User:Carljphillips/sandbox

Two 14th century knights - Sir Everard Bevercotes, Lord of Balderton, and Sir Guy Saucimer - found themselves to be rivals for the hand in marriage of Lady Isabel de Cauldwell, daughter of Alan de Cauldwell, who lived in Newark Castle. Isabel favoured Sir Everard; so Sir Guy, jealous, lay in wait for Sir Everard and slew him by the River Devon on St Catherine's Eve (24th November). Where the body of Sir Everard fell, a spring of clear water gushed from the ground, and continues to flow to this day.

Overcome with guilt, Sir Guy fled first to Nottingham before joining a group of pilgrims heading south to Rome. However, he became increasingly weak as the pilgrims walked via London to Dover then sailed to Calais. Unable to travel any further, the pilgrims left Sir Guy in France. In time, Sir Guy became stricken with leprosy (which he saw as God's punishment for the murder of Sir Everard), so he hid himself away in the Forest of Avold.

Isabel, meanwhile, died of grief.

One night, St Catherine appeared to Sir Guy in a vision and told him that only the waters of the spring that marked the spot of Sir Everard's death could cure Sir Guy's leprosy. On his return, Sir Guy duly bathed his sores, which were indeed miraculously cured. Sir Guy built a hermitage and chapel to St Catherine near the spring, where he lived until the age of eighty-three (or eighty-seven) under the name of St Guthred.