The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary

established in reputation; they call them self-willed and lawless and pretending to a sanctity that is none of theirs. Such as be under obedience think that virtue the highest of all and ess

other guests in the common guest-house. I know not what happened there, but I think there was an uproar; there was a wound upon his head, the first wound that he received in the house of his friends, that I saw on him a little later, and he tol

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could not be, and he only saw my lord at terce before mass, afar off sitting in his stall, a gre

el [This may have been Queen Katharine, whose body was afterwards moved.], and did his devotions, hoping that our Lord would show him what to s

e, and were dwelling round the monastery with their wives and children. There were all sorts there, slayers of men and deer, thieves, strikers of the clergy suadente diabolo ["at the devil's persuasion"-a technical phrase], false-coiners, harlots

old him that the King was now going to dinner, and that the time was past, so he knew that it was not yet his hour

the heralds were crying out. Master Richard stood as well as he could, but he was pushed and trampled about, and he could not see very well. They went by in great numbers; he saw their hats

et, and men bowed down on all sides; and he

were black and arched high, and beneath them his sorrowful eyes looked out on the people; he was bowing his head courteously as he

this may be. The King wore no beard as did our Saviour, he was full fourteen years younger at that time than was Jesu Christ when He suffered His bitter passion. They were of a height, I suppose, and perhaps the purple that the King wore was of the same colour as that which our Lord had put on him, but that wa

at it was that he saw, though I cannot explain it to you, any more than could he to me. There be some matters so high that no mouth can tell them, heart only can speak to heart, but I can tell you this,

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ng his eyes open, and that he knew not how he came back to the guest-house. It was not until he

ood-house for his keep, so all that afternoon he toiled in his white kirtle at th

at compline in the abbey-church, still he knew not what the message

heard four masses that day, as well as all the hours, and prayed by himself a long while at saint Edward's shrine, hearing the f

g except that Master Richard had worked well and willingly, and had asked for other tasks when his were done. He had asked, too, for a plenty of water to bathe himself, which he did not get. But

Master Richard followed him and his fellow to the altar at five o'clock in the morning to hear mass there

him, too, were such marvels that there is little wonder that he could not pray well for thinking on them-the kings that lay here and there and their effigies, and the paved steps on this side and that, and the fair painted glass and the high dark roof. Near where he knelt, too, he could see the great relic-chest, and knew what lay therein-the girdle o

e noise of so much praise delighted him, but they ended soon, and at Sanctus his

tion of the sacring: only he knew that his soul was filled with lightness

ast, it appeared to him, he said, as if his feet rested again on some

shoulders, and the frater conversus [that is, the lay brother.] who held the skirt and shook the bell. Only it appeared to him that the priest held up the Body for a great space, a

without any breaking of her virginity; how it is that all things subsist in God; in what manner it is that God comes into the species of the bread. But he coul

ld not return home alive, but that his dead corpse should be carried the

his face, and so lay unt

in Westminster Hall: and of

verbum bonum: dico

ood word: I speak my work