There chanced to be one very hard winter, and the rivers and streams were frozen over, as well as the bogs and swamps. It was such a winter as one of those in which King Canute went to visit the monks of Ely.[[257]] Then the nobles of Canute’s court said, “We cannot pass; the king must not pass on the slippery, unsafe ice, which may break and cause us all to be drowned in the fen-waters.” But Canute, like the pious and stout king that he was, up and said, “Hold ice or break ice, I will keep the feast of the Purification with the good monks of Ely! An there be but one bold fenner that will go before over the ice by Soham mere and show the way, I will be the next to follow!” Now there chanced to be standing amidst the crowd one Brithmer, a fenner of the Isle of Ely, that was called, from his exceeding fatness, Budde, or Pudding; and this heavy man stood forward and said that he would go before the king and show him a way on the ice across Soham mere. Quoth Canute, who, albeit so great a king, was but a small, light man: “If the ice can bear thy weight, it can well bear mine! So go on, and I follow!” So Brithmer went his way across the bending and cracking ice, and the king followed him at a convenient distance; and one by one the courtiers followed the king, and after a few falls on the ice they all got safe to Ely. And, for the good deed which he had done, King Canute made fat Brithmer, who was but a serf before, a free man, and gave unto him some free lands, which Brithmer’s posterity hold and enjoy unto this day by virtue of the grant made by King Canute. But there was not a fenner of Lord Hereward’s party, fat or lean, that would show the Norman a way across the ice; and the Duke was in no case to undertake any such adventurous journey, and hardly one of his chiefs would have exposed himself and his people to such a march, and to the risks of a sudden thaw; and the Saxons passed the season of frosts without any alarm, albeit every part of the fens was passable for divers weeks.
Duke William was now waxing old and growing exceedingly fat, in sort that he could not bestir himself as he had been used to do. At the same time his sons, who had grown into man’s estate, had become very undutiful, and even rebellious. Robert, his first-born, who was short in his legs, but very lofty in spirit, claimed as his own the duchy of Normandie and the county of Maine, alleging that the dominion of those countries had been promised to him by his father, and that his father ought to rest satisfied with the great kingdom of England. And although William had told Robert that he would not throw off his clothes until he went to bed—meaning thereby to say that he would give up none of his principalities and powers until he went to his grave—that impatient, furious young man showed that he would not wait and be patient. The family of the Conqueror was a brotherhood of Cains. Robert, less favoured by nature than they, thought that his father always gave preference to his younger brothers William and Henry: and being in France, in the little town of Aigle, William and Henry, after playing at dice, as was the fashion with milites, made a great noise and uproar, to the great disturbance of their elder brother; and when Robert remonstrated with them from a courtyard beneath, they called him Shorthose, and emptied a pitcher of water upon his head. Thereupon Robert drew his sword and would have slain both his brothers; but being prevented in that, he raised the standard of revolt against his own father, and endeavoured to surprise the city and strong castle at Rouen. Here, too, Robert failed of success, but he fled into Brittanie; and he was now visibly supported not only by many Breton chiefs and by the great Count of Anjou, but also by Philip the French king, who never could stomach the power and greatness to which the son of the harlot of Falaise had attained. Now, while all this mischief was brewing, Duke William felt that there were many of the barons in Normandie in whom he could put no manner of trust, and he well knew that too many of the great Normans settled in England were unsteady in their allegiance to him. In this state of things it behoved him more than ever to insure tranquillity in England before he should again cross the seas, and to endeavour to secure the goodwill of the Saxon people, who were gradually becoming accustomed to his rule, and who had but so recently shown how valorously they could fight for him when he put his trust in them. And therefore had he somewhat relaxed the rigour of his government towards the English people, and had made promise to many native nobles that he would govern the country according to the good laws of Edward the Confessor. Now some of these English nobles were closely allied by blood with the Ladie Lucia, and consequently with the Ladie Alftrude; and was not the Ladie Lucia the wife of Duke William’s own nephew, Ivo Taille-Bois? And was not the Ladie Alftrude wife unto Hereward the Lord of Brunn, who held that nephew in duresse, and who had for so many years prevented Ivo from enjoying the wide domains of his spouse? Perhaps Ivo had not been an altogether unkind husband, or it may be that the two children which she had borne unto him carried a great weight in his favour in the mind and heart of Lucia, who, certes, had long been very anxious for the liberation and return of her French husband. Some good Saxons at the time thought that this was un-Saxonlike and mean and wicked in the fair heiress of Spalding; but there were many young dames, and not a few Saxon dames that could hardly be called young, who felt much as the Ladie Lucia felt about their Norman husbands. But go and read the story of old Rome and the Sabine women! Nay, go read the Evangil, which tells us how the wife will give up everything for her husband. And, crede mihi, these womanly affections and instincts helped more than anything else to make disappear the distinction between the conquering and the conquered race.
