| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
INTRODUCTION. xi
as appears from this. Once on a time, when, having incurred the anger of the king and the / prince, he could hear mass nowhere but in Barns-dale, while he was devoutly occupied with the service, (for this was his wont, nor would he ever suffer it to be interrupted for the most pressing occasion,) he was surprised by a certain sheriff and officers of the king, who had often troubled him before, in the secret place in the woods where he was engaged in worship as aforesaid. Some of his men, who had taken the alarm, came to him and begged him to fly with all speed. This, out of reverence for the host, which he was then most devoutly adoring, he positively refused to do. But while the rest of his followers were trembling for their lives, Robert, confiding in him whom he worshipped, fell on his enemies with a few who chanced to be with him, and easily got the better of them ; and having enriched himself with their plunder and ransom, he was led from that time forth to hold ministers of the church and masses in greater veneration than ever, mindful of the common saying that
" God hears the man who often hears the mass."
In another place Bower writes to the same effect: "In this year (1266) the dispossessed barons of England and the royalists were engaged in fierce hostilities. Among the former, Roger Mortimer occupied the "Welsh marches, and John |
||