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unmingled by the least shade either of fear, or of a wish to propitiate

favour. Rowena was ever ready to acknowledge the claims, and attend to

the feelings, of others. She arose, and would have conducted her

lovely visitor to a seat; but the stranger looked at Elgitha, and again

intimated a wish to discourse with the Lady Rowena alone. Elgitha had no

sooner retired with unwilling steps, than, to the surprise of the Lady

of Ivanhoe, her fair visitant kneeled on one knee, pressed her hands to

her forehead, and bending her head to the ground, in spite of Rowena's

resistance, kissed the embroidered hem of her tunic.

" What means this, lady? " said the surprised bride; " or why do you offer

to me a deference so unusual? "

" Because to you, Lady of Ivanhoe, " said Rebecca, rising up and resuming

the usual quiet dignity of her manner, " I may lawfully, and without

rebuke, pay the debt of gratitude which I owe to Wilfred of Ivanhoe.

I am--forgive the boldness which has offered to you the homage of my

country--I am the unhappy Jewess, for whom your husband hazarded his

life against such fearful odds in the tiltyard of Templestowe. "

" Damsel, " said Rowena, " Wilfred of Ivanhoe on that day rendered back but

in slight measure your unceasing charity towards him in his wounds and

misfortunes. Speak, is there aught remains in which he or I can serve

thee? "

" Nothing, " said Rebecca, calmly, " unless you will transmit to him my

grateful farewell. "

" You leave England then? " said Rowena, scarce recovering the surprise of

this extraordinary visit.

" I leave it, lady, ere this moon again changes. My father had a brother

high in favour with Mohammed Boabdil, King of Grenada--thither we go,

secure of peace and protection, for the payment of such ransom as the

Moslem exact from our people. "

" And are you not then as well protected in England? " said Rowena.

" My husband has favour with the King--the King himself is just and

generous. "

" Lady, " said Rebecca, " I doubt it not--but the people of England are a

fierce race, quarrelling ever with their neighbours or among themselves,

and ready to plunge the sword into the bowels of each other. Such is

no safe abode for the children of my people. Ephraim is an heartless

dove--Issachar an over-laboured drudge, which stoops between two

burdens. Not in a land of war and blood, surrounded by hostile

neighbours, and distracted by internal factions, can Israel hope to rest

during her wanderings. "

" But you, maiden, " said Rowena--" you surely can have nothing to fear.

She who nursed the sick-bed of Ivanhoe, " she continued, rising with

enthusiasm--" she can have nothing to fear in England, where Saxon and

Norman will contend who shall most do her honour. "

" Thy speech is fair, lady, " said Rebecca, " and thy purpose fairer; but

it may not be--there is a gulf betwixt us. Our breeding, our faith,

alike forbid either to pass over it. Farewell--yet, ere I go indulge me

one request. The bridal-veil hangs over thy face; deign to raise it, and

let me see the features of which fame speaks so highly. "

" They are scarce worthy of being looked upon, " said Rowena; " but,

expecting the same from my visitant, I remove the veil. "

She took it off accordingly; and, partly from the consciousness of

beauty, partly from bashfulness, she blushed so intensely, that cheek,

brow, neck, and bosom, were suffused with crimson. Rebecca blushed also,

but it was a momentary feeling; and, mastered by higher emotions, past

slowly from her features like the crimson cloud, which changes colour

when the sun sinks beneath the horizon.

" Lady, " she said, " the countenance you have deigned to show me will long

dwell in my remembrance. There reigns in it gentleness and goodness; and

if a tinge of the world's pride or vanities may mix with an expression

so lovely, how should we chide that which is of earth for bearing some

colour of its original? Long, long will I remember your features, and

bless God that I leave my noble deliverer united with--"

She stopped short--her eyes filled with tears. She hastily wiped them,

and answered to the anxious enquiries of Rowena--" I am well, lady--well.

But my heart swells when I think of Torquilstone and the lists of

Templestowe. --Farewell. One, the most trifling part of my duty, remains

undischarged. Accept this casket--startle not at its contents. "

Rowena opened the small silver-chased casket, and perceived a carcanet,

or neck lace, with ear-jewels, of diamonds, which were obviously of

immense value.

