" With that word Clifford
marked him, and said, "By God's blood thy father slew mine, and so will
I thee, and all thy kin," and, saying this, he struck the Earl to the
heart with his dagger, and bade the tutor bear word to his mother and
brothers what he had said and done. Not content with this, when he came
to the body of the Duke, the child's father, he caused the head to be
cut off and a paper crown to be placed on it; then, fixing it on a pole,
he presented it to the Queen, saying, "Madame, your war is done--here is
your King's ransom." The head was placed over the gates of York by the
side of that of the Earl of Salisbury, whom Queen Margaret had ordered
to be beheaded.
For some little time we had been walking through what was known as the
"Kingdom of Elmet," but whether this was associated with the helmet of
Grim we were unable to ascertain, though we shrewdly suspected it was an
old Celtic word. We arrived at the village of Sherburn-in-Elmet, an
important place in ancient times, where once stood the palace of
Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, the first ruler of all
England, who was crowned King of England in the year 925. In celebration
of his great victory over the combined army of the Danes and Scots at
Brunnanburgh, King Athelstan presented his palace here, along with other
portions of the Kingdom of Elmet, to the See of York, and it remained
the Archbishop of York's Palace for over three hundred years.
Pages:
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607