WESTERN RECORD.
XXXVII.-THE NORSEMEN.
1. The Gulf Stream flows so near to the southern coast of Norway, and to the Orkneys and Western Islands, that their climate is much less severe than might be supposed. Yet no one can help wondering why they were formerly so much more populous than now, and why the people who came westward even so long ago as the great Aryan migration, did not persist in turning aside to the more fertile countries that lay farther southward. In spite of all their disadvantages, the Scandinavian peninsula, and the sterile islands of the northern seas, were inhabitated by men and women whose enterprise and intelligence ranked them above their neighbors.
2. Now, with the modern ease of travel and transportation, these poorer countries can be supplied from other parts of the world. And though the summers of Norway are misty and dark and short, and it is difficult to raise even a little hay on the bits of meadow among the rocky mountain-slopes, commerce can make up for all deficiencies. In early times there was no commerce, except that carried on by the pirates, if we may dignify their undertakings by such a respectable name, and it was hardly possible to make a living from the soil alone. But it does not take us long to discover that the ancient Northmen were not farmers, but hunters and fishermen. It had grown more and more difficult to find food along the rivers and broad grassy wastes of inland Europe, and pushing westward they had at last reached the place where they could live beside waters that swarmed with fish and among hills that sheltered plenty of game.
3. The tribes that settled in the north grew in time to have many peculiarities of their own, and as their countries grew more and more populous, they needed more things that could not easily be had, and a fashion of plundering their neighbors began to prevail. Men were still more or less beasts of prey. Invaders must be kept out, and at last much of the industry of Scandinavia was connected with the carrying on of an almost universal fighting and marauding. Ships must be built, and there must be endless supplies of armor and weapons. Stones were easily collected for missiles or made fit for arrows and spear-heads, and metals were worked with great care.
4. In Norway and Sweden were the best places to find all these, and if the Northmen planned to fight a great battle, they had to transport a huge quantity of stones, iron, and bronze. It is easy to see why one day's battle was almost always decisive in ancient times, for supplies could not be quickly forwarded from point to point, and after the arrows were all shot and the conquered were chased off the field, they had no further means of offense except a hand-to-hand fight with those who had won the right to pick up the fallen spears at their leisure. So, too, an unexpected invasion was likely to prove successful; it was a work of time to get ready for a battle, and when the Northmen swooped down upon some shore town of Britain or Gaul, the unlucky citizens were at their mercy. And while the Northmen had fish and game, and were mighty hunters, and their rocks and mines helped forward their warlike enterprises, so the forests supplied them with ship-timber, and they gained renown as sailors wherever their fame extended.
5. There was a great difference, however, between the manner of life in Norway and that of England and France. The Norwegian stone, however useful for arrow-heads or axes, was not fit for building purposes. There is hardly any clay there, either, to make bricks with, so that wood has usually been the only material for houses. In the southern countries there had always been rude castles in which the people could shelter themselves, but the Northmen could build no castles that a torch could not destroy. They trusted much more to their ships than to their houses, and some of their captains disdained to live on shore at all.
6. There is something refreshing in the stories of old Norse life; of its simplicity and freedom and childish zest. An old writer says that they had "a hankering after pomp and pageantry," and by means of this they came at last to doing things decently and in order, and to setting the fashions for the rest of Europe. There was considerable dignity in the manner of every-day life and housekeeping. Their houses were often very large, even two hundred feet long, with flaring fires on a pavement in the middle of the floor, and the beds built next the walls on three sides, sometimes hidden by wide tapestries or foreign cloth that had been brought home in the viking ships. In front of the beds were benches where each man had his seat and footstool, with his armor and weapons hung high on the wall above.
7. The master of the house had a high seat on the north side in the middle of a long bench; opposite was another bench for guests and strangers, while the women sat on the third side. The roof was high; there were a few windows in it, and those were covered by skins, and let in but little light. The smoke escaped through openings in the carved, soot-blackened roof; and though in later times the rich men's houses were more like villages, because they made groups of smaller buildings for store houses, for guest-rooms, or for work-shops all around still, the idea of this primitive great hall or living-room has not even yet been lost. The latest copies of it in England and France that still remain are most interesting; but what a fine sight it must have been at night when the great fires blazed and the warriors sat on their benches in solemn order, and the skalds recited their long sagas, of the host's own bravery or the valiant deeds of his ancestors! Hospitality was almost chief among the virtues.
8. We must read what was written in their own language, and then we shall have more respect for the vikings and sea-kings, always distinguishing between these two; for, while any peasant who wished could be a viking—a sea-robber—a sea-king was a king indeed, and must be connected with the royal race of the country. He received the title of king by right as soon as he took command of a ship's crew, though he need not have any land or kingdom. Vikings were merely pirates; they might be peasants and vikings by turn, and won their names from the inlets, the viks or wicks, where they harbored their ships. A sea-king must be a viking, but naturally very few of the vikings were sea-kings.
A Viking's Home.
9. The viking had rights in his own country, and knew what it was to enjoy those rights; if he could win more land, he would know how to govern it, and he knew what he was fighting for, and meant to win. If we wonder why all this energy was spent on the high seas and in strange countries, there are two answers: first, that fighting was the natural employment of the men, and that no right could be held that could not be defended; but besides this, one form of their energy was showing itself at home in rude attempts at literature.
10. The more that we know of the Northmen, the more we are convinced how superior they were in their knowledge of the useful arts to the people whom they conquered. There is a legend that, when Charlemagne, in the ninth century, saw some pirate ships cruising in the Mediterranean, along the shores of which they had at last found their way, he covered his face and burst into tears. He was not so much afraid of their cruelty and barbarity as of their civilization. Nobody knew better that none of the Christian countries under his rule had ships or men that could make such a daring voyage. He knew that they were skillful workers in wood and iron, and had learned to be rope-makers and weavers; that they could make casks for their supply of drinking-water, and understood how to prepare food for their long cruises. All their swords and spears and bow-strings had to be made and kept in good condition, and sheltered from the sea-spray.
11. When we picture the famous sea-kings' ships to ourselves, we do not wonder that the Northmen were so proud of them, or that the skalds were never tired of recounting their glories. There were two kinds of vessels: the last-ships, that carried cargoes, and the long-ships, or ships of war. Listen to the splendors of the "Long Serpent," which was the largest ship ever built in Norway. A dragon-ship, to begin with, because all the long-ships had a dragon for a figure-head, except the smallest of them, which were called cutters, and only carried ten or twenty rowers on a side. The "Long Serpent" had thirty-four rowers' benches on a side, and she was one hundred and eleven feet long. Over the sides were hung the shining red and white shields of the vikings, the gilded dragon's head towered high at the prow, and at the stern a gilded tail went curling off over the head of the steersman. Then, from the long body, the heavy oars swept forward and back through the water, and as it came down the fiôrd, the "Long Serpent" must have looked like some enormous centipede creeping out of its den on an awful errand, and heading out across the rough water toward its prey.
