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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Pabo, the Priest," Sabine Baring-Gould crafts a richly textured narrative set against the backdrop of early medieval Wales. The novel artfully weaves together themes of faith, identity, and cultural conflict, illustrating the life of Pabo, a character torn between his ecclesiastical duties and personal yearnings. Baring-Gould's literary style is distinguished by its vivid imagery and lyrical prose, evoking a deeply immersive world where ancient traditions clash with emerging Christian ideals. The book emerges from the broader literary context of Victorian historical fiction, where authors explored national identities and moral dilemmas within historical settings. Sabine Baring-Gould, a multifaceted figure as a clergyman, folklorist, and novelist, drew extensively from his rich academic background and passion for history. His life experiences, including his deep interest in folklore and the supernatural, profoundly influenced his writing. Baring-Gould's extensive travels throughout the UK further informed his understanding of regional customs and the intersection of faith and daily life, which culminate in the heartfelt depiction of Pabo's struggles. "Pabo, the Priest" is not just a historical novel; it is an invitation to explore the complexities of belief and tradition in a transformative era. Readers seeking a thoughtful exploration of the human spirit amid societal change will find Baring-Gould's work both enlightening and compelling. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Pabo, the Priest
Table of Contents
Introduction
Balancing the quiet, exacting claims of conscience against the clamorous demands of authority, Pabo, the Priest unfolds as a meditation on how spiritual duty can resist, temper, and sometimes redirect the currents of worldly power, inviting readers to consider the costs and necessities of moral leadership when communities face the twin pressures of fear and ambition and when the ideals of peacekeeping collide with the imperatives of justice, kinship, and survival, all within a narrative that treats faith not as a refuge from conflict but as a courageous, sometimes isolating, stance taken at the very heart of it.
Sabine Baring-Gould’s Pabo, the Priest is a historical novel by a Victorian author known for combining narrative drive with careful attention to period detail, and it first appeared in the late nineteenth century. The book situates readers in Britain’s distant past, a setting marked by shifting allegiances, emerging Christian institutions, and customary codes that govern both private life and public order. Rather than relying on spectacle, the novel anchors its drama in the everyday fabric of a community and the pressures that test it. Baring-Gould’s interest in early ecclesiastical life and local traditions informs the atmosphere without overwhelming the story’s human focus.
The premise is simple and compelling: a priest named Pabo, entrusted with the care of a vulnerable flock, finds his ministry drawing him into disputes among rival powers whose decisions will shape the safety and integrity of his people. Early chapters establish the rhythms of pastoral work, the social bonds that sustain the community, and the tensions—political, moral, and personal—that threaten to fray them. Readers encounter counsel and confrontation in equal measure, as Pabo weighs competing claims with patience and resolve. The experience is one of immersion in character-driven conflict, where choices are argued over painstakingly rather than settled by force alone.
Stylistically, Baring-Gould writes with measured clarity, attentive to custom, ritual, and landscape. The voice is reflective without turning abstract, moving between intimate interiors and broader scenes of negotiation and assembly. Dialogue carries ethical weight, and description does not merely embellish but situates action within a believable world of law, kinship, and religious practice. The mood is earnest and steady, with flashes of tenderness and gravity that heighten the stakes without courting melodrama. Readers who appreciate historical fiction that privileges texture and conviction over sensational twists will find the pacing purposeful, the stakes cumulative, and the tone dignified yet accessible.
At the forefront are themes of conscience under pressure, the responsibilities of leadership, and the delicate art of peacemaking in a divided society. The novel considers how religious commitment intersects with civic duty, asking what it means to protect the vulnerable when every choice carries costs. It probes the gap between law and mercy, private conviction and public obligation, and the ways traditions can both shelter and constrain. Baring-Gould frames sanctity not as withdrawal from the world but as sustained engagement with its ambiguities, suggesting that integrity often requires patient negotiation, principled resistance, and a willingness to bear misunderstanding for a greater good.
For contemporary readers, Pabo, the Priest resonates as a study in ethical leadership and communal resilience, inviting reflection on how to hold a community together when trust is fragile and interests collide. Its questions—what authority is for, how justice relates to reconciliation, and where courage shades into sacrifice—remain urgent. The book offers the intellectual appeal of moral argument and the emotional pull of characters tested by circumstance. It rewards readers who value historical settings as laboratories for perennial dilemmas, showing how faith-informed reasoning can inhabit public life without capitulating to faction, and how care can be enacted not as sentiment but as disciplined, difficult action.
