Hut^ree of Jfcogamonli'g (Srabe, 97 



sent to her relations, lest King Richard should avail 

 himself of his feudal right, to marry her according to 

 his will. But such was not the case, though true in 

 part, as respected her distant home. Ela had three 

 uncles, of whom the eldest was next heir to the great 

 possessions of the deceased earl. No historic light 

 gleams on the biography of these kinsmen, except- 

 ing that being younger brothers, without patrimony, 

 and unmarried, they retired into the monastery 

 of Bradenstoke.* Yet tradition tells, that when the 

 elder brother heard of Ela's fatherless condition, he 

 threw aside his cowl, and assumed the cuirass. It 

 might have been, that often in the silence and the solitude 

 of that old abbey, when passing its dimly-lighted 

 cloisters, dark thoughts had worked within him; that 

 scowling on his books and beads, he had contrasted his 

 condition as a poor and obscure monk, with the grandeur 

 and the vast possessions of the earldom of Salisbury. 

 The pope absolved him from vows of poverty, for thus it 

 is recorded in the traditions of the place, and forth he 

 came, a claimant to the honours and the wealth of that 

 illustrious house. Tradition lingers among old walls 

 and deserted hearths ; there may be nothing for history 

 to glean, but her lowlier sister loves to keep alive 

 the feeble glimmering of her lone lamp, in places from 

 whence all other light is gone. 



Rightly, therefore, did the anxious and affectionate 

 * The Old Peerage, by Brooke. 



F 



