And shouted, midst his rushing blood,
“Arm, arm, Auvergne! the foe!”
The stir, the tramp, the bugle-call—
He heard their tumults grow;
And sent his dying voice through all—
“Auvergne, Auvergne! the foe!”
THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR,
AT CAEN IN NORMANDY—1087.
[“At the day appointed for the king’s interment, Prince Henry, his third son, the Norman prelates, and a multitude of clergy and people, assembled in the church of St Stephen, which the Conqueror had founded. The mass had been performed, the corpse was placed on the bier, and the Bishop of Evreux had pronounced the panegyric on the deceased, when a voice from the crowd exclaimed,—‘He whom you have praised was a robber. The very land on which you stand is mine. By violence he took it from my father; and, in the name of God, I forbid you to bury him in it.’ The speaker was Asceline Fitz-Arthur, who had often, but fruitlessly, sought reparation from the justice of William. After some debate, the prelates called him to them, paid him sixty shillings for the grave, and promised that he should receive the full value of his land. The ceremony was then continued, and the body of the king deposited in a coffin of stone.”—Lingard, vol. ii. p. 98.]
Lowly upon his bier