ciiap. i.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

21

Henceforward pilgrimage was attended with somereal danger and considerable cost. A service ofrisk and insult rather than certain death; disguiseoften necessary, and contumely and privationsalways sure. Remarkable courage or very warmdevotion cannot but be predicated of a lady whounder those circumstances visited Jerusalem; butwhat will not a new convert? She had come fromSweden, then still in idolatry, into England, whereshe got converted; and thence set out for the HolySepulchre.

It was about the date of Alfred’s birth. A fewyears later (868) the Anglo-Saxons (who in theworst cases preferred a durable punishment, such asmutilation, death too instantaneous to be a salutaryexample) having condemned in their way an exe-crable murderer of his uncle, the convict escapedfrom his native place in Essex across the sea intoBrittany, where he repeated the same atrocity onhis own brother, and there (with notable courtesyto a foreigner) was simply doomed to undergo hisformer sentence; as well he as his servants, whohad been his accomplices in both crimes; to go onpilgrimage to Jerusalem, frequently kneeling, andalways with a mark on his forehead, and in ironsand enduring various other severities, and whatmust have been dreadful indignities to a Baron