THE FAITH OF WOMAN.
“Two things there be on earth that ne’er forget—
A woman, and a dog—where once their love is set!”—Old MS.
It was the morning after the exterminating fight at Hastings. The banner blessed of the Roman pontiff streamed on the tainted air, from the same hillock whence the dragon standard of the Saxons had shone unconquered to the sun of yester-even! Hard by was pitched the proud pavilion of the conqueror, who, after the tremendous strife and perilous labors of the preceding day, reposed himself in fearless and untroubled confidence upon the field of his renown; secure in the possession of the land, which he was destined to transmit to his posterity for many a hundred years, by the red title of the sword.
To the defeated Saxons, morning, however, brought but a renewal of those miseries which, having yesterday commenced with the first victory of their Norman lords, were never to conclude, or even to relax, until the complete amalgamation of the rival races should leave no Normans to torment, no Saxons to endure; all being merged at last into one general name of English, and by their union giving origin to the most powerful, and brave, and intellectual people, the world has ever looked upon since the extinction of Rome’s freedom.
At the time of which we are now speaking, nothing was thought of by the victors save how to rivet most securely on the necks of the unhappy natives their yoke of iron; nothing by the poor, subjugated Saxons, but how to escape for the moment the unrelenting massacre which was urged far and wide by the remorseless conquerors throughout the devastated country. With the defeat of Harold’s host, all national hope of freedom was at once lost to England. Though, to a man, the English population were brave and loyal, and devoted to their country’s rights, the want of leaders—all having perished side by side on that disastrous field—of combination, without which myriads are but dust in the scale against the force of one united handful—rendered them quite unworthy of any serious fears, and even of consideration, to the bloodthirsty barons of the invading army. Over the whole expanse of level country which might be seen from the slight elevation whereon was pitched the camp of William, on every side might be descried small parties of the Norman horse, driving in with their bloody lances, as if they were mere cattle, the unhappy captives; a few of whom they now began to spare, not from the slightest sentiment of mercy, but literally that their arms were weary with the task of slaying, although their hearts were yet insatiate of blood.
It must be taken now into consideration by those who listen with dismay and wonder to the accounts of pitiless barbarity—of ruthless, indiscriminating slaughter on the part of men whom they have hitherto been taught to look upon as brave indeed as lions in the field, but not partaking of the lion’s nature after the field was won—not only that the seeds of enmity had long been sown between those rival people, but that the deadly crop of hatred had grown up, watered abundantly by the tears and blood of either; and, lastly, that the fierce fanaticism of religious persecution was added to the natural rancor of a war waged for the ends of conquest or extermination. The Saxon nation, from the king downward to the meanest serf who fought beneath his banner, or buckled on the arms of liberty, were all involved under the common ban of the pope’s interdict. They were accursed of God, and handed over by his holy church to the kind mercies of the secular arm; and therefore, though but yesterday they were a powerful and united nation, to-day they were but a vile horde of scattered outlaws, whom any man might slay wherever he should find them, whether in arms or otherwise—amenable for blood neither to any mortal jurisdiction, nor even to the ultimate tribunal to which all must submit hereafter, unless deprived of their appeal like these poor fugitives, by excommunication from the pale of Christianity. For thirty miles around the Norman camp, pillars of smoke by day, continually streaming upward to the polluted heaven, and the red glare of nightly conflagration, told fatally the doom of many a happy home! Neither the castle nor the cottage might preserve their male inhabitants from the sword’s edge, their females from more barbarous persecution. Neither the sacred hearth of hospitality nor the more sacred altars of God’s churches might protect the miserable fugitives; neither the mail-shirt of the man-at-arms nor the monk’s frock of serge availed against the thrust of the fierce Norman spear. All was dismay and havoc, such as the land wherein those horrors were enacted has never witnessed since, through many a following age.
High noon approached, and in the conqueror’s tent a gorgeous feast was spread. The red wine flowed profusely, and song and minstrelsy arose with their heart-soothing tones, to which the feeble groans of dying wretches bore a dread burden from the plain whereon they still lay struggling in their great agonies, too sorely maimed to live, too strong as yet to die. But, ever and anon, their wail waxed feebler and less frequent; for many a plunderer was on foot, licensed to ply his odious calling in the full light of day—reaping his first if not his richest booty from the dead bodies of their slaughtered foemen. Ill fared the wretches who lay there, untended by the hand of love or mercy, “scorched by the death-thirst, and writhing in vain;” but worse fared they who showed a sign of life to the relentless robbers of the dead, for then the dagger—falsely called that of mercy—was the dispenser of immediate immortality. The conqueror sat at his triumphant board, and barons drank his health: “First English monarch, of the pure blood of Normandy!”—“King by the right of the sword’s edge!”—“Great, glorious, and sublime!” Yet was not his heart softened, nor was his bitter hate toward the unhappy prince who had so often ridden by his side in war, and feasted at the same board with him in peace, relinquished or abated. Even while the feast was at the highest, while every heart was jocund and sublime, a trembling messenger approached, craving on bended knee permission to address the conqueror and king—for so he was already schooled by brief but hard experience to style the devastator of his country.
“Speak out, Dog Saxon!” cried the ferocious prince; “but since thou must speak, see that thy speech be brief, an’ thou wouldst keep thy tongue uncropped thereafter!”
“Great duke and mighty,” replied the trembling envoy, “I bear you greeting from Elgitha, herewhile the noble wife of Godwin, the queenly mother of our late monarch—now, as she bade me style her, the humblest of your suppliants and slaves. Of your great nobleness and mercy, mighty king, she sues you, that you will grant her the poor leave to search amid the heaps of those our Saxon dead, that her three sons may at least lie in consecrated earth—so may God send you peace and glory here, and everlasting happiness hereafter!”