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Updated: May 24, 2025
The dog, as he re-entered the castle, called attention to some pieces of blood-stained rag, which, from their appearance, had dropped from his mouth; one of these, the innermost, was in texture and pattern evidently part of a Syrian garment. The Lady Alianore did not die under this dreadful calamity: she lived to mourn.
The knight was interred within the precinct of the Abbey Church of Gloucester; his tomb and effigy were in a niche at an angle of the cloisters. Here would Alianore continually come, accompanied by Leo, who, since his master's death, never left her side; here would she stop, fixedly gazing upon the monument, the tear in her eye, and the chill of hopeless sorrow in her heart.
The knight lay dead upon the green sward by the side of the highway; a poignard which had effected the mortal wound, still rested fixed into his back. His body was locked fast in the embrace of the Lady Alianore, who lay senseless upon it: the dog stood by, howling piteously. No trace could be discovered of who had done the deed.
The Lady Alianore, somewhat tall in stature, but perfect in form, has a face of dazzling beauty, yet the bewitching sweetness of her smile is tempered by a certain dignity of countenance, to which her dark, raven hair, and darker eyes, do not a little contribute; her hands, and the foot that peeps from beneath, her graceful robe, are of exquisite smallness, and bespeak the purest Norman blood.
About two years after the knight had been dead, the Lady Alianore was one morning departing through the cloisters from a visit to the tomb, when her attention was suddenly arrested by a low growl from the dog who accompanied her. She turned back, and saw two persons in the garb of foreign merchants or traders, the one pointing out to the other the knight's monumental effigy.
The baron and the chaplain started up. "It is Leo, Sir Ralph's dog," exclaimed the former, "what in God's name can be the matter?" and the two rushed out. The Lady Alianore, at her orisons above, heard the same terrible howl and bark.
The glory of his reputation, and the graces of his person, gained her heart at once; the Lady Alianore, though much his junior in years, loved the knight fondly and devotedly.
The Baron de Botetourt, with the assent of the crown, caused the two miscreants to be hanged upon a gibbet on the summit of his castle, their turbans tied to their heels. Leo, as if he had nothing more to live for, soon after pined and died. The Lady Alianore, retired into a convent, and eventually became its abbess.
These go back to the early Norrnan days, long before Edward III. made James Butler Earl of Ormonde, upon his marriage with Alianore of England, granddaughter of Edward I. The Butlers came into Ireland with Henry II., and John gave them estates, the charters of some of which, with the seals annexed, are here preserved.
"A moment, my worthiest of friends, and I am with you," said the knight, as he hurried by: in another instant the Lady Alianore was in his embrace. Need we repeat the oft-told tale of love? Need we describe the day of delight Sir Ralph passed in the castle, lingering from hour to hour until the dusk?
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