Entering this novel is to join a sustained inquiry into the uses of power and the demands of care, conducted with the steadiness of a seasoned storyteller. Baring-Gould crafts a narrative that respects the gravity of its subject while maintaining the forward motion of a historical romance, inviting readers to watch as principle and pragmatism spar, converge, and reshape one another. Without rushing to resolution, the book builds tension through deliberation and choice, foregrounding character over spectacle. The result is an absorbing, quietly intense reading experience—one that lingers for the questions it raises and the measured, humane way it asks us to consider them.
Synopsis
Set in the late eleventh century on the Welsh borderlands, Pabo, the Priest opens with a portrait of a small, close-knit community bound by kinship, custom, and the rhythms of pastoral life. Pabo, a learned but practical parish priest, tends to souls and fields alike, serving as counselor, healer, and judge in minor disputes. The village church is a spiritual center and a place of refuge, upheld by ancient rights of sanctuary. Rumors of Norman advance drift in with traders and travelers, hinting at castles rising on river crossings and a new order pressing toward the hills, where old laws still hold sway.
The Normans arrive with their wooden towers, mailed horsemen, and written claims to land and obedience. A marcher lord asserts authority, calling the Welsh to render dues and oaths they do not recognize. Alongside secular change comes ecclesiastical reform: archdeacons and clerks with seals and canons urge a tighter discipline within the church. Pabo is drawn into this contact zone, respected by his people and noticed by the conquerors as a voice of influence. He seeks understanding at the new-built hall, measures the temper of the garrison, and returns wary, knowing negotiation will be necessary to spare his flock hardship.
Religious pressures sharpen. The reforming clergy insist on uniform practice, especially the celibacy of priests and the regulation of benefices. In Wales, hereditary and family-linked ministries remain common, and Pabo’s ties to his kin and parish are intimate and practical. Summoned to hear new ordinances, he confronts demands to sever bonds his people regard as honorable. The question is not simply private life but the texture of pastoral care and local rights. Pabo weighs obedience against duty to those who rely on him. The book shows him listening, questioning, and delaying, hoping that compromise can keep conscience and community intact.
A local dispute brings tensions to a head. Boundaries around the church lands are challenged by soldiers charged with securing revenue for the castle, and a hunted kinsman seeks sanctuary at Pabo’s door. The old law of refuge collides with the new insistence on order and punishment. Pabo stands before the threshold, appealing to custom and charity, while the castellan’s men cite written warrants. The confrontation does not yet explode into war, but it hardens attitudes on both sides. From that moment, every cartload of timber and every summons to the hall carries an undertone of threat the priest cannot ignore.
To prevent bloodshed, Pabo undertakes missions between village and stronghold. He passes through the gatehouse into a world of oaths, inventories, and careful rank, where some voices are sympathetic and others contemptuous. A thoughtful lady of the household and a clerk educated in Roman law listen to him, offering advice framed by their own assumptions. He discerns that misunderstanding sharpens conflict as much as malice. Rumor paints the Welsh as unruly; gossip brands their priests as self-indulgent. Back home, chiefs weigh pride and prudence, suspecting betrayal in every proposed compromise. Pabo’s credibility, so long unquestioned, begins to come under strain.
A sudden reversal tests the fragile equilibrium. A warrant is issued for a man under Pabo’s protection, and an unlucky skirmish gives the authorities pretext to act. Arrests follow, and Pabo’s interventions are interpreted as defiance. He faces choices with no painless outcomes: acquiesce and abandon those who depend on him, or resist and invite harsher reprisals. Winter closes in, food grows scarce, and watchfires flicker on ridges above the village. Even within the castle, factions disagree about how far to press the reforms and punishments. The priest’s effort to hold a middle line now demands personal risk and quiet sacrifice.