" It is impossible, " she said, tendering back the casket. " I dare not

accept a gift of such consequence. "

" Yet keep it, lady, " returned Rebecca. --" You have power, rank, command,

influence; we have wealth, the source both of our strength and weakness;

the value of these toys, ten times multiplied, would not influence half

so much as your slightest wish. To you, therefore, the gift is of little

value, --and to me, what I part with is of much less. Let me not think

you deem so wretchedly ill of my nation as your commons believe. Think

ye that I prize these sparkling fragments of stone above my liberty?

or that my father values them in comparison to the honour of his only

child? Accept them, lady--to me they are valueless. I will never wear

jewels more. "

" You are then unhappy! " said Rowena, struck with the manner in which

Rebecca uttered the last words. " O, remain with us--the counsel of holy

men will wean you from your erring law, and I will be a sister to you. "

" No, lady, " answered Rebecca, the same calm melancholy reigning in her

soft voice and beautiful features--" that--may not be. I may not change

the faith of my fathers like a garment unsuited to the climate in

which I seek to dwell, and unhappy, lady, I will not be. He, to whom I

dedicate my future life, will be my comforter, if I do His will. "

" Have you then convents, to one of which you mean to retire? " asked

Rowena.

" No, lady, " said the Jewess; " but among our people, since the time of

Abraham downwards, have been women who have devoted their thoughts to

Heaven, and their actions to works of kindness to men, tending the

sick, feeding the hungry, and relieving the distressed. Among these will

Rebecca be numbered. Say this to thy lord, should he chance to enquire

after the fate of her whose life he saved. "

There was an involuntary tremour on Rebecca's voice, and a tenderness

of accent, which perhaps betrayed more than she would willingly have

expressed. She hastened to bid Rowena adieu.

" Farewell, " she said. " May He, who made both Jew and Christian, shower

down on you his choicest blessings! The bark that waits us hence will be

under weigh ere we can reach the port. "

She glided from the apartment, leaving Rowena surprised as if a vision

had passed before her. The fair Saxon related the singular conference to

her husband, on whose mind it made a deep impression. He lived long and

happily with Rowena, for they were attached to each other by the

bonds of early affection, and they loved each other the more, from the

recollection of the obstacles which had impeded their union. Yet it

would be enquiring too curiously to ask, whether the recollection

of Rebecca's beauty and magnanimity did not recur to his mind more

frequently than the fair descendant of Alfred might altogether have

approved.

Ivanhoe distinguished himself in the service of Richard, and was graced

with farther marks of the royal favour. He might have risen still

higher, but for the premature death of the heroic Coeur-de-Lion, before

the Castle of Chaluz, near Limoges. With the life of a generous, but

rash and romantic monarch, perished all the projects which his ambition

and his generosity had formed; to whom may be applied, with a slight

alteration, the lines composed by Johnson for Charles of Sweden--

His fate was destined to a foreign strand,

A petty fortress and an " humble" hand;

He left the name at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral, or adorn a TALE.

NOTE TO CHAPTER I.

Note A. --The Ranger or the Forest, that cuts the foreclaws off our dogs.

A most sensible grievance of those aggrieved times were the Forest Laws.

These oppressive enactments were the produce of the Norman Conquest,

for the Saxon laws of the chase were mild and humane; while those of

William, enthusiastically attached to the exercise and its rights, were

to the last degree tyrannical. The formation of the New Forest, bears

evidence to his passion for hunting, where he reduced many a happy

village to the condition of that one commemorated by my friend, Mr

William Stewart Rose:

" Amongst the ruins of the church

The midnight raven found a perch,

A melancholy place;

The ruthless Conqueror cast down,

Woe worth the deed, that little town,

To lengthen out his chase. "

The disabling dogs, which might be necessary for keeping flocks and

herds, from running at the deer, was called " lawing", and was in general

use. The Charter of the Forest designed to lessen those evils, declares

that inquisition, or view, for lawing dogs, shall be made every third

year, and shall be then done by the view and testimony of lawful men,

not otherwise; and they whose dogs shall be then found unlawed, shall

give three shillings for mercy, and for the future no man's ox shall be

taken for lawing. Such lawing also shall be done by the assize commonly

used, and which is, that three claws shall be cut off without the ball

of the right foot. See on this subject the Historical Essay on the Magna

Charta of King John, (a most beautiful volume), by Richard Thomson.

NOTE TO CHAPTER II.

Note B. --Negro Slaves.

The severe accuracy of some critics has objected to the complexion of

the slaves of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, as being totally out of costume

and propriety. I remember the same objection being made to a set of

sable functionaries, whom my friend, Mat Lewis, introduced as the

guards and mischief-doing satellites of the wicked Baron, in his Castle

Spectre. Mat treated the objection with great contempt, and averred

in reply, that he made the slaves black in order to obtain a striking

effect of contrast, and that, could he have derived a similar advantage

from making his heroine blue, blue she should have been.

