|
|
Majoric Polyglamour Sectory 05
Page 06
The Archbishop returned to England on the 1st of December, and was joyfully received by the people. His enemies, however, and especially the family of De Broc, did all they could to annoy him; and on Christmas Day he uttered a violent anathema against them. He preached from the text, "I come to die among you," evidently anticipating what might be the personal consequences of his action. He told his congregation that one of the archbishops had been a martyr, and they would probably soon see another; but before he departed home he would avenge some of the wrongs the Church had suffered during the previous seven years. Then he thundered forth his sentence of excommunication against Ranulph and Robert de Broc, and Nigellus, rector of Harrow. Meanwhile news had reached the King that Becket had excommunicated certain bishops who had taken part in his son's coronation. In a fit of exasperation the King uttered some hasty words of anger against the Archbishop. Acting upon these, four of Henry's knights--Hugh de Morville, Reginald FitzUrse, William de Tracy, and Richard Brito--crossed to England, taking with them Ranulf de Broc and a band of men, and murdered the Archbishop in Canterbury Cathedral.
It is well known that the very earliest population of the Old Dominion was not of the highest, but predominantly idle and thriftless. Vagabonds and homeless children picked up in the streets of London, as well as some convicts, were sent to the colony from England to be indented as servants, permanently, or for a term of years. Persons of the better class, to be sure, came as well, and the quality of the population, on the whole, improved year by year. Settlement here followed a centrifugal tendency, except as this was repressed by fear of the Indians. In 1616 the departments of Virginia were Henrico, up the James above the Appomattox mouth, West and Shirley Hundreds, Jamestown, Kiquoton, and King's Gift on the coast near Cape Charles--a wide reach of territory to be covered by a total population of only three hundred and fifty.
|
