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IVANHOE.
291
been the follies and vices of our race, a Saxon
would have been held nidering,[1] (the most emphatic term for abject worthlessness,) who should, in his own hall, and while his own wine-cup passed, have treated an unoffending guest as your highness has this day beheld me used; and what ever was the misfortune of our fathers on the field of Hastings, those may at least be silent," here he looked at Front-de-Bœuf and the Templar, "who have within these few hours once and again lost saddle and stirrup before the lance of a Saxon."
"By my faith, a biting jest," said Prince John. "How like you it, sirs?—Our Saxon subjects rise in spirit and courage; become shrewd in wit, and bold in bearing, in these unsettled times—What
- ↑ There was nothing accounted so ignominious among
the Saxons as to merit this disgraceful epithet. Even
William the Conqueror, hated as he was by them, continued to draw a considerable army of Anglo-Saxons to his
standard, by threatening to stigmatize those that staid at
home as Nidering. Bartholinus, I think, mentions a similar phrase which had like influence on the Danes.
L. T.
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