A Sumpnour, or appositor of an Ecclesiastical court, "with a fine red cherubinne's face and a visage with knobs on his cheeks, of which children were afraid; a great drinker and garlic eater, and likerous (lecherous) as a sparrow."
His friend, a Pardoner, fresh from Rome, with a wallet "bretful of pardons and relics," making more money of them in a day than the parson of the parish in "moneths tway."
When this motley company had settled their reckoning with Harry Bailly, their host, he offered to be their guide to Canterbury, and as this was not the time when pilgrims hobbled along with peas in their shoes, he suggested that, to beguile the tedium of the way, they should each tell a tale, one going and another returning, and that he who told the best, should, on their return to the Tabard, be entertained at supper at the cost of the rest, which proposition was carried by acclamation; and the following morning the merry party mounted their nags in the court-yard and set forth, headed by the landlord, beside whom rode the miller, playing lustily on his bag-pipes until they got clear of the town, when the tale-telling commenced.
It may be supposed that they arrived safely at Canterbury, knelt at the shrine of the martyr, purchased their brooches, in evidence of their having been there, and caroused again on their return in the Pilgrims' Hall; but Chaucer leaves them on the road, prevented, perhaps, by troubles or death from giving the tales of the backward journey.
As the pilgrimages are coming into fashion, it may be that fresh gatherings may take place in Southwark; but it will not be at the Tabard, under the guidance of Harry Bailly, but at the London Bridge terminus, under the leadership of Cook, the excursionist; and it is to be feared that, instead of a Chaucer to depict the humours of the journey, their proceedings will be narrated by a newspaper correspondent.
The Priory of the Holy Trinity, Aldgate.
Not long had the Norman dynasty ruled over England. Scarcely more than a third of a century had elapsed since the Norman Duke unfurled his standard at Hastings, and in that interval the first William and the second William had passed away, and Henry le Beauclerk, by an act of usurpation had leapt into the vacant throne, which belonged by right to his elder brother Robert. The Saxon people, reft of their lands, deprived of their liberties, and subject to oppressive laws, had become the vassals and serfs of their Norman feudal lords, and chafed with sullen submission under the yoke. Great, therefore, was their delight when their new king announced his intention of marrying a daughter of their old line of kings—a descendant of the great Alfred, and they cherished hopes that by this infusion of Saxon blood into the veins of their future kings, the Saxon race would be elevated in position, and that, being vastly more numerous, they would eventually, by marriages, absorb the Norman few and England again become Saxon.
Matilda, Henry's Queen (born 1079, married 1100, died 1118), was the daughter of Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland, by Margaret, daughter of Eadward, the ætheling, who was the son of Eadmund Ironside, the lineal descendant of King Alfred. She was originally called Editha, which name was changed, at the request of her godfather, Prince Robert, brother of her future husband, who wished her to be named after his mother. "Matildem quœ prius dicta Edithe," say Ordericus Vitalis. In the year 1093, her father was slain before Alnwick Castle, and her mother died of grief shortly after. Donald Bane usurped the throne of his nephew, and Eadgar, the ætheling, removed his nephews and nieces to England, not deeming them safe in Scotland. Matilda was educated in the Nunneries of Romsey and Wilton, under her aunt, Christina, the Abbess. She had two or three eligible offers of marriage, and it was with some reluctance, and not until a council had determined that she was under no religious vows, that she accepted the hand of the king.