A.D. 1251. MATTHEW PABIS FDfTSHES HIS CHRONICLES. 317 for flattery, adulation, or falsehood. Such a book may be deservedly called a barren field, as far as its author is concerned. For the toil in its cultivation is laborious, and also in the time of collecting the harvest, and there is a lack of all convenience and advantage, and thorns and tares are gathered instead of fruit. Why then should it delight any man, To sow ungrateful seed in barren soil ? Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that those good deeds which ungrateful man does not requite, the liberality of God will more fully recompense. Forsooth, it is a good deed to perpetuate the knowledge of remarkable events, by recording them to the glory of God ; in order that future ages may be made wiser by reading them, avoiding those sins which are deserving of vengeance, and doing such good deeds as the Lord fully recompenses. But the aforesaid brother Matthew Paris, while he was intending to close his historical writings at this point, speaks thus : Here Matthew's Chronicles do close In the glad year of jubilee, Deserves the long desir'd repose, Rest for my reader and for me, And so let rest be given On earth, likewise in Heaven. And a little afterwards he says : Here, Matthew, let your toils and studies end, And seek not what a future age may send. CH. XT.—FROM A.D. 1251 TO A.D. 1254. Frederic dies—Alexander, king of Scotland, marries Margaret of England—Alfonzo, king of Spain, dies—The Jews are banished from France—The citizens of Bourdeaux invite king Henry into France—He goes thither, leaving Edward regent of the kingdom—Gas ten de Biarde attacks Bayonne—A great battle is fought between the French and Germans, on the borders of Flanders—Prince Edward marries Eleanor, princess of Spain—War between the pope and Conrad, son of Frederic. Of a marvellous storm of thunder and lightning on the vigil of the Nativity of the Lord. A.D 1251 , king Henry the Third, it being the thirty-fifth year of his reign, was at the feast of the Nativity of the Lord at Winchester. But on the night of the feast of the Nativity,