Gundreda de Beaumont to Roger Bigod

[Gundreda de Beaumont]

The Countess of Norfolk writes thus to Roger Bigod--

I have been thinking and praying lately on the matter of your actions against my husband--your late father's--will. And as I was at mass the other day the subject came up in a reading from Proverbs: "If one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness." You raised your hand against your father's wishes, and struck with wickedness a blow against his friends. Paul of Tarsus enjoined the Ephesians: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land," but you did not do so. How can I, then, in good conscience do other than to honor his will and shepherd his seat in the name of my own sons, who showed nothing but loyalty and adoration to their father? What right have you to pick over your father's corpse, and claim this and that like a carrion crow? No right, as the King himself made clear in affirming my husband's will, and I shall not lift a finger to feed your ungrateful and traitorous ambition.

Rest in the outer darkness where you belong.

[Lord Roger de Bigod]

Roger Bigod, Lord of Norfolk, writes in reply to his father's widow--

There is a new king, a new kingdom, and a new arrangement to be made, Gundreda. What one king has made, another can unmake. And what one old woman thinks she has made safe, a new king can make unsafe. I would encourage you to be civil to your future lord, but I know it is a false hope. So I offer you this courtesy: a warning.

Prepare yourself, crone. It will be moving day soon.