Sigurd continued: “I was in many a battle in the Saracens’ land, and always came off conqueror; I won many precious goods, the like of which were never seen here before; and I was always the most highly esteemed where brave men met: while yours is but a home-bred renown. I went to Palestine, I came to Apulia; but I did not see you there, brother. I gave Roger the Great the title of King. I won seven battles; but you were in none of them. I was at our Lord’s grave; but I did not see you there, brother. I went to Jordan, where our Lord was baptized. I swam across the river; but I did not see you there. A willow grew on the bank, and I twisted the boughs into a knot, which is waiting there for you; for I said that you should untie it, and fulfil the vow that is bound up in it.”
“I have little to set against this,” said Eystein; “but if you fought abroad, I strove to be of use at home. In the north of Vaage I built fish-houses, so as to enable the poor people there to earn a livelihood. I built a priest’s house, and endowed a Church, where before all the people were heathen; and therefore I think they will recollect that Eystein was once King of Norway. The road from Drontheim goes over the Dofrefield, and often travellers had to sleep in the open air; but I built inns, and supported them with money, and thus wayfarers may remember that Eystein has been King of Norway. Agdaness was a bare waste, and no harbor, and many a ship was lost. Now, there is a good harbor, and a Church. I raised beacons on the high ground; I built a royal hall in Bergen, and the Church of the Apostles; I built Michael’s Church, and a Convent beside. I settled the laws, so that all may obtain justice. The Jemteland people are again joined to our realm, and more by kind words than by war. Now, though all these are but small doings, yet I am not sure if the people of our land have not been better served by them than by your killing blue men in the land of the Saracens. Your deeds were great; yet I hope what I have done for the servants of God may serve me no less for my soul’s salvation. So, if you did tie a knot for me, I will not go to untie it; and if I had been tying a knot for you, you would not have been King of Norway, when with a single ship you came into my fleet.”
Eystein conferred many more benefits on his country, and on individuals many acts of kindness—such as his undertaking by his conversation to cheer and console one of his friends who had been disappointed in love. This excellent King died at thirty-five, and it was said that there was never so much mourning in Norway. Sigurd’s fate was sad; the shadow predicted in his dream fell on him. His moodiness increased to distraction, and nothing could be more wretched in those early times than the condition of an insane king or of his country. He grew extremely violent, and often did fearful mischief; but he still preserved his generous spirit, and could always, even at the worst, be tamed by any one who would boldly resist his fury. Happily, this only lasted six years, for he died in 1330, at the age of forty.
This has been a long digression; but as Sigurd was the last of our Northern visitors, we hope it may be pardoned for the sake of its interest.
Henry I. gave his only daughter Maude in marriage to Henry V., Emperor of Germany, a rebellious son, who had taken advantage of the sentence of excommunication on his father, to strip him of his domains, and absolutely reduce him to beggary. Maude was married to Henry V. at eleven years old, when she was so small that she could not stand under the weight of her robes, and the Archbishop of Cologne was obliged to hold her in his arms during the celebration of the wedding. The principal favorites of the King of England were at this time the sons of his sister Adela, three in number: Theobald, Count de Blois and Champagne; Stephen, Count de Mortagne, whom the King married to Matilda, heiress, of Boulogne, the niece of good Queen Maude, and Henry, whom he made Bishop of Winchester.
Henry was persuaded to marry again, and his queen was the beautiful and gracious Alice of Louvaine, a fair young girl of eighteen. His daughter Maude returned from Germany in 1125; but there were strange stories that her husband, the Emperor, was not dead, but had fled in secret from his court, to dwell as a hermit in penance for his crimes. His funeral had, however, been performed with full solemnity. King Henry regarded her as in truth a widow, and was very anxious to bestow her a second time in marriage. He caused his vassals to take an oath of fealty to her as his heiress, and foremost in making this promise were David, King of Scotland—as Earl of Huntingdon, in right of his wife, Waltheof’s daughter—and Stephen de Blois, Count de Mortagne and Boulogne; while Henry engaged at the same time that she should not be married without the consent of the Barons.
Very soon, however, he broke his word, with the desire of conciliating those troublesome neighbors of Normandy, the counts of Anjou. Foulques V. showed himself so much inclined to befriend the son of Robert, that Henry resolved to attach him to his own party, and proposed to him to give Maude to his son Geoffrey, whom he desired should be sent at once to Rouen, that he might see him, and confer on him the order of knighthood.
Young Geoffrey was only fifteen, but, unlike his ancestors, was very tall, and had also inherited the beauty and grace of his grandmother Bertrade. King Henry was delighted with him, and after examining him closely on all the rules of chivalry, as well as on other points, to which Geoffrey replied with much acuteness, showing himself a good scholar even in Latin, resolved to make him his son-in-law. His knighthood was conferred with the greatest splendor and all the formalities of the time. The first day he entered the bath, the emblem of purity, and then was arrayed in fine linen, a robe woven with gold, and a purple mantle. A Spanish horse was presented to him, and he was armed in polished steel, and with a helmet covered with precious stones; his gilded spurs were buckled on, and his sword and lance given to him. He sprung on horseback without putting his foot in the stirrup, and six days were spent in jousting with twenty-nine young nobles, who were knighted at the same time. At the close of the tourney, Henry conferred on him the accolade, or sword-blow, which was the chief part of the ceremony.
Henry had great difficulty in making his daughter consent to the marriage. Whether she believed her husband to be alive, or whether it was from pride, or dislike to take so mere a boy as her bridegroom, her resistance was long; and it was not till 1127 that she was brought by her father to Mans, where the wedding took place, just before Geoffrey’s father departed for Palestine.
Maude was proud and disdainful, and treated her young husband in the most contemptuous way; and Geoffrey avoided her in return, spending most of his time in hunting in the woods, where he used to wear the spray of broom that became the cognizance of his house, and caused their surname of Plantagenet. Perhaps it was in contrast to his wife’s haughtiness that he chose to adopt this plant, considered as the emblem of humility, and reminding her that she had married the descendant of the woodman Torquatus.