needs proof) that the days of chivalry were far from being
days of honesty. But they also shew, what the reader may not be equally
prepared to see, that among these plunderers was Henry himself, the
Conqueror's youngest son, who did not scruple to lay waste the lands
given to the abbey by his mother; and who, as the Abbe de la Rue
remarks, had probably, even at that early period, conceived the
intention of seizing upon his paternal territory, and might be engaged
in the amassing of those pecuniary resources, by the aid of which he
ultimately succeeded in his usurpation of the throne.

Among the possessions of the abbey of the Holy Trinity, were several
estates[52] and advowsons in England; for the better administration of
which, the presence of the abbess was occasionally required on this side
of the water. The names of more than one of the holy ladies are on
record, who honored our island with their presence. The journal of the
tour of the abbess, Georgette du Molley Bacon, states her to have
embarked at Caen, on the sixteenth of August, 1570, with fifteen persons
in her suite, and to have landed in London, and proceeded to her
manor-house at Felsted, in Essex, from which she did not return to
Normandy till Trinity-Sunday in the following year.

Hence it may be easily inferred, that the rules of the convent were not
of the strictest description. The establishment indeed was, from its
origin, under the regulation of the order of St. Benedict, but the nuns,
though they lived under the same roof, were not bound by vows: they were
accustomed to receive their friends in their own apartments; and many of
them had nieces or other relations with them, whom they brought up. The
refectory was common; and they ate meat several days in the week. There
were also stated times, on which it was allowable for them to take the
air in a garden at a short distance from the convent. The abbess herself
had her Country-house at Oistreham, where she frequently resided; and
upon the occasion of those festivals which are distinguished by public
processions, the whole body of the community used to go in procession to
each of the different churches of Caen. Sometimes too the abbess
attended with a party of her nuns at the performance of any mystery or
similar scenical representation. The account of the revenues of the
monastery in 1423, shews how Nicole de Rupalley, then abbess, was
present at the acting of the _Miracle of St. Vincent_, and rewar