KING EDWARD'S AMBASSAGE ad. 



c. 1056. 

 per loca, pestilentiam & famem, terrores de coelo & 

 signa magna, regnorum mutationes, gentilium in Chris- 

 tianos bella, item Christicolarum in paganos victorias. 

 Talia mirantibus inculcans passionem septem dormien- 

 tium, & habitudines corporum singulorum, quas nulla 

 docet litera, ita prompte disseruit : ac si cum eis 

 quotidiano victitaret contubernio. His auditis, comes 

 militem, episcopus clericum, abbas monachum, ad 

 veritatem verborum exsculpendam, Manicheti Constan- 

 tinopolitano imperitori misere, adjectis regis sui literis 

 & muneribus. Eos ille benigne secum habitos episcopo 

 Ephesi destinavit, epistola pariter, quam sacram vocant, 

 comitante : ut ostenderentur legatis regis Anglias septem 

 dormientium marturiales exuviae. Factumque est ut 

 vaticinium regis Edwardi Graecis omnibus comprobatum, 

 qui se a patribus accepisse jurarent, super dextrum illos 

 latus quiescere : sed post introitum Anglorum in 

 speluncam, veritatem peregrinae prophetiae contuber- 

 nalibus suis pr^dicarunt. Nee moram festinatio malorum 

 fecit, quin Agareni, & Arabes, & Turci, alienae scilicet 

 a Christo gentes, Syriam, & Lyciam, & minorem Asiam 

 omnino, & majoris multas urbes, inter quas & Ephe- 

 sum, ipsam etiam Hierosolymam depopulati, super 

 Christianos invaderent. 



The same in English. 



UPon Easter day king Edward the Confessour being 

 crowned with his kingly diademe, and accompanied 

 with divers of his nobles, sate at dinner in his pallace 

 at Westminster. And when others, after their long 

 abstinence in the Lent, refreshed themselves with dainty 

 meats, and fed thereupon very earnestly, he lifting up 

 his mind from earthly matters and meditating on 

 heavenly visions (to the great admiration of those 

 which were present) brake forth into an exceeding 

 laughter : and no man presuming to enquire the cause 

 of his mirth, they all kept silence til dinner was ended. 

 But after dinner as hee was in his bed-chamber putting 



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