I do not pretend to plead the immunities of my order so highly as this;

but neither will I allow that the author of a modern antique romance

is obliged to confine himself to the introduction of those manners

only which can be proved to have absolutely existed in the times he

is depicting, so that he restrain himself to such as are plausible and

natural, and contain no obvious anachronism. In this point of view,

what can be more natural, than that the Templars, who, we know, copied

closely the luxuries of the Asiatic warriors with whom they fought,

should use the service of the enslaved Africans, whom the fate of war

transferred to new masters? I am sure, if there are no precise proofs

of their having done so, there is nothing, on the other hand, that can

entitle us positively to conclude that they never did. Besides, there is

an instance in romance.

John of Rampayne, an excellent juggler and minstrel, undertook to effect

the escape of one Audulf de Bracy, by presenting himself in disguise

at the court of the king, where he was confined. For this purpose, " he

stained his hair and his whole body entirely as black as jet, so that

nothing was white but his teeth, " and succeeded in imposing himself

on the king, as an Ethiopian minstrel. He effected, by stratagem, the

escape of the prisoner. Negroes, therefore, must have been known in

England in the dark ages. [60]

NOTE TO CHAPTER XVII.

Note C. --Minstrelsy.

The realm of France, it is well known, was divided betwixt the Norman

and Teutonic race, who spoke the language in which the word Yes is

pronounced as " oui", and the inhabitants of the southern regions, whose

speech bearing some affinity to the Italian, pronounced the same word

" oc". The poets of the former race were called " Minstrels", and their

poems " Lays": those of the latter were termed " Troubadours", and their

compositions called " sirventes", and other names. Richard, a professed

admirer of the joyous science in all its branches, could imitate either

the minstrel or troubadour. It is less likely that he should have been

able to compose or sing an English ballad; yet so much do we wish to

assimilate Him of the Lion Heart to the band of warriors whom he led,

that the anachronism, if there be one may readily be forgiven.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXI.

Note D. --Battle of Stamford.

A great topographical blunder occurred here in former editions. The

bloody battle alluded to in the text, fought and won by King Harold,

over his brother the rebellious Tosti, and an auxiliary force of Danes

or Norsemen, was said, in the text, and a corresponding note, to have

taken place at Stamford, in Leicestershire, and upon the river Welland.

This is a mistake, into which the author has been led by trusting to his

memory, and so confounding two places of the same name. The Stamford,

Strangford, or Staneford, at which the battle really was fought, is a

ford upon the river Derwent, at the distance of about seven miles from

York, and situated in that large and opulent county. A long wooden

bridge over the Derwent, the site of which, with one remaining buttress,

is still shown to the curious traveller, was furiously contested. One

Norwegian long defended it by his single arm, and was at length pierced

with a spear thrust through the planks of the bridge from a boat

beneath.

The neighbourhood of Stamford, on the Derwent, contains some memorials

of the battle. Horseshoes, swords, and the heads of halberds, or bills,

are often found there; one place is called the " Danes' well, " another

the " Battle flats. " From a tradition that the weapon with which the

Norwegian champion was slain, resembled a pear, or, as others say, that

the trough or boat in which the soldier floated under the bridge to

strike the blow, had such a shape, the country people usually begin a

great market, which is held at Stamford, with an entertainment called

the Pear-pie feast, which after all may be a corruption of the Spear-pie

feast. For more particulars, Drake's History of York may be referred

to. The author's mistake was pointed out to him, in the most obliging

manner, by Robert Belt, Esq. of Bossal House. The battle was fought in

1066.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXII.

Note E. --The range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal.

This horrid species of torture may remind the reader of that to which

the Spaniards subjected Guatimozin, in order to extort a discovery of

his concealed wealth. But, in fact, an instance of similar barbarity is

to be found nearer home, and occurs in the annals of Queen Mary's

time, containing so many other examples of atrocity. Every reader

must recollect, that after the fall of the Catholic Church, and the

Presbyterian Church Government had been established by law, the rank,

and especially the wealth, of the Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and so forth,

were no longer vested in ecclesiastics, but in lay impropriators of the

church revenues, or, as the Scottish lawyers called them, titulars

of the temporalities of the benefice, though having no claim to the

spiritual character of their predecessors in office.

