Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/295

 “Let the shame, then, of this conspiracy fall on the heads of those who are guilty of it.

“A good knight has gone down to a new and atrocious death in order to forward the guilty ambition of traitors and deceivers, and those who knew the crime they committed exult in their infamous success.”

At this point the queen and Bishop Tobias, wholly uninformed of the revelations now presented, entered the council.

The bishop at once requested opportunity to present to the king in council for official ratification the decree already authorized but not yet executed setting apart a tract of rich land, and specific donations from the treasury, for the erection and maintenance of the new Cistercian Monastery which the king had vowed to erect at his own charge, in memory of his victory over the Lord Zawis.

“In imitation of the glorious example of our pious and illustrious father,” the decree said, “who perpetuated the glory of his arms and his zeal for the Christian faith by erecting and endowing houses of God to promote the interests and protect the rights and liberties of the church, and in recognition of special grace accorded to us in the punishment of a rebel and plunderer of our treasury, we do hereby authorize the erection and perpetual endowment of the holy house to be named ‘Aula Regia,’ at Zbraslaw, for the brethren of the Cistercian order, and we decree the same accordingly.”

“We have this day presented to us, Lord Bishop,”