Cedric, the Forester

by Bernard Gay Marshall

I was in Stamford in the year of the Great Charter of King John. Half the knights and barons of all England with a goodly following of men-at-arms and yeomanry had been assembled under the banner of our stout Marshal, Fitz Walter, and had seized by force and arms full many royal castles. Now, at the end of a truce which to no avail had been secured by the Archbishop, we were ready to march towards London to bring to terms our most crafty and tyrannic lord and king. For years he had dealt in plots and scheming to overreach the great and strong among the baronry, and from the weaker seized their lands and goods at will and oft threw their persons into durance to further his gross ends of gain or vengeance. Now some hundreds of the barons of the North, with a dozen or more of us from the West counties and the Welsh Marches, and a sprinkling of churchmen, who no less than ourselves had suffered from the King’s o’erreaching, were gathered in Bermondsey Hall to agree, if we might, upon a scroll of the grievances that the King must remedy when our further assaults should have forced him to sue for peace.

Geoffrey, Lord of Carleton and Teramore, leader of a hundred lances and half a thousand bowmen, rose from his seat amid a clamor of disputing voices and saluted the Marshal and the assembled company.

“I propose, my lords and gentlemen,” he said in that high, sweet voice of his which yet is far-heard and commanding, “the name of Sir Cedric De La Roche, Knight of Grimsby and bold defender of our Western Marches, for the fifth and final member of this group. He is a brave man and true; and hath, as we often say in the West, a head as well as an arm. He is both soldier and scholar, forsooth, and knoweth more of the Latin tongue than any layman among us. You have named Sir Richard of Mountjoy to serve you in this matter because, three months agone, he took the Castle of Tournoy which the King’s men were strongly holding with greater forces than his own and from whence they might have sorely threatened us. But most of you know not that ’twas Cedric De La Roche who gained entrance to the castle in disguise, and full well deceived the garrison, then at midnight overpowered, gagged and bound the sentinel at a little postern gate, threw it open and admitted the Mountjoys. Lacking him and his stratagem we might still be hammering at the walls of Tournoy and our whole campaign be sore delayed.”

“For the Latin we have the Abbot of Moberley,” said old Lord Esmond from his seat on one of the benches at the right. “What need have we of another clerk?”

“The Reverend Abbot,” answered Carleton, “will do the cause good service, I doubt not, in making clear for our Commissioners the substance of old scrolls and charters which they must study, and mayhap in inditing in fair Latin hand the articles which we present to the King. In his hands we may be sure the interests of his order, and particularly of the Abbey of Moberley, will not suffer. But I say ’tis well that we of the baronage have a representative of our own number who can see that this scroll, for which we risk our lives and fortunes, truly and amply provides for remedy of the wrongs we suffer.”

“And I say,” shouted Lord Esmond, springing to his feet the instant Carleton had finished, “that if we are to have a representative of our order in the inditing of this scroll, as my Lord Carleton says, we should have a representative indeed. De La Roche is a true man and a capable soldier, as none will deny; but we have here many lords and gentlemen of longer service and of purest Norman blood. The Knight of Grimsby, as all may know, is yeoman and Saxon born. Such a man, be he never so learned, must ever think as the folk from whom he sprung and can never rightly guard our rights and privileges.”

For an hour we had debated of our wrongs and the measures that should put an end to them, each speaker being fiercely bent upon the thing that should lift the oppression that had borne most heavily upon him and caring little for aught else. But finally ’twas seen that the whole assembly could accomplish naught but argument and loud bickering, and that the writing of the scroll must be done by a few chosen men who should later bring their work before the whole body of leaders for their assent and undertaking. Two of the oldest of the northern leaders, the Baron De Longville and the Lord of Esmond, had been first named, then the learned and courtier-like Abbot of Moberley who was beneath the insurgent banner because of the King’s high-handed procedure in the matter of Moberley Abbey, where, during the absence on pilgrimage of the rightful holder, he had declared the abbacy vacant and conferred it with all its lands upon one of his shameless favorites from Normandy. A moment before, my own name had been added to the list in recognition of the services of the Western lords that had well broken the power of the King in all their countryside.

Following Lord Esmond’s bitter speech, came shouts of approval from some of the other northerners; and it seemed like that my old friend and comrade would be deprived of the honor which Geoffrey of Carleton had sought to have conferred upon him. But the venerable De Lacey, long the Lord High Constable of England, and still a power in the land, though bent and snowy-haired with age, rose slowly to his feet and addressed the Marshal and the company:

“My lords: ’tis well for those to talk who know whereof they speak. Years agone I knighted Cedric De La Roche for knightliest service at the Battle of the Pass where verily he changed defeat to victory. Since that time he hath many a time and oft served under me and others, always to the welfare of the Kingdom and the enhancement of his name. Lord Esmond says that Cedric De La Roche comes not of noble family. I ask of you, my lords, who made our families noble but some hard-smiting ancestors we had that served not better, I warrant you, than this man of whom we speak. And I have seen his lands of Grimsby and the stout and loyal men who do willingly follow him, and know full well he can think and plan as well as strike. Finally, my lords, ’tis not the tale of his father’s or his grandfather’s deeds but of his very own that should guide the choosing of a man for a time of need.”

At this, still louder shouts burst forth, especially from the younger men; and some did loudly call Sir Cedric’s name, insisting that he serve. When partial silence came once more, the Marshal brought all question to an end by announcing all the names of the group and ending with that of Cedric De La Roche. Then, it being near the supper hour, the company broke up amid cheering and noisy overthrow of benches and the clamor of many voices in eager talk of the day’s events.