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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

  1. 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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