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He took up the parchment that he had shewn me before. It was a grant of the manors of Eastdean to Erpwald, gained by those means of utmost craft whereby the king thought that indeed the last of our line had perished by other hands than those of the heathen thane. "Honest and straightforward and Christian-like is this young Erpwald," the king said.
But though here as everywhere the spirit explains the processes, and the processes cannot even plausibly explain the spirit, these processes involve two very practical points, without which we cannot understand how this great popular civilization was created or how it was destroyed. What we call the manors were originally the villae of the pagan lords, each with its population of slaves.
Sometimes, in remembrances of my father, I would wonder into whose hands the manors had passed, but rather in hopes that some day those who owned them now would suffer me to see that the grave where he lay was honoured, rather than as a matter which at all concerned me in any closer way.
Lord Aylesbury, the proprietor of Marlborough Forest, possessed very extensive estates and large manors round this district, almost the whole of which he made one large preserve of game; but, as it was necessary that he should keep his tools, the members of the corporation of his rottenest of rotten close boroughs, Marlborough, in good humour, he allotted one small manor, at a distance of several miles from his principal preserve, where all his tenants and the inhabitants of the town of Marlborough and their friends, were allowed to shoot and sport without interruption, whenever they pleased.
You are modern enough to laugh at it; I am not; and I still continue faithful to my Classons and Cuyps and Vetchens and Suydams; and to all that they stand for in Manhattan the rusty vestiges of by-gone pomp and fussy circumstance the memories that cling to the early lords of the manors, the old Patroons, and titled refugees all this I still cling to even to their shabbiness and stupidity and bad manners.
Even the private domains of the cloistered Emperor himself, to say nothing of the manors of the courtiers, were freely entered and plundered, so that public indignation reached a high pitch. The umbrage thus engendered was accentuated by treachery.
"And we do hereby for Us, Our Heirs and Successors, give and grant full authority and free license to them and their successors, by the name aforesaid, to have, take, receive, purchase, acquire, hold, possess, enjoy, and retain, to and for the use of the said College, notwithstanding any statutes or statute of mortmain, any manors, rectories, advowsons, messuages, lands, tenements, rents, hereditaments of what kind, nature, or quality soever, so as that the same do not exceed, in yearly value, the sum of £6000 above all charges; and, moreover, to take, purchase, acquire, have, hold, enjoy, receive, possess and retain, notwithstanding any such statutes or statute to the contrary, all or any goods, chattels, charitable and other contributions, gifts and benefactions whatsoever; and that the said Governors, Principal and Fellows, and their successors, by the same name, shall and may be able and capable in law to sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded, answer and be answered, in all or any Court or Courts of record, or places of judicature within Our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Our said Province of Lower Canada and other Our Dominions, and in all and singular actions, causes, pleas, suits, matters, and demands whatsoever, of what kind and nature or sort soever, in as large, ample, and beneficial a manner and form as any other body politic or corporate, or any other Our liege subjects being persons able and capable in law, may or can have, take, purchase, receive, hold, possess, enjoy, retain, sue, implead, or answer, in any manner whatsoever.
"I think your father has some property in shire, and you probably can give me a little information as to certain estates of a Mr. Thornhill, estates which, on examination of the title-deeds, I find once, indeed, belonged to your family." The baron glanced at a very elegant memorandum-book. "The manors of Rood and Dulmansberry, with sundry farms thereon. Mr.
Now since those days you have grown rich with your fishing fleets, your wool mart, and your ferry dues at Walberswick and Southwold. We, too, are rich in manors and land, counting our acres by the thousand, but yet poor, lacking your gold, though yonder manor" and she pointed to some towers which rose far away above the trees upon the high land "has many mouths to feed.
"As for me, it is no new thing that I should be a winter abroad, and my folk have long ceased to trouble much about me. I am twenty-five, and took to the sea when I was seventeen. Well, if Heidrek has spoilt this voyage, we can afford it. Luck has been with me so far. If I win home again it is but to start fresh with a new ship, or settle down on the old manors in the way of my forebears."
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