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HAROLD
by Edward Bulwer Lytton
Dedicatory Epistle
TO THE RIGHT HON. C. T. D'EYNCOURT, M.P.
I dedicate to you, my dear friend, a work, principally composed under
your hospitable roof; and to the materials of which your library, rich
in the authorities I most needed, largely contributed.
The idea of founding an historical romance on an event so important
and so national as the Norman Invasion, I had long entertained, and
the chronicles of that time had long been familiar to me. But it is
an old habit of mine, to linger over the plan and subject of a work,
for years, perhaps, before the work has, in truth, advanced a
sentence; "busying myself," as old Burton saith, "with this playing
labour--otiosaque diligentia ut vitarem torporen feriendi."
The main consideration which long withheld me from the task, was in my
sense of the unfamiliarity of the ordinary reader with the characters,
events, and, so to speak, with the very physiognomy of a period ante
Agamemnona; before the brilliant age of matured chivalry, which has
given to song and romance the deeds of the later knighthood, and the
glorious frenzy of the Crusades. The Norman Conquest was our Trojan
War; an epoch beyond which our learning seldom induces our imagination
to ascend.
In venturing on ground so new to fiction, I saw before me the option
of apparent pedantry, in the obtrusion of such research as might carry
the reader along with the Author, fairly and truly into the real
records of the time; or of throwing aside pretensions to accuracy
altogether;--and so rest contented to turn history into flagrant
romance, rather than pursue my own conception of extracting its
natural romance from the actual history. Finally, not without some
encouragement from you, (whereof take your due share of blame!) I
decided to hazard the attempt, and to adopt that mode of treatment
which, if making larger demand on the attention of the reader, seemed
the more complimentary to his judgment.
The age itself, once duly examined, is full of those elements which
should awaken interest, and appeal to the imagination. Not untruly
has Sismondi said, that the "Eleventh Century has a right to be
considered a great age. It was a period of life and of creation; all
that there was of noble, heroic, and vigorous in the Middle Ages
commenced at that epoch." [1] But to us Englishmen in especial,
besides the more animated interest in that spirit of adventure,
enterprise, and improvement, of which the Norman chivalry was the
noblest type, there is an interest more touching and deep in those
last glimpses of the old Saxon monarchy, which open upon us in the
mournful pages of our chroniclers.
I have sought in this work, less to portray mere manners, which modern
researches have rendered familiar to ordinary students in our history,
than to bring forward the great characters, so carelessly dismissed in
the long and loose record of centuries; to show more clearly the
motives and policy of the agents in an event the most memorable in
Europe; and to convey a definite, if general, notion of the human
beings, whose brains schemed, and whose hearts beat, in that realm of
shadows which lies behind the Norman Conquest;
"Spes hominum caecos, morbos, votumque, labores,
Et passim toto volitantes aethere curas." [2]
I have thus been faithful to the leading historical incidents in the
grand tragedy of Harold, and as careful as contradictory evidences
will permit, both as to accuracy in the delineation of character, and
correctness in that chronological chain of dates without which there
can be no historical philosophy; that is, no tangible link between the
cause and the effect. The fictitious part of my narrative is, as in
"Rienzi," and the "Last of the Barons," confined chiefly to the
private life, with its domain of incident and passion, which is the
legitimate appanage of novelist or poet. The love story of Harold and
Edith is told differently from the well-known legend, which implies a
less pure connection. But the whole legend respecting the Edeva faira
(Edith the fair) whose name meets us in the "Domesday" roll, rests
upon very slight authority considering its popular acceptance [3]; and
the reasons for my alterations will be sufficiently obvious in a work
intended not only for general perusal, but which on many accounts, I
hope, may be entrusted fearlessly to the young; while those
alterations are in strict accordance with the spirit of the time, and
tend to illustrate one of its most marked peculiarities.
More apology is perhaps due for the liberal use to which I have
applied the superstitions of the age. But with the age itself those
superstitions are so interwoven--they meet us so constantly, whether
in the pages of our own chroniclers, or the records of the kindred
Scandinavians--they are so intruded into the very laws, so blended
with the very life, of our Saxon forefathers, that without employing
them, in somewhat of the same credulous spirit with which they were
originally conceived, no vivid impression of the People they
influenced can be conveyed. Not without truth has an Italian writer
remarked, "that he who would depict philosophically an unphilosophical
age, should remember that, to be familiar with children, one must
sometimes think and feel as a child."
Yet it has not been my main endeavour to make these ghostly agencies
conducive to the ordinary poetical purposes of terror, and if that
effect be at all created by them, it will be, I apprehend, rather
subsidiary to the more historical sources of interest than, in itself,
a leading or popular characteristic of the work. My object, indeed,
in the introduction of the Danish Vala especially, has been perhaps as
much addressed to the reason as to the fancy, in showing what large,
if dim, remains of the ancient "heathenesse" still kept their ground
on the Saxon soil, contending with and contrasting the monkish
superstitions, by which they were ultimately replaced. Hilda is not
in history; but without the romantic impersonation of that which Hilda
represents, the history of the time would be imperfectly understood.
In the character of Harold--while I have carefully examined and
weighed the scanty evidences of its distinguishing attributes which
are yet preserved to us--and, in spite of no unnatural partiality,
have not concealed what appear to me its deficiencies, and still less
the great error of the life it illustrates,--I have attempted,
somewhat and slightly, to shadow out the ideal of the pure Saxon
character, such as it was then, with its large qualities undeveloped,
but marked already by patient endurance, love of justice, and freedom
--the manly sense of duty rather than the chivalric sentiment of
honour--and that indestructible element of practical purpose and
courageous will, which, defying all conquest, and steadfast in all
peril, was ordained to achieve so vast an influence over the destinies
of the world.
To the Norman Duke, I believe, I have been as lenient as justice will
permit, though it is as impossible to deny his craft as to dispute his
genius; and so far as the scope of my work would allow, I trust that I
have indicated fairly the grand characteristics of his countrymen,
more truly chivalric than their lord. It has happened, unfortunately
for that illustrious race of men, that they have seemed to us, in
England, represented by the Anglo-Norman kings. The fierce and
plotting William, the vain and worthless Rufus, the cold-blooded and
relentless Henry, are no adequate representatives of the far nobler
Norman vavasours, whom even the English Chronicler admits to have been
"kind masters," and to whom, in spite of their kings, the after
liberties of England were so largely indebted. But this work closes
on the Field of Hastings; and in that noble struggle for national
independence, the sympathies of every true son of the land, even if
tracing his lineage back to the Norman victor, must be on the side of
the patriot Harold.
In the notes, which I have thought necessary aids to the better
comprehension of these volumes, my only wish has been to convey to the
general reader such illustrative information as may familiarise him.
more easily with the subject-matter of the book, or refresh his memory
on incidental details not without a national interest. In the mere
references to authorities I do not pretend to arrogate to a fiction
the proper character of a history; the references are chiefly used
either where wishing pointedly to distinguish from invention what was
borrowed from a chronicle, or when differing from some popular
historian to whom the reader might be likely to refer, it seemed well
to state the authority upon which the difference was founded. [4]
In fact, my main object has been one that compelled me to admit graver
matter than is common in romance, but which I would fain hope may be
saved from the charge of dulness by some national sympathy between
author and reader; my object is attained, and attained only, if, in
closing the last page of this work, the reader shall find that, in
spite of the fictitious materials admitted, he has formed a clearer
and more intimate acquaintance with a time, heroic though remote, and
characters which ought to have a household interest to Englishmen,
than the succinct accounts of the mere historian could possibly afford
him.
Thus, my dear D'Eyncourt, under cover of an address to yourself, have
I made to the Public those explanations which authors in general (and
I not the least so) are often overanxious to render.
This task done, my thoughts naturally fly back to the associations I
connected with your name when I placed it at the head of this epistle.
Again I seem to find myself under your friendly roof; again to greet
my provident host entering that gothic chamber in which I had been
permitted to establish my unsocial study, heralding the advent of
majestic folios, and heaping libraries round the unworthy work.
Again, pausing from my labour, I look through that castle casement,
and beyond that feudal moat, over the broad landscapes which, if I err
not, took their name from the proud brother of the Conqueror himself;
or when, in those winter nights, the grim old tapestry waved in the
dim recesses, I hear again the Saxon thegn winding his horn at the
turret door, and demanding admittance to the halls from which the
prelate of Bayeux had so unrighteously expelled him [5]--what marvel,
that I lived in the times of which I wrote, Saxon with the Saxon,
Norman with the Norman--that I entered into no gossip less venerable
than that current at the Court of the Confessor, or startled my
fellow-guests (when I deigned to meet them) with the last news which
Harold's spies had brought over from the Camp at St. Valery? With all
those folios, giants of the gone world, rising around me daily, more
and more, higher and higher--Ossa upon Pelion--on chair and table,
hearth and floor; invasive as Normans, indomitable as Saxons, and tall
as the tallest Danes (ruthless host, I behold them still!)--with all
those disburied spectres rampant in the chamber, all the armour
rusting in thy galleries, all those mutilated statues of early English
kings (including St. Edward himself)--niched into thy grey, ivied
walls--say in thy conscience, O host, (if indeed that conscience be
not wholly callous!) shall I ever return to the nineteenth century
again?
But far beyond these recent associations of a single winter (for which
heaven assoil thee!) goes the memory of a friendship of many winters,
and proof to the storms of all. Often have I come for advice to your
wisdom, and sympathy to your heart, bearing back with me, in all such
seasons, new increase to that pleasurable gratitude which is, perhaps,
the rarest, nor the least happy sentiment, that experience leaves to
man. Some differences, it may be,--whether on those public questions
which we see, every day, alienating friendships that should have been
beyond the reach of laws and kings;--or on the more scholastic
controversies which as keenly interest the minds of educated men,--may
at times deny to us the idem velle, atque idem nolle; but the firma
amicitia needs not those common links; the sunshine does not leave the
wave for the slight ripple which the casual stone brings a moment to
the surface.
Accept, in this dedication of a work which has lain so long on my
mind, and been endeared to me from many causes, the token of an
affection for you and yours, strong as the ties of kindred, and
lasting as the belief in truth. E. B. L.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
The author of an able and learned article on MABILLON [6] in the
"Edinburgh Review," has accurately described my aim in this work;
although, with that generous courtesy which characterises the true
scholar, in referring to the labours of a contemporary, he has
overrated my success. It was indeed my aim "to solve the problem how
to produce the greatest amount of dramatic effect at the least expense
of historical truth"--I borrow the words of the Reviewer, since none
other could so tersely express my design, or so clearly account for
the leading characteristics in its conduct and completion.
There are two ways of employing the materials of History in the
service of Romance: the one consists in lending to ideal personages,
and to an imaginary fable, the additional interest to be derived from
historical groupings: the other, in extracting the main interest of
romantic narrative from History itself. Those who adopt the former
mode are at liberty to exclude all that does not contribute to
theatrical effect or picturesque composition; their fidelity to the
period they select is towards the manners and costume, not towards the
precise order of events, the moral causes from which the events
proceeded, and the physical agencies by which they were influenced and
controlled. The plan thus adopted is unquestionably the more popular
and attractive, and, being favoured by the most illustrious writers of
historical romance, there is presumptive reason for supposing it to be
also that which is the more agreeable to the art of fiction.
But he who wishes to avoid the ground pre-occupied by others, and
claim in the world of literature some spot, however humble, which he
may "plough with his own heifer," will seek to establish himself not
where the land is the most fertile, but where it is the least
enclosed. So, when I first turned my attention to Historical Romance,
my main aim was to avoid as much as possible those fairer portions of
the soil that had been appropriated by the first discoverers. The
great author of Ivanhoe, and those amongst whom, abroad and at home,
his mantle was divided, had employed History to aid Romance; I
contented myself with the humbler task to employ Romance in the aid of
History,--to extract from authentic but neglected chronicles, and the
unfrequented storehouse of Archaeology, the incidents and details that
enliven the dry narrative of facts to which the general historian is
confined,--construct my plot from the actual events themselves, and
place the staple of such interest as I could create in reciting the
struggles, and delineating the characters, of those who had been the
living actors in the real drama. For the main materials of the three
Historical Romances I have composed, I consulted the original
authorities of the time with a care as scrupulous, as if intending to
write, not a fiction but a history. And having formed the best
judgment I could of the events and characters of the age, I adhered
faithfully to what, as an Historian, I should have held to be the true
course and true causes of the great political events, and the
essential attributes of the principal agents. Solely in that inward
life which, not only as apart from the more public and historical, but
which, as almost wholly unknown, becomes the fair domain of the poet,
did I claim the legitimate privileges of fiction, and even here I
employed the agency of the passions only so far as they served to
illustrate what I believed to be the genuine natures of the beings who
had actually lived, and to restore the warmth of the human heart to
the images recalled from the grave.
Thus, even had I the gifts of my most illustrious predecessors, I
should be precluded the use of many of the more brilliant. I shut
myself out from the wider scope permitted to their fancy, and denied
myself the license to choose or select materials, alter dates, vary
causes and effects according to the convenience of that more imperial
fiction which invents the Probable where it discards the Real. The
mode I have adopted has perhaps only this merit, that it is my own--
mine by discovery and mine by labour. And if I can raise not the
spirits that obeyed the great master of romance, nor gain the key to
the fairyland that opened to his spell,--at least I have not rifled
the tomb of the wizard to steal my art from the book that lies clasped
on his breast.
In treating of an age with which the general reader is so unfamiliar
as that preceding the Norman Conquest, it is impossible to avoid
(especially in the earlier portions of my tale) those explanations of
the very character of the time which would have been unnecessary if I
had only sought in History the picturesque accompaniments to Romance.
I have to do more than present an amusing picture of national manners
--detail the dress, and describe the banquet. According to the plan I
adopt, I have to make the reader acquainted with the imperfect fusion
of races in Saxon England, familiarise him with the contests of
parties and the ambition of chiefs, show him the strength and the
weakness of a kindly but ignorant church; of a brave but turbulent
aristocracy; of a people partially free, and naturally energetic, but
disunited by successive immigrations, and having lost much of the
proud jealousies of national liberty by submission to the preceding
conquests of the Dane; acquiescent in the sway of foreign kings, and
with that bulwark against invasion which an hereditary order of
aristocracy usually erects, loosened to its very foundations by the
copious admixture of foreign nobles. I have to present to the reader,
here, the imbecile priestcraft of the illiterate monk, there, the dark
superstition that still consulted the deities of the North by runes on
the elm bark and adjurations of the dead. And in contrast to those
pictures of a decrepit monarchy and a fated race, I have to bring
forcibly before the reader the vigorous attributes of the coming
conquerors,--the stern will and deep guile of the Norman chief--the
comparative knowledge of the rising Norman Church--the nascent spirit
of chivalry in the Norman vavasours; a spirit destined to emancipate
the very people it contributed to enslave, associated, as it
imperfectly was, with the sense of freedom: disdainful, it is true, of
the villein, but proudly curbing, though into feudal limits, the
domination of the liege. In a word, I must place fully before the
reader, if I would be faithful to the plan of my work, the political
and moral features of the age, as well as its lighter and livelier
attributes, and so lead him to perceive, when he has closed the book,
why England was conquered, and how England survived the Conquest.
In accomplishing this task, I inevitably incur the objections which
the task itself raises up,--objections to the labour it has cost; to
the information which the labour was undertaken in order to bestow;
objections to passages which seem to interrupt the narrative, but
which in reality prepare for the incidents it embraces, or explain the
position of the persons whose characters it illustrates,--whose fate
it involves; objections to the reference to authorities, where a fact
might be disputed, or mistaken for fiction; objections to the use of
Saxon words, for which no accurate synonyms could be exchanged;
objections, in short, to the colouring, conduct, and composition of
the whole work; objections to all that separate it from the common
crowd of Romances, and stamp on it, for good or for bad, a character
peculiarly its own. Objections of this kind I cannot remove, though I
have carefully weighed them all. And with regard to the objection
most important to story-teller and novel reader--viz., the dryness of
some of the earlier portions, though I have thrice gone over those
passages, with the stern determination to inflict summary justice upon
every unnecessary line, I must own to my regret that I have found but
little which it was possible to omit without rendering the after
narrative obscure, and without injuring whatever of more stirring
interest the story, as it opens, may afford to the general reader of
Romance.
As to the Saxon words used, an explanation of all those that can be
presumed unintelligible to a person of ordinary education, is given
either in the text or a foot-note. Such archaisms are much less
numerous than certain critics would fain represent them to be: and
they have rarely indeed been admitted where other words could have
been employed without a glaring anachronism, or a tedious periphrase.
Would it indeed be possible, for instance, to convey a notion of the
customs and manners of our Saxon forefathers without employing words
so mixed up with their daily usages and modes of thinking as
"weregeld" and "niddering"? Would any words from the modern
vocabulary suggest the same idea, or embody the same meaning?
One critic good-humouredly exclaims, "We have a full attendance of
thegns and cnehts, but we should have liked much better our old
friends and approved good masters thanes and knights." Nothing could
be more apposite for my justification than the instances here quoted
in censure; nothing could more plainly vindicate the necessity of
employing the Saxon words. For I should sadly indeed have misled the
reader if I had used the word knight in an age when knights were
wholly unknown to the Anglo-Saxon and cneht no more means what we
understand by knight, than a templar in modern phrase means a man in
chain mail vowed to celibacy, and the redemption of the Holy Sepulchre
from the hands of the Mussulman. While, since thegn and thane are
both archaisms, I prefer the former; not only for the same reason that
induces Sir Francis Palgrave to prefer it, viz., because it is the
more etymologically correct; but because we take from our neighbours
the Scotch, not only the word thane, but the sense in which we apply
it; and that sense is not the same that we ought to attach to the
various and complicated notions of nobility which the Anglo-Saxon
comprehended in the title of thegn. It has been peremptorily said by
more than one writer in periodicals, that I have overrated the
erudition of William, in permitting him to know Latin; nay, to have
read the Comments of Caesar at the age of eight.--Where these
gentlemen find the authorities to confute my statement I know not; all
I know is, that in the statement I have followed the original
authorities usually deemed the best. And I content myself with
referring the disputants to a work not so difficult to procure as (and
certainly more pleasant to read than) the old Chronicles. In Miss
Strickland's "Lives of the Queens of England," (Matilda of Flanders,)
the same statement is made, and no doubt upon the same authorities.
More surprised should I be (if modern criticism had not taught me in
all matter's of assumption the nil admirari), to find it alleged that
I have overstated not only the learning of the Norman duke, but that
which flourished in Normandy under his reign; for I should have
thought that the fact of the learning which sprung up in the most
thriving period of that principality; the rapidity of its growth; the
benefits it derived from Lanfranc; the encouragement it received from
William, had been phenomena too remarkable in the annals of the age,
and in the history of literature, to have met with an incredulity
which the most moderate amount of information would have sufficed to
dispel. Not to refer such sceptics to graver authorities, historical
and ecclesiastical, in order to justify my representations of that
learning which, under William the Bastard, made the schools of
Normandy the popular academies of Europe, a page or two in a book so
accessible as Villemain's "Tableau du Moyen Age," will perhaps suffice
to convince them of the hastiness of their censure, and the error of
their impressions.
It is stated in the Athenaeum, and, I believe, by a writer whose
authority on the merits of opera singers I am far from contesting but
of whose competence to instruct the world in any other department of
human industry or knowledge I am less persuaded, "that I am much
mistaken when I represent not merely the clergy but the young soldiers
and courtiers of the reign of the Confessor, as well acquainted with
the literature of Greece and Rome."
The remark, to say the least of it, is disingenuous. I have done no
such thing. This general animadversion is only justified by a
reference to the pedantry of the Norman Mallet de Graville--and it is
expressly stated in the text that Mallet de Graville was originally
intended for the Church, and that it was the peculiarity of his
literary information, rare in a soldier (but for which his earlier
studies for the ecclesiastical calling readily account, at a time when
the Norman convent of Bec was already so famous for the erudition of
its teachers, and the number of its scholars,) that attracted towards
him the notice of Lanfranc, and founded his fortunes. Pedantry is
made one of his characteristics (as it generally was the
characteristic of any man with some pretensions to scholarship, in the
earlier ages;) and if he indulges in a classical allusion, whether in
taunting a courtier or conversing with a "Saxon from the wealds of
Kent," it is no more out of keeping with the pedantry ascribed to him,
than it is unnatural in Dominie Sampson to rail at Meg Merrilies in
Latin, or James the First to examine a young courtier in the same
unfamiliar language. Nor should the critic in question, when inviting
his readers to condemn me for making Mallet de Graville quote Horace,
have omitted to state that de Graville expressly laments that he had
never read, nor could even procure, a copy of the Roman poet--judging
only of the merits of Horace by an extract in some monkish author, who
was equally likely to have picked up his quotation second-hand.
So, when a reference is made either by Graville, or by any one else in
the romance, to Homeric fables and personages, a critic who had gone
through the ordinary education of an English gentleman would never
thereby have assumed that the person so referring had read the poems
of Homer themselves--he would have known that Homeric fables, or
personages, though not the Homeric poems, were made familiar, by
quaint travesties [7], even to the most illiterate audience of the
gothic age. It was scarcely more necessary to know Homer then than
now, in order to have heard of Ulysses. The writer in the Athenaeum
is acquainted with Homeric personages, but who on earth would ever
presume to assert that he is acquainted with Homer?
Some doubt has been thrown upon my accuracy in ascribing to the Anglo-
Saxon the enjoyments of certain luxuries (gold and silver plate--the
use of glass, etc.), which were extremely rare in an age much more
recent. There is no ground for that doubt; nor is there a single
article of such luxury named in the text, for the mention of which I
have not ample authority.
I have indeed devoted to this work a degree of research which, if
unusual to romance, I cannot consider superfluous when illustrating an
age so remote, and events unparalleled in their influence over the
destinies of England. Nor am I without the hope, that what the
romance-reader at first regards as a defect, he may ultimately
acknowledge as a merit;--forgiving me that strain on his attention by
which alone I could leave distinct in his memory the action and the
actors in that solemn tragedy which closed on the field of Hastings,
over the corpse of the Last Saxon King.
CONTENTS
BOOK FIRST
The Norman Visitor, the Saxon King, and the Danish Prophetess
BOOK SECOND
Lanfranc the Scholar
BOOK THIRD
The House of Godwin
BOOK FOURTH
The Heathen Altar and the Saxon Church
BOOK FIFTH
Death and Love
BOOK SIXTH
Ambition
BOOK SEVENTH
The Welch King
BOOK EIGHTH
Fate
BOOK NINTH
The Bones of the Dead
BOOK TENTH
The Sacrifice on the Altar
BOOK ELEVENTH
The Norman Schemer, and the Norwegian Sea-king
BOOK TWELFTH
The Battle of Hastings
HAROLD, THE LAST OF THE SAXON KINGS
by Edward Bulwer Lytton
BOOK I.
THE NORMAN VISITOR, THE SAXON KING, AND THE DANISH PROPHETESS.
CHAPTER I.
Merry was the month of May in the year of our Lord 1052. Few were the
boys, and few the lasses, who overslept themselves on the first of
that buxom month. Long ere the dawn, the crowds had sought mead and
woodland, to cut poles and wreathe flowers. Many a mead then lay fair
and green beyond the village of Charing, and behind the isle of
Thorney, (amidst the brakes and briars of which were then rising fast
and fair the Hall and Abbey of Westminster;) many a wood lay dark in
the starlight, along the higher ground that sloped from the dank
Strand, with its numerous canals or dykes;--and on either side of the
great road into Kent:--flutes and horns sounded far and near through
the green places, and laughter and song, and the crash of breaking
boughs.
As the dawn came grey up the east, arch and blooming faces bowed down
to bathe in the May dew. Patient oxen stood dozing by the hedge-rows,
all fragrant with blossoms, till the gay spoilers of the May came
forth from the woods with lusty poles, followed by girls with laps
full of flowers, which they had caught asleep. The poles were pranked
with nosegays, and a chaplet was hung round the horns of every ox.
Then towards daybreak, the processions streamed back into the city,
through all its gates; boys with their May-gads (peeled willow wands
twined with cowslips) going before; and clear through the lively din
of the horns and flutes, and amidst the moving grove of branches,
choral voices, singing some early Saxon stave, precursor of the later
song--
"We have brought the summer home."
Often in the good old days before the Monk-king reigned, kings and
ealdermen had thus gone forth a-maying; but these merriments,
savouring of heathenesse, that good prince misliked: nevertheless the
song was as blithe, and the boughs were as green, as if king and
ealderman had walked in the train.
On the great Kent road, the fairest meads for the cowslip, and the
greenest woods for the bough, surrounded a large building that once
had belonged to some voluptuous Roman, now all defaced and despoiled;
but the boys and the lasses shunned those demesnes; and even in their
mirth, as they passed homeward along the road, and saw near the ruined
walls, and timbered outbuildings, grey Druid stones (that spoke of an
age before either Saxon or Roman invader) gleaming through the dawn--
the song was hushed--the very youngest crossed themselves; and the
elder, in solemn whispers, suggested the precaution of changing the
song into a psalm. For in that old building dwelt Hilda, of famous
and dark repute; Hilda, who, despite all law and canon, was still
believed to practise the dismal arts of the Wicca and Morthwyrtha (the
witch and worshipper of the dead). But once out of sight of those
fearful precincts, the psalm was forgotten, and again broke, loud,
clear, and silvery, the joyous chorus.
So, entering London about sunrise, doors and windows were duly
wreathed with garlands; and every village in the suburbs had its May-
pole, which stood in its place all the year. On that happy day labour
rested; ceorl and theowe had alike a holiday to dance, and tumble
round the May-pole; and thus, on the first of May--Youth, and Mirth,
and Music, "brought the summer home."
The next day you might still see where the buxom bands had been; you
might track their way by fallen flowers, and green leaves, and the
deep ruts made by oxen (yoked often in teams from twenty to forty, in
the wains that carried home the poles); and fair and frequent
throughout the land, from any eminence, you might behold the hamlet
swards still crowned with the May trees, and air still seemed fragrant
with their garlands.
It is on that second day of May, 1052, that my story opens, at the
House of Hilda, the reputed Morthwyrtha. It stood upon a gentle and
verdant height; and, even through all the barbarous mutilation it had
undergone from barbarian hands, enough was left strikingly to contrast
the ordinary abodes of the Saxon.
The remains of Roman art were indeed still numerous throughout
England, but it happened rarely that the Saxon had chosen his home
amidst the villas of those noble and primal conquerors. Our first
forefathers were more inclined to destroy than to adapt.
By what chance this building became an exception to the ordinary rule,
it is now impossible to conjecture, but from a very remote period it
had sheltered successive races of Teuton lords.
The changes wrought in the edifice were mournful and grotesque. What
was now the Hall, had evidently been the atrium; the round shield,
with its pointed boss, the spear, sword, and small curved saex of the
early Teuton, were suspended from the columns on which once had been
wreathed the flowers; in the centre of the floor, where fragments of
the old mosaic still glistened from the hard-pressed paving of clay
and lime, what now was the fire-place had been the impluvium, and the
smoke went sullenly through the aperture in the roof, made of old to
receive the rains of heaven. Around the Hall were still left the old
cubicula or dormitories, (small, high, and lighted but from the
doors,) which now served for the sleeping-rooms of the humbler guest
or the household servant; while at the farther end of the Hall, the
wide space between the columns, which had once given ample vista from
graceful awnings into tablinum and viridarium, was filled up with rude
rubble and Roman bricks, leaving but a low, round, arched door, that
still led into the tablinum. But that tablinum, formerly the gayest
state-room of the Roman lord, was now filled with various lumber,
piles of faggots, and farming utensils. On either side of this
desecrated apartment, stretched, to the right, the old lararium,
stripped of its ancient images of ancestor and god; to the left, what
had been the gynoecium (women's apartment).
One side of the ancient peristyle, which was of vast extent, was now
converted into stabling, sties for swine, and stalls for oxen. On the
other side was constructed a Christian chapel, made of rough oak
planks, fastened by plates at the top, and with a roof of thatched
reeds. The columns and wall at the extreme end of the peristyle were
a mass of ruins, through the gigantic rents of which loomed a grassy
hillock, its sides partially covered with clumps of furze. On this
hillock were the mutilated remains of an ancient Druidical crommel, in
the centre of which (near a funeral mound, or barrow, with the
bautastean, or gravestone, of some early Saxon chief at one end) had
been sacrilegiously placed an altar to Thor, as was apparent both from
the shape, from a rude, half-obliterated, sculptured relief of the
god, with his lifted hammer, and a few Runic letters. Amidst the
temple of the Briton the Saxon had reared the shrine of his triumphant
war-god.
Now still, amidst the ruins of that extreme side of the peristyle
which opened to this hillock were left, first, an ancient Roman
fountain, that now served to water the swine, and next, a small
sacellum, or fane to Bacchus (as relief and frieze, yet spared,
betokened): thus the eye, at one survey, beheld the shrines of four
creeds: the Druid, mystical and symbolical; the Roman, sensual, but
humane; the Teutonic, ruthless and destroying; and, latest riser and
surviving all, though as yet with but little of its gentler influence
over the deeds of men, the edifice of the Faith of Peace.
Across the peristyle, theowes and swineherds passed to and fro:--in
the atrium, men of a higher class, half-armed, were, some drinking,
some at dice, some playing with huge hounds, or caressing the hawks
that stood grave and solemn on their perches.
The lararium was deserted; the gynoecium was still, as in the Roman
time, the favoured apartment of the female portion of the household,
and indeed bore the same name [8], and with the group there assembled
we have now to do.
The appliances of the chamber showed the rank and wealth of the owner.
At that period the domestic luxury of the rich was infinitely greater
than has been generally supposed. The industry of the women decorated
wall and furniture with needlework and hangings: and as a thegn
forfeited his rank if he lost his lands, so the higher orders of an
aristocracy rather of wealth than birth had, usually, a certain
portion of superfluous riches, which served to flow towards the
bazaars of the East and the nearer markets of Flanders and Saracenic
Spain.
In this room the walls were draped with silken hangings richly
embroidered. The single window was glazed with a dull grey glass [9].
On a beaufet were ranged horns tipped with silver, and a few vessels
of pure gold. A small circular table in the centre was supported by
symbolical monsters quaintly carved. At one side of the wall, on a
long settle, some half-a-dozen handmaids were employed in spinning;
remote from them, and near the window, sat a woman advanced in years,
and of a mien and aspect singularly majestic. Upon a small tripod
before her was a Runic manuscript, and an inkstand of elegant form,
with a silver graphium, or pen. At her feet reclined a girl somewhat
about the age of sixteen, her long hair parted across her forehead and
falling far down her shoulders. Her dress was a linen under-tunic,
with long sleeves, rising high to the throat, and without one of the
modern artificial restraints of the shape, the simple belt sufficed to
show the slender proportions and delicate outline of the wearer. The
colour of the dress was of the purest white, but its hems, or borders,
were richly embroidered. This girl's beauty was something marvellous.
In a land proverbial for fair women, it had already obtained her the
name of "the fair." In that beauty were blended, not as yet without a
struggle for mastery, the two expressions seldom united in one
countenance, the soft and the noble; indeed in the whole aspect there
was the evidence of some internal struggle; the intelligence was not
yet complete; the soul and heart were not yet united: and Edith the
Christian maid dwelt in the home of Hilda the heathen prophetess. The
girl's blue eyes, rendered dark by the shade of their long lashes,
were fixed intently upon the stern and troubled countenance which was
bent upon her own, but bent with that abstract gaze which shows that
the soul is absent from the sight. So sate Hilda, and so reclined her
grandchild Edith.
"Grandam," said the girl in a low voice and after a long pause; and
the sound of her voice so startled the handmaids, that every spindle
stopped for a moment and then plied with renewed activity; "Grandam,
what troubles you--are you not thinking of the great Earl and his fair
sons, now outlawed far over the wide seas?"
As the girl spoke, Hilda started slightly, like one awakened from a
dream; and when Edith had concluded her question, she rose slowly to
the height of a statue, unbowed by her years, and far towering above
even the ordinary standard of men; and turning from the child, her eye
fell upon the row of silent maids, each at her rapid, noiseless,
stealthy work. "Ho!" said she; her cold and haughty eye gleaming as
she spoke; "yesterday they brought home the summer--to-day, ye aid to
bring home the winter. Weave well--heed well warf and woof; Skulda
[10] is amongst ye, and her pale fingers guide the web!"
The maidens lifted not their eyes, though in every cheek the colour
paled at the words of the mistress. The spindles revolved, the thread
shot, and again there was silence more freezing than before.
"Askest thou," said Hilda at length, passing to the child, as if the
question so long addressed to her ear had only just reached her mind;
"askest thou if I thought of the Earl and his fair sons?--yea, I heard
the smith welding arms on the anvil, and the hammer of the shipwright
shaping strong ribs for the horses of the sea. Ere the reaper has
bound his sheaves, Earl Godwin will scare the Normans in the halls of
the Monk-king, as the hawk scares the brood in the dovecot. Weave
well, heed well warf and woof, nimble maidens--strong be the texture,
for biting is the worm."
"What weave they, then, good grandmother?" asked the girl, with wonder
and awe in her soft mild eyes.
"The winding-sheet of the great!"
Hilda's lips closed, but her eyes, yet brighter than before, gazed
upon space, and her pale hand seemed tracing letters, like runes, in
the air.
Then slowly she turned, and looked forth through the dull window.
"Give me my coverchief and my staff," said she quickly.
Every one of the handmaids, blithe for excuse to quit a task which
seemed recently commenced, and was certainly not endeared to them by
the knowledge of its purpose communicated to them by the lady, rose to
obey.
Unheeding the hands that vied with each other, Hilda took the hood,
and drew it partially over her brow. Leaning lightly on a long staff,
the head of which formed a raven, carved from some wood stained black,
she passed into the hall, and thence through the desecrated tablinum,
into the mighty court formed by the shattered peristyle; there she
stopped, mused a moment, and called on Edith. The girl was soon by
her side.
"Come with me.--There is a face you shall see but twice in life;--this
day,"--and Hilda paused, and the rigid and almost colossal beauty of
her countenance softened.
"And when again, my grandmother?"
"Child, put thy warm hand in mine. So! the vision darkens from me.--
when again, saidst thou, Edith?--alas, I know not."
While thus speaking, Hilda passed slowly by the Roman fountain and the
heathen fane, and ascended the little hillock. There on the opposite
side of the summit, backed by the Druid crommel and the Teuton altar,
she seated herself deliberately on the sward.
A few daisies, primroses, and cowslips, grew around; these Edith began
to pluck. Singing, as she wove, a simple song, that, not more by the
dialect than the sentiment, betrayed its origin in the ballad of the
Norse [11], which had, in its more careless composition, a character
quite distinct from the artificial poetry of the Saxons. The song may
be thus imperfectly rendered:
"Merrily the throstle sings
Amid the merry May;
The throstle signs but to my ear;
My heart is far away!
Blithely bloometh mead and bank;
And blithely buds the tree;
And hark!--they bring the Summer home;
It has no home with me!
They have outlawed him--my Summer!
An outlaw far away!
The birds may sing, the flowers may bloom,
O, give me back my May!"
As she came to the last line, her soft low voice seemed to awaken a
chorus of sprightly horns and trumpets, and certain other wind
instruments peculiar to the music of that day. The hillock bordered
the high road to London--which then wound through wastes of forest
land--and now emerging from the trees to the left appeared a goodly
company. First came two riders abreast, each holding a banner. On
the one was depicted the cross and five martlets, the device of
Edward, afterwards surnamed the Confessor: on the other, a plain broad
cross with a deep border round it, and the streamer shaped into sharp
points.
The first was familiar to Edith, who dropped her garland to gaze on
the approaching pageant; the last was strange to her. She had been
accustomed to see the banner of the great Earl Godwin by the side of
the Saxon king; and she said, almost indignantly,--
"Who dares, sweet grandam, to place banner or pennon where Earl
Godwin's ought to float?"
"Peace," said Hilda, "peace and look."
Immediately behind the standard-bearers came two figures--strangely
dissimilar indeed in mien, in years, in bearing: each bore on his left
wrist a hawk. The one was mounted on a milk-white palfrey, with
housings inlaid with gold and uncut jewels. Though not really old--
for he was much on this side of sixty--both his countenance and
carriage evinced age. His complexion, indeed, was extremely fair, and
his cheeks ruddy; but the visage was long and deeply furrowed, and
from beneath a bonnet not dissimilar to those in use among the Scotch,
streamed hair long and white as snow, mingling with a large and forked
beard. White seemed his chosen colour. White was the upper tunic
clasped on his shoulder with a broad ouche or brooch; white the
woollen leggings fitted to somewhat emaciated limbs; and white the
mantle, though broidered with a broad hem of gold and purple. The
fashion of his dress was that which well became a noble person, but it
suited ill the somewhat frail and graceless figure of the rider.
Nevertheless, as Edith saw him, she rose, with an expression of deep
reverence on her countenance, and saying, "it is our lord the King,"
advanced some steps down the hillock, and there stood, her arms folded
on her breast, and quite forgetful, in her innocence and youth, that
she had left the house without the cloak and coverchief which were
deemed indispensable to the fitting appearance of maid and matron when
they were seen abroad.
"Fair sir, and brother mine," said the deep voice of the younger
rider, in the Romance or Norman tongue, "I have heard that the small
people of whom my neighbours, the Breton tell us much, abound greatly
in this fair land of yours; and if I were not by the side of one whom
no creature unassoilzed and unbaptised dare approach, by sweet St.
Valery I should say--yonder stands one of those same gentilles fees!"
King Edward's eye followed the direction of his companion's
outstretched hand, and his quiet brow slightly contracted as he beheld
the young form of Edith standing motionless a few yards before him,
with the warm May wind lifting and playing with her long golden locks.
He checked his palfrey, and murmured some Latin words which the knight
beside him recognised as a prayer, and to which, doffing his cap, he
added an Amen, in a tone of such unctuous gravity, that the royal
saint rewarded him with a faint approving smile, and an affectionate
"Bene vene, Piosissime."
Then inclining his palfrey's head towards the knoll, he motioned to
the girl to approach him. Edith, with a heightened colour, obeyed,
and came to the roadside. The standard-bearers halted, as did the
king and his comrade--the procession behind halted--thirty knights,
two bishops, eight abbots, all on fiery steeds and in Norman garb--
squires and attendants on foot--a long and pompous retinue--they
halted all. Only a stray hound or two broke from the rest, and
wandered into the forest land with heads trailing.
"Edith, my child," said Edward, still in Norman-French, for he spoke
his own language with hesitation, and the Romance tongue, which had
long been familiar to the higher classes in England, had, since his
accession, become the only language in use at court, and as such every
one of 'Eorl-kind' was supposed to speak it;--"Edith, my child, thou
hast not forgotten my lessons, I trow; thou singest the hymns I gave
thee, and neglectest not to wear the relic round thy neck."
The girl hung her head, and spoke not.
"How comes it, then," continued the King, with a voice to which he in
vain endeavoured to impart an accent of severity, "how comes it, O
little one, that thou, whose thoughts should be lifted already above
this carnal world, and eager for the service of Mary the chaste and
blessed, standest thus hoodless and alone on the waysides, a mark for
the eyes of men? go to, it is naught."
Thus reproved, and in presence of so large and brilliant a company,
the girl's colour went and came, her breast heaved high, but with an
effort beyond her age she checked her tears, and said meekly, "My
grandmother, Hilda, bade me come with her, and I came."
"Hilda!" said the King, backing his palfrey with apparent
perturbation, "but Hilda is not with thee; I see her not."
As he spoke, Hilda rose, and so suddenly did her tall form appear on
the brow of the hill, that it seemed as if she had emerged from the
earth. With a light and rapid stride she gained the side of her
grandchild; and after a slight and haughty reverence, said, "Hilda is
here; what wants Edward the King with his servant Hilda?"
"Nought, nought," said the King, hastily; and something like fear
passed over his placid countenance; "save, indeed," he added, with a
reluctant tone, as that of a man who obeys his conscience against his
inclination, "that I would pray thee to keep this child pure to
threshold and altar, as is meet for one whom our Lady, the Virgin, in
due time, will elect to her service."
"Not so, son of Etheldred, son of Woden, the last descendant of Penda
should live, not to glide a ghost amidst cloisters, but to rock
children for war in their father's shield. Few men are there yet like
the men of old; and while the foot of the foreigner is on the Saxon
soil no branch of the stem of Woden should be nipped in the leaf."
"Per la resplendar De [12], bold dame," cried the knight by the side
of Edward, while a lurid flush passed over his cheek of bronze; "but
thou art too glib of tongue for a subject, and pratest overmuch of
Woden, the Paynim, for the lips of a Christian matron."
Hilda met the flashing eye of the knight with a brow of lofty scorn,
on which still a certain terror was visible. "Child," she said,
putting her hand upon Edith's fair locks; "this is the man thou shalt
see but twice in thy life;--look up, and mark well!"
Edith instinctively raised her eyes, and, once fixed upon the knight,
they seemed chained as by a spell. His vest, of a cramoisay so dark,
that it seemed black beside the snowy garb of the Confessor, was edged
by a deep band of embroidered gold; leaving perfectly bare his firm,
full throat--firm and full as a column of granite,--a short jacket or
manteline of fur, pendant from the shoulders, left developed in all
its breadth a breast, that seemed meet to stay the march of an army;
and on the left arm, curved to support the falcon, the vast muscles
rose, round and gnarled, through the close sleeve.
In height, he was really but little above the stature of many of those
present; nevertheless, so did his port [13], his air, the nobility of
his large proportions, fill the eye, that he seemed to tower
immeasurably above the rest.
His countenance was yet more remarkable than his form; still in the
prime of youth, he seemed at the first glance younger, at the second
older, than he was. At the first glance younger; for his face was
perfectly shaven, without even the moustache which the Saxon courtier,
in imitating the Norman, still declined to surrender; and the smooth
visage and bare throat sufficed in themselves to give the air of youth
to that dominant and imperious presence. His small skull-cap left
unconcealed his forehead, shaded with short thick hair, uncurled, but
black and glossy as the wings of a raven. It was on that forehead
that time had set its trace; it was knit into a frown over the
eyebrows; lines deep as furrows crossed its broad, but not elevated
expanse. That frown spoke of hasty ire and the habit of stern
command; those furrows spoke of deep thought and plotting scheme; the
one betrayed but temper and circumstance; the other, more noble, spoke
of the character and the intellect. The face was square, and the
regard lion-like; the mouth--small, and even beautiful in outline--had
a sinister expression in its exceeding firmness; and the jaw--vast,
solid, as if bound in iron--showed obstinate, ruthless, determined
will; such a jaw as belongs to the tiger amongst beasts, and the
conqueror amongst men; such as it is seen in the effigies of Caesar,
of Cortes, of Napoleon.
That presence was well calculated to command the admiration of women,
not less than the awe of men. But no admiration mingled with the
terror that seized the girl as she gazed long and wistful upon the
knight. The fascination of the serpent on the bird held her mute and
frozen. Never was that face forgotten; often in after-life it haunted
her in the noon-day, it frowned upon her dreams.
"Fair child," said the knight, fatigued at length by the obstinacy of
the gaze, while that smile peculiar to those who have commanded men
relaxed his brow, and restored the native beauty to his lip, "fair
child, learn not from thy peevish grandam so uncourteous a lesson as
hate of the foreigner. As thou growest into womanhood, know that
Norman knight is sworn slave to lady fair;" and, doffing his cap, he
took from it an uncut jewel, set in Byzantine filigree work. "Hold
out thy lap, my child; and when thou nearest the foreigner scoffed,
set this bauble in thy locks, and think kindly of William, Count of
the Normans." [14]
He dropped the jewel on the ground as he spoke; for Edith, shrinking
and unsoftened towards him, held no lap to receive it; and Hilda, to
whom Edward had been speaking in a low voice, advanced to the spot and
struck the jewel with her staff under the hoofs of the king's palfrey.
"Son of Emma, the Norman woman, who sent thy youth into exile, trample
on the gifts of thy Norman kinsman. And if, as men say, thou art of
such gifted holiness that Heaven grants thy hand the power to heal,
and thy voice the power to curse, heal thy country, and curse the
stranger!"
She extended her right arm to William as she spoke, and such was the
dignity of her passion, and such its force, that an awe fell upon all.
Then dropping her hood over her face, she slowly turned away, regained
the summit of the knoll, and stood erect beside the altar of the
Northern god, her face invisible through the hood drawn completely
over it, and her form motionless as a statue.
"Ride on," said Edward, crossing himself.
"Now by the bones of St. Valery," said William, after a pause, in
which his dark keen eye noted the gloom upon the King's gentle face,
"it moves much my simple wonder how even presence so saintly can hear
without wrath words so unleal and foul. Gramercy, an the proudest
dame in Normandy (and I take her to be wife to my stoutest baron,
William Fitzosborne) had spoken thus to me--"
"Thou wouldst have done as I, my brother," interrupted Edward; "prayed
to our Lord to pardon her, and rode on pitying."
William's lip quivered with ire, yet he curbed the reply that sprang
to it, and he looked with affection genuinely more akin to admiration
than scorn, upon his fellow-prince. For, fierce and relentless as the
Duke's deeds were, his faith was notably sincere; and while this made,
indeed, the prince's chief attraction to the pious Edward, so, on the
other hand, this bowed the Duke in a kind of involuntary and
superstitious homage to the man who sought to square deeds to faith.
It is ever the case with stern and stormy spirits, that the meek ones
which contrast them steal strangely into their affections. This
principle of human nature can alone account for the enthusiastic
devotion which the mild sufferings of the Saviour awoke in the
fiercest exterminators of the North. In proportion, often, to the
warrior's ferocity, was his love to that Divine model, at whose
sufferings he wept, to whose tomb he wandered barefoot, and whose
example of compassionate forgiveness he would have thought himself the
basest of men to follow!
"Now, by my halidame, I honour and love thee, Edward," cried the Duke,
with a heartiness more frank than was usual to him: "and were I thy
subject, woe to man or woman that wagged tongue to wound thee by a
breath. But who and what is this same Hilda? one of thy kith and
kin?--surely not less than kingly blood runs so bold?"
"William, bien aime," [15] said the King, "it is true that Hilda, whom
the saints assoil, is of kingly blood, though not of our kingly line.
It is feared," added Edward, in a timid whisper, as he cast a hurried
glance around him, "that this unhappy woman has ever been more
addicted to the rites of her pagan ancestors than to those of Holy
Church; and men do say that she hath thus acquired from fiend or charm
secrets devoutly to be eschewed by the righteous. Nathless, let us
rather hope that her mind is somewhat distraught with her
misfortunes."
The King sighed, and the Duke sighed too, but the Duke's sigh spoke
impatience. He swept behind him a stern and withering look towards
the proud figure of Hilda, still seen through the glades, and said in
a sinister voice: "Of kingly blood; but this witch of Woden hath no
sons or kinsmen, I trust, who pretend to the throne of the Saxon:"
"She is sibbe to Githa, wife of Godwin," answered the King, "and that
is her most perilous connection; for the banished Earl, as thou
knowest, did not pretend to fill the throne, but he was content with
nought less than governing our people."
The King then proceeded to sketch an outline of the history of Hilda,
but his narrative was so deformed both by his superstitions and
prejudices, and his imperfect information in all the leading events
and characters in his own kingdom, that we will venture to take upon
ourselves his task; and while the train ride on through glade and
mead, we will briefly narrate, from our own special sources of
knowledge, the chronicle of Hilda, the Scandinavian Vala.
CHAPTER II.
A magnificent race of men were those war sons of the old North, whom
our popular histories, so superficial in their accounts of this age,
include in the common name of the "Danes." They replunged into
barbarism the nations over which they swept; but from that barbarism
they reproduced the noblest elements of civilisation. Swede,
Norwegian, and Dane, differing in some minor points, when closely
examined, had yet one common character viewed at a distance. They had
the same prodigious energy, the same passion for freedom, individual
and civil, the same splendid errors in the thirst for fame and the
"point of honour;" and above all, as a main cause of civilisation,
they were wonderfully pliant and malleable in their admixtures with
the peoples they overran. This is their true distinction from the
stubborn Celt, who refuses to mingle, and disdains to improve.