The narrative widens to show the building of a new society along the March. Motte-and-bailey forts anchor lordship; charters reshape tenure; fines replace feud. Welsh laws, bards, and saints’ days persist, but the frame tightens. Pabo moves through these changes, arguing for the minimums that define his people’s dignity—sanctuary honored, kinship acknowledged, sacred offices respected—while accepting what prudence requires. His counsel to elders and youths alike emphasizes patience and foresight, yet he refuses to bend where conscience would break. The story steadily juxtaposes institutional reform with lived custom, highlighting the strain placed upon a priest who is both shepherd and subject.
Matters culminate in a public reckoning. Leaders gather under truce to settle contested violations and to determine the shape of religious practice going forward. Arguments turn on law, precedent, and conscience, and Pabo speaks plainly for his parish, invoking both Scripture and local tradition. A volatile incident threatens to undo the fragile civility of the meeting, and swift decisions must be made. The outcome closes some avenues and opens others, altering Pabo’s station and the village’s standing. Without detailing the final act, the book presents a decisive choice whose moral weight reverberates across both Norman garrison and Welsh homestead.
In the aftermath, life resumes under a changed sky. The new order consolidates, yet it adapts, and the old ways retreat without vanishing. Ecclesiastical structures tighten, and the expectation of clerical discipline becomes more broadly enforced, even as pastoral realities temper the letter of reform. Pabo’s legacy is that of a bridge: a priest who shielded his people, translated power into terms they could endure, and upheld a core of justice amid conquest. The novel’s closing note affirms endurance rather than triumph, suggesting that identity survives through accommodation and memory, and that conscience can guide communities through unsettling transformations.
Historical Context
Set chiefly in late eleventh-century North Wales, the novel unfolds amid the tidal waters of the Menai Strait and the island landscape of Anglesey (Ynys Môn), within the broader polity of Gwynedd. This is a frontier world where Norman power presses from the east while Norse-Gaelic seafaring influences lap the coasts. Parochial life revolves around ancient clas churches and local saints’ cults, under the Diocese of Bangor. Rural kinship, cattle wealth, and customary law shape daily existence, yet castles and garrisons signal a new order. Baring-Gould’s setting evokes this contested shore, where a priest like Pabo mediates between community, crown, and cross-channel forces.
After 1066, the Norman Conquest of England rapidly spilled into Wales through Marcher lordship. William I sponsored aggressive campaigns and castle-building: Rhuddlan (c. 1073) under Robert of Rhuddlan secured the lower Clwyd; earls at Chester and Shrewsbury probed Gwynedd and Powys. In 1081 William advanced to St Davids, asserting overlordship while Welsh dynasts jostled for survival. These decades established the framework of feudal tenure, boroughs, and ecclesiastical oversight from Canterbury. The book mirrors this pressure on Welsh society, showing how parish life and customary authority strain under marcher exactions and fortification, and how a rural priest must navigate shifting jurisdictions and loyalties.
The general Welsh rising of 1094 followed years of Norman encroachment and fiscal demands. In the north, resistance built upon earlier shocks, notably the death of Robert of Rhuddlan on 3 July 1093 while fighting raiders near Deganwy. The revolt spread across Gwynedd and beyond, dismantling outlying garrisons and threatening marcher communications. Chroniclers record coordinated local action rather than a single leader, yet it prepared the ground for Gruffudd ap Cynan’s resurgence. The novel situates Pabo’s ministry within this volatility: a cleric caught between protection of his flock and the perils of rebellion, sheltering refugees and negotiating truces with embattled castellans.
The 1098 campaign culminated in the Battle of the Menai Strait, when Earl Hugh d’Avranches (Chester) and Earl Hugh of Montgomery (Shrewsbury) pressed into Gwynedd and overran Anglesey. King Magnus III “Barefoot” of Norway sailed in with a fleet, asserting Norwegian overlordship in the Isles. In a dramatic clash, Magnus’s archers famously struck down Hugh of Montgomery—an arrow through the eye—forcing Norman withdrawal. By 1099 Gruffudd ap Cynan returned from exile to reclaim Gwynedd. Baring-Gould draws on this episode’s spectacle—Norse longships in the tidal race, panicked evacuations, sanctuary in churches—to frame Pabo’s role as intercessor amid imperial rivalries.
