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THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY

therefore caused a pardon to be made out in the form accustomed and sealed with the Great Seal of my Lord Jehan; and have decreed that Sir Philip Meyrick shall be forthwith enlarged from his captivity and be no more in the custody of our Master Sergeant; and that no fines nor amercements of any kind be taken from him, on this behalf, neither now, nor hereafter.

So the old record ends, and under the name of the good judge is the great waxen seal of the Barons of Burgavenny; which in those days was strong enough to open dungeons and shut them, to kill or to save. Hence it was that Sir Philip and Edith were brought together before the altar of the conventual church of St. Mary's, and became the bravest couple in all Gwent. And the first thing that Sir Philip did, after he had received Maurice Torlesse his estate by right of his wife, was to bear a thousand pieces of gold to the Prior, that the roodscreen and loft, with a fair rood and images of St. Mary and St. John, might be forthwith executed, the which was done so sumptuously and honestly that there was not another to compare with it in all the Marches of Wales. And every year Sir Philip made an oblation of a hogshead of French wine to the monastery, and he made build also the chapel of St. Philip, having an altar of alabaster, and a shrine adorned with jewells, and stories annealed in the window o'er the altar: and this he did because the saint had succoured him in his great necessity. And here he and his wife were buried, when they had lived for long years together happily and

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