Frankes, the archbishop, baptised Rolf-ganger [16]: and within a
little more than a century afterwards, the descendants of those
terrible heathens who had spared neither priest nor altar, were the
most redoubtable defenders of the Christian Church; their old language
forgotten (save by a few in the town of Bayeux), their ancestral names
[17] (save among a few of the noblest) changed into French titles, and
little else but the indomitable valour of the Scandinavian remained
unaltered amongst the arts and manners of the Frankish-Norman.
In like manner their kindred tribes, who had poured into Saxon England
to ravage and lay desolate, had no sooner obtained from Alfred the
Great permanent homes, than they became perhaps the most powerful, and
in a short time not the least patriotic, part of the Anglo-Saxon
population [18]. At the time our story opens, these Northmen, under
the common name of Danes, were peaceably settled in no less than
fifteen [19] counties in England; their nobles abounded in towns and
cities beyond the boundaries of those counties which bore the distinct
appellation of Danelagh. They were numerous in London: in the
precincts of which they had their own burial-place, to the chief
municipal court of which they gave their own appellation--the Hustings
[20]. Their power in the national assembly of the Witan had decided
the choice of kings. Thus, with some differences of law and dialect,
these once turbulent invaders had amalgamated amicably with the native
race [21]. And to this day, the gentry, traders, and farmers of more
than one-third of England, and in those counties most confessed to be
in the van of improvement, descend from Saxon mothers indeed, but from
Viking fathers. There was in reality little difference in race
between the Norman knight of the time of Henry I. and the Saxon
franklin of Norfolk and York. Both on the mother's side would most
probably have been Saxon, both on the father's would have traced to
the Scandinavian.
But though this character of adaptability was general, exceptions in
some points were necessarily found, and these were obstinate in
proportion to the adherence to the old pagan faith, or the sincere
conversion to Christianity. The Norwegian chronicles, and passages in
our own history, show how false and hollow was the assumed
Christianity of many of these fierce Odin-worshippers. They willingly
enough accepted the outward sign of baptism, but the holy water
changed little of the inner man. Even Harold, the son of Canute,
scarce seventeen years before the date we have now entered, being
unable to obtain from the Archbishop of Canterbury--who had espoused
the cause of his brother Hardicanute--the consecrating benediction,
lived and reigned as one who had abjured Christianity. [22]
The priests, especially on the Scandinavian continent, were often
forced to compound with their grim converts, by indulgence to certain
habits, such as indiscriminate polygamy. To eat horse-flesh in honour
of Odin, and to marry wives ad libitum, were the main stipulations of
the neophytes. And the puzzled monks, often driven to a choice,
yielded the point of the wives, but stood firm on the graver article
of the horse-flesh.
With their new religion, very imperfectly understood, even when
genuinely received, they retained all that host of heathen
superstition which knits itself with the most obstinate instincts in
the human breast. Not many years before the reign of the Confessor,
the laws of the great Canute against witchcraft and charms, the
worship of stones, fountains, runes by ash and elm, and the
incantations that do homage to the dead, were obviously rather
intended to apply to the recent Danish converts, than to the Anglo-
Saxons, already subjugated for centuries, body and soul, to the
domination of the Christian monks.
Hilda, a daughter of the royalty of Denmark, and cousin to Githa
(niece to Canute, whom that king had bestowed in second spousals upon
Godwin), had come over to England with a fierce Jarl, her husband, a
year after Canute's accession to the throne--both converted nominally,
both secret believers in Thor and Odin.
Hilda's husband had fallen in one of the actions in the Northern seas,
between Canute and St. Olave, King of Norway (that saint himself, by
the bye, a most ruthless persecutor of his forefathers' faith, and a
most unqualified assertor of his heathen privilege to extend his
domestic affections beyond the severe pale which should have confined
them to a single wife. His natural son Magnus then sat on the Danish
throne). The Jarl died as he had wished to die, the last man on board
his ship, with the soothing conviction that the Valkyrs would bear him
to Valhalla.
Hilda was left with an only daughter, whom Canute bestowed on
Ethelwolf, a Saxon Earl of large domains, and tracing his descent from
Penda, that old King of Mercia who refused to be converted, but said
so discreetly, that he had no objection to his neighbours being
Christians, if they would practise that peace and forgiveness which
the monks told him were the elements of the faith.
Ethelwolf fell under the displeasure of Hardicanute, perhaps because
he was more Saxon than Danish; and though that savage king did not
dare openly to arraign him before the Witan, he gave secret orders by
which he was butchered on his own hearthstone, in the arms of his
wife, who died shortly afterwards of grief and terror. The only
orphan of this unhappy pair, Edith, was thus consigned to the charge
of Hilda.
It was a necessary and invaluable characteristic of that
"adaptability" which distinguished the Danes, that they transferred to
the land in which they settled all the love they had borne to that of
their ancestors; and so far as attachment to soil was concerned, Hilda
had grown no less in heart an Englishwoman than if she had been born
and reared amidst the glades and knolls from which the smoke of her
hearth rose through the old Roman compluvium.
But in all else she was a Dane. Dane in her creed and her habits--
Dane in her intense and brooding imagination--in the poetry that
filled her soul, peopled the air with spectres, and covered the leaves
of the trees with charms. Living in austere seclusion after the death
of her lord, to whom she had borne a Scandinavian woman's devoted but
heroic love,--sorrowing, indeed, for his death, but rejoicing that he
fell amidst the feast of ravens,--her mind settled more and more year
by year, and day by day, upon those visions of the unknown world,
which in every faith conjure up the companions of solitude and grief.
Witchcraft in the Scandinavian North assumed many forms, and was
connected by many degrees. There was the old and withered hag, on
whom, in our later mediaeval ages the character was mainly bestowed;
there was the terrific witch-wife, or wolf-witch, who seems wholly
apart from human birth and attributes, like the weird sisters of
Macbeth--creatures who entered the house at night and seized warriors
to devour them, who might be seen gliding over the sea, with the
carcase of the wolf dripping blood from their giant jaws; and there
was the more serene, classical, and awful vala, or sibyl, who,
honoured by chiefs and revered by nations, foretold the future, and
advised the deeds of heroes. Of these last, the Norse chronicles tell
us much. They were often of rank and wealth, they were accompanied by
trains of handmaids and servants--kings led them (when their counsel
was sought) to the place of honour in the hall, and their heads were
sacred, as those of ministers to the gods.
This last state in the grisly realm of the Wig-laer (wizard-lore) was
the one naturally appertaining to the high rank, and the soul, lofty
though blind and perverted, of the daughter of warrior-kings. All
practice of the art to which now for long years she had devoted
herself, that touched upon the humble destinies of the vulgar, the
child of Odin [23] haughtily disdained. Her reveries were upon the
fate of kings and kingdoms; she aspired to save or to rear the
dynasties which should rule the races yet unborn. In youth proud and
ambitious,--common faults with her countrywomen,--on her entrance into
the darker world, she carried with her the prejudices and passions
that she had known in that coloured by the external sun.
All her human affections were centred in her grandchild Edith, the
last of a race royal on either side. Her researches into the future
had assured her, that the life and death of this fair child were
entwined with the fates of a king, and the same oracles had intimated
a mysterious and inseparable connection between her own shattered
house and the flourishing one of Earl Godwin, the spouse of her
kinswoman Githa: so that with this great family she was as intimately
bound by the links of superstition as by the ties of blood. The
eldest born of Godwin, Sweyn, had been at first especially her care
and her favourite; and he, of more poetic temperament than his
brothers, had willingly submitted to her influence. But of all the
brethren, as will be seen hereafter, the career of Sweyn had been most
noxious and ill-omened; and at that moment, while the rest of the
house carried with it into exile the deep and indignant sympathy of
England, no man said of Sweyn, "God bless him!"
But as the second son, Harold, had grown from childhood into youth,
Hilda had singled him out with a preference even more marked than that
she had bestowed upon Sweyn. The stars and the runes assured her of
his future greatness, and the qualities and talents of the young Earl
had, at the very onset of his career, confirmed the accuracy of their
predictions. Her interest in Harold became the more intense, partly
because whenever she consulted the future for the lot of her
grandchild Edith, she invariably found it associated with the fate of
Harold--partly because all her arts had failed to penetrate beyond a
certain point in their joint destinies, and left her mind agitated and
perplexed between hope and terror. As yet, however, she had wholly
failed in gaining any ascendancy over the young Earl's vigorous and
healthful mind: and though, before his exile, he came more often than
any of Godwin's sons to the old Roman house, he had smiled with proud
incredulity at her vague prophecies, and rejected all her offers of
aid from invisible agencies with the calm reply--"The brave man wants
no charms to encourage him to his duty, and the good man scorns all
warnings that would deter him from fulfilling it."
Indeed, though Hilda's magic was not of the malevolent kind, and
sought the source of its oracles not in fiends but gods, (at least the
gods in whom she believed,) it was noticeable that all over whom her
influence had prevailed had come to miserable and untimely ends;--not
alone her husband and her son-in-law, (both of whom had been as wax to
her counsel,) but such other chiefs as rank or ambition permitted to
appeal to her lore. Nevertheless, such was the ascendancy she had
gained over the popular mind, that it would have been dangerous in the
highest degree to put into execution against her the laws condemnatory
of witch craft. In her, all the more powerful Danish families
reverenced, and would have protected, the blood of their ancient
kings, and the widow of one of their most renowned heroes.
Hospitable, liberal, and beneficent to the poor; and an easy mistress
over numerous ceorls, while the vulgar dreaded, they would yet have
defended her. Proofs of her art it would have been hard to establish;
hosts of compurgators to attest her innocence would have sprung up.
Even if subjected to the ordeal, her gold could easily have bribed the
priests with whom the power of evading its dangers rested. And with
that worldly wisdom which persons of genius in their wildest chimeras
rarely lack, she had already freed herself from the chance of active
persecution from the Church, by ample donations to all the
neighbouring monasteries.
Hilda, in fine, was a woman of sublime desires and extraordinary
gifts; terrible, indeed, but as the passive agent of the Fates she
invoked, and rather commanding for herself a certain troubled
admiration and mysterious pity; no fiend-hag, beyond humanity in
malice and in power, but essentially human, even when aspiring most to
the secrets of a god. Assuming, for the moment, that by the aid of
intense imagination, persons of a peculiar idiosyncrasy of nerves and
temperament might attain to such dim affinities with a world beyond
our ordinary senses, as forbid entire rejection of the magnetism and
magic of old times--it was on no foul and mephitic pool, overhung with
the poisonous nightshade, and excluded from the beams of heaven, but
on the living stream on which the star trembled, and beside whose
banks the green herbage waved, that the demon shadows fell dark and
dread.
Thus safe and thus awful, lived Hilda; and under her care, a rose
beneath the funeral cedar, bloomed her grandchild Edith, goddaughter
of the Lady of England.
It was the anxious wish, both of Edward and his virgin wife, pious as
himself, to save this orphan from the contamination of a house more
than suspected of heathen faith, and give to her youth the refuge of
the convent. But this, without her guardian's consent or her own
expressed will, could not be legally done; and Edith as yet had
expressed no desire to disobey her grandmother, who treated the idea
of the convent with lofty scorn.
This beautiful child grew up under the influence, as it were, of two
contending creeds; all her notions on both were necessarily confused
and vague. But her heart was so genuinely mild, simple, tender, and
devoted,--there was in her so much of the inborn excellence of the
sex, that in every impulse of that heart struggled for clearer light
and for purer air the unquiet soul. In manner, in thought, and in
person as yet almost an infant, deep in her heart lay yet one woman's
secret, known scarcely to herself, but which taught her, more
powerfully than Hilda's proud and scoffing tongue, to shudder at the
thought of the barren cloister and the eternal vow.
CHAPTER III.
While King Edward was narrating to the Norman Duke all that he knew,
and all that he knew not, of Hilda's history and secret arts, the road
wound through lands as wild and wold-like as if the metropolis of
England lay a hundred miles distant. Even to this day patches of such
land, in the neighbourhood of Norwood, may betray what the country was
in the old time:--when a mighty forest, "abounding with wild beasts"--
"the bull and the boar"--skirted the suburbs of London, and afforded
pastime to king and thegn. For the Norman kings have been maligned by
the popular notion that assigns to them all the odium of the forest
laws. Harsh and severe were those laws in the reign of the Anglo-
Saxon; as harsh and severe, perhaps, against the ceorl and the poor
man, as in the days of Rufus, though more mild unquestionably to the
nobles. To all beneath the rank of abbot and thegn, the king's woods
were made, even by the mild Confessor, as sacred as the groves of the
Druids: and no less penalty than that of life was incurred by the
lowborn huntsman who violated their recesses. [24]
Edward's only mundane passion was the chase; and a day rarely passed,
but what after mass he went forth with hawk or hound. So that, though
the regular season for hawking did not commence till October, he had
ever on his wrist some young falcon to essay, or some old favourite to
exercise. And now, just as William was beginning to grow weary of his
good cousin's prolix recitals, the hounds suddenly gave tongue, and
from a sedge-grown pool by the way-side, with solemn wing and harsh
boom, rose a bittern.
"Holy St. Peter!" exclaimed the Saint-king, spurring his palfrey, and
loosing his famous Peregrine falcon [25]. William was not slow in
following that animated example, and the whole company rode at half
speed across the rough forest-land, straining their eyes upon the
soaring quarry, and the large wheels of the falcons. Riding thus,
with his eyes in the air, Edward was nearly pitched over his palfrey's
head, as the animal stopped suddenly, checked by a high gate, set deep
in a half embattled wall of brick and rubble. Upon this gate sate,
quite unmoved and apathetic, a tall ceorl, or labourer, while behind
it was a gazing curious group of men of the same rank, clad in those
blue tunics of which our peasant's smock is the successor, and leaning
on scythes and flails. Sour and ominous were the looks they bent upon
that Norman cavalcade. The men were at least as well clad as those of
the same condition are now; and their robust limbs and ruddy cheeks
showed no lack of the fare that supports labour. Indeed, the working
man of that day, if not one of the absolute theowes or slaves, was,
physically speaking, better off, perhaps, than he has ever since been
in England, more especially if he appertained to some wealthy thegn of
pure Saxon lineage, whose very title of lord came to him in his
quality of dispenser of bread [26]; and these men had been ceorls
under Harold, son of Godwin, now banished from the land.
"Open the gate, open quick, my merry men," said the gentle Edward
(speaking in Saxon, though with a strong foreign accent), after he had
recovered his seat, murmured a benediction, and crossed himself three
times. The men stirred not.
"No horse tramps the seeds we have sown for Harold the Earl to reap;"
said the ceorl, doggedly, still seated on the gate. And the group
behind him gave a shout of applause.
Moved more than ever he had been known to be before, Edward spurred
his steed up to the boor, and lifted his hand. At that signal twenty
swords flashed in the air behind, as the Norman nobles spurred to the
place. Putting back with one hand his fierce attendants, Edward shook
the other at the Saxon. "Knave, knave," he cried, "I would hurt you,
if I could!"
There was something in these words, fated to drift down into history,
at once ludicrous and touching. The Normans saw them only in the
former light, and turned aside to conceal their laughter; the Saxon
felt them in the latter and truer sense, and stood rebuked. That
great king, whom he now recognised, with all those drawn swords at his
back, could not do him hurt; that king had not the heart to hurt him.
The ceorl sprang from the gate, and opened it, bending low.
"Ride first, Count William, my cousin," said the King, calmly.
The Saxon ceorl's eyes glared as he heard the Norman's name uttered in
the Norman tongue, but he kept open the gate, and the train passed
through, Edward lingering last. Then said the King, in a low voice,--
"Bold man, thou spokest of Harold the Earl and his harvests; knowest
thou not that his lands have passed from him, and that he is outlawed,
and that his harvests are not for the scythes of his ceorls to reap?"
"May it please you, dread Lord and King," replied the Saxon simply,
"these lands that were Harold the Earl's, are now Clapa's, the
sixhaendman's."
"How is that?" quoth Edward, hastily; "we gave them neither to
sixhaendman nor to Saxon. All the lands of Harold hereabout were
divided amongst sacred abbots and noble chevaliers--Normans all."
"Fulke the Norman had these fair fields, yon orchards and tynen; Fulke
sold them to Clapa, the Earl's sixhaendman, and what in mancusses and
pence Clapa lacked of the price, we, the ceorls of the Earl, made up
from our own earnings in the Earl's noble service. And this very day,
in token thereof, have we quaffed the bedden-ale [27]. Wherefore,
please God and our Lady, we hold these lands part and parcel with
Clapa; and when Earl Harold comes again, as come he will, here at
least he will have his own."
Edward, who, despite a singular simplicity of character, which at
times seemed to border on imbecility, was by no means wanting in
penetration when his attention was fairly roused, changed countenance
at this proof of rough and homely affection on the part of these men
to his banished earl and brother-in-law. He mused a little while in
grave thought, and then said, kindly--
"Well, man, I think not the worse of you for loyal love to your thegn,
but there are those who would do so, and I advise you, brotherlike,
that ears and nose are in peril if thou talkest thus indiscreetly."
"Steel to steel, and hand to hand," said the Saxon, bluntly, touching
the long knife in his leathern belt, "and he who sets gripe on Sexwolf
son of Elfhelm, shall pay his weregeld twice over."
"Forewarned, foolish man, thou are forewarned. Peace," said the King;
and, shaking his head, he rode on to join the Normans, who now, in a
broad field, where the corn sprang green, and which they seemed to
delight in wantonly trampling, as they curvetted their steeds to and
fro, watched the movements of the bittern and the pursuit of the two
falcons.
"A wager, Lord King!" said a prelate, whose strong family likeness to
William proclaimed him to be the Duke's bold and haughty brother, Odo
[28], Bishop of Bayeux;--"a wager. My steed to your palfrey that the
Duke's falcon first fixes the bittern."
"Holy father," answered Edward, in that slight change of voice which
alone showed his displeasure, "these wagers all savour of heathenesse,
and our canons forbid them to mone [29] and priest. Go to, it is
naught."
The bishop, who brooked no rebuke, even from his terrible brother,
knit his brows, and was about to make no gentle rejoinder, when
William, whose profound craft or sagacity was always at watch, lest
his followers should displease the King, interposed, and taking the
word out of the prelate's mouth, said:
"Thou reprovest us well, Sir and King; we Normans are too inclined to
such levities. And see, your falcon is first in pride of place. By
the bones of St. Valery, how nobly he towers! See him cover the
bittern!--see him rest on the wing!--Down he swoops! Gallant bird!"
"With his heart split in two on the bittern's bill," said the bishop;
and down, rolling one over the other, fell bittern and hawk, while
William's Norway falcon, smaller of size than the King's, descended
rapidly, and hovered over the two. Both were dead.
"I accept the omen," muttered the gazing Duke; "let the natives
destroy each other!" He placed his whistle to his lips, and his
falcon flew back to his wrist.
"Now home," said King Edward.
CHAPTER IV.
The royal party entered London by the great bridge which divided
Southwark from the capital; and we must pause to gaze a moment on the
animated scene which the immemorial thoroughfare presented.
The whole suburb before entering Southwark was rich in orchards and
gardens, lying round the detached houses of the wealthier merchants
and citizens. Approaching the river-side, to the left, the eye might
see the two circular spaces set apart, the one for bear, the other for
bull-baiting. To the right, upon a green mound of waste, within sight
of the populous bridge, the gleemen were exercising their art. Here
one dexterous juggler threw three balls and three knives alternately
in the air, catching them one by one as they fell [30]. There,
another was gravely leading a great bear to dance on its hind legs,
while his coadjutor kept time with a sort of flute or flageolet. The
lazy bystanders, in great concourse, stared and laughed; but the laugh
was hushed at the tramp of the Norman steeds; and the famous Count by
the King's side, as, with a smiling lip, but observant eye, he rode
along, drew all attention from the bear.
On now approaching that bridge which, not many years before, had been
the scene of terrible contest between the invading Danes and
Ethelred's ally, Olave of Norway [31], you might still see, though
neglected and already in decay, the double fortifications that had
wisely guarded that vista into the city. On both sides of the bridge,
which was of wood, were forts, partly of timber, partly of stone, and
breastworks, and by the forts a little chapel. The bridge, broad
enough to admit two vehicles abreast [32], was crowded with
passengers, and lively with stalls and booths. Here was the favourite
spot of the popular ballad-singer [33]. Here, too, might be seen the
swarthy Saracen, with wares from Spain and Afric [34]. Here, the
German merchant from the Steel-yard swept along on his way to his
suburban home. Here, on some holy office, went quick the muffled
monk. Here, the city gallant paused to laugh with the country girl,
her basket full of May-boughs and cowslips. In short, all bespoke
that activity, whether in business or pastime, which was destined to
render that city the mart of the world, and which had already knit the
trade of the Anglo-Saxon to the remoter corners of commercial Europe.
The deep dark eye of William dwelt admiringly on the bustling groups,
on the broad river, and the forest of masts which rose by the indented
marge near Belin's gate [35]. And he to whom, whatever his faults, or
rather crimes, to the unfortunate people he not only oppressed but
deceived--London at least may yet be grateful, not only for chartered
franchise [36], but for advancing, in one short vigorous reign, her
commerce and wealth, beyond what centuries of Anglo-Saxon domination,
with its inherent feebleness, had effected, exclaimed aloud:
"By rood and mass, O dear king, thy lot hath fallen on a goodly
heritage."
"Hem!" said Edward, lazily; "thou knowest not how troublesome these
Saxons are. And while thou speakest, lo, in yon shattered walls,
built first, they say, by Alfred of holy memory, are the evidences of
the Danes. Bethink thee how often they have sailed up this river.
How know I but what the next year the raven flag may stream over these
waters? Magnus of Denmark hath already claimed my crown as heir to
the royalties of Canute, and" (here Edward hesitated), "Godwin and
Harold, whom alone of my thegns Dane and Northman fear, are far away."
"Miss not them, Edward, my cousin," cried the Duke, in haste. "Send
for me if danger threat thee. Ships enow await thy best in my new
port of Cherbourg. And I tell thee this for thy comfort, that were I
king of the English, and lord of this river, the citizens of London
might sleep from vespers to prime, without fear of the Dane. Never
again should the raven flag be seen by this bridge! Never, I swear,
by the Splendour Divine."
Not without purpose spoke William thus stoutly; and he turned on the
King those glittering eyes (micantes oculos), which the chroniclers
have praised and noted. For it was his hope and his aim in this
visit, that his cousin Edward should formally promise him that goodly
heritage of England. But the King made no rejoinder, and they now
neared the end of the bridge.
"What old ruin looms yonder?" [37] asked William, hiding his
disappointment at Edward's silence; "it seemeth the remains of some
stately keape, which, by its fashion, I should pronounce Roman."
"Ay!" said Edward, "and it is said to have been built by the Romans;
and one of the old Lombard freemasons employed on my new palace of
Westminster, giveth that, and some others in my domain, the name of
the Juillet Tower."
"Those Romans were our masters in all things gallant and wise," said
William; "and I predict that, some day or other, on that site, a King
of England will re-erect palace and tower. And yon castle towards the
west?"
"Is the Tower Palatine, where our predecessors have lodged, and
ourself sometimes; but the sweet loneliness of Thorney Isle pleaseth
me more now."
Thus talking, they entered London, a rude, dark city, built mainly of
timbered houses; streets narrow and winding; windows rarely glazed,
but protected chiefly by linen blinds; vistas opening, however, at
times into broad spaces, round the various convents, where green trees
grew up behind low palisades. Tall roods, and holy images, to which
we owe the names of existing thoroughfares (Rood-lane and Lady-lane
[38]), where the ways crossed, attracted the curious and detained the
pious. Spires there were not then, but blunt, cone-headed turrets,
pyramidal, denoting the Houses of God, rose often from the low,
thatched, and reeded roofs. But every now and then, a scholar's, if
not an ordinary, eye could behold the relics of Roman splendour,
traces of that elder city which now lies buried under our
thoroughfares, and of which, year by year, are dug up the stately
skeletons.
Along the Thames still rose, though much mutilated, the wall of
Constantine [39]. Round the humble and barbarous Church of St. Paul's
(wherein lay the dust of Sebba, that king of the East Saxons who
quitted his throne for the sake of Christ, and of Edward's feeble and
luckless father, Ethelred) might be seen, still gigantic in decay, the
ruins of the vast temple of Diana [40]. Many a church, and many a
convent, pierced their mingled brick and timber work with Roman
capital and shaft. Still by the tower, to which was afterwards given
the Saracen name of Barbican, were the wrecks of the Roman station,
where cohorts watched night and day, in case of fire within or foe
without. [41]
In a niche, near the Aldersgate, stood the headless statue of
Fortitude, which monks and pilgrims deemed some unknown saint in the
old time, and halted to honour. And in the midst of Bishopsgate-
street, sate on his desecrated throne a mangled Jupiter, his eagle at
his feet. Many a half-converted Dane there lingered, and mistook the
Thunderer and the bird for Odin and his hawk. By Leod-gate (the
People's gate [42]) still too were seen the arches of one of those
mighty aqueducts which the Roman learned from the Etrurian. And close
by the Still-yard, occupied by "the Emperor's cheap men" (the German
merchants), stood, almost entire, the Roman temple, extant in the time
of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Without the walls, the old Roman vineyards
[43] still put forth their green leaves and crude clusters, in the
plains of East Smithfield, in the fields of St. Giles's, and on the
site where now stands Hatton Garden. Still massere [44] and cheapmen
chaffered and bargained, at booth and stall, in Mart-lane, where the
Romans had bartered before them. With every encroachment on new soil,
within the walls and without, urn, vase, weapon, human bones, were
shovelled out, and lay disregarded amidst heaps of rubbish.
Not on such evidences of the past civilisation looked the practical
eye of the Norman Count; not on things, but on men, looked he; and as
silently he rode on from street to street, out of those men, stalwart
and tall, busy, active, toiling, the Man-Ruler saw the Civilisation
that was to come.
So, gravely through the small city, and over the bridge that spanned
the little river of the Fleet, rode the train along the Strand; to the
left, smooth sands; to the right, fair pastures below green holts,
thinly studded with houses; over numerous cuts and inlets running into
the river, rode they on. The hour and the season were those in which
youth enjoyed its holiday, and gay groups resorted to the then [45]
fashionable haunts of the Fountain of Holywell, "streaming forth among
glistening pebbles."
So they gained at length the village of Charing, which Edward had
lately bestowed on his Abbey of Westminster, and which was now filled
with workmen, native and foreign, employed on that edifice and the
contiguous palace. Here they loitered awhile at the Mews [46] (where
the hawks were kept), passed by the rude palace of stone and rubble,
appropriated to the tributary kings of Scotland [47]--a gift from
Edgar to Kenneth--and finally, reaching the inlet of the river, which,
winding round the Isle of Thorney (now Westminster), separated the
rising church, abbey, and palace of the Saint-king from the main-land,
dismounted--and were ferried across [48] the narrow stream to the
broad space round the royal residence.
CHAPTER V.
The new palace of Edward the Confessor, the palace of Westminster,
opened its gates, to receive the Saxon King and the Norman Duke,
remounting on the margin of the isle, and now riding side by side.
And as the Duke glanced, from brows habitually knit, first over the
pile, stately, though not yet completed, with its long rows of round
arched windows, cased by indented fringes and fraet (or tooth) work,
its sweep of solid columns with circling cloisters, and its ponderous
towers of simple grandeur; then over the groups of courtiers, with
close vests, and short mantles, and beardless cheeks, that filled up
the wide space, to gaze in homage on the renowned guest, his heart
swelled within him, and, checking his rein, he drew near to his
brother of Bayeux, and whispered,--
"Is not this already the court of the Norman? Behold yon nobles and
earls, how they mimic our garb! behold the very stones in yon gate,
how they range themselves, as if carved by the hand of the Norman
mason! Verily and indeed, brother, the shadow of the rising sun rests
already on these halls."
"Had England no people," said the bishop, "England were yours already.
But saw you not, as we rode along, the lowering brows? and heard you
not the angry murmurs? The villeins are many, and their hate is
strong."
"Strong is the roan I bestride," said the Duke; "but a bold rider
curbs it with the steel of the bit, and guides it with the goad of the
heel."
And now, as they neared the gate, a band of minstrels in the pay of
the Norman touched their instruments, and woke their song--the
household song of the Norman--the battle hymn of Roland, the Paladin
of Charles the Great. At the first word of the song, the Norman
knights and youths profusely scattered amongst the Normanised Saxons
caught up the lay, and with sparkling eyes, and choral voices, they
welcomed the mighty Duke into the palace of the last meek successor of
Woden.
By the porch of the inner court the Duke flung himself from his
saddle, and held the stirrup for Edward to dismount. The King placed
his hand gently on his guest's broad shoulder, and, having somewhat
slowly reached the ground, embraced and kissed him in the sight of the
gorgeous assemblage; then led him by the hand towards the fair chamber
which was set apart for the Duke, and so left him to his attendants.
William, lost in thought, suffered himself to be disrobed in silence;
but when Fitzosborne, his favourite confidant and haughtiest baron,
who yet deemed himself but honoured by personal attendance on his
chief, conducted him towards the bath, which adjoined the chamber, he
drew back, and wrapping round him more closely the gown of fur that
had been thrown over his shoulders, he muttered low,--"Nay, if there
be on me yet one speck of English dust, let it rest there!--seizin,
Fitzosborne, seizin, of the English land." Then, waving his hand, he
dismissed all his attendants except Fitzosborne, and Rolf, Earl of
Hereford [49], nephew to Edward, but French on the father's side, and
thoroughly in the Duke's councils. Twice the Duke paced the chamber
without vouchsafing a word to either, then paused by the round window
that overlooked the Thames. The scene was fair; the sun, towards its
decline, glittered on numerous small pleasure-boats, which shot to and
fro between Westminster and London or towards the opposite shores of
Lambeth. His eye sought eagerly, along the curves of the river, the
grey remains of the fabled Tower of Julius, and the walls, gates, and
turrets, that rose by the stream, or above the dense mass of silent
roofs; then it strained hard to descry the tops of the more distant
masts of the infant navy, fostered under Alfred, the far-seeing, for
the future civilisation of wastes unknown, and the empire of seas
untracked.
The Duke breathed hard, and opened and closed the hand which he
stretched forth into space as if to grasp the city he beheld. "Rolf,"
said he, abruptly, "thou knowest, no doubt, the wealth of the London
traders, one and all; for, foi de Gaillaume, my gentil chevalier, thou
art a true Norman, and scentest the smell of gold as a hound the
boar!"
Rolf smiled, as if pleased with a compliment which simpler men might
have deemed, at the best, equivocal, and replied:
"It is true, my liege; and gramercy, the air of England sharpens the
scent; for in this villein and motley country, made up of all races,--
Saxon and Fin, Dane and Fleming, Pict and Walloon,--it is not as with
us, where the brave man and the pure descent are held chief in honour:
here, gold and land are, in truth, name and lordship; even their
popular name for their national assembly of the Witan is, 'The
Wealthy.' [50] He who is but a ceorl to-day, let him be rich, and he
may be earl to-morrow, marry in king's blood, and rule armies under a
gonfanon statelier than a king's; while he whose fathers were
ealdermen and princes, if, by force or by fraud, by waste or by
largess, he become poor, falls at once into contempt, and out of his
state,--sinks into a class they call 'six-hundred men,' in their
barbarous tongue, and his children will probably sink still lower,
into ceorls. Wherefore gold is the thing here most coveted; and by
St. Michael, the sin is infectious."
William listened to the speech with close attention. "Good," said he,
rubbing slowly the palm of his right hand over the back of the left;
"a land all compact with the power of one race, a race of conquering
men, as our fathers were, whom nought but cowardice or treason can
degrade,--such a land, O Rolf of Hereford, it were hard indeed to
subjugate, or decoy, or tame--"
"So has my lord the Duke found the Bretons; and so also do I find the
Welch upon my marches of Hereford."
"But," continued William, not heeding the interruption, "where wealth
is more than blood and race, chiefs may be bribed or menaced; and the
multitude--by'r Lady, the multitude are the same in all lands, mighty
under valiant and faithful leaders, powerless as sheep without them.
But to my question, my gentle Rolf; this London must be rich?" [51]
"Rich enow," answered Rolf, "to coin into armed men, that should
stretch from Rouen to Flanders on the one hand, and Paris on the
other."
"In the veins of Matilda, whom thou wooest for wife," said
Fitzosborne, abruptly, "flows the blood of Charlemagne. God grant his
empire to the children she shall bear thee!"
The Duke bowed his head, and kissed a relic suspended from his throat.
Farther sign of approval of his counsellor's words he gave not, but
after a pause, he said:
"When I depart, Rolf, thou wendest back to thy marches. These Welch
are brave and fierce, and shape work enow for thy hands."
"Ay, by my halidame! poor sleep by the side of the beehive you have
stricken down."
"Marry, then," said William, "let the Welch prey on Saxon, Saxon on
Welch; let neither win too easily. Remember our omens to-day, Welch
hawk and Saxon bittern, and over their corpses, Duke William's Norway
falcon! Now dress we for the complin [52] and the banquet."
BOOK II.
LANFRANC THE SCHOLAR.
CHAPTER I.
Four meals a day, nor those sparing, were not deemed too extravagant
an interpretation of the daily bread for which the Saxon prayed. Four
meals a day, from earl to ceorl! "Happy times!" may sigh the
descendant of the last, if he read these pages; partly so they were
for the ceorl, but not in all things, for never sweet is the food, and
never gladdening is the drink, of servitude. Inebriety, the vice of
the warlike nations of the North, had not, perhaps, been the pre-
eminent excess of the earlier Saxons, while yet the active and fiery
Britons, and the subsequent petty wars between the kings of the
Heptarchy, enforced on hardy warriors the safety of temperance; but
the example of the Danes had been fatal. Those giants of the sea,
like all who pass from great vicissitudes of toil and repose, from the
tempest to the haven, snatched with full hands every pleasure in their
reach. With much that tended permanently to elevate the character of
the Saxon, they imparted much for a time to degrade it. The Anglian
learned to feast to repletion, and drink to delirium. But such were
not the vices of the court of the Confessor. Brought up from his
youth in the cloister-camp of the Normans, what he loved in their
manners was the abstemious sobriety, and the ceremonial religion,
which distinguished those sons of the Scandinavian from all other
kindred tribes.
The Norman position in France, indeed, in much resembled that of the
Spartan in Greece. He had forced a settlement with scanty numbers in
the midst of a subjugated and sullen population, surrounded by jealous
and formidable foes. Hence sobriety was a condition of his being, and
the policy of the chief lent a willing ear to the lessons of the
preacher. Like the Spartan, every Norman of pure race was free and
noble; and this consciousness inspired not only that remarkable
dignity of mien which Spartan and Norman alike possessed, but also
that fastidious self-respect which would have revolted from exhibiting
a spectacle of debasement to inferiors. And, lastly, as the paucity
of their original numbers, the perils that beset, and the good fortune
that attended them, served to render the Spartans the most religious
of all the Greeks in their dependence on the Divine aid; so, perhaps,
to the same causes may be traced the proverbial piety of the
ceremonial Normans; they carried into their new creed something of
feudal loyalty to their spiritual protectors; did homage to the Virgin
for the lands that she vouchsafed to bestow, and recognised in St.
Michael the chief who conducted their armies.
After hearing the complin vespers in the temporary chapel fitted up in
that unfinished abbey of Westminster, which occupied the site of the
temple of Apollo [53], the King and his guests repaired to their
evening meal in the great hall of the palace. Below the dais were
ranged three long tables for the knights in William's train, and that
flower of the Saxon nobility who, fond, like all youth, of change and
imitation, thronged the court of their Normanised saint, and scorned
the rude patriotism of their fathers. But hearts truly English were
not there. Yea, many of Godwin's noblest foes sighed for the English-
hearted Earl, banished by Norman guile on behalf of English law.
At the oval table on the dais the guests were select and chosen. At
the right hand of the King sat William; at the left Odo of Bayeux.
Over these three stretched a canopy of cloth of gold; the chairs on
which each sate were of metal, richly gilded over, and the arms carved
in elaborate arabesques. At this table too was the King's nephew, the
Earl of Hereford, and, in right of kinsmanship to the Duke, the
Norman's beloved baron and grand seneschal, William Fitzosborne, who,
though in Normandy even he sate not at the Duke's table, was, as
related to his lord, invited by Edward to his own. No other guests
were admitted to this board, so that, save Edward, all were Norman.
The dishes were of gold and silver, the cups inlaid with jewels.
Before each guest was a knife, with hilt adorned by precious stones,
and a napkin fringed with silver. The meats were not placed on the
table, but served upon small spits, and between every course a basin
of perfumed water was borne round by high-born pages. No dame graced
the festival; for she who should have presided--she, matchless for
beauty without pride, piety without asceticism, and learning without
pedantry--she, the pale rose of England, loved daughter of Godwin, and
loathed wife of Edward, had shared in the fall of her kindred, and had
been sent by the meek King, or his fierce counsellors, to an abbey in
Hampshire, with the taunt "that it was not meet that the child and
sister should enjoy state and pomp, while the sire and brethren ate
the bread of the stranger in banishment and disgrace."
But, hungry as were the guests, it was not the custom of that holy
court to fall to without due religious ceremonial. The rage for
psalm-singing was then at its height in England; psalmody had excluded
almost every other description of vocal music; and it is even said
that great festivals on certain occasions were preluded by no less an
effort of lungs and memory than the entire songs bequeathed to us by
King David! This day, however, Hugoline, Edward's Norman chamberlain,
had been pleased to abridge the length of the prolix grace, and the
company were let off; to Edward's surprise and displeasure, with the
curt and unseemly preparation of only nine psalms and one special hymn
in honour of some obscure saint to whom the day was dedicated. This
performed, the guests resumed their seats, Edward murmuring an apology
to William for the strange omission of his chamberlain, and saying
thrice to himself, "Naught, naught--very naught."
The mirth languished at the royal table, despite some gay efforts from
Rolf, and some hollow attempts at light-hearted cheerfulness from the
great Duke, whose eyes, wandering down the table, were endeavouring to
distinguish Saxon from Norman, and count how many of the first might
already be reckoned in the train of his friends. But at the long
tables below, as the feast thickened, and ale, mead, pigment, morat,
and wine circled round, the tongue of the Saxon was loosed, and the
Norman knight lost somewhat of his superb gravity. It was just as
what a Danish poet called the "sun of the night," (in other words, the
fierce warmth of the wine,) had attained its meridian glow, that some
slight disturbance at the doors of the hall, without which waited a
dense crowd of the poor on whom the fragments of the feast were
afterwards to be bestowed, was followed by the entrance of two
strangers, for whom the officers appointed to marshal the
entertainment made room at the foot of one of the tables. Both these
new-comers were clad with extreme plainness; one in a dress, though
not quite monastic, that of an ecclesiastic of low degree; the other
in a long grey mantle and loose gonna, the train of which last was
tucked into a broad leathern belt, leaving bare the leggings, which
showed limbs of great bulk and sinew, and which were stained by the
dust and mire of travel. The first mentioned was slight and small of
person; the last was of the height and port of the sons of Anak. The
countenance of neither could be perceived, for both had let fall the
hood, worn by civilians as by priests out of doors, more than half way
over their faces.
A murmur of great surprise, disdain, and resentment, at the intrusion
of strangers so attired circulated round the neighbourhood in which
they had been placed, checked for a moment by a certain air of respect
which the officer had shown towards both, but especially the taller;
but breaking out with greater vivacity from the faint restraint, as
the tall man unceremoniously stretched across the board, drew towards
himself an immense flagon, which (agreeably to the custom of arranging
the feast in "messes" of four) had been specially appropriated to Ulf
the Dane, Godrith the Saxon, and two young Norman knights akin to the
puissant Lord of Grantmesnil,--and having offered it to his comrade,
who shook his head, drained it with a gusto that seemed to bespeak him
at least no Norman, and wiped his lips boorishly with the sleeve of
his huge arm.
"Dainty sir," said one of those Norman knights, William Mallet, of the
house of Mallet de Graville [54], as he moved as far from the gigantic
intruder as the space on the settle would permit, "forgive the
observation that you have damaged my mantle, you have grazed my foot,
and you have drunk my wine. And vouchsafe, if it so please you, the
face of the man who hath done this triple wrong to William Mallet de
Graville."
A kind of laugh--for laugh absolute it was not--rattled under the cowl
of the tall stranger, as he drew it still closer over his face, with a
hand that might have spanned the breast of his interrogator, and he
made a gesture as if he did not understand the question addressed to
him.
Therewith the Norman knight, bending with demure courtesy across the
board to Godrith the Saxon, said:
"Pardex [55], but this fair guest and seigneur seemeth to me, noble
Godree (whose name I fear my lips do but rudely enounce) of Saxon line
and language; our Romance tongue he knoweth not. Pray you, is it the
Saxon custom to enter a king's hall so garbed, and drink a knight's
wine so mutely?"
Godrith, a young Saxon of considerable rank, but one of the most
sedulous of the imitators of the foreign fashions, coloured high at
the irony in the knight's speech, and turning rudely to the huge
guest, who was now causing immense fragments of pasty to vanish under
the cavernous cowl, he said in his native tongue, though with a lisp
as if unfamiliar to him--
"If thou beest Saxon, shame us not with thy ceorlish manners; crave
pardon of this Norman thegn, who will doubtless yield it to thee in
pity. Uncover thy face--and--"
Here the Saxon's rebuke was interrupted; for one of the servitors just
then approaching Godrith's side with a spit, elegantly caparisoned
with some score of plump larks, the unmannerly giant stretched out his
arm within an inch of the Saxon's startled nose, and possessed himself
of larks, broche, and all. He drew off two, which he placed on his
friend's platter, despite all dissuasive gesticulations, and deposited
the rest upon his own. The young banqueters gazed upon the spectacle
in wrath too full for words.
At last spoke Mallet de Graville, with an envious eye upon the larks--
for though a Norman was not gluttonous, he was epicurean--"Certes, and
foi de chevalier! a man must go into strange parts if he wish to see
monsters; but we are fortunate people," (and he turned to his Norman
friend, Aymer, Quen [56] or Count, D'Evreux,) "that we have discovered
Polyphemus without going so far as Ulysses;" and pointing to the
hooded giant, he quoted, appropriately enough,
"Monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum."
The giant continued to devour his larks, as complacently as the ogre
to whom he was likened might have devoured the Greeks in his cave.
But his fellow intruder seemed agitated by the sound of the Latin; he
lifted up his head suddenly, and showed lips glistening with white
even teeth, and curved into an approving smile, while he said: "Bene,
me fili! bene, lepidissime, poetae verba, in militis ore, non indecora
sonant." [57]
The young Norman stared at the speaker, and replied, in the same tone
of grave affectation: "Courteous sir! the approbation of an
ecclesiastic so eminent as I take you to be, from the modesty with
which you conceal your greatness, cannot fail to draw upon me the envy
of my English friends; who are accustomed to swear in verba magistri,
only for verba they learnedly substitute vina."
"You are pleasant, Sire Mallet," said Godrith, reddening; "but I know
well that Latin is only fit for monks and shavelings; and little enow
even they have to boast of."
The Norman's lip curled in disdain. "Latin!--O, Godree, bien aime!--
Latin is the tongue of Caesars and senators, fortes conquerors and
preux chevaliers. Knowest thou not that Duke William the dauntless at
eight years old had the Comments of Julius Caesar by heart?--and that
it is his saying, that 'a king without letters is a crowned ass?' [58]
When the king is an ass, asinine are his subjects. Wherefore go to
school, speak respectfully of thy betters, the monks and shavelings,
who with us are often brave captains and sage councillors,--and learn
that a full head makes a weighty hand."
"Thy name, young knight?" said the ecclesiastic, in Norman French,
though with a slight foreign accent.
"I can give it thee," said the giant, speaking aloud for the first
time, in the same language, and in a rough voice, which a quick ear
might have detected as disguised,--"I can describe to thee name,
birth, and quality. By name, this youth is Guillaume Mallet,
sometimes styled De Graville, because our Norman gentilhommes,
forsooth, must always now have a 'de' tacked to their names;
nevertheless he hath no other right to the seigneurie of Graville,
which appertains to the head of his house, than may be conferred by an
old tower on one corner of the demesnes so designated, with lands that
would feed one horse and two villeins--if they were not in pawn to a
Jew for moneys to buy velvet mantelines and a chain of gold. By
birth, he comes from Mallet [59], a bold Norwegian in the fleet of Rou
the Sea-king; his mother was a Frank woman, from whom he inherits his
best possessions--videlicet, a shrewd wit, and a railing tongue. His
qualities are abstinence, for he eateth nowhere save at the cost of
another--some Latin, for he was meant for a monk, because he seemed
too slight of frame for a warrior--some courage, for in spite of his
frame he slew three Burgundians with his own hand; and Duke William,
among their foolish acts, spoilt a friar sans tache, by making a
knight sans terre; and for the rest--"
"And for the rest," interrupted the Sire de Graville, turning white
with wrath, but speaking in a low repressed voice, "were it not that
Duke William sate yonder, thou shouldst have six inches of cold steel
in thy huge carcase to digest thy stolen dinner, and silence thy
unmannerly tongue.--"
"For the rest," continued the giant indifferently, and as if he had
not heard the interruption; "for the rest, he only resembles Achilles,
in being impiger iracundus. Big men can quote Latin as well as little
ones, Messire Mallet the beau clerc!"
Mallet's hand was on his dagger; and his eye dilated like that of the
panther before he springs; but fortunately, at that moment, the deep
sonorous voice of William, accustomed to send its sounds down the
ranks of an army, rolled clear through the assemblage, though pitched
little above its ordinary key:--
"Fair is your feast, and bright your wine, Sir King and brother mine!
But I miss here what king and knight hold as the salt of the feast and
the perfume to the wine: the lay of the minstrel. Beshrew me, but
both Saxon and Norman are of kindred stock, and love to hear in hall
and bower the deeds of their northern fathers. Crave I therefore from
your gleemen, or harpers, some song of the olden time!"
A murmur of applause went through the Norman part of the assembly; the
Saxons looked up; and some of the more practised courtiers sighed
wearily, for they knew well what ditties alone were in favour with the
saintly Edward.
The low voice of the King in reply was not heard, but those habituated
to read his countenance in its very faint varieties of expression,
might have seen that it conveyed reproof; and its purport soon became
practically known, when a lugubrious prelude was heard from a quarter
of the hall, in which sate certain ghost-like musicians in white
robes--white as winding-sheets; and forthwith a dolorous and dirgelike
voice chaunted a long and most tedious recital of the miracles and
martyrdom of some early saint. So monotonous was the chaunt, that its
effect soon became visible in a general drowsiness. And when Edward,
who alone listened with attentive delight, turned towards the close to
gather sympathising admiration from his distinguished guests, he saw
his nephew yawning as if his jaw were dislocated--the Bishop of
Bayeux, with his well-ringed fingers interlaced and resting on his
stomach, fast asleep--Fitzosborne's half-shaven head balancing to and
fro with many an uneasy start--and, William, wide awake indeed, but
with eyes fixed on vacant space, and his soul far away from the
gridiron to which (all other saints be praised!) the saint of the
ballad had at last happily arrived.
"A comforting and salutary recital, Count William," said the King.
The Duke started from his reverie, and bowed his head: then said,
rather abruptly, "Is not yon blazon that of King Alfred?"
"Yea. Wherefore?"
"Hem! Matilda of Flanders is in direct descent from Alfred: it is a
name and a line the Saxons yet honour!"
"Surely, yes; Alfred was a great man, and reformed the Psalmster,"
replied Edward.
