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Note 1. "Je vais seul avec mon Dieu souffrir ma passion."--Bonnivard,
Prior of Saint Victor.

Note 2. Vaudois is not really an accurate epithet, since the
"Valley-Men" only acquired it when, in after years, ejected, from their
old home, they sought shelter in the Pays de Vaud. But it has come to
be regarded as a name expressive of certain doctrines.

Note 3. "They (the Jesuits) were cut off from family and friends.
Their vow taught them to forget their father's house, and to esteem
themselves holy only when every affection and desire which nature had
planted in their breasts had been plucked up by the roots."
(_Jesuitism_, by the Reverend J.A. Wylie, Ll.D.) This statement is
simply a shade less true of the other monastic orders.

CHAPTER TEN.

FORGIVENESS NOT TO BE FORGIVEN.

"Ay, there's a blank at my right hand
That ne'er can be made up to me."--_James Hogg_.

Before leaving Bermondsey, the Earl had accomplished one of the hardest
pieces of work which ever fell to his lot. This was the execution of
the deed of separation which conveyed his legal assent to the departure
of his wife, and assigned to her certain lands for her separate
sustenance. Himself the richest man in England, he was determined that
she should remain the wealthiest woman. He assigned to her all his
lands in Norfolk and Suffolk, the manors of Kirketon in Lincolnshire,
Malmesbury and Wyntreslawe in Wiltshire, and an annuity on Queenhithe,
Middlesex--the whole sum amounting to 800 pounds per annum, which was
equivalent to at least 15,000 pounds a year. He reserved to himself the
appointments to all priories and churches, and the military feofs and
escheats. Moreover, the Countess was not to sell any of the lands, nor
had she the right to build castles. So far, in all probability, any man
would have gone. But one other item was added, which came straight from
the human heart of Earl Edmund, and was in the thirteenth century a very
strange item indeed. The Countess, it was expressly provided, should
not waste, exile, enslave, nor destroy "the serfs on these estates."
[Note 1.]

The soul of Haman the Agagite, which had descended upon Margaret de
Clare, fiercely resented this unusual clause. On the same roll which
contains the Earl's grant, in ordinary legal language--which must have
cost him something where he records her wish, and his assent, "freely
_during her widowhood_ to dedicate h