Now after that many of her kindred and friends had supplicated Duke William to offer to the Lord of Brunn such terms as might procure the release of her husband and the pacification of the fen country, the Ladie Lucia herself found her way to the court, and at the most opportune moment she knelt before the Conqueror with her two fair children. The hard heart of the Norman ruler was touched; but politic princes are governed by the head and not by the heart, and it was only upon calculation that William determined to set at nought the opinions and the opposition of many of his advisers, and grant unto Hereward the most liberal terms of composition. In the presence of Lanfranc and other learned priests he caused to be written upon parchment, that he would give and grant friendship and the protection of the good old laws not only unto Hereward, but also unto all his friends, partisans, and followers whatsoever, of whatsoever degree; that the life, eyes, limbs, and goods of the poorest fenner should be as sacred as those of Lord Hereward himself; that Lord Hereward should have and hold all the titles of honour and all the lands which he had inherited from his ancestors or obtained by his marriage with the Ladie Alftrude; that he should be allowed to administer the Saxon laws among his people, as well at Ey as at Brunn; and that, in return for all these and sundry other advantages, nothing would be required from him further than that he should liberate, together with all other his Norman prisoners, Ivo Taille-Bois, viscomte of Spalding, and give the hand of friendship to Ivo, and restore to him the house and all the lands at Spalding, which were his by right of his marriage with the Ladie Lucia, and live in good cousinship with Ivo as became men so nearly connected through their wives, living at the same time in peace and friendship with all Normans, and pledging himself by his honour as a knight and by his vow pronounced with his right hand laid upon the relics of the Saxon saints he most esteemed, to be henceforward and alway true liegeman to King William and to his lawful successors.
When a Saxon monk, known for his good English heart, and for the pious life he had led in Waltham Abbey,[[258]] got into the fen country, and into the presence of the Lord of Brunn with this scroll, the gentle Ladie Alftrude, who had borne many toils and troubles without a murmur, was lying sick of a marsh fever, which she had caught in Hoiland. This afflicting event was calculated to have some influence over her lord’s decision; but many other events and circumstances, too numerous to name, all led to the same conclusion. No hope of the return of King Harold could be maintained any longer; the good old Saxon monk from Waltham vowed that his body was really buried in Waltham Abbey, that the river Lea, flowing fast by that Abbey gate, ever murmured his requiem, by night as by day, and that he himself, for years past, had said a daily mass for the peace of his soul. All the great Saxon chiefs had submitted long ago; Earl Waltheof, the last that had made a stir in arms, had been captured and beheaded outside Winchester town, and was now lying (though not without a strong odour of sanctity) in a deep grave at Crowland Abbey; Edgar Etheling, the last representative of the line of King Alfred, was living contentedly, and growing fat in a Norman palace at Rouen, with a pound of silver a day for his maintenance; for he had long since given himself up, and sworn himself liege-man to William. Every rising had been put down in England, and all conditions of men seemed determined to rise no more, but to live in peace and good fellowship with the Normans; there was nothing but marrying and giving in marriage between the two races, and Saxon lords and other men of note were taking unto themselves Norman or French wives; and the great father of the whole Christian church, the Pope at Rome, Gregory, the seventh of that name, had given plenary powers to Archbishop Lanfranc to reorganize the Saxon church, and to excommunicate all such Saxons as submitted not to his primacy and to the government established. William, on the other hand, promised to take vengeance on none of Lord Hereward’s followers, and to injure no fen-man for that which was past.