The dirge ceased, but so benumbing had been its effect, that the
torpor it created did not subside with the cause. There was a dead
and funereal silence throughout the spacious hall, when suddenly,
loudly, mightily, as the blast of the trumpet upon the hush of the
grave, rose a single voice. All started--all turned--all looked to
one direction; and they saw that the great voice pealed from the
farthest end of the hall. From under his gown the gigantic stranger
had drawn a small three-stringed instrument--somewhat resembling the
modern lute--and thus he sang,--
THE BALLAD OF ROU. [60]
I.
From Blois to Senlis, wave by wave, roll'd on the Norman flood,
And Frank on Frank went drifting down the weltering tide of blood;
There was not left in all the land a castle wall to fire,
And not a wife but wailed a lord, a child but mourned a sire.
To Charles the king, the mitred monks, the mailed barons flew,
While, shaking earth, behind them strode the thunder march of Rou.
II.
"O King," then cried those barons bold, "in vain are mace and mail,
We fall before the Norman axe, as corn before the hail."
"And vainly," cried the pious monks, "by Mary's shrine we kneel,
For prayers, like arrows, glance aside, against the Norman teel."
The barons groaned, the shavelings wept, while near and nearer drew,
As death-birds round their scented feast, the raven flags of Rou.
III.
Then said King Charles, "Where thousands fail, what king can stand
alone,
The strength of kings is in the men that gather round the throne.
When war dismays my barons bold, 'tis time for war to cease;
When Heaven forsakes my pious monks, the will of Heaven is peace.
Go forth, my monks, with mass and rood the Norman camp unto,
And to the fold, with shepherd crook, entice this grisly Rou."
IV.
"I'll give him all the ocean coast, from Michael Mount to Eure,
And Gille, my child, shall be his bride, to bind him fast and sure:
Let him but kiss the Christian cross, and sheathe the heathen sword,
And hold the lands I cannot keep, a fief from Charles his lord."
Forth went the pastors of the Church, the Shepherd's work to do,
And wrap the golden fleece around the tiger loins of Rou.
V.
Psalm-chanting came the shaven monks, within the camp of dread;
Amidst his warriors, Norman Rou stood taller by the head.
Out spoke the Frank Archbishop then, a priest devout and sage,
"When peace and plenty wait thy word, what need of war and rage?
Why waste a land as fair as aught beneath the arch of blue,
Which might be thine to sow and reap?"--Thus saith the King to Rou.
VI.
"'I'll give thee all the ocean coast, from Michael Mount to Eure,
And Gille, my fairest child, as bride, to bind thee fast and sure;
If then but kneel to Christ our God, and sheathe thy paynim sword,
And hold thy land, the Church's son, a fief from Charles thy lord."
The Norman on his warriors looked--to counsel they withdrew;
The saints took pity on the Franks, and moved the soul of Rou.
VII.
So back he strode and thus he spoke, to that Archbishop meek:
"I take the land thy king bestows from Eure to Michael-peak,
I take the maid, or foul or fair, a bargain with the toast,
And for thy creed, a sea-king's gods are those that give the most.
So hie thee back, and tell thy chief to make his proffer true,
And he shall find a docile son, and ye a saint in Rou."
VIII.
So o'er the border stream of Epte came Rou the Norman, where,
Begirt with barons, sat the King, enthroned at green St. Clair;
He placed his hand in Charles's hand,--loud shouted all the throng,
But tears were in King Charles's eyes--the grip of Rou was strong.
"Now kiss the foot," the Bishop said, "that homage still is due;"
Then dark the frown and stern the smile of that grim convert, Rou.
IX.
He takes the foot, as if the foot to slavish lips to bring;
The Normans scowl; he tilts the throne, and backwards falls the
King.
Loud laugh the joyous Norman men--pale stare the Franks aghast;
And Rou lifts up his head as from the wind springs up the mast;
"I said I would adore a God, but not a mortal too;
The foot that fled before a foe let cowards kiss!" said Rou.
No words can express the excitement which this rough minstrelsy--
marred as it is by our poor translation from the Romance-tongue in
which it was chanted--produced amongst the Norman guests; less
perhaps, indeed, the song itself, than the recognition of the
minstrel; and as he closed, from more than a hundred voices came the
loud murmur, only subdued from a shout by the royal presence,
"Taillefer, our Norman Taillefer!"
"By our joint saint, Peter, my cousin the King," exclaimed William,
after a frank cordial laugh; "Well I wot, no tongue less free than my
warrior minstrel's could have so shocked our ears. Excuse his bold
theme, for the sake of his bold heart, I pray thee; and since I know
well" (here the Duke's face grew grave and anxious) "that nought save
urgent and weighty news from my stormy realm could have brought over
this rhyming petrel, permit the officer behind me to lead hither a
bird, I fear, of omen as well as of song."
"Whatever pleases thee, pleases me," said Edward, drily; and he gave
the order to the attendant. In a few moments, up the space in the
hall, between either table, came the large stride of the famous
minstrel, preceded by the officer and followed by the ecclesiastic.
The hoods of both were now thrown back, and discovered countenances in
strange contrast, but each equally worthy of the attention it
provoked. The face of the minstrel was open and sunny as the day; and
that of the priest, dark and close as night. Thick curls of deep
auburn (the most common colour for the locks of the Norman) wreathed
in careless disorder round Taillefer's massive unwrinkled brow. His
eye, of light hazel, was bold and joyous; mirth, though sarcastic and
sly, mantled round his lips. His whole presence was at once engaging
and heroic.
On the other hand, the priest's cheek was dark and sallow; his
features singularly delicate and refined; his forehead high, but
somewhat narrow, and crossed with lines of thought; his mien composed,
modest, but not without calm self-confidence. Amongst that assembly
of soldiers, noiseless, self-collected, and conscious of his
surpassing power over swords and mail, moved the SCHOLAR.
William's keen eye rested on the priest with some surprise, not
unmixed with pride and ire; but first addressing Taillefer, who now
gained the foot of the dais, he said, with a familiarity almost fond:
"Now, by're Lady, if thou bringest not ill news, thy gay face, man, is
pleasanter to mine eyes that thy rough song to my ears. Kneel,
Taillefer, kneel to King Edward, and with more address, rogue, than
our unlucky countryman to King Charles."
But Edward, as ill-liking the form of the giant as the subject of his
lay, said, pushing back his seat as far as he could:
"Nay, nay, we excuse thee, we excuse thee, tall man." Nevertheless,
the minstrel still knelt, and so, with a look of profound humility,
did the priest. Then both slowly rose, and at a sign from the Duke,
passed to the other side of the table, standing behind Fitzosborne's
chair.
"Clerk," said William, eying deliberately the sallow face of the
ecclesiastic; "I know thee of old; and if the Church have sent me an
envoy, per la resplendar De, it should have sent me at least an
abbot."
"Hein, hein!" said Taillefer, bluntly, "vex not my bon camarade,
Count of the Normans. Gramercy, thou wilt welcome him, peradventure,
better than me; for the singer tells but of discord, and the sage may
restore the harmony."
"Ha!" said the Duke, and the frown fell so dark over his eyes that the
last seemed only visible by two sparks of fire. "I guess, my proud
Vavasours are mutinous. Retire, thou and thy comrade. Await me in my
chamber. The feast shall not flag in London because the wind blows a
gale in Rouen."
The two envoys, since so they seemed, bowed in silence and withdrew.
"Nought of ill-tidings, I trust," said Edward, who had not listened to
the whispered communications that had passed between the Duke and his
subjects. "No schism in thy Church? The clerk seemed a peaceful man,
and a humble."
"An there were schism in my Church," said the fiery Duke, "my brother
of Bayeux would settle it by arguments as close as the gap between
cord and throttle."
"Ah! thou art, doubtless, well read in the canons, holy Odo!" said the
King, turning to the bishop with more respect than he had yet evinced
towards that gentle prelate.
"Canons, yes, Seigneur, I draw them up myself for my flock conformably
with such interpretations of the Roman Church as suit best with the
Norman realm: and woe to deacon, monk, or abbot, who chooses to
misconstrue them." [61]
The bishop looked so truculent and menacing, while his fancy thus
conjured up the possibility of heretical dissent, that Edward shrank
from him as he had done from Taillefer; and in a few minutes after, on
exchange of signals between himself and the Duke, who, impatient to
escape, was too stately to testify that desire, the retirement of the
royal party broke up the banquet; save, indeed, that a few of the
elder Saxons, and more incorrigible Danes, still steadily kept their
seats, and were finally dislodged from their later settlements on the
stone floors, to find themselves, at dawn, carefully propped in a row
against the outer walls of the palace, with their patient attendants,
holding links, and gazing on their masters with stolid envy, if not of
the repose at least of the drugs that had caused it.
CHAPTER II.
"And now," said William, reclining on a long and narrow couch, with
raised carved work all round it like a box (the approved fashion of a
bed in those days), "now, Sire Taillefer--thy news."
There were then in the Duke's chamber, the Count Fitzosborne, Lord of
Breteuil, surnamed "the Proud Spirit"--who, with great dignity, was
holding before the brazier the ample tunic of linen (called
dormitorium in the Latin of that time, and night-rail in the Saxon
tongue) in which his lord was to robe his formidable limbs for repose
[62],--Taillefer, who stood erect before the Duke as a Roman sentry at
his post,--and the ecclesiastic, a little apart, with arms gathered
under his gown, and his bright dark eyes fixed on the ground.
"High and puissant, my liege," then said Taillefer, gravely, and with
a shade of sympathy on his large face, "my news is such as is best
told briefly: Bunaz, Count d'Eu and descendant of Richard Sanspeur,
hath raised the standard of revolt."
"Go on," said the Duke, clenching his hand.
"Henry, King of the French, is treating with the rebel, and stirring
up mutiny in thy realm, and pretenders to thy throne."
"Ha!" said the Duke, and his lip quivered; "this is not all."
"No, my liege! and the worst is to come. Thy uncle Mauger, knowing
that thy heart is bent on thy speedy nuptials with the high and noble
damsel, Matilda of Flanders, has broken out again in thine absence--is
preaching against thee in hall and from pulpit. He declares that such
espousals are incestuous, both as within the forbidden degrees, and
inasmuch as Adele, the lady's mother, was betrothed to thine uncle
Richard; and Mauger menaces excommunication if my liege pursues his
suit! [63] So troubled is the realm, that I, waiting not for debate
in council, and fearing sinister ambassage if I did so, took ship from
thy port of Cherbourg, and have not flagged rein, and scarce broken
bread, till I could say to the heir of Rolf the Founder--Save thy
realm from the men of mail, and thy bride from the knaves in serge."
"Ho, ho!" cried William; then bursting forth in full wrath, as he
sprang from the couch. "Hearest thou this, Lord Seneschal? Seven
years, the probation of the patriarch, have I wooed and waited; and
lo, in the seventh, does a proud priest say to me, 'Wrench the love
from thy heart-strings!'--Excommunicate me--ME--William, the son of
Robert the Devil! Ha, by God's splendour, Mauger shall live to wish
the father stood, in the foul fiend's true likeness, by his side,
rather than brave the bent brow of the son!"
"Dread my lord," said Fitzosborne, desisting from his employ, and
rising to his feet; "thou knowest that I am thy true friend and leal
knight; thou knowest how I have aided thee in this marriage with the
lady of Flanders, and how gravely I think that what pleases thy fancy
will guard thy realm; but rather than brave the order of the Church,
and the ban of the Pope, I would see thee wed to the poorest virgin in
Normandy."
William, who had been pacing the room like an enraged lion in his den,
halted in amaze at this bold speech.
"This from thee, William Fitzosborne!--from thee! I tell thee, that
if all the priests in Christendom, and all the barons in France, stood
between me and my bride, I would hew my way through the midst. Foes
invade my realm--let them; princes conspire against me--I smile in
scorn; subjects mutiny--this strong hand can punish, or this large
heart can forgive. All these are the dangers which he who governs men
should prepare to meet; but man has a right to his love, as the stag
to his hind. And he who wrongs me here, is foe and traitor to me, not
as Norman Duke but as human being. Look to it--thou and thy proud
barons, look to it!"
"Proud may thy barons be," said Fitzosborne, reddening, and with a
brow that quailed not before his lord's; "for they are the sons of
those who carved out the realm of the Norman, and owned in Rou but the
feudal chief of free warriors; vassals are not villeins. And that
which we hold our duty--whether to Church or chief--that, Duke
William, thy proud barons will doubtless do; nor less, believe me, for
threats which, braved in discharge of duty and defence of freedom, we
hold as air."
The Duke gazed on his haughty subject with an eye in which a meaner
spirit might have seen its doom. The veins in his broad temples
swelled like cords, and a light foam gathered round his quivering
lips. But fiery and fearless as William was, not less was he
sagacious and profound. In that one man he saw the representative of
that superb and matchless chivalry--that race of races--those men of
men, in whom the brave acknowledge the highest example of valiant
deeds, and the free the manliest assertion of noble thoughts [64],
since the day when the last Athenian covered his head with his mantle,
and mutely died: and far from being the most stubborn against his
will, it was to Fitzosborne's paramount influence with the council,
that he had often owed their submission to his wishes, and their
contributions to his wars. In the very tempest of his wrath, he felt
that the blow belonged to strike on that bold head would shiver his
ducal throne to the dust. Be felt too, that awful indeed was that
power of the Church which could thus turn against him the heart of his
truest knight: and he began (for with all his outward frankness his
temper was suspicious) to wrong the great-souled noble by the thought
that he might already be won over by the enemies whom Mauger had
arrayed against his nuptials. Therefore, with one of those rare and
mighty efforts of that dissimulation which debased his character, but
achieved his fortunes, he cleared his brow of its dark cloud, and said
in a low voice, that was not without its pathos:
"Had an angel from heaven forewarned me that William Fitzosborne would
speak thus to his kinsman and brother in arms, in the hour of need and
the agony of passion, I would have disbelieved him. Let it pass----"
But ere the last word was out of his lips, Fitzosborne had fallen on
his knees before the Duke, and, clasping his hand, exclaimed, while
the tears rolled down his swarthy cheek, "Pardon, pardon, my liege!
when thou speakest thus my heart melts. What thou willest, that will
I! Church or Pope, no matter. Send me to Flanders; I will bring back
thy bride."
The slight smile that curved William's lip, showed that he was scarce
worthy of that sublime weakness in his friend. But he cordially
pressed the hand that grasped his own, and said, "Rise; thus should
brother speak to brother." Then--for his wrath was only concealed,
not stifled, and yearned for its vent--his eye fell upon the delicate
and thoughtful face of the priest, who had watched this short and
stormy conference in profound silence, despite Taillefer's whispers to
him to interrupt the dispute. "So, priest," he said, "I remember me
that when Mauger before let loose his rebellious tongue thou didst
lend thy pedant learning to eke out his brainless treason. Methought
that I then banished thee my realm?"
"Not so, Count and Seigneur," answered the ecclesiastic, with a grave
but arch smile on his lip; "let me remind thee, that to speed me back
to my native land thou didst graciously send me a horse, halting on
three legs, and all lame on the fourth. Thus mounted, I met thee on
my road. I saluted thee; so did the beast, for his head well nigh
touched the ground. Whereon I did ask thee, in a Latin play of words,
to give me at least a quadruped, not a tripod, for my journey. [65]
Gracious, even in ire, and with relenting laugh, was thine answer. My
liege, thy words implied banishment--thy laughter pardon. So I
stayed."
Despite his wrath, William could scarce repress a smile; but
recollecting himself, he replied, more gravely, "Peace with this
levity, priest. Doubtless thou art the envoy from this scrupulous
Mauger, or some other of my gentle clergy; and thou comest, as
doubtless, with soft words and whining homilies. It is in vain. I
hold the Church in holy reverence; the pontiff knows it. But Matilda
of Flanders I have wooed; and Matilda of Flanders shall sit by my side
in the halls of Rouen, or on the deck of my war-ship, till it anchors
on a land worthy to yield a new domain to the son of the Sea-king."
"In the halls of Rouen--and it may be on the throne of England--shall
Matilda reign by the side of William," said the priest in a clear,
low, and emphatic voice; "and it was to tell my lord the Duke that I
repent me of my first unconsidered obeisance to Mauger as my spiritual
superior; that since then I have myself examined canon and precedent;
and though the letter of the law be against thy spousals, it comes
precisely under the category of those alliances to which the fathers
of the Church accord dispensation:--it is to tell thee this, that I,
plain Doctor of Laws and priest of Pavia, have crossed the seas."
"Ha Rou!--Ha Rou!" cried Taillefer, with his usual bluffness, and
laughing with great glee, "why wouldst thou not listen to me,
monseigneur?"
"If thou deceivest me not," said William, in surprise, "and thou canst
make good thy words, no prelate in Neustria, save Odo of Bayeux, shall
lift his head high as thine." And here William, deeply versed in the
science of men, bent his eyes keenly upon the unchanging and earnest
face of the speaker. "Ah," he burst out, as if satisfied with the
survey, "and my mind tells me that thou speakest not thus boldly and
calmly without ground sufficient. Man, I like thee. Thy name? I
forget it."
"Lanfranc of Pavia, please you my lord; called some times 'Lanfranc
the Scholar' in thy cloister of Bec. Nor misdeem me, that I, humble,
unmitred priest, should be thus bold. In birth I am noble, and my
kindred stand near to the grace of our ghostly pontiff; to the pontiff
I myself am not unknown. Did I desire honours, in Italy I might seek
them; it is not so. I crave no guerdon for the service I proffer;
none but this--leisure and books in the Convent of Bec."
"Sit down--nay, sit, man," said William, greatly interested, but still
suspicious. "One riddle only I ask thee to solve, before I give thee
all my trust, and place my very heart in thy hands. Why, if thou
desirest not rewards, shouldst thou thus care to serve me--thou, a
foreigner?" A light, brilliant and calm, shone in the eyes of the
scholar, and a blush spread over his pale cheeks.
"My Lord Prince, I will answer in plain words. But first permit me to
be the questioner."
The priest turned towards Fitzosborne, who had seated himself on a
stool at William's feet, and, leaning his chin on his hand, listened
to the ecclesiastic, not more with devotion to his calling, than
wonder at the influence one so obscure was irresistibly gaining over
his own martial spirit, and William's iron craft.
"Lovest thou not, William Lord of Breteuil, lovest thou not fame for
the sake of fame?"
"Sur mon ame--yes!" said the Baron.
"And thou, Taillefer the minstrel, lovest thou not song for the sake
of song?"
"For song alone," replied the mighty minstrel. "More gold in one
ringing rhyme than in all the coffers of Christendom."
"And marvellest thou, reader of men's hearts," said the scholar,
turning once more to William, "that the student loves knowledge for
the sake of knowledge? Born of high race, poor in purse, and slight
of thews, betimes I found wealth in books, and drew strength from
lore. I heard of the Count of Rouen and the Normans, as a prince of
small domain, with a measureless spirit, a lover of letters, and a
captain in war. I came to thy duchy, I noted its subjects and its
prince, and the words of Themistocles rang in my ear: 'I cannot play
the lute, but I can make a small state great.' I felt an interest in
thy strenuous and troubled career. I believe that knowledge, to
spread amongst the nations, must first find a nursery in the brain of
kings; and I saw in the deed-doer, the agent of the thinker. In those
espousals, on which with untiring obstinacy thy heart is set, I might
sympathise with thee; perchance"--(here a melancholy smile flitted
over the student's pale lips), "perchance even as a lover: priest
though I be now, and dead to human love, once I loved, and I know what
it is to strive in hope, and to waste in despair. But my sympathy, I
own, was more given to the prince than to the lover. It was natural
that I, priest and foreigner, should obey at first the orders of
Mauger, archprelate and spiritual chief, and the more so as the law
was with him; but when I resolved to stay despite thy sentence which
banished me, I resolved to aid thee; for if with Mauger was the dead
law, with thee was the living cause of man. Duke William, on thy
nuptials with Matilda of Flanders rests thy duchy--rest, perchance,
the mightier sceptres that are yet to come. Thy title disputed, thy
principality new and unestablished, thou, above all men, must link thy
new race with the ancient line of kings and kaisars. Matilda is the
descendant of Charlemagne and Alfred. Thy realm is insecure as long
as France undermines it with plots, and threatens it with arms. Marry
the daughter of Baldwin--and thy wife is the niece of Henry of France
--thine enemy becomes thy kinsman, and must, perforce, be thine ally.
This is not all; it were strange, looking round this disordered
royalty of England--a childless king, who loves thee better than his
own blood; a divided nobility, already adopting the fashions of the
stranger, and accustomed to shift their faith from Saxon to Dane, and
Dane to Saxon; a people that has respect indeed for brave chiefs, but,
seeing new men rise daily from new houses, has no reverence for
ancient lines and hereditary names; with a vast mass of villeins or
slaves that have no interest in the land or its rulers; strange,
seeing all this, if thy day-dreams have not also beheld a Norman
sovereign on the throne of Saxon England. And thy marriage with the
descendant of the best and most beloved prince that ever ruled these
realms, if it does not give thee a title to the land, may help to
conciliate its affections, and to fix thy posterity in the halls of
their mother's kin. Have I said eno' to prove why, for the sake of
nations, it were wise for the pontiff to stretch the harsh girths of
the law? why I might be enabled to prove to the Court of Rome the
policy of conciliating the love, and strengthening the hands, of the
Norman Count, who may so become the main prop of Christendom? Yea,
have I said eno' to prove that the humble clerk can look on mundane
matters with the eye of a man who can make small states great?"
William remained speechless--his hot blood thrilled with a half
superstitious awe; so thoroughly had this obscure Lombard divined,
detailed all the intricate meshes of that policy with which he himself
had interwoven his pertinacious affection for the Flemish princess,
that it seemed to him as if he listened to the echo of his own heart,
or heard from a soothsayer the voice of his most secret thoughts.
The priest continued
"Wherefore, thus considering, I said to myself, Now has the time come,
Lanfranc the Lombard, to prove to thee whether thy self-boastings have
been a vain deceit, or whether, in this age of iron and amidst this
lust of gold, thou, the penniless and the feeble, canst make knowledge
and wit of more avail to the destinies of kings than armed men and
filled treasuries. I believe in that power. I am ready for the test.
Pause, judge from what the Lord of Breteuil hath said to thee, what
will be the defection of thy lords if the Pope confirm the threatened
excommunication of thine uncle? Thine armies will rot from thee; thy
treasures will be like dry leaves in thy coffers; the Duke of Bretagne
will claim thy duchy as the legitimate heir of thy forefathers; the
Duke of Burgundy will league with the King of France, and march on thy
faithless legions under the banner of the Church. The handwriting is
on the walls, and thy sceptre and thy crown will pass away." William
set his teeth firmly, and breathed hard.
"But send me to Rome, thy delegate, and the thunder of Mauger shall
fall powerless. Marry Matilda, bring her to thy halls, place her on
thy throne, laugh to scorn the interdict of thy traitor uncle, and
rest assured that the Pope shall send thee his dispensation to thy
spousals, and his benison on thy marriage-bed. And when this be done,
Duke William, give me not abbacies and prelacies; multiply books, and
stablish schools, and bid thy servant found the royalty of knowledge,
as thou shalt found the sovereignty of war."
The Duke, transported from himself, leaped up and embraced the priest
with his vast arms; he kissed his cheeks, he kissed his forehead, as,
in those days, king kissed king with "the kiss of peace."
"Lanfranc of Pavia," he cried, "whether thou succeed or fail, thou
hast my love and gratitude evermore. As thou speakest, would I have
spoken, had I been born, framed, and reared as thou. And, verily,
when I hear thee, I blush for the boasts of my barbarous pride, that
no man can wield my mace, or bend my bow. Poor is the strength of
body--a web of law can entangle it, and a word from a priest's mouth
can palsy. But thou!--let me look at thee."
William gazed on the pale face: from head to foot he scanned the
delicate, slender form, and then, turning away, he said to
Fitzosborne:
"Thou, whose mailed hand hath fell'd a war-steed, art thou not ashamed
of thyself? The day is coming, I see it afar, when these slight men
shall set their feet upon our corslets."
He paused as if in thought, again paced the room, and stopped before
the crucifix, and image of the Virgin, which stood in a niche near the
bed-head.
"Right, noble prince," said the priest's low voice, "pause there for a
solution to all enigmas; there view the symbol of all-enduring power;
there, learn its ends below--comprehend the account it must yield
above. To your thoughts and your prayers we leave you."
He took the stalwart arm of Taillefer, as he spoke, and, with a grave
obeisance to Fitzosborne, left the chamber.
CHAPTER III.
The next morning William was long closeted alone with Lanfranc,--that
man, among the most remarkable of his age, of whom it was said, that
"to comprehend the extent of his talents, one must be Herodian in
grammar, Aristotle in dialectics, Cicero in rhetoric, Augustine and
Jerome in Scriptural lore," [66]--and ere the noon the Duke's gallant
and princely train were ordered to be in readiness for return home.
The crowd in the broad space, and the citizens from their boats in the
river, gazed on the knights and steeds of that gorgeous company,
already drawn up and awaiting without the open gates the sound of the
trumpets that should announce the Duke's departure. Before the hall-
door in the inner court were his own men. The snow-white steed of
Odo; the alezan of Fitzosborne; and, to the marvel of all, a small
palfrey plainly caparisoned. What did that palfrey amid those
steeds?--the steeds themselves seemed to chafe at the companionship;
the Duke's charger pricked up his ears and snorted; the Lord of
Breteuil's alezan kicked out, as the poor nag humbly drew near to make
acquaintance; and the prelate's white barb, with red vicious eye, and
ears laid down, ran fiercely at the low-bred intruder, with difficulty
reined in by the squires, who shared the beast's amaze and resentment.
Meanwhile the Duke thoughtfully took his way to Edward's apartments.
In the anteroom were many monks and many knights; but conspicuous
amongst them all was a tall and stately veteran, leaning on a great
two-handed sword, and whose dress and fashion of beard were those of
the last generation, the men who had fought with Canute the Great or
Edmund Ironsides. So grand was the old man's aspect, and so did he
contrast in appearance the narrow garb and shaven chins of those
around, that the Duke was roused from his reverie at the sight, and
marvelling why one, evidently a chief of high rank, had neither graced
the banquet in his honour, nor been presented to his notice, he turned
to the Earl of Hereford, who approached him with gay salutation, and
inquired the name and title of the bearded man in the loose flowing
robe.
"Know you not, in truth?" said the lively Earl, in some wonder. "In
him you see the great rival of Godwin. He is the hero of the Danes,
as Godwin is of the Saxons, a true son of Odin, Siward, Earl of the
Northumbrians." [67]
"Norse Dame be my aid,--his fame hath oft filled my ears, and I should
have lost the most welcome sight in merrie England had I not now
beheld him."
Therewith, the Duke approached courteously, and, doffing the cap he
had hitherto retained, he greeted the old hero with those compliments
which the Norman had already learned in the courts of the Frank.
The stout Earl received them coldly, and replying in Danish to
William's Romance-tongue, he said:
"Pardon, Count of the Normans, if these old lips cling to their old
words. Both of us, methinks, date our lineage from the lands of the
Norse. Suffer Siward to speak the language the sea-kings spoke. The
old oak is not to be transplanted, and the old man keeps the ground
where his youth took root."
The Duke, who with some difficulty comprehended the general meaning of
Siward's speech, bit his lip, but replied courteously:
"The youths of all nations may learn from renowned age. Much doth it
shame me that I cannot commune with thee in the ancestral tongue; but
the angels at least know the language of the Norman Christian, and I
pray them and the saints for a calm end to thy brave career."
"Pray not to angel or saint for Siward son of Beorn," said the old man
hastily; "let me not have a cow's death, but a warrior's; die in my
mail of proof, axe in hand, and helm on head. And such may be my
death, if Edward the King reads my rede and grants my prayer."
"I have influence with the King," said William; "name thy wish, that I
may back it."
"The fiend forfend," said the grim Earl, "that a foreign prince should
sway England's King, or that thegn and earl should ask other backing
than leal service and just cause. If Edward be the saint men call
him, he will loose me on the hell-wolf, without other cry than his own
conscience."
The Duke turned inquiringly to Rolf; who, thus appealed to, said:
"Siward urges my uncle to espouse the cause of Malcolm of Cumbria
against the bloody tyrant Macbeth; and but for the disputes with the
traitor Godwin, the King had long since turned his arms to Scotland."
"Call not traitors, young man," said the Earl, in high disdain, "those
who, with all their faults and crimes, have placed thy kinsman on the
throne of Canute."
"Hush, Rolf," said the Duke, observing the fierce young Norman about
to reply hastily. "But methought, though my knowledge of English
troubles is but scant, that Siward was the sworn foe to Godwin?"
"Foe to him in his power, friend to him in his wrongs," answered
Siward. "And if England needs defenders when I and Godwin are in our
shrouds, there is but one man worthy of the days of old, and his name
is Harold, the outlaw."
William's face changed remarkably, despite all his dissimulation; and,
with a slight inclination of his head, he strode on moody and
irritated.
"This Harold! this Harold!" he muttered to himself, "all brave men
speak to me of this Harold! Even my Norman knights name him with
reluctant reverence, and even his foes do him honour;--verily his
shadow is cast from exile over all the land."
Thus murmuring, he passed the throng with less than his wonted affable
grace, and pushing back the officers who wished to precede him,
entered, without ceremony, Edward's private chamber.
The King was alone, but talking loudly to himself, gesticulating
vehemently, and altogether so changed from his ordinary placid apathy
of mien, that William drew back in alarm and awe. Often had he heard
indirectly, that of late years Edward was said to see visions, and be
rapt from himself into the world of spirit and shadow; and such, he
now doubted not, was the strange paroxysm of which he was made the
witness. Edward's eyes were fixed on him, but evidently without
recognising his presence; the King's hands were outstretched, and he
cried aloud in a voice of sharp anguish:
"Sanguelac, Sanguelac!--the Lake of Blood!--the waves spread, the
waves redden! Mother of mercy--where is the ark?--where the Ararat?--
Fly--fly--this way--this--" and he caught convulsive hold of William's
arm. "No! there the corpses are piled--high and higher--there the
horse of the Apocalypse tramples the dead in their gore."
In great horror, William took the King, now gasping on his breast, in
his arms, and laid him on his bed, beneath its canopy of state, all
blazoned with the martlets and cross of his insignia. Slowly Edward
came to himself, with heavy sighs; and when at length he sate up and
looked round, it was with evident unconsciousness of what had passed
across his haggard and wandering spirit, for he said, with his usual
drowsy calmness:
"Thanks, Guillaume, bien aime, for rousing me from unseasoned sleep.
How fares it with thee?"
"Nay, how with thee, dear friend and king? thy dreams have been
troubled."
"Not so; I slept so heavily, methinks I could not have dreamed at all.
But thou art clad as for a journey--spur on thy heel, staff in thy
hand!"
"Long since, O dear host, I sent Odo to tell thee of the ill news from
Normandy that compelled me to depart."
"I remember--I remember me now," said Edward, passing his pale womanly
fingers over his forehead. "The heathen rage against thee. Ah! my
poor brother, a crown is an awful head-gear. While yet time, why not
both seek some quiet convent, and put away these earthly cares?"
William smiled and shook his head. "Nay, holy Edward, from all I have
seen of convents, it is a dream to think that the monk's serge hides a
calmer breast than the warrior's mail, or the king's ermine. Now give
me thy benison, for I go."
He knelt as he spoke, and Edward bent his hands over his head, and
blessed him. Then, taking from his own neck a collar of zimmes
(jewels and uncut gems), of great price, the King threw it over the
broad throat bent before him, and rising, clapped his hands. A small
door opened, giving a glimpse of the oratory within, and a monk
appeared.
"Father, have my behests been fulfilled?--hath Hugoline, my treasurer,
dispensed the gifts that I spoke of?"
"Verily yes; vault, coffer, and garde-robe--stall and meuse.-are well
nigh drained," answered the monk, with a sour look at the Norman,
whose native avarice gleamed in his dark eyes as he heard the answer.
"Thy train go not hence empty-handed," said Edward fondly. "Thy
father's halls sheltered the exile, and the exile forgets not the sole
pleasure of a king--the power to requite. We may never meet again,
William,--age creeps over me, and who will succeed to my thorny
throne?" William longed to answer,--to tell the hope that consumed
him,--to remind his cousin of the vague promise in their youth, that
the Norman Count should succeed to that "thorny throne:" but the
presence of the Saxon monk repelled him, nor was there in Edward's
uneasy look much to allure him on.
"But peace," continued the King, "be between thine and mine, as
between thee and me!"
"Amen," said the Duke, "and I leave thee at least free from the proud
rebels who so long disturbed thy reign. This House of Godwin, thou
wilt not again let it tower above thy palace?"
"Nay, the future is with God and his saints;" answered Edward, feebly.
"But Godwin is old--older than I, and bowed by many storms."
"Ay, his sons are more to be dreaded and kept aloof--mostly Harold!"
"Harold,--he was ever obedient, he alone of his kith; truly my soul
mourns for Harold," said the King, sighing.
"The serpent's egg hatches but the serpent. Keep thy heel on it,"
said William, sternly.
"Thou speakest well," said the irresolute prince, who never seemed
three days or three minutes together in the same mind. "Harold is in
Ireland--there let him rest: better for all."
"For all," said the Duke; "so the saints keep thee, O royal saint!"
He kissed the King's hand, and strode away to the hall where Odo,
Fitzosborne, and the priest Lanfranc awaited him. And so that day,
halfway towards the fair town of Dover, rode Duke William, and by the
side of his roan barb ambled the priest's palfrey.
Behind came his gallant train, and with tumbrils and sumpter-mules
laden with baggage, and enriched by Edward's gifts; while Welch hawks,
and steeds of great price from the pastures of Surrey and the plains
of Cambridge and York, attested no less acceptably than zimme, and
golden chain, and embroidered robe, the munificence of the grateful
King. [68]
As they journeyed on, and the fame of the Duke's coming was sent
abroad by the bodes or messengers, despatched to prepare the towns
through which he was to pass for an arrival sooner than expected, the
more highborn youths of England, especially those of the party counter
to that of the banished Godwin, came round the ways to gaze upon that
famous chief, who, from the age of fifteen, had wielded the most
redoubtable sword of Christendom. And those youths wore the Norman
garb: and in the towns, Norman counts held his stirrup to dismount,
and Norman hosts spread the fastidious board; and when, at the eve of
the next day, William saw the pennon of one of his own favourite
chiefs waving in the van of armed men, that sallied forth from the
towers of Dover (the key of the coast) he turned to the Lombard, still
by his side, and said:
"Is not England part of Normandy already?"
And the Lombard answered:
"The fruit is well nigh ripe, and the first breeze will shake it to
thy feet. Put not out thy hand too soon. Let the wind do its work."
And the Duke made reply:
"As thou thinkest, so think I. And there is but one wind in the halls
of heaven that can waft the fruit to the feet of another."
"And that?" asked the Lombard.
"Is the wind that blows from the shores of Ireland, when it fills the
sails of Harold, son of Godwin."
"Thou fearest that man, and why?" asked the Lombard with interest.
And the Duke answered:
"Because in the breast of Harold beats the heart of England."
BOOK III.
THE HOUSE OF GODWIN.
CHAPTER I.
And all went to the desire of Duke William the Norman. With one hand
he curbed his proud vassals, and drove back his fierce foes. With the
other, he led to the altar Matilda, the maid of Flanders; and all
happened as Lanfranc had foretold. William's most formidable enemy,
the King of France, ceased to conspire against his new kinsman; and
the neighbouring princes said, "The Bastard hath become one of us
since he placed by his side the descendant of Charlemagne." And
Mauger, Archbishop of Rouen, excommunicated the Duke and his bride,
and the ban fell idle; for Lanfranc sent from Rome the Pope's
dispensation and blessing [69], conditionally only that bride and
bridegroom founded each a church. And Mauger was summoned before the
synod, and accused of unclerical crimes; and they deposed him from his
state, and took from him abbacies and sees. And England every day
waxed more and more Norman; and Edward grew more feeble and infirm,
and there seemed not a barrier between the Norman Duke and the English
throne, when suddenly the wind blew in the halls of heaven, and filled
the sails of Harold the Earl.
And his ships came to the mouth of the Severn. And the people of
Somerset and Devon, a mixed and mainly a Celtic race, who bore small
love to the Saxons, drew together against him, and he put them to
flight. [70]
Meanwhile, Godwin and his sons Sweyn, Tostig, and Gurth, who had taken
refuge in that very Flanders from which William the Duke had won his
bride,--(for Tostig had wed, previously, the sister of Matilda, the
rose of Flanders; and Count Baldwin had, for his sons-in-law, both
Tostig and William,)--meanwhile, I say, these, not holpen by the Count
Baldwin, but helping themselves, lay at Bruges, ready to join Harold
the Earl. And Edward, advised of this from the anxious Norman, caused
forty ships [71] to be equipped, and put them under command of Rolf,
Earl of Hereford. The ships lay at Sandwich in wait for Godwin. But
the old Earl got from them, and landed quietly on the southern coast.
And the fort of Hastings opened to his coming with a shout from its
armed men.
All the boatmen, all the mariners, far and near, thronged to him, with
sail and with shield, with sword and with oar. All Kent (the foster-
mother of the Saxons) sent forth the cry, "Life or death with Earl
Godwin." [72] Fast over the length and breadth of the land, went the
bodes [73] and riders of the Earl; and hosts, with one voice, answered
the cry of the children of Horsa, "Life or death with Earl Godwin."
And the ships of King Edward, in dismay, turned flag and prow to
London, and the fleet of Harold sailed on. So the old Earl met his
young son on the deck of a war-ship, that had once borne the Raven of
the Dane.
Swelled and gathering sailed the armament of the English men. Slow up
the Thames it sailed, and on either shore marched tumultuous the
swarming multitudes. And King Edward sent after more help, but it
came up very late. So the fleet of the Earl nearly faced the Julliet
Keape of London, and abode at Southwark till the flood-tide came up.
When he had mustered his host, then came the flood tide. [74]
CHAPTER II.
King Edward sate, not on his throne, but on a chair of state, in the
presence-chamber of his palace of Westminster. His diadem, with the
three zimmes shaped into a triple trefoil [75] on his brow, his
sceptre in his right hand. His royal robe, tight to the throat, with
a broad band of gold, flowed to his feet; and at the fold gathered
round the left knee, where now the kings of England wear the badge of
St. George, was embroidered a simple cross [76]. In that chamber met
the thegns and proceres of his realm; but not they alone. No national
Witan there assembled, but a council of war, composed at least one
third part of Normans--counts, knights, prelates, and abbots of high
degree.
And King Edward looked a king! The habitual lethargic meekness had
vanished from his face, and the large crown threw a shadow, like a
frown, over his brow. His spirit seemed to have risen from the weight
it took from the sluggish blood of his father, Ethelred the Unready,
and to have remounted to the brighter and earlier sources of ancestral
heroes. Worthy in that hour he seemed to boast the blood and wield
the sceptre of Athelstan and Alfred. [77]
Thus spoke the King:
"Right worthy and beloved, my ealdermen, earls, and thegns of England;
noble and familiar, my friends and guests, counts and chevaliers of
Normandy, my mother's land; and you, our spiritual chiefs, above all
ties of birth and country, Christendom your common appanage, and from
Heaven your seignories and fiefs,--hear the words of Edward, the King
of England under grace of the Most High. The rebels are in our river;
open yonder lattice, and you will see the piled shields glittering
from their barks, and hear the hum of their hosts. Not a bow has yet
been drawn, not a sword left its sheath; yet on the opposite side of
the river are our fleets of forty sail--along the strand, between our
palace and the gates of London, are arrayed our armies. And this
pause because Godwin the traitor hath demanded truce and his nuncius
waits without. Are ye willing that we should hear the message? or
would ye rather that we dismiss the messenger unheard, and pass at
once, to rank and to sail, the war-cry of a Christian king, 'Holy
Crosse and our Lady!'"
The King ceased, his left hand grasping firm the leopard head carved
on his throne, and his sceptre untrembling in his lifted hand.
A murmur of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, the war-cry of the Normans, was
heard amongst the stranger-knights of the audience; but haughty and
arrogant as those strangers were, no one presumed to take precedence,
in England's danger, of men English born.
Slowly then rose Alred, Bishop of Winchester, the worthiest prelate in
all the land. [78]
"Kingly son," said the bishop, "evil is the strife between men of the
same blood and lineage, nor justified but by extremes, which have not
yet been made clear to us. And ill would it sound throughout England
were it said that the King's council gave, perchance, his city of
London to sword and fire, and rent his land in twain, when a word in
season might have disbanded yon armies, and given to your throne a
submissive subject, where now you are menaced by a formidable rebel.
Wherefore, I say, admit the nuncius."
Scarcely had Alred resumed his seat, before Robert the Norman prelate
of Canterbury started up,--a man, it was said, of worldly learning--
and exclaimed:
"To admit the messenger is to approve the treason. I do beseech the
King to consult only his own royal heart and royal honour. Reflect--
each moment of delay swells the rebel hosts, strengthens their cause;
of each moment they avail themselves to allure to their side the
misguided citizens. Delay but proves our own weakness; a king's name
is a tower of strength, but only when fortified by a king's authority.
Give the signal for--war I call it not--no--for chastisement and
justice."
"As speaks my brother of Canterbury, speak I," said William, Bishop of
London, another Norman.
But then there rose up a form at whose rising all murmurs were hushed.
Grey and vast, as some image of a gone and mightier age towered over
all, Siward, the son of Beorn, the great Earl of Northumbria.
"We have naught to do with the Normans. Were they on the river, and
our countrymen, Dane or Saxon, alone in this hall, small doubt of the
King's choice, and niddering were the man who spoke of peace; but when
Norman advises the dwellers of England to go forth and slay each
other, no sword of mine shall be drawn at his hest. Who shall say that
Siward of the Strong Arm, the grandson of the Berserker, ever turned
from a foe? The foe, son of Ethelred, sits in these halls; I fight
thy battles when I say Nay to the Norman! Brothers-in-arms of the
kindred race and common tongue, Dane and Saxon long intermingled,
proud alike of Canute the glorious and Alfred the wise, ye will hear
the man whom Godwin, our countryman, sends to us; he at least will
speak our tongue, and he knows our laws. If the demand he delivers be
just, such as a king should grant, and our Witan should hear, woe to
him who refuses; if unjust be the demand, shame to him who accedes.
Warrior sends to warrior, countryman to countryman; hear we as
countrymen, and judge as warriors. I have said."
The utmost excitement and agitation followed the speech of Siward,--
unanimous applause from the Saxons, even those who in times of peace
were most under the Norman contagion; but no words can paint the wrath
and scorn of the Normans. They spoke loud and many at a time; the
greatest disorder prevailed. But the majority being English, there
could be no doubt as to the decision; and Edward, to whom the
emergence gave both a dignity and presence of mind rare to him,
resolved to terminate the dispute at once. He stretched forth his
sceptre, and motioning to his chamberlain, bade him introduce the
nuncius. [79]
A blank disappointment, not unmixed with apprehensive terror,
succeeded the turbulent excitement of the Normans; for well they knew
that the consequences, if not condition, of negotiations, would be
their own downfall and banishment at the least;--happy, it might be,
to escape massacre at the hands of the exasperated multitude.
The door at the end of the room opened, and the nuncius appeared. He
was a sturdy, broad-shouldered man, of middle age, and in the long
loose garb originally national with the Saxon, though then little in
vogue; his beard thick and fair, his eyes grey and calm--a chief of
Kent, where all the prejudices of his race were strongest, and whose
yeomanry claimed in war the hereditary right to be placed in the front
of battle.
He made his manly but deferential salutation to the august council as
he approached; and, pausing midway between the throne and door, he
fell on his knees without thought of shame, for the King to whom he
knelt was the descendant of Woden, and the heir of Hengist. At a sign
and a brief word from the King, still on his knees, Vebba, the
Kentman, spoke.
"To Edward, son of Ethelred, his most gracious king and lord, Godwin,
son of Wolnoth, sends faithful and humble greeting, by Vebba, the
thegn-born. He prays the King to hear him in kindness, and judge of
him with mercy. Not against the King comes he hither with ships and
arms; but against those only who would stand between the King's heart
and the subject's: those who have divided a house against itself, and
parted son and father, man and wife."
At those last words Edward's sceptre trembled in this hand, and his
face grew almost stern.
"Of the King, Godwin but prays with all submiss and earnest prayer, to
reverse the unrighteous outlawry against him and his; to restore him
and his sons their just possessions and well-won honours; and, more
than all, to replace them where they have sought by loving service not
unworthily to stand, in the grace of their born lord and in the van of
those who would uphold the laws and liberties of England. This done--
the ships sail back to their haven; the thegn seeks his homestead and
the ceorl returns to the plough; for with Godwin are no strangers; and
his force is but the love of his countrymen."
"Hast thou said?" quoth the King.
"I have said."
"Retire, and await our answer."
The Thegn of Kent was then led back into an ante-room, in which, armed
from head to heel in ring-mail, were several Normans whose youth or
station did not admit them into the council, but still of no mean
interest in the discussion, from the lands and possessions they had
already contrived to gripe out of the demesnes of the exiles;--burning
for battle and eager for the word. Amongst these was Mallet de
Graville.
The Norman valour of this young knight was, as we have seen, guided by
Norman intelligence; and he had not disdained, since William's
departure, to study the tongue of the country in which he hoped to
exchange his mortgaged tower on the Seine, for some fair barony on the
Humber or the Thames.
While the rest of his proud countrymen stood aloof, with eyes of
silent scorn, from the homely nuncius, Mallet approached him with
courteous bearing, and said in Saxon:
"May I crave to know the issue of thy message from the reb--that is
from the doughty Earl?"
"I wait to learn it," said Vebba, bluffly.
"They heard thee throughout, then?"
"Throughout."
"Friendly Sir," said the Sire de Graville, seeking to subdue the tone
of irony habitual to him, and acquired, perhaps, from his maternal
ancestry, the Franks. "Friendly and peace-making Sir, dare I so far
venture to intrude on the secrets of thy mission as to ask if Godwin
demands, among other reasonable items, the head of thy humble servant
--not by name indeed, for my name is as yet unknown to him--but as one
of the unhappy class called Normans?"
"Had Earl Godwin," returned the nuncius, "thought fit to treat for
peace by asking vengeance, he would have chosen another spokesman.
The Earl asks but his own; and thy head is not, I trow, a part of his
goods and chattels."
"That is comforting," said Mallet. "Marry, I thank thee, Sir Saxon;
and thou speakest like a brave man and an honest. And if we fall to
blows, as I suspect we shall, I should deem it a favour of our Lady
the Virgin if she send thee across my way. Next to a fair friend I
love a bold foe."
Vebba smiled, for he liked the sentiment, and the tone and air of the
young knight pleased his rough mind, despite his prejudices against
the stranger.
Encouraged by the smile, Mallet seated himself on the corner of the
long table that skirted the room, and with a debonnair gesture invited
Vebba to do the same; then looking at him gravely, he resumed:
"So frank and courteous thou art, Sir Envoy, that I yet intrude on
thee my ignorant and curious questions."
"Speak out, Norman."
"How comes it, then, that you English so love this Earl Godwin?--Still
more, why think you it right and proper that King Edward should love
him too? It is a question I have often asked, and to which I am not
likely in these halls to get answer satisfactory. If I know aught of
your troublous history, this same Earl has changed sides oft eno';
first for the Saxon, then for Canute the Dane--Canute dies, and your
friend takes up arms for the Saxon again. He yields to the advice of
your Witan, and sides with Hardicanute and Harold, the Danes--a
letter, nathless, is written as from Emma, the mother to the young
Saxon princes, Edward and Alfred, inviting them over to England, and
promising aid; the saints protect Edward, who continues to say aves in
Normandy--Alfred comes over, Earl Godwin meets him, and, unless
belied, does him homage, and swears to him faith. Nay, listen yet.
This Godwin, whom ye love so, then leads Alfred and his train into the
ville of Guildford, I think ye call it,--fair quarters enow. At the
dead of the night rush in King Harold's men, seize prince and
follower, six hundred men in all; and next morning, saving only every
tenth man, they are tortured and put to death. The prince is born off
to London, and shortly afterwards his eyes are torn out in the Islet
of Ely, and he dies of the anguish! That ye should love Earl Godwin
withal may be strange, but yet possible. But is it possible, cher
Envoy, for the King to love the man who thus betrayed his brother to
the shambles?"
