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Updated: June 22, 2025
"Etienne de Malville et Aescendune, enter!" cried the herald of the court. And Etienne appeared, dressed in sable mourning, and bowed before the throne. He was pale, too, if that sallow colour, which olive-like complexions like his assume when wrought upon, can be called pale.
"And are we to leave Aescendune to the foe?" "Nay, this accursed monument of Norman tyranny, this castle shall fall, the flames shall consume it this night, and we will give every house, barn, and stable to the flames also. The Normans shall find poor lodgings for man and beast when they come tomorrow.
"Oh for an hour to repent! oh for a priest! My sins have found me out." A sudden gust of wind opened a passage through the smoke, and revealed in the lurid light of the flames Wilfred of Aescendune!
I have to tell of rebellion and sacrilege; our English vassals have risen against us, and my brave father has fallen by their hands; our castle is in their holding, and they have driven the brethren of St. Benedict homeless from their monastery." "And who has dared this deed?" "Wilfred, son of the rebel who fell at Senlac." "Wilfred of Aescendune!
We last beheld him a boy of twelve, at the date of Elfric's arrival at the court of Edred. By his side rode Siward, Ealdorman of Northumbria. "Who is this?" cried the latter, as he saw Alfred and his attendant waiting to receive him. "Alfred of Aescendune, with a petition for aid against Redwald, who has seized his father's castle." "Alfred of Aescendune!" cried Edgar.
"Yes!" he said in soliloquy, "and here I am at last; here in the halls which should have been his and mine, and shall be mine yet; here! and they know it not; here! and the reward of years of patient endurance is at hand; here! yes, here, in the halls of Aescendune dreamed of, sighed after, prayed for at the shrine of such gods as promise vengeance; here, by Woden and Thor; here by Satan's help, if there be a Satan! here! here! here!"
"In the name of the descendant of him who first founded this priory of Wilfred, thane of Aescendune." "Ye mock us; he is dead." "Nay, he lives," said a voice, and our youthful hero appeared on the scene, and addressed the astonished monk. "Prior, go forth from the house thou and thy brethren have usurped, and make way for the true owners.
They saw their warriors cast many a longing lingering look behind, and then the woodland hid them from sight; and a dread quiet came down upon Aescendune, as when the air is still before the coming hurricane.
He fell in battle with the Britons, or Welshmen as our ancestors called them, leaving sons valiant as their sire, to whom were given the fertile lands lying between the river Avon and the mighty midland forests, to which they gave the name "Aescendune."
The brother left the cell at once, and soon returned, ushering in Father Cuthbert and Alfred, who saluted the great churchman with all due humility, and waited for him to speak, not without much evident uneasiness; perhaps some little impatience was also manifest. "Are you of the house of Aescendune, my son?" enquired Dunstan of Alfred.
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