Heroines of the Crusades

by C. A. Bloss

“Reginald,” said he, “I have granted thee many favors, what is thy object now? If thou seekest my life, I command thee, in the name of God, not to touch one of my people.”

“I come not to take life,” replied Reginald, “but to witness the absolution of the bishops.”

“Till they offer satisfaction I shall never absolve them,” said the prelate.

“Then die!” exclaimed the knight, aiming a blow at his head. The attendant interposed his arm, which was broken, and the force of the stroke bore away the prelate’s cap, and wounded him on the crown. As he felt the blood trickling down his face, he joined his hands and bowed his head, saying, “In the name of Christ, and for the defence of his church I am ready to die.” Turning thus towards his murderers, he waited a second stroke, which threw him on his knees, and the third prostrated him on the floor, at the foot of St. Bennett’s altar. He made no effort towards resistance or escape, and without a groan expired. The assassins instantly fled, and the people, who had by this time assembled, crowded into the cathedral. The priests with pious reverence took up the body of the dead archbishop, and laid it in state before the high altar. They tore his garments in pieces, and distributed each shred as a sacred relic. The devout wiped up his blood and treasured the holy stains, and the more fortunate obtained a lock of hair from his honored head. Becket was interred with great solemnity in Canterbury cathedral, and all the power he had exercised in life was but a trifle to the influence of the miracles wrought at his tomb.

Henry was celebrating the holidays in Normandy, when the news of this event threw him into the deepest melancholy. The train of calamities, which would inevitably follow the curse of the church, made him tremble for his throne, and the natural horror of the crime alarmed his imagination and partially disordered his reason. He knew not how to receive the murderers, nor yet how to treat with the pope, and finally concluded to give the matter over to the judgment of the spiritual courts. The assassins in consequence travelled to Rome, and were sentenced by way of expiation to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. To evade meeting the legates of the pope, Henry determined to seize this opportunity for his long meditated invasion of Ireland.

The same month that witnessed the splendid coronation of Henry and Eleanor, had been signalized by the succession of Nicholas Breakspear, to the throne of the Vatican. This prelate, consecrated under the name of Adrian IV. was the only Englishman that ever sat in the chair of St. Peter; and his partiality for his native sovereign had led him to bestow upon Henry, a grant of the dominion of Ireland. Now when troubles arose in that province and circumstances rendered absence from his own dominions desirable, the king led an army into Ireland.

From the time of the marriage of her daughter Matilda with the Lion of Saxony, Eleanor had not visited England. The arrival of Becket’s messenger in Bordeaux, conveyed to her the first intelligence of the prelate’s death; and the mysterious word Woodstock, immediately revived a half-forgotten suspicion excited by the stratagems of Henry, to prevent her return to her favorite residence. Her woman’s curiosity prevailed over her love of power, and she intrusted the regency to her son Henry, repaired to England, and lost no time on her way to Woodstock. As she approached the palace, her keen eye scanned every circumstance that might lead curiosity or lull suspicion, but with the exception of a deserted and unkept look, the appearance of the place indicated no marked change. Though she came with a small train and unannounced, the drawbridge was instantly lowered for her entrance, and the aged porter received her with a smile of unfeigned satisfaction. The state rooms were thrown open and hastily fitted up for the reception of the royal inmates, and the servants, wearied with the listless inactivity of a life without motive or excitement, bustled about the castle and executed the commands of their mistress, with the most joyful alacrity. Under pretence of superintending additions and repairs, Queen Eleanor ordered carpenters and masons, who under her eye, visited every apartment, sounded every wall, and tore off every panel, where by any possibility an individual might be concealed. She did not hesitate even to penetrate the dungeons under the castle; and whenever the superstition of the domestics made them hesitate in mortal terror, she would seize a torch and unattended thread her way through the darkest and dampest subterranean passages of the gloomy vaults. All these investigations led to no discovery. The pleasance offered little to invite her search. It had been originally laid out in the stiff and tasteless manner of the age, with straight walks and close clipped shrubbery, but so long neglected it was a tangled maze, to which her eye could detect no entrance. Below the pleasance the postern by a wicket gate communicated with a park, which was separated only by a stile from the great forest of Oxfordshire. Mounted on her Spanish jennet, Eleanor galloped through this park and sometimes ventured into the forest beyond, and she soon discovered that the attendants avoided a thicket which skirted the park wall. Commanding the grooms to lead in that direction, she was informed that it was the ruins of the old menagerie, located there by Henry I., overgrown by thorns and ivy and trees, that shut out the light of the sun. The aged porter assured her that no one had entered it in his day, that wild beasts still howled therein, and that the common people deemed it dangerous to visit its vicinity. He added, that one youth who had charge of the wicket, had been carried off and never again seen; and that all the exorcisms of the priests could never lay the ghost. The old man crossed himself in devout horror and turned away; but the queen commanded him to hold the bridle of her horse, while she should attempt the haunted precincts alone. The thick underwood resisted all her efforts, and she found it impossible to advance but a few steps, though her unwonted intrusion aroused the beetles and bats, awakened the chatter of monkeys and the startled twitter of birds, and gave her a glimpse of what she thought were the glaring eyeballs of a wolf. A solemn owl flew out above her head as she once more emerged into the light of day, and the timid porter welcomed her return with numerous ejaculations of thanksgiving to the watchful saints; but he shook his head with great gravity as he assisted her to remount saying,

“I would yon dismal bird had kept his perch in the hollow oak. Our proverb says, ‘Woe follows the owl’s wing as blood follows the steel.’”