12. The voyages were often disastrous in spite of much clever seamanship. They knew nothing of the mariner's compass, and found their way chiefly by the aid of the stars—inconstant pilots enough on such foggy, stormy seas. They carried birds, too, oftenest ravens, and used to let them loose and follow them toward the nearest land. The black raven was the vikings' favorite symbol for their flags, and familiar enough it became in other harbors than their own. They were bold, hardy fellows, and held fast to a rude code of honor and rank of knighthood.
13. The valleys of the Elbe and the Rhine, of the Seine and the Loire, made a famous hunting-ground for the dragon-ships to seek.
14. The people who lived in France were of another sort, but they often knew how to defend themselves as well as the Northmen knew how to attack. There are few early French records for us to read, for the literature of that early day was almost wholly destroyed in the religious houses and public buildings of France. Here and there a few pages of a poem or of a biography or chronicle have been kept, but from this very fact we can understand the miserable condition of the country.
15. The whole second half of the ninth century is taken up with the histories of these invasions. We must follow for a while the progress of events in Gaul, or France as we call it now, though it was made up then of a number of smaller kingdoms. The result of the great siege of Paris was only a settling of affairs with the Northmen for the time being; one part of the country was delivered from them at the expense of another.
16. They could be bought off and bribed for a time, but there was never to be any such thing as their going back to their own country and letting France alone for good and all. But as they gained at length whole tracts of country, instead of the little wealth of a few men to take away in their ships as at first, they began to settle down in their new lands and to become conquerors and colonists instead of mere plunderers. Instead of continually ravaging and attacking the kingdoms, they slowly became the owners and occupiers of the conquered territory; they pushed their way from point to point.
17. At first, as you have seen already they trusted to their ships, and always left their wives and children at home in the north countries, but as time went on, they brought their families with them and made new homes, for which they would have to fight many a battle yet. It would be no wonder if the women had become possessed by a love of adventure, too, and had insisted upon seeing the lands from which the rich booty was brought to them, and that they had been saying for a long time: "Show us the places where the grapes grow and the fruit-trees bloom, where men build great houses and live in them splendidly. We are tired of seeing only the long larchen beams of their high roofs, and the purple and red and gold cloths, and the red wine and yellow wheat that you bring away. Why should we not go to live in that country, instead of your breaking it to pieces, and going there so many of you, every year, only to be slain as its enemies? We are tired of our sterile Norway and our great Danish deserts of sand, of our cold winds and wet weather, and our long winters that pass by so slowly while the fleets are gone. We would rather see Seville and Paris themselves, than only their gold and merchandise and the rafters of their churches that you bring home for ship timbers."
18. The kingdoms of France had been divided and subdivided, and, while we find a great many fine examples of resistance, and some great victories over the Northmen, they were not pushed out and checked altogether. Instead, they gradually changed into Frenchmen themselves, different from other Frenchmen only in being more spirited, vigorous and alert. They inspired every new growth of the religion, language, or manners, with their own splendid vitality. They were like plants that have grown in dry, thin soil, transplanted to a richer spot of ground, and sending out fresh shoots in the doubled moisture and sunshine. And presently we shall find the Northman becoming the Norman of history. As the Northman, almost the first thing we admire about him is his character, his glorious energy; as the Norman, we see that energy turned into better channels, and bringing a new element into the progress of civilization.
Sarah O. Jewett. "The Story of the Normans."
Putnam's "Stories of the Nations" Series.
XXXVIII.—ROLF THE GANGER.
1. The ninth century was a sad time for both England and France. The Gothic tribes, in their march to the west had reached the sea in Denmark and Norway, and had increased to such an extent as to take up all the land fit for cultivation. The strength and courage which they had shown in many a battle-field on the land was now transferred to the sea, soldiers and knights becoming vikings and pirates. Fierce worshipers were they of the old gods Odin, Frey, and Thor. They plundered, they burned, they slew; they especially devastated churches and monasteries, and no coast was safe from them from the Adriatic to the farthest north—even Rome saw their long-ships, and, "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us!" was the prayer in every litany of the West.
2. England had been well-nigh undone by them, when the spirit of her greatest king awoke, and by Alfred they were overcome. Some were permitted to settle down, and were taught Christianity and civilization, and the fresh invaders were driven from the coast. Alfred's gallant son and grandson held the same course, guarded their coasts, and made their faith and themselves respected throughout the North. But in France, the much harassed house of Charles the Great, and the ill-compacted bond of different nations, were little able to oppose their fierce assaults, and ravage and devastation reigned from one end of the country to another.
3. However, the vikings, on returning to their native homes sometimes found their place filled up, and the family inheritance incapable of supporting so many. Thus they began to think of winning not merely gold and cattle, but lands and houses, on the coasts they pillaged. In Scotland, the Hebrides, and Ireland, they settled by leave of nothing but their swords; in England, by treaty with Alfred; and in France, half by conquest, half by treaty, always, however, accepting Christianity as a needful obligation when they took posession of southern lands. Probably they thought Thor was only the god of the north, and that the "White Christ," as they called Him who was made known to them in these new countries was to be adored in what they deemed alone his territories.
4. Of all the sea-robbers who sailed from their rocky dwelling-places by the fiôrds of Norway, none enjoyed higher renown than Rolf, called the ganger, or walker, as tradition relates, because his stature was so gigantic that, when clad in full armor, no horse could support his weight, and he therefore always fought on foot.
5. Rolf's lot had, however, fallen in what he doubtless considered as evil days. No such burnings and plunderings as had hitherto wasted England and enriched Norway, fell to his share; for Alfred had made the bravest Northman feel that his fleet and army were more than a match for theirs. Ireland was exhausted by the former depredations of the pirates, and, from a fertile and flourishing country had become a scene of desolation. Scotland and its isles were too barren to afford prey to the spoiler.
6. Rolf, presuming on the favor shown to his family while returning from an expedition on the Baltic, made a descent on the coast of Viken, a part of Norway, and carried off the cattle wanted by his crew. The king, who happened at that time to be in that district, was highly displeased, and, assembling a council, declared Rolf the Ganger an outlaw.
7. The banished Rolf found a great number of companions, who, like himself, were unwilling to submit to the strict rule of Harald, and setting sail with them, he first plundered and devastated the coast of Flanders, and afterward returned to France. In the spring of 896 the citizens of Rouen, scarcely yet recovered from the miseries inflicted upon them by the fierce Danish rover Hasting, were dismayed by the sight of a fleet of long, low vessels, with spreading sails, heads carved like that of a serpent, and sterns finished like the tail of a reptile, such as they well knew to be the keels of the dreaded Northmen, the harbingers of destruction and desolation. Little hope of succor or protection was there from King Charles the Simple; and, indeed, had the sovereign been ever so warlike and energetic, it would little have availed Rouen, which might have been destroyed twice over before a messenger could reach Laon.
8. In this emergency, Franco, the archbishop, proposed to go forth to meet the Northmen and attempt to make terms for his flock. The offer was gladly accepted by the trembling citizens, and the good archbishop went, bearing the keys of the town, to visit the camp which the Northmen had begun to erect upon the bank of the river. They offered him no violence, and he performed his errand safely. Rolf, the rude generosity of whose character was touched by his fearless conduct, readily agreed to spare the lives and property of the citizens, on condition that Rouen was surrendered to him without resistance.