Gruffudd ap Cynan (c. 1055–1137), with Irish Sea connections through Dublin and Man, consolidated power after 1099, restoring Gwynedd’s autonomy and stabilizing ecclesiastical life. His long reign encouraged rebuilding at Bangor and renewed patronage of clas communities, even as episcopal politics remained fraught. Welsh sea lanes to Dublin brought mercenaries and trade, but also raiders and hostages; alliances were pragmatic. The novel reflects this recalibration: Pabo’s parish reemerges from upheaval under Gruffudd’s protection, yet must accommodate tighter oversight, tribute, and occasional levies for coastal defense. The interplay of altar, hall, and harbor captures the practical theology of survival in Gwynedd.
Ecclesiastical reform pressed into Wales through Lanfranc (Archbishop of Canterbury, 1070–1089) and Anselm (1093–1109), aligning with wider Gregorian impulses. Reforms targeted simony, clerical marriage, and diocesan regularization, asserting Canterbury’s claims over Welsh sees such as Bangor, St Asaph, and St Davids. Bishops like Hervey le Breton at Bangor (c. 1092–1109) struggled amid warfare and Welsh resistance; canonical ideals met entrenched local custom. The book stages these tensions in parish microcosm: Pabo weighs sanctuary rights, marriage norms, and tithe disputes against reforming decrees, revealing how theology, law, and politics intertwined in decisions that could spare or doom a household.
The Irish Sea world shaped the period’s economy and violence. Godred Crovan (d. 1095) forged a Dublin–Man axis later claimed by Magnus Barefoot (1098–1103), while Chester’s merchants profited from the Chester–Dublin route. Slaving, ransom, and cattle-raiding destabilized coasts; norse-galley mobility outpaced land musters. Concurrently, marcher immunities—quasi-regal rights granted by the crown—empowered border earls to tax, fortify, and legislate, a system continued under Henry I after 1100. In the novel, ships in the Menai, tolls at river fords, and the hard justice of borough courts embody these pressures. Pabo’s pastoral diplomacy engages traders, reeves, and sea-kings alike.
By foregrounding a parish priest in a marcher frontier, the book critiques conquest’s moral costs: arbitrary exactions, collective punishments, and the instrumentalization of the Church. It exposes class divides between castle and cottage, and the vulnerability of customary Welsh law when confronted by feudal privilege and foreign fleets. Reformist ideals arrive cloaked in power, revealing hypocrisies when discipline eclipses charity. Through disputes over tithes, sanctuary, and forced oaths of fealty, the narrative indicts governance that neglects the poor in favor of tribute and display. Pabo’s insistence on mediation and mercy functions as a political theology against dominion by sword and charter.
Pabo, the Priest
I. — GERALD
KING HENRY sat in a great chair with a pillow under each arm, and one behind his head resting on the lofty chair-back. He was unwell, uncomfortable, irritable.
In a large wicker-work cage at the further end of the room was a porcupine. It had been sent him as a present by the King of Denmark.
Henry Beauclerk[1] was fond of strange animals, and the princes that desired his favor humored him by forwarding such beasts and birds as they considered to be rare and quaint.
The porcupine was a recent arrival, and it interested the King as a new toy, and drew his thoughts away from himself.
He had occasion to be irritable. His leech had ordered him to eat salt pork only.
By his hand, on the table, stood a ewer and a basin, and ever and anon Henry poured water out of the ewer into the basin, and then with a huge wooden spoon ladled the liquid back into the receiver. The reason of the proceeding was this—
He had for some time been troubled with some internal discomfort—not serious, but annoying; one which we, nowadays, would interpret very differently from the physicians of the twelfth century. We should say that he was suffering from dyspepsia; but the Court leech, who diagnosed the condition of the King, explained it in other fashion.
He said that Henry had inadvertently drunk water that contained the spawn of a salamander. It had taken many months for the spawn to develop into a sort of tadpole, and the tadpole to grow into a salamander. Thus the reptile had attained large size, and was active, hungry, and rampageous. Beauclerk had a spotted salamander within him, which could not be extracted by a forceps, as it was out of reach; it could not be poisoned, as that medicament which would kill the brute might also kill the King. It must, therefore, be cajoled to leave its prison. Unless this end were achieved the son of the Conqueror of England would succumb to the ravages of this internal monster.
The recipe prescribed was simple, and commended itself to the meanest[2] intelligence. Henry was to eat nothing but highly salted viands, and was to drink neither wine, water, nor ale. However severely he might suffer from thirst he could console himself with the reflection that the sufferings of the salamander within him were greater—a poor comfort, yet one that afforded a measure of relief to a man of a vindictive mind.
