r this comfortable and decent fashion of
night-gear was abandoned; and our forefathers, Saxon and Norman, went to
bed in puris naturalibus, like the Laplanders.

[63] Most of the chroniclers merely state the parentage within the
forbidden degrees as the obstacle to William's marriage with Matilda; but
the betrothal or rather nuptials of her mother Adele with Richard III.
(though never consummated), appears to have been the true canonical
objection.--See note to Wace, p. 27. Nevertheless, Matilda's mother,
Adele, stood in the relation of aunt to William, as widow of his father's
elder brother, "an affinity," as is observed by a writer in the
"Archaeologia," "quite near enough to account for, if not to justify, the
interference of the Church."--Arch. vol. xxxii. p. 109.

[64] It might be easy to show, were this the place, that though the
Saxons never lost their love of liberty, yet that the victories which
gradually regained the liberty from the gripe of the Anglo-Norman kings,
were achieved by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. And even to this day, the
few rare descendants of that race (whatever their political faction),
will generally exhibit that impatience of despotic influence, and that
disdain of corruption, which characterise the homely bonders of Norway,
in whom we may still recognise the sturdy likeness of their fathers;
while it is also remarkable that the modern inhabitants of those portions
of the kingdom originally peopled by their kindred Danes, are,
irrespective of mere party divisions, noted for their intolerance of all
oppression, and their resolute independence of character; to wit,
Yorkshire, Norfolk, Cumberland, and large districts in the Scottish
Lowlands.

[65] Ex pervetusto codice, MS. Chron. Bec. in Vit. Lanfranc, quoted in
the "Archaeologia," vol. xxxii. p. 109. The joke, which is very poor,
seems to have turned upon pede and quadrupede; it is a little altered in
the text.

[66] Ord. Vital. See Note on Lanfranc, at the end of the volume.

[67] Siward was almost a giant (pene gigas statures). There are some
curious anecdotes of this hero, immortalised by Shakspere, in the Bromton
Chronicle. His grandfather is said to have been a bear, who fell in love
with a Danish lady; and his father, Beorn, retained some of the traces of
the parental physiognomy in a pair of pointed ears. The origin of this
fable seems evident. His grandfather was a Berserker; for whether that
name be derived, as is