9. Entering the town, he there established his headquarters, and spent a whole year in the adjacent parts of the country, during which time the Northmen so faithfully observed their promise, that they were regarded by the Rouennais rather as friends than as conquerors; and Rolf, or Rollo, as the French called him, was far more popular among them than their real sovereign. Wherever he met with resistance, he showed, indeed, the relentless cruelty of the heathen pirate; wherever he found submission, he was a kind master.
10. In the course of the following year, he advanced along the banks of the Seine as far as its junction with the Eure. On the opposite side of the river there were visible a number of tents, where slept a numerous army, which Charles had at length collected to oppose this formidable enemy. The Northmen also set up their camp, in expectation of a battle, and darkness had just closed in on them when a shout was heard on the opposite side of the river, and to their surprise a voice was heard speaking in their own language. "Brave warriors, why come ye hither, and what do ye seek?"
11. "We are Northmen, come hither to conquer France," replied Rollo. "But who art thou who speakest our tongue so well?" "Heard ye never of Hasting?" was the reply. "Yes," returned Rollo, "he began well, but ended badly." "Will ye not, then," continued the old pirate, "submit to my lord the king? Will ye not hold of him lands and honors?" "No," replied the Northmen, disdainfully, "we will own no lord, we will take no gift, but we will have what we ourselves can conquer by force."
12. Here Hasting took his departure, and returning to the French camp, strongly advised the commander not to hazard a battle. His counsel was overruled by a young standard-bearer, who, significantly observing, "Wolves make not war on wolves," so offended the old sea-king, that he quitted the army that night, and never again appeared in France. The wisdom of his advice was the next morning made evident, by the total defeat of the French, and the advance of the Northmen, who in a short space after appeared beneath the walls of Paris. Failing in their attempt to take the city, they returned to Rouen, where they fortified themselves, making it the capital of the territory they had conquered.
13. Fifteen years passed away, the summers of which were spent in ravaging the dominions of Charles the Simple, and the winters in the city of Rouen, and in the meantime a change had come over the leader. He had been insensibly softened and civilized by his intercourse with the good Archbishop Franco, and finding, perhaps, that it was not quite so easy as he had expected to conquer the whole kingdom of France, he declared himself willing to follow the example which he once despised, and to become a vassal of the French crown for the duchy of Neustria.
14. Charles, greatly rejoiced to find himself thus able to put a stop to the dreadful devastations of the Northmen, readily agreed to the terms proposed by Rollo, appointing the village of St. Clair-sur-Epte, on the borders of Neustria, as the place of meeting for the purpose of receiving his homage and oath of fealty.
15. The greatest difficulty to be overcome in this conference was the repugnance felt by the proud Northman to perform the customary act of homage before any living man, especially one whom he held so cheap as Charles the Simple. He consented, indeed, to swear allegiance, and declare himself the "king's man," with his hands clasped between those of Charles. The remaining part of the ceremony, the kneeling to kiss the foot of the liege lord, he absolutely refused, and was with difficulty persuaded to permit one of his followers to perform it in his name. The proxy, as proud as his master, instead of kneeling, took the king's foot in his hand, and lifted it to his mouth while he stood upright, thus overturning both monarch and throne, amid the rude laughter of his companions, while the miserable Charles and his courtiers felt such a dread of these new vassals that they did not dare resent the insult.
16. On his return to Rouen, Rollo was baptized, and, on leaving the cathedral, celebrated his conversion by large grants to the different churches and convents of his duchy, making a fresh gift on each of the days during which he wore the white robes of the newly baptized. All of his warriors who chose to follow his example, and embrace the Christian faith, received from him grants of land, to be held of him on the same terms as those by which he held the dukedom from the king. The country thus peopled by the Northmen, gradually assumed the name of Normandy.
17. Applying themselves with all the ardor of their temper to their new way of life, the Northmen quickly adopted the manners, language, and habits which were recommended to them as connected with the holy faith which they had just embraced, but without losing their own bold and vigorous spirit. Soon the gallant and accomplished Norman knight could scarcely have been recognized as the savage sea-robber, while, at the same time, he bore as little resemblance to the cruel and voluptuous French noble, at once violent and indolent.
18. There is no doubt, however, that the keen, unsophisticated vigor of Rollo, directed by his new religion did great good in Normandy, and that his justice was sharp, his discipline impartial, so that of him is told the famous old story bestowed upon other just princes, that a gold bracelet was left for three years untouched upon a tree in a forest. He had been married, as part of the treaty, to Gisèle, a daughter of King Charles the Simple, but he was an old grizzly warrior, and neither cared for the other. A wife whom he had long before taken, had borne him a son, named William, to whom he left his dukedom in 932.
XXXIX.—THE TRUE STORY OF MACBETH.
1. In the north of Scotland, where the cliffs bordering Moray Firth face the auroral heavens, are two ancient towns, Inverness and Forres, whose names are immortalized in Shakespeare's great tragedy of Macbeth, for it is in their vicinity that most of its scenes are laid.
2. It is a wild, lonely country, and must have been wilder and lonelier still eight hundred years ago, when from the neighboring Norway coast the black boats of the vikings, or North Sea rovers, used to come flocking into the quiet harbors of Moray and Cromarty Firths, like so many swift birds of prey swooping suddenly in from the gray horizon, snatching their plunder and flitting away on never-resting wings only to return in greater numbers and depart with richer booty.
3. In 1033–1039, when the sons of Canute the Dane were wearing the English crown, and not long after a few of the roving Norsemen had drifted away to plant a little history and a great mystery across the wide Atlantic, there reigned in Scotland a king by the name of Duncan MacCrinan. Among his nobles was a certain Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, about whom a great many stories are told, some of which would no doubt have made their subject open his eyes, for if we may credit the sober historians he was rather respectable than otherwise, and probably slept much better o' nights than Mr. Shakespeare would have us believe. It is even said that he made a pilgrimage to Rome and saw the Pope, which certainly ought to establish his virtue to anybody's satisfaction.
4. At all events he was a brave soldier and able general, and Duncan naturally thought that he had the right man in the right place when he gave him command of the royal army and sent him off to drive out Thorfinn and Thorkell, two Norse chiefs who had come over to conquer Scotland.
5. Macbeth had wedded a lady named Grnoch MacBœdhe, which made him cousin to the king, and very likely put strange notions into his head, even if they never were there before. He was what we call "a rising man," and so, having gloriously defeated Thorfinn and Thorkell, or, some say, making them allies, he gloriously turned around and made war upon Duncan MacCrinan. In this struggle Duncan was killed or mortally wounded near Elgin, on Moray Firth, and Macbeth usurped the throne.
6. Others claim that Thorfinn had conquered that part of Scotland, that Macbeth was his vassal and merely fulfilled his duty to his over-lord in repelling an invasion by Duncan, in which the latter deservedly met the common fate of war.
