The Ladder of Gold; An English Story (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. DISCIPLINE AND IMPULSE. Lord Charles Eton was the youngest son of the late Marquis of Westland. He had reason to boast of a line that was at once ancient and respectable; and had the good sense to know that antiquity without respectability is not much to boast of. The Westlanda had not the honour of coming in with the Conquest, and were beforehand, by at least a couple of centuries, with the Restoration. They traced their origin neither to Norman adventurers, nor Court beauties, but to a pure Saxon stock. The first Eton on record was said to have been a member of the Witenagemot; a shadowy conjecture supposed to be duly authenticated by an ambiguous signature to one of the old charters. The tradition had come down in the family, and as there was nobody to call it in question, it passed into an historical fact in thePeerage Books. The patent of nobility was conferred by Edward III. upon Reginald Eton, who held a command under John of Gaunt in the expedition into Gascony, and who married Tacina, daughter of Sir Ralph Gresloyne, and second cousin to the Queen of France. But, as the whole lineage of this noble family may be found at full length in the Extinct Peerage, we may spare ourselves the trouble of embroidering our pages with the numerous intermarriages, heroic actions, and heraldic glories by which the Westlands were honourably distinguished. We must remark, however, that throughout the early period, the history of the race was a perfect martyrology. The Etons, even to the junior branches, were famous for their gallantry in the field, and their patriotism in the council-chamber. We cannot tell how many of them fell in the ditches of besieged towns, on ramparts and savage plains, abroad and at home; or how many of them were fined, imprisoned, and executed;...