"All this is a Norman fable," said the Thegn of Kent, with a disturbed
visage; "and Godwin cleared himself on oath of all share in the foul
murder of Alfred."
"The oath, I have heard, was backed," said the knight drily, "by a
present to Hardicanute, who after the death of King Harold resolved to
avenge the black butchery; a present, I say, of a gilt ship, manned by
fourscore warriors with gold-hilted swords, and gilt helms.--But let
this pass."
"Let it pass," echoed Vebba with a sigh. "Bloody were those times,
and unholy their secrets."
"Yet answer me still, why love you Earl Godwin? He hath changed sides
from party to party, and in each change won lordships and lands. He
is ambitious and grasping, ye all allow; for the ballads sung in your
streets liken him to the thorn and the bramble, at which the sheep
leaves his wool. He is haughty and overbearing. Tell me, O Saxon,
frank Saxon, why you love Godwin the Earl? Fain would I know; for,
please the saints (and you and your Earl so permitting), I mean to
live and die in this merrie England; and it would be pleasant to learn
that I have but to do as Earl Godwin, in order to win love from the
English."
The stout Vebba looked perplexed; but after stroking his beard
thoughtfully, he answered thus:
"Though of Kent, and therefore in his earldom, I am not one of
Godwin's especial party; for that reason was I chosen his bode. Those
who are under him doubtless love a chief liberal to give and strong to
protect. The old age of a great leader gathers reverence, as an oak
gathers moss. But to me, and those like me, living peaceful at home,
shunning courts, and tempting not broils, Godwin the man is not dear--
it is Godwin the thing."
"Though I do my best to know your language," said the knight, "ye have
phrases that might puzzle King Solomon. What meanest thou by 'Godwin
the thing'?"
"That which to us Godwin only seems to uphold. We love justice;
whatever his offences, Godwin was banished unjustly. We love our
laws; Godwin was dishonoured by maintaining them. We love England,
and are devoured by strangers; Godwin's cause is England's, and--
stranger, forgive me for not concluding."
Then examining the young Norman with a look of rough compassion, he
laid his large hand upon the knight's shoulder and whispered:
"Take my advice--and fly."
"Fly!" said De Graville, reddening. "Is it to fly, think you, that I
have put on my mail, and girded my sword?"
"Vain--vain! Wasps are fierce, but the swarm is doomed when the straw
is kindled. I tell you this--fly in time, and you are safe; but let
the King be so misguided as to count on arms, and strive against yon
multitude, and verily before nightfall not one Norman will be found
alive within ten miles of the city. Look to it, youth! Perhaps thou
hast a mother--let her not mourn a son!"
Before the Norman could shape into Saxon sufficiently polite and
courtly his profound and indignant disdain of the counsel, his sense
of the impertinence with which his shoulder had been profaned, and his
mother's son had been warned, the nuncius was again summoned into the
presence-chamber. Nor did he return into the ante-room, but conducted
forthwith from the council--his brief answer received--to the stairs
of the palace, he reached the boat in which he had come, and was rowed
back to the ship that held the Earl and his sons.
Now this was the manoeuvre of Godwin's array. His vessels having
passed London Bridge, had rested awhile on the banks of the Southward
suburb (Suth-weorde)--since called Southwark--and the King's ships lay
to the north; but the fleet of the Earl's, after a brief halt, veered
majestically round, and coming close to the palace of Westminster,
inclined northward, as if to hem the King's ships. Meanwhile the land
forces drew up close to the Strand, almost within bow-shot of the
King's troops, that kept the ground inland; thus Vebba saw before him,
so near as scarcely to be distinguished from each other, on the river
the rival fleets, on the shore the rival armaments.
High above all the vessels towered the majestic bark, or aesca, that
had borne Harold from the Irish shores. Its fashion was that of the
ancient sea-kings, to one of whom it had belonged. Its curved and
mighty prow, richly gilded, stood out far above the waves: the prow,
the head of the sea-snake; the stern its spire; head and spire alike
glittering in the sun.
The boat drew up to the lofty side of the vessel, a ladder was
lowered, the nuncius ascended lightly and stood on deck. At the
farther end grouped the sailors, few in number, and at respectful
distance from the Earl and his sons.
Godwin himself was but half armed. His head was bare, nor had he
other weapon of offence than the gilt battle-axe of the Danes--weapon
as much of office as of war; but his broad breast was covered with the
ring mail of the time. His stature was lower than that of any of his
sons; nor did his form exhibit greater physical strength than that of
a man, well shaped, robust, and deep of chest, who still preserved in
age the pith and sinew of mature manhood. Neither, indeed, did legend
or fame ascribe to that eminent personage those romantic achievements,
those feats of purely animal prowess, which distinguished his rival,
Siward. Brave he was, but brave as a leader; those faculties in which
he appears to have excelled all his contemporaries, were more
analogous to the requisites of success in civilised times, than those
which won renown of old. And perhaps England was the only country
then in Europe which could have given to those faculties their fitting
career. He possessed essentially the arts of party; he knew how to
deal with vast masses of mankind; he could carry along with his
interests the fervid heart of the multitude; he had in the highest
degree that gift, useless in most other lands--in all lands where
popular assemblies do not exist--the gift of popular eloquence. Ages
elapsed, after the Norman conquest, ere eloquence again became a power
in England. [80]
But like all men renowned for eloquence, he went with the popular
feeling of his times; he embodied its passions, its prejudices--but
also that keen sense of self-interest, which is the invariable
characteristic of a multitude. He was the sense of the commonalty
carried to its highest degree. Whatever the faults, it may be the
crimes, of a career singularly prosperous and splendid, amidst events
the darkest and most terrible,--shining with a steady light across the
thunder-clouds,--he was never accused of cruelty or outrage to the
mass of the people. English, emphatically, the English deemed him;
and this not the less that in his youth he had sided with Canute, and
owed his fortunes to that king; for so intermixed were Danes and
Saxons in England, that the agreement which had given to Canute one
half the kingdom had been received with general applause; and the
earlier severities of that great prince had been so redeemed in his
later years by wisdom and mildness--so, even in the worst period of
his reign, relieved by extraordinary personal affability, and so lost
now in men's memories by pride in his power and fame,--that Canute had
left behind him a beloved and honoured name [81], and Godwin was the
more esteemed as the chosen counsellor of that popular prince. At his
death, Godwin was known to have wished, and even armed, for the
restoration of the Saxon line; and only yielded to the determination
of the Witan, no doubt acted upon by the popular opinion. Of one dark
crime he was suspected, and, despite his oath to the contrary, and the
formal acquittal of the national council, doubt of his guilt rested
then, as it rests still, upon his name; viz., the perfidious surrender
of Alfred, Edward's murdered brother.
But time had passed over the dismal tragedy; and there was an
instinctive and prophetic feeling throughout the English nation, that
with the House of Godwin was identified the cause of the English
people. Everything in this man's aspect served to plead in his
favour. His ample brows were calm with benignity and thought; his
large dark blue eyes were serene and mild, though their expression,
when examined, was close and inscrutable. His mien was singularly
noble, but wholly without formality or affected state; and though
haughtiness and arrogance were largely attributed to him, they could
be found only in his deeds, not manner--plain, familiar, kindly to all
men, his heart seemed as open to the service of his countrymen as his
hospitable door to their wants.
Behind him stood the stateliest group of sons that ever filled with
pride a father's eye. Each strikingly distinguished from the other,
all remarkable for beauty of countenance and strength of frame.
Sweyn, the eldest [82], had the dark hues of his mother the Dane: a
wild and mournful majesty sat upon features aquiline and regular, but
wasted by grief or passion; raven locks, glossy even in neglect, fell
half over eyes hollow in their sockets, but bright, though with
troubled fire. Over his shoulder he bore his mighty axe. His form,
spare, but of immense power, was sheathed in mail, and he leant on his
great pointed Danish shield. At his feet sate his young son Haco, a
boy with a countenance preternaturally thoughtful for his years, which
were yet those of childhood.
Next to him stood the most dreaded and ruthless of the sons of Godwin
--he, fated to become to the Saxon what Julian was to the Goth. With
his arms folded on his breast stood Tostig; his face was beautiful as
a Greek's, in all save the forehead, which was low and lowering.
Sleek and trim were his bright chestnut locks; and his arms were
damascened with silver, for he was one who loved the pomp and luxury
of war.
Wolnoth, the mother's favourite, seemed yet in the first flower of
youth, but he alone of all the sons had something irresolute and
effeminate in his aspect and bearing; his form, though tall, had not
yet come to its full height and strength; and, as if the weight of
mail were unusual to him, he leant with both hands upon the wood of
his long spear. Leofwine, who stood next to Wolnoth, contrasted him
notably; his sunny locks wreathed carelessly over a white unclouded
brow, and the silken hair on the upper lip quivered over arch lips,
smiling, even in that serious hour.
At Godwin's right hand, but not immediately near him, stood the last
of the group, Gurth and Harold. Gurth had passed his arm over the
shoulder of his brother, and, not watching the nuncius while he spoke,
watched only the effect his words produced on the face of Harold. For
Gurth loved Harold as Jonathan loved David. And Harold was the only
one of the group not armed; and had a veteran skilled in war been
asked who of that group was born to lead armed men, he would have
pointed to the man unarmed.
"So what says the King?" asked Earl Godwin.
"This; he refuses to restore thee and thy sons, or to hear thee, till
thou hast disbanded thine army, dismissed thy ships, and consented to
clear thyself and thy house before the Witanagemot."
A fierce laugh broke from Tostig; Sweyn's mournful brow grew darker;
Leofwine placed his right hand on his ateghar; Wolnoth rose erect;
Gurth kept his eyes on Harold, and Harold's face was unmoved.
"The King received thee in his council of war," said Godwin,
thoughtfully, "and doubtless the Normans were there. Who were the
Englishmen most of mark?"
"Siward of Northumbria, thy foe."
"My sons," said the Earl, turning to his children, and breathing loud
as if a load were off his heart; "there will be no need of axe or
armour to-day. Harold alone was wise," and he pointed to the linen
tunic of the son thus cited.
"What mean you, Sir Father?" said Tostig, imperiously. "Think you
to----"
"Peace, son, peace;" said Godwin, without asperity, but with conscious
command. "Return, brave and dear friend," he said to Vebba, "find out
Siward the Earl; tell him that I, Godwin, his foe in the old time,
place honour and life in his hands, and what he counsels that will we
do.--Go."
The Kent man nodded, and regained his boat. Then spoke Harold.
"Father, yonder are the forces of Edward; as yet without leaders,
since the chiefs must still be in the halls of the King. Some fiery
Norman amongst them may provoke an encounter; and this city of London
is not won, as it behoves us to win it, if one drop of English blood
dye the sword of one English man. Wherefore, with your leave, I will
take boat, and land. And unless I have lost in my absence all right
here in the hearts of our countrymen, at the first shout from our
troops which proclaims that Harold, son of Godwin, is on the soil of
our fathers, half yon array of spears and helms pass at once to our
side."
"And if not, my vain brother?" said Tostig, gnawing his lip with envy.
"And if not, I will ride alone into the midst of them, and ask what
Englishmen are there who will aim shaft or spear at this breast, never
mailed against England!"
Godwin placed his hand on Harold's head, and the tears came to those
close cold eyes.
"Thou knowest by nature what I have learned by art. Go, and prosper.
Be it as thou wilt."
"He takes thy post, Sweyn--thou art the elder," said Tostig, to the
wild form by his side.
"There is guilt on my soul, and woe in my heart," answered Sweyn,
moodily. "Shall Esau lose his birthright, and Cain retain it?" So
saying, he withdrew, and, reclining against the stern of the vessel,
leant his face upon the edge of his shield.
Harold watched him with deep compassion in his eyes, passed to his
side with a quick step, pressed his hand, and whispered, "Peace to the
past, O my brother!"
The boy Haco, who had noiselessly followed his father, lifted his
sombre, serious looks to Harold as he thus spoke; and when Harold
turned away, he said to Sweyn, timidly, "He, at least, is ever good to
thee and to me."
"And thou, when I am no more, shalt cling to him as thy father, Haco,"
answered Sweyn, tenderly smoothing back the child's dark locks.
The boy shivered; and, bending his head, murmured to himself, "When
thou art no more! No more? Has the Vala doomed him, too? Father and
son, both?"
Meanwhile, Harold had entered the boat lowered from the sides of the
aesca to receive him; and Gurth, looking appealingly to his father,
and seeing no sign of dissent, sprang down after the young Earl, and
seated himself by his side. Godwin followed the boat with musing
eyes.
"Small need," said he, aloud, but to himself, "to believe in
soothsayers, or to credit Hilda the saga, when she prophesied, ere we
left our shores, that Harold--" He stopped short, for Tostig's
wrathful exclamation broke on his reverie.
"Father, father! My blood surges in my ears, and boils in my heart,
when I hear thee name the prophecies of Hilda in favour of thy
darling. Dissension and strife in our house have they wrought
already; and if the feuds between Harold and me have sown grey in thy
locks, thank thyself when, flushed with vain soothsayings for thy
favoured Harold, thou saidst, in the hour of our first childish broil,
'Strive not with Harold; for his brothers will be his men.'"
"Falsify the prediction," said Godwin, calmly; "wise men may always
make their own future, and seize their own fates. Prudence, patience,
labour, valour; these are the stars that rule the career of mortals."
Tostig made no answer; for the splash of oars was near, and two ships,
containing the principal chiefs that had joined Godwin's cause, came
alongside the Runic aesca to hear the result of the message sent to
the King. Tostig sprang to the vessel's side, and exclaimed, "The
King, girt by his false counsellors, will hear us not, and arms must
decide between us."
"Hold, hold! malignant, unhappy boy!" cried Godwin, between his
grinded teeth, as a shout of indignant, yet joyous ferocity broke from
the crowded ships thus hailed. "The curse of all time be on him who
draws the first native blood in sight of the altars and hearths of
London! Hear me, thou with the vulture's blood-lust, and the
peacock's vain joy in the gaudy plume! Hear me, Tostig, and tremble.
If but by one word thou widen the breach between me and the King,
outlaw thou enterest England, outlaw shalt thou depart--for earldom
and broad lands; choose the bread of the stranger, and the weregeld of
the wolf!"
The young Saxon, haughty as he was, quailed at his father's thrilling
voice, bowed his head, and retreated sullenly. Godwin sprang on the
deck of the nearest vessel, and all the passions that Tostig had
aroused, he exerted his eloquence to appease.
In the midst of his arguments, there rose from the ranks on the
strand, the shout of "Harold! Harold the Earl! Harold and Holy
Crosse!" And Godwin, turning his eye to the King's ranks, saw them
agitated, swayed, and moving; till suddenly, from the very heart of
the hostile array, came, as by irresistible impulse, the cry, "Harold,
our Harold! All hail, the good Earl!"
While this chanced without,--within the palace, Edward had quitted the
presence-chamber, and was closeted with Stigand, the bishop. This
prelate had the more influence with Edward, inasmuch as though Saxon,
he was held to be no enemy to the Normans, and had, indeed, on a
former occasion, been deposed from his bishopric on the charge of too
great an attachment to the Norman queen-mother Emma [83]. Never in his
whole life had Edward been so stubborn as on this occasion. For here,
more than his realm was concerned, he was threatened in the peace of
his household, and the comfort of his tepid friendships. With the
recall of his powerful father-in-law, he foresaw the necessary
reintrusion of his wife upon the charm of his chaste solitude. His
favourite Normans would be banished, he should be surrounded with
faces he abhorred. All the representations of Stigand fell upon a
stern and unyielding spirit, when Siward entered the King's closet.
"Sir, my King," said the great son of Beorn, "I yielded to your kingly
will in the council, that, before we listened to Godwin, he should
disband his men, and submit to the judgment of the Witan. The Earl
hath sent to me to say, that he will put honour and life in my
keeping, and abide by my counsel. And I have answered as became the
man who will never snare a foe, or betray a trust."
"How hast thou answered?" asked the King.
"That he abide by the laws of England; as Dane and Saxon agreed to
abide in the days of Canute; that he and his sons shall make no claim
for land or lordship, but submit all to the Witan."
"Good," said the King; "and the Witan will condemn him now, as it
would have condemned when he shunned to meet it."
"And the Witan now," returned the Earl emphatically, "will be free,
and fair, and just."
"And meanwhile, the troops----"
"Will wait on either side; and if reason fail, then the sword," said
Siward.
"This I will not hear," exclaimed Edward; when the tramp of many feet
thundered along the passage; the door was flung open, and several
captains (Norman as well as Saxon) of the King's troops rushed in,
wild, rude, and tumultuous.
"The troops desert! half the ranks have thrown down their arms at the
very name of Harold!" exclaimed the Earl of Hereford. "Curses on the
knaves!"
"And the lithsmen of London," cried a Saxon thegn, "are all on his
side, and marching already through the gates."
"Pause yet," whispered Stigand; "and who shall say, this hour to-
morrow, if Edward or Godwin reign on the throne of Alfred?"
His stern heart moved by the distress of his King, and not the less
for the unwonted firmness which Edward displayed, Siward here
approached, knelt, and took the King's hand.
"Siward can give no niddering counsel to his King; to save the blood
of his subjects is never a king's disgrace. Yield thou to mercy,
Godwin to the law!"
"Oh for the cowl and cell!" exclaimed the Prince, wringing his hands.
"Oh Norman home, why did I leave thee?" He took the cross from his
breast, contemplated it fixedly, prayed silently but with fervour, and
his face again became tranquil.
"Go," he said, flinging himself on his seat in the exhaustion that
follows passion, "go, Siward, go, Stigand, deal with things mundane as
ye will."
The bishop, satisfied with this reluctant acquiescence, seized Siward
by the arm and withdrew him from the closet. The captains remained a
few moments behind, the Saxons silently gazing on the King, the
Normans whispering each other, in great doubt and trouble, and darting
looks of the bitterest scorn at their feeble benefactor. Then, as
with one accord, these last rushed along the corridor, gained the hall
where their countrymen yet assembled, and exclaimed, "A toute bride!
Franc etrier!--All is lost but life!--God for the first man,--knife
and cord for the last!"
Then, as the cry of fire, or as the first crash of an earthquake,
dissolves all union, and reduces all emotion into one thought of self-
saving, the whole conclave, crowding pell-mell on each other, bustled,
jostled, clamoured to the door--happy he who could find horse,
palfrey,--even monk's mule! This way, that way, fled those lordly
Normans, those martial abbots, those mitred bishops--some singly, some
in pairs; some by tens, and some by scores; but all prudently shunning
association with those chiefs whom they had most courted the day
before, and who, they now knew, would be the main mark for revenge;
save only two, who yet, from that awe of the spiritual power which
characterised the Norman, who was already half monk, half soldier
(Crusader and Templar before Crusades were yet preached, or the
Templars yet dreamed of),--even in that hour of selfish panic rallied
round them the prowest chivalry of their countrymen, viz., the Bishop
of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Both these dignitaries,
armed cap-a-pie, and spear in hand, headed the flight; and good
service that day, both as guide and champion, did Mallet de Graville.
He led them in a circuit behind both armies, but being intercepted by
a new body, coming from the pastures of Hertfordshire to the help of
Godwin, he was compelled to take the bold and desperate resort of
entering the city gates. These were wide open; whether to admit the
Saxon Earls, or vomit forth their allies, the Londoners. Through
these, up the narrow streets, riding three abreast, dashed the
slaughtering fugitives; worthy in flight of their national renown,
they trampled down every obstacle. Bodies of men drew up against them
at every angle, with the Saxon cry of "Out--Out!" "Down with the
outland men!" Through each, spear pierced, and sword clove, the way.
Red with gore was the spear of the prelate of London; broken to the
hilt was the sword militant in the terrible hand of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. So on thy rode, so on they slaughtered--gained the
Eastern Gate, and passed with but two of their number lost.
The fields once gained, for better precaution they separated. Some
few, not quite ignorant of the Saxon tongue, doffed their mail, and
crept through forest and fell towards the sea-shore; others retained
steed and arms, but shunned equally the high roads. The two prelates
were among the last; they gained, in safety, Ness, in Essex, threw
themselves into an open, crazy, fishing-boat, committed themselves to
the waves, and, half drowned and half famished, drifted over the
Channel to the French shores. Of the rest of the courtly foreigners,
some took refuge in the forts yet held by their countrymen; some lay
concealed in creeks and caves till they could find or steal boats for
their passage. And thus, in the year of our Lord 1052, occurred the
notable dispersion and ignominious flight of the counts and vavasours
of great William the Duke!
CHAPTER III.
The Witana-gemot was assembled in the great hall of Westminster in all
its imperial pomp.
It was on his throne that the King sate now--and it was the sword that
was in his right hand. Some seated below, and some standing beside,
the throne, were the officers of the Basileus [84] of Britain. There
were to be seen camararius and pincerna, chamberlain and cupbearer;
disc thegn and hors thegn [85]; the thegn of the dishes, and the thegn
of the stud; with many more, whose state offices may not impossibly
have been borrowed from the ceremonial pomp of the Byzantine court;
for Edgar, King of England, had in the old time styled himself the
Heir of Constantine. Next to these sat the clerks of the chapel, with
the King's confessor at their head. Officers were they of higher note
than their name bespeaks, and wielders, in the trust of the Great
Seal, of a power unknown of old, and now obnoxious to the Saxon. For
tedious is the suit which lingers for the king's writ and the king's
seal; and from those clerks shall arise hereafter a thing of torture
and of might, which shall grind out the hearts of men, and be called
CHANCERY! [86]
Below the scribes, a space was left on the floor, and farther down sat
the chiefs of the Witan. Of these, first in order, both from their
spiritual rank and their vast temporal possessions, sat the lords of
the Church; the chairs of the prelates of London and Canterbury were
void. But still goodly was the array of Saxon mitres, with the harsh,
hungry, but intelligent face of Stigand,--Stigand the stout and the
covetous; and the benign but firm features of Alred, true priest and
true patriot, distinguished amidst all. Around each prelate, as stars
round a sun, were his own special priestly retainers, selected from
his diocese. Farther still down the hall are the great civil lords
and viceking vassals of the "Lord-Paramount." Vacant the chair of the
King of the Scots, for Siward hath not yet had his wish; Macbeth is in
his fastnesses, or listening to the weird sisters in the wold; and
Malcolm is a fugitive in the halls of the Northumbrian earl. Vacant
the chair of the hero Gryffyth, son of Llewelyn, the dread of the
marches, Prince of Gwyned, whose arms had subjugated all Cymry. But
there are the lesser sub-kings of Wales, true to the immemorial
schisms amongst themselves, which destroyed the realm of Ambrosius,
and rendered vain the arm of Arthur. With their torques of gold, and
wild eyes, and hair cut round ears and brow [87], they stare on the
scene.
On the same bench with these sub-kings, distinguished from them by
height of stature, and calm collectedness of mien, no less than by
their caps of maintenance and furred robes, are those props of strong
thrones and terrors of weak--the earls to whom shires and counties
fall, as hyde and carricate to the lesser thegns. But three of these
were then present, and all three the foes of Godwin,--Siward, Earl of
Northumbria; Leofric of Mercia (that Leofric whose wife Godiva yet
lives in ballad and song); and Rolf, Earl of Hereford and
Worcestershire, who, strong in his claim of "king's blood," left not
the court with his Norman friends. And on the same benches, though a
little apart, are the lesser earls, and that higher order of thegns,
called king's thegns.
Not far from these sat the chosen citizens from the free burgh of
London, already of great weight in the senate [88],--sufficing often
to turn its counsels; all friends were they of the English Earl and
his house. In the same division of the hall were found the bulk and
true popular part of the meeting--popular indeed--as representing not
the people, but the things the people most prized-valour and wealth;
the thegn landowners, called in the old deeds the "Ministers:" they
sate with swords by their side, all of varying birth, fortune, and
connection, whether with king, earl, or ceorl. For in the different
districts of the old Heptarchy, the qualification varied; high in East
Anglia, low in Wessex; so that what was wealth in the one shire was
poverty in the other. There sate, half a yeoman, the Saxon thegn of
Berkshire or Dorset, proud of his five hydes of land; there, half an
ealderman, the Danish thegn of Norfolk or Ely, discontented with his
forty; some were there in right of smaller offices under the crown;
some traders, and sons of traders, for having crossed the high seas
three times at their own risk; some could boast the blood of Offa and
Egbert; and some traced but three generations back to neatherd and
ploughman; and some were Saxons and some were Danes: and some from the
western shires were by origin Britons, though little cognisant of
their race. Farther down still, at the extreme end of the hall,
crowding by the open doors, filling up the space without, were the
ceorls themselves, a vast and not powerless body; in these high courts
(distinct from the shire gemots, or local senates)--never called upon
to vote or to speak or to act, or even to sign names to the doom, but
only to shout "Yea, yea," when the proceres pronounced their sentence.
Yet not powerless were they, but rather to the Witan what public
opinion is to the Witan's successor, our modern parliament: they were
opinion! And according to their numbers and their sentiments, easily
known and boldly murmured, often and often must that august court of
basileus and prelate, vassal-king and mighty earl, have shaped the
council and adjudged the doom.
And the forms of the meeting had been duly said and done; and the King
had spoken words no doubt wary and peaceful, gracious and exhortatory;
but those words--for his voice that day was weak--travelled not beyond
the small circle of his clerks and his officers; and a murmur buzzed
through the hall, when Earl Godwin stood on the floor with his six
sons at his back; and you might have heard the hum of the gnat that
vexed the smooth cheek of Earl Rolf, or the click of the spider from
the web on the vaulted roof, the moment before Earl Godwin spoke.
"If," said he, with the modest look and downcast eye of practised
eloquence, "If I rejoice once more to breathe the air of England, in
whose service, often perhaps with faulty deeds, but at all times with
honest thoughts, I have, both in war and council, devoted so much of
my life that little now remains--but (should you, my king, and you,
prelates, proceres, and ministers so vouchsafe) to look round and
select that spot of my native soil which shall receive my bones;--if I
rejoice to stand once more in that assembly which has often listened
to my voice when our common country was in peril, who here will blame
that joy? Who among my foes, if foes now I have, will not respect the
old man's gladness? Who amongst you, earls and thegns, would not
grieve, if his duty bade him say to the grey-haired exile, 'In this
English air you shall not breathe your last sigh--on this English soil
you shall not find a grave!' Who amongst you would not grieve to say
it?" (Suddenly he drew up his head and faced his audience.) "Who
amongst you hath the courage and the heart to say it? Yes, I rejoice
that I am at last in an assembly fit to judge my cause, and pronounce
my innocence. For what offence was I outlawed? For what offence were
I, and the six sons I have given to my land, to bear the wolf's
penalty, and be chased and slain as the wild beasts? Hear me, and
answer!"
"Eustace, Count of Boulogne, returning to his domains from a visit to
our lord the King, entered the town of Dover in mail and on his war
steed; his train did the same. Unknowing our laws and customs (for I
desire to press light upon all old grievances, and will impute ill
designs to none) these foreigners invade by force the private
dwellings of citizens, and there select their quarters. Ye all know
that this was the strongest violation of Saxon right; ye know that the
meanest ceorl hath the proverb on his lip, 'Every man's house is his
castle.' One of the townsmen acting on this belief,--which I have yet
to learn was a false one,--expelled from his threshold a retainer of
the French Earl's. The stranger drew his sword and wounded him; blows
followed--the stranger fell by the arm he had provoked. The news
arrives to Earl Eustace; he and his kinsmen spur to the spot; they
murder the Englishman on his hearth-stone.--"
Here a groan, half-stifled and wrathful, broke from the ceorls at the
end of the hall. Godwin held up his hand in rebuke of the
interruption, and resumed.
"This deed done, the outlanders rode through the streets with their
drawn swords; they. butchered those who came in their way; they
trampled even children under their horses' feet. The burghers armed.
I thank the Divine Father, who gave me for my countrymen those gallant
burghers! They fought, as we English know how to fight; they slew
some nineteen or score of these mailed intruders; they chased them
from the town. Earl Eustace fled fast. Earl Eustace, we know, is a
wise man: small rest took he, little bread broke he, till he pulled
rein at the gate of Gloucester, where my lord the King then held
court. He made his complaint. My lord the King, naturally hearing
but one side, thought the burghers in the wrong; and, scandalised that
such high persons of his own kith should be so aggrieved, he sent for
me, in whose government the burgh of Dover is, and bade me chastise,
by military execution, those who had attacked the foreign Count. I
appeal to the great Earls whom I see before me--to you, illustrious
Leofric; to you, renowned Siward--what value would ye set on your
earldoms, if ye had not the heart and the power to see right done to
the dwellers therein?"
"What was the course I proposed? Instead of martial execution, which
would involve the whole burgh in one sentence, I submitted that the
reeve and gerefas of the burgh should be cited to appear before the
King, and account for the broil. My lord, though ever most clement
and loving to his good people, either unhappily moved against me, or
overswayed by the foreigners, was counselled to reject this mode of
doing justice, which our laws, as settled under Edgar and Canute,
enjoin. And because I would not,--and I say in the presence of all,
because I, Godwin, son of Wolnoth, durst not, if I would, have entered
the free burgh of Dover with mail on my back and the doomsman at my
right hand, these outlanders induced my lord the King to summon me to
attend in person (as for a sin of my own) the council of the Witan,
convened at Gloucester, then filled with the foreigners, not, as I
humbly opined, to do justice to me and my folk of Dover, but to secure
to this Count of Boulogne a triumph over English liberties, and
sanction his scorn for the value of English lives."
"I hesitated, and was menaced with outlawry; I armed in self-defence,
and in defence of the laws of England; I armed, that men might not be
murdered on their hearth-stones, nor children trampled under the hoofs
of a stranger's war-steed. My lord the King gathered his troops round
'the cross and the martlets.' Yon noble earls, Siward and Leofric,
came to that standard, as (knowing not then my cause) was their duty
to the Basileus of Britain. But when they knew my cause, and saw with
me the dwellers of the land, against me the outland aliens, they
righteously interposed. An armistice was concluded; I agreed to refer
all matters to a Witan held where it is held this day. My troops were
disbanded; but the foreigners induced my lord not only to retain his
own, but to issue his Herr-bann for the gathering of hosts far and
near, even allies beyond the seas. When I looked to London for the
peaceful Witan, what saw I? The largest armament that had been
collected in this reign--that armament headed by Norman knights. Was
this the meeting where justice could be done mine and me?
Nevertheless, what was my offer? That I and my six sons would attend,
provided the usual sureties, agreeable to our laws, from which only
thieves [89] are excluded, were given that we should come and go life-
free and safe. Twice this offer was made, twice refused; and so I and
my sons were banished. We went;--we have returned!"
"And in arms," murmured Earl Rolf, son-in-law to that Count Eustace of
Boulogne, whose violence had been temperately and truly narrated. [90]
"And in arms," repeated Godwin: "true; in arms against the foreigners
who had thus poisoned the ear of our gracious King; in arms, Earl
Rolf; and at the first clash of those arms, Franks and foreigners have
fled. We have no need of arms now. We are amongst our countrymen,
and no Frenchman interposes between us and the ever gentle; ever
generous nature of our born King."
"Peers and proceres, chiefs of this Witan, perhaps the largest ever
yet assembled in man's memory, it is for you to decide whether I and
mine, or the foreign fugitives, caused the dissensions in these
realms; whether our banishment was just or not; whether in our return
we have abused the power we possessed. Ministers, on those swords by
your sides there is not one drop of blood! At all events, in
submitting to you our fate, we submit to our own laws and our own
race. I am here to clear myself, on my oath, of deed and thought of
treason. There are amongst my peers as king's thegns, those who will
attest the same on my behalf, and prove the facts I have stated, if
they are not sufficiently notorious. As for my sons, no crime can be
alleged against them, unless it be a crime to have in their veins that
blood which flows in mine--blood which they have learned from me to
shed in defence of that beloved land to which they now ask to be
recalled."
The Earl ceased and receded behind his children, having artfully, by
his very abstinence from the more heated eloquence imputed to him
often as a fault and a wile, produced a powerful effect upon an
audience already prepared for his acquittal.
But now as, from the sons, Sweyn the eldest stepped forth; with a
wandering eye and uncertain foot, there was a movement like a shudder
amongst the large majority of the audience, and a murmur of hate or of
horror.
The young Earl marked the sensation his presence produced, and stopped
short. His breath came thick; he raised his right hand, but spoke
not. His voice died on his lips; his eyes roved wildly round with a
haggard stare more imploring than defying. Then rose, in his
episcopal stole, Alred the bishop, and his clear sweet voice trembled
as he spoke.
"Comes Sweyn, son of Godwin, here to prove his innocence of treason
against the King?--if so, let him hold his peace; for if the Witan
acquit Godwin, son of Wolnoth, of that charge, the acquittal includes
his House. But in the name of the holy Church here represented by its
fathers, will Sweyn say, and fasten his word by oath, that he is
guiltless of treason to the King of Kings--guiltless of sacrilege that
my lips shrink to name? Alas, that the duty falls on me,--for I loved
thee once, and love thy kindred now. But I am God's servant before
all things"--the prelate paused, and gathering up new energy, added in
unfaltering accents, "I charge thee here, Sweyn the outlaw, that,
moved by the fiend, thou didst bear off from God's house and violate a
daughter of the Church--Algive, Abbess of Leominster!"
"And I," cried Siward, rising to the full height of his stature, "I,
in the presence of these proceres, whose proudest title is milites or
warriors--I charge Sweyn, son of Godwin, that, not in open field and
hand to hand, but by felony and guile, he wrought the foul and
abhorrent murder of his cousin, Beorn the Earl!"
At these two charges from men so eminent, the effect upon the audience
was startling. While those not influenced by Godwin raised their
eyes, sparkling with wrath and scorn, upon the wasted, yet still noble
face of the eldest born, even those most zealous on behalf of that
popular House evinced no sympathy for its heir. Some looked down
abashed and mournful--some regarded the accused with a cold, unpitying
gaze. Only perhaps among the ceorls, at the end of the hall, might be
seen some compassion on anxious faces; for before those deeds of crime
had been bruited abroad, none among the sons of Godwin more blithe of
mien and bold of hand, more honoured and beloved, than Sweyn the
outlaw. But the hush that succeeded the charges was appalling in its
depth. Godwin himself shaded his face with his mantle, and only those
close by could see that his breast heaved and his limbs trembled. The
brothers had shrunk from the side of the accused, outlawed even
amongst his kin--all save Harold, who, strong in his blameless name
and beloved repute, advanced three strides, amidst the silence, and,
standing by his brother's side, lifted his commanding brow above the
seated judges, but he did not speak.
Then said Sweyn the Earl, strengthened by such solitary companionship
in that hostile assemblage,--"I might answer that for these charges in
the past, for deeds alleged as done eight long years ago, I have the
King's grace, and the inlaw's right; and that in the Witans over which
I as earl presided, no man was twice judged for the same offence.
That I hold to be the law, in the great councils as the small."
"It is! it is!" exclaimed Godwin: his paternal feelings conquering his
prudence and his decorous dignity. "Hold to it, my son!"
"I hold to it not," resumed the young earl, casting a haughty glance
over the somewhat blank and disappointed faces of his foes, "for my
law is here"--and he smote his heart--"and that condemns me not once
alone, but evermore! Alred, O holy father, at whose knees I once
confessed my every sin,--I blame thee not that thou first, in the
Witan, liftest thy voice against me, though thou knowest that I loved
Algive from youth upward; she, with her heart yet mine, was given in
the last year of Hardicanute, when might was right, to the Church. I
met her again, flushed with my victories over the Walloon kings, with
power in my hand and passion in my veins. Deadly was my sin!--But
what asked I? that vows compelled should be annulled; that the love of
my youth might yet be the wife of my manhood. Pardon, that I knew not
then how eternal are the bonds ye of the Church have woven round those
of whom, if ye fail of saints, ye may at least make martyrs!"
He paused, and his lip curled, and his eye shot wild fire; for in that
moment his mother's blood was high within him, and he looked and
thought, perhaps, as some heathen Dane, but the flash of the firmer
man was momentary, and humbly smiting his breast, he murmured,--
"Avaunt, Satan!--yea, deadly was my sin! And the sin was mine alone;
Algive, if stained, was blameless; she escaped--and--and died!"
"The King was wroth; and first to strive against my pardon was Harold
my brother, who now alone in my penitence stands by my side: he strove
manfully and openly; I blamed him not: but Beorn, my cousin, desired
my earldom; and he strove against me, wilily and in secret,--to my
face kind, behind my back despiteful. I detected his falsehood, and
meant to detain, but not to slay him. He lay bound in my ship; he
reviled and he taunted me in the hour of my gloom; and when the blood
of the sea-kings flowed in fire through my veins. And I lifted my axe
in ire; and my men lifted theirs, and so,--and so!--Again I say--
Deadly was my sin! Think not that I seek now to make less my guilt,
as I sought when I deemed that life was yet long, and power was yet
sweet. Since then I have known worldly evil, and worldly good,--the
storm and the shine of life; I have swept the seas, a sea-king; I have
battled with the Dane in his native land; I have almost grasped in my
right hand, as I grasped in my dreams, the crown of my kinsman,
Canute;--again, I have been a fugitive and an exile;--again, I have
been inlawed, and Earl of all the lands from Isis to the Wye [91].
And whether in state or in penury,--whether in war or in peace, I have
seen the pale face of the nun betrayed, and the gory wounds of the
murdered man. Wherefore I come not here to plead for a pardon, which
would console me not, but formally to dissever my kinsmen's cause from
mine, which alone sullies and degrades it;--I come here to say, that,
coveting not your acquittal, fearing not your judgment, I pronounce
mine own doom. Cap of noble, and axe of warrior, I lay aside for
ever; barefooted, and alone, I go hence to the Holy Sepulchre; there
to assoil my soul, and implore that grace which cannot come from man!
Harold, step forth in the place of Sweyn the first-born! And ye
prelates and peers, milites and ministers, proceed to adjudge the
living! To you, and to England, he who now quits you is the dead!"
He gathered his robe of state over his breast as a monk his gown, and
looking neither to right nor to left, passed slowly down the hall,
through the crowd, which made way for him in awe and silence; and it
seemed to the assembly as if a cloud had gone from the face of day.
And Godwin still stood with his face covered by his robe.
And Harold anxiously watched the faces of the assembly, and saw no
relenting.
And Gurth crept to Harold's side.
And the gay Leofwine looked sad.
And the young Wolnoth turned pale and trembled.
And the fierce Tostig played with his golden chain.
And one low sob was heard, and it came from the breast of Alred the
meek accuser,--God's firm but gentle priest.
CHAPTER IV.
This memorable trial ended, as the reader will have forseen, in the
formal renewal of Sweyn's outlawry, and the formal restitution of the
Earl Godwin and his other sons to their lands and honours, with
declarations imputing all the blame of the late dissensions to the
foreign favourites, and sentences of banishment against them, except
only, by way of a bitter mockery, some varlets of low degree, such as
Humphrey Cock's-foot, and Richard son of Scrob. [92]
The return to power of this able and vigorous family was attended with
an instantaneous effect upon the long-relaxed strings of the imperial
government. Macbeth heard, and trembled in his moors; Gryffyth of
Wales lit the fire-beacon on moel and craig. Earl Rolf was banished,
but merely as a nominal concession to public opinion; his kinship to
Edward sufficed to restore him soon, not only to England, but to the
lordship of the Marches, and thither was he sent, with adequate force,
against the Welch, who had half-repossessed themselves of the borders
they harried. Saxon prelates and abbots replaced the Norman
fugitives; and all were contented with the revolution, save the King,
for the King lost his Norman friends, and regained his English wife.
In conformity with the usages of the times, hostages of the loyalty
and faith of Godwin were required and conceded. They were selected
from his own family; and the choice fell on Wolnoth, his son, and
Haco, the son of Sweyn. As, when nearly all England may be said to
have repassed to the hands of Godwin, it would have been an idle
precaution to consign these hostages to the keeping of Edward, it was
settled, after some discussion, that they should be placed in the
Court of the Norman Duke until such time as the King, satisfied with
the good faith of the family, should authorise their recall:--Fatal
hostage, fatal ward and host!
It was some days after this national crisis, and order and peace were
again established in city and land, forest and shire, when, at the
setting of the sun, Hilda stood alone by the altar-stone of Thor.
The orb was sinking red and lurid, amidst long cloud-wracks of vermeil
and purple, and not one human form was seen in the landscape, save
that tall and majestic figure by the Runic shrine and the Druid
crommell. She was leaning both hands on her wand, or seid-staff, as
it was called in the language of Scandinavian superstition, and
bending slightly forward as in the attitude of listening or
expectation. Long before any form appeared on the road below she
seemed to be aware of coming footsteps, and probably her habits of
life had sharpened her senses; for she smiled, muttered to herself,
"Ere it sets!" and changing her posture, leant her arm on the altar,
and rested her face upon her hand.
At length, two figures came up the road; they neared the hill; they
saw her, and slowly ascended the knoll. The one was dressed in the
serge of a pilgrim, and his cowl thrown back, showed the face where
human beauty and human power lay ravaged and ruined by human passions.
He upon whom the pilgrim lightly leaned was attired simply, without
the brooch or bracelet common to thegns of high degree, yet his port
was that of majesty, and his brow that of mild command. A greater
contrast could not be conceived than that between these two men, yet
united by a family likeness. For the countenance of the last
described was, though sorrowful at that moment, and indeed habitually
not without a certain melancholy, wonderfully imposing from its calm
and sweetness. There, no devouring passions had left the cloud or
ploughed the line; but all the smooth loveliness of youth took dignity
from the conscious resolve of men. The long hair, of a fair brown,
with a slight tinge of gold, as the last sunbeams shot through its
luxuriance, was parted from the temples, and fell in large waves half
way to the shoulder. The eyebrows, darker in hue, arched and finely
traced; the straight features, not less manly than the Norman, but
less strongly marked: the cheek, hardy with exercise and exposure, yet
still retaining somewhat of youthful bloom under the pale bronze of
its sunburnt surface: the form tall, not gigantic, and vigorous rather
from perfect proportion and athletic habits than from breadth and
bulk--were all singularly characteristic of the Saxon beauty in its
highest and purest type. But what chiefly distinguished this
personage, was that peculiar dignity, so simple, so sedate, which no
pomp seems to dazzle, no danger to disturb; and which perhaps arises
from a strong sense of self-dependence, and is connected with self-
respect--a dignity common to the Indian and the Arab, and rare except
in that state of society in which each man is a power in himself. The
Latin tragic poet touches close upon that sentiment in the fine lines--
"Rex est qui metuit nihil;
Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat." [93]
So stood the brothers, Sweyn the outlaw and Harold the Earl, before
the reputed prophetess. She looked on both with a steady eye, which
gradually softened almost into tenderness, as it finally rested upon
the pilgrim.
"And is it thus," she said at last, "that I see the first-born of
Godwin the fortunate, for whom so often I have tasked the thunder, and
watched the setting sun? for whom my runes have been graven on the
bark of the elm, and the Scin-laeca [94] been called in pale splendour
from the graves of the dead?"
"Hilda," said Sweyn, "not now will I accuse thee of the seeds thou
hast sown: the harvest is gathered and the sickle is broken. Abjure
thy dark Galdra [95], and turn as I to the sole light in the future,
which shines from the tomb of the Son Divine."
The Prophetess bowed her head and replied:
"Belief cometh as the wind. Can the tree say to the wind, 'Rest thou
on my boughs,' or Man to Belief, 'Fold thy wings on my heart'? Go
where thy soul can find comfort, for thy life hath passed from its use
on earth. And when I would read thy fate, the runes are as blanks,
and the wave sleeps unstirred on the fountain. Go where the Fylgia
[96], whom Alfader gives to each at his birth, leads thee. Thou didst
desire love that seemed shut from thee, and I predicted that thy love
should awake from the charnel in which the creed that succeeds to the
faith of our sires inters life in its bloom. And thou didst covet the
fame of the Jarl and the Viking, and I blessed thine axe to thy hand,
and wove the sail for thy masts. So long as man knows desire, can
Hilda have power over his doom. But when the heart lies in ashes, I
raise but a corpse, that at the hush of the charm falls again into its
grave. Yet, come to me nearer, O Sweyn, whose cradle I rocked to the
chaunt of my rhyme."
The outlaw turned aside his face, and obeyed.
She sighed as she took his passive hand in her own, and examined the
lines on the palm. Then, as if by an involuntary impulse of fondness
and pity, she put aside his cowl and kissed his brow.
"Thy skein is spun, and happier than the many who scorn, and the few
who lament thee, thou shalt win where they lose. The steel shall not
smite thee, the storm shall forbear thee, the goal that thou yearnest
for thy steps shall attain. Night hallows the ruin,--and peace to the
shattered wrecks of the brave!"
The outlaw heard as if unmoved. But when he turned to Harold, who
covered his face with his hand; but could not restrain the tears that
flowed through the clasped fingers, a moisture came into his own wild,
bright eyes, and he said, "Now, my brother, farewell, for no farther
step shalt thou wend with me."
Harold started, opened his arms, and the outlaw fell upon his breast.
No sound was heard save a single sob, and so close was breast to
breast, that you could not say from whose heart it came. Then the
outlaw wrenched himself from the embrace, and murmured, "And Haco--my
son--motherless, fatherless--hostage in the land of the stranger!
Thou wilt remember--thou wilt shield him; thou be to him mother,
father in the days to come! So may the saints bless thee!" With
these words he sprang down the hillock.
Harold bounded after him; but Sweyn, halting, said, mournfully, "Is
this thy promise? Am I so lost that faith should be broken even with
thy father's son?"
At that touching rebuke, Harold paused, and the outlaw passed his way
alone. As the last glimpse of his figure vanished at the turn of the
road, whence, on the second of May, the Norman Duke and the Saxon King
had emerged side by side, the short twilight closed abruptly, and up
from the far forestland rose the moon.
Harold stood rooted to the spot, and still gazing on the space, when
the Vala laid her hand on his arm.
"Behold, as the moon rises on the troubled gloaming, so rises the fate
of Harold, as yon brief, human shadow, halting between light and
darkness, passes away to night. Thou art now the first-born of a
House that unites the hopes of the Saxon with the fortunes of the
Dane."
"Thinkest thou," said Harold, with a stern composure, "that I can have
joy and triumph in a brother's exile and woe?"
"Not now, and not yet, will the voice of thy true nature be heard; but
the warmth of the sun brings the thunder, and the glory of fortune
wakes the storm of the soul."
"Kinswoman," said Harold, with a slight curl of his lip, "by me at
least have thy prophecies ever passed as the sough of the air; neither
in horror nor with faith do I think of thy incantations and charms;
and I smile alike at the exorcism of the shaveling and the spells of
the Saga. I have asked thee not to bless mine axe, nor weave my sail.
No runic rhyme is on the sword-blade of Harold. I leave my fortunes
to the chance of mine own cool brain and strong arm. Vala, between
thee and me there is no bond."
The Prophetess smiled loftily.
"And what thinkest thou, O self-dependent! what thinkest thou is the
fate which thy brain and thine arm shall will?"
"The fate they have won already. I see no Beyond. The fate of a man
sworn to guard his country, love justice, and do right."
The moon shone full on the heroic face of the young Earl as he spoke;
and on its surface there seemed nought to belie the noble words. Yet,
the Prophetess, gazing earnestly on that fair countenance, said, in a
whisper, that, despite a reason singularly sceptical for the age in
which it had been cultured, thrilled to the Saxon's heart, "Under that
calm eye sleeps the soul of thy sire, and beneath that brow, so haught
and so pure, works the genius that crowned the kings of the north in
the lineage of thy mother the Dane."
"Peace!" said Harold, almost fiercely; then, as if ashamed of the
weakness of his momentary irritation, he added, with a faint smile,
"Let us not talk of these matters while my heart is still sad and away
from the thoughts of the world, with my brother the lonely outlaw.