7. It is very difficult to learn the real truth about people who lived before history was anything more than oral tradition, because, as in the case of Macbeth, a great many legends gradually clustered about their names, which were not committed to writing until many, many years after the events actually occurred. The very earliest Scotch writing ever discovered is only a charter, and is dated 1095, more than fifty years after Duncan was "in his grave," and it was more than three hundred years later that a Scotch prior, named Androwe of Wyntonne, wrote a long historical poem which he called an Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland. In it he relates the story of Macbeth and the three witches, and the murder of Duncan, though he says that Macbeth afterward made a very wise and just king, whose reign of seventeen years was marked by great abundance, and by royal almsgiving and zeal for "holy kirk."
8. But a Latin history of Scotland, written about a hundred years before Shakespeare by an Aberdeen professor, and translated into English under the title of Holinshed's Chronicle, supplied the great dramatist with his plot, though it suited his purpose to combine the true story of Macbeth with the murder of an earlier king. Then, adding a great deal about ghosts and witches, and, above all, breathing into these dry, long-dead mummies the quickening breath of genius, the immortal playwright recreated a Macbeth who seems a far more real and living character than many of our contemporaries.
9. By whatever means Macbeth secured the throne, history and fiction agree as to the manner of his losing it. Duncan's sons, in reality mere infants at their father's death, were hurried away by their friends, and Malcolm, the elder, was committed to his mother's brother, Siward, Earl of Northumbria, who in good time aided his young kinsman to recover his birthright.
10. Macbeth, notwithstanding his prosperous reign, was regarded as a usurper, and was consequently very unpopular with the loyal Scotch, who, though proud and quarrelsome, were always devotedly true where they recognized an obligation of fealty. So when Malcolm returned they flocked around the beloved young heir, and defeated his enemy at Dunsinane, though Macbeth was not killed at this place, as Shakespeare says, but fled across the Grampians to rally at Lumphanan. Here he was slain and the victorious Malcolm—called in history Malcolm Canmore—now went to Scone and was crowned upon a famous stone, believed by the Scotch to be the same that Jacob used for his pillow. It is certainly the one that Edward I of England afterward took away and made the seat of the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey, where it is still to be seen.
11. But, like many another evil that has been wrought before now, Macbeth's treason resulted in the ultimate good of his country; for Malcolm, during his long exile, had become accustomed to the superior civilization of the English, and now introduced many improvements among his subjects. Having known, too, the sorrows of a fugitive, he welcomed to his court the Saxon princes fleeing from Norman William, among whom was Margaret Atheling, the gentle granddaughter of Edmund Ironsides, who became his bride, and whose winning graces went far toward refining the rude manners of the warlike Scots. One of their sons was the saintly King David, who founded Melrose Abbey, and who is said to have been to Scotland "all that Alfred was to England, and more than Louis was to France."
12. Another noble, called Banquo, seems to have had some part in Duncan's overthrow, but as the play of Macbeth was written in the reign of James I, who was a Scot and traced his descent back to Banquo, it was not deemed prudent or polite to represent the character in an unflattering light; so he was pictured as noble and incorruptible, and was so unfortunate, poor man, as to have to be murdered to make the story end well.
13. Sir Walter Scott, in his "Tales of a Grandfather," gives us a story differing little from the outline of Shakespeare's drama, but then, who that has spent enraptured hours over Rob Roy and the Black Dwarf could wish the charming wizard to spoil a good story for the sake of mere historical exactness? not I, surely! And the Macbeth of history, no matter how zealously we may try to discover him, or how faithfully we may attempt, at this late day, to reconstruct his damaged reputation, he can never be to us anything better than a very misty tradition. Whatever he may have been eight hundred years ago, the Macbeth we know, the only real Macbeth there is or ever can be, is after all the one that met the witches in the thunder-storm on Forres Heath and then went home and murdered the gentle old king who "had so much blood in him," and a moment later, startled by the knocking at the gate, exclaimed in bitterest remorse: "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou could'st!"
14. If you read this scene in the silent hours when every one else in the house is sleeping, you will almost believe that you murdered Duncan yourself, and that you hear Lady Macbeth's hoarse whisper in your ear: "To bed, to bed, there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's done can not be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed."
15. Then you will shut the book in sudden terror of the lonely midnight, and scramble into bed with the blood curdling in your veins, and presently, aided by the darkness, your imagination will bridge the gulf of centuries, and you will seem to see a long vaulted hall in a mediæval palace, and in the hall a banquet spread, around which gather lords of high degree, while on the canopied dais at the upper end sit King Macbeth and his white-haired, pitiless, guilty queen. And from the rainy outer darkness you may catch the faint echo of a mortal cry: "Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!" And then as you picture the king stepping down from his royal seat to meet a blood-stained murderer at the door, you will have a momentary glimpse of Banquo lying in the roadside ditch "with twenty trenchéd gashes in his head," and of Fleance speeding away alone through the stormy night.
XL.—DUKE WILLIAM OF NORMANDY.
1. Now Duke William was in his park at Rouen, and in his hands he held a bow ready strung, for he was going hunting, and many knights and squires with him. And behold, there came to the gate a messenger from England; and he went straight to the duke and drew him aside, and told him secretly how King Edward's life had come to an end, and Harold had been made king in his stead. And when the duke had heard the tidings, and understood all that was come to pass, those that looked upon him perceived that he was greatly enraged, for he forsook the chase, and went in silence, speaking no word to any man, clasping and unclasping his cloak, neither dared any man speak to him; but he crossed over the Seine in a boat, and went to his hall, and sat down on a bench; and he covered his face with his mantle, and leaned down his head, and there he abode, turning about restlessly for one hour after another in gloomy thought. And none dared speak a word to him, but they spake to one another, saying: "What ails the duke? Why bears he such a mien?"
2. "That is it that troubles me," said the duke. "I grieve because Edward is dead, and that Harold has done me a wrong; for he has taken my kingdom who was bound to me by oath and promise." To these words answered Fitz-Osbern the bold: "Sir, tarry not, but make ready with speed to avenge yourself on Harold, who has been disloyal to you; for if you lack not courage, there will be left no land to Harold. Summon all whom you may summon, cross the sea and seize his lands; for no brave man should begin a matter and not carry it on to the end."
3. Then William sent messengers to Harold to call upon him to keep the oath that he had sworn; but Harold replied in scorn that he would not marry his daughter, nor give up his land to him. And William sent to him his defiance; but Harold answered that he feared him not, and he drove all the Normans out of the land, with their wives and children, for King Edward had given them lands and castles, but Harold chased them out of the country; neither would he let one remain. And at Christmas he took the crown, but it would have been well for himself and his land if he had not been crowned, since for the kingdom he perjured himself, and his reign lasted but a short space.
4. Then Duke William called together his barons, and told them all his will, and how Harold had wronged him, and that he would cross the sea and revenge himself; but without their aid he could not gather men enough, nor a large navy; therefore, he would know of each one of them how many men and ships he would bring. And they prayed for leave to take counsel together, and the duke granted their request. And their deliberations lasted long, for many complained that their burdens were heavy, and some said that they would bring ships and cross the sea with the duke, and others said they would not go, for they were in debt and poor. Thus some would and some would not, and there was great contention between them.
