Such were the words which burst from the train, expectants all of them of similar grants at the expense of King Richard’s followers and favourites, if indeed they had not as yet received such. Prior Aymer also assented to the general proposition, observing, however, “That the blessed Jerusalem could not indeed be termed a foreign country. She was communis mater ⁠—the mother of all Christians. But he saw not,” he declared, “how the Knight of Ivanhoe could plead any advantage from this, since he” (the Prior) “was assured that the crusaders, under Richard, had never proceeded much farther than Askalon , which, as all the world knew, was a town of the Philistines, and entitled to none of the privileges of the Holy City.”