“Elfric,” said the Lord of Brunn, “I think we must accept these terms, and cease this roving life among woods and meres. We have done what brave men can do: we have shown the Normans that England was not conquered in one fatal battle. We might yet hold out here, but for the rest of England we can do nothing; and our being here costs some Englishmen in the vicinage very dearly! What sayest thou, my ever-trusty sword-bearer? Wilt follow thy old master to London city, and make peace with Duke William and his Normans, who have never been able to overcome us?”
Quoth Elfric, “Where my lord goes there go I, be it to London city or to London tower. I think we have shown the Normans that England was not won by the battle of Hastings. An the Duke keep but his faith, we may live freely and happily in the good old house at Brunn, and among our honest fen folk.”
Of the monks who had fled from Ely with Elfric some were dead, but the gentle and good Father Elsin and the fiery and old Father Kenulph, and several of the lay-brothers were yet alive; and therefore Hereward told the Duke’s emissary, the good monk from Waltham, that their must be an especial agreement to relieve these monks of Ely from the rules of their order, and allow them to abide at Brunn or at Ey. The emissary was further told that, before Lord Hereward would submit, Duke William must swear upon the relics of his saints to observe the paction, to be true to every article of the agreement: and to give an earnest of his own sincerity and truth, the Lord of Brunn swore in the solemnest manner that he was ready to accept the conditions offered to him; and that, having once accepted them, nothing but treachery and violence on the other side would ever make him swerve from them so much as the breadth of a hair.
The monk of Waltham went his way unto London; and in as short a time as might be he came back again as far as the succursal cell at Spalding, attended by a goodly company of Norman and Saxon nobles, who came to bear witness that Lanfranc and the chancellor of the kingdom had put their signatures to the scroll as well as the king, and that William had sworn in their presence to be faithful to the deed. Now the Lord of Brunn went to Spalding with a goodly retinue of armed men, but not more numerous than the party which had come thither with the monk of Waltham; and having heard all that the monk and the lords had to tell him, and having carefully perused the deed (for Hereward had tasted books, and could read well in Latin), he wrote his name to the deed, and some of the principal men with him wrote their names; and then he swore upon the relics to be liege-man to King William. And now William the Norman might in truth be called a king, and king of all England. It was in the Kalends of October, in the year of grace one thousand and seventy-six, and ten years after the great assize of God’s judgment at Hastings, that this thing was done and an end put to the resistance of the Saxons.
He had sworn upon the relics of saints before now, and had broken his oath; but this time King William was true to the vow he made, for great and manifold were the advantages he reaped from the submission of the Lord of Brunn. It needs not to say that the great Saxon warrior who had ever been true to his saints and a scrupulous observer of his word, was more than faithful to every part of his engagement. After he had been to London city to pay homage to the king which it was the will of Heaven to place over the country, he returned to his good house at Brunn, and hung his sword and battle-axe upon the wall, never to take them down again unless England should be invaded by the Scots or Danes. King William, who went over into France to force his undutiful son Robert to forego his plots and rebellions, and to take vengeance on the French king (in both of which things he in the end succeeded), would with a glad heart have carried Hereward, the cunning captain, the great soldier, with him; and to tempt him into that service he made offer of lofty titles and commands, and of many hides of land in the upland country; but Hereward loved not to fight except for his own country and countrymen, and against those who had wronged him and oppressed them; and instead of clutching greedily at the king’s offers, as many English lords had done, he preferred keeping his own in his own native parts, and ever remained plain Lord of Brunn.
Ivo Taille-Bois returned to the manor-house at Spalding with his wife and children; and albeit his brow was sometimes darkened by the recollections of the wedding at Ey, and the defeat and surrender in the marsh, and the hard life he had led as a prisoner in the fens, he lived on the whole, in very good fellowship with his neighbour and cousin of Brunn. Ivo never more harrowed the good Saxon monks of Spalding, who were left for a long time to their own peaceful and happy government. As for the traitorous monks of Crowland Abbey, who had brought back the Normans, they fared after the same manner as the false monks at Ely and the ungrateful monks at Peterborough; they were condemned by the Saxons, harassed and plundered by the Normans they had served, and fustigated by a sharp iracund abbat from France; and thus they did penance for many years, and until most of them were dead, when their cells were occupied by truer men, and the abbey of Crowland began again to be the revered place it had been in former times.