A KING IN A QUANDARY.

From an old chronicle we extract the following story, which is at once
curious and interesting, as a picture of mediæval manners and customs,
though to all seeming largely legendary.

Henry, the bishop of Utrecht, was at sword's point with two lords, those
of Aemstel and Woerden, who hated him from the fact that a kinsman of
theirs, Goswin by name, had been deposed from the same see, through the
action of a general chapter. In reprisal these lords, in alliance with
the Count of Gebria, raided and laid waste the lands of the bishopric.
Time and again they visited it with plundering bands, Henry manfully
opposing them with his followers, but suffering much from their
incursions. At length the affair ended in a peculiar compact, in which
both sides agreed to submit their differences to the wager of war, in a
pitched battle, which was to be held on a certain day in the green
meadows adjoining Utrecht.

When the appointed day came both sides assembled with their vassals, the
lords full of hope, the bishop exhorting his followers to humble the
arrogance of these plundering nobles. The Archbishop of Cologne was in
the city of Utrecht at the time, having recently visited it. He, as
warlike in disposition as the bishop himself, gave Henry a precious
ring, saying to him,--

"My son, be courageous and confident, for this day, through the
intercession of the holy confessor St. Martin, and through the virtue of
this ring, thou shalt surely subdue the pride of thy adversaries, and
obtain a renowned victory over them. In the meantime, while thou art