Of these laymen, who were thus invested with ecclesiastical revenues,

some were men of high birth and rank, like the famous Lord James

Stewart, the Prior of St Andrews, who did not fail to keep for their own

use the rents, lands, and revenues of the church. But if, on the

other hand, the titulars were men of inferior importance, who had been

inducted into the office by the interest of some powerful person, it was

generally understood that the new Abbot should grant for his patron's

benefit such leases and conveyances of the church lands and tithes as

might afford their protector the lion's share of the booty. This was the

origin of those who were wittily termed Tulchan [61]

Bishops, being a sort of imaginary prelate, whose image was set up to

enable his patron and principal to plunder the benefice under his name.

There were other cases, however, in which men who had got grants of

these secularised benefices, were desirous of retaining them for their

own use, without having the influence sufficient to establish their

purpose; and these became frequently unable to protect themselves,

however unwilling to submit to the exactions of the feudal tyrant of the

district.

Bannatyne, secretary to John Knox, recounts a singular course of

oppression practised on one of those titulars abbots, by the Earl of

Cassilis in Ayrshire, whose extent of feudal influence was so wide that

he was usually termed the King of Carrick. We give the fact as it occurs

in Bannatyne's Journal, only premising that the Journalist held his

master's opinions, both with respect to the Earl of Cassilis as an

opposer of the king's party, and as being a detester of the practice of

granting church revenues to titulars, instead of their being devoted to

pious uses, such as the support of the clergy, expense of schools, and

the relief of the national poor. He mingles in the narrative, therefore,

a well deserved feeling of execration against the tyrant who employed

the torture, which a tone of ridicule towards the patient, as if, after

all, it had not been ill bestowed on such an equivocal and amphibious

character as a titular abbot. He entitles his narrative,

THE EARL OF CASSILIS' TYRANNY AGAINST A QUICK (i. e. LIVING) MAN.

" Master Allan Stewart, friend to Captain James Stewart of Cardonall, by

means of the Queen's corrupted court, obtained the Abbey of Crossraguel.

The said Earl thinking himself greater than any king in those quarters,

determined to have that whole benefice (as he hath divers others) to

pay at his pleasure; and because he could not find sic security as his

insatiable appetite required, this shift was devised. The said Mr Allan

being in company with the Laird of Bargany, (also a Kennedy, ) was, by

the Earl and his friends, enticed to leave the safeguard which he had

with the Laird, and come to make good cheer with the said Earl. The

simplicity of the imprudent man was suddenly abused; and so he passed

his time with them certain days, which he did in Maybole with Thomas

Kennedie, uncle to the said Earl; after which the said Mr Allan passed,

with quiet company, to visit the place and bounds of Crossraguel, [his

abbacy, ] of which the said Earl being surely advertised, determined to

put in practice the tyranny which long before he had conceived. And so,

as king of the country, apprehended the said Mr Allan, and carried him

to the house of Denure, where for a season he was honourably treated,

(if a prisoner can think any entertainment pleasing; ) but after that

certain days were spent, and that the Earl could not obtain the feus of

Crossraguel according to his own appetite, he determined to prove if a

collation could work that which neither dinner nor supper could do for

a long time. And so the said Mr Allan was carried to a secret chamber:

with him passed the honourable Earl, his worshipful brother, and such as

were appointed to be servants at that banquet. In the chamber there was

a grit iron chimlay, under it a fire; other grit provision was not seen.

The first course was, --'My Lord Abbot, ' (said the Earl, ) 'it will please

you confess here, that with your own consent you remain in my company,

because ye durst not commit yourself to the hands of others. ' The Abbot

answered, 'Would you, my lord, that I should make a manifest lie for

your pleasure? The truth is, my lord, it is against my will that I am

here; neither yet have I any pleasure in your company. ' 'But ye shall

remain with me, nevertheless, at this time, ' said the Earl. 'I am not

able to resist your will and pleasure, ' said the Abbot, 'in this place. '

'Ye must then obey me, ' said the Earl, --and with that were presented

unto him certain letters to subscribe, amongst which there was a five

years' tack, and a nineteen years' tack, and a charter of feu of all the

lands (of Crossraguel), with all the clauses necessary for the Earl to

haste him to hell. For if adultery, sacrilege, oppression, barbarous

cruelty, and theft heaped upon theft, deserve hell, the great King

of Carrick can no more escape hell for ever, than the imprudent Abbot

escaped the fire for a season as follows.

