PREFACE,
ADDRESSED TO ROBERT, EARL OF GLOUCESTER.
To his most loving lord, Robert, son of king Henry, and earl of Gloucester, William, librarian of Malmesbury, wishes, after completing his victorious course on earth, eternal triumph in heaven. Many of the transactions of your father, of glorious memory, I have not omitted to record, both in the fifth book of my Regal History, and in those three smaller volumes, which I have intituled Chronicles.531 Your highness is now desirous that those events which, through the miraculous power of God, have taken place in modern time, in England, should be transmitted to posterity: truly, like all your other desires, a most noble one. For what more concerns the advancement of virtue; what more conduces to justice; than to recognize the divine favour towards good men, and his vengeance upon the wicked? What, too, can be more grateful, than to commit to the page of history, the exploits of brave men, by whose example others may shake off their indolence, and take up arms in defence of their country? As this task is committed to my pen, I think the narrative will proceed with exacter order, if, going back a little, I trace the series of years from the return of the empress into England, after the death of her husband. First, therefore, invoking the help of God, as is fitting, and purposing to write the truth, without listening to enmity, or sacrificing to favour, I shall begin as follows.