"Noble Earl of Champagne--princely Marquis of Montserrat
--valiant Grand Master of the Templars--I am here a penitent in
the confessional. Do any of you bring a charge or claim amends
from me?"
"I know not on what we could ground any," said the smooth-tongued
Conrade, "unless it were that the King of England carries off
from his poor brothers of the war all the fame which they might
have hoped to gain in the expedition."
"My charge, if I am called on to make one," said the Master of
the Templars, "is graver and deeper than that of the Marquis of
Montserrat. It may be thought ill to beseem a military monk such
as I to raise his voice where so many noble princes remain
silent; but it concerns our whole host, and not least this noble
King of England, that he should hear from some one to his face
those charges which there are enow to bring against him in his
absence. We laud and honour the courage and high achievements of
the King of England; but we feel aggrieved that he should on all
occasions seize and maintain a precedence and superiority over
us, which it becomes not independent princes to submit to.
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