Even yet, in spite of the
broken and mouldering stone, there is a calmness of repose about
that face which is simply wonderful.
It has been our task to call them both back to life--knight and
prior, and to make them live in our pages. Pardon us, gentle
readers, for the imperfect way in which we have fulfilled it.
Thus ends the Third and last Chronicle of Aescendune.
i Ordericus Vitalis, lib. iv. 523.
ii William of Malmesbury.
iii Sassenach equals Saxon.
iv It seems strange how such a misconception could ever have
arisen and coloured English literature to so great an extent, for
if we turn to the pages of the contemporaneous historians, such as
Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmesbury, Florence of Worcester,
Ordericus Vitalis--born within the century of the Conquest--we find
that they all describe the Anglo-Saxons as English, not Saxons.
v See the Second Chronicle, chapter VI.
vi Genealogy of Aescendune.
The reader may be glad to have the genealogy of the family, in whom
it has been the author's aim to interest him, placed clearly before
him. The following table includes the chief names in the three
Chronicles; the date of decease is given in each case.
Offa, 940.
* Oswald, 937.
+ Ragnar, 959.
* Ella, 959.
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