Night is on us, and the ways are yet unsafe; for the king's troops,
disbanded in haste, were made up of many who turn to robbers in peace.
Alone, and unarmed, save my ateghar, I would crave a night's rest
under thy roof; and"--he hesitated, and as light blush came over his
cheek--"and I would fain see if your grandchild is as fair as when I
last looked on her blue eyes, that then wept for Harold ere he went
into exile."
"Her tears are not at her command, nor her smiles," said the Vala,
solemnly; "her tears flow from the fount of thy sorrows, and her
smiles are the beams from thy joys. For know, O Harold! that Edith is
thine earthly Fylgia; thy fate and her fate are as one. And vainly as
man would escape from his shadow, would soul wrench itself from the
soul that Skulda hath linked to his doom."
Harold made no reply; but his step, habitually slow, grew more quick
and light, and this time his reason found no fault with the oracles of
the Vala.
CHAPTER V.
As Hilda entered the hall, the various idlers accustomed to feed at
her cost were about retiring, some to their homes in the vicinity,
some, appertaining to the household, to the dormitories in the old
Roman villa.
It was not the habit of the Saxon noble, as it was of the Norman, to
put hospitality to profit, by regarding his guests in the light of
armed retainers. Liberal as the Briton, the cheer of the board and
the shelter of the roof were afforded with a hand equally unselfish
and indiscriminate; and the doors of the more wealthy and munificent
might be almost literally said to stand open from morn to eve.
As Harold followed the Vala across the vast atrium, his face was
recognised, and a shout of enthusiastic welcome greeted the popular
Earl. The only voices that did not swell that cry, were those of
three monks from a neighbouring convent, who choose to wink at the
supposed practices of the Morthwyrtha [97], from the affection they
bore to her ale and mead, and the gratitude they felt for her ample
gifts to their convent.
"One of the wicked House, brother," whispered the monk.
"Yea; mockers and scorners are Godwin and his lewd sons," answered the
monk.
And all three sighed and scowled, as the door closed on the hostess
and her stately guest.
Two tall and not ungraceful lamps lighted the same chamber in which
Hilda was first presented to the reader. The handmaids were still at
their spindles, and the white web nimbly shot as the mistress entered.
She paused, and her brow knit, as she eyed the work.
"But three parts done?" she said, "weave fast, and weave strong."
Harold, not heeding the maids or their task, gazed inquiringly round,
and from a nook near the window, Edith sprang forward with a joyous
cry, and a face all glowing with delight--sprang forward, as if to the
arms of a brother; but, within a step or so of that noble guest, she
stopped short, and her eyes fell to the ground.
Harold held his breath in admiring silence. The child he had loved
from her cradle stood before him as a woman. Even since we last saw
her, in the interval between the spring and the autumn, the year had
ripened the youth of the maiden, as it had mellowed the fruits of the
earth; and her cheek was rosy with the celestial blush, and her form
rounded to the nameless grace, which say that infancy is no more.
He advanced and took her hand, but for the first time in his life in
their greetings, he neither gave nor received the kiss.
"You are no child now, Edith," said he, involuntarily; "but still set
apart, I pray you, some remains of the old childish love for Harold."
Edith's charming lips smiled softly; she raised her eyes to his, and
their innocent fondness spoke through happy tears.
But few words passed in the short interval between Harold's entrance
and his retirement to the chamber prepared for him in haste. Hilda
herself led him to a rude ladder which admitted to a room above,
evidently added, by some Saxon lord, to the old Roman pile. The
ladder showed the precaution of one accustomed to sleep in the midst
of peril, for, by a kind of windlass in the room, it could be drawn up
at the inmate's will, and, so drawn, left below a dark and deep chasm,
delving down to the foundations of the house; nevertheless the room
itself had all the luxury of the time; the bedstead was quaintly
carved, and of some rare wood; a trophy of arms--though very ancient,
sedulously polished--hung on the wall. There were the small round
shield and spear of the earlier Saxon, with his vizorless helm, and
the short curved knife or saex [98], from which some antiquarians deem
that the Saxish men take their renowned name.
Edith, following Hilda, proffered to the guest, on a salver of gold,
spiced wines and confections; while Hilda, silently and unperceived,
waved her seid-staff over the bed, and rested her pale hand on the
pillow.
"Nay, sweet cousin," said Harold, smiling, "this is not one of the
fashions of old, but rather, methinks, borrowed from the Frankish
manners in the court of King Edward."
"Not so, Harold," answered Hilda, quickly turning; such was ever the
ceremony due to Saxon king, when he slept in a subject's house, ere
our kinsmen the Danes introduced that unroyal wassail, which left
subject and king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board was
left for the bed."
"Thou rebukest, O Hilda, too tauntingly, the pride of Godwin's house,
when thou givest to his homely son the ceremonial of a king. But, so
served, I envy not kings, fair Edith."
He took the cup, raised it to his lips, and when he placed it on the
small table by his side the women had left the chamber, and he was
alone. He stood for some minutes absorbed in reverie, and his
soliloquy ran somewhat thus:
"Why said the Vala that Edith's fate was inwoven with mine? And why
did I believe and bless the Vala, when she so said? Can Edith ever be
my wife? The monk-king designs her for the cloister--Woe, and well-a-
day! Sweyn, Sweyn, let thy doom forewarn me! And if I stand up in my
place and say, 'Give age and grief to the cloister--youth and delight
to man's hearth,' what will answer the monks? 'Edith cannot be thy
wife, son of Godwin, for faint and scarce traced though your affinity
of blood, ye are within the banned degrees of the Church. Edith may
be wife to another, if thou wilt,--barren spouse of the Church or
mother of children who lisp not Harold's name as their father.' Out
on these priests with their mummeries, and out on their war upon human
hearts!"
His fair brow grew stern and fierce as the Norman Duke's in his ire;
and had you seen him at the moment you would have seen the true
brother of Sweyn. He broke from his thoughts with the strong effort
of a man habituated to self-control, and advanced to the narrow
window, opened the lattice, and looked out.
The moon was in all her splendour. The long deep shadows of the
breathless forest chequered the silvery whiteness of open sward and
intervening glade. Ghostly arose on the knoll before him the grey
columns of the mystic Druid,--dark and indistinct the bloody altar of
the Warrior god. But there his eye was arrested; for whatever is
least distinct and defined in a landscape has the charm that is the
strongest; and, while he gazed, he thought that a pale phosphoric
light broke from the mound with the bautastein, that rose by the
Teuton altar. He thought, for he was not sure that it was not some
cheat of the fancy. Gazing still, in the centre of that light there
appeared to gleam forth, for one moment, a form of superhuman height.
It was the form of a man, that seemed clad in arms like those on the
wall, leaning on a spear, whose point was lost behind the shafts of
the crommell. And the face grew in that moment distinct from the
light which shimmered around it, a face large as some early god's, but
stamped with unutterable and solemn woe. He drew back a step, passed
his hand over his eyes, and looked again. Light and figure alike had
vanished; nought was seen save the grey columns and dim fane. The
Earl's lip curved in derision of his weakness. He closed the lattice,
undressed, knelt for a moment or so by the bedside, and his prayer was
brief and simple, nor accompanied with the crossings and signs
customary in his age. He rose, extinguished the lamp, and threw
himself on the bed.
The moon, thus relieved of the lamp-light, came clear and bright
through the room, shone on the trophied arms, and fell upon Harold's
face, casting its brightness on the pillow on which the Vala had
breathed her charm. And Harold slept--slept long--his face calm, his
breathing regular: but ere the moon sunk and the dawn rose the
features were dark and troubled, the breath came by gasps, the brow
was knit, and the teeth clenched.
BOOK IV.
THE HEATHEN ALTAR AND THE SAXON CHURCH.
CHAPTER I.
While Harold sleeps, let us here pause to survey for the first time
the greatness of that House to which Sweyn's exile had left him the
heir. The fortunes of Godwin had been those which no man not
eminently versed in the science of his kind can achieve. Though the
fable which some modern historians of great name have repeated and
detailed, as to his early condition as the son of a cow-herd, is
utterly groundless [99], and he belonged to a house all-powerful at
the time of his youth, he was unquestionably the builder of his own
greatness. That he should rise so high in the early part of his
career was less remarkable than that he should have so long continued
the possessor of a power and state in reality more than regal.
But, as has been before implied, Godwin's civil capacities were more
prominent than his warlike. And this it is which invests him with
that peculiar interest which attracts us to those who knit our modern
intelligence with the past. In that dim world before the Norman
deluge, we are startled to recognise the gifts that ordinarily
distinguish a man of peace in a civilised age.
His father, Wolnoth, had been "Childe" [100] of the South Saxons, or
thegn of Sussex, a nephew of Edric Streone, Earl of Mercia, the
unprincipled but able minister of Ethelred, who betrayed his master to
Canute, by whom, according to most authorities, he was righteously,
though not very legally, slain as a reward for the treason.
"I promised," said the Dane king, "to set thy head higher than other
men's, and I keep my word." The trunkless head was set on the gates
of London.
Wolnoth had quarrelled with his uncle Brightric, Edric's brother, and
before the arrival of Canute, had betaken himself to the piracy of a
sea chief, seduced twenty of the king's ships, plundered the southern
coasts, burnt the royal navy, and then his history disappears from the
chronicles; but immediately afterwards the great Danish army, called
Thurkell's Host, invaded the coast, and kept their chief station on
the Thames. Their victorious arms soon placed the country almost at
their command. The traitor Edric joined them with a power of more
than 10,000 men; and it is probable enough that the ships of Wolnoth
had before this time melted amicably into the armament of the Danes.
If this, which seems the most likely conjecture, be received, Godwin,
then a mere youth, would naturally have commenced his career in the
cause of Canute; and as the son of a formidable chief of thegn's rank,
and even as kinsman to Edric, who, whatever his crimes, must have
retained a party it was wise to conciliate, Godwin's favour with
Canute, whose policy would lead him to show marked distinction to any
able Saxon follower, ceases to be surprising.
The son of Wolnoth accompanied Canute in his military expedition to
the Scandinavian continent, and here a signal victory, planned by
Godwin and executed solely by himself and the Saxon band under his
command, without aid from Canute's Danes, made the most memorable
military exploit of his life, and confirmed his rising fortunes.
Edric, though he is said to have been low born, had married the sister
of King Ethelred; and as Godwin advanced in fame, Canute did not
disdain to bestow his own sister in marriage on the eloquent
favourite, who probably kept no small portion of the Saxon population
to their allegiance. On the death of this, his first wife, who bore
him but one son [101] (who died by accident), he found a second spouse
in the same royal house; and the mother of his six living sons and two
daughters was the niece of his king, and sister of Sweyn, who
subsequently filled the throne of Denmark. After the death of Canute,
the Saxon's predilections in favour of the Saxon line became apparent;
but it was either his policy or his principles always to defer to the
popular will as expressed in the national council; and on the
preference given by the Witan to Harold the son of Canute over the
heirs of Ethelred, he yielded his own inclinations. The great power
of the Danes, and the amicable fusion of their race with the Saxon
which had now taken place, are apparent in this decision; for not only
did Earl Leofric, of Mercia, though himself a Saxon (as well as the
Earl of Northumbria, with the thegns north of the Thames), declare for
Harold the Dane, but the citizens of London were of the same party;
and Godwin represented little more than the feeling of his own
principality of Wessex.
From that time, Godwin, however, became identified with the English
cause; and even many who believed him guilty of some share in the
murder, or at least the betrayal, of Alfred [102], Edward's brother,
sought excuses in the disgust with which Godwin had regarded the
foreign retinue that Alfred had brought with him, as if to owe his
throne to Norman swords, rather than to English hearts. Hardicanute,
who succeeded Harold, whose memory he abhorred, whose corpse he
disinterred and flung into a fen [103], had been chosen by the
unanimous council both of English and Danish thegns; and despite
Hardicanute's first vehement accusations of Godwin, the Earl still
remained throughout that reign as powerful as in the two preceding it.
When Hardicanute dropped down dead at a marriage banquet, it was
Godwin who placed Edward upon the throne; and that great Earl must
either have been conscious of his innocence of the murder of Edward's
brother, or assured of his own irresponsible power, when he said to
the prince who knelt at his feet, and, fearful of the difficulties in
his way, implored the Earl to aid his abdication of the throne and
return to Normandy.
"You are the son of Ethelred, grandson of Edgar. Reign, it is your
duty; better to live in glory than die in exile. You are of mature
years, and having known sorrow and need, can better feel for your
people. Rely on me, and there will be none of the difficulties you
dread; whom I favour, England favours."
And shortly afterwards, in the national assembly, Godwin won Edward
his throne. "Powerful in speech, powerful in bringing over people to
what he desired, some yielded to his words, some to bribes." [104]
Verily, Godwin was a man to have risen as high, had he lived later!
So Edward reigned, and agreeably, it is said, with previous
stipulations, married the daughter of his king-maker. Beautiful as
Edith the Queen was in mind and in person, Edward apparently loved her
not. She dwelt in his palace, his wife only in name.
Tostig (as we have seen) had married the daughter of Baldwin, Count of
Flanders, sister to Matilda, wife to the Norman Duke: and thus the
House of Godwin was triply allied to princely lineage--the Danish, the
Saxon, the Flemish. And Tostig might have said, as in his heart
William the Norman said, "My children shall descend from Charlemagne
and Alfred."
Godwin's life, though thus outwardly brilliant, was too incessantly
passed in public affairs and politic schemes to allow the worldly man
much leisure to watch over the nurture and rearing of the bold spirits
of his sons. Githa his wife, the Dane, a woman with a haughty but
noble spirit, imperfect education, and some of the wild and lawless
blood derived from her race of heathen sea-kings, was more fitted to
stir their ambition and inflame their fancies, than curb their tempers
and mould their hearts.
We have seen the career of Sweyn; but Sweyn was an angel of light
compared to his brother Tostig. He who can be penitent has ever
something lofty in his original nature; but Tostig was remorseless as
the tiger, as treacherous and as fierce. With less intellectual
capacities than any of his brothers, he had more personal ambition
than all put together. A kind of effeminate vanity, not uncommon with
daring natures (for the bravest races and the bravest soldiers are
usually the vainest; the desire to shine is as visible in the fop as
in the hero), made him restless both for command and notoriety. "May
I ever be in the mouths of men," was his favourite prayer. Like his
maternal ancestry, the Danes, he curled his long hair, and went as a
bridegroom to the feast of the ravens.
Two only of that house had studied the Humane Letters, which were no
longer disregarded by the princes of the Continent; they were the
sweet sister, the eldest of the family, fading fast in her loveless
home, and Harold.
But Harold's mind,--in which what we call common sense was carried to
genius,--a mind singularly practical and sagacious, like his father's,
cared little for theological learning and priestly legend--for all
that poesy of religion in which the Woman was wafted from the sorrows
of earth.
Godwin himself was no favourite of the Church, and had seen too much
of the abuses of the Saxon priesthood, (perhaps, with few exceptions,
the most corrupt and illiterate in all Europe, which is saying much,)
to instil into his children that reverence for the spiritual authority
which existed abroad; and the enlightenment, which in him was
experience in life, was in Harold, betimes, the result of study and
reflection. The few books of the classical world then within reach of
the student opened to the young Saxon views of human duties and human
responsibilities utterly distinct from the unmeaning ceremonials and
fleshly mortifications in which even the higher theology of that day
placed the elements of virtue. He smiled in scorn when some Dane,
whose life had been passed in the alternate drunkenness of wine and of
blood, thought he had opened the gates of heaven by bequeathing lands
gained by a robber's sword, to pamper the lazy sloth of some fifty
monks. If those monks had presumed to question his own actions, his
disdain would have been mixed with simple wonder that men so besotted
in ignorance, and who could not construe the Latin of the very prayers
they pattered, should presume to be the judges of educated men. It is
possible--for his nature was earnest--that a pure and enlightened
clergy, that even a clergy, though defective in life, zealous in duty
and cultivated in mind,--such a clergy as Alfred sought to found, and
as Lanfranc endeavoured (not without some success) to teach--would
have bowed his strong sense to that grand and subtle truth which
dwells in spiritual authority. But as it was, he stood aloof from the
rude superstition of his age, and early in life made himself the
arbiter of his own conscience. Reducing his religion to the simplest
elements of our creed, he found rather in the books of Heathen authors
than in the lives of the saints, his notions of the larger morality
which relates to the citizen and the man. The love of country; the
sense of justice; fortitude in adverse and temperance in prosperous
fortune, became portions of his very mind. Unlike his father, he
played no actor's part in those qualities which had won him the
popular heart. He was gentle and affable; above all, he was fair-
dealing and just, not because it was politic to seem, but his nature
to be, so.
Nevertheless, Harold's character, beautiful and sublime in many
respects as it was, had its strong leaven of human imperfection in
that very self-dependence which was born of his reason and his pride.
In resting so solely on man's perceptions of the right, he lost one
attribute of the true hero--faith. We do not mean that word in the
religious sense alone, but in the more comprehensive. He did not rely
on the Celestial Something pervading all nature, never seen, only felt
when duly courted, stronger and lovelier than what eye could behold
and mere reason could embrace. Believing, it is true, in God, he lost
those fine links that unite God to man's secret heart, and which are
woven alike from the simplicity of the child and the wisdom of the
poet. To use a modern illustration, his large mind was a "cupola
lighted from below."
His bravery, though inflexible as the fiercest sea-king's, when need
arose for its exercise, was not his prominent characteristic. He
despised the brute valour of Tostig,--his bravery was a necessary part
of a firm and balanced manhood--the bravery of Hector, not Achilles.
Constitutionally averse to bloodshed, be could seem timid where daring
only gratified a wanton vanity, or aimed at a selfish object. On the
other hand, if duty demanded daring, no danger could deter, no policy
warp him;--he could seem rash; he could even seem merciless. In the
what ought to be, he understood a must be.
And it was natural to this peculiar, yet thoroughly English
temperament, to be, in action, rather steadfast and patient than quick
and ready. Placed in perils familiar to him, nothing could exceed his
vigour and address; but if taken unawares, and before his judgment
could come to his aid, he was liable to be surprised into error.
Large minds are rarely quick, unless they have been corrupted into
unnatural vigilance by the necessities of suspicion. But a nature
more thoroughly unsuspecting, more frank, trustful, and genuinely
loyal than that young Earl's, it was impossible to conceive. All
these attributes considered, we have the key to much of Harold's
character and conduct in the later events of his fated and tragic
life.
But with this temperament, so manly and simple, we are not to suppose
that Harold, while rejecting the superstitions of one class, was so
far beyond his time as to reject those of another. No son of fortune,
no man placing himself and the world in antagonism, can ever escape
from some belief in the Invisible. Caesar could ridicule and profane
the mystic rites of Roman mythology, but he must still believe in his
fortune, as in a god. And Harold, in his very studies, seeing the
freest and boldest minds of antiquity subjected to influences akin to
those of his Saxon forefathers, felt less shame in yielding to them,
vain as they might be, than in monkish impostures so easily detected.
Though hitherto he had rejected all direct appeal to the magic devices
of Hilda, the sound of her dark sayings, heard in childhood, still
vibrated on his soul as man. Belief in omens, in days lucky or
unlucky, in the stars, was universal in every class of the Saxon.
Harold had his own fortunate day, the day of his nativity, the 14th of
October. All enterprises undertaken on that day had hitherto been
successful. He believed in the virtue of that day, as Cromwell
believed in his 3d of September. For the rest, we have described him
as he was in that part of his career in which he is now presented.
Whether altered by fate and circumstances, time will show. As yet, no
selfish ambition leagued with the natural desire of youth and
intellect for their fair share of fame and power. His patriotism, fed
by the example of Greek and Roman worthies, was genuine, pure, and
ardent; he could have stood in the pass with Leonidas, or leaped into
the gulf with Curtius.
CHAPTER II.
At dawn, Harold woke from uneasy and broken slumbers, and his eyes
fell upon the face of Hilda, large, and fair, and unutterably calm, as
the face of Egyptian sphinx.
"Have thy dreams been prophetic, son of Godwin?" said the Vala.
"Our Lord forfend," replied the Earl, with unusual devoutness.
"Tell them, and let me read the rede; sense dwells in the voices of
the night."
Harold mused, and after a short pause, he said:
"Methinks, Hilda, I can myself explain how those dreams came to haunt
me."
Then raising himself on his elbow, he continued, while he fixed his
clear penetrating eyes upon his hostess:
"Tell me frankly, Hilda, didst thou not cause some light to shine on
yonder knoll, by the mound and stone, within the temple of the
Druids?"
But if Harold had suspected himself to be the dupe of some imposture,
the thought vanished when he saw the look of keen interest, even of
awe, which Hilda's face instantly assumed.
"Didst thou see a light, son of Godwin, by the altar of Thor, and over
the bautastein of the mighty dead? a flame, lambent and livid, like
moonbeams collected over snow?"
"So seemed to me the light."
"No human hand ever kindled that flame, which announces the presence
of the Dead," said Hilda, with a tremulous voice; "though seldom,
uncompelled by the seid and the rune, does the spectre itself warn the
eyes of the living."
"What shape, or what shadow of shape, does that spectre assume?"
"It rises in the midst of the flame, pale as the mist on the mountain,
and vast as the giants of old; with the saex, and the spear, and the
shield, of the sons of Woden.--Thou hast seen the Scin-laeca,"
continued Hilda, looking full on the face of the Earl.
"If thou deceivest me not," began Harold, doubting still.
"Deceive thee! not to save the crown of the Saxon dare I mock the
might of the dead. Knowest thou not--or hath thy vain lore stood in
place of the lore of thy fathers--that where a hero of old is buried,
his treasures lie in his grave; that over that grave is at times seen
at night the flame that thou sawest, and the dead in his image of air?
Oft seen in the days that are gone, when the dead and the living had
one faith--were one race; now never marked, but for portent, and
prophecy, and doom:--glory or woe to the eyes that see! On yon knoll,
Aesc (the first-born of Cerdic, that Father-King of the Saxons,) has
his grave where the mound rises green, and the stone gleams wan by the
altar of Thor. He smote the Britons in their temple, and he fell
smiting. They buried him in his arms, and with the treasures his
right hand had won. Fate hangs on the house of Cerdic, or the realm
of the Saxon, when Woden calls the laeca of his son from the grave."
Hilda, much troubled bent her face over her clasped hands, and,
rocking to and fro, muttered some runes unintelligible to the ear of
her listener. Then she turned to him, commandingly, and said:
"Thy dreams now, indeed, are oracles, more true than living Vala could
charm with the wand and the rune: Unfold them."
Thus adjured, Harold resumed:
"Methought, then, that I was on a broad, level plain, in the noon of
day; all was clear to my eye, and glad to my heart. I was alone and
went on my way rejoicing. Suddenly the earth opened under my feet,
and I fell deep, fathom-deep;--deep, as if to that central pit, which
our heathen sires called Niffelheim--the Home of Vapour--the hell of
the dead who die without glory. Stunned by the fall, I lay long,
locked as in a dream in the midst of a dream. When I opened my eyes,
behold, I was girt round with dead men's bones; and the bones moved
round me, undulating, as the dry leaves that wirble round in the winds
of the winter. And from midst of them peered a trunkless skull, and
on the skull was a mitre, and from the yawning jaws a voice came
hissing, as a serpent's hiss, 'Harold, the scorner, thou art ours!'
Then, as from the buzz of an army, came voices multitudinous, 'Thou
art ours!' I sought to rise, and behold my limbs were bound, and the
gyves were fine and frail, as the web of the gossamer, and they
weighed on me like chains of iron. And I felt an anguish of soul that
no words can speak--an anguish both of horror and shame; and my
manhood seemed to ooze from me, and I was weak as a child new born.
Then suddenly there rushed forth a freezing wind, as from an air of
ice, and the bones from their whirl stood still, and the buzz ceased,
and the mitred skull grinned on me still and voiceless; and serpents
darted their arrowy tongues from the eyeless sockets. And, lo, before
me stood (O Hilda, I see it now!) the form of the spectre that had
risen from yonder knoll. With his spear, and saex, and his shield, he
stood before me; and his face, though pale as that of one long dead,
was stern as the face of a warrior in the van of armed men; he
stretched his hand, and he smote his saex on his shield, and the clang
sounded hollow; the gyves broke at the clash--I sprang to my feet, and
I stood side by side with the phantom, dauntless. Then, suddenly, the
mitre on the skull changed to a helm; and where the skull had grinned,
trunkless and harmless, stood a shape like War, made incarnate;--a
Thing above giants, with its crest to the stars and its form an
eclipse between the sun and the day. The earth changed to ocean, and
the ocean was blood, and the ocean seemed deep as the seas where the
whales sport in the North, but the surge rose not to the knee of that
measureless image. And the ravens came round it from all parts of the
heaven, and the vultures with the dead eyes and dull scream. And all
the bones, before scattered and shapeless, sprung to life and to form,
some monks and some warriors; and there was a hoot, and a hiss, and a
roar, and the storm of arms. And a broad pennon rose out of the sea
of blood, and from the clouds came a pale hand, and it wrote on the
pennon, 'Harold, the Accursed!' Then said the stern shape by my side,
'Harold, fearest thou the dead men's bones?' and its voice was as a
trumpet that gives strength to the craven, and I answering,
'Niddering, indeed, were Harold, to fear the bones of the dead!'"
"As I spoke, as if hell had burst loose, came a gibber of scorn, and
all vanished at once, save the ocean of blood. Slowly came from
the north, over the sea, a bird like a raven, save that it was blood-
red, like the ocean; and there came from the south, swimming towards
me, a lion. And I looked to the spectre; and the pride of war had
gone from its face, which was so sad that methought I forgot raven and
lion, and wept to see it. Then the spectre took me in its vast arms,
and its breath froze my veins, and it kissed my brow and my lips, and
said, gently and fondly, as my mother in some childish sickness,
'Harold, my best beloved, mourn not. Thou hast all which the sons of
Woden dreamed in their dreams of Valhalla!' Thus saying, the form
receded slowly, slowly, still gazing on me with its sad eyes. I
stretched forth my hand to detain it, and in my grasp was a shadowy
sceptre. And, lo! round me, as if from the earth, sprang up thegns
and chiefs, in their armour; and a board was spread, and a wassail was
blithe around me. So my heart felt cheered and light, and in my hand
was still the sceptre. And we feasted long and merrily; but over the
feast flapped the wings of the blood-red raven, and over the blood-red
sea beyond, swam the lion, near and near. And in the heavens there
were two stars, one pale and steadfast, the other rushing and
luminous; and a shadowy hand pointed from the cloud to the pale star,
and a voice said, 'Lo, Harold! the star that shone on thy birth.' And
another hand pointed to the luminous star, and another voice said,
'Lo, the star that shone on the birth of the victor.' Then, lo! the
bright star grew fiercer and larger; and, rolling on with a hissing
sound, as when iron is dipped into water, it rushed over the disc of
the mournful planet, and the whole heavens seemed on fire. So
methought the dream faded away, and in fading, I heard a full swell of
music, as the swell of an anthem in an aisle; a music like that which
but once in my life I heard; when I stood on the train of Edward, in
the halls of Winchester, the day they crowned him king."
Harold ceased, and the Vala slowly lifted her head from her bosom, and
surveyed him in profound silence, and with a gaze that seemed vacant
and meaningless.
"Why dost thou look on me thus, and why art thou so silent?" asked the
Earl.
"The cloud is on my sight, and the burthen is on my soul, and I cannot
read thy rede," murmured the Vala. "But morn, the ghost-chaser, that
waketh life, the action, charms into slumber life, the thought. As
the stars pale at the rising of the sun, so fade the lights of the
soul when the buds revive in the dews, and the lark sings to the day.
In thy dream lies thy future, as the wing of the moth in the web of
the changing worm; but, whether for weal or for woe, thou shalt burst
through thy mesh, and spread thy plumes in the air. Of myself I know
nought. Await the hour when Skulda shall pass into the soul of her
servant, and thy fate shall rush from my lips as the rush of the
waters from the heart of the cave."
"I am content to abide," said Harold, with his wonted smile, so calm
and so lofty; "but I cannot promise thee that I shall heed thy rede,
or obey thy warning, when my reason hath awoke, as while I speak it
awakens, from the fumes of the fancy and the mists of the night."
CHAPTER III.
Githa, Earl Godwin's wife, sate in her chamber, and her heart was sad.
In the room was one of her sons, the one dearer to her than all,
Wolnoth, her darling. For the rest of her sons were stalwart and
strong of frame, and in their infancy she had known not a mother's
fears. But Wolnoth had come into the world before his time, and sharp
had been the travail of the mother, and long between life and death
the struggle of the newborn babe. And his cradle had been rocked with
a trembling knee, and his pillow been bathed with hot tears. Frail
had been his childhood--a thing that hung on her care; and now, as the
boy grew, blooming and strong, into youth, the mother felt that she
had given life twice to her child. Therefore was he more dear to her
than the rest; and, therefore, as she gazed upon him now, fair and
smiling, and hopeful, she mourned for him more than for Sweyn, the
outcast and criminal, on his pilgrimage of woe, to the waters of
Jordan, and the tomb of our Lord. For Wolnoth, selected as the
hostage for the faith of his house, was to be sent from her arms to
the Court of William the Norman. And the youth smiled and was gay,
choosing vestment and mantle, and ateghars of gold, that he might be
flaunting and brave in the halls of knighthood and the beauty,--the
school of the proudest chivalry of the Christian world. Too young,
and too thoughtless, to share the wise hate of his elders for the
manners and forms of the foreigners, their gaiety and splendour, as
his boyhood had seen them, relieving the gloom of the cloister court,
and contrasting the spleen and the rudeness of the Saxon temperament,
had dazzled his fancy and half Normanised his mind. A proud and happy
boy was he, to go as hostage for the faith, and representative of the
rank, of his mighty kinsmen; and step into manhood in the eyes of the
dames of Rouen.
By Wolnoth's side stood his young sister, Thyra, a mere infant; and
her innocent sympathy with her brother's pleasure in gaud and toy
saddened Githa yet more.
"O my son!" said the troubled mother, "why, of all my children, have
they chosen thee? Harold is wise against danger, and Tostig is fierce
against foes, and Gurth is too loving to awake hate in the sternest,
and from the mirth of sunny Leofwine sorrow glints aside, as the shaft
from the sheen of a shield. But thou, thou, O beloved!--cursed be the
king that chose thee, and cruel was the father that forgot the light
of the mother's eyes!"
"Tut, mother the dearest," said Wolnoth, pausing from the
contemplation of a silk robe, all covered with broidered peacocks,
which had been sent him as a gift from his sister the Queen, and
wrought with her own fair hands; for a notable needle-woman, despite
her sage lere, was the wife of the Saint King, as sorrowful women
mostly are,--"Tut! the bird must leave the nest when the wings are
fledged. Harold the eagle, Tostig the kite, Gurth the ring-dove, and
Leofwine the stare. See, my wings are the richest of all, mother, and
bright is the sun in which thy peacock shall spread his pranked
plumes."
Then, observing that his liveliness provoked no smile from his mother,
he approached and said more seriously:
"Bethink thee, mother mine. No other choice was left to king or to
father. Harold, and Tostig, and Leofwine, have their lordships and
offices. Their posts are fixed, and they stand as the columns of our
house. And Gurth is so young, and so Saxish and so the shadow of
Harold, that his hate to the Norman is a by-word already among our
youths; for hate is the more marked in a temper of love, as the blue
of this border seems black against the white of the woof. But I;--the
good King knows that I shall be welcome, for the Norman knights love
Wolnoth, and I have spent hours by the knees of Montgommeri and
Grantmesnil, listening to the feats of Rolf-ganger, and playing with
their gold chains of knighthood. And the stout Count himself shall
knight me, and I shall come back with the spurs of gold which thy
ancestors, the brave Kings of Norway and Daneland, wore ere knighthood
was known. Come, kiss me, my mother, and come see the brave falcons
Harold has sent me:--true Welch!"
Githa rested her face on her son's shoulder, and her tears blinded
her. The door opened gently, and Harold entered; and with the Earl, a
pale dark-haired boy, Haco; the son of Sweyn.
But Githa, absorbed in her darling Wolnoth, scarce saw the grandchild
reared afar from her knees, and hurried at once to Harold. In his
presence she felt comfort and safety; for Wolnoth leant on her heart,
and her heart leant on Harold.
"O son, son!" she cried, "firmest of hand, surest of faith, and wisest
of brain, in the house of Godwin, tell me that he yonder, he thy young
brother, risks no danger in the halls of the Normans!"
"Not more than in these, mother," answered Harold, soothing her, with
caressing lip and gentle tone. "Fierce and ruthless, men say, is
William the Duke against foes with their swords in their hands, but
debonnair and mild to the gentle [105], frank host and kind lord. And
these Normans have a code of their own, more grave than all morals,
more binding than even their fanatic religion. Thou knowest it well,
mother, for it comes from thy race of the North, and this code of
honour, they call it, makes Wolnoth's head as sacred as the relics of
a saint set in zimmes. Ask only, my brother, when thou comest in
sight of the Norman Duke, ask only 'the kiss of peace,' and, that kiss
on thy brow, thou wilt sleep more safe than if all the banners of
England waved over thy couch." [106]
"But how long shall the exile be?" asked Githa, comforted. Harold's
brow fell.
"Mother, not even to cheer thee will I deceive. The time of the
hostageship rests with the King and the Duke. As long as the one
affects fear from the race of Godwin, as long as the other feigns care
for such priests or such knights as were not banished from the realm,
being not courtiers, but scattered wide and far in convent and
homestead, so long will Wolnoth and Haco be guests in the Norman
halls."
Githa wrung her hands.
"But comfort, my mother; Wolnoth is young, his eye is keen, and his
spirit prompt and quick. He will mark these Norman captains, he will
learn their strength and their weakness, their manner of war, and he
will come back, not as Edward the King came, a lover of things un-
Saxon, but able to warn and to guide us against the plots of the camp-
court, which threatens more, year by year, the peace of the world.
And he will see there arts we may worthily borrow: not the cut of a
tunic, and the fold of a gonna, but the arts of men who found states
and build nations. William the Duke is splendid and wise; merchants
tell us how crafts thrive under his iron hand, and war-men say that
his forts are constructed with skill and his battle-schemes planned as
the mason plans key-stone and arch, with weight portioned out to the
prop, and the force of the hand made tenfold by the science of the
brain. So that the boy will return to us a man round and complete, a
teacher of greybeards, and the sage of his kin; fit for earldom and
rule, fit for glory and England. Grieve not, daughter of the Dane
kings, that thy son, the best loved, hath nobler school and wider
field than his brothers."
This appeal touched the proud heart of the niece of Canute the Great,
and she almost forgot the grief of her love in the hope of her
ambition.
She dried her tears and smiled upon Wolnoth, and already, in the
dreams of a mother's vanity, saw him great as Godwin in council, and
prosperous as Harold in the field. Nor, half Norman as he was, did
the young man seem insensible of the manly and elevated patriotism of
his brother's hinted lessons, though he felt they implied reproof. He
came to the Earl, whose arm was round his mother, and said with a
frank heartiness not usual to a nature somewhat frivolous and
irresolute:
"Harold, thy tongue could kindle stones into men, and warm those men
into Saxons. Thy Wolnoth shall not hang his head with shame when he
comes back to our merrie land with shaven locks and spurs of gold.
For if thou doubtest his race from his look, thou shalt put thy right
hand on his heart, and feel England beat there in every pulse."
"Brave words, and well spoken," cried the Earl, and he placed his hand
on the boy's head as in benison.
Till then, Haco had stood apart, conversing with the infant Thyra,
whom his dark, mournful face awed and yet touched, for she nestled
close to him, and put her little hand in his; but now, inspired no
less than his cousin by Harold's noble speech, he came proudly forward
by Wolnoth's side, and said:
"I, too, am English, and I have the name of Englishman to redeem."
Ere Harold could reply, Githa exclaimed:
"Leave there thy right hand on my child's head, and say, simply: 'By
my troth and my plight, if the Duke detain Wolnoth, son of Githa,
against just plea, and King's assent to his return, I, Harold, will,
failing letter and nuncius, cross the seas, to restore the child to
the mother.'" [107] Harold hesitated.
A sharp cry of reproach that went to his heart broke from Githa's
lips.
"Ah! cold and self-heeding, wilt thou send him to bear a peril from
which thou shrinkest thyself?"
"By my troth and my plight, then," said the Earl, "if, fair time
elapsed, peace in England, without plea of justice, and against my
king's fiat, Duke William of Normandy detain the hostages;--thy son
and this dear boy, more sacred and more dear to me for his father's
woes,--I will cross the seas, to restore the child to the mother, the
fatherless to his fatherland. So help me, all-seeing One, Amen and
Amen!"
CHAPTER IV.
We have seen, in an earlier part of this record, that Harold
possessed, amongst his numerous and more stately possessions, a house,
not far from the old Roman dwelling-place of Hilda. And in this
residence he now (save when with the King) made his chief abode. He
gave as the reasons for his selection, the charm it took, in his eyes,
from that signal mark of affection which his ceorls had rendered him,
in purchasing the house and tilling the ground in his absence; and
more especially the convenience of its vicinity to the new palace at
Westminster; for, by Edward's special desire, while the other brothers
repaired to their different domains, Harold remained near his royal
person. To use the words of the great Norwegian chronicler, "Harold
was always with the Court itself, and nearest to the King in all
service."
"The King loved him very much, and kept him as his own son, for he had
no children."' This attendance on Edward was naturally most close at
the restoration to power of the Earl's family. For Harold, mild and
conciliating, was, like Alred, a great peacemaker, and Edward had
never cause to complain of him, as he believed he had of the rest of
that haughty house. But the true spell which made dear to Harold the
rude building of timber, with its doors open all day to his lithsmen,
when with a light heart he escaped from the halls of Westminster, was
the fair face of Edith his neighbour. The impression which this young
girl had made upon Harold seemed to partake of the strength of a
fatality. For Harold had loved her before the marvellous beauty of
her womanhood began; and, occupied from his earliest youth in grave
and earnest affairs, his heart had never been frittered away on the
mean and frivolous affections of the idle. Now, in that comparative
leisure of his stormy life, he was naturally most open to the
influence of a charm more potent than all the glamoury of Hilda.
The autumn sun shone through the golden glades of the forest-land,
when Edith sate alone on the knoll that faced forestland and road, and
watched afar.
And the birds sung cheerily; but that was not the sound for which
Edith listened: and the squirrel darted from tree to tree on the sward
beyond; but not to see the games of the squirrel sat Edith by the
grave of the Teuton. By-and-by, came the cry of the dogs, and the
tall gre-hound [108] of Wales emerged from the bosky dells. Then
Edith's heart heaved, and her eyes brightened. And now, with his hawk
on his wrist, and his spear [109] in his hand, came, through the
yellowing boughs, Harold the Earl.
And well may ye ween, that his heart beat as loud and his eye shone as
bright as Edith's, when he saw who had watched for his footsteps on
the sepulchral knoll; Love, forgetful of the presence of Death;--so
has it ever been, so ever shall it be! He hastened his stride, and
bounded up the gentle hillock, and his dogs, with a joyous bark, came
round the knees of Edith. Then Harold shook the bird from his wrist,
and it fell, with its light wing, on the altar-stone of Thor.
"Thou art late, but thou art welcome, Harold my kinsman," said Edith,
simply, as she bent her face over the hounds, whose gaunt heads she
caressed.
"Call me not kinsman," said Harold, shrinking, and with a dark cloud
on his broad brow.
"And why, Harold?"
"Oh, Edith, why?" murmured Harold; and his thought added, "she knows
not, poor child, that in that mockery of kinship the Church sets its
ban on our bridals."
He turned, and chid his dogs fiercely as they gambolled in rough glee
round their fair friend.
The hounds crouched at the feet of Edith; and Edith looked in mild
wonder at the troubled face of the Earl.
"Thine eyes rebuke me, Edith, more than my words the hounds!" said
Harold, gently. "But there is quick blood in my veins; and the mind
must be calm when it would control the humour. Calm was my mind,
sweet Edith, in the old time, when thou wert an infant on my knee, and
wreathing, with these rude hands, flower-chains for thy neck like the
swan's down, I said, 'The flowers fade, but the chain lasts when love
weaves it.'"
Edith again bent her face over the crouching hounds. Harold gazed on
her with mournful fondness; and the bird still sung and the squirrel
swung himself again from bough to bough. Edith spoke first:
"My godmother, thy sister, hath sent for me, Harold, and I am to go to
the Court to-morrow. Shalt thou be there?"
"Surely," said Harold, in an anxious voice, "surely, I will be there!
So my sister hath sent for thee: wittest thou wherefore?"
Edith grew very pale, and her tone trembled as she answered:
"Well-a-day, yes."
"It is as I feared, then!" exclaimed Harold, in great agitation; "and
my sister, whom these monks have demented, leagues herself with the
King against the law of the wide welkin and the grand religion of the
human heart. Oh!" continued the Earl, kindling into an enthusiasm,
rare to his even moods, but wrung as much from his broad sense as from
his strong affection, "when I compare the Saxon of our land and day,
all enervated and decrepit by priestly superstition, with his
forefathers in the first Christian era, yielding to the religion they
adopted in its simple truths, but not to that rot of social happiness
and free manhood which this cold and lifeless monarchism--making
virtue the absence of human ties--spreads around--which the great Bede
[110], though himself a monk, vainly but bitterly denounced;--yea,
verily, when I see the Saxon already the theowe of the priest, I
shudder to ask how long he will be folk-free of the tyrant."
He paused, breathed hard, and seizing, almost sternly, the girl's
trembling arm, he resumed between his set teeth: "So they would have
thee be a nun?--Thou wilt not,--thou durst not,--thy heart would
perjure thy vows!"
"Ah, Harold!" answered Edith, moved out of all bashfulness by his
emotion and her own terror of the convent, and answering, if with the
love of a woman, still with all the unconsciousness of a child:
"Better, oh better the grate of the body than that of the heart!--In
the grave I could still live for those I love; behind the Grate, love
itself must be dead. Yes, thou pitiest me, Harold; thy sister, the
Queen, is gentle and kind; I will fling myself at her feet, and say:
'Youth is fond, and the world is fair: let me live my youth, and bless
God in the world that he saw was good!'"
"My own, own dear Edith!" exclaimed Harold, overjoyed. "Say this. Be
firm: they cannot and they dare not force thee! The law cannot wrench
thee against thy will from the ward of thy guardian Hilda; and, where
the law is, there Harold at least is strong,--and there at least our
kinship, if my bane, is thy blessing."
"Why, Harold, sayest thou that our kinship is thy bane? It is so
sweet to me to whisper to myself, 'Harold is of thy kith, though
distant; and it is natural to thee to have pride in his fame, and joy
in his presence!' Why is that sweetness to me, to thee so bitter?"
"Because," answered Harold, dropping the hand he had clasped, and
folding his arms in deep dejection, "because but for that I should
say: 'Edith, I love thee more than a brother: Edith, be Harold's
wife!' And were I to say it, and were we to wed, all the priests of
the Saxons would lift up their hands in horror, and curse our
nuptials, and I should be the bann'd of that spectre the Church; and
my house would shake to its foundations; and my father, and my
brothers, and the thegns and the proceres, and the abbots and
prelates, whose aid makes our force, would gather round me with
threats and with prayers, that I might put thee aside. And mighty as
I am now, so mighty once was Sweyn my brother; and outlaw as Sweyn is
now, might Harold be; and outlaw if Harold were, what breast so broad
as his could fill up the gap left in the defence of England? And the
passions that I curb, as a rider his steed, might break their rein;
and, strong in justice, and child of Nature, I might come, with banner
and mail, against Church, and House, and Fatherland; and the blood of
my countrymen might be poured like water: and, therefore, slave to the
lying thraldom he despises, Harold dares not say to the maid of his
love, 'Give me thy right hand, and be my bride!'"
Edith had listened in bewilderment and despair, her eyes fixed on his,
and her face locked and rigid, as if turned to stone. But when he had
ceased, and, moving some steps away, turned aside his manly
countenance, that Edith might not perceive its anguish, the noble and
sublime spirit of that sex which ever, when lowliest, most comprehends
the lofty, rose superior both to love and to grief; and rising, she
advanced, and placing her slight hand on his stalwart shoulder, she
said, half in pity, half in reverence: "Never before, O Harold, did I
feel so proud of thee: for Edith could not love thee as she doth, and
will till the grave clasp her, if thou didst not love England more
than Edith. Harold, till this hour I was a child, and I knew not my
own heart: I look now into that heart, and I see that I am woman.
Harold, of the cloister I have now no fear: and all life does not
shrink--no, it enlarges, and it soars into one desire--to be worthy to
pray for thee!"
"Maid, maid!" exclaimed Harold, abruptly, and pale as the dead, "do
not say thou hast no fear of the cloister. I adjure, I command thee,
build not up between us that dismal everlasting wall. While thou art
free Hope yet survives--a phantom, haply but Hope still."
"As thou wilt I will," said Edith, humbly: "order my fate so as
pleases thee the best."
Then, not daring to trust herself longer, for she felt the tears
rushing to her eyes, she turned away hastily, and left him alone
beside the altar-stone and the tomb.
CHAPTER V.
The next day, as Harold was entering the palace of Westminster, with
intent to seek the King's lady, his father met him in one of the
corridors, and, taking him gravely by the hand said:
"My son, I have much on my mind regarding thee and our House; come
with me."
"Nay," said the Earl, "by your leave let it be later. For I have it
on hand to see my sister, ere confessor, or monk, or schoolman, claim
her hours!"
"Not so, Harold," said the Earl, briefly. "My daughter is now in her
oratory, and we shall have time enow to treat of things mundane ere
she is free to receive thee, and to preach to thee of things ghostly,
the last miracle at St. Alban's, or the last dream of the King, who
would be a great man and a stirring, if as restless when awake as he
is in his sleep. Come."
Harold, in that filial obedience which belonged, as of course, to his
antique cast of character, made no farther effort to escape, but with
a sigh followed Godwin into one of the contiguous chambers.
"Harold," then said Earl Godwin, after closing the door carefully,
"thou must not let the King keep thee longer in dalliance and
idleness: thine earldom needs thee without delay. Thou knowest that
these East Angles, as we Saxons still call them, are in truth mostly
Danes and Norsemen; people jealous and fierce, and free, and more akin
to the Normans than to the Saxons. My whole power in England hath
been founded, not less on my common birth with the freefolk of Wessex
--Saxons like myself, and therefore easy for me, a Saxon, to conciliate
and control--than on the hold I have ever sought to establish, whether
by arms or by arts, over the Danes in the realm. And I tell and I
warn thee, Harold, as the natural heir of my greatness, that he who
cannot command the stout hearts of the Anglo-Danes, will never
maintain the race of Godwin in the post they have won in the vanguard
of Saxon England."
"This I wot well, my father," answered Harold; "and I see with joy,
that while those descendants of heroes and freemen are blended
indissolubly with the meeker Saxon, their freer laws and hardier
manners are gradually supplanting, or rather regenerating, our own."
Godwin smiled approvingly on his son, and then his brow becoming
serious, and the dark pupil of his blue eye dilating, he resumed:
"This is well, my son; and hast thou thought also, that while thou art
loitering in these galleries, amidst the ghosts of men in monk cowls,
Siward is shadowing our House with his glory, and all north the Humber
rings with his name? Hast thou thought that all Mercia is in the
hands of Leofric our rival, and that Algar his son, who ruled Wessex
in my absence, left there a name so beloved, that had I stayed a year
longer, the cry had been 'Algar', not 'Godwin'?--for so is the
multitude ever! Now aid me, Harold, for my soul is troubled, and I
cannot work alone; and though I say naught to others, my heart
received a death-blow when tears fell from its blood-springs on the
brow of Sweyn, my first-born." The old man paused, and his lip
quivered.