5. Then Fitz-Osbern came to them and said: "Wherefore dispute you, sirs? Ye should not fail your natural lord when he goes seeking honors. Ye owe him service for your fiefs, and where ye owe service ye should serve with all your power. Ask not delay, nor wait until he prays you; but go before, and offer him more than you can do. Let him not lament that his enterprise failed for your remissness." But they answered: "Sir, we fear the sea, and we owe no service across the sea. Speak for us, we pray you, and answer in our stead. Say what you will, and we will abide by your words." "Will ye all leave yourselves to me?" he said. And each one answered: "Yes. Let us go to the duke, and you shall speak for us."
6. And Fitz-Osbern turned himself about and went before him to the duke, and spoke for them, and he said: "Sir, no lord has such men as you have, and who will do so much for their lord's honor, and you ought to love and keep them well. For you they say they would be drowned in the sea or thrown into the fire. You may trust them well, for they have served you long and followed you at great cost. And if they have done well, they will do better; for they will pass the sea with you, and will double their service. For he who should bring twenty knights will gladly bring forty, and he who should serve you thirty will bring sixty, and he from whom one hundred is due will willingly bring two hundred. And I, in loving loyalty, will bring in my lord's business sixty ships, well arrayed and laden with fighting men."
7. But the barons marveled at him, and murmured aloud at the words that he spake and the promises he made, for which they had given him no warrant. And many contradicted him, and there arose a noise and loud disturbance among them; for they feared that if they doubled their service it would become a custom, and be turned into a feudal right. And the noise and outcry became so great that a man could not hear what his fellow said. Then the duke went aside, for the noise displeased him, and sent for the barons one by one, and spoke to each one of the greatness of the enterprise, and that if they would double their service, and do freely more than their due, it should be well for them, and that he would never make it a custom, nor require of them any service more than was the usage of the country, and such as their ancestors had paid to their lord. Then each one said he would do it, and he told how many ships he would bring, and the duke had them all written down in brief. Bishop Odo, his brother, brought him forty ships, and the Bishop of Le Mans prepared thirty, with their mariners and pilots. And the duke prayed his neighbors of Brittany, Anjou, and Maine, Ponthieu, and Boulogne, to aid him in this business; and he promised them lands if England were conquered, and rich gifts and large pay. Thus from all sides came soldiers to him.
8. Then he showed the matter to his lord the King of France, and he sought him at St. Germer, and found him there; and he said that he would aid him, so that by his aid he won his right, he would hold England from him and serve him for it. But the king answered that he would not aid him, neither with his will should he pass the sea; for the French prayed him not to aid him, saying he was too strong already, and that if he let him add riches from over the sea to his lands of Normandy and all his good knights, there would never be peace. "And when England shall be conquered," said they, "you will hear no more of his service. He pays little service now, but then it will be less. The more he has, the less he will do."
9. So the duke took leave of the king, and came away in a rage, saying: "Sir, I go to do the best I can, and if God will that I gain my right you shall see me no more but for evil. And if I fail, and the English can defend themselves, my children shall inherit my lands, and thou shalt not conquer them. Living or dead, I fear no menace!"
10. Then the duke sent to Rome clerks that were skilled in speech, and they told the Pope how Harold had sworn falsely, and that Duke William promised that if he conquered England he would hold it of St. Peter. And the Pope sent him a standard and a very precious ring, and underneath the stone there was, it is said, a hair of St. Peter's. And about that time there appeared a great star shining in the south with very long rays, such a star as is seen when a kingdom is about to have a new king. I have spoken with many men who saw it, and those who are cunning in the stars call it a comet.
11. Then the duke called together carpenters and ship-builders, and in all the ports of Normandy there was sawing of planks and carrying of wood, spreading of sails and setting up of masts, with great labor and industry. Thus all the summer long and through the month of August they made ready the fleet and assembled the men; for there was no knight in all the land, nor any good sergeant, nor archer, nor any peasant of good courage, of age to fight, whom the duke did not summon to go with him to England.
12. When the ships were ready, they were anchored in the Somme at St. Valery. And as the renown of the duke went abroad there came to him soldiers one by one or two by two, and the duke kept them with him, and promised them much. And some asked for lands in England, and others pay and large gifts. But I will not write down what barons, knights, and soldiers the duke had in his company; but I have heard my father say (I remember it well, though I was but a boy) that there were seven hundred ships, save four, when they left St. Valery—ships, and boats, and little skiffs. But I found it written (I know not the truth) that there were three thousand ships carrying sails and masts.
13. And at St. Valery they tarried long for a favorable wind, and the barons grew weary with waiting; and they prayed those of the convent to bring out to the camp the shrine of St. Valery, and they came to it and prayed they might cross the sea, and they offered money till all the holy body was covered with it, and the same day there sprang up a favorable wind. Then the duke put a lantern on the mast of his ship, that the other ships might see it and keep their course near, and an ensign of gilded copper on the top; and at the head of the ships, which mariners call the prow, there was a child made of copper holding a bow and arrow, and he had his face toward England, and seemed about to shoot.
14. Thus the ships came to port, and they all arrived together and anchored together on the beach, and together they all disembarked. And it was near Hastings, and the ships lay side by side. And the good sailors and sergeants and esquires sprang out, and cast anchor, and fastened the ships with ropes; and they brought out their shields and saddles, and led forth the horses.
15. The archers were the first to come to land, every one with his bow and his quiver and arrows by his side, all shaven and dressed in short tunics, ready for battle and of good courage; and they searched all the beach, but no armed man could they find. When they were issued forth, then came the knights in armor, with helmet laced and shield on neck, and together they came to the sand and mounted their war-horses; and they had their swords at their sides, and rode with lances raised. The barons had their standards and the knights their pennons. After them came the carpenters, with their axes in their hands and their tools hanging by their side. And when they came to the archers and to the knights they took counsel together, and brought wood from the ships and fastened it together with bolts and bars, and before the evening was well come they had made themselves a strong fort. And they lighted fires and cooked food, and the duke and his barons and knights sat down to eat; and they all ate and drank plentifully and rejoiced that they were come to land.
16. When the duke came forth of his ship he fell on his hands to the ground, and there rose a great cry, for all said it was an evil sign; but he cried aloud: "Lords, I have seized the land with my two hands, and will never yield it. All is ours." Then a man ran to land and laid his hand upon a cottage, and took a handful of the thatch, and returned to the duke. "Sir," said he, "take seizin of the land; yours is the land without doubt." Then the duke commanded the mariners to draw all the ships to land and pierce holes in them and break them to pieces, for they should never return by the way they had come.
"Belt and Spur," Stories of the Old Knights.
XLI.—THE NORMAN CONQUEST.
1. Poor old Edward the Confessor, holy, weak, and sad, lay in his new choir of Westminster—where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. The crowned ascetic had left no heir behind. England seemed as a corpse, to which all the eagles might gather together; and the South-English, in their utter need, had chosen for their king the ablest, and it may be the justest, man in Britain—Earl Harold Godwinson: himself, like half the upper classes of England then, of all-dominant Norse blood; for his mother was a Danish princess.