Not only was he to eat salt meat, but he was also to cause the splash of water to be heard in his insides. Therefore he was to pour water forwards and backwards between the ewer and the basin; and this was to be done with gaping mouth, so that the sound might reach the reptile, and the salamander would at length be induced to ascend the throat of the monarch and make for the basin, so as to drink. Immediately on the intruder leaving the body of the King, Henry was to snap it up with a pair of tongs, laid ready to hand, and to cast it into the fire.
Although the season was summer and the weather was warm, there burned logs on the hearth, emitting a brisk blaze.
There were in the room in the palace of Westminster others besides the King and the imprisoned salamander. Henry had sent into South Wales for Gerald de Windsor and his wife Nest. These two were now in the chamber with the sick King.
"There, Nest," said he, "look at yon beast. Study it well. It is called a porcupine. Plinius asserts—I think it is Plinius—that when angered he sets all his quills in array and launches one at the eyes of such as threaten or assail him. Therefore, when I approach the cage, I carry a bolster before me as a buckler."
"Prithee, Sire, when thou didst go against the Welsh last year, didst thou then as well wear a bolster?"
"Ah," said the King, "you allude to the arrow that was aimed at me, and which would have transfixed me but for my hauberk. That was shot by no Welshman."
"Then by whom?"
"Odds life, Nest, there be many who would prefer to have the light and lax hand of Robert over them than mine, which is heavy, and grips tightly."
"Then I counsel, when thou warrest against the Welsh, wear a pillow strapped behind as well as one before."
"Nest! Thy tongue is sharp as a spine of the porcupine. Get thee gone into the embrasure, and converse with the parrot there. Gerald and I have some words to say to each other, and when I have done with him, then I will speak with thee."
The lady withdrew into the window. She was a beautiful woman, known to be the most beautiful in Wales. She was the daughter of Rhys, King of Dyfed—that is, South Wales, and she had been surrendered when quite young as a hostage to Henry. He had respected neither her youth nor her helpless position away from her natural protectors. Then he had thrust her on Gerald of Windsor, one of the Norman adventurers who were turned loose on Wales to be the oppressors, the plunderers, and the butchers of Nest's own people.
Nest had profuse golden hair, and a wonderful complexion of lilies and roses, that flashed, even flamed with emotion. Her eyes were large and deep, under dark brows, and with long dark lashes that swept her cheeks and veiled her expressive eyes when lowered. She was tall and willowy, graceful in her every movement. In her eyes, usually tremulous and sad, there scintillated a lurking fire—threats of a blaze, should she be angered. When thrown into the arms of Gerald, her wishes had not been consulted. Henry had desired to be rid of her, as an encumbrance, as soon as he resolved on marrying Mathilda, the heiress of the Saxon kings, daughter of Malcolm of Scotland, and niece to Edgar Etheling. At one time he had thought of conciliating the Welsh by making Nest his wife. Their hostility would cease when the daughter of one of their princes sat on the English throne. But on further consideration, he deemed it more expedient for him to attach to him the English, and so rally about him a strong national party against the machinations of his elder brother, Robert. This concluded, he had disposed of Nest, hurriedly, to the Norman Gerald.
Meanwhile, her brother, Griffith, despoiled of his kingdom, a price set on his head, was an exile and a refugee at the Court of the King of Gwynedd, or North Wales, at Aberfraw in Anglesey.
"Come now, Gerald, what is thy report? How fares it with the pacification of Wales?"
"Pacification, Lord King! Do you call that pacifying a man when you thrash his naked body with a thorn-bush?"
"If you prefer the term—subjugation."
"The word suits. Sire, it was excellent policy, as we advanced, to fill in behind us with a colony of Flemings. The richest and fattest land has been cleared of the Welsh and given to foreigners. Moreover, by this means we have cut them off from access to the sea, from their great harbors. It has made them mad. Snatch a meal from a dog, and he will snarl and bite. Now we must break their teeth and cut their claws. They are rolled back among their tangled forests and desolate mountains."
"And what advance has been made?"
"I have gone up the Towy and have established a castle at Carreg Cennen, that shall check Dynevor if need be."