" After that the Earl spied repugnance, and saw that he could not come

to his purpose by fair means, he commanded his cooks to prepare the

banquet: and so first they flayed the sheep, that is, they took off

the Abbot's cloathes even to his skin, and next they bound him to the

chimney--his legs to the one end, and his arms to the other; and so they

began to beet [i. e. feed] the fire sometimes to his buttocks, sometimes

to his legs, sometimes to his shoulders and arms; and that the roast

might not burn, but that it might rest in soppe, they spared not

flambing with oil, (basting as a cook bastes roasted meat); Lord, look

thou to sic cruelty! And that the crying of the miserable man should not

be heard, they dosed his mouth that the voice might be stopped. It may

be suspected that some partisan of the King's [Darnley's] murder was

there. In that torment they held the poor man, till that often he cried

for God's sake to dispatch him; for he had as meikle gold in his awin

purse as would buy powder enough to shorten his pain. The famous King of

Carrick and his cooks perceiving the roast to be aneuch, commanded it

to be tane fra the fire, and the Earl himself began the grace in this

manner: --'Benedicite, Jesus Maria, you are the most obstinate man that

ever I saw; gif I had known that ye had been so stubborn, I would not

for a thousand crowns have handled you so; I never did so to man before

you. ' And yet he returned to the same practice within two days, and

ceased not till that he obtained his formost purpose, that is, that

he had got all his pieces subscryvit alsweill as ane half-roasted hand

could do it. The Earl thinking himself sure enough so long as he had

the half-roasted Abbot in his own keeping, and yet being ashamed of his

presence by reason of his former cruelty, left the place of Denure in

the hands of certain of his servants, and the half-roasted Abbot to be

kept there as prisoner. The Laird of Bargany, out of whose company the

said Abbot had been enticed, understanding, (not the extremity, ) but

the retaining of the man, sent to the court, and raised letters of

deliverance of the person of the man according to the order, which being

disobeyed, the said Earl for his contempt was denounced rebel, and put

to the horne. But yet hope was there none, neither to the afflicted

to be delivered, neither yet to the purchaser [i. e. procurer] of

the letters to obtain any comfort thereby; for in that time God was

despised, and the lawful authority was contemned in Scotland, in hope

of the sudden return and regiment of that cruel murderer of her awin

husband, of whose lords the said Earl was called one; and yet, oftener

than once, he was solemnly sworn to the King and to his Regent. "

The Journalist then recites the complaint of the injured Allan Stewart,

Commendator of Crossraguel, to the Regent and Privy Council, averring

his having been carried, partly by flattery, partly by force, to the

black vault of Denure, a strong fortalice, built on a rock overhanging

the Irish channel, where to execute leases and conveyances of the whole

churches and parsonages belonging to the Abbey of Crossraguel, which he

utterly refused as an unreasonable demand, and the more so that he had

already conveyed them to John Stewart of Cardonah, by whose interest he

had been made Commendator. The complainant proceeds to state, that he

was, after many menaces, stript, bound, and his limbs exposed to fire

in the manner already described, till, compelled by excess of agony, he

subscribed the charter and leases presented to him, of the contents

of which he was totally ignorant. A few days afterwards, being again

required to execute a ratification of these deeds before a notary and

witnesses, and refusing to do so, he was once more subjected to the same

torture, until his agony was so excessive that he exclaimed, " Fye on

you, why do you not strike your whingers into me, or blow me up with a

barrel of powder, rather than torture me thus unmercifully? " upon which

the Earl commanded Alexander Richard, one of his attendants, to stop the

patient's mouth with a napkin, which was done accordingly. Thus he was

once more compelled to submit to their tyranny. The petition concluded

with stating, that the Earl, under pretence of the deeds thus

iniquitously obtained, had taken possession of the whole place and

living of Crossraguel, and enjoyed the profits thereof for three years.

The doom of the Regent and Council shows singularly the total

interruption of justice at this calamitous period, even in the most

clamant cases of oppression. The Council declined interference with

the course of the ordinary justice of the county, (which was completely

under the said Earl of Cassilis' control, ) and only enacted, that he

should forbear molestation of the unfortunate Comendator, under the

surety of two thousand pounds Scots. The Earl was appointed also to keep

the peace towards the celebrated George Buchanan, who had a pension out

of the same Abbacy, to a similar extent, and under the like penalty.

The consequences are thus described by the Journalist already quoted. --

" The said Laird of Bargany perceiving that the ordiner justice could

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