:
THE GIRL OF THE NORMAN ABBEY.
[Afterward known as the "Good Queen Maud" of England.] A.D. 1093.
On a broad and deep window-seat in the old Abbey guest-house at
Gloucester, sat two young girls of thirteen and ten; before them,
brave-looking enough in his old-time costume, stood a manly young
fellow of sixteen. The three were in earnest conversation, all
unmindful of the noise about them--the romp and riot of a throng
of young folk, attendants, or followers of the knights and barons
of King William's court.
For William Rufus, son of the Conqueror and second Norman king of
England, held his Whitsuntide gemot, or summer council of his
lords and lieges, in the curious old Roman-Saxon-Norman town of
Gloucester, in the fair vale through which flows the noble
Severn. The city is known to the young folk of to-day as the one
in which good Robert Raikes started the first Sunday-school more
than a hundred years ago. But the gemot of King William the Red,
which was a far different gathering from good Mr. Raikes'
Sunday-school, was held in the great chapter-house of the old
Benedictine Abbey, while the court was lodged in the Abbey
guest-houses, in the grim and fortress-like Gloucester Castle,
and in the houses of the quaint old town itself.
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