"Thou, thou alone, Harold, noble boy, thou alone didst stand by his
side in the hall; alone, alone, and I blessed thee in that hour over
all the rest of my sons. Well, well! now to earth again. Aid me,
Harold. I open to thee my web: complete the woof when this hand is
cold. The new tree that stands alone in the plain is soon nipped by
the winter; fenced round with the forest, its youth takes shelter from
its fellows [111]. So is it with a house newly founded; it must win
strength from the allies that it sets round its slender stein. What
had been Godwin, son of Wolnoth, had he not married into the kingly
house of great Canute? It is this that gives my sons now the right to
the loyal love of the Danes. The throne passed from Canute and his
race, and the Saxons again had their hour; and I gave, as Jephtha gave
his daughter, my blooming Edith, to the cold bed of the Saxon King.
Had sons sprung from that union, the grandson of Godwin, royal alike
from Saxon and Dane, would reign on the throne of the isle. Fate
ordered otherwise, and the spider must weave web anew. Thy brother,
Tostig, has added more splendour than solid strength of our line, in
his marriage with the daughter of Baldwin the Count. The foreigner
helps us little in England. Thou, O Harold, must bring new props to
the House. I would rather see thee wed to the child of one of our
great rivals than to the daughter of kaisar, or outland king. Siward
hath no daughter undisposed of. Algar, son of Leofric, hath a
daughter fair as the fairest; make her thy bride that Algar may cease
to be a foe. This alliance will render Mercia, in truth, subject to
our principalities, since the stronger must quell the weaker. It doth
more. Algar himself has married into the royalty of Wales [112].
Thou wilt win all those fierce tribes to thy side. Their forces will
gain thee the marches, now held so feebly under Rolf the Norman, and
in case of brief reverse, or sharp danger, their mountains will give
refuge from all foes. This day, greeting Algar, he told me he
meditated bestowing his daughter on Gryffyth, the rebel under-King of
North Wales. Therefore," continued the old Earl, with a smile, "thou
must speak in time, and win and woo in the same breath. No hard task,
methinks, for Harold of the golden tongue."
"Sir, and father," replied the young Earl, whom the long speech
addressed to him had prepared for its close, and whose habitual self-
control saved him from disclosing his emotion, "I thank you duteously,
for your care for my future, and hope to profit by your wisdom. I
will ask the King's leave to go to my East Anglians, and hold there a
folkmuth, administer justice, redress grievances, and make thegn and
ceorl content with Harold, their Earl. But vain is peace in the
realm, if there is strife in the house. And Aldyth, the daughter of
Algar, cannot be house-wife to me."
"Why?" asked the old Earl, calmly, and surveying his son's face with
those eyes so clear yet so unfathomable.
"Because, though I grant her fair, she pleases not my fancy, nor would
give warmth to my hearth. Because, as thou knowest well, Algar and I
have ever been opposed, both in camp and in council; and I am not the
man who can sell my love, though I may stifle my anger. Earl Harold
needs no bride to bring spearmen to his back at his need; and his
lordships he will guard with the shield of a man, not the spindle of a
woman."
"Said in spite and in error," replied the old Earl, coolly. "Small
pain had it given thee to forgive Algar old quarrels, and clasp his
hand as a father-in-law--if thou hadst had for his daughter what the
great are forbidden to regard save as a folly."
"Is love a folly, my father?"
"Surely, yes," said the Earl, with some sadness--"surely, yes, for
those who know that life is made up of business and care, spun out in
long years, nor counted by the joys of an hour. Surely, yes; thinkest
thou that I loved my first wife, the proud sister of Canute, or that
Edith, thy sister, loved Edward, when he placed the crown on her
head?"
"My father, in Edith, my sister, our House has sacrificed enow to
selfish power."
"I grant it, to selfish power," answered the eloquent old man, "but
not enow for England's safety. Look to it, Harold; thy years, and thy
fame, and thy state, place thee free from my control as a father, but
not till thou sleepest in thy cerements art thou free from that
father--thy land! Ponder it in thine own wise mind--wiser already
than that which speaks to it under the hood of grey hairs. Ponder it,
and ask thyself if thy power, when I am dead, is not necessary to the
weal of England? and if aught that thy schemes can suggest would so
strengthen that power, as to find in the heart of the kingdom a host
of friends like the Mercians;--or if there could be a trouble and a
bar to thy greatness, a wall in thy path, or a thorn in thy side, like
the hate or the jealousy of Algar, the son of Leofric?"
Thus addressed, Harold's face, before serene and calm, grew overcast;
and he felt the force of his father's words when appealing to his
reason--not to his affections. The old man saw the advantage he had
gained, and prudently forbore to press it. Rising, he drew round him
his sweeping gonna lined with furs, and only when he reached the door,
he added:
"The old see afar; they stand on the height of experience, as a warder
on the crown of a tower; and I tell thee, Harold, that if thou let
slip this golden occasion, years hence--long and many--thou wilt rue
the loss of the hour. And that, unless Mercia, as the centre of the
kingdom, be reconciled to thy power, thou wilt stand high indeed--but
on the shelf of a precipice. And if, as I suspect, thou lovest some
other who now clouds thy perception, and will then check thy ambition,
thou wilt break her heart with thy desertion, or gnaw thine own with
regret. For love dies in possession--ambition has no fruition, and so
lives forever."
"That ambition is not mine, my father," exclaimed Harold, earnestly;
"I have not thy love of power, glorious in thee, even in its extremes.
I have not thy----"
"Seventy years!" interrupted the old man, concluding the sentence.
"At seventy all men who have been great will speak as I do; yet all
will have known love. Thou not ambitious, Harold? Thou knowest not
thyself, nor knowest thou yet what ambition is. That which I see far
before me as thy natural prize, I dare not, or I will not say. When
time sets that prize within reach of thy spear's point, say then, 'I
am not ambitious!' Ponder and decide."
And Harold pondered long, and decided not as Godwin could have wished.
For he had not the seventy years of his father, and the prize lay yet
in the womb of the mountains; though the dwarf and the gnome were
already fashioning the ore to the shape of a crown.
CHAPTER VI.
While Harold mused over his father's words, Edith, seated on a low
stool beside the Lady of England, listened with earnest but mournful
reverence to her royal namesake.
The Queen's [113] closet opened like the King's on one hand to an
oratory, on the other to a spacious ante-room; the lower part of the
walls was covered with arras, leaving space for a niche that contained
an image of the Virgin. Near the doorway to the oratory, was the
stoupe or aspersorium for holy-water; and in various cysts and crypts,
in either room, were caskets containing the relics of saints. The
purple light from the stained glass of a high narrow window, shaped in
the Saxon arch, streamed rich and full over the Queen's bended head
like a glory, and tinged her pale cheek, as with a maiden blush; and
she might have furnished a sweet model for early artist, in his dreams
of St. Mary the Mother, not when, young and blest, she held the divine
infant in her arms, but when sorrow had reached even the immaculate
bosom, and the stone had been rolled over the Holy Sepulchre. For
beautiful the face still was, and mild beyond all words; but, beyond
all words also, sad in its tender resignation.
And thus said the Queen to her godchild:
"Why dost thou hesitate and turn away? Thinkest thou, poor child, in
thine ignorance of life, that the world ever can give thee a bliss
greater than the calm of the cloister? Pause, and ask thyself, young
as thou art, if all the true happiness thou hast known, is not bounded
to hope. As long as thou hopest, thou art happy."
Edith sighed deeply, and moved her young head in involuntary
acquiescence.
"And what is life to the nun, but hope. In that hope, she knows not
the present, she lives in the future; she hears ever singing the
chorus of the angels, as St. Dunstan heard them sing at the birth of
Edgar [114]. That hope unfolds to her the heiligthum of the future.
On earth her body, in heaven her soul!"
"And her heart, O Lady of England?" cried Edith, with a sharp pang.
The Queen paused a moment, and laid her pale hand kindly on Edith's
bosom.
"Not beating, child, as thine does now, with vain thoughts, and
worldly desires; but calm, calm as mine. It is in our power," resumed
the Queen, after a second pause, "it is in our power to make the life
within us all soul; so that the heart is not, or is felt not; so that
grief and joy have no power over us; so that we look tranquil on the
stormy earth, as yon image of the Virgin, whom we make our example,
looks from the silent niche. Listen, my godchild and darling."
"I have known human state, and human debasement. In these halls I
woke Lady of England, and, ere sunset, my lord banished me, without
one mark of honour, without one word of comfort, to the convent of
Wherwell;--my father, my mother, my kin, all in exile; and my tears
falling fast for them, but not on a husband's bosom."
"Ah then, noble Edith," said the girl, colouring with anger at the
remembered wrong for her Queen, "ah then, surely, at least, thy heart
made itself heard."
"Heard, yea verily," said the Queen, looking up, and pressing her
hands; "heard, but the soul rebuked it. And the soul said, 'Blessed
are they that mourn;' and I rejoiced at the new trial which brought me
nearer to Him who chastens those He loves."
"But thy banished kin--the valiant, the wise; they who placed thy lord
on the throne?"
"Was it no comfort," answered the Queen simply, "to think that in the
House of God my prayers for them would be more accepted than in the
halls of kings? Yes, my child, I have known the world's honour, and
the world's disgrace, and I have schooled my heart to be calm in
both."
"Ah, thou art above human strength, Queen and Saint," exclaimed Edith;
"and I have heard it said of thee, that as thou art now, thou wert
from thine earliest years [115]; ever the sweet, the calm, the holy--
ever less on earth than in heaven."
Something there was in the Queen's eyes, as she raised them towards
Edith at this burst of enthusiasm, that gave for a moment, to a face
otherwise so dissimilar, the likeness to her father; something, in
that large pupil, of the impenetrable unrevealing depth of a nature
close and secret in self-control. And a more acute observer than
Edith might long have been perplexed and haunted with that look,
wondering if, indeed, under the divine and spiritual composure, lurked
the mystery of human passion.
"My child," said the Queen, with the faintest smile upon her lips, and
drawing Edith towards her, "there are moments when all that breathe
the breath of life feel, or have felt, alike. In my vain youth I
read, I mused, I pondered, but over worldly lore. And what men called
the sanctity of virtue, was perhaps but the silence of thought. Now I
have put aside those early and childish dreams and shadows,
remembering them not, save (here the smile grew more pronounced) to
puzzle some poor schoolboy with the knots and riddles of the sharp
grammarian [116]. But not to speak of my self have I sent for thee.
Edith, again and again, solemnly and sincerely, I pray thee to obey
the wish of my lord the King. And now, while yet in all the bloom of
thought, as of youth, while thou hast no memory save the child's,
enter on the Realm of Peace."
"I cannot, I dare not, I cannot--ah, ask me not," said poor Edith,
covering her face with her hands.
Those hands the Queen gently withdrew; and looking steadfastly in the
changeful and half-averted face, she said mournfully, "Is it so, my
godchild? and is thy heart set on the hopes of earth--thy dreams on
the love of man?"
"Nay," answered Edith, equivocating; "but I have promised not to take
the veil."
"Promised to Hilda?"
"Hilda," exclaimed Edith readily, "would never consent to it. Thou
knowest her strong nature, her distaste to--to----"
"The laws of our holy Church--I do; and for that reason it is, mainly,
that I join with the King in seeking to abstract thee from her
influence. But it is not Hilda that thou hast promised?"
Edith hung her head.
"Is it to woman or to man?"
Before Edith could answer the door from the ante-room opened gently,
but without the usual ceremony, and Harold entered. His quick quiet
eye embraced both forms, and curbed Edith's young impulse, which made
her start from her seat, and advance joyously towards him as a
protector.
"Fair day to thee, my sister," said the Earl, advancing; and pardon,
if I break thus rudely on thy leisure; for few are the moments when
beggar and Benedictine leave thee free to receive thy brother."
"Dost thou reproach me, Harold?"
"No, Heaven forfend!" replied the Earl, cordially, and with a look at
once of pity and admiration; "for thou art one of the few, in this
court of simulators, sincere and true; and it pleases thee to serve
the Divine Power in thy way, as it pleases me to serve Him in mine."
"Thine, Harold?" said the Queen, shaking her head, but with a look of
some human pride and fondness in her fair face.
"Mine; as I learned it from thee when I was thy pupil, Edith; when to
those studies in which thou didst precede me, thou first didst lure me
from sport and pastime; and from thee I learned to glow over the deeds
of Greek and Roman, and say, 'They lived and died as men; like them
may I live and die!'"
"Oh, true--too true!" said the Queen, with a sigh; "and I am to blame
grievously that I did so pervert to earth a mind that might otherwise
have learned holier examples;--nay, smile not with that haughty lip,
my brother; for believe me--yea, believe me--there is more true valour
in the life of one patient martyr than in the victories of Caesar, or
even the defeat of Brutus."
"It may be so," replied the Earl, "but out of the same oak we carve
the spear and the cross; and those not worthy to hold the one, may yet
not guiltily wield the other. Each to his path of life--and mine is
chosen." Then, changing his voice, with some abruptness, he said,
"But what hast thou been saying to thy fair godchild, that her cheek
is pale, and her eyelids seem so heavy? Edith, Edith, my sister,
beware how thou shapest the lot of the martyr without the peace of the
saint. Had Algive the nun been wedded to Sweyn our brother, Sweyn
were not wending, barefooted and forlorn, to lay the wrecks of
desolated life at the Holy Tomb."
"Harold, Harold!" faltered the Queen, much struck with his words.
"But," the Earl continued--and something of the pathos which belongs
to deep emotion vibrated in the eloquent voice, accustomed to command
and persuade--"we strip not the green leaves for our yulehearths--we
gather them up when dry and sere. Leave youth on the bough--let the
bird sing to it--let it play free in the airs of heaven. Smoke comes
from the branch which, cut in the sap, is cast upon the fire, and
regret from the heart which is severed from the world while the world
is in its May."
The Queen paced slowly, but in evident agitation, to and fro the room,
and her hands clasped convulsively the rosary round her neck; then,
after a pause of thought, she motioned to Edith and, pointing to the
oratory, said with forced composure, "Enter there, and there kneel;
commune with thyself, and be still. Ask for a sign from above--pray
for the grace within. Go; I would speak alone with Harold."
Edith crossed her arms on her bosom meekly, and passed into the
oratory. The Queen watched her for a few moments tenderly, as the
slight, child-like form bent before the sacred symbol. Then she
closed the door gently, and coming with a quick step to Harold, said,
in a low but clear voice, "Dost thou love the maiden?"
"Sister," answered the Earl sadly, "I love her as a man should love
woman--more than my life, but less than the ends life lives for."
"Oh, world, world, world!" cried the Queen, passionately, "not even to
thine own objects art thou true. O world! O world! thou desirest
happiness below, and at every turn, with every vanity, thou tramplest
happiness under foot! Yes, yes; they said to me, 'For the sake of our
greatness, thou shalt wed King Edward.' And I live in the eyes that
loathe me--and--and----" The Queen, as if conscience-stricken, paused
aghast, kissed devoutly the relic suspended to her rosary, and
continued, with such calmness that it seemed as if two women were
blent in one, so startling was the contrast. "And I have had my
reward, but not from the world! Even so, Harold the Earl, and Earl's
son, thou lovest yon fair child, and she thee; and ye might be happy,
if happiness were earth's end; but, though high-born, and of fair
temporal possessions, she brings thee not lands broad enough for her
dowry, nor troops of kindred to swell thy lithsmen, and she is not a
markstone in thy march to ambition; and so thou lovest her as man
loves woman--'less than the ends life lives for!'"
"Sister," said Harold, "thou speakest as I love to hear thee speak--as
my bright-eyed, rose-lipped sister spoke in the days of old; thou
speakest as a woman with warm heart, and not as the mummy in the stiff
cerements of priestly form; and if thou art with me, and thou wilt
give me countenance, I will marry thy godchild, and save her alike
from the dire superstitions of Hilda, and the grave of the abhorrent
convent."
"But my father--my father!" cried the Queen, "who ever bended that
soul of steel?"
"It is not my father I fear; it is thee and thy monks. Forgettest
thou that Edith and I are within the six banned degrees of the
Church?"
"True, most true," said the Queen, with a look of great terror; "I had
forgotten. Avaunt, the very thought! Pray--fast--banish it--my poor,
poor brother!" and she kissed his brow.
"So, there fades the woman, and the mummy speaks again!" said Harold,
bitterly. "Be it so: I bow to my doom. Well, there may be a time
when Nature on the throne of England shall prevail over Priestcraft;
and, in guerdon for all my services, I will then ask a King who hath
blood in his veins to win me the Pope's pardon and benison. Leave me
that hope, my sister, and leave thy godchild on the shores of the
living world."
The Queen made no answer, and Harold, auguring ill from her silence,
moved on and opened the door of the oratory. But the image that there
met him, that figure still kneeling, those eyes, so earnest in the
tears that streamed from them fast and unheeded, fixed on the holy
rood--awed his step and checked his voice. Nor till the girl had
risen, did he break silence; then he said, gently, "My sister will
press thee no more, Edith----"
"I say not that!" exclaimed the Queen.
"Or if she doth, remember thy plighted promise under the wide cope of
blue heaven, the old nor least holy temple of our common Father."
With these words he left the room.
CHAPTER VII.
Harold passed into the Queen's ante-chamber. Here the attendance was
small and select compared with the crowds which we shall see presently
in the ante-room to the King's closet; for here came chiefly the more
learned ecclesiastics, attracted instinctively by the Queen's own
mental culture, and few indeed were they at that day (perhaps the most
illiterate known in England since the death of Alfred [117]); and here
came not the tribe of impostors, and the relic-venders, whom the
infantine simplicity and lavish waste of the Confessor attracted.
Some four or five priests and monks, some lonely widow, some orphan
child, humble worth, or protected sorrow, made the noiseless levee of
the sweet, sad Queen.
The groups turned, with patient eyes, towards the Earl as he emerged
from that chamber, which it was rare indeed to quit unconsoled, and
marvelled at the flush in his cheek; and the disquiet on his brow; but
Harold was dear to the clients of his sister; for, despite his
supposed indifference to the mere priestly virtues (if virtues we call
them) of the decrepit time, his intellect was respected by yon learned
ecclesiastics; and his character, as the foe of all injustice, and the
fosterer of all that were desolate, was known to yon pale-eyed widow
and yon trembling orphan.
In the atmosphere of that quiet assembly, the Earl seemed to recover
his kindly temperament, and he paused to address a friendly or a
soothing word to each; so that when he vanished, the hearts there felt
more light; and the silence hushed before his entrance, was broken by
many whispers in praise of the good Earl.
Descending a staircase without the walls--as even in royal halls the
principal staircases were then--Harold gained a wide court, in which
loitered several house-carles [118] and attendants, whether of the
King or the visitors; and, reaching the entrance of the palace, took
his way towards the King's rooms, which lay near, and round, what is
now called "The Painted Chamber," then used as a bedroom by Edward on
state occasions.
And now he entered the ante-chamber of his royal brother-in-law.
Crowded it was, but rather seemed it the hall of a convent than the
ante-room of a king. Monks, pilgrims, priests, met his eye in every
nook; and not there did the Earl pause to practise the arts of popular
favour. Passing erect through the midst, he beckoned forth the
officer, in attendance at the extreme end, who, after an interchange
of whispers, ushered him into the royal presence. The monks and the
priests, gazing towards the door which had closed on his stately form,
said to each other:
"The King's Norman favourites at least honoured the Church."
"That is true," said an abbot; "and an it were not for two things, I
should love the Norman better than the Saxon."
"What are they, my father?" asked an aspiring young monk.
"Inprinis," quoth the abbot, proud of the one Latin word he thought he
knew, but, that, as we see, was an error; "they cannot speak so as to
be understood, and I fear me much they incline to mere carnal
learning."
Here there was a sanctified groan:
"Count William himself spoke to me in Latin!" continued the abbot,
raising his eyebrows.
"Did he?--Wonderful!" exclaimed several voices. "And what did you
answer, holy father?"
"Marry," said the abbot solemnly, "I replied, Inprinis."
"Good!" said the young monk, with a look of profound admiration.
"Whereat the good Count looked puzzled--as I meant him to be:--a
heinous fault, and one intolerant to the clergy, that love of profane
tongues! And the next thing against your Norman is (added the abbot,
with a sly wink), that he is a close man, who loves not his stoup;
now, I say, that a priest never has more hold over a sinner than when
he makes the sinner open his heart to him."
"That's clear!" said a fat priest, with a lubricate and shining nose.
"And how," pursued the abbot triumphantly, "can a sinner open his
heavy heart until you have given him something to lighten it? Oh,
many and many a wretched man have I comforted spiritually over a
flagon of stout ale; and many a good legacy to the Church hath come
out of a friendly wassail between watchful shepherd and strayed sheep!
But what hast thou there?" resumed the abbot, turning to a man, clad
in the lay garb of a burgess of London, who had just entered the room,
followed by a youth, bearing what seemed a coffer, covered with a fine
linen cloth.
"Holy father!" said the burgess, wiping his forehead, "it is a
treasure so great, that I trow Hugoline, the King's treasurer, will
scowl at me for a year to come, for he likes to keep his own grip on
the King's gold."
At this indiscreet observation, the abbot, the monks, and all the
priestly bystanders looked grim and gloomy, for each had his own
special design upon the peace of poor Hugoline, the treasurer, and
liked not to see him the prey of a layman.
"Inprinis!" quoth the abbot, puffing out the word with great scorn;
"thinkest thou, son of Mammon, that our good King sets his pious heart
on gew-gaw, and gems, and such vanities? Thou shouldst take the goods
to Count Baldwin of Flanders; or Tostig, the proud Earl's proud son."
"Marry!" said the cheapman, with a smile; "my treasure will find small
price with Baldwin the scoffer, and Tostig the vain! Nor need ye look
at me so sternly, my fathers; but rather vie with each other who shall
win this wonder of wonders for his own convent; know, in a word, that
it is the right thumb of St. Jude, which a worthy man bought at Rome
for me, for 3000 lb. weight of silver; and I ask but 500 lb. over the
purchase for my pains and my fee." [119]
"Humph!" said the abbot.
"Humph!" said the aspiring young monk; the rest gathered wistfully
round the linen cloth.
A fiery exclamation of wrath and disdain was here heard; and all
turning, saw a tall, fierce-looking thegn, who had found his way into
that group, like a hawk in a rookery.
"Dost thou tell me, knave," quoth the thegn, in a dialect that bespoke
him a Dane by origin, with the broad burr still retained in the north;
"Dost thou tell me that the King will waste his gold on such
fooleries, while the fort built by Canute at the flood of the Humber
is all fallen into ruin, without a man in steel jacket to keep watch
on the war fleets of Swede and Norwegian?"
"Worshipful minister," replied the cheapman, with some slight irony in
his tone, "these reverend fathers will tell thee that the thumb of St.
Jude is far better aid against Swede and Norwegian than forts of stone
and jackets of steel; nathless, if thou wantest jackets of steel, I
have some to sell at a fair price, of the last fashion, and helms with
long nose-pieces, as are worn by the Normans."
"The thumb of a withered old saint," cried the Dane, not heeding the
last words, "more defence at the mouth of the Humber than crenellated
castles and mailed men!"
"Surely, naught son," said the abbot, looking shocked, and taking part
with the cheapman. "Dost thou not remember that, in the pious and
famous council of 1014, it was decreed to put aside all weapons of
flesh against thy heathen countrymen, and depend alone on St. Michael
to fight for us? Thinkest thou that the saint would ever suffer his
holy thumb to fall into the hands of the Gentiles?--never! Go to,
thou art not fit to have conduct of the King's wars. Go to, and
repent, my son, or the King shall hear of it."
"Ah, wolf in sheep's clothing!" muttered the Dane, turning on his
heel; "if thy monastery were but built on the other side the Humber!"
The cheapman heard him, and smiled. While such the scene in the ante-
room, we follow Harold into the King's presence.
On entering, he found there a man in the prime of life, and though
richly clad in embroidered gonna, and with gilt ateghar at his side,
still with the loose robe, the long moustache, and the skin of the
throat and right hand punctured with characters and devices, which
proved his adherence to the fashions of the Saxon [120]. And Harold's
eye sparkled, for in this guest he recognized the father of Aldyth,
Earl Algar, son of Leofric. The two nobles exchanged grave
salutations, and each eyed the other wistfully.
The contrast between the two was striking. The Danish race were men
generally of larger frame and grander mould than the Saxon [121]; and
though in all else, as to exterior, Harold was eminently Saxon, yet,
in common with his brothers, he took from the mother's side the lofty
air and iron frame of the old kings of the sea. But Algar, below the
middle height, though well set, was slight in comparison with Harold.
His strength was that which men often take rather from the nerve than
the muscle; a strength that belongs to quick tempers and restless
energies. His light blue eye, singularly vivid and glittering; his
quivering lip, the veins swelling at each emotion on the fair white
temples; the long yellow hair, bright as gold, and resisting, in its
easy curls, all attempts to curb it into the smooth flow most in
fashion; the nervous movements of the gesture; the somewhat sharp and
hasty tones of the voice; all opposed, as much as if the two men were
of different races, the steady, deep eye of Harold, his composed mien,
sweet and majestic, his decorous locks parted on the king-like front,
with their large single curl where they touched the shoulder.
Intelligence and will were apparent in both the men; but the
intelligence of one was acute and rapid, that of the other profound
and steadfast; the will of one broke in flashes of lightning, that of
the other was calm as the summer sun at noon.
"Thou art welcome, Harold," said the King, with less than his usual
listlessness, and with a look of relief as the Earl approached him.
"Our good Algar comes to us with a suit well worthy consideration,
though pressed somewhat hotly, and evincing too great a desire for
goods worldly; contrasting in this his most laudable father our well-
beloved Leofric, who spends his substance in endowing monasteries and
dispensing alms; wherefore he shall receive a hundred-fold in the
treasure-house above."
"A good interest, doubtless, my lord the King," said Algar; quickly,
"but one that is not paid to his heirs; and the more need, if my
father (whom I blame not for doing as he lists with his own) gives all
he hath to the monks--the more need, I say, to take care that his son
shall be enabled to follow his example. As it is, most noble King, I
fear me that Algar, son of Leofric, will have nothing to give. In
brief, Earl Harold," continued Algar, turning to his fellow-thegn--"in
brief, thus stands the matter. When our lord the King was first
graciously pleased to consent to rule in England, the two chiefs who
most assured his throne were thy father and mine: often foes, they
laid aside feud and jealousy for the sake of the Saxon line. Now,
since then, thy father hath strung earldom to earldom, like links in a
coat-mail. And, save Northumbria and Mercia; well-nigh all England
falls to him and his sons: whereas my father remains what he was, and
my father's son stands landless and penceless. In thine absence the
King was graciously pleased to bestow on me thy father's earldom; men
say that I ruled it well. Thy father returns, and though" (here
Algar's eyes shot fire, and his hand involuntarily rested on his
ateghar) "I could have held it, methinks, by the strong hand, I gave
it up at my father's prayer and the King's hest, with a free heart.
Now, therefore, I come to my lord, and I ask, 'What lands and what
lordships canst thou spare in broad England to Algar, once Earl of
Wessex, and son to the Leofric whose hand smoothed the way to thy
throne?' My lord the King is pleased to preach to me contempt of the
world; thou dost not despise the world, Earl of the East Angles,--what
sayest thou to the heir of Leofric?"
"That thy suit is just," answered Harold, calmly, "but urged with
small reverence."
Earl Algar bounded like a stag that the arrow hath startled.
"It becomes thee, who hast backed thy suits with warships and mail, to
talk of reverence, and rebuke one whose fathers reigned over earldoms
[122], when thine were, no doubt, ceorls at the plough. But for Edric
Streone, the traitor and low-born, what had been Wolnoth, thy
grandsire?"
So rude and home an assault in the presence of the King, who, though
personally he loved Harold in his lukewarm way, yet, like all weak
men, was not displeased to see the strong split their strength against
each other, brought the blood into Harold's cheek; but he answered
calmly:
"We live in a land, son of Leofric, in which birth, though not
disesteemed, gives of itself no power in council or camp. We belong
to a land where men are valued for what they are, not for what their
dead ancestors might have been. So has it been for ages in Saxon
England, where my fathers, through Godwin, as thou sayest, might have
been ceorls; and so, I have heard, it is in the land of the martial
Danes, where my fathers, through Githa, reigned on the thrones of the
North."
"Thou dost well," said Algar, gnawing his lip, "to shelter thyself on
the spindle side, but we Saxons of pure descent think little of your
kings of the North, pirates and idolaters, and eaters of horseflesh;
but enjoy what thou hast, and let Algar have his clue."
"It is for the King, not his servant, to answer the prayer of Algar,"
said Harold, withdrawing to the farther end of the room.
Algar's eye followed him, and observing that the King was fast sinking
into one of the fits of religious reverie in which he sought to be
inspired with a decision, whenever his mind was perplexed, he moved
with a light step to Harold, put his band on his shoulder, and
whispered:
"We do ill to quarrel with each other--I repent me of hot words--
enough. Thy father is a wise man, and sees far--thy father would have
us friends. Be it so. Hearken my daughter Aldyth is esteemed not the
least fair of the maidens in England; I will give her to thee as thy
wife, and as thy morgen gift, thou shalt will for me from the King the
earldom forfeited by thy brother Sweyn, now parcelled out amongst sub-
earls and thegns--easy enow to control. By the shrine of St. Alban,
dost thou hesitate, man?"
"No, not an instant," said Harold, stung to the quick. "Not, couldst
thou offer me all Mercia as her dower, would I wed the daughter of
Algar; and bend my knee, as a son to a wife's father, to the man who
despises my lineage, while he truckles to my power."
Algar's face grew convulsed with rage; but without saying a word to
the Earl he strode back to Edward, who now with vacant eyes looked up
from the rosary over which he had been bending, and said abruptly:
"My lord the King, I have spoken as I think it becomes a man who
knows his own claims, and believes in the gratitude of princes. Three
days will I tarry in London for your gracious answer; on the fourth I
depart. May the saints guard your throne, and bring around it its
best defence, the thegn-born satraps whose fathers fought with Alfred
and Athelstan. All went well with merrie England till the hoof of the
Dane King broke the soil, and mushrooms sprung up where the oak-trees
fell."
When the son of Leofric had left the chamber, the King rose wearily
and said in Norman French, to which language he always yearningly
returned when with those who could speak it:
"Beau frere and bien aime, in what trifles must a king pass his life!
And, all this while, matters grave and urgent demand me. Know that
Eadmer, the cheapman, waits without, and hath brought me, dear and
good man, the thumb of St. Jude! What thought of delight! And this
unmannerly son of strife, with his jay's voice and wolf's eyes,
screaming at me for earldoms!--oh the folly of man! Naught, naught,
very naught!"
"Sir and King," said Harold; "it ill becomes me to arraign your pious
desires, but these relics are of vast cost; our coasts are ill
defended, and the Dane yet lays claim to your kingdom. Three thousand
pounds of silver and more does it need to repair even the old wall of
London and Southweorc."
"Three thousand pounds!" cried the King; "thou art mad, Harold! I
have scarce twice that sum in the treasury; and besides the thumb of
St. Jude, I daily expect the tooth of St. Remigius--the tooth of St.
Remigius!"
Harold sighed. "Vex not yourself, my lord, I will see to the defences
of London. For, thanks to your grace, my revenues are large, while my
wants are simple. I seek you now to pray your leave to visit my
earldom. My lithsmen murmur at my absence, and grievances, many and
sore, have arisen in my exile."
The King stared in terror; and his look was that of a child when about
to be left in the dark.
"Nay, nay; I cannot spare thee, beau frere. Thou curbest all these
stiff thegns--thou leavest me time for the devout; moreover, thy
father, thy father, I will not be left to thy father! I love him
not!"
"My father," said Harold, mournfully, "returns to his own earldom; and
of all our House you will have but the mild face of your queen by your
side!"
The King's lip writhed at that hinted rebuke, or implied consolation.
"Edith the Queen," he said, after a slight pause, "is pious and good;
and she hath never gainsaid my will, and she hath set before her as a
model the chaste Susannah, as I, unworthy man, from youth upward, have
walked in the pure steps of Joseph [123]. But," added the King, with
a touch of human feeling in his voice, "canst thou not conceive,
Harold, thou who art a warrior, what it would be to see ever before
thee the face of thy deadliest foe--the one against whom all thy
struggles of life and death had turned into memories of hyssop and
gall?"
"My sister!" exclaimed Harold, in indignant amaze, "My sister thy
deadliest foe! She who never once murmured at neglect, disgrace--she
whose youth hath been consumed in prayers for thee and thy realm--my
sister! O King, I dream?"
"Thou dreamest not, carnal man," said the King, peevishly. "Dreams
are the gifts of the saints, and are not granted to such as thou!
Dost thou think that, in the prune of my manhood, I could have youth
and beauty forced on my sight, and hear man's law and man's voice say,
'They are thine, and thine only,' and not feel that war was brought to
my hearth, and a snare set on my bed, and that the fiend had set watch
on my soul? Verily, I tell thee, man of battle, that thou hast known
no strife as awful as mine, and achieved no victory as hard and as
holy. And now, when my beard is silver, and the Adam of old is
expelled at the precincts of death; now, thinkest thou, that I can be
reminded of the strife and temptation of yore, without bitterness and
shame; when days were spent in fasting, and nights in fierce prayer;
and in the face of woman I saw the devices of Satan?"
Edward coloured as he spoke, and his voice trembled with the accents
of what seemed hate. Harold gazed on him mutely, and felt that at
last he had won the secret that had ever perplexed him, and that in
seeking to be above the humanity of love, the would-be saint had
indeed turned love into the hues of hate--a thought of anguish, and a
memory of pain.
The King recovered himself in a few moments, and said, with some
dignity, "But God and his saints alone should know the secrets of the
household. What I have said was wrung from me. Bury it in thy heart.
Leave me, then, Harold, sith so it must be. Put thine earldom in
order, attend to the monasteries and the poor, and return soon. As
for Algar, what sayest thou?"
"I fear me," answered the large-souled Harold, with a victorious
effort of justice over resentment, "that if you reject his suit you
will drive him into some perilous extremes. Despite his rash and
proud spirit, he is brave against foes, and beloved by the ceorls, who
oft like best the frank and hasty spirit. Wherefore some power and
lordship it were wise to give, without dispossessing others, and not
more wise than due, for his father served you well."
"And hath endowed more houses of God than any earl in the kingdom.
But Algar is no Leofric. We will consider your words and heed them.
Bless you, beau frere! and send in the cheapman. The thumb of St.
Jude! What a gift to my new church of St. Peter! The thumb of St.
Jude! Non nobis gloria! Sancta Maria! The thumb of St. Jude!"
BOOK V.
DEATH AND LOVE.
CHAPTER I.
Harold, without waiting once more to see Edith, nor even taking leave
of his father, repaired to Dunwich [124], the capital of his earldom.
In his absence, the King wholly forgot Algar and his suit; and in the
mean while the only lordships at his disposal, Stigand, the grasping
bishop, got from him without an effort. In much wrath, Earl Algar, on
the fourth day, assembling all the loose men-at-arms he could find
around the metropolis, and at the head of a numerous disorderly band,
took his way into Wales, with his young daughter Aldyth, to whom the
crown of a Welch king was perhaps some comfort for the loss of the
fair Earl; though the rumour ran that she had long since lost her
heart to her father's foe.
Edith, after a long homily from the King, returned to Hilda; nor did
her godmother renew the subject of the convent. All she said on
parting, was, "Even in youth the silver cord may be loosened, and the
golden bowl may be broken; and rather perhaps in youth than in age,
when the heart has grown hard, wilt thou recall with a sigh my
counsels."
Godwin had departed to Wales; all his sons were at their several
lordships; Edward was left alone to his monks and relic-venders. And
so months passed.
Now it was the custom with the old kings of England to hold state and
wear their crowns thrice a year, at Christmas, at Easter, and at
Whitsuntide; and in those times their nobles came round them, and
there was much feasting and great pomp.
So, in the Easter of the year of our Lord 1053, King Edward kept his
court at Windshore [125], and Earl Godwin and his sons, and many
others of high degree, left their homes to do honour to the King. And
Earl Godwin came first to his house in London--near the Tower
Palatine, in what is now called the Fleet--and Harold the Earl, and
Tostig, and Leofwine, and Gurth, were to meet him there, and go
thence, with the full state of their sub-thegns, and cnehts, and
house-carles, their falcons, and their hounds, as become men of such
rank, to the court of King Edward.
Earl Godwin sate with his wife, Githa, in a room out of the Hall,
which looked on the Thames,--awaiting Harold, who was expected to
arrive ere nightfall. Gurth had ridden forth to meet his brother, and
Leofwine and Tostig had gone over to Southwark, to try their band-dogs
on the great bear, which had been brought from the north a few days
before, and was said to have hugged many good hounds to death, and a
large train of thegns and house-carles had gone with them to see the
sport; so that the old Earl and his lady the Dane sate alone. And
there was a cloud upon Earl Godwin's large forehead, and he sate by
the fire, spreading his hands before it, and looking thoughtfully on
the flame, as it broke through the smoke which burst out into the
cover, or hole in the roof. And in that large house there were no
less than three "covers," or rooms, wherein fires could be lit in the
centre of the floor; and the rafters above were blackened with the
smoke; and in those good old days, ere chimneys, if existing, were
much in use, "poses, and rheumatisms, and catarrhs," were unknown, so
wholesome and healthful was the smoke. Earl Godwin's favourite hound,
old, like himself, lay at his feet, dreaming, for it whined and was
restless. And the Earl's old hawk, with its feathers all stiff and
sparse, perched on the dossal of the Earl's chair and the floor was
pranked with rushes and sweet herbs--the first of the spring; and
Githa's feet were on her stool, and she leaned her proud face on the
small hand which proved her descent from the Dane, and rocked herself
to and fro, and thought of her son Wolnoth in the court of the Norman.
"Githa," at last said the Earl, "thou hast been to me a good wife and
a true, and thou hast borne me tall and bold sons, some of whom have
caused us sorrow, and some joy; and in sorrow and in joy we have but
drawn closer to each other. Yet when we wed thou wert in thy first
youth, and the best part of my years was fled; and thou wert a Dane
and I a Saxon; and thou a king's niece, and now a king's sister, and I
but tracing two descents to thegn's rank."
Moved and marvelling at this touch of sentiment in the calm earl, in
whom indeed such sentiment was rare, Githa roused herself from her
musings, and said, simply and anxiously:
"I fear my lord is not well, that he speaks thus to Githa!"
The Earl smiled faintly.
"Thou art right with thy woman's wit, wife. And for the last few
weeks, though I said it not to alarm thee, I have had strange noises
in my ears, and a surge, as of blood, to the temples."
"O Godwin! dear spouse," said Githa, tenderly, "and I was blind to the
cause, but wondered why there was some change in thy manner! But I
will go to Hilda to-morrow; she hath charms against all disease."
"Leave Hilda in peace, to give her charms to the young; age defies
Wigh and Wicca. Now hearken to me. I feel that my thread is nigh
spent, and, as Hilda would say, my Fylgia forewarns me that we are
about to part. Silence, I say, and hear me. I have done proud things
in my day; I have made kings and built thrones, and I stand higher in
England than ever thegn or earl stood before. I would not, Githa,
that the tree of my house, planted in the storm, and watered with
lavish blood, should wither away."
The old Earl paused, and Githa said, loftily:
"Fear not that thy name will pass from the earth, or thy race from
power. For fame has been wrought by thy hands, and sons have been
born to thy embrace; and the boughs of the tree thou hast planted
shall live in the sunlight when we its roots, O my husband, are buried
in the earth."
"Githa," replied the Earl, "thou speakest as the daughter of kings and
the mother of men; but listen to me, for my soul is heavy. Of these
our sons, or first-born, alas! is a wanderer and outcast--Sweyn, once
the beautiful and brave; and Wolnoth, thy darling, is a guest in the
court of the Norman, our foe. Of the rest, Gurth is so mild and so
calm, that I predict without fear that he will be warrior of fame, for
the mildest in hall are ever the boldest in field. But Gurth hath not
the deep wit of these tangled times; and Leofwine is too light, and
Tostig too fierce. So wife mine, of these our six sons, Harold alone,
dauntless as Tostig, mild as Gurth, hath his father's thoughtful
brain. And, if the King remains as aloof as now from his royal
kinsman, Edward the Atheling, who"--the Earl hesitated and looked
round--"who so near to the throne when I am no more, as Harold, the
joy of the ceorls, and the pride of the thegns?--he whose tongue never
falters in the Witan, and whose arm never yet hath known defeat in the
field?"
Githa's heart swelled, and her cheek grew flushed.
"But what I fear the most," resumed the Earl, "is, not the enemy
without, but the jealousy within. By the side of Harold stands
Tostig, rapacious to grasp, but impotent to hold--able to ruin,
strengthless to save."
"Nay, Godwin, my lord, thou wrongest our handsome son."
"Wife, wife," said the Earl, stamping his foot, "hear me and obey me;
for my words on earth may be few, and while thou gainsayest me the
blood mounts to my brain, and my eyes see through a cloud."
"Forgive me, sweet lord," said Githa, humbly.
"Mickle and sore it repents me that in their youth I spared not the
time from my worldly ambition to watch over the hearts of my sons; and
thou wert too proud of the surface without, to look well to the
workings within, and what was once soft to the touch is now hard to
the hammer. In the battle of life the arrows we neglect to pick up,
Fate, our foe, will store in her quiver; we have armed her ourselves
with the shafts--the more need to beware with the shield. Wherefore,
if thou survivest me, and if, as I forebode, dissension break out
between Harold and Tostig, I charge thee by memory of our love, and
reverence for my grave, to deem wise and just all that Harold deems
just and wise. For when Godwin is in the dust, his House lives alone
in Harold. Heed me now, and heed ever. And so, while the day yet
lasts, I will go forth into the marts and the guilds, and talk with
the burgesses, and smile on their wives, and be, to the last, Godwin
the smooth and the strong."
So saying; the old Earl arose, and walked forth with a firm step; and
his old hound sprang up, pricked its ears, and followed him; the
blinded falcon turned its head towards the clapping door, but did not
stir from the dossel.
Then Githa again leant her cheek on her hand, and again rocked herself
to and fro, gazing into the red flame of the fire,--red and fitful
through the blue smoke,--and thought over her lord's words. It might
be the third part of an hour after Godwin had left the house, when the
door opened, and Githa, expecting the return of her sons, looked up
eagerly, but it was Hilda, who stooped her head under the vault of the
door; and behind Hilda came two of her maidens, bearing a small cyst,
or chest. The Vala motioned to her attendants to lay the cyst at the
feet of Githa, and that done, with lowly salutation they left the
room.
The superstitions of the Danes were strong in Githa; and she felt an
indescribable awe when Hilda stood before her, the red light playing
on the Vala's stern marble face, and contrasting robes of funereal
black. But, with all her awe, Githa, who, not educated like her
daughter Edith, had few feminine resources, loved the visits of her
mysterious kinswoman. She loved to live her youth over again in
discourse on the wild customs and dark rites of the Dane; and even her
awe itself had the charm which the ghost tale has to the child;--for
the illiterate are ever children. So, recovering her surprise, and
her first pause, she rose to welcome the Vala, and said:
"Hail, Hilda, and thrice hail! The day has been warm and the way
long; and, ere thou takest food and wine, let me prepare for thee the
bath for thy form, or the bath for thy feet. For as sleep to the
young, is the bath to the old."
Hilda shook her head.
"Bringer of sleep am I, and the baths I prepare are in the halls of
Valhalla. Offer not to the Vala the bath for mortal weariness, and
the wine and the food meet for human guests. Sit thee down, daughter
of the Dane, and thank thy new gods for the past that hath been thine.
Not ours is the present, and the future escapes from our dreams; but
the past is ours ever, and all eternity cannot revoke a single joy
that the moment hath known."
Then seating herself in Godwin's large chair, she leant over her seid-
staff, and was silent, as if absorbed in her thoughts.
"Githa," she said at last, "where is thy lord? I came to touch his
hands and to look on his brow."
"He hath gone forth into the mart, and my sons are from home; and
Harold comes hither, ere night, from his earldom."
A faint smile, as of triumph, broke over the lips of the Vala, and
then as suddenly yielded to an expression of great sadness.
"Githa," she said, slowly, "doubtless thou rememberest in thy young
days to have seen or heard of the terrible hell-maid Belsta?"
"Ay, ay," answered Githa shuddering; "I saw her once in gloomy
weather, driving before her herds of dark grey cattle. Ay, ay; and my
father beheld her ere his death, riding the air on a wolf, with a
snake for a bridle. Why askest thou?"
"Is it not strange," said Hilda, evading the question, that Belsta,
and Heidr, and Hulla of old, the wolf-riders, the men-devourers, could
win to the uttermost secrets of galdra, though applied only to
purposes the direst and fellest to man, and that I, though ever in the
future,--I, though tasking the Nornas not to afflict a foe, but to
shape the careers of those I love,--I find, indeed, my predictions
fulfilled; but how often, alas! only in horror and doom!"
"How so, kinswoman, how so?" said Githa, awed yet charmed in the awe,
and drawing her chair nearer to the mournful sorceress. "Didst thou
not fortell our return in triumph from the unjust outlawry, and, lo,
it hath come to pass? and hast thou not" (here Githa's proud face
flushed) "foretold also that my stately Harold shall wear the diadem
of a king?"
"Truly, the first came to pass," said Hilda; "but----" she paused, and
her eye fell on the cyst; then breaking off she continued, speaking to
herself rather than to Githa--"And Harold's dream, what did that
portend? the runes fail me, and the dead give no voice. And beyond
one dim day, in which his betrothed shall clasp him with the arms of a
bride, all is dark to my vision--dark--dark. Speak not to me, Githa;
for a burthen, heavy as the stone on a grave, rests on a weary heart!"
A dead silence succeeded, till, pointing with her staff to the fire,
the Vala said, "Lo, where the smoke and the flame contend--the smoke
rises in dark gyres to the air, and escapes, to join the wrack of
clouds. From the first to the last we trace its birth and its fall;
from the heart of the fire to the descent in the rain, so is it with
human reason, which is not the light but the smoke; it struggles but
to darken us; it soars but to melt in the vapour and dew. Yet, lo,
the flame burns in our hearth till the fuel fails, and goes at last,
none know whither. But it lives in the air though we see it not; it
lurks in the stone and waits the flash of the steel; it coils round
the dry leaves and sere stalks, and a touch re-illumines it; it plays
in the marsh--it collects in the heavens--it appals us in the
lightning--it gives warmth to the air--life of our life, and the
element of all elements. O Githa, the flame is the light of the soul,
the element everlasting; and it liveth still, when it escapes from our
view; it burneth in the shapes to which it passes; it vanishes, but
its never extinct."
So saying, the Vala's lips again closed; and again both the women sate
silent by the great fire, as it flared and flickered over the deep
lines and high features of Githa, the Earl's wife, and the calm,
unwrinkled, solemn face of the melancholy Vala.
CHAPTER II.
While these conferences took place in the house of Godwin, Harold, on
his way to London, dismissed his train to precede him to his father's
roof, and, striking across the country, rode fast and alone towards
the old Roman abode of Hilda. Months had elapsed since he had seen or
heard of Edith. News at that time, I need not say, was rare and
scarce, and limited to public events, either transmitted by special
nuncius or passing pilgrim, or borne from lip to lip by the talk of
the scattered multitude. But even in his busy and anxious duties,
Harold had in vain sought to banish from his heart the image of that
young girl, whose life he needed no Vala to predict to him was
interwoven with the fibres of his own. The obstacles which, while he
yielded to, he held unjust and tyrannical, obstacles allowed by his
reluctant reason and his secret ambition--not sanctified by
conscience--only inflamed the deep strength of the solitary passion
his life had known; a passion that, dating from the very childhood of
Edith, had, often unknown to himself, animated his desire of fame, and
mingled with his visions of power. Nor, though hope was far and dim,
was it extinct. The legitimate heir of Edward the Confessor was a
prince living in the Court of the Emperor, of fair repute, and himself
wedded; and Edward's health, always precarious, seemed to forbid any
very prolonged existence to the reigning king. Therefore, he thought
that through the successor, whose throne would rest in safety upon
Harold's support, he might easily obtain that dispensation from the
Pope which he knew the present king would never ask--a dispensation
rarely indeed, if ever, accorded to any subject, and which, therefore,
needed all a king's power to back it.
