Britons and Celts

A Puissant Priest

Once, indeed, it happened that this pontiff, meeting with a repulse from the king relative to some petition which he had urged, angrily turned his back in retiring, and threatened him with a curse instead of a blessing. The king, unable to bear his displeasure, fell at his feet, entreating forgiveness, and promising amendment.” […]

Britons and Celts

Opening Arthur’s Tomb

“Beneath it there was a stone slab, with a leaden cross attached to its underside. I have seen this cross myself and I have traced the lettering which read as follows: HERE IN THE ISLE OF AVALON LIES BURIED THE RENOWNED KING ARTHUR, WITH GUINERERE, HIS SECOND WIFE.” […]

Britons and Celts

The Last King of the Angles

“Gurth saw the English falling around, and that there was no remedy. He saw his race hastening to ruin, and despaired of any aid; he would have fled, but could not, for the throng continually increased.” […]

Britons and Celts

No Respect in Death

“After every gentle shower, there exudes real, and as it were recent, blood, as though it were evidently proclaiming by this circumstance, that the voice of so much Christian gore still cries to the Lord from the ground, which hath opened her mouth, and drunk in that blood at the hands of Christian brethren.” […]

Britons and Celts

Demonic Efficiency

“When he left they questioned him closely and asked him who he really was. He said that he had been born to some rustic bedlam in the same parish, fathered on her by an incubus who had appeared in the shape of her husband.” […]

Britons and Celts

A Picture of Victory

“You are surely not fitly placed here among the dead. Many an Englishman lies bloody and mingled with the dead, but yet sound, or only wounded and besmeared with gore; tarrying of his own accord, and meaning to rise at night, and escape in the darkness. They would delight to take their revenge, and would sell their lives dearly; no one of them caring who killed him afterwards, if he but slew a Norman first; for they say we have done them much wrong.” […]

Britons and Celts

The Archbishop Who Refused to Have Sex

“When confined by sickness, he was ordered by his physicians, as the sole means of removing his disorder, to partake of sexual intercourse. His friends pressed him to comply, alleging that God could not possibly be offended, as he did it merely as a remedy, and not for sensual gratification.” […]

Britons and Celts

Death and then Dishonor

“All marvelled that this great king, who had conquered so much, and won so many cities, and so many castles, could not call so much land his own as his body might lie within after death.” […]

Britons and Celts

An Obituary for the Ages

“The man, indeed, who had been hired, at great expense, to extract the brain, became infected, as it is said, from the intolerable stench, and died; and thus, as the body of the departed Elisha reanimated the dead, so Henry’s dead body gave death to the living.” […]