Edward the Confessor's Tomb.
2. Then out of Norway, with a mighty host, came Harold Hardraade, taller than all men, the ideal Viking of his time. He had been away to Russia to King Jaroslaf; he had been in the Emperor's Varanger guard at Constantinople—and, it was whispered, had slain a lion there with his bare hands; he had carved his name and his comrades' in Runic characters—if you go to Venice you may see them at this day—on the loins of the great marble lion, which stood in his time not in Venice but in Athens. And now, King of Norway and conqueror, for the time, of Denmark, why should he not take England, as Sweyn and Canute took it sixty years before, when the flower of the English gentry perished at the fatal battle of Assingdune? If he and his half-barbarous host had conquered, the civilization of Britain would have been thrown back, perhaps, for centuries. But it was not to be.
3. England was to be conquered by the Normans; but by the civilized, not the barbaric; by the Norse who had settled, but four generations before, in the northeast of France under Rou, Rollo, Rolf the Ganger, so called, they say, because his legs were so long that, when on horseback, he touched the ground and seemed to gang, or walk. He and his Norsemen had taken their share of France, and called it Normandy to this day; and meanwhile, with that docility and adaptability which marks so often truly great spirits, they changed their creed, their language, their habits, and had become, from heathen and murderous Berserkers, the most truly civilized people in Europe, and—as was most natural then—the most faithful allies and servants of the Pope of Rome. So greatly had they changed, and so fast, that William Duke of Normandy, the great-great grandson of Rolf the wild Viking, was perhaps the finest gentleman, as well as the most cultivated sovereign and the greatest statesman and warrior in Europe.
4. So Harold of Norway came with all his Vikings to Stamford Bridge by York; and took, by coming, only that which Harold of England promised him, namely, "forasmuch as he was taller than any other man, seven feet of English ground."
5. The story of that great battle, told with a few inaccuracies, but as only great poets tell, you should read, if you have not read it already, in the "Heimskringla" of Snorri Sturluson, the Homer of the North:
High feast that day held the birds of the air and the beasts of the field,
White-tailed erm and sallow glede,
Dusky raven, with horny neb,
And the gray deer the wolf of the wood.
The bones of the slain, men say, whitened the place for fifty years to come.
6. And remember that on the same day on which that fight befell—September 27, 1066—William, Duke of Normandy, with all his French-speaking Norsemen, was sailing across the British Channel, under the protection of a banner consecrated by the Pope, to conquer that England which the Norse-speaking Normans could not conquer.
7. And now King Harold showed himself a man. He turned at once from the north of England to the south. He raised the folk of the southern, as he had raised those of the central and northern shires, and in sixteen days—after a march which in those times was a prodigious feat—he was intrenched upon the fatal down which men called Heathfield then, and Senlac, but Battle to this day—with William and his French Normans opposite him on Telham Hill.
8. Then came the battle of Hastings. You all know what befell upon that day, and how the old weapon was matched against the new—the English axe against the Norman lance—and beaten only because the English broke their ranks.
9. It was a fearful time which followed. I can not but believe that our forefathers had been, in some way or other, great sinners, or two such conquests as Canute's and William's would not have fallen on them within the short space of sixty years. They did not want for courage, as Stamford Brigg and Hastings showed full well. English swine, their Norman conquerors called them often enough, but never English cowards.
10. Their ruinous vice, if we trust the records of the time, was what the old monks called accidia, and ranked it as one of the seven deadly sins: a general careless, sleepy, comfortable habit of mind, which lets all go its way for good or evil—a habit of mind too often accompanied, as in the case of the Anglo-Danes, with self-indulgence, often coarse enough. Huge eaters and huger drinkers, fuddled with ale, were the men who went down at Hastings—though they went down like heroes—before the staid and sober Norman out of France.
11. But these were fearful times. As long as William lived, ruthless as he was to all rebels, he kept order and did justice with a strong and steady hand; for he brought with him from Normandy the instincts of a truly great statesman. And in his sons' time matters grew worse and worse. After that, in the troubles of Stephen's reign, anarchy let loose tyranny in its most fearful form, and things were done which recall the cruelties of the old Spanish conquistadores in America. Scott's charming romance of "Ivanhoe" must be taken, I fear, as a too true picture of English society in the time of Richard I.
Battle Abbey.
12. And what came of it all? What was the result of all this misery and wrong? This, paradoxical as it may seem: that the Norman conquest was the making of the English people; of the free commons of England.
13. Paradoxical, but true. First, you must dismiss from your minds the too common notion that there is now in England a governing Norman aristocracy, or that there has been one, at least since the year 1215, when the Magna Charta was won from the Norman John by Normans and by English alike. For the first victors at Hastings, like the first conquistadores in America, perished, as the monk chronicles point out, rapidly by their own crimes; and very few of our nobility can trace their names back to the authentic Battle Abbey roll.
14. The cause is plain: The conquest of England by the Normans was not one of those conquests of a savage by a civilized race, or of a cowardly race by a brave race, which results in the slavery of the conquered, and leaves the gulf of caste between two races—master and slave. The vast majority, all but the whole population of England, have always been free, and free as they are not when caste exists to change their occupations. They could intermarry, if they were able men, into the rank above them; as they could sink, if they were unable men, into the rank below them.
15. Nay, so utterly made up now is the old blood-feud between Norman and Englishman, between the descendants of those who conquered and those who were conquered, that, in the children of the Prince of Wales, after eight hundred years, the blood of William of Normandy is mingled with the blood of Harold, who fell at Hastings. And so, by the bitter woes which followed the Norman conquest was the whole population, Dane, Angle, and Saxon, earl and churl, freeman and slave, crushed and welded together into one homogeneous mass, made just and merciful toward each other by the most wholesome of all teachings, a community of suffering; and if they had been, as I fear they were, a lazy and a sensual people, were taught—
That life is not as idle ore,
But heated hot with burning fears,
And bathed in baths of hissing tears,
And battered with the strokes of doom
To shape and use.
Charles Kingsley.
XLII.—KING RICHARD CŒUR DE LION IN
THE HOLY LAND.
1. At the end of August, 1191, Richard led his crusading troops from Acre into the midst of the wilderness of Mount Carmel, where their sufferings were terrible; the rocky, sandy, and uneven ground was covered with bushes full of long, sharp prickles, and swarms of noxious insects buzzed in the air, fevering the Europeans with their stings; and in addition to these natural obstacles, multitudes of Arab horsemen harrassed them on every side, slaughtering every straggler who dropped behind from fatigue, and attacking them so unceasingly that it was remarked, that throughout their day's track there was not one space of four feet without an arrow sticking in the ground. Richard fought indefatigably, always in the van, and ready to reward the gallant exploits of his knights. A young knight who bore a white shield, in hopes of gaining some honorable bearing, so distinguished himself that Richard thus greeted him at the close of the day: "Maiden knight, you have borne yourself as a lion, and done the deed of six crusaders."
Battle of Arsaaf.