So in that hope, and fearful lest it should be quenched for ever by
Edith's adoption of the veil and the irrevocable vow, with a beating,
disturbed, but joyful heart he rode over field and through forest to
the old Roman house.
He emerged at length to the rear of the villa, and the sun, fast
hastening to its decline, shone full upon the rude columns of the
Druid temple. And there, as he had seen her before, when he had first
spoken of love and its barriers, he beheld the young maiden.
He sprang from his horse, and leaving the well-trained animal loose to
browse on the waste land, he ascended the knoll. He stole noiselessly
behind Edith, and his foot stumbled against the grave-stone of the
dead Titan-Saxon of old. But the apparition, whether real or fancied,
and the dream that had followed, had long passed from his memory, and
no superstition was in the heart springing to the lips, that cried
"Edith" once again.
The girl started, looked round, and fell upon his breast. It was some
moments before she recovered consciousness, and then, withdrawing
herself gently from his arms, she leant for support against the Teuton
altar.
She was much changed since Harold had seen her last: her cheek had
grown pale and thin, and her rounded form seemed wasted; and sharp
grief, as he gazed, shot through the soul of Harold.
"Thou hast pined, thou hast suffered," said he, mournfully: "and I,
who would shed my life's blood to take one from thy sorrows, or add to
one of thy joys, have been afar, unable to comfort, perhaps only a
cause of thy woe."
"No, Harold," said Edith, faintly, "never of woe; always of comfort,
even in absence. I have been ill, and Hilda hath tried rune and charm
all in vain. But I am better, now that Spring hath come tardily
forth, and I look on the fresh flowers, and hear the song of the
birds."
But tears were in the sound of her voice, while she spoke.
"And they have not tormented thee again with the thoughts of the
convent?"
"They? no;--but my soul, yes. O Harold, release me from my promise;
for the time already hath come that thy sister foretold to me; the
silver cord is loosened, and the golden bowl is broken, and I would
fain take the wings of the dove, and be at peace."
"Is it so?--Is there peace in the home where the thought of Harold
becomes a sin?"
"Not sin then and there, Harold, not sin. Thy sister hailed the
convent when she thought of prayer for those she loved."
"Prate not to me of my sister!" said Harold, through his set teeth.
"It is but a mockery to talk of prayer for the heart that thou thyself
rendest in twain. Where is Hilda? I would see her."
"She hath gone to thy father's house with a gift; and it was to watch
for her return that I sate on the green knoll."
The Earl then drew near and took her hand, and sate by her side, and
they conversed long. But Harold saw with a fierce pang that Edith's
heart was set upon the convent, and that even in his presence, and
despite his soothing words, she was broken-spirited and despondent.
It seemed as if her youth and life had gone from her, and the day had
come in which she said, "There is no pleasure."
Never had he seen her thus; and, deeply moved as well as keenly stung,
he rose at length to depart; her hand lay passive in his parting
clasp, and a slight shiver went over her frame.
"Farewell, Edith; when I return from Windshore, I shall be at my old
home yonder, and we shall meet again."
Edith's lips murmured inaudibly, and she bent her eyes to the ground.
Slowly Harold regained his steed, and as he rode on, he looked behind
and waved oft his hand. But Edith sate motionless, her eyes still on
the ground, and he saw not the tears that fell from them fast and
burning; nor heard he the low voice that groaned amidst the heathen
ruins, "Mary, sweet mother, shelter me from my own heart!"
The sun had set before Harold gained the long and spacious abode of
his father. All around it lay the roofs and huts of the great Earl's
special tradesmen, for even his goldsmith was but his freed ceorl.
The house itself stretched far from the Thames inland, with several
low courts built only of timber, rugged and shapeless, but filled with
bold men, then the great furniture of a noble's halls.
Amidst the shouts of hundreds, eager to hold his stirrup, the Earl
dismounted, passed the swarming hall, and entered the room, in which
he found Hilda and Githa, and Godwin, who had preceded his entry but a
few minutes.
In the beautiful reverence of son to father, which made one of the
loveliest features of the Saxon character [126] (as the frequent want
of it makes the most hateful of the Norman vices), the all-powerful
Harold bowed his knee to the old Earl, who placed his hand on his head
in benediction, and then kissed him on the cheek and brow.
"Thy kiss, too, dear mother," said the younger Earl; and Githa's
embrace, if more cordial than her lord's, was not, perhaps, more fond.
"Greet Hilda, my son," said Godwin, "she hath brought me a gift, and
she hath tarried to place it under thy special care. Thou alone must
heed the treasure, and open the casket. But when and where, my
kinswoman?"
"On the sixth day after thy coming to the King's hall," answered
Hilda, not returning the smile with which Godwin spoke,--"on the sixth
day, Harold, open the chest, and take out the robe which hath been
spun in the house of Hilda for Godwin the Earl. And now, Godwin, I
have clasped thine hand, and I have looked on thy brow, and my mission
is done, and I must wend homeward."
"That shalt thou not, Hilda," said the hospitable Earl; "the meanest
wayfarer hath a right to bed and board in this house for a night and a
day, and thou wilt not disgrace us by leaving our threshold, the bread
unbroken, and the couch unpressed. Old friend, we were young
together, and thy face is welcome to me as the memory of former days."
Hilda shook her head, and one of those rare, and for that reason most
touching, expressions of tenderness of which the calm and rigid
character of her features, when in repose, seemed scarcely
susceptible, softened her eye, and relaxed the firm lines of her lips.
"Son of Wolnoth," said she, gently, "not under thy roof-tree should
lodge the raven of bode. Bread have I not broken since yestere'en,
and sleep will be far from my eyes to-night. Fear not, for my people
without are stout and armed, and for the rest there lives not the man
whose arm can have power over Hilda."
She took Harold's hand as she spoke, and leading him forth, whispered
in his ear, "I would have a word with thee ere we part." Then,
reaching the threshold, she waved her hand thrice over the floor, and
muttered in the Danish tongue a rude verse, which, translated, ran
somewhat thus:
"All free from the knot
Glide the thread of the skein,
And rest to the labour,
And peace to the pain!"
"It is a death-dirge," said Githa, with whitening lips, but she spoke
inly, and neither husband nor son heard her words.
Hilda and Harold passed in silence through the hall, and the Vala's
attendants, with spears and torches, rose from the settles, and went
before to the outer court, where snorted impatiently her black
palfrey.
Halting in the midst of the court, she said to Harold, in a low voice:
"At sunset we part--at sunset we shall meet again. And behold, the
star rises on the sunset; and the star, broader and brighter, shall
rise on the sunset then! When thy hand draws the robe from the chest,
think on Hilda, and know that at that hour she stands by the grave of
the Saxon warrior, and that from the grave dawns the future. Farewell
to thee!"
Harold longed to speak to her of Edith, but a strange awe at his heart
chained his lips; so he stood silent by the great wooden gates of the
rude house. The torches flamed round him, and Hilda's face seemed
lurid in the glare. There he stood musing long after torch and ceorl
had passed away, nor did he wake from his reverie till Gurth,
springing from his panting horse, passed his arm round the Earl's
shoulder, and cried:
"How did I miss thee, my brother? and why didst thou forsake thy
train?"
"I will tell thee anon. Gurth, has my father ailed? There is that in
his face which I like not."
"He hath not complained of misease," said Gurth, startled; "but now
thou speakest of it, his mood hath altered of late, and he hath
wandered much alone, or only with the old hound and the old falcon."
Then Harold turned back, and, his heart was full; and, when he reached
the house, his father was sitting in the hall on his chair of state;
and Githa sate on his right hand, and a little below her sate Tostig
and Leofwine, who had come in from the bear-hunt by the river-gate,
and were talking loud and merrily; and thegns and cnehts sate all
around, and there was wassail as Harold entered. But the Earl looked
only to his father, and he saw that his eyes were absent from the
glee, and that he was bending his head over the old falcon, which sate
on his wrist.
CHAPTER III.
No subject of England, since the race of Cerdic sate on the throne,
ever entered the courtyard of Windshore with such train and such state
as Earl Godwin.--Proud of that first occasion, since his return, to do
homage to him with whose cause that of England against the stranger
was bound, all truly English at heart amongst the thegns of the land
swelled his retinue. Whether Saxon or Dane, those who alike loved the
laws and the soil, came from north and from south to the peaceful
banner of the old Earl. But most of these were of the past
generation, for the rising race were still dazzled by the pomp of the
Norman; and the fashion of English manners, and the pride in English
deeds, had gone out of date with long locks and bearded chins. Nor
there were the bishops and abbots and the lords of the Church,--for
dear to them already the fame of the Norman piety, and they shared the
distaste of their holy King to the strong sense and homely religion of
Godwin, who founded no convents, and rode to war with no relics round
his neck. But they with Godwin were the stout and the frank and the
free, in whom rested the pith and marrow of English manhood; and they
who were against him were the blind and willing and fated fathers of
slaves unborn.
Not then the stately castle we now behold, which is of the masonry of
a prouder race, nor on the same site, but two miles distant on the
winding of the river shore (whence it took its name), a rude building
partly of timber and partly of Roman brick, adjoining a large
monastery and surrounded by a small hamlet, constituted the palace of
the saint-king.
So rode the Earl and his four fair sons, all abreast, into the
courtyard of Windshore [127]. Now when King Edward heard the tramp of
the steeds and the hum of the multitudes, as he sate in his closet
with his abbots and priests, all in still contemplation of the thumb
of St. Jude, the King asked:
"What army, in the day of peace, and the time of Easter, enters the
gates of our palace?"
Then an abbot rose and looked out of the narrow window, and said with
a groan:
"Army thou mayst well call it, O King!--and foes to us and to thee
head the legions----"
"Inprinis," quoth our abbot the scholar; "thou speakest, I trow, of
the wicked Earl and his sons."
The King's face changed. "Come they," said he, "with so large a
train? This smells more of vaunt than of loyalty; naught--very
naught."
"Alack!" said one of the conclave, "I fear me that the men of Belial
will work us harm; the heathen are mighty, and----"
"Fear not," said Edward, with benign loftiness, observing that his
guests grew pale, and himself, though often weak to childishness, and
morally wavering and irresolute,--still so far king and gentleman,
that he knew no craven fear of the body. "Fear not for me, my
fathers; humble as I am, I am strong in the faith of heaven and its
angels."
The Churchmen looked at each other, sly yet abashed; it was not
precisely for the King that they feared.
Then spoke Alred, the good prelate and constant peacemaker--fair
column and lone one of the fast-crumbling Saxon Church. "It is ill in
you, brethren to arraign the truth and good meaning of those who
honour your King; and in these days that lord should ever be the most
welcome who brings to the halls of his king the largest number of
hearts, stout and leal."
"By your leave, brother Alred," said Stigand, who, though from motives
of policy he had aided those who besought the King not to peril his
crown by resisting the return of Godwin, benefited too largely by the
abuses of the Church to be sincerely espoused to the cause of the
strong-minded Earl; "By your leave, brother Alred, to every leal heart
is a ravenous mouth; and the treasures of the King are well-nigh
drained in feeding these hungry and welcomeless visitors. Durst I
counsel my lord I would pray him, as a matter of policy, to baffle
this astute and proud Earl. He would fain have the King feast in
public, that he might daunt him and the Church with the array of his
friends."
"I conceive thee, my father," said Edward, with more quickness than
habitual, and with the cunning, sharp though guileless, that belongs
to minds undeveloped, "I conceive thee; it is good and most politic.
This our orgulous Earl shall not have his triumph, and, so fresh from
his exile, brave his King with the mundane parade of his power. Our
health is our excuse for our absence from the banquet, and, sooth to
say, we marvel much why Easter should be held a fitting time for
feasting and mirth. Wherefore, Hugoline, my chamberlain, advise the
Earl that to-day we keep fast till the sunset, when temperately, with
eggs, bread, and fish, we will sustain Adam's nature. Pray him and
his sons to attend us--they alone be our guests." And with a sound
that seemed a laugh, or the ghost of a laugh, low and chuckling--for
Edward had at moments an innocent humour which his monkish biographer
disdained not to note [128],--he flung himself back in his chair. The
priests took the cue, and shook their sides heartily, as Hugoline left
the room, not ill pleased, by the way, to escape an invitation to the
eggs, bread, and fish.
Alred sighed; and said, "For the Earl and his sons, this is honour;
but the other earls, and the thegns, will miss at the banquet him whom
they design but to honour, and----"
"I have said," interrupted Edward, drily, and with a look of fatigue.
"And," observed another Churchman, with malice, "at least the young
Earls will be humbled, for they will not sit with the King and their
father, as they would in the Hall, and must serve my lord with napkin
and wine."
"Inprinis," quoth our scholar the abbot, "that will be rare! I would
I were by to see. But this Godwin is a man of treachery and wile, and
my lord should beware of the fate of murdered Alfred, his brother!"
The King started, and pressed his hands to his eyes.
"How darest thou, Abbot Fatchere," cried Alred, indignantly; "How
darest thou revive grief without remedy, and slander without proof?"
"Without proof?" echoed Edward, in a hollow voice. "He who could
murder, could well stoop to forswear! Without proof before man; but
did he try the ordeals of God?--did his feet pass the ploughshare?--
did his hand grasp the seething iron? Verily, verily, thou didst
wrong to name to me Alfred my brother! I shall see his sightless and
gore-dropping sockets in the face of Godwin, this day, at my board."
The King rose in great disorder; and, after pacing the room some
moments, disregardful of the silent and scared looks of his Churchmen,
waved his hand, in sign to them to depart. All took the hint at once
save Alred; but he, lingering the last, approached the King with
dignity in his step and compassion in his eyes.
"Banish from thy breast, O King and son, thoughts unmeet, and of
doubtful charity! All that man could know of Godwin's innocence or
guilt--the suspicion of the vulgar--the acquittal of his peers--was
known to thee before thou didst seek his aid for thy throne, and didst
take his child for thy wife. Too late is it now to suspect; leave thy
doubts to the solemn day, which draws nigh to the old man, thy wife's
father!"
"Ha!" said the king, seeming not to heed, or wilfully to misunderstand
the prelate, "Ha! leave him to God;--I will!"
He turned away impatiently; and the prelate reluctantly departed.
CHAPTER IV.
Tostig chafed mightily at the King's message; and, on Harold's attempt
to pacify him, grew so violent that nothing short of the cold stern
command of his father, who carried with him that weight of authority
never known but to those in whom wrath is still and passion noiseless,
imposed sullen peace on his son's rugged nature. But the taunts
heaped by Tostig upon Harold disquieted the old Earl, and his brow was
yet sad with prophetic care when he entered the royal apartments. He
had been introduced into the King's presence but a moment before
Hugoline led the way to the chamber of repast, and the greeting
between King and Earl had been brief and formal.
Under the canopy of state were placed but two chairs, for the King and
the Queen's father; and the four sons, Harold, Tostig, Leofwine, and
Gurth, stood behind. Such was the primitive custom of ancient
Teutonic kings; and the feudal Norman monarchs only enforced, though
with more pomp and more rigour, the ceremonial of the forest
patriarchs--youth to wait on age, and the ministers of the realm on
those whom their policy had made chiefs in council and war.
The Earl's mind, already embittered by the scene with his sons, was
chafed yet more by the King's unloving coldness; for it is natural to
man, however worldly, to feel affection for those he has served, and
Godwin had won Edward his crown; nor, despite his warlike though
bloodless return, could even monk or Norman, in counting up the old
Earl's crimes, say that he had ever failed in personal respect to the
King he had made; nor over-great for subject, as the Earl's power must
be confessed, will historian now be found to say that it had not been
well for Saxon England if Godwin had found more favour with his King,
and monk and Norman less. [129]
So the old Earl's stout heart was stung, and he looked from those
deep, impenetrable eyes, mournfully upon Edward's chilling brow.
And Harold, with whom all household ties were strong, but to whom his
great father was especially dear, watched his face and saw that it was
very flushed. But the practised courtier sought to rally his spirits,
and to smile and jest.
From smile and jest, the King turned and asked for wine. Harold,
starting, advanced with the goblet; as he did so, he stumbled with one
foot, but lightly recovered himself with the other; and Tostig laughed
scornfully at Harold's awkwardness.
The old Earl observed both stumble and laugh, and willing to suggest a
lesson to both his sons, said--laughing pleasantly--"Lo, Harold, how
the left foot saves the right!--so one brother, thou seest, helps the
other!" [130]
King Edward looked up suddenly.
"And so, Godwin, also, had my brother Alfred helped me, hadst thou
permitted."
The old Earl, galled to the quick, gazed a moment on the King, and his
cheek was purple, and his eyes seemed bloodshot.
"O Edward!" he exclaimed, "thou speakest to me hardly and unkindly of
thy brother Alfred, and often hast thou thus more than hinted that I
caused his death."
The King made no answer.
"May this crumb of bread choke me," said the Earl, in great emotion,
"if I am guilty of thy brother's blood!" [131] But scarcely had the
bread touched his lips, when his eyes fixed, the long warning symptoms
were fulfilled. And he fell to the ground, under the table, sudden
and heavy, smitten by the stroke of apoplexy.
Harold and Gurth sprang forward; they drew their father from the
ground. His face, still deep-red with streaks of purple, rested on
Harold's breast; and the son, kneeling, called in anguish on his
father: the ear was deaf.
Then said the King, rising:
"It is the hand of God: remove him!" and he swept from the room,
exulting.
CHAPTER V.
For five days and five nights did Godwin lie speechless [132]. And
Harold watched over him night and day. And the leaches [133] would
not bleed him, because the season was against it, in the increase of
the moon and the tides; but they bathed his temples with wheat flour
boiled in milk, according to a prescription which an angel in a dream
[134] had advised to another patient; and they placed a plate of lead
on his breast, marked with five crosses, saying a paternoster over
each cross; together with other medical specifics in great esteem
[135]. But, nevertheless, five days and five nights did Godwin lie
speechless; and the leaches then feared that human skill was in vain.
The effect produced on the court, not more by the Earl's death-stroke
than the circumstances preceding it, was such as defies description.
With Godwin's old comrades in arms it was simple and honest grief; but
with all those under the influence of the priests, the event was
regarded as a direct punishment from Heaven. The previous words of
the King, repeated by Edward to his monks, circulated from lip to lip,
with sundry exaggerations as it travelled: and the superstition of the
day had the more excuse, inasmuch as the speech of Godwin touched near
upon the defiance of one of the most popular ordeals of the accused,--
viz. that called the "corsned," in which a piece of bread was given to
the supposed criminal; if he swallowed it with ease he was innocent;
if it stuck in his throat, or choked him, nay, if he shook and turned
pale, he was guilty. Godwin's words had appeared to invite the
ordeal, God had heard and stricken down the presumptuous perjurer!
Unconscious, happily, of these attempts to blacken the name of his
dying father, Harold, towards the grey dawn succeeding the fifth
night, thought that he heard Godwin stir in his bed. So he put aside
the curtain, and bent over him. The old Earl's eyes were wide open,
and the red colour had gone from his cheeks, so that he was pale as
death.
"How fares it, dear father?" asked Harold.
Godwin smiled fondly, and tried to speak, but his voice died in a
convulsive rattle. Lifting himself up, however, with an effort, he
pressed tenderly the hand that clasped his own, leant his head on
Harold's breast, and so gave up the ghost.
When Harold was at last aware that the struggle was over, he laid the
grey head gently on the pillow; he closed the eyes, and kissed the
lips, and knelt down and prayed. Then, seating himself at a little
distance, he covered his face with his mantle.
At this time his brother Gurth, who had chiefly shared watch with
Harold,--for Tostig, foreseeing his father's death, was busy
soliciting thegn and earl to support his own claims to the earldom
about to be vacant; and Leofwine had gone to London on the previous
day to summon Githa who was hourly expected--Gurth, I say, entered the
room on tiptoe, and seeing his brother's attitude, guessed that all
was over. He passed on to the table, took up the lamp, and looked
long on his father's face. That strange smile of the dead, common
alike to innocent and guilty, had already settled on the serene lips;
and that no less strange transformation from age to youth, when the
wrinkles vanish, and the features come out clear and sharp from the
hollows of care and years, had already begun. And the old man seemed
sleeping in his prime.
So Gurth kissed the dead, as Harold had done before him, and came up
and sate himself by his brother's feet, and rested his head on
Harold's knee; nor would he speak till, appalled by the long silence
of the Earl, he drew away the mantle from his brother's face with a
gentle hand, and the large tears were rolling down Harold's cheeks.
"Be soothed, my brother," said Gurth; "our father has lived for glory,
his age was prosperous, and his years more than those which the
Psalmist allots to man. Come and look on his face, Harold, its calm
will comfort thee."
Harold obeyed the hand that led him like a child; in passing towards
the bed, his eye fell upon the cyst which Hilda had given to the old
Earl, and a chill shot through his veins.
"Gurth," said he, "is not this the morning of the sixth day in which
we have been at the King's Court?"
"It is the morning of the sixth day."
Then Harold took forth the key which Hilda had given him, and unlocked
the cyst, and there lay the white winding-sheet of the dead, and a
scroll. Harold took the scroll, and bent over it, reading by the
mingled light of the lamp and the dawn:
"All hail, Harold, heir of Godwin the great, and Githa the king-born!
Thou hast obeyed Hilda, and thou knowest now that Hilda's eyes read
the future, and her lips speak the dark words of truth. Bow thy heart
to the Vala, and mistrust the wisdom that sees only the things of the
daylight. As the valour of the warrior and the song of the scald, so
is the lore of the prophetess. It is not of the body, it is soul
within soul; it marshals events and men, like the valour--it moulds
the air into substance, like the song. Bow thy heart to the Vala.
Flowers bloom over the grave of the dead. And the young plant soars
high, when the king of the woodland lies low!"
CHAPTER VI.
The sun rose, and the stairs and passages without were filled with the
crowds that pressed to hear news of the Earl's health. The doors
stood open, and Gurth led in the multitude to look their last on the
hero of council and camp, who had restored with strong hand and wise
brain the race of Cerdic to the Saxon throne. Harold stood by the
bed-head silent, and tears were shed and sobs were heard. And many a
thegn who had before half believed in the guilt of Godwin as the
murderer of Alfred, whispered in gasps to his neighbour:
"There is no weregeld for manslaying on the head of him who smiles so
in death on his old comrades in life!"
Last of all lingered Leofric, the great Earl of Mercia; and when the
rest had departed, he took the pale hand, that lay heavy on the
coverlid, in his own, and said:
"Old foe, often stood we in Witan and field against each other; but
few are the friends for whom Leofric would mourn as he mourns for
thee. Peace to thy soul! Whatever its sins, England should judge
thee mildly, for England beat in each pulse of thy heart, and with thy
greatness was her own!"
Then Harold stole round the bed, and put his arms round Leofric's
neck, and embraced him. The good old Earl was touched, and he laid
his tremulous hands on Harold's brown locks and blessed him.
"Harold," he said, "thou succeedest to thy father's power: let thy
father's foes be thy friends. Wake from thy grief, for thy country
now demands thee,--the honour of thy House, and the memory of the
dead. Many even now plot against thee and thine. Seek the King,
demand as thy right thy father's earldom, and Leofric will back thy
claim in the Witan."
Harold pressed Leofric's hand, and raising it to his lips replied:
"Be our Houses at peace henceforth and for ever."
Tostig's vanity indeed misled him, when he dreamed that any
combination of Godwin's party could meditate supporting his claims
against the popular Harold--nor less did the monks deceive themselves,
when they supposed that, with Godwin's death, the power of his family
would fall.
There was more than even the unanimity of the chiefs of the Witan, in
favour of Harold; there was that universal noiseless impression
throughout all England, Danish and Saxon, that Harold was now the sole
man on whom rested the state--which, whenever it so favours one
individual, is irresistible. Nor was Edward himself hostile to
Harold, whom alone of that House, as we have before said, he esteemed
and loved.
Harold was at once named Earl of Wessex; and relinquishing the earldom
he held before, he did not hesitate as to the successor to be
recommended in his place. Conquering all jealousy and dislike for
Algar, he united the strength of his party in favour of the son of
Leofric, and the election fell upon him. With all his hot errors, the
claims of no other Earl, whether from his own capacities or his
father's services, were so strong; and his election probably saved the
state from a great danger, in the results of that angry mood and that
irritated ambition with which he had thrown himself into the arms of
England's most valiant aggressor, Gryffyth, King of North Wales.
To outward appearance, by this election, the House of Leofric--uniting
in father and son the two mighty districts of Mercia and the East
Anglians--became more powerful than that of Godwin; for, in that last
House, Harold was now the only possessor of one of the great earldoms,
and Tostig and the other brothers had no other provision beyond the
comparatively insignificant lordships they held before. But if Harold
had ruled no earldom at all, he had still been immeasurably the first
man in England--so great was the confidence reposed in his valour and
wisdom. He was of that height in himself, that he needed no pedestal
to stand on.
The successor of the first great founder of a House succeeds to more
than his predecessor's power, if he but know how to wield and maintain
it. For who makes his way to greatness without raising foes at every
step? and who ever rose to power supreme, without grave cause for
blame? But Harold stood free from the enmities his father had
provoked, and pure from the stains that slander or repute cast upon
his father's name. The sun of the yesterday had shone through cloud;
the sun of the day rose in a clear firmament. Even Tostig recognised
the superiority of his brother; and after a strong struggle between
baffled rage and covetous ambition, yielded to him, as to a father.
He felt that all Godwin's House was centred in Harold alone; and that
only from his brother (despite his own daring valour and despite his
alliance with the blood of Charlemagne and Alfred, through the sister
of Matilda, the Norman duchess,) could his avarice of power be
gratified.
"Depart to thy home, my brother," said Earl Harold to Tostig, "and
grieve not that Algar is preferred to thee. For, even had his claim
been less urgent, ill would it have beseemed us to arrogate the
lordships of all England as our dues. Rule thy lordship with wisdom:
gain the love of thy lithsmen. High claims hast thou in our father's
name, and moderation now will but strengthen thee in the season to
come. Trust on Harold somewhat, on thyself more. Thou hast but to
add temper and judgment to valour and zeal, to be worthy mate of the
first earl in England. Over my father's corpse I embraced my father's
foe. Between brother and brother shall there not be love, as the best
bequest of the dead?"
"It shall not be my fault, if there be not," answered Tostig, humbled
though chafed. And he summoned his men and returned to his domains.
CHAPTER VII.
Fair, broad, and calm set the sun over the western woodlands. Hilda
stood on the mound, and looked with undazzled eyes on the sinking orb.
Beside her, Edith reclined on the sward, and seemed with idle hand
tracing characters in the air. The girl had grown paler still, since
Harold last parted from her on the same spot, and the same listless
and despondent apathy stamped her smileless lips and her bended head.
"See, child of my heart," said Hilda, addressing Edith, while she
still gazed on the western luminary, "see, the sun goes down to the
far deeps, where Rana and Aegir [136] watch over the worlds of the
sea; but with morning he comes from the halls of the Asas--the golden
gates of the East--and joy comes in his train. And yet then thinkest,
sad child, whose years have scarce passed into woman, that the sun,
once set, never comes back to life. But even while we speak, thy
morning draws near, and the dunness of cloud takes the hues of the
rose!"
Edith's hand paused from its vague employment, and fell droopingly on
her knee;--she turned with an unquiet and anxious eye to Hilda, and
after looking some moments wistfully at the Vala, the colour rose to
her cheek, and she said in a voice that had an accent half of anger:
"Hilda, thou art cruel!"
"So is Fate!" answered the Vala. "But men call not Fate cruel when it
smiles on their desires. Why callest thou Hilda cruel, when she reads
in the setting sun the runes of thy coming joy!"
"There is no joy for me," returned Edith, plaintively; and I have that
on my heart," she added, with a sudden and almost fierce change of
tone, "which at last I will dare to speak. I reproach thee, Hilda,
that thou hast marred all my life, that thou hast duped me with
dreams, and left me alone in despair."
"Speak on," said Hilda, calmly, as a nurse to a froward child.
"Hast thou not told me, from the first dawn of my wondering reason,
that my life and lot were inwoven with--with (the word, mad and
daring, must out)--with those of Harold the peerless? But for that,
which my infancy took from thy lips as a law, I had never been so vain
and so frantic! I had never watched each play of his face, and
treasured each word from his lips; I had never made my life but part
of his life--all my soul but the shadow of his sun. But for that, I
had hailed the calm of the cloister--but for that, I had glided in
peace to my grave. And now--now, O Hilda--" Edith paused, and that
break had more eloquence than any words she could command. "And," she
resumed quickly, "thou knowest that these hopes were but dreams--that
the law ever stood between him and me--and that it was guilt to love
him."
"I knew the law," answered Hilda, "but the law of fools is to the wise
as the cobweb swung over the brake to the wing of the bird. Ye are
sibbe to each other, some five times removed; and therefore an old man
at Rome saith that ye ought not to wed. When the shavelings obey the
old man at home, and put aside their own wives and frillas [137], and
abstain from the wine cup, and the chase, and the brawl, I will stoop
to hear of their laws,--with disrelish it may be, but without scorn.
[138] It is no sin to love Harold; and no monk and no law shall
prevent your union on the day appointed to bring ye together, form and
heart."
"Hilda! Hilda! madden me not with joy," cried Edith, starting up in
rapturous emotion, her young face dyed with blushes, and all her
renovated beauty so celestial that Hilda herself was almost awed, as
if by the vision of Freya, the northern Venus, charmed by a spell from
the halls of Asgard.
"But that day is distant," renewed the Vala.
"What matters! what matters!" cried the pure child of Nature; "I ask
but hope. Enough,--oh! enough, if we were but wedded on the borders
of the grave!"
"Lo, then," said Hilda, "behold, the sun of thy life dawns again!"
As she spoke, the Vala stretched her arm, and through the intersticed
columns of the fane, Edith saw the large shadow of a man cast over the
still sward. Presently into the space of the circle came Harold, her
beloved. His face was pale with grief yet recent; but, perhaps, more
than ever, dignity was in his step and command on his brow, for he
felt that now alone with him rested the might of Saxon England. And
what royal robe so invests with imperial majesty the form of a man as
the grave sense of power responsible, in an earnest soul?
"Thou comest," said Hilda, "in the hour I predicted; at the setting of
the sun and the rising of the star."
"Vala," said Harold, gloomily, "I will not oppose my sense to thy
prophecies; for who shall judge of that power of which he knows not
the elements? or despise the marvel of which he cannot detect the
imposture? But leave me, I pray thee, to walk in the broad light of
the common day. These hands are made to grapple with things palpable,
and these eyes to measure the forms that front my way. In my youth, I
turned in despair or disgust from the subtleties of the schoolmen,
which split upon hairs the brains of Lombard and Frank; in my busy and
stirring manhood entangle me not in the meshes which confuse all my
reason, and sicken my waking thoughts into dreams of awe. Mine be the
straight path and the plain goal!"
The Vala gazed on him with an earnest look, that partook of
admiration, and yet more of gloom; but she spoke not, and Harold
resumed:
"Let the dead rest, Hilda,--proud names with glory on earth and
shadows escaped from our ken, submissive to mercy in heaven. A vast
chasm have my steps overleapt since we met, O Hilda--sweet Edith; a
vast chasm, but a narrow grave." His voice faltered a moment, and
again he renewed,--" Thou weepest, Edith; ah, how thy tears console
me! Hilda, hear me! I love thy grandchild--loved her by irresistible
instinct since her blue eyes first smiled on mine. I loved her in her
childhood, as in her youth--in the blossom as in the flower. And thy
grandchild loves me. The laws of the Church proscribe our marriage,
and therefore we parted; but I feel, and thine Edith feels, that the
love remains as strong in absence: no other will be her wedded lord,
no other my wedded wife. Therefore, with heart made soft by sorrow,
and, in my father's death, sole lord of my fate, I return, and say to
thee in her presence, 'Suffer us to hope still!' The day may come
when under some king less enthralled than Edward by formal Church
laws, we may obtain from the Pope absolution for our nuptials--a day,
perhaps, far off; but we are both young, and love is strong and
patient: we can wait."
"O Harold," exclaimed Edith, "we can wait!"
"Have I not told thee, son of Godwin," said the Vala, solemnly, "that
Edith's skein of life was inwoven with thine? Dost thou deem that my
charms have not explored the destiny of the last of my race? Know
that it is in the decrees of the fates that ye are to be united, never
more to be divided. Know that there shall come a day, though I can
see not its morrow, and it lies dim and afar, which shall be the most
glorious of thy life, and on which Edith and fame shall be thine,--the
day of thy nativity, on which hitherto all things have prospered with
thee. In vain against the stars preach the mone and the priest: what
shall be, shall be. Wherefore, take hope and joy, O Children of Time!
And now, as I join your hands, I betroth your souls."
Rapture unalloyed and unprophetic, born of love deep and pure, shone
in the eyes of Harold, as he clasped the hand of his promised bride.
But an involuntary and mysterious shudder passed over Edith's frame,
and she leant close, close, for support upon Harold's breast. And, as
if by a vision, there rose distinct in her memory a stern brow, a form
of power and terror--the brow and the form of him who but once again
in her waking life the Prophetess had told her she should behold. The
vision passed away in the warm clasp of those protecting arms; and
looking up into Harold's face, she there beheld the mighty and deep
delight that transfused itself at once into her own soul.
Then Hilda, placing one hand over their heads, and raising the other
towards heaven, all radiant with bursting stars, said in her deep and
thrilling tones:
"Attest the betrothal of these young hearts, O ye Powers that draw
nature to nature by spells which no galdra can trace, and have wrought
in the secrets of creation no mystery so perfect as love,--Attest it,
thou temple, thou altar!--attest it, O sun and O air! While the forms
are divided, may the souls cling together--sorrow with sorrow, and joy
with joy. And when, at length, bride and bridegroom are one,--O
stars, may the trouble with which ye are charged have exhausted its
burthen; may no danger molest, and no malice disturb, but, over the
marriage-bed, shine in peace, O ye stars!"
Up rose the moon. May's nightingale called its mate from the
breathless boughs; and so Edith and Harold were betrothed by the grave
of the son of Cerdic. And from the line of Cerdic had come, since
Ethelbert, all the Saxon kings who with sword and with sceptre had
reigned over Saxon England.
BOOK VI.
AMBITION.
CHAPTER I.
There was great rejoicing in England. King Edward had been induced to
send Alred the prelate [139] to the court of the German Emperor, for
his kinsman and namesake, Edward Atheling, the son of the great
Ironsides. In his childhood, this Prince, with his brother Edmund,
had been committed by Canute to the charge of his vassal, the King of
Sweden; and it has been said (though without sufficient authority),
that Canute's design was, that they should be secretly made away with.
The King of Sweden, however, forwarded the children to the court of
Hungary; they were there honourably reared and received. Edmund died
young, without issue. Edward married a daughter of the German
Emperor, and during the commotions in England, and the successive
reigns of Harold Harefoot, Hardicanute, and the Confessor, had
remained forgotten in his exile, until now suddenly recalled to
England as the heir presumptive of his childless namesake. He arrived
with Agatha his wife, one infant son, Edgar, and two daughters,
Margaret and Christina.
Great were the rejoicings. The vast crowd that had followed the royal
visitors in their procession to the old London palace (not far from
St. Paul's) in which they were lodged, yet swarmed through the
streets, when two thegns who had personally accompanied the Atheling
from Dover, and had just taken leave of him, now emerged from the
palace, and with some difficulty made their way through the crowded
streets.
The one in the dress and short hair imitated from the Norman,--was our
old friend Godrith, whom the reader may remember as the rebuker of
Taillefer, and the friend of Mallet de Graville; the other, in a plain
linen Saxon tunic, and the gonna worn on state occasions, to which he
seemed unfamiliar, but with heavy gold bracelets on his arms, long
haired and bearded, was Vebba, the Kentish thegn, who had served as
nuncius from Godwin to Edward.
"Troth and faith!" said Vebba, wiping his brow, "this crowd is enow to
make plain roan stark wode. I would not live in London for all the
gauds in the goldsmith's shops, or all the treasures in King Edward's
vaults. My tongue is as parched as a hay-field in the weyd-month.
[140] Holy Mother be blessed! I see a Cumen-hus [141] open; let us
in and refresh ourselves with a horn of ale."
"Nay, friend," quoth Godrith, with a slight disdain, "such are not the
resorts of men of our rank. Tarry yet awhile, till we arrive near the
bridge by the river-side; there, indeed, you will find worthy company
and dainty cheer."
"Well, well, I am at your hest, Godrith," said the Kent man, sighing;
"my wife and my sons will be sure to ask me what sights I have seen,
and I may as well know from thee the last tricks and ways of this
burly-burly town."
Godrith, who was master of all the fashions in the reign of our lord
King Edward, smiled graciously, and the two proceeded in silence, only
broken by the sturdy Kent man's exclamations; now of anger when rudely
jostled, now of wonder and delight when, amidst the throng, he caught
sight of a gleeman, with his bear or monkey, who took advantage of
some space near convent garden, or Roman ruin, to exhibit his craft;
till they gained a long low row of booths, most pleasantly situated to
the left of this side London bridge, and which was appropriated to the
celebrated cookshops, that even to the time of Fitzstephen retained
their fame and their fashion.
Between the shops and the river was a space of grass worn brown and
bare by the feet of the customers, with a few clipped trees with vines
trained from one to the other in arcades, under cover of which were
set tables and settles. The place was thickly crowded, and but for
Godrith's popularity amongst the attendants, they might have found it
difficult to obtain accommodation. However, a new table was soon
brought forth, placed close by the cool margin of the water, and
covered in a trice with tankards of hippocras, pigment, ale, and some
Gascon, as well as British wines: varieties of the delicious cake-
bread for which England was then renowned; while viands, strange to
the honest eye and taste of the wealthy Kent man, were served on
spits.
"What bird is this?" said he, grumbling.
"O enviable man, it is a Phrygian attagen [142] that thou art about to
taste for the first time; and when thou hast recovered that delight, I
commend to thee a Moorish compound, made of eggs and roes of carp from
the old Southweorc stewponds, which the cooks here dress notably."
"Moorish!--Holy Virgin!" cried Vebba, with his mouth full of the
Phrygian attagen, "how came anything Moorish in our Christian island?"
Godrith laughed outright.
"Why, our cook here is Moorish; the best singers in London are Moors.
Look yonder! see those grave comely Saracens!"
"Comely, quotha, burnt and black as a charred pine-pole!" grunted
Vebba; "well, who are they?"
"Wealthy traders; thanks to whom, our pretty maids have risen high in
the market." [143]
"More the shame," said the Kent man; "that selling of English youth to
foreign masters, whether male or female, is a blot on the Saxon name."
"So saith Harold our Earl, and so preach the monks," returned Godrith.
"But thou, my good friend, who art fond of all things that our
ancestors did, and hast sneered more than once at my Norman robe and
cropped hair, thou shouldst not be the one to find fault with what our
fathers have done since the days of Cerdic."
"Hem," said the Kent man, a little perplexed, "certainly old manners
are the best, and I suppose there is some good reason for this
practice, which I, who never trouble myself about matters that concern
me not, do not see."
"Well, Vebba, and how likest thou the Atheling? he is of the old
line," said Godrith.
Again the Kent man looked perplexed, and had recourse to the ale,
which he preferred to all more delicate liquor, before he replied:
"Why, he speaks English worse than King Edward! and as for his boy
Edgar, the child can scarce speak English at all. And then their
German carles and cnehts!--An I had known what manner of folk they
were, I had not spent my mancuses in running from my homestead to give
them the welcome. But they told me that Harold the good Earl had made
the King send for them: and whatever the Earl counselled must, I
thought, be wise, and to the weal of sweet England."
"That is true," said Godrith with earnest emphasis, for, with all his
affectation of Norman manners, he was thoroughly English at heart, and
now among the staunchest supporters of Harold, who had become no less
the pattern and pride of the young nobles than the darling of the
humbler population,--"that is true--and Harold showed us his noble
English heart when he so urged the King to his own loss."
As Godrith thus spoke, nay, from the first mention of Harold's name,
two men richly clad, but with their bonnets drawn far over their
brows, and their long gonnas so worn as to hide their forms, who were
seated at a table behind Godrith and had thus escaped his attention,
had paused from their wine-cups, and they now listened with much
earnestness to the conversation that followed.
"How to the Earl's loss?" asked Vebba.
"Why, simple thegn," answered Godrith, "why, suppose that Edward had
refused to acknowledge the Atheling as his heir, suppose the Atheling
had remained in the German court, and our good King died suddenly,--
who, thinkest thou, could succeed to the English throne?"
"Marry, I have never thought of that at all," said the Kent man,
scratching his head.
"No, nor have the English generally; yet whom could we choose but
Harold?"
A sudden start from one of the listeners was checked by the warning
finger of the other; and the Kent man exclaimed:
"Body o' me! But we have never chosen king (save the Danes) out of
the line of Cerdic. These be new cranks, with a vengeance; we shall
be choosing German, or Saracen, or Norman next!"
"Out of the line of Cerdic! but that line is gone, root and branch,
save the Atheling, and he thou seest is more German than English.
Again I say, failing the Atheling, whom could we choose but Harold,
brother-in-law to the King: descended through Githa from the royalties
of the Norse, the head of all armies under the Herr-ban, the chief who
has never fought without victory, yet who has always preferred
conciliation to conquest--the first counsellor in the Witan--the first
man in the realm--who but Harold? answer me, staring Vebba?"
"I take in thy words slowly," said the Kent man, shaking his head,
"and after all, it matters little who is king, so he be a good one.
Yes, I see now that the Earl was a just and generous man when he made
the King send for the Atheling. Drink-hael! long life to them both!"
"Was-hael," answered Godrith, draining his hippocras to Vebba's more
potent ale. "Long life to them both! may Edward the Atheling reign,
but Harold the Earl rule! Ah, then, indeed, we may sleep without fear
of fierce Algar and still fiercer Gryffyth the Walloon--who now, it is
true, are stilled for the moment, thanks to Harold--but not more still
than the smooth waters in Gwyned, that lie just above the rush of a
torrent."
"So little news hear I," said Vebba, "and in Kent so little are we
plagued with the troubles elsewhere, (for there Harold governs us, and
the hawks come not where the eagles hold eyrie!)--that I will thank
thee to tell me something about our old Earl for a year [144], Algar
the restless, and this Gryffyth the Welch King, so that I may seem a
wise man when I go back to my homestead."
"Why, thou knowest at least that Algar and Harold were ever opposed in
the Witan, and hot words thou hast heard pass between them!"
"Marry, yes! But Algar was as little match for Earl Harold in speech
as in sword play."
Now again one of the listeners started, (but it was not the same as
the one before,) and muttered an angry exclamation.
"Yet is he a troublesome foe," said Godrith, who did not hear the
sound Vebba had provoked, "and a thorn in the side both of the Earl
and of England; and sorrowful for both England and Earl was it, that
Harold refused to marry Aldyth, as it is said his father, wise Godwin,
counselled and wished."
"Ah! but I have heard scops and harpers sing pretty songs that Harold
loves Edith the Fair, a wondrous proper maiden, they say!"
"It is true; and for the sake of his love, he played ill for his
ambition."
"I like him the better for that," said the honest Kent man: "why does
he not marry the girl at once? she hath broad lands, I know, for they
run from the Sussex shore into Kent."
"But they are cousins five times removed, and the Church forbids the
marriage; nevertheless Harold lives only for Edith; they have
exchanged the true-lofa [145], and it is whispered that Harold hopes
the Atheling, when he comes to be King, will get him the Pope's
dispensation. But to return to Algar; in a day most unlucky he gave
his daughter to Gryffyth, the most turbulent sub-king the land ever
knew, who, it is said, will not be content till he has won all Wales
for himself without homage or service, and the Marches to boot. Some
letters between him and Earl Algar, to whom Harold had secured the
earldom of the East Angles, were discovered, and in a Witan at
Winchester thou wilt doubtless have heard, (for thou didst not, I
know, leave thy lands to attend it,) that Algar [146] was outlawed."
"Oh, yes, these are stale tidings; I heard thus much from a palmer--
and then Algar got ships from the Irish, sailed to North Wales, and
beat Rolf, the Norman Earl, at Hereford. Oh, yes, I heard that, and,"
added the Kent man, laughing, "I was not sorry to hear that my old
Earl Algar, since he is a good and true Saxon, beat the cowardly
Norman,--more shame to the King for giving a Norman the ward of the
Marches!"
"It was a sore defeat to the King and to England," said Godrith,
gravely. "The great Minster of Hereford built by King Athelstan was
burned and sacked by the Welch; and the crown itself was in danger,
when Harold came up at the head of the Fyrd. Hard is it to tell the
distress and the marching and the camping, and the travail, and
destruction of men, and also of horses, which the English endured
[147] till Harold came; and then luckily came also the good old
Leofric, and Bishop Alred the peacemaker, and so strife was patched
up--Gryffyth swore oaths of faith to King Edward, and Algar was
inlawed; and there for the nonce rests the matter now. But well I
ween that Gryffyth will never keep troth with the English, and that no
hand less strong than Harold's can keep in check a spirit as fiery as
Algar's: therefore did I wish that Harold might be King."
"Well," quoth the honest Kent man, "I hope, nevertheless, that Algar,
will sow his wild oats, and leave the Walloons to grow the hemp for
their own halters; for, though he is not of the height of our Harold,
he is a true Saxon, and we liked him well enow when he ruled us. And
how is our Earl's brother Tostig esteemed by the Northmen? It must be
hard to please those who had Siward of the strong arm for their Earl
before."
"Why, at first, when (at Siward's death in the wars for young Malcolm)
Harold secured to Tostig the Northumbrian earldom, Tostig went by his
brother's counsel, and ruled well and won favour. Of late I hear that
the Northmen murmur. Tostig is a man indeed dour and haughty."
After a few more questions and answers on the news of the day, Vebba
rose and said:
"Thanks for thy good fellowship; it is time for me now to be jogging
homeward. I left my ceorls and horses on the other side the river,
and must go after them. And now forgive me my bluntness, fellow-
thegn, but ye young courtiers have plenty of need for your mancuses,
and when a plain countryman like me comes sight-seeing, he ought to
stand payment; wherefore," here he took from his belt a great leathern
purse, "wherefore, as these outlandish birds and heathenish puddings
must be dear fare--"
"How!" said Godrith, reddening, "thinkest thou so meanly of us thegns
of Middlesex as to deem we cannot entertain thus humbly a friend from
a distance? Ye Kent men I know are rich. But keep your pennies to
buy stuffs for your wife, my friend."
The Kent man, seeing he had displeased his companion, did not press
his liberal offer,--put up his purse, and suffered Godrith to pay the
reckoning. Then, as the two thegns shook hands, he said:
"But I should like to have said a kind word or so to Earl Harold--for
he was too busy and too great for me to come across him in the old
palace yonder. I have a mind to go back and look for him at his own
house."
"You will not find him there," said Godrith, "for I know that as soon
as he hath finished his conference with the Atheling, he will leave
the city; and I shall be at his own favourite manse over the water at
sunset, to take orders for repairing the forts and dykes on the
Marches. You can tarry awhile and meet us; you know his old lodge in
the forest land?"
"Nay, I must be back and at home ere night, for all things go wrong
when the master is away. Yet, indeed, my good wife will scold me for
not having shaken hands with the handsome Earl."
"Thou shalt not come under that sad infliction," said the good-natured
Godrith, who was pleased with the thegn's devotion to Harold, and who,
knowing the great weight which Vebba (homely as he seemed) carried in
his important county, was politically anxious that the Earl should
humour so sturdy a friend,--"Thou shalt not sour thy wife's kiss, man.
For look you, as you ride back you will pass by a large old house,
with broken columns at the back."