"Why not occupy Dynevor, and build there?"
Gerald looked askance at his wife. The expression of his face said more than words. She was trifling with the bird, and appeared to pay no attention to what was being said.
"I perceive," spoke Henry, and chuckled.
Dynevor had been the palace in which Nest's father, the King of South Wales, had held court. It was from thence that her brother Griffith had been driven a fugitive to North Wales.
"In Carreg Cennen there is water—at Dynevor there is none," said Gerald, with unperturbed face.
"A good reason," laughed Henry, and shifted the pillow behind his head. "Hey, there, Nest! employ thy energies in catching of flies. Methinks were I to put a bluebottle in my mouth, the buzzing might attract the salamander, and I would catch him as he came after it." Then to Gerald, "Go on with thine account."
"I have nothing further to say—than this."
He put forth his hand and took a couple of fresh walnuts off a leaf that was on the table. Then, unbidden, he seated himself on a stool, with his back to the embrasure, facing the King. Next he cracked the shells in his fist, and cast the fragments into the fire. He proceeded leisurely to peel the kernels, then extended his palm to Henry, offering one, but holding his little and third finger over the other.
"I will have both," said Beauclerk.
"Nay, Sire, I am not going to crack all the nutshells, and you eat all the kernels."
"What mean you?"
"Hitherto I and other adventurers have risked our lives, and shed our blood in cracking the castles of these Welsh fellows, and now we want something more, some of the flesh within. Nay, more. We ask you to help us. You have done nothing."
"I led an army into Wales last summer," said Henry angrily.
"And led it back again," retorted Windsor drily. "Excuse my bluntness. That was of no advantage whatsoever to us in the south. Your forces were not engaged. It was a promenade through Powys. As for us in the south, we have looked for help and found none since your great father made a pilgrimage to St. David. Twice to Dewi is as good as once to Rome, so they say. He went once to look around him and to overawe those mountain wolves."
"What would you have done for you?" inquired Henry surlily.
"Not a great thing for you; for us—everything."
"And that?"
"At this moment a chance offers such as may not return again in our time. If what I propose be done, you drive a knife into the heart of the enemy, and that will be better than cutting off his fingers and toes and slicing away his ears. It will not cost you much, Sire—not the risk of an arrow. Naught save the stroke of a pen."
"Say what it is."
"The Bishop of St. David's is dead, a Welsh prelate, and the Church there has chosen another Welshman, Daniel, to succeed him. Give the see to an Englishman or a Norman, it matters not which—not a saint, but a fellow on whom you can rely to do your work and ours."
"I see not how this will help you," said Henry, with his eye on the hard face of Gerald, which was now becoming animated, so that the bronze cheek darkened.
"How this will help us!" echoed Windsor. "It will be sovereign as help. See you, Sire! We stud the land with castles[1q], but we cannot be everywhere. The Welsh have a trick of gathering noiselessly in the woods and glens and drawing a ring about one of our strongholds, and letting no cry for assistance escape. Then they close in and put every Englishman therein to the sword—if they catch a Fleming, him they hang forthwith. We know not that a castle has been attacked and taken till we see the clouds lit up with flame. When we are building, then our convoys are intercepted, our masons are harassed, our limekilns are destroyed, our cattle carried off, our horses houghed, and our men slaughtered."
"But what will a bishop avail you in such straits?"
"Attend! and you shall hear. A bishop who is one of ourselves and not a Welshman drains the produce of the land into English pockets. He will put an Englishman into every benefice, that in every parish we may have a spy on their actions, maintained by themselves. There is the joke of it. We will plant monasteries where we have no castles, and stuff them with Norman monks. A bishop will find excuses, I warrant you, for dispossessing the native clergy, and of putting our men into their berths. He will do more. He will throw such a net of canon law over the laity as to entangle them inextricably in its meshes, and so enable us, without unnecessary bloodshed, to arrogate their lands to ourselves."
Henry laughed.
"Give us the right man. No saint with scruples."
"'Sdeath!" exclaimed the King; "I know the very man for you."
"And he is?"
"Bernard, the Queen's steward."
"He is not a clerk!"
"I can make him one."
"He is married!"
"He can cast off his wife—a big-mouthed jade. By my mother's soul, he will be glad to purchase a bishopric so cheap."
"He is no saint?"
