Character Analysis
In Northumbria, a treacherous knight propositions Custance for sexual favors. When Custance refuses, he murders Hermengyld in an attempt to frame Custance for the crime.
Later, when Custance washes up on an unspecified "hethen" shore, another knight climbs into her boat and attempts to rape her. Both knights meet a sorry end. The first is executed when Alla discovers his treachery. The second falls overboard during his rape attempt and drowns.
Both of these villainous knights represent the kind of "foule lust of luxurie" that the narrator hates on after the second incident (925). The narrator makes clear that their deaths are due to the hand of God (in the first instance, literally). Each knight's grizzly fate symbolizes God's punishment of lust and his power to protect His innocents from its grasp.