“I am loth to part with the knaves even thus,” said Oliver; “but thou art right, Sir William. We have a chance to escape now, and can reckon with the rascals another time.”
So saying, he mounted behind his friend, and the two, followed by the hound, dashed off towards a clump of forest not far off, leaving the haquenée to its fate, and the followers of Sir Anthony Waledger to rescue their master how they could.
On the 3rd of March, 1213, a great feudal ceremony was performed at Clerkenwell. On that day, at the Priory of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, the King of England knighted twenty-one young men of noble name, the heirs of the great vassals of the crown. Foremost among them was a boy of fourteen, with a thoughtful countenance and handsome, albeit the hair was somewhat too red, and attracted much attention; for he was heir to the crown of Scotland, and, his father being old, he had the prospect of early coming to his kingdom.
Moreover, the alliance of this red-haired lad was contended for by the rival Kings of England and France. John, probably with his young daughter Joan in view, offered to provide the Scottish prince with a suitable bride. Philip Augustus, hoping to make him useful in the struggle so constantly maintained with the Plantagenets, pressed on him a daughter whom Agnes Méranie had borne ere the pope forced her husband to repudiate her. The Scot, who was sagacious and intelligent for his years, perfectly comprehended the game of his royal contemporaries; and while they played he looked on watchfully, and with a keen eye to his own interests.
Alexander--such was the name of the Scottish prince--was the only son of William the Lion and Ermengarde de Beaumont, a kinswoman of the Plantagenets, a lady celebrated for “a soft and insinuating address,” which more than once saved her husband from the consequences of his imprudence when he provoked the wrath of his powerful neighbours in the South, as he did rather too frequently for his comfort. On the 4th of December, 1214, however, William the Lion expired of age and infirmity, and Alexander was ceremoniously crowned King of Scotland in the Abbey of Scone; and scarcely was he seated on the throne of Malcolm Canmore and St. David, when the Anglo-Norman barons of the North of England sent to offer him their homage and to crave his protection.