 481, 833), had taught the monks to give up flesh.) “Semper secum monachos habebat … non enim minus conventum suum diligebat quam si omnes dii essent.” This somewhat pagan way of talking has its contradictory in the words of Hugh of Nonant, Bishop of Coventry (Ric. Div. § 85); “Ego clericos meos deos nomino, monachos dæmonia.”
[645] The well-known trick by which Walkelin cut down the king’s wood at Hempage is recorded in Ann. Wint. 1086. Cf. Willis, Winchester, 17.