The Robber Baron of Bedford Castle

hand, had ridden off from Bletsoe, his elder brother Fulke--"that disgrace to knighthood," as Ra

ord pleasantly situated in the upper part of the great keep reared by Pain de B

large apartment called the hall. This was approached by steps outside the building, and was entered through a portal which was often highly ornamented. The great hall was common ground to all who had any right to enter the keep, but above it were the private rooms for the lord and his family, which were usually approached by a staircase built at one corner of the keep. The windows were very small: in the lower por

e stand on the flat bowling-green which occupies the summit of the mound where the keep once stood. Beyond, the broad stream of the Ouse protected the castle along the whole of the southern front. Across the river, to the right, the Micklegate, or southern portion of the town

occupied. A controversy was going on at that moment between herself and her lord and master, and she merely gazed out of the window in order to turn aw

the power to give his ward in marriage, she had been forced by King John into a distasteful match with Fulke de Breauté. It would have been possible, but difficult, for a strong-willed woman to resist the will and the command of a feudal superior. But in the case of an heiress, such as was Margaret de Ripariis, great pressure was exercised,

wever, that he had as yet made any act of reparation for the terrible deed of pillage and murder committed on St. Vincent's Eve at St. Al

pretty heavily ere their fellow-townsfolk were restored to them. The chronicler, however, does not relate the fate of these unfortunate creatures thus hurried off to Bedford, but wha

te knowledge of the knight's dream does not transpire--he had seen a huge stone fall from the summit of the great central tower of St. Alban's Abbey--t

t may, however, he awoke with a great cry, and told the dream to Lady Margaret. The latter, as much alarmed as her husband, drew from him an account of his late raid,

all. The brief season of superstitious fear had passed away, and his usual condition of ferocity and self-will s

w, close to Bedford, Martin de Pateshulle, Archdeacon of Northampton, and the uncle of Aliva, was holding a series of special devotional services for women, or what we should now call a retreat, which was attended by many of the

thered to his rest. Indeed, had he still been alive, he could scarcely have continued in his office under the new régime. So chaplain at th

ey had removed many years before to the priory erected for them at Newenham by Roisia de Beauchamp, would have found just then an altar to serve. Only on certain occasions would her brutal husband permit Margaret to attend to her religious duties at the

ave gone many years with chapel unserved here. You know I have made of it a lumber-room; and

the shrine of St. Alban, and make reparation to the holy servants of St. Benedict t

usion to his weakness and te

ur sake with the knights and noble families round, and yo

his fearful dream had now vanished, he was well aware that his last raid, with its accompanying murders, was more than any decent-minded men could put up with, even in those rough and

you can for me. Say that the bailiff was burned by my men ere I got to the abbey gate, and that I knew naught of it till afterwards. You

nkfulness, the condition of lying imposed on the desired per

rey to be ready. Take one of your women with you, and I will order varlets to go attend you. I wou

, leaving his wife setting about her prep

ed, from a military point of view, he had considerably strengthened it by adding to its defences with the material he had robbed from St. Paul's. Within, it was well garrisoned and provisioned, and held by a force of nearly one hundred men-at-arms,

an hour or two after her interview with her husb

g the rough crew who garrisoned Bedford Castle, while her bright wit and merry laugh at times shed a brief ray of

ready fixed upon an officer in the royal army, one John de Standen, the king's miner, from the Forest of Dean. De Standen occupied an important post as director of th

ret confided to Beatrice the story of her lord's dream, congratulating herself on

ughts running rather on her lover than on this pious pilgrimage, "methinks to hurl down a sto

f the blessed saints!" r

taught that the holy Alban was a good soldier and true, like De Standen,

d the tall central tower of Elstow rising among the trees, a

my lord in his madness should attack the holy

ill certes one day pull down Bedford Castle over Sir Fulke's head; and w

g retreat, so that the conversation ran on between the two in the following somewhat disjointed fashion

up higher when we com

draw them down about our ea

eak of the holy church

abbey church; and yet, were it a castle, meth

ness of Holy Church, founded on the rock of the bless

's advances; for John has ofttimes explained to me how he

they rode through the abbey gateway,