"
So the Norman Prior and his monks shut their gates and remained,
while through the forest road the men-at-arms escorted all the
women and children of the village, the interlopers who had taken
the place of the banished English, towards the town of Warwick, and
its famous castle, where Henry de Beauchamp had recently been
appointed governor by the Conqueror, the first Norman Earl of
Warwick, and the ancestor of a famous line of warriors. We have
already met his countess at Aescendune, on the occasion of the
dedication of the new priory.
The Normans had all left the castle and village before sunset,
leaving the gates open and the drawbridge down, as they expressly
said that the English might be under no temptation to devastate a
place which must soon be in their hands again.
The castle lay empty and deserted for an hour or two; the cattle,
too many to be removed, began to low and bleat because they missed
their customary attention; only in the Priory of St. Denys did
things go on as usual; there the bells rang out for vespers and
compline, and the foreign brethren went on their way as if the
events of the day had no importance for them.
It was already nightfall, when the forests gave up hundreds of
armed men from their dark shade, who poured down like a torrent
upon Aescendune, and directed their course towards the castle,
where they were somewhat astonished to find the drawbridge down,
the gates open.
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