But the
Baron would not listen to such a proposal for an instant. On the
contrary, he used to have a perverse pleasure in boasting that the barony
of Bradwardine was a male fief, the first charter having been given at
that early period when women were not deemed capable to hold a feudal
grant; because, according to Les coustusmes de Normandie, c'est l'homme
ki se bast et ki conseille; or, as is yet more ungallantly expressed by
other authorities, all of whose barbarous names he delighted to quote at
full length, because a woman could not serve the superior, or feudal
lord, in war, on account of the decorum of her sex, nor assist him with
advice, because of her limited intellect, nor keep his counsel, owing to
the infirmity of her disposition. He would triumphantly ask, how it would
become a female, and that female a Bradwardine, to be seen employed in
servitio exuendi, seu detrahendi, caligas regis post battaliam? that is,
in pulling off the king's boots after an engagement, which was the feudal
service by which he held the barony of Bradwardine. 'No,' he said,
'beyond hesitation, procul dubio, many females, as worthy as Rose, had
been excluded, in order to make way for my own succession, and Heaven
forbid that I should do aught that might contravene the destination of my
forefathers, or impinge upon the right of my kinsman, Malcolm Bradwardine
of Inchgrabbit, an honourable, though decayed branch of my own family.
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