him vigorously, urging public
opinion and his own old weak state. At last he promised that he would go
home and talk with Agnes, and report the next day, and if he found these
things so, would obey orders. "Do so," said the bishop, "but know that
if you bate your promise, the sentence of excommunication will strike
solemnly and fearfully all the doers and abetters of this wrong." But
Agnes' tongue outdid the bishop's, and Thomas sulked indoors. The bishop
preached about this in public, on the Easter Monday, and said it was a
sin unto death. He then knotted the cord of anathema round the daring
conspirators. Satan was soon up and at Thomas. He wrenched away the soul
of the unhappy knight, who had gone to bed to escape the worry, and
there died a sad example to wife-ruled husbands. Agnes, however, defied
them all and braved out her story; and here is the crux: the infant was
legally legitimate because Thomas had acknowledged it to be such. King
Richard allowed little Grace, aged four, to be betrothed to Adam, a
brother of Hugh de Neville, his chief forestar. Hugh, who was always at
war with child marriages, issued a special _caveat_ in this case. But
when he was away in Normandy they found a priest (a fool or bribed) to
tie the knot. The priest was suspended and the rest excommunicated. In
the next act the chambermaid confessed; and lastly Agnes' nerve gave
way, and she did the same. But Adam still claimed the lands, won a suit
in London, although William bid five hundred marks against him, and died
drunk at an inn, with his baby bride. Hugh's comment was that "the name
forestar is right and aptly given, for they will stand far from the
kingdom of God." But the little heiress was again hunted into marriage,
this time by a valet of John's, Norman of the chamber, who bought her
for two hundred marks. He died, and the little girl was sold for three
hundred marks to Brien de Insula, a man known to history. Grace at the
last died childless, though she seems to have been a pious wife; and
Saleby came back at the last to William's long defrauded line.

Yet another forestar also under ban found some men in his forest cutting
brush-wood, handled them insolently and was cut to pieces and stuck
together again with twigs and left at the cross roads.

Again a deacon, Richard de Waure, quarrelled with a knight, Reginald de
Argentun, and maliciously accused him of treason. The bishop forbade the
suit, but the deacon danced off to my lor