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4. Robergia
CONFLICT-DISCLAIMER: Carolyn Schriber <schriber@rhodes.edu> Editor, ORB, Rhodes College, Department of History, 2000 N. Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112, on September 04, 2001 wrote "I'm sorry but you are the victim of a hoax. You can't find information about this family because they never existed. The manuscript you sent is full of errors of fact. Julius Caesar never conquered England; he visited for only three days and never got his men off the coast. He did not have a camp at London. Robin Hood is fictional; at best he represents a popular local outlaw, whose name was unknown. There was no Norman vs Saxon rivalry by the beginning of the 13th century. The kings were Angevins and John by 1210 had lost possession of Normandy to the king of France. No one by the name of Bourdon (Burdon, Bordon, Bouriden, etc.) accompanied William the Conqueror, and there is no record of a family named Bordon in Kent until 1346. You seem to have been reading a very convincing modern novel."
REFERENCE: [HYPERLINK http://www.battle1066.com ] The Roll of Battle Abbey A.O. 1066 with William le Roy lists among other: Burdon and Bodin. A copy of this roll was purchased from Glen Crack at the above website in Oct 2001. (See [Scrapbook] image next to Robergia's name.)
COMMENT: By T.Mason on 6Sep2001. It is my intent to report what I find, conflicts and all. However, I think I verify the existence of the Borden name by using the "Medievil Index to Sources in Britian" and with the reference "They Came with William The Conqueror".
COMMENT: According to the Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia, Julius Caesar was in Britain twice. In Autumn of 55 BC and then the following year he opened his fifth campaign by a second invasion of Britain, "in which he crossed the Thames" River. If he "never left the coast" as Ms Schriber suggests, then how on earth did he cross the Thames? The Thames does flow through present-day London. When the Roman soldiers set up occupation, they did so on the skirts of this town which they renamed as Londonium. Eventually, London and the Roman camp blended together. As to the point that Julius Caesar never conquered England, the obvious truth is that "England" did not yet exist.
BIOGRAPHY: THE OLDACRE/OLDAKER STORY, by Edward L. Oldaker; 1985; copy in possn of T.Mason (filed - Richard Borden); ; On the old Roman Road (Roman occupation 55 BC to 440 AD) build by Julius Caesar during the conquest and occupancy of Britain, stands the village of Borden about 39 miles from London, 15 miles from Canterbury, and the town of Settingbourne in the County of Kent. London was built on the site of Caesar's camp, and Borden was build on the site of Ancient David Worship and later the site of a Roman Temple. The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in the village of Borden was build of stones from these ruins 1134. The Church is in the Parish of Hedcorn and was consecrated in the year 1210. It is the church of the Borden families who have lived in Kent since the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD.
WILL: "Robergia - A Story of Old England" by Richard Y. Cook, c1905; printed by Philadelphia MCMV; press of Edward Stern & Co. Inc.; Public Library of the City of Boston; copy of pages 79-84 in possn of T.Mason; EXTRACT: THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN THE EAST WALL OF THE PARISH CHURCH AT BORDEN, KENT, ENGLAND. TRANSLATED By MISS W., OF LONDON.
It is by the grace of God alone that I am what I am, and through the merits of His dear Son, my Lord and Master, can I alone hope for life hereafter and forgiveness for my many sins. His blessings and gifts to me have been many and far beyond my deserving. That it may be accounted worthy in His sight that I have purposed the building of a church to His honor and for the services of His true and only religion, is my humble prayer, and that He may vouchsafe the accomplishment of my purpose is my most comfortable hope. And I also pray that He may bless my further purpose with His favor and to the good of those who may come after me. My two boys, which the Lord has given me, are are always in my thoughts. Simon, weak and sickly, may not not see man's estate. Richard, like the great king from whom he took his name, will be a man of iron - strong in war; but God and our lady grant that he shall be wise and peaceful also, for war brings sorrow and suffering, as the women of England and of my line know full well. It is from him that the Borden line shall proceed, and it is to his descendants, in what age and what land I know not that I must deliver this message.
It is now 154 years since Count William of Normandy defeated and killed the great Harold, King of England, on the woeful day of Hastings. There fell also Ethelwolf, my Saxon ancestor, my dear mother's grandfather and the lord of all the lands which the Norman Conqueror gave to his vassal, Francis de Bourdon, whose grandson, Sir Simon de Bourdon. in the strange chances of life and war, became my father. In the veins of my children - Simon, who will die, as the leech sayeth, and Richard, who will live - is therefore the mingled blood of Norman and of Saxon. I love my children, and may not I, the Lady Robergia, the daughter of Elfrida of Kent and of Sir Simon de Bourdon of Bourdon, and the wife of Sir Francis de Bourdon, erstwhile by marriage with me, lord of all the lands of Bourdon, love those who may come after me, and take account of their welfare and leave to them the message which my sorrows have taught me, and which love for my children's children leads me to give them?
The land of England is indeed in travail. The hand of the Norman is everywhere raised against the Saxon, and the Saxon stands ready to avenge the wrongs done his forefathers. It is war and not peace; injustice and not righteousness; pride and not humble desire to fulfil the laws of God and of religion that I everywhere see. The Saxon tills the soil; the Norman robs him of his rights and of the fruits of his labors. The Norman cannot yield; the Saxon will not; and yet if the dear England which I love is ever to be at peace at home and great abroad, these two must come together. It was but last month that my husband had the thumb cut off the right hand of one of my Saxon serfs because he had killed a stag in the forest, vowing that he should never draw arrow in long bow again. And yesterday a shaft was brought me, which was found quivering in an oak just beyond the moat, and which old Ursula tells me had grazed the cap of my son who was walking there with her. And Gurth, the son of him who was so cruelly mutilated by my husband, I doubt not shot the arrow, for they say he left last night to join Robin Hood in the great Sherwood Forest. And so those who should live together and who, once together, would make England great, do nought but harm to each other - the Norman proud, hasty and unjust; the Saxon stolid, revengeful and unwilling to forget.
And yet in all my sorrows and anxieties it has been given me to see a future for England out of which greatness shall grow, not less because of her power than because of her righteousness, and it is upon the descendants of my son, Richard de Bourdon, who is fourth in the line from Sir Francis de Bourdon, who was himself descended from the de Bourdons of Bayeux, in Normandy, that I charge this duty, out of which alone can good come now or hereafter, that they be true, just and merciful. And upon whomsoever shall find this parchment, written by myself - for with great labor hath my confessor, the good Monk Athelstan, taught me the mysteries of chirography and the art of illumination - I charge that they deliver it to the descendants of My son, Richard de Bourdon, of Bourdon, and that in their day and generation they shall remember to serve God and His dear Son, andBe True - to friendship and to God, for truth is all of this life worth the having, and perfect truth is what the life to come shall reveal to us. It is the prince of darkness that is the Prince of Lies.
Be Just - for the Lord only loaned us that which we have whether of goods or of talents, and in their use we must consider the rights of all men.
Be Merciful - for we shall have no greater claim to the mercy we all shall finally need than that we forgive our brother's faults.
And this hath the Lady Robergia de Bourdon herself written in the year of our Lord 1210.
