Besides, commonly some new spruce town not far off is grown out of the ashes thereof, which yet hath so much natural affection as dutifully to own those reverend ruins for her mother." _Henry de Essex_.--"He is too well known in our English Chronicles, being Baron of Raleigh, in Essex, and Hereditary Standard Bearer of England.

It happened in the reign of this king [Henry II.] there was a fierce battle fought in Flintshire, at Coleshall, between the English and Welsh, wherein this Henry de Essex _animum et signum simul abjecit_, betwixt traitor and coward, cast away both his courage and banner together, occasioning a great overthrow of English.

But he that had the baseness to do, had the boldness to deny the doing of so foul a fact; until he was challenged in combat by Robert de Momford, a knight, eye-witness thereof, and by him overcome in a duel.

Whereupon his large inheritance was confiscated to the king, and he himself, _partly thrust, partly going into a convent, hid his head in a cowl, under which, betwixt shame and sanctity, he blushed out the remainder of his life_."[1]--_Worthies_, article _Bedfordshire_.
[Footnote 1: The fine imagination of Fuller has done what might have been pronounced impossible.

It has given an interest, and a holy character to coward infamy.