[282] Henry, iv. 299.
[283] Henry, iv. 329.
[285] Seven, however, was not invariably their number, they were sometimes more and sometimes less.
[288a] Some, indeed, have seemed rather to doubt if its origin here was as early as the days of Edward, as Ingulphus, a contemporary writer, makes no mention of it. Malmsbury, however, who lived not long after, affirms it; and the Confessor seems as likely as any to have taken the lead in such a business and become our first practitioner.
[288b] Owing partly, as it is supposed, to the aguishness of the air, and partly to other causes, not peculiar to these parts.
[289] He was also Duke of Wessex, and Earl or Governor of Sussex, Surrey, Kent, and Essex.
[290] Carto 1. 416.
[296] Flower’s Political Review, vol. 1. 299.
[297] We are apt to deem it a grievous hardship upon the good people of England, under the Norman princes, to be deprived of the administration of justice in their own mother tongue, or to have their legal proceedings all transacted in a strange language, without considering, that the Welsh, the Irish, and the Scotch Highlanders, are to this day used by our own government in the same manner; in which nevertheless, we seem to perceive no great or very material harm, hardship, or impropriety:—so loth do we often appear to place ourselves in the situation of our neighbours, and to use them as we would wish to be used by them.—England must have made a queerish appearance when law was administered in French, and religion in Latin, and the people knew no language but English.
[299a] “Ailred as well as Malmsbury observe, that the Confessor cured a young married woman, reduced by the Evil to a deplorable condition, by stroking the place affected with his hand; upon which she grew sensibly better, the humour dispersed, the scar wore off, and in a week’s time the cure was perfected!!”—Carte 1. 357.