Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

_The Stanton-Corbet Chronicles._
_[Year 1529]_

_Lady Rosamond's Book;_

OR,

DAWNINGS OF LIGHT.

BY

_LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY_

_AUTHOR OF_
_"LADY BETTY'S GOVERNESS;" "WINIFRED."_

NEW EDITION.

LONDON:
JOHN F. SHAW & CO.
48 Paternoster Row, E.C.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. St. Swithin's Day, in the year of Grace, 1529.
II.
III. Feast of St. Agnes, April 20.
IV. Feast of St. Catherine, April 29.
V. Eve of St. John, May 5th.
VI. May 15th.
VII. St. John Baptist's Day, June 24.
VIII.
IX. July 14.
X. St. Mary Magdalene, July 21.
XI. August 1.
XII. August 2.
XIII. August 12, Feast of St. Clare.
XIV. August 14.
XV. August 25.
XVI. St. Michael's Eve, Sept. 28.
XVII. October 28.
XVIII. All Saints' Day, Nov. 2.
XIX. Nov. 4.
XX. Nov. 8th.
XXI. Corby End, April 20, 1530.
XXII. April 23.
XXIII.
XXIV. April 25, Sunday.
XXV. April 30.
XXVI. May 12.
XXVII. June 1.
XXVIII.
XXIX. June 20.
XXX. June 30.
XXXI. June 30.
XXXII. July 20, Tremador, in Cornwall.
XXXIII. July 30.
XXXIV. Aug. 3.
XXXV. Aug. 5.
XXXVI. Aug. 18.
XXXVII. Aug. 20.
XXXVIII. Aug. 30—the day after.
XXXIX. Coombe Ashton, Sept. 10.
XL. Sept. 12.
XLI. St. Ethelburga's Shrine, Sept. 30.
XLII. Tremador, All Saints' Day, Nov. 1.
XLIII. Stanton Court, May 12, 1590.

THE PREAMBLE.

_Stanton Court, August 21._

I FOUND the original of this book (1710) in my father's library. Remembering well, when I was a child, how my dear and honored mother used to value it, and how she used sometimes to read to us young ones little bits therefrom, I was led to peruse it myself; and since that time I have amused my leisure hours by making a fair copy of the chronicle (for such it really is) as a present to my dear child and charge, the Lady Lucy Stanton.

Amy Rosamond Stanton, spoken of at the end of the book, was my grandmother, my father's mother. She was in many respects a peculiar person, very beautiful and accomplished, but uncommonly retiring and serious in her tastes, given to study and solitary meditation, specially after the death of her husband. My mother ever loved her as an own mother, and we have still her portrait. It represents a beautiful woman indeed, but so absolutely fair and colorless as to seem almost unreal.

There is a tradition in the family that this wonderful fairness is derived from a certain personage called "The Fair Dame of Stanton," whom one of the Lords of Stanton married in foreign parts. The story goes that this fair dame was one of those strange creatures, neither quite spiritual nor yet wholly human, a kind of Melusina or Tiphane Le Fee, and that she vanished at last in some strange fashion, leaving two children. The common people, and some who should be above such notions, believe that the Fair Dame doth sometimes return in the person of one of her descendants, and that such a return always bodes woe to the family. But this is all nonsense. So much is true that the lady came from foreign parts, and that she was possessed of this curious fair beauty, which now and then reappears in the person of some descendant of hers, as in the case of my grandame. She had some peculiarities of religious belief, probably inherited from her Albigensian ancestors, and 'tis certain that she possessed a copy of Holy Scripture as done into English by Wickliffe. This book was found concealed in the apartment known as the Fair Dame's bower, and is still preserved in our library.

My mother also wrote a chronicle of her young days, which is one of my most precious possessions. I would fain have my Lucy do the same, but she is a true Stanton, and cares little for books, being a born housewife. Her father has married a second time, and has a son, so that Lucy is no longer the sole hope of the race. She gets on well with her stepmother, who is an amiable young lady, not so many years her senior as I could wish, but still she loves best to pass her time here with me, in this home of my youth, which my Lord has most kindly fitted up and given me for my life. I have a widowed daughter, who lives with me, and plenty of grandchildren to visit me, so that I am never lonely. But I meant not to write the history of my own life, but only to give an account of this book.

_DEBORAH CORBET._

_LADY ROSAMOND'S BOOK._

Edmund Andrews, for sea fisshe . . . . . . . £0. ivs. xd.
John Earle, for spice. . . . . . . . . . . . ixs. ixd.
Thomas Smith, dried ling . . . . . . . . . . vs. iiiid.
Mistress Ashe, a webbe of white hollands . . xivs.
John Earle, spices, dates and almond . . . . £0. is. xd.
Mistress Ashe, needles, silk and thread. . . viiis.
Mistress Ashe, a webbe of fine diaper. . . . xls. ixd.