Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/99

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it then stood to the south of the monastery, and had become, as elsewhere, the kernel of the Norman castle. It will be remembered that it was the sacrilegious extension of its precincts at the hands of Urse of Abetot which had brought down on him the curse of Ealdred. But by this time the new minster of Wulfstan's own building, whose site, we may suppose, was further from the castle, that is, more to the north, than that of the church of Oswald, was, if not yet finished, at least in making. It may be that at this moment the two minsters—the elder one which has wholly passed away, the newer, where Wulfstan's crypt and some other portions of his work still remain among the recastings of later times,—both stood between the mound of Eadgar and its Norman surroundings, and the bishop's dwelling, whatever may have been its form in Wulfstan's day. Still along the line of the river, lay the buildings of the city further to the north, with the bridge leading to the meadows and low hills beyond the stream, backed by the varied outline of the heights of Malvern, the home of the newly-founded brotherhood of Ealdwine. At the moment when the rebels drew near to Worcester, all the inhabitants of the city, of whatever race or order, were of one heart and of one soul under the inspiration of their holy Bishop. Like the prophets and judges of old, Wulfstan suddenly stands forth as first, if not in military action, at least in military command. We know not whether the fierce Sheriff or some captain of a milder spirit formally bore rule in the castle. But we read that the Norman garrison, by whom the mild virtues of the English bishop were known and loved, practically put him at their head. They prayed him to leave his episcopal home beyond the church, and to take up his abode