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William

(2 syl.; in Jerusalem Delivered), Archbishop of Orange. An ecclesiastical warrior, who besought Pope Urban on his knees that he might be sent in the crusade. He took 400 armed men in his train from his own diocese.

William,

youngest son of William Rufus. He wore a casque of gold, and was the leader of a large army of British bow-men and Irish volunteers in the crusading army. (Tasso Jerusalem Delivered, bk. iii.)

English history teaches that William Rufus was never married. (See Orlando Furioso.)

Belted Will.

William, Lord Howard, warden of the Western Marches. (1563-1640.)

His Bilboa blade, by Marchmen felt,
Hung in a broad and studded belt;
Hence, in rude phrase, the borderers still
Called noble Howard `Belted Will.'

Sir Walter Scott: Lay of the Last Minstrel, v. 16.

St. William of Aquitaine

was one of the soldiers of Charlemagne, and helped to chase the Saracens from Languedoc. In 808 he renounced the world, and died 812. He is usually represented as a mailed soldier.

St. William of Mallavalle

or Maleval. A French nobleman of very abandoned life; but, being converted, he went as pilgrim to Jerusalem, and on his return retired to the desert of Malavalle. He is depicted in a Benedictine's habit, with armour lying beside him. (Died 1157.)

St. William of Montpelier

is represented with a lily growing from his mouth, with the words Ave Maria in gold letters on it.

St. William of Monte Virgine

is drawn with a wolf by his side. (Died 1142.) St. William of Norwich was the celebrated child said to have been crucified by the Jews in 1137 He is represented as a child crowned with thorns or crucified, or holding a hammer and nails in his hands, or wounded in his side with a knife. (See Polyolbion, song xxiv.)

In Percy's Reliques (bk. i. 3) there is a tale of a lad named Hew, son of Lady Helen, of Merryland town (Milan), who was allured by a Jew's daughter with an apple. She stuck him with a penknife, rolled him in lead, and cast him into a well. Lady Helen went in search of her boy, and the child's ghost cried out from the bottom of the well -

The lead is wondrous heavy, mither,
The well is wondrous deip;
A keen penknife sticks in my heirt, mither;
A word I dounae speik.

(See Hugh).

St. William of Roeschild

is represented with a torch flaming on his grave. (Died 1203.) St. William of York is depicted in pontificals, and bearing his archiepiscopal cross. (Died 1154.) William II. The body of this king was picked up by Purkess, a charcoal-burner of Minestead, and conveyed in a cart to Winchester. The name of Purkess is still to be seen in the same village.

A Minestead churl, whose wonted trade
Was burning charcoal in the glade,
Outstretched amid the gorse
The monarch found; and in his wain
He raised, and to St. Swithin's fane
Conveyed the bleeding corse.

W.S. Rose.

William III. It was not known till the discovery of the correspondence of Cardonnel, secretary of Marlborough, by the Historical MS. Commission in 1869, that our Dutch king was a great eater. Cardonnel, writing from The Hague, October, 1701, to Under-Secretary Ellis, says- “It is a pity his majesty will not be more temperate in his diet. Should I eat so much, and of the same kinds, I dare say I should scare have survived it so long, and yet I reckon myself none of the weakest constitutions.”

William of Cloudeslie

(2 syl.). A noted outlaw and famous archer of the “north countrie.” (See Clym of the Clough.)

William of Newburgh

(Gulielmus Neubrigensis), monk of Newburgh in Yorkshire, surnamed Little, and sometimes called Gulielmus Parvus, wrote a history in five books, from the Conquest to 1197, edited by Thomas Hearne, in three volumes, octavo, Oxford, 1719. The Latin is good, and the work ranks with that of Malmesbury. William of Newburgh is the first writer who rejects Geoffrey of Monmouth's Trojan descent of the old Britons, which he calls a “figment made more absurd by Geoffrey's impudent and impertinent lies.” He is, however, quite as fabulous an historian as the “impudent” Geoffrey. (1136-1208.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894

William L

Will not when They may