Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/72

56 The drawings in question exist in a MS. in the library at Trinity College, and appear to have been executed towards the commencement of the fifteenth century.

In the third compartment of the window the eye is at once struck by the stately aspect of a regal personage, a figure of larger dimension as compared with those which have been described: he appears vested in a richly embroidered robe lined with ermine, a cape of the same, and the usual insignia of royalty. In his right hand he holds a charter, to which is appended the great seal, bearing the impression of a cross on red wax, and apparently is about to bestow a grant upon a person who kneels at his feet. The king is at once recognised by the inscribed scroll, the figure of the suppliant, to whom the charter is accorded, is represented as of much smaller proportion than that of the sovereign, in accordance with a conventional principle of design in old times, by which persons of inferior station were often represented as of diminutive size, in comparison with their more powerful neighbours. Over the head of this smaller figure is a scroll, which bears the following inscription, It does not appear, in the absence of all legendary or historical evidence, who was the person thus designated, upon whom a grant was conferred by the Confessor, and who here appears as connected with the history of St. Werstan. He is clad in a sleeved robe and hooded cape, the former being blue, and the cape bordered with white: it is not properly the monastic habit, and it differs from that in which St. Werstan appears, as before described. It may be conjectured that the hermit, disturbed in his peaceful resting place upon the Malvern heights by some oppressive lord of the neighbouring territory, had sent a messenger to intercede with St. Edward, and obtained by royal charter lawful possession of the little plot whereon the celestial vision had led him to fix his oratory. Certain it is, as recorded in the charter of Henry I., dated 1127, that amongst the possessions of Great Malvern were numbered lands granted by the Confessor, although no regular monastic establishment appears to have existed previously to the Conquest. It seems therefore rea-