Disappointed in the wood, Eleanor relinquished her fruitless search. But by dint of questioning she learned, that though the palace wore the appearance of desertion and decay, it had been the frequent resort of Henry and Becket, and since the favorite’s death, her husband had made it a flying visit before leaving for Ireland. Farther than this all inquiries were vain. The unexpected return of her husband, and his look of surprise and anxiety at finding her at Woodstock, again awakened all her jealous fears. His power of dissimulation, notwithstanding, kept her constantly at fault, and during the week of his stay, nothing was elicited to throw light upon the mystery. Henry had been negotiating with the pope to obtain absolution for Becket’s murder, and was now on his way to Normandy to meet the legates. The morning before his departure, Queen Eleanor saw him walking in the pleasance, and hastened to join him. As she approached she observed a thread of silk, attached to his spur and apparently extending through the walks of the shrubbery. Carefully breaking the thread she devoted herself by the most sedulous attention to her husband, till he set out for France, when she hastened back to the garden, and taking up the silk followed it through numerous turnings and windings till she came to a little open space near the garden wall, perfectly enclosed by shrubbery. The ball from which the thread was unwound lay upon the grass. There the path seemed to terminate; but her suspicions were now so far confirmed that she determined not to give up the pursuit. A broken bough, on which the leaves were not yet withered, riveted her attention, and pulling aside the branch she discovered a concealed door. With great difficulty she opened or rather lifted it, and descended by stairs winding beneath the castle wall. Ascending on the opposite side by a path so narrow that she could feel the earth and rocks on either hand, she emerged into what had formerly been the cave of a leopard, fitted up in the most fanciful manner with pebbles, mosses, and leaves. She made the entire circuit of the cave ere she discovered a place of egress: but at length pushing away a verdant screen, she advanced upon an open pathway which wound, now under the thick branches of trees, now through the dilapidated barriers that had prevented the forest denizens from making war upon each other, now among ruined lodges which the keepers of the wild beasts had formerly inhabited; but wherever she wandered she noted that some careful hand had planted tree, and shrub, and flower in such a manner as to conceal the face of decay and furnish in the midst of these sylvan shades a most delightful retreat. At last she found herself inextricably involved in a labyrinth whose apartments, divided by leafy partitions, seemed so numerous and so like each other as to render it impossible for her to form any idea of the distance she had come, or the point to which she must proceed. The sun was going down when by accident, she laid her hand upon the stile. Following its windings, though with great difficulty, she emerged into the path that terminated in the forest. The low howl of a wolf-dog quickened her steps, and she arrived at the palace breathless with fear and fatigue. Sleep scarcely visited her pillow. She revolved the matter over and over again in her mind. “Where could Henry find balls of silk? For whose pleasure and privacy was the labyrinth contrived? What hand had planted the rare exotic adjacent to the hawthorn and the sloe? Was this tortuous path the road to a mortal habitation? And who was the fair inmate?” She could hardly wait for the dawn of the morning, and when the morning came it only increased her impatience, for heavy clouds veiled the sun, and a continued rain confined her for several days to her apartments.

When she next set out on her voyage of discovery she took the necessary precaution to secure a hearty coadjutor in the person of Peyrol, who silently followed her with the faithfulness of early affection, wondering to what point their mysterious journey might tend. At the secret door she fastened a thread, and with more celerity than she had hoped, traced her former course to the labyrinth; with much difficulty she again found the stile, and after a diligent search perceived a rude stair, that winding around the base of a rock assumed a regular shapely form, till by a long arched passage it conducted to a tower screened by lofty trees, but commanding through the interstices of the foliage a view of the adjacent forest. Here all effort at concealment was at an end. The doors opened into rooms fitted up with all the appliances of wealth, and with a perfection of taste that showed that some female divinity presided there. Vases of fresh-culled flowers regaled the senses with rich perfume. A harp lay unstrung upon the table, a tambour frame on which was an unfinished picture of the Holy Family leaned against the wall, while balls of silk and children’s toys lay scattered around in playful disorder. Everything indicated that the tower had been recently occupied, but no inmate was to be found. Retracing their steps into the forest they proceeded by a well-beaten path along the banks of a little stream, to a pebbly basin in which the waters welled up with a faint murmur that spoke of rest and quiet. A sound of music made them pause, and they heard a low gentle voice followed by the lisping accents of a child chanting the evening hymn to the Virgin. Stepping stealthily along they saw, half shaded by a bower inwoven with myrtle and eglantine, a beautiful female kneeling before a crucifix hung with votive offerings. Her face was exquisitely fair, and her eyes raised to the holy symbol seemed to borrow their hue from the heavens above. A soft bloom suffused her cheek, and her coral lips parted in prayer revealed her pearly teeth. The delicate contour of her finely rounded throat and bust were displayed by her posture, and one dimpled shoulder was visible through the wavy masses of bright hair that enveloped her figure, as though the light of the golden sunset lingered lovingly about her. An infant, fairer if possible than the mother, with eyes of the same heavenly hue, lay by her side. He had drawn one tiny slipper from his foot, and delighted with his prize laughed in every feature and seemed crowing an accompaniment to her words. Startled by the sound of footsteps, the mother turned, and meeting the dark menacing gaze of Eleanor, snatched up the baby-boy, which clasped its little hands and looked up in her face, instinctively suiting the action of entreaty to the smile of confident affection. The elder boy before unnoticed advanced as if in doubt, whether to grieve or frown.