A Legend of Reading Abbey

by Charles MacFarlane

Matilda knelt and put her lips to that black slab (which she safely might do, for it was kept clear of all dirt and dust, it being the sole occupation of one of the lay brothers of our house to rub it every day and keep it clean), and she said an orison, of the shortest, and made some show of shedding tears; but then she quickly rose, and would have gone forth from the vault or cappella. But the lord abbat was not minded that the first visit paid by his daughter to the tomb of her father should pass off with so little ceremony and devotion; and, he himself taking the lead with his deep solemn voice, the Officium de Functorum, or Service for the Dead, was recited and chanted. The empress-queen was somewhat awed and moved, and there seemed to be penitential tears in her eyes as we chaunted "Beati Mortui qui in Domino moriuntur;" but at the last requiem "Æternam" she flung away from the place and began to talk with a loud shrill voice of worldly affairs and of battles and sieges—for the royal-born woman had the heart of a man and warrior, and her grandfather the great Conqueror was not more ambitious or avid of dominion than she.

When we had well feasted Matilda and those who followed her in the abbat's apartment, we hoped she would be gone, for it was a long and fine day of June, well nigh upon the feast of St. John, and she well might have ridden half way to Oxenford before nightfall; but she soon gave the abbat to understand that she had no intention of going so soon. Without blushing she did ask how and where we monks could lodge her and her women for the night, telling us that she could not think of sleeping in the town, seeing that it was but poorly defended by walls and bulwarks. The abbat looked at the prior, and all the fathers looked at one another with astonishment, but the ungodly waiting-women, who came all from Anjou and other foreign parts, only smiled and simpered as they gazed at one another and observed our exceeding great confusion.

"In truth, royal dame," said our lord abbat, "it is against the rule of our order to lodge females within our walls."

"But I am your queen, oh abbat," said Matilda, "and this is a royal abbey, and my sire founded it and endowed it! Have I not, as my father's daughter and lawful sovereign of this realm, the right to an exemption from the severity of your ordinances?"

"Ladie," quoth the abbat, "I wit not that you have such right, or that the rule of St. Benedict is in any case to be set aside."

"But it hath been set aside," said Matilda, "and queens and their honourable damsels have slept in royal abbeys before now."

"That," quoth the abbat, "was before the Norman conquest, when, through the indolence, carelessness, and gluttony of the Saxon monks, the statutes of our order were generally ill-observed."

"But I tell thee, oh stubborn monk, that I, the empress-queen, that I, thy liege ladie Matilda, have slept and sojourned in half the abbeys and priories of England!"

"'Tis because of these civil wars which have so long raged to the destruction of all discipline and order, and to the utter undoing of this poor people of England! I, by the grace of God, abbat of Reading, would not shape my conduct after the pattern of some abbats and priors that be in this land, or willingly allow that which they perchance may have permitted without protest, and to the spiritual dishonour of their houses."

Here the eyes of the empress-queen flashed fire, and wrathful and scornful was the voice with which she said unto our good lord abbat, in presence of most of the community, "Shaveling, I am here, and will here tarry so long as it suits my occasions! I believe thy traitorous affection for my false cousin Stephen hath more to do with thine obstinacy than any reverence thou bearest to the rules of thine order. But, monk, 'tis too late! thou shouldest have kept thy gates closed! I and my maidens are within thy house, and these my faithful knights will see thee and thy brethren slain between the horns of the altar rather than see the Queen of England thrust out like a vagrant beggar from the abbey her own father founded!"