Here Aurelius commanded him to be buried and a heap of earth to be
raised over him, because "he was so good a knight." A lady generally
appeared in these old histories as the cause of the mischief, and it was
said that one reason why King Vortigern was so friendly with Hengist was
that Hengist had a very pretty daughter named Rowena, whom the King
greatly admired: a road in Conisborough still bears her name.
Aurelius then went to Wales, but found that Vortigern had shut himself
up in a castle into which Aurelius was unable to force an entrance, so
he burnt the castle and the King together; and in a wild place on the
rocky coast of Carnarvonshire, Vortigern's Valley can still be seen. Sir
Walter Scott, who was an adept in selecting old ruins for the materials
of his novels, has immortalised Conisborough in his novel of _Ivanhoe_
as the residence, about the year 1198, of the noble Athelstane or
Athelstone, who frightened his servants out of their wits by demanding
his supper when he was supposed to be dead.
Yorkshire feasts were famous, and corresponded to the "wakes" in
Lancashire and Cheshire. There was a record of a feast at Conisborough
on the "Morrow of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross," September 15th,
1320, in the "14th year of King Edward, son of King Edward," which was
carried out by Sir Ralph de Beeston, one of our Cheshire knights, and
Sir Simon de Baldiston (Stewards of the Earl of Lancaster), to which the
following verse applied:
They ate as though for many a day
They had not ate before.
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