Guy of Warwick. 123 



must not suppose that Guy's Tower had any connection 

 with the original Guy, for the building dates only from 

 the close of the fourteenth century, while the latter 

 boasts an antiquity of nearly a thousand years. Indeed, 

 we can place him to a dot, for the antiquary Rous is very 

 precise in his statement. He says : " On the twelfth of 

 June, 926, being the third year of the reign of Athelstan, 

 a most terrible single combat took place between the 

 champions of the kings of England and Denmark — Guy, 

 Earl of Warwick, and Colebrand the Pagan, an African 

 giant ; through the mercy of God the Christian under- 

 took the combat, being advised thereto by an angel ; and 

 the faithful servant of God and the Church fortunately 

 vanquished the enemy of the whole realm of England." 

 ^Isit not dreadful to contemplate what might have 

 been the consequences if Colebrand the African had got 

 the upper hand of that faithful servant of God and the 

 Church ! But it was not to be. The Pagan had a lost 

 fight from the start, for, though the chronicle does not 

 expressly say so, it is very evident to the reflecting mind 

 that Guy was backed throughout by the angel — a mean 

 advantage which, but for the immensity of the stake, 

 would have led any ordinary lover of fair play to side 

 with the weaker party. But not so with the wily monks 

 of those days. In their easy consciences the end justified 

 the means, and so they glorified Guy as the champion 

 of all that was good, and so sedulously trumpeted his 

 fame that the Norman barons who succeeded to the 



