CHAP. II.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

173

honour of saving his own life. Thirdly, that if thesucking of the poison from Edward’s wound by hiswife be a romantic invention of some Spanish poet,and that there be greater truth in attributing hiscure to a Knight Templar’s antidote from beyondJordan, or, as is more likely, to the skill of anEnglish surgeon—though it may be replied that ourmedical men then were of far less celebrity than theArabians, Neapolitans, or even Jews—yet the wholeof these stories cede in extravagance to what isaffirmed by another authority, of whose credibilitythe reader himself may judge; my own respon-sibility being no more than as regards the sub-stantial fidelity of my translation, merely addingthat Grandison is an ancient English name, beingthat of a baron, in 1299 and 1300 1 —also in thesedocuments as witness to some ordinary transaction:“ I, Abbot Joannes d’Ypre, have heard from certainSavoyards worthy of belief, that there lived in theircountry, a person called Grandison, who had borneto him a male child, of whom the astronomerscalled to his birth declared that if he lived, he wouldbecome great and victorious, and one of them drewby inspiration (perhaps) a little billet of lightedwood from the fire, saying that as long as the sparkin that brand lasted, the child should live, and

1 Sir Harris Nicolas : Synopsis, i. 274 ; ii. 777.