Having searched Alard’s house, and the house of his daughter hard-by, and not finding the object of his quest, he was beside himself with rage, fired both houses, seized the girl, swore that he would put her to torture if Bertulph were not produced before the morrow, and rode off. Alard, therefore, having to choose between his daughter and his uncle, revealed the place where Bertulph was concealed, and he was at once taken prisoner by William’s officers.
Well knowing that his days were numbered, and that he had nothing to hope from the gratitude of the man for whose sake he had risked so much, and at whose hands he had received so little, the aged prelate prepared himself to face death with what courage he could. He was a dying man, he said, and he wished to see a priest. His captors granted the request, ‘and there, in the sight of all men, he confessed his sins, and prostrate on the ground smote his breast and prayed God to have pity on him.’ Next morning they would have taken him on horseback to Ypres, but he refused to ride, and though it was freezing hard persisted in walking there barefoot. ‘This soft, luxurious prelate,’ comments Walbert, ‘who in the days when fortune smiled on him used to shrink from a flea bite as from a dagger thrust!’
A certain priest from whose lips Walter learned the details here noted down, walked by Bertulph’s side and, as they went, they intoned alternately verse by verse the Lady Office and the Te Deum. Thus, martyr-like, with a song of triumph on his lips, this staunch old man went forth to die. ‘As they drew near to the gates of the city a great multitude came forth to meet them, crying aloud and clapping their hands and leaping for joy, and they struck the provost with their fists, and beat him with staves and pelted him with the heads of sea-fish (of which very many are taken in these parts), and heaped every kind of insult upon him, all of which he bore with patience, speaking never a word.’ This was all the more remarkable, says Walter, because the provost was naturally a proud man who could ill brook ridicule or insult of any kind; and he adds:—Apropos of this, I remember a story which was told me by one of his own servants. Upon a certain occasion when the provost was seated before the fire in his great hall, with his household around him, the discourse turned to the Passion of Our Lord, and of the insults which He suffered with so much meekness in the house of Caiaphas. ‘For my part,’ quoth the provost, ‘I can never understand that portion of Scripture. If low fellows of that kind had struck me I would at least have spat in their face.’
The remaining portion of the story of Bertulph’s execution is told for us by Walbert. It reads like some breviary legend of a martyr’s death.
There he stood in the midst of the market-place, surrounded by a ribald, jeering throng, with countenance unmoved and eyes turned heavenward as though invoking God’s pity. Then one of those who were standing by struck him on the head, saying, ‘O thou proud man, why dost thou not deign to sue for mercy, seeing that thy life is in our hands?’ but the provost opened not his mouth. And for his greater ignominy they stripped him of his clothes and hanged him naked on a cross in the midst of the market-place, as if he had been a thief or a robber.
Then drew nigh unto him William of Löo, and thus addressed him, ‘Tell me, O provost, I conjure thee, on the salvation of thy soul, in addition to those whose names we already know, who are they who are implicated in Count Charles’s death,’ and Bertulph made answer, and said before all those present, ‘Thou knowest, O Burgrave, as well as I.’ William, hearing those words, was transported with fury, and commanded stones and mud to be cast at the provost and that he should be put to death. Then those who were assembled in the market-place to sell fish, tore his flesh with their iron hooks and beat him with rods, and thus they put an end to his days.
‘William at once sent a herald to Bruges to inform the Isegrins of what he had done, and we in our turn,’ says Walbert, ‘handed on the news to the Erembalds in their tower, whereat terror and despair pressed them closer than the generals of our army, and naught was heard but the sound of their lamentations.’ Thus Walbert. Nevertheless, they held out bravely until the 20th of April, and that, notwithstanding that they were besieged by Louis the Fat and a great army of French knights; by William Cliton, the newly-elected count, and a horde of Normans; by almost all the chivalry of Flanders, and a host of burghers from Ghent, who still hoped that they would be able to obtain Charles’s body for Blandinium.
The great army, which six weeks before had taken refuge in the Bourg, was now reduced to a mere handful. Of the rest not a few must have died in battle, others perhaps of wounds and wretchedness and want, but in all probability the vast majority had made their escape, hoping perhaps that they would be able to raise a sufficient force to effectually succour those of their comrades who remained in Bruges, and afterwards place on the throne a sovereign who would respect their liberties. Be this as it may, by the 20th of April but thirty worn-out men remained in St. Donatian’s, who continually straining their eyes over the vast expanse of flat country surrounding them, descried there no token of hope. Moreover, the Isegrins were battering in the tower—at each thrust of the ram it trembled to its base. Instant surrender or instant death was the only alternative, the Karls chose the first, and young Robert cried out, in the name of the rest, that if his personal liberty were guaranteed they would lay down their arms. Louis accepted the condition and they prepared to descend. One brave fellow indeed, preferring death to disgrace, would have leapt over the ramparts had not his comrades held him back. ‘At sight of which,’ says Walbert, ‘our burghers shed tears,’ but their sympathy led them no further.
One by one the little band of heroes came forth, the lean men through a narrow aperture giving on the stairs, those who were too corpulent through a larger window near the summit of the tower, and these men let themselves down by ropes.
‘Pale they were,’ says Walbert, ‘and livid and ugly with hunger, and they bore on their faces the stigma of their crimes; but our citizens wept when they saw those who had once been their leaders led away to prison.’ No wonder; the dark fetid hole into which they were huddled was of such narrow dimensions that the inmates were not even able to sit down, and after a few days’ detention there, only three or four of them had strength to stand.