abbacy of Peterborough. And the king granted it to him, forasmuch as he was his kinsman, and in that he had been one of the first to swear oaths, and to bear witness, when the son of the earl of Normandy and the daughter of the earl of Anjou were divorced on the plea of kindred. Thus vexatiously was the abbacy of Peterborough given away at London, between Christmas and Candlemas; and so Henry went with the king to Winchester, and thence he came to Peterborough, and there he lived even as a drone in a hive; as the drone eateth and draggeth forward to himself all that is brought near, even so did he; and thus he sent over sea all that he could take from religious or from secular, both within and without; he did there no good, nor did he leave any there. Let no man think lightly of the marvel that we are about to relate as a truth, for it was full well known over all the country. It is this; that as soon as he came there,[1] it was on the Sunday, when men sing "Exurge quare O Domine;" several persons saw and heard many hunters hunting.—These hunters were black, and large, and loathly, and their hounds were all black, with wide eyes, and ugly, and they rode on black horses and on black bucks. This was seen in the very deer-park of the town of Peterborough, and in all the woods from the same town to Stamford; and the monks heard the blasts of the horns which they blew in the night. Men of truth kept in the night their watch on them, and said that there might well be about twenty or thirty horn-blowers. This was seen and heard from the time that the abbat came thither, all that Lent, until Easter. Such was his entrance, of his exit we can say nothing yet: God knoweth it.
A. 1128. All this year king Henry was in Normandy, on account of the war between him and his nephew the earl of Flanders; but the earl was wounded in battle by a servant, and being so wounded he went to the monastery of St. Berlin, and forthwith he was made a monk, and lived five days after, and then died, and was buried there: God rest his soul! He was buried on the 6th before the Kalends of
- ↑ 'Thaer' in the original, not 'thider.' Dr. Ingram remarks, that this is the first instance of the negligent use of the word 'there' for "thither." But use is second nature, and in conversation at least, the former of these words has entirely superseded the latter.
