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mously passed wliich banished all tbe Normans from England as enemies to 

 the public peace, favourers of discord, and calumniators of the English to their 

 King ; but there were a few who were allowed to remain and retain their em- 

 ployments, amongst them being Raulfe, Eicardus Fitz Scrob, and his father- 

 in-law, Robert the Dragon. How they repaid this hospitality will be seen. 

 After a while Godv»'in died, which was a great loss to the English people, as 

 the policy which he advocated opposed the interest of the Normans in this 

 country. His advice was not followed, aJid the residt was the Norman con- 

 quest. In 1054 another great loss befel the English in the death of the 

 veteran Siward. Thierry says that Harold now stood first among the brave 

 and powerful men of England. He appear.s to have been active in body and 

 mind, and to have compelled the Welsh, who, encouraged by the bad defence 

 of the Frenchmen Raulfe and Ricardus Fitz Scrob and their foreign soldiers 

 cantoned in this district, made about this time several irruptions into England, 

 to retire within their ancient limits. Now during the time between 10.52 and 

 1006, when this invasion took place, this Richard Fitz Scrob was engaged in 

 intrigues with the banished Normans for their return and reinstatement. He 

 with his French soldiers fortified himseK in this amongst other Herefordshire 

 castles, and made frequent sallies upon the neighbouring towns and villages, 

 endeavouring to force them to submit to William, but he was driven out of this 

 district within three months of William's departure from Normandy by a body 

 of Saxons and Welsh, under the command of Edric, the son of Alfric. But 

 it was of little avail ; the Normans returned with overpowering force, and the 

 erection of Ludlow Castle about the year 1070 brought this country to rest, 

 except from the Welsh. I know but little more of the Castle and its fortunes 

 until the time of the Parliamentary wars, when it was the property of Major 

 Richard Salwey, a man of considerable ability as a soldier and politician, and 

 of some influence in the State. (The lecturer here handed in a letter 

 from Oliver Cromwell). The Royalists got into the Castle and he'd it 

 at one time, but were forcibly dispossessed by the Parliamentarians, who took 

 it by surprise and dismantled it. Richard's Castle Church is remarkable as 

 being one of the instances in which the tower is separated from the body of 

 the church. Some portion of the church appears to be of the fourteenth century, 

 as is shown by the existence of the ball flower in one of the windows. In ancient 

 times a fair was held at Richard's Castle, but it has now become obsolete. I 

 have heard some of the older peasantry speak of a house in the village, known 

 as the toll-house, through which a footpath ran. A few moments since we 

 were speaking of Oliver Cromwell, and it is but one mental step to bring us to 

 his secretary, John Milton. In Milton we are this day specially interested, 

 as we are on the scene of his great Masque of Comus. I need hardly tell you that 

 the Masque took its rise from circumstances that took place in these woods, then 

 much more extensive. About the year 1634, Lord John Brackly, his brother, 

 and his sister, the children of John, Earl of Bridgewater, then the President 

 of the Marches, were travelling to Ludlow Castle, where the Court of the 



