The prince and the page Author:Charlotte Mary Yonge Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. ALTON LODGE. ' Ever were his sons hawtayn, And bold for their vilanye: Bothe to knight and sweyn Did they vilanye.' Old Ballad of Simon de... more » Montfort. For the first time for many a month; Richard de Montfort lay down to sleep in a pallet bed, instead of a coucli of heather; but his heart was ill at ease. He was the fourth son of the great earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort; and for the earlier years of his life, he had been under the careful training of the excellent chaplain, Adam de Marisco, a pupil and disciple of the great Robert Grostete, Bishop of Lincoln. His elder brothers had early left this wholesome control; pushed forward by the sad circumstances that finally drove their father to take up arms against the King, and strangers to the noble temper that actuated him in his championship of the English people, they became mere lawless rebels—fiercely profiting by his elevation, not for the good of the people, but for their own gratification. Richard had been still a mere boy under constant control, and being intelligent, spirited, and docile, had been an especial favourite with his father. Tohim the great Earl had been the model of all that was admirable, wise, and noble; deeply religious, just, and charitable, and perfect in all the arts of chivalry and accomplishments of peace—a tender and indulgent father, and a firm and wise head of a household—he had been ardently loved and looked up to by the young son, who had perhaps more in common with him by nature than any other of the family. Wrongs and injuries had been heaped upon Mont- fort by the weak and fickle King, who would far better have understood him, if, like the selfish kinsmen who encircled the throne, he had struggled for his own advantage, and not for the maintenance of the Great C...« less