The King persecuted him, Anne Boleyn tried to poison him, all England was putrid with lies concerning him contrived by those masters of lies, the Tudors; but the imperial ambassador asserted that the Bishop of Rochester was "the paragon of Christian prelates both for learning and holiness," and the Pope made him Cardinal with the title of San Vitalis.

The whole story of the devastation of this great country would seem to rest upon the writings of William of Jumièges or Ordericus Vitalis, neither of whom was alive at the time of the afforestation.

The statement of Ordericus Vitalis that the Conqueror "distributed lands to his knights in such fashion that the kingdom of England should have forever sixty thousand knights, and furnish them at the king's command according to the occasion," must be regarded as one of the many numerical exaggerations of the early historians.

Ordericus Vitalis says, speaking of the death of William's second son, Richard: "Learn now, my reader, why the forest in which the young prince was slain received the name of the New Forest.

Ordericus Vitalis states, with a minuteness that seems to imply the possession of official information, that "the king himself received daily one-and-sixty pounds thirty thousand pence and three farthings sterling money from his regular revenues in England alone, independently of presents, fines for offences, and many other matters which constantly enrich a royal treasury."

Vitalis, p. 459. Gul. Gemet.

Vitalis, p. 459.]

Vitalis, p. 492.]

[FN [b] Order Vitalis, p. 492.]

Vitalis, p. 492.]

Vitalis, p. 501.] While he was making these mighty preparations, the duke, that he might increase the number of Harold's enemies, excited the inveterate rancour of Tosti, and encouraged him, in concert with Harold Halfagar, King of Norway, to infest the coasts of England.

Vitalis, p. 500. Matth.

Vitalis, p. 502.

Vitalis, p. 503.]

Vitalis, p. 506.]

Vitalis, p. 512.]

Vitalis, p. 521.

Ordericus Vitalis, p. 621, 666, 853. Epist.

O puer ut sis vitalis metuo, "How much I dread Thy days are short, some lord shall strike thee dead.

Forma est vitalis fulgor ex ipso bono manans per ideas, semina, rationes, umbras effusus, animos excitans ut per bonum in unum redigantur.

Ut sis vitalis metuo, puer!

The earliest of these, such as Ordericus Vitalis, Simeon of Durham, Henry of Huntingdon, and William of Malmesbury, were contemporary with the later entries of the Saxon chronicle.

Janus Vitalis, iii. 251.

ORDERICUS VITALIS, a mediæval chronicler, born near Shrewsbury; was a monk of the Abbey of St. Evreul, in Normandy; wrote an ecclesiastical history of Normandy and Englanda veracious document, though an incondite; d. 1143.

VITALIS, ST., a martyr of the 1st century, who was stoned to death, is represented as buried in a pit with stones on his head.