Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/72

60 Near the head was found a singular fragment of solid vitrification shaped like half an egg, about an inch in diameter and rather more than an inch in thickness. The colour inside dark blue—outside enamelled in wavy lines of black and white alternately. From comparison with a similar specimen of glass now in the British Museum, and supposed to be of Phœnician manufacture, there can be little doubt that this had formed part of a vitrification of that country, brought, as it may be conjectured, by the deceased from Palestine, probably as a talisman possessed of some extraordinary virtue, and buried with him as his most precious possession.

The incised slab which served to cover this grave was well known to the family as the "Crusader's Tomb." It is of red sand-stone, nearly seven feet long, three feet five inches wide, and about six inches thick. It has cut upon its surface a cross flory, with a smaller cross within it; at the right side is a sword, at the left a circular shield. The date of this incised slab may be considered as of the twelfth century.

Family tradition has always assigned this tomb to Udard de Broham, who flourished between the years 1140 and 1185, about which time he is supposed to have died. He was governor of Appleby castle, in the early part of Henry the Second's reign. In the year 1174 he was defeated by William the Lion, king of Scotland, who, having marched an army of 80,000 men into Cumberland, took the castles of