"I have marked it well," said the thegn, "when I have gone that way,
with a heap of queer stones, on a little hillock, which they say the
witches or the Britons heaped together."
"The same. When Harold leaves London, I trow well towards that house
will his road wend; for there lives Edith the swan's-neck, with her
awful grandam the Wicca. If thou art there a little after noon,
depend on it thou wilt see Harold riding that way."
"Thank thee heartily, friend Godrith," said Vebba, taking his leave,
"and forgive my bluntness if I laughed at thy cropped head, for I see
thou art as good a Saxon as e'er a franklin of Kent--and so the saints
keep thee."
Vebba then strode briskly over the bridge; and Godrith, animated by
the wine he had drunk, turned gaily on his heel to look amongst the
crowded tables for some chance friend with whom to while away an hour
or so at the games of hazard then in vogue.
Scarce had he turned, when the two listeners, who, having paid their
reckoning, had moved under shade of one of the arcades, dropped into a
boat which they had summoned to the margin by a noiseless signal, and
were rowed over the water. They preserved a silence which seemed
thoughtful and gloomy until they reached the opposite shore; then one
of them, pushing back his bonnet, showed the sharp and haughty
features of Algar.
"Well, friend of Gryffyth," said he, with a bitter accent, "thou
hearest that Earl Harold counts so little on the oaths of thy King,
that he intends to fortify the Marches against him; and thou hearest
also, that nought save a life, as fragile as the reed which thy feet
are trampling, stands between the throne of England and the only
Englishman who could ever have humbled my son-in-law to swear oath of
service to Edward."
"Shame upon that hour," said the other, whose speech, as well as the
gold collar round his neck, and the peculiar fashion of his hair,
betokened him to be Welch. "Little did I think that the great son of
Llewellyn, whom our bards had set above Roderic Mawr, would ever have
acknowledged the sovereignty of the Saxon over the hills of Cymry."
"Tut, Meredydd," answered Algar, "thou knowest well that no Cymrian
ever deems himself dishonoured by breaking faith with the Saxon; and
we shall yet see the lions of Gryffyth scaring the sheepfolds of
Hereford."
"So be it," said Meredydd, fiercely. "And Harold shall give to his
Atheling the Saxon land, shorn at least of the Cymrian kingdom."
"Meredydd," said Algar, with a seriousness that seemed almost solemn,
no Atheling will live to rule these realms! Thou knowest that I was
one of the first to hail the news of his coming--I hastened to Dover
to meet him. Methought I saw death writ on his countenance, and I
bribed the German leach who attends him to answer my questions; the
Atheling knows it not, but he bears within him the seeds of a mortal
complaint. Thou wottest well what cause I have to hate Earl Harold;
and were I the only man to oppose his way to the throne, he should not
ascend it but over my corpse. But when Godrith, his creature, spoke,
I felt that he spoke the truth; and, the Atheling dead, on no head but
Harold's can fall the crown of Edward."
"Ha!" said the Cymrian chief, gloomily; "thinkest thou so indeed?"
"I think it not; I know it. And for that reason, Meredydd, we must
wait not till he wields against us all the royalty of England. As
yet, while Edward lives, there is hope. For the King loves to spend
wealth on relics and priests, and is slow when the mancuses are wanted
for fighting men. The King too, poor man! is not so ill-pleased at my
outbursts as he would fain have it thought; he thinks, by pitting earl
against earl, that he himself is the stronger [148]. While Edward
lives, therefore, Harold's arm is half crippled; wherefore, Meredydd,
ride thou, with good speed, back to King Gryffyth, and tell him all I
have told thee. Tell him that our time to strike the blow and renew
the war will be amidst the dismay and confusion that the Atheling's
death will occasion. Tell him, that if we can entangle Harold himself
in the Welch defiles, it will go hard but what we shall find some
arrow or dagger to pierce the heart of the invader. And were Harold
but slain--who then would be king in England? The line of Cerdic
gone--the House of Godwin lost in Earl Harold, (for Tostig is hated in
his own domain, Leofwine is too light, and Gurth is too saintly for
such ambition)--who then, I say, can be king in England but Algar, the
heir of the great Leofric? And I, as King of England, will set all
Cymry free, and restore to the realm of Gryffyth the shires of
Hereford and Worcester. Ride fast, O Meredydd, and heed well all I
have said."
"Dost thou promise and swear, that wert thou king of England, Cymry
should be free from all service?"
"Free as air, free as under Arthur and Uther: I swear it. And
remember well how Harold addressed the Cymrian chiefs, when he
accepted Gryffyth's oaths of service."
"Remember it--ay," cried Meredydd, his face lighting up with intense
ire and revenge; "the stern Saxon said, 'Heed well, ye chiefs of
Cymry, and thou Gryffyth the King, that if again ye force, by ravage
and rapine, by sacrilege and murther, the majesty of England to enter
your borders, duty must be done: God grant that your Cymrian lion may
leave us in peace--if not, it is mercy to Human life that bids us cut
the talons, and draw the fangs."
"Harold, like all calm and mild men, ever says less than he means,"
returned Algar; "and were Harold king, small pretext would he need for
cutting the talons and drawing the fangs."
"It is well," said Meredydd, with a fierce smile. "I will now go to
my men who are lodged yonder; and it is better that thou shouldst not
be seen with me."
"Right; so St. David be with you--and forget not a word of my message
to Gryffyth my son-in-law."
"Not a word," returned Meredydd, as with a wave of his hand he moved
towards an hostelry, to which, as kept by one of their own countrymen,
the Welch habitually resorted in the visits to the capital which the
various intrigues and dissensions in their unhappy land made frequent.
The chief's train, which consisted of ten men, all of high birth, were
not drinking in the tavern--for sorry customers to mine host were the
abstemious Welch. Stretched on the grass under the trees of an
orchard that backed the hostelry, and utterly indifferent to all the
rejoicings that animated the population of Southwark and London, they
were listening to a wild song of the old hero-days from one of their
number; and round them grazed the rough shagged ponies which they had
used for their journey. Meredydd, approaching, gazed round, and
seeing no stranger was present, raised his hand to hush the song, and
then addressed his countrymen briefly in Welch--briefly, but with a
passion that was evident in his flashing eyes and vehement gestures.
The passion was contagious; they all sprang to their feet with a low
but fierce cry, and in a few moments they had caught and saddled their
diminutive palfreys, while one of the band, who seemed singled out by
Meredydd, sallied forth alone from the orchard, and took his way, on
foot, to the bridge. He did not tarry there long; at the sight of a
single horseman, whom a shout of welcome, on that swarming
thoroughfare, proclaimed to be Earl Harold, the Welcbman turned, and
with a fleet foot regained his companions.
Meanwhile Harold, smilingly, returned the greetings he received,
cleared the bridge, passed the suburbs, and soon gained the wild
forest land that lay along the great Kentish road. He rode somewhat
slowly, for he was evidently in deep thought; and he had arrived about
half-way towards Hilda's house when he heard behind quick pattering
sounds, as of small unshod hoofs: he turned, and saw the Welchmen at
the distance of some fifty yards. But at that moment there passed,
along the road in front, several persons bustling into London to share
in the festivities of the day. This seemed to disconcert the Welch in
the rear, and, after a few whispered words, they left the high road
and entered the forest land. Various groups from time to time
continued to pass along the thoroughfare. But still, ever through the
glades, Harold caught glimpses of the riders; now distant, now near.
Sometimes he heard the snort of their small horses, and saw a fierce
eye glaring through the bushes; then, as at the sight or sound of
approaching passengers, the riders wheeled, and shot off through the
brakes.
The Earl's suspicions were aroused; for (though he knew of no enemy to
apprehend, and the extreme severity of the laws against robbers made
the high roads much safer in the latter days of the Saxon domination
than they were for centuries under that of the subsequent dynasty,
when Saxon thegns themselves had turned kings of the greenwood,) the
various insurrections in Edward's reign had necessarily thrown upon
society many turbulent disbanded mercenaries.
Harold was unarmed, save the spear which, even on occasions of state,
the Saxon noble rarely laid aside, and the ateghar in his belt; and,
seeing now that the road had become deserted, he set spurs to his
horse, and was just in sight of the Druid temple, when a javelin
whizzed close by his breast, and another transfixed his horse, which
fell head foremost to the ground.
The Earl gained his feet in an instant, and that haste was needed to
save his life; for while he rose ten swords flashed around him. The
Welchmen had sprung from their palfreys as Harold's horse fell.
Fortunately for him, only two of the party bore javelins, (a weapon
which the Welch wielded with deadly skill,) and those already wasted,
they drew their short swords, which were probably imitated from the
Romans, and rushed upon him in simultaneous onset. Versed in all the
weapons of the time, with his right hand seeking by his spear to keep
off the rush, with the ateghar in his left parrying the strokes aimed
at him, the brave Earl transfixed the first assailant, and sore
wounded the next; but his tunic was dyed red with three gashes, and
his sole chance of life was in the power yet left him to force his way
through the ring. Dropping his spear, shifting his ateghar into the
right hand, wrapping round his left arm his gonna as a shield, he
sprang fiercely on the onslaught, and on the flashing swords. Pierced
to the heart fell one of his foes--dashed to the earth another--from
the hand of a third (dropping his own ateghar) he wrenched the sword.
Loud rose Harold's cry for aid, and swiftly he strode towards the
hillock, turning back, and striking as he turned; and again fell a
foe, and again new blood oozed through his own garb. At that moment
his cry was echoed by a shriek so sharp and so piercing that it
startled the assailants, it arrested the assault; and, ere the unequal
strife could be resumed, a woman was in the midst of the fray; a woman
stood dauntless between the Earl and his foes.
"Back! Edith. Oh, God! Back, back!" cried the Earl, recovering all
his strength in the sole fear which that strife had yet stricken into
his bold heart; and drawing Edith aside with his strong arm, he again
confronted the assailants.
"Die!" cried, in the Cymrian tongue, the fiercest of the foes, whose
sword had already twice drawn the Earl's blood; "Die, that Cymry may
be free!"
Meredydd sprang, with him sprang the survivors of his band; and, by a
sudden movement, Edith had thrown herself on Harold's breast, leaving
his right arm free, but sheltering his form with her own.
At that sight every sword rested still in air. These Cymrians,
hesitating not at the murder of the man whose death seemed to their
false virtue a sacrifice due to their hopes of freedom, were still the
descendants of Heroes, and the children of noble Song, and their
swords were harmless against a woman. The same pause which saved the
life of Harold, saved that of Meredydd; for the Cymrian's lifted sword
had left his breast defenceless, and Harold, despite his wrath, and
his fears for Edith, touched by that sudden forbearance, forbore
himself the blow.
"Why seek ye my life?" said he. "Whom in broad England hath Harold
wronged?"
That speech broke the charm, revived the suspense of vengeance. With
a sudden aim, Meredydd smote at the head which Edith's embrace left
unprotected. The sword shivered on the steel of that which parried
the stroke, and the next moment, pierced to the heart, Meredydd fell
to the earth, bathed in his gore. Even as he fell, aid was at hand.
The ceorls in the Roman house had caught the alarm, and were hurrying
down the knoll, with arms snatched in haste, while a loud whoop broke
from the forest land hard by; and a troop of horse, headed by Vebba,
rushed through the bushes and brakes. Those of the Welch still
surviving, no longer animated by their fiery chief, turned on the
instant, and fled with that wonderful speed of foot which
characterised their active race; calling, as they fled, to their Welch
pigmy steeds, which, snorting loud, and lashing out, came at once to
the call. Seizing the nearest at hand, the fugitives sprang to selle,
while the animals unchosen paused by the corpses of their former
riders, neighing piteously, and shaking their long manes. And then,
after wheeling round and round the coming horsemen, with many a
plunge, and lash, and savage cry, they darted after their companions,
and disappeared amongst the bushwood. Some of the Kentish men gave
chase to the fugitives, but in vain; for the nature of the ground
favoured flight. Vebba, and the rest, now joined by Hilda's lithsmen,
gained the spot where Harold, bleeding fast, yet strove to keep his
footing, and, forgetful of his own wounds, was joyfully assuring
himself of Edith's safety. Vebba dismounted, and recognising the
Earl, exclaimed:
"Saints in heaven! are we in tine? You bleed--you faint!--Speak, Lord
Harold. How fares it?"
"Blood enow yet left here for our merrie England!" said Harold, with a
smile. But as he spoke, his head drooped, and he was borne senseless
into the house of Hilda.
CHAPTER II.
The Vala met them at the threshold, and testified so little surprise
at the sight of the bleeding and unconscious Earl, that Vebba, who had
heard strange tales of Hilda's unlawful arts, half-suspected that
those wild-looking foes, with their uncanny diminutive horses, were
imps conjured by her to punish a wooer to her grandchild--who had been
perhaps too successful in the wooing. And fears so reasonable were
not a little increased when Hilda, after leading the way up the steep
ladder to the chamber in which Harold had dreamed his fearful dream,
bade them all depart, and leave the wounded man to her care.
"Not so," said Vebba, bluffly. "A life like this is not to be left in
the hands of woman, or wicca. I shall go back to the great town, and
summon the Earl's own leach. And I beg thee to heed, meanwhile, that
every head in this house shall answer for Harold's."
The great Vala, and highborn Hleafdian, little accustomed to be
accosted thus, turned round abruptly, with so stern an eye and so
imperious a mien, that even the stout Kent man felt abashed. She
pointed to the door opening on the ladder, and said, briefly:
"Depart! Thy lord's life hath been saved already, and by woman.
Depart!"
"Depart, and fear not for the Earl, brave and true friend in need,"
said Edith, looking up from Harold's pale lips, over which she bent;
and her sweet voice so touched the good thegn, that, murmuring a
blessing on her fair face, he turned and departed.
Hilda then proceeded, with a light and skilful hand, to examine the
wounds of her patient. She opened the tunic, and washed away the
blood from four gaping orifices on the breast and shoulders. And as
she did so, Edith uttered a faint cry, and falling on her knees, bowed
her head over the drooping hand, and kissed it with stifling emotions,
of which perhaps grateful joy was the strongest; for over the heart of
Harold was punctured, after the fashion of the Saxons, a device--and
that device was the knot of betrothal, and in the centre of the knot
was graven the word "Edith."
CHAPTER III.
Whether, owing to Hilda's runes, or to the merely human arts which
accompanied them, the Earl's recovery was rapid, though the great loss
of blood he had sustained left him awhile weak and exhausted. But,
perhaps, he blessed the excuse which detained him still in the house
of Hilda, and under the eyes of Edith.
He dismissed the leach sent to him by Vebba, and confided, not without
reason, to the Vala's skill. And how happily went his hours beneath
the old Roman roof!
It was not without a superstition, more characterised, however, by
tenderness than awe, that Harold learned that Edith had been
undefinably impressed with a foreboding of danger to her betrothed,
and all that morning she had watched his coming from the old legendary
hill. Was it not in that watch that his good Fylgia had saved his
life? Indeed, there seemed a strange truth in Hilda's assertions,
that in the form of his betrothed, his tutelary spirit lived and
guarded. For smooth every step, and bright every day, in his career,
since their troth had been plighted. And gradually the sweet
superstition had mingled with human passion to hallow and refine it.
There was a purity and a depth in the love of these two, which, if not
uncommon in women, is most rare in men.
Harold, in sober truth, had learned to look on Edith as on his better
angel; and, calming his strong manly heart in the hour of temptation,
would have recoiled, as a sacrilege, from aught that could have
sullied that image of celestial love. With a noble and sublime
patience, of which perhaps only a character so thoroughly English in
its habits of self-control and steadfast endurance could have been
capable, he saw the months and the years glide away, and still
contented himself with hope;--hope, the sole godlike joy that belongs
to men!
As the opinion of an age influences even those who affect to despise
it, so, perhaps, this holy and unselfish passion was preserved and
guarded by that peculiar veneration for purity which formed the
characteristic fanaticism of the last days of the Anglo-Saxons,--when
still, as Aldhelm had previously sung in Latin less barbarous than
perhaps any priest in the reign of Edward could command:
"Virginitas castam servans sine crimine carnem
Caetera virtutem vincit praeconia laudi--
Spiritus altithroni templum sibi vindicat almus;" [149]
when, amidst a great dissoluteness of manners, alike common to Church
and laity, the opposite virtues were, as is invariable in such epochs
of society, carried by the few purer natures into heroic extremes.
"And as gold, the adorner of the world, springs from the sordid bosom
of earth, so chastity, the image of gold, rose bright and unsullied
from the clay of human desire." [150]
And Edith, though yet in the tenderest flush of beautiful youth, had,
under the influence of that sanctifying and scarce earthly affection,
perfected her full nature as woman. She had learned so to live in
Harold's life, that--less, it seemed, by study than intuition--a
knowledge graver than that which belonged to her sex and her time,
seemed to fall upon her soul--fall as the sunlight falls on the
blossoms, expanding their petals, and brightening the glory of their
hues.
Hitherto, living under the shade of Hilda's dreary creed, Edith, as we
have seen, had been rather Christian by name and instinct than
acquainted with the doctrines of the Gospel, or penetrated by its
faith. But the soul of Harold lifted her own out of the Valley of the
Shadow up to the Heavenly Hill. For the character of their love was
so pre-eminently Christian, so, by the circumstances that surrounded
it--so by hope and self-denial, elevated out of the empire, not only
of the senses, but even of that sentiment which springs from them, and
which made the sole refined and poetic element of the heathen's love,
that but for Christianity it would have withered and died. It
required all the aliment of prayer; it needed that patient endurance
which comes from the soul's consciousness of immortality; it could not
have resisted earth, but from the forts and armies it won from heaven.
Thus from Harold might Edith be said to have taken her very soul. And
with the soul, and through the soul, woke the mind from the mists of
childhood.
In the intense desire to be worthy the love of the foremost man of her
land; to be the companion of his mind, as well as the mistress of his
heart, she had acquired, she knew not how, strange stores of thought,
and intelligence, and pure, gentle wisdom. In opening to her
confidence his own high aims and projects, he himself was scarcely
conscious how often he confided but to consult--how often and how
insensibly she coloured his reflections and shaped his designs.
Whatever was highest and purest, that, Edith ever, as by instinct,
beheld as the wisest. She grew to him like a second conscience,
diviner than his own. Each, therefore, reflected virtue on the other,
as planet illumines planet.
All these years of probation then, which might have soured a love less
holy, changed into weariness a love less intense, had only served to
wed them more intimately soul to soul; and in that spotless union what
happiness there was! what rapture in word and glance, and the slight,
restrained caress of innocence, beyond all the transports love only
human can bestow!
CHAPTER IV.
It was a bright still summer noon, when Harold sate with Edith amidst
the columns of the Druid temple, and in the shade which those vast and
mournful relics of a faith departed cast along the sward. And there,
conversing over the past, and planning the future, they had sate long,
when Hilda approached from the house, and entering the circle, leant
her arm upon the altar of the war-god, and gazing on Harold with a
calm triumph in her aspect, said:
"Did I not smile, son of Godwin, when, with thy short-sighted wisdom,
thou didst think to guard thy land and secure thy love, by urging the
monk-king to send over the seas for the Atheling? Did I not tell
thee, 'Thou dost right, for in obeying thy judgment thou art but the
instrument of fate; and the coming of the Atheling shall speed thee
nearer to the ends of thy life, but not from the Atheling shalt thou
take the crown of thy love, and not by the Atheling shall the throne
of Athelstan be filled'?"
"Alas," said Harold, rising in agitation, "let me not hear of
mischance to that noble prince. He seemed sick and feeble when I
parted from him; but joy is a great restorer, and the air of the
native land gives quick health to the exile."
"Hark!" said Hilda, "you hear the passing bell for the soul of the son
of Ironsides!"
The mournful knell, as she spoke, came dull from the roofs of the city
afar, borne to their ears by the exceeding stillness of the
atmosphere. Edith crossed herself, and murmured a prayer according to
the custom of the age; then raising her eyes to Harold, she murmured,
as she clasped her hands:
"Be not saddened, Harold; hope still."
"Hope!" repeated Hilda, rising proudly from her recumbent position,
"Hope! in that knell from St. Paul's, dull indeed is thine ear, O
Harold, if thou hearest not the joy-bells that inaugurate a future
king!"
The Earl started; his eyes shot fire; his breast heaved.
"Leave us, Edith," said Hilda, in a low voice; and after watching her
grandchild's slow reluctant steps descend the knoll, she turned to
Harold, and leading him towards the gravestone of the Saxon chief,
said:
"Rememberest thou the spectre that rose from this mound?--rememberest
thou the dream that followed it?"
"The spectre, or deceit of mine eye, I remember well," answered the
Earl; "the dream, not;--or only in confused and jarring fragments."
"I told thee then, that I could not unriddle the dream by the light of
the moment; and that the dead who slept below never appeared to men,
save for some portent of doom to the house of Cerdic. The portent is
fulfilled; the Heir of Cerdic is no more. To whom appeared the great
Scin-laeca, but to him who shall lead a new race of kings to the Saxon
throne!"
Harold breathed hard, and the colour mounted bright and glowing to his
cheek and brow.
"I cannot gainsay thee, Vala. Unless, despite all conjecture, Edward
should be spared to earth till the Atheling's infant son acquires the
age when bearded men will acknowledge a chief [151], I look round in
England for the coming king, and all England reflects but mine own
image."
His head rose erect as he spoke, and already the brow seemed august,
as if circled by the diadem of the Basileus. "And if it be so," he
added, "I accept that solemn trust, and England shall grow greater in
my greatness."
"The flame breaks at last from the smouldering fuel!" cried the Vala,
"and the hour I so long foretold to thee hath come!"
Harold answered not, for high and kindling emotions deafened him to
all but the voice of a grand ambition, and the awakening joy of a
noble heart.
"And then--and then," he exclaimed, "I shall need no mediator between
nature and monkcraft;--then, O Edith, the life thou hast saved will
indeed be thine!" He paused, and it was a sign of the change that an
ambition long repressed, but now rushing into the vent legitimately
open to it, had already begun to work in the character hitherto so
self-reliant, when he said in a low voice, "But that dream which hath
so long lain locked, not lost, in my mind; that dream of which I
recall only vague remembrances of danger yet defiance, trouble yet
triumph,--canst thou unriddle it, O Vala, into auguries of success?"
"Harold," answered Hilda, "thou didst hear at the close of thy dream,
the music of the hymns that are chaunted at the crowning of a king,--
and a crowned king shalt thou be; yet fearful foes shall assail thee--
foreshown in the shapes of a lion and raven, that came in menace over
the bloodred sea. The two stars in the heaven betoken that the day of
thy birth was also the birthday of a foe, whose star is fatal to
thine; and they warn thee against a battle-field, fought on the day
when those stars shall meet. Farther than this the mystery of thy
dream escapes from my lore;--wouldst thou learn thyself, from the
phantom that sent the dream;--stand by my side at the grave of the
Saxon hero, and I will summon the Scin-laeca to counsel the living.
For what to the Vala the dead may deny, the soul of the brave on the
brave may bestow!"
Harold listened with a serious and musing attention which his pride or
his reason had never before accorded to the warnings of Hilda. But
his sense was not yet fascinated by the voice of the charmer, and he
answered with his wonted smile, so sweet yet so haughty:
"A hand outstretched to a crown should be armed for the foe; and the
eye that would guard the living should not be dimmed by the vapours
that encircle the dead."
CHAPTER V.
But from that date changes, slight, yet noticeable and important, were
at work both in the conduct and character of the great Earl.
Hitherto he had advanced on his career without calculation; and
nature, not policy, had achieved his power. But henceforth he began
thoughtfully to cement the foundations of his House, to extend the
area, to strengthen the props. Policy now mingled with the justice
that had made him esteemed, and the generosity that had won him love.
Before, though by temper conciliatory, yet, through honesty,
indifferent to the enmities he provoked, in his adherence to what his
conscience approved, he now laid himself out to propitiate all ancient
feuds, soothe all jealousies, and convert foes into friends. He
opened constant and friendly communication with his uncle Sweyn, King
of Denmark; he availed himself sedulously of all the influence over
the Anglo-Danes which his mother's birth made so facile. He strove
also, and wisely, to conciliate the animosities which the Church had
cherished against Godwin's house: he concealed his disdain of the
monks and monkridden: he showed himself the Church's patron and
friend; he endowed largely the convents, and especially one at
Waltham, which had fallen into decay, though favourably known for the
piety of its brotherhood. But if in this he played a part not natural
to his opinions, Harold could not, even in simulation, administer to
evil. The monasteries he favoured were those distinguished for purity
of life, for benevolence to the poor, for bold denunciation of the
excesses of the great. He had not, like the Norman, the grand design
of creating in the priesthood a college of learning, a school of arts;
such notions were unfamiliar in homely, unlettered England. And
Harold, though for his time and his land no mean scholar, would have
recoiled from favouring a learning always made subservient to Rome;
always at once haughty and scheming, and aspiring to complete
domination over both the souls of men and the thrones of kings. But
his aim was, out of the elements he found in the natural kindliness
existing between Saxon priest and Saxon flock, to rear a modest,
virtuous, homely clergy, not above tender sympathy with an ignorant
population. He selected as examples for his monastery at Waltham, two
low-born humble brothers, Osgood and Ailred; the one known for the
courage with which he had gone through the land, preaching to abbot
and thegn the emancipation of the theowes, as the most meritorious act
the safety of the soul could impose; the other, who, originally a
clerk, had, according to the common custom of the Saxon clergy,
contracted the bonds of marriage, and with some eloquence had
vindicated that custom against the canons of Rome, and refused the
offer of large endowments and thegn's rank to put away his wife. But
on the death of that spouse he had adopted the cowl, and while still
persisting in the lawfulness of marriage to the unmonastic clerks, had
become famous for denouncing the open concubinage which desecrated the
holy office, and violated the solemn vows, of many a proud prelate and
abbot.
To these two men (both of whom refused the abbacy of Waltham) Harold
committed the charge of selecting the new brotherhood established
there. And the monks of Waltham were honoured as saints throughout
the neighbouring district, and cited as examples to all the Church.
But though in themselves the new politic arts of Harold seemed
blameless enough, arts they were, and as such they corrupted the
genuine simplicity of his earlier nature. He had conceived for the
first time an ambition apart from that of service to his country. It
was no longer only to serve the land, it was to serve it as its ruler,
that animated his heart and coloured his thoughts. Expediencies began
to dim to his conscience the healthful loveliness of Truth. And now,
too, gradually, that empire which Hilda had gained over his brother
Sweyn began to sway this man, heretofore so strong in his sturdy
sense. The future became to him a dazzling mystery, into which his
conjectures plunged themselves more and more. He had not yet stood in
the Runic circle and invoked the dead; but the spells were around his
heart, and in his own soul had grown up the familiar demon.
Still Edith reigned alone, if not in his thoughts at least in his
affections; and perhaps it was the hope of conquering all obstacles to
his marriage that mainly induced him to propitiate the Church, through
whose agency the object he sought must be attained; and still that
hope gave the brightest lustre to the distant crown. But he who
admits Ambition to the companionship of Love, admits a giant that
outstrides the gentler footsteps of its comrade.
Harold's brow lost its benign calm. He became thoughtful and
abstracted. He consulted Edith less, Hilda more. Edith seemed to him
now not wise enough to counsel. The smile of his Fylgia, like the
light of the star upon a stream, lit the surface, but could not pierce
to the deep.
Meanwhile, however, the policy of Harold throve and prospered. He had
already arrived at that height, that the least effort to make power
popular redoubled its extent. Gradually all voices swelled the chorus
in his praise; gradually men became familiar to the question, "If
Edward dies before Edgar, the grandson of Ironsides, is of age to
succeed, where can we find a king like Harold?"
In the midst of this quiet but deepening sunshine of his fate, there
burst a storm, which seemed destined either to darken his day or to
disperse every cloud from the horizon. Algar, the only possible rival
to his power--the only opponent no arts could soften--Algar, whose
hereditary name endeared him to the Saxon laity, whose father's most
powerful legacy was the love of the Saxon Church, whose martial and
turbulent spirit had only the more elevated him in the esteem of the
warlike Danes in East Anglia (the earldom in which he had succeeded
Harold), by his father's death, lord of the great principality of
Mercia--availed himself of that new power to break out again into
rebellion. Again he was outlawed, again he leagued with the fiery
Gryffyth. All Wales was in revolt; the Marches were invaded and laid
waste. Rolf, the feeble Earl of Hereford, died at this critical
juncture, and the Normans and hirelings under him mutinied against
other leaders; a fleet of vikings from Norway ravaged the western
coasts, and sailing up the Menai, joined the ships of Gryffyth, and
the whole empire seemed menaced with dissolution, when Edward issued
his Herr-bane, and Harold at the head of the royal armies marched on
the foe.
Dread and dangerous were those defiles of Wales; amidst them had been
foiled or slaughtered all the warriors under Rolf the Norman; no Saxon
armies had won laurels in the Cymrian's own mountain home within the
memory of man; nor had any Saxon ships borne the palm from the
terrible vikings of Norway. Fail, Harold, and farewell the crown!--
succeed, and thou hast on thy side the ultimam rationem regum (the
last argument of kings), the heart of the army over which thou art
chief.
CHAPTER VI.
It was one day in the height of summer that two horsemen rode slowly,
and conversing with each other in friendly wise, notwithstanding an
evident difference of rank and of nation, through the lovely country
which formed the Marches of Wales. The younger of these men was
unmistakably a Norman; his cap only partially covered the head, which
was shaven from the crown to the nape of the neck [152], while in
front the hair, closely cropped, curled short and thick round a
haughty but intelligent brow. His dress fitted close to his shape,
and was worn without mantle; his leggings were curiously crossed in
the fashion of a tartan, and on his heels were spurs of gold. He was
wholly unarmed; but behind him and his companion, at a little
distance, his war-horse, completely caparisoned, was led by a single
squire, mounted on a good Norman steed; while six Saxon theowes,
themselves on foot, conducted three sumpter-mules, somewhat heavily
laden, not only with the armour of the Norman knight, but panniers
containing rich robes, wines, and provender. At a few paces farther
behind, marched a troop, light-armed, in tough hides, curiously
tanned, with axes swung over their shoulders, and bows in their hands.
The companion of the knight was as evidently a Saxon, as the knight
was unequivocally a Norman. His square short features, contrasting
the oval visage and aquiline profile of his close-shaven comrade, were
half concealed beneath a bushy beard and immense moustache. His
tunic, also, was of hide, and, tightened at the waist, fell loose to
his knee; while a kind of cloak, fastened to the right shoulder by a
large round button or brooch, flowed behind and in front, but left
both arms free. His cap differed in shape from the Norman's, being
round and full at the sides, somewhat in shape like a turban. His
bare, brawny throat was curiously punctured with sundry devices, and a
verse from the Psalms.
His countenance, though without the high and haughty brow, and the
acute, observant eye of his comrade, had a pride and intelligence of
its own--a pride somewhat sullen, and an intelligence somewhat slow.
"My good friend, Sexwolf," quoth the Norman in very tolerable Saxon,
"I pray you not so to misesteem us. After all, we Normans are of your
own race: our fathers spoke the same language as yours."
"That may be," said the Saxon, bluntly, "and so did the Danes, with
little difference, when they burned our houses and cut our throats."
"Old tales, those," replied the knight, "and I thank thee for the
comparison; for the Danes, thou seest, are now settled amongst ye,
peaceful subjects and quiet men, and in a few generations it will be
hard to guess who comes from Saxon, who from Dane."
"We waste time, talking such matters," returned the Saxon, feeling
himself instinctively no match in argument for his lettered companion;
and seeing, with his native strong sense; that some ulterior object,
though he guessed not what, lay hid in the conciliatory language of
his companion; "nor do I believe, Master Mallet or Gravel--forgive me
if I miss of the right forms to address you--that Norman will ever
love Saxon, or Saxon Norman; so let us cut our words short. There
stands the convent, at which you would like to rest and refresh
yourself."
The Saxon pointed to a low, clumsy building of timber, forlorn and
decayed, close by a rank marsh, over which swarmed gnats, and all foul
animalcules.
Mallet de Graville, for it was he, shrugged his shoulders, and said,
with an air of pity and contempt:
"I would, friend Sexwolf, that thou couldst but see the houses we
build to God and his saints in our Normandy; fabrics of stately stone,
on the fairest sites. Our Countess Matilda hath a notable taste for
the masonry; and our workmen are the brethren of Lombardy, who know
all the mysteries thereof."
"I pray thee, Dan-Norman," cried the Saxon, "not to put such ideas
into the soft head of King Edward. We pay enow for the Church, though
built but of timber; saints help us indeed, if it were builded of
stone!"
The Norman crossed himself, as if he had heard some signal impiety,
and then said:
"Thou lovest not Mother Church, worthy Sexwolf?"
"I was brought up," replied the sturdy Saxon, "to work and sweat hard,
and I love not the lazy who devour my substance, and say, 'the saints
gave it them.' Knowest thou not, Master Mallet, that one-third of all
the lands of England is in the hands of the priests?"
"Hem!" said the acute Norman, who, with all his devotion, could stoop
to wring worldly advantage from each admission of his comrade; "then
in this merrie England of thine thou hast still thy grievances and
cause of complaint?"
"Yea indeed, and I trow it," quoth the Saxon, even in that day a
grumbler; "but I take it, the main difference between thee and me is,
that I can say what mislikes me out like a man; and it would fare ill
with thy limbs or thy life if thou wert as frank in the grim land of
thy heretogh."
"Now, Notre Dame stop thy prating," said the Norman, in high disdain,
while his brow frowned and his eye sparkled. "Strong judge and great
captain as is William the Norman, his barons and knights hold their
heads high in his presence, and not a grievance weighs on the heart
that we give not out with the lip."
"So have I heard," said the Saxon, chuckling; "I have heard, indeed,
that ye thegns, or great men, are free enow, and plainspoken. But
what of the commons--the sixhaendmen and the ceorls, master Norman?
Dare they speak as we speak of king and of law, of thegn and of
captain?"
The Norman wisely curbed the scornful "No, indeed," that rushed to his
lips, and said, all sweet and debonnair: "Each land hath its customs,
dear Sexwolf: and if the Norman were king of England, he would take
the laws as he finds them, and the ceorls would be as safe with
William as Edward."
"The Norman king of England!" cried the Saxon, reddening to the tips
of his great ears, "what dost thou babble of, stranger? The Norman!--
How could that ever be?"
"Nay, I did but suggest--but suppose such a case," replied the knight,
still smothering his wrath. "And why thinkest thou the conceit so
outrageous? Thy King is childless; William is his next of kin, and
dear to him as a brother; and if Edward did leave him the throne--"
"The throne is for no man to leave," almost roared the Saxon.
"Thinkest thou the people of England are like cattle and sheep, and
chattels and theowes, to be left by will, as man fancies? The King's
wish has its weight, no doubt, but the Witan hath its yea or its nay,
and the Witan and Commons are seldom at issue thereon. Thy duke King
of England! Marry! Ha! ha!"
"Brute!" muttered the knight to himself; then adding aloud, with his
old tone of irony (now much habitually subdued by years and
discretion), "Why takest thou so the part of the ceorls? thou a
captain, and well-nigh a thegn!"
"I was born a ceorl, and my father before me," returned Sexwolf, "and
I feel with my class; though my grandson may rank with the thegns,
and, for aught I know, with the earls."
The Sire de Graville involuntarily drew off from the Saxon's side, as
if made suddenly aware that he had grossly demeaned himself in such
unwitting familiarity with a ceorl, and a ceorl's son; and he said,
with a much more careless accent and lofty port than before:
"Good man, thou wert a ceorl, and now thou leadest Earl Harold's men
to the war! How is this? I do not quite comprehend it."
"How shouldst thou, poor Norman?" replied the Saxon, compassionately.
"The tale is soon told. Know that when Harold our Earl was banished,
and his lands taken, we his ceorls helped with his sixhaendman, Clapa,
to purchase his land, nigh by London, and the house wherein thou didst
find me, of a stranger, thy countryman, to whom they were lawlessly
given. And we tilled the land, we tended the herds, and we kept the
house till the Earl came back."
"Ye had moneys then, moneys of your own, ye ceorls!" said the Norman,
avariciously.
"How else could we buy our freedom? Every ceorl hath some hours to
himself to employ to his profit, and can lay by for his own ends.
These savings we gave up for our Earl, and when the Earl came back, he
gave the sixhaendman hides of land enow to make him a thegn; and he
gave the ceorls who hade holpen Clapa, their freedom and broad shares
of his boc-land, and most of them now hold their own ploughs and feed
their own herds. But I loved the Earl (having no wife) better than
swine and glebe, and I prayed him to let me serve him in arms. And so
I have risen, as with us ceorls can rise."
"I am answered," said Mallet de Graville, thoughtfully, and still
somewhat perplexed. "But these theowes, (they are slaves,) never
rise. It cannot matter to them whether shaven Norman or bearded Saxon
sit on the throne?"
"Thou art right there," answered the Saxon; "it matters as little to
them as it doth to thy thieves and felons, for many of them are felons
and thieves, or the children of such; and most of those who are not,
it is said, are not Saxons, but the barbarous folks whom the Saxons
subdued. No, wretched things, and scarce men, they care nought for
the land. Howbeit, even they are not without hope, for the Church
takes their part; and that, at least, I for one think Church-worthy,"
added the Saxon with a softened eye. "And every abbot is bound to set
free three theowes on his lands, and few who own theowes die without
freeing some by their will; so that the sons of theowes may be thegns,
and thegns some of them are at this day."
"Marvels!" cried the Norman. "But surely they bear a stain and
stigma, and their fellow-thegns flout them?"
"Not a whit--why so? land is land, money money. Little, I trow, care
we what a man's father may have been, if the man himself hath his ten
hides or more of good boc-land."
"Ye value land and the moneys," said the Norman, "so do we, but we
value more name and birth."
"Ye are still in your leading-strings, Norman," replied the Saxon,
waxing good-humoured in his contempt. "We have an old saying and a
wise one, 'All come from Adam except Tib the ploughman: but when Tib
grows rich all call him "dear brother."'"
"With such pestilent notions," quoth the Sire de Graville, no longer
keeping temper, "I do not wonder that our fathers of Norway and
Daneland beat ye so easily. The love for things ancient--creed,
lineage, and name, is better steel against the stranger than your
smiths ever welded."
Therewith, and not waiting for Sexwolf's reply, he clapped spurs to
his palfrey, and soon entered the courtyard of the convent.
A monk of the order of St. Benedict, then most in favour [153],
ushered the noble visitor into the cell of the abbot; who, after
gazing at him a moment in wonder and delight, clasped him to his
breast and kissed him heartily on brow and cheek.
"Ah, Guillaume," he exclaimed in the Norman tongue, this is indeed a
grace for which to sing Jubilate. Thou canst not guess how welcome is
the face of a countryman in this horrible land of ill-cooking and
exile."
"Talking of grace, my dear father, and food," said De Graville,
loosening the cincture of the tight vest which gave him the shape of a
wasp--for even at that early period, small waists were in vogue with
the warlike fops of the French Continent--"talking of grace, the
sooner thou say'st it over some friendly refection, the more will the
Latin sound unctuous and musical. I have journeyed since daybreak,
and am now hungered and faint."
"Alack, alack!" cried the abbot, plaintively, "thou knowest little, my
son, what hardships we endure in these parts, how larded our larders,
and how nefarious our fare. The flesh of swine salted--"
"The flesh of Beelzebub," cried Mallet de Graville, aghast. "But
comfort thee, I have stores on my sumpter-mules--poulardes and fishes,
and other not despicable comestibles, and a few flasks of wine, not
pressed, laud the saints! from the vines of this country: wherefore,
wilt thou see to it, and instruct thy cooks how to season the cheer?"
"No cooks have I to trust to," replied the abbot; "of cooking know
they here as much as of Latin; nathless, I will go and do my best with
the stew-pans. Meanwhile, thou wilt at least have rest and the bath.
For the Saxons, even in their convents, are a clean race, and learned
the bath from the Dane."
"That I have noted," said the knight, "for even at the smallest house
at which I lodged in my way from London, the host hath courteously
offered me the bath, and the hostess linen curious and fragrant; and
to say truth, the poor people are hospitable and kind, despite their
uncouth hate of the foreigner; nor is their meat to be despised,
plentiful and succulent; but pardex, as thou sayest, little helped by
the art of dressing. Wherefore, my father, I will while the time till
the poulardes be roasted, and the fish broiled or stewed, by the
ablutions thou profferest me. I shall tarry with thee some hours, for
I have much to learn."
The abbot then led the Sire de Graville by the hand to the cell of
honour and guestship, and having seen that the bath prepared was of
warmth sufficient, for both Norman and Saxon (hardy men as they seem
to us from afar) so shuddered at the touch of cold water, that a bath
of natural temperature (as well as a hard bed) was sometimes imposed
as a penance,--the good father went his way, to examine the sumpter-
mules, and admonish the much suffering and bewildered lay-brother who
officiated as cook,--and who, speaking neither Norman nor Latin,
scarce made out one word in ten of his superior's elaborate
exhortations.
Mallet's squire, with a change of raiment, and goodly coffers of
soaps, unguents, and odours, took his way to the knight, for a Norman
of birth was accustomed to much personal attendance, and had all
respect for the body; and it was nearly an hour before, in long gown
of fur, reshaven, dainty, and decked, the Sire de Graville bowed, and
sighed, and prayed before the refection set out in the abbot's cell.
The two Normans, despite the sharp appetite of the layman, ate with
great gravity and decorum, drawing forth the morsels served to them on
spits with silent examination; seldom more than tasting, with looks of
patient dissatisfaction, each of the comestibles; sipping rather than
drinking, nibbling rather than devouring, washing their fingers in
rose water with nice care at the close, and waving them afterwards
gracefully in the air, to allow the moisture somewhat to exhale before
they wiped off the lingering dews with their napkins. Then they
exchanged looks and sighed in concert, as if recalling the polished
manners of Normandy, still retained in that desolate exile. And their
temperate meal thus concluded, dishes, wines, and attendants vanished,
and their talk commenced.
"How camest thou in England?" asked the abbot abruptly.
"Sauf your reverence," answered De Graville, "not wholly for reason
different from those that bring thee hither. When, after the death of
that truculent and orgulous Godwin, King Edward entreated Harold to
let him have back some of his dear Norman favourites, thou, then
little pleased with the plain fare and sharp discipline of the convent
of Bec, didst pray Bishop William of London to accompany such train as
Harold, moved by his poor king's supplication, was pleased to permit.
The bishop consented, and thou wert enabled to change monk's cowl for
abbot's mitre. In a word, ambition brought thee to England, and
ambition brings me hither."
"Hem! and how? Mayst thou thrive better than I in this swine-sty!"
"You remember," renewed De Graville, "that Lanfranc, the Lombard, was
pleased to take interest in my fortunes, then not the most
flourishing, and after his return from Rome, with the Pope's
dispensation for Count William's marriage with his cousin, he became
William's most trusted adviser. Both William and Lanfranc were
desirous to set an example of learning to our Latinless nobles, and
therefore my scholarship found grace in their eyes. In brief since
then I have prospered and thriven. I have fair lands by the Seine,
free from clutch of merchant and Jew. I have founded a convent, and
slain some hundreds of Breton marauders. Need I say that I am in high
favour? Now it so chanced that a cousin of mine, Hugo de Magnaville,
a brave lance and franc-rider, chanced to murder his brother in a
little domestic affray, and, being of conscience tender and nice, the
deed preyed on him, and he gave his lands to Odo of Bayeux, and set
off to Jerusalem. There, having prayed at the tomb," (the knight
crossed himself,) "he felt at once miraculously cheered and relieved;
but, journeying back, mishaps befell him. He was made slave by some
infidel, to one of whose wives he sought to be gallant, par amours,
and only escaped at last by setting fire to paynim and prison. Now,
by the aid of the Virgin, he has got back to Rouen, and holds his own
land again in fief from proud Odo, as a knight of the bishop's. It so
happened that, passing homeward through Lycia, before these
misfortunes befell him, he made friends with a fellow-pilgrim who had
just returned, like himself, from the Sepulchre, but not lightened,
like him, of the load of his crime. This poor palmer lay broken-
hearted and dying in the hut of an eremite, where my cousin took
shelter; and, learning that Hugo was on his way to Normandy, he made
himself known as Sweyn, the once fair and proud Earl of England,
eldest son to old Godwin, and father to Haco, whom our Count still
holds as a hostage. He besought Hugo to intercede with the Count for
Haco's release and return, if King Edward assented thereto; and
charged my cousin, moreover, with a letter to Harold, his brother,
which Hugo undertook to send over. By good luck, it so chanced that,
through all his sore trials, cousin Hugo kept safe round his neck a
leaden effigy of the Virgin. The infidels disdained to rob him of
lead, little dreaming the worth which the sanctity gave to the metal.
To the back of the image Hugo fastened the letter, and so, though
somewhat tattered and damaged, he had it still with him on arriving in
Rouen."
"Knowing, then, my grace with the Count, and not, despite absolution
and pilgrimage, much wishing to trust himself in the presence of
William, who thinks gravely of fratricide, he prayed me to deliver the
message, and ask leave to send to England the letter."
"It is a long tale," quoth the abbot.
"Patience, my father! I am nearly at the end. Nothing more in season
could chance for my fortunes. Know that William has been long moody
and anxious as to matters in England. The secret accounts he receives
from the Bishop of London make him see that Edward's heart is much
alienated from him, especially since the Count has had daughters and
sons; for, as thou knowest, William and Edward both took vows of
chastity in youth [154], and William got absolved from his, while
Edward hath kept firm to the plight. Not long ere my cousin came
back, William had heard that Edward had acknowledged his kinsman as
natural heir to his throne. Grieved and troubled at this, William had
said in my hearing, 'Would that amidst yon statues of steel, there
were some cool head and wise tongue I could trust with my interests in
England! and would that I could devise fitting plea and excuse for an
envoy to Harold the Earl!' Much had I mused over these words, and a
light-hearted man was Mallet de Graville when, with Sweyn's letter in
hand, he went to Lanfranc the abbot and said, 'Patron and father! thou
knowest that I, almost alone of the Norman knights, have studied the
Saxon language. And if the Duke wants messenger and plea, here stands
the messenger, and in his hand is the plea. Then I told my tale.
Lanfranc went at once to Duke William. By this time, news of the
Atheling's death had arrived, and things looked more bright to my
liege. Duke William was pleased to summon me straightway, and give me
his instructions. So over the sea I came alone, save a single squire,
reached London, learned the King and his court were at Winchester (but
with them I had little to do), and that Harold the Earl was at the
head of his forces in Wales against Gryffyth the Lion King. The Earl
had sent in haste for a picked and chosen band of his own retainers,
on his demesnes near the city. These I joined, and learning thy name
at the monastery at Gloucester, I stopped here to tell thee my news
and hear thine."
"Dear brother," said the abbot, looking enviously on the knight,
"would that, like thee, instead of entering the Church, I had taken up
arms! Alike once was our lot, well born and penniless. Ah me!--Thou
art now as the swan on the river, and I as the shell on the rock."
"But," quoth the knight, "though the canons, it is true, forbid monks
to knock people on the head, except in self-preservation, thou knowest
well that, even in Normandy, (which, I take it, is the sacred college
of all priestly lore, on this side the Alps,) those canons are deemed
too rigorous for practice: and, at all events, it is not forbidden
thee to look on the pastime with sword or mace by thy side in case of
need. Wherefore, remembering thee in times past, I little counted on
finding thee--like a slug in thy cell! No; but with mail on thy back,
the canons clean forgotten, and helping stout Harold to sliver and
brain these turbulent Welchmen."
"Ah me! ah me! No such good fortune!" sighed the tall abbot.
"Little, despite thy former sojourn in London, and thy lore of their
tongue, knowest thou of these unmannerly Saxons. Rarely indeed do
abbot and prelate ride to the battle [155]; and were it not for a huge
Danish monk, who took refuge here to escape mutilation for robbery,
and who mistakes the Virgin for a Valkyr, and St. |