2. At Arsaaf, on the 7th of September, a great battle was fought. Saladin and his brother had almost defeated the two religious orders (the Templars and the Hospitallers), and the gallant French knight Jacques d'Avesne, after losing his leg by a stroke from a cimeter, fought bravely on, calling on the English king until he fell overpowered by numbers. Cœur de Lion and Guillaume des Barres retrieved the day, hewed down the enemy on all sides, and remained masters of the field. It is even said that Richard and Saladin met hand to hand, but this is uncertain. This victory opened the way to Joppa, where the crusaders spent the next month in the repair of the fortifications, while the Saracen forces lay at Ascalon.
3. While here, Richard often amused himself with hawking, and one day was asleep under a tree when he was aroused by the approach of a party of Saracens, and springing on his horse Frannelle, which had been taken at Cyprus, he rashly pursued them and fell into an ambush. Four knights were slain, and he would have been seized had not a Gascon knight named Guillaume des Parcelets called out that he himself was the Malak Rik (great king), and allowed himself to be taken. Richard offered ten noble Saracens in exchange for this generous knight, whom Saladin restored together with a valuable horse that had been captured at the same time. A present of another Arab steed accompanied them; but Richard's half-brother, William Longsword, insisted on trying the animal before the king should mount it. No sooner was he on its back, than it dashed at once across the country, and before he could stop it he found himself in the midst of the enemy's camp. The two Saracen princes were extremely shocked and distressed lest this should be supposed a trick, and instantly escorted Longsword back with a gift of three chargers, which proved to be more manageable.
4. From Joppa the crusaders marched to Ramla, and thence, on New Year's Day, 1192, set out for Jerusalem through a country full of greater obstacles than they had yet encountered. They were too full of spirit to be discouraged until they came to Bethany, where the two Grand Masters represented to Richard the imprudence of laying siege to such fortifications as those of Jerusalem at such a season of the year, while Ascalon was ready in his rear for a post whence the enemy would attack him.
5. He yielded, and retreated to Ascalon, which Saladin had ruined and abandoned, and began eagerly to repair the fortifications so as to be able to leave a garrison there. The soldiers grumbled, saying they had not come to Palestine to build Ascalon, but to conquer Jerusalem; whereupon Richard set the example of himself carrying stones, and called on Leopold, the Duke of Austria, to do the same. The sulky reply, "He was not the son of a mason," so irritated Richard, that he struck him a blow; Leopold straightway quitted the army, and returned to Austria.
6. It was not without great grief and many struggles that Cœur de Lion finally gave up his hopes of taking Jerusalem. He again advanced as far as Bethany; but a quarrel with Hugh of Burgundy, and the defection of the Austrians made it impossible for him to proceed, and he turned back to Ramla. While riding out with a party of knights, one of them called out, "This way, my lord, and you will see Jerusalem." "Alas!" said Richard, hiding his face with his mantle, "those who are not worthy to win the Holy City are not worthy to behold it." He returned to Acre; but there hearing that Saladin was besieging Joppa, he embarked his troops and sailed to its aid.
7. The crescent (the standard of the Saracens) shone on its walls as he entered the harbor; but while he looked on in dismay, he was hailed by a priest who had leaped into the sea and swum out to inform him that there was yet time to rescue the garrison, though the town was in the hands of the enemy. He hurried his vessel forward, leaped into the water breast-high, dashed upward on the shore, ordered his immediate followers to raise a bulwark of casks and beams to protect the landing of the rest, and rushing up a flight of steps, entered the city alone. "St. George! St. George!" That cry dismayed the infidels, and those in the town to the number of three thousand fled in the utmost confusion, and were pursued for two miles by three knights who had been fortunate enough to find him.
8. Richard pitched his tent outside the walls, and remained there with so few troops that all were contained in ten tents. Very early one morning, before the king was out of bed, a man rushed into his tent, crying out: "O king! we are all dead men!" Springing up, Richard fiercely silenced him: "Peace! or thou diest by my hand!" Then, while hastily donning his suit of mail, he heard that the glitter of arms had been seen in the distance, and in another moment the enemy were upon them, seven thousand in number. Richard had neither helmet nor shield, and only seventeen of his knights had horses; but undaunted he drew up his little force in a compact body, the knights kneeling on one knee covered by their shields, their lances pointing outward, and between each pair an archer with an assistant to load his cross-bow; and he stood in the midst encouraging them with his voice, and threatening to cut off the head of the first who turned to fly. In vain did the Saracens charge that mass of brave men, not one seventh of their number; the shields and lances were impenetrable; and without one forward step or one bolt from the cross-bows, their passive steadiness turned back wave after wave of the enemy.
9. At last the king gave the word for the cross-bowmen to advance, while he, with the seventeen mounted knights charged, lance in rest. His curtal axe bore down all before it, and he dashed like lightning from one part of the plain to another, with not a moment to smile at the opportune gift from the polite Malek-el-Afdal, who, in the hottest of the fight, sent him two fine horses, desiring him to use them in escaping from this dreadful peril. Little did the Saracen princes imagine that they would find him victorious, and that they would mount two more pursuers!
10. Next came a terrified fugitive with news that three thousand Saracens had entered Joppa! Richard summoned a few knights, and without a word to the rest galloped back into the city. The panic inspired by his presence instantly cleared the streets, and riding back, he again led his troops to the charge; but such were the swarms of Saracens, that it was not till evening that the Christians could give themselves a moment's rest, or look round and feel that they had gained one of the most wonderful of victories. Since daybreak Richard had not laid aside his sword or axe, and his hand was all over blistered. No wonder that the terror of his name endured for centuries in Palestine, and that the Arab chided his starting horse with, "Dost think that yonder is the Malek Rik?" while the mother stilled her crying child by threats that the Malek Rik should take it.
11. These violent exertions seriously injured Richard's health, and a low fever placed him in great danger, as well as several of his best knights. No command or persuasion could induce the rest to commence any enterprise without him, and the tidings from Europe induced him to conclude a peace and return home. Malek-el-Afdal came to visit him, and a truce was signed for three years, three months, three weeks, three days, three hours, and three minutes, thus so quaintly arranged in accordance with some astrological views of the Saracens. Ascalon was to be demolished on condition that free access to Jerusalem was to be allowed to the pilgrims; but Saladin would not restore the piece of the True Cross, as he was resolved not to conduce to what he considered idolatry.
12. Richard sent notice that he was coming back with double his present force to effect the conquest, and the Sultan answered, that if the Holy City was to pass into Frank hands, none could be nobler than those of the Malek Rik. Fever and debility detained Richard a month longer at Joppa, during which time he sent the Bishop of Salisbury to carry his offerings to Jerusalem. The prelate was invited to the presence of Saladin, who spoke in high terms of Richard's courage, but censured his rash exposure of his own life. On October 9, 1193, Cœur de Lion took leave of Palestine, watching with tears its receding shores, as he exclaimed, "O, Holy Land, I commend thee and thy people unto God. May He grant me yet to return to aid thee!"
Charlotte M. Yonge.
XLIII.—KING JOHN AND THE CHARTER.
