Sinai Tapestry by Edward Whittemore Read Free Book Online Page B

typical, yet so extravagant it was considered intolerable by many, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and possibly the new monarch then awaiting her coronation, Queen Victoria.
    Strongbow stood for his tripos examinations at the end of one year rather than the customary three, and his achievement was such that he had to be awarded a triple first, the only time that ever happened in an English university. As a parting gift to English scholarship he proceeded to announce he had discovered a new species of rose on the banks of the Cam.
    Even if proposed quietly the discovery would have been shocking. In a land devoted to roses it seemed unthinkable that six centuries of British scholars could have gone punting on the Cam and entirely overlooked a species.
    But the proposal wasn’t made quietly. Instead Strongbow noisily nailed it to the chapel door one Sunday morning just as the service ended and the faculty began to appear.
    The uproar throughout the nation was immediate. An official board of experts was convened, to be chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who would cast a deciding vote should that ultimate resort to fair play become necessary.
    Strongbow’s evidence, arranged in ninety-five theses, was removed from the chapel door and studied in full by the board. The Latin was impeccable and to their dismay they found there was nothing to consider or vote on. The discovery was genuine. There was simply no way to assign the rose to any of the existing species.
    And as its discoverer Strongbow had the inalienable right to name it.
    The archbishop led a select delegation to Strongbow’s rooms. After congratulating him warmly the archbishop eased into a persuasive discourse. A new rose had been found for England, a new monarch was soon to be crowned from the House of Hanover. How magnanimous it was of God, working through a brilliant young scholar and nobleman, to bless the land and Her Britannic Majesty at this time, in this manner.
    While the archbishop spoke Strongbow remained bent over his workbench examining a blade of grass with his enormous magnifying glass. When the archbishop finished Strongbow straightened to his full height, still holding the glass in place, and stared down at the delegation.
    Behind the powerful lens of the magnifying glass his unblinking eye was two inches wide.
    During his year at Cambridge Strongbow’s disgust with his family’s history had fully matured. He could no longer abide the memory of the silly accidents that had killed twenty-eight successive Dukes of Dorset, the silly aunts and uncles who had been returning to the manor for centuries to raise its orphans, the silly family mystery which was just another name for illiteracy, above all the silly sexuality that had gone by the name of the family game.
    At the same time he had grown increasingly contemptuous toward England, which he found too small and prim and petty for his needs. And being still young, he preferred to believe his country was more to blame that his family for six hundred and fifty years of Strongbow silliness.
    So his enormous eye rested on the archbishop and his speech was short.
    Your Grace has made reference to the House of Hanover, Germans who arrived here some five hundred and forty years after my own dukedom was established. It is certainly true the Plantagenet Strongbows did nothing for England in six and a half centuries, but at least they had the decency to do it on English soil. Therefore we will honor that soil and Victoria of Hanover by naming this discovery the rosa exultata plantagenetiana. Thank you for coming, and thank you for recognizing the inevitable existence of this rare flower.
    Nothing more was said on either side of the workbench. The huge eye continued to hover near the ceiling as the shrunken delegates crept out the door.
    Strongbow immediately disappeared from England, his first journeys allusive and unrecorded. From time to time a detailed monograph on the flora of western Sudan or