1. On his return from the crusade Richard was taken prisoner by the Duke of Austria. He bought his release only to find King Philip attacking his French dominions, and to plunge into wearisome and indecisive wars, in the midst of which he was slain at the Castle of Chaluz. His brother John, who followed him on the throne, was a vile and weak ruler, under whom the great sovereignty built up by Henry II broke utterly down. Normandy, Maine, and Anjou were reft from him by Philip of France, and only Aquitaine remained to him on that side of the sea. In England his lust and oppression drove people and nobles to join in resistance to him; and their resistance found a great leader in the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton.
2. From the moment of his landing in England, Stephen Langton had taken up the constitutional position of the primate in upholding the old customs and rights of the realm against the personal despotism of the kings. As Anselm had withstood William the Red, as Theobald had withstood Stephen, so Langton prepared to withstand and rescue his country from the tyranny of John. He had already forced him to swear to observe the laws of Edward the Confessor, in other words the traditional liberties of the realm. When the baronage refused to sail for Poitou, saying that they owed service to him in England, but not in foreign lands, he compelled the king to deal with them not by arms, but by process of law. But the work which he now undertook was far greater and weightier than this. The pledges of Henry the First had long been forgotten when the justiciar brought them to light, but Langton saw the vast importance of such a precedent. At the close of the month he produced Henry's charter in a fresh gathering of barons at St. Paul's, and it was at once welcomed as a base for the needed reforms. From London Langton hastened to the king, whom he reached at Northampton on his way to attack the nobles of the north, and wrested from him a promise to bring his strife with them to legal judgment before assailing them in arms.
3. With his enemies gathering abroad, John had doubtless no wish to be entangled in a long quarrel at home, and the archbishop's mediation allowed him to withdraw with seeming dignity. After a demonstration therefore at Durham John marched hastily south again, and reached London in October. His justiciar Geoffry Fitz-Peter at once laid before him the claims of the Council of St. Alban's and St. Paul's, but the death of Geoffry at this juncture freed him from the pressure which his minister was putting upon him. "Now, by God's feet," cried John, "I am for the first time king and lord of England," and he intrusted the vacant justiciarship to a Poitevin, Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, whose temper was in harmony with his own. But the death of Geoffry only called the archbishop to the front, and Langton at once demanded the king's assent to the charter of Henry the First.
4. In seizing on this charter as a basis for national action, Langton showed a political ability of the highest order. The enthusiasm with which its recital was welcomed showed the sagacity with which the archbishop had chosen his ground. From that moment the baronage was no longer drawn together in secret conspiracies by a sense of common wrong or a vague longing for common deliverance; they were openly united in a definite claim of national freedom and national law. Secretly, and on the pretext of pilgrimage, the nobles met at St. Edmundsbury, resolute to bear no longer with John's delays. If he refused to restore their liberties they swore to make war on him till he confirmed them by charter under the king's seal, and they parted to raise forces with the purpose of presenting their demands at Christmas. John, knowing nothing of the coming storm, pursued his policy of winning over the Church by granting it freedom of election, while he imbittered still more the strife with his nobles by demanding scutage [A] from the northern nobles who had refused to follow him to Poitou. But the barons were now ready to act, and early in January, in the memorable year 1215, they appeared in arms to lay, as they had planned, their demands before the king.
5. John was taken by surprise. He asked for a truce till Easter-tide, and spent the interval in fevered efforts to avoid the blow. Again he offered freedom to the Church, and took vows as a crusader against whom war was a sacrilege, while he called for a general oath of allegiance and fealty from the whole body of his subjects. But month after month only showed the king the uselessness of further resistance. Though Pandulf, the Pope's legate, was with him, his vassalage had as yet brought little fruit in the way of aid from Rome; the commissioners whom he sent to plead his cause at the shire courts brought back news that no man would help him against the charter that the barons claimed; and his efforts to detach the clergy from the league of his opponents utterly failed. The nation was against the king. He was far indeed from being utterly deserted. His ministers still clung to him, men such as Geoffry de Lucy, Geoffry de Furnival, Thomas Basset, and William Briwere, statesmen trained in the administrative school of his father, and who, dissent as they might from John's mere oppression, still looked on the power of the crown as the one barrier against feudal anarchy; and beside them stood some of the great nobles of royal blood, Earl William of Salisbury, his cousin Earl William of Warenne, and Henry, Earl of Cornwall, a grandson of Henry the First. With him too remained Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and the wisest and noblest of the barons, William Marshal, the elder Earl of Pembroke. William Marshal had shared in the rising of the younger Henry against Henry II, and stood by him as he died; he had shared in the overthrow of William Longchamp, and in the outlawry of John. He was now an old man, firm, as we shall see in his aftercourse, to recall the government to the path of freedom and law, but shrinking from a strife which might bring back the anarchy of Stephen's day, and looking for reforms rather in the bringing constitutional pressure to bear upon the king than in forcing them from him by arms.
6. But cling as such men might to John, they clung to him rather as mediators than adherents. Their sympathies went with the demands of the barons when the delay which had been granted was over and the nobles again gathered in arms at Brackley in Northamptonshire to lay their claims before the king. Nothing marks more strongly the absolutely despotic idea of his sovereignty which John had formed than the passionate surprise which breaks out in his reply. "Why do they not ask for my kingdom?" he cried. "I will never grant such liberties as will make me a slave!" The imperialist theories of the lawyers of his father's court had done their work. Held at bay by the practical sense of Henry, they had told on the more headstrong nature of his sons. Richard and John both held with Glanvill that the will of the prince was the law of the land; and to fetter that will by the customs and franchises which were embodied in the baron's claims seemed to John a monstrous usurpation of his rights.
King John and the Charter.
7. But no imperialist theories had touched the minds of his people. The country rose as one man at his refusal. At the close of May, London threw open her gates to the forces of the barons, now arrayed under Robert Fitz Walter as "Marshal of the Army of God and Holy Church." Exeter and Lincoln followed the example of the capital; promises of aid came from Scotland and Wales, the northern barons marched hastily under Eustace de Vesci to join their comrades in London. Even the nobles who had as yet clung to the king, but whose hopes of conciliation were blasted by his obstinacy, yielded at last to the summons of the "Army of God." Pandulf, indeed, and Archbishop Langton still remained with John, but they counseled as Earl Ranulf and William Marshal counseled his acceptance of the charter. None, in fact, counseled its rejection save his new justiciar, the Poitevin Peter des Roches and other foreigners who knew the barons purposed driving them from the land. But even the number of these was small; there was a moment when John found himself with but seven knights at his back and before him a nation in arms. Quick as he was, he had been taken utterly by surprise. It was in vain that in the short respite he had gained from Christmas to Easter, he had summoned mercenaries to his aid and appealed to his new suzerain, the Pope. Summons and appeal were alike too late. Nursing wrath in his heart, John bowed to necessity, and called the barons to a conference on an island in the Thames between Windsor and Staines, near a marshy meadow by the river-side, the meadow of Runnymede.
8. The king encamped on one bank of the river, the barons covered the flat of Runnymede on the other. Their delegates met on the 15th of July in the island between them, but the negotiations were a mere cloak to cover John's purpose of unconditional submission. The Great Charter was discussed and agreed to in a single day.
John Richard Green.