Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest

by Henry William Herbert

"Friend! lady," said the girl, looking at her wistfully, yet doubtfully withal; "you my friend, noble lady! That were indeed impossible. I will not say, that to the poor, to the Saxon, to the slave, there can be no friend, under heaven; but that you—you, a noble and a Norman! Alas! alas! that were indeed impossible!"

"Impossible!" cried Guendolen, eagerly, forgetting her ailments in her fine and feeling excitement. "Wherefore, how should it be impossible? One God made us both, Edith; and made us both out of one clay, with one life here on earth, and one hereafter; both children of one fallen race, and heirs of one promise; both daughters of one fair, free land; both Englishwomen—then why not friends, Edith, and sisters?"

"Of one land, lady, it is true," said the girl, gently. "Yes! daughters of one fair land, for even to the slave England is very beautiful and dear, even as to you she is free. But for us, who were once her first-born and her favorites, that magic word has passed away, that charm has ceased, forever. For us, in free England's wide-rejoicing acres, there is no spot free, save the six feet of earth that shall receive our bodies, when the soul shall be a slave's no longer. Lady, lady, alas! noble lady, if one God made us both of one clay, that shall go downward to mingle with the common sod, and of one spirit that shall mount upward, when the weariness and woe shall be at an end forever, man has set a great gulf between us, that we can not pass over it at all, to come the one unto the other. Our wants may be the same, while we are here below, and our hopes may be the same heavenward; but there all sameness ends between us. My joys can not be your joys, and God forbid that my sorrows should be yours, either. Our hearts may not feel, our heads may not think, in unison, even if our flesh be of one texture, and our souls of one spirit. You are good, and gentle, and kind, lady, but you may never understand what it is to be such as I."

She ceased, but she ceased weeping also, and seemed lost in deep thought, and almost forgetful of herself and her surroundings, as she remained on her knees by the bedside of Guendolen, with her head drooping from her fair bended neck, and her embrowned but shapely hands folded in her lap.

The lady looked at her silently for a few moments, partly in sympathy, partly, it must be said, in wonder. New ideas were beginning to be awakened in her mind, and a perception of something, which had never before dawned upon her, became palpable and strong.

That which we behold, and have beheld daily perhaps for years, naturally becomes so usual and customary in our eyes, that we cease to regard it as any thing but as a fact, of which we have never seen and scarcely can conceive any thing to the contrary—that we look at it as a part of that system which we call nature, and of which we never question the right or the wrong, the injustice or the justice, but, knowing that it is, never think of inquiring wherefore it is, and whether it ought to be.

Thus it was with Guendolen de Taillebois. She had been accustomed, during all her life, to see Saxons as serfs, and rarely in any other capacity; for the franklins and thanes who had retained their independence, their freedom, and a portion of their ancestral acres, were few in numbers, and held but little intercourse with their Norman neighbors, being regarded by them as rude and semi-barbarous inferiors, while they, in turn, regarded them as cruel and insolent usurpers and oppressors.

She had seen these serfs, rudely attired indeed, and employed in rugged, laborious, and menial occupations; but, then, it was clear that their boorish demeanor, stolid expression, and apparent lack of capacity or intelligence for any superior employment, seemed to indicate them as persons filling the station in society for which nature had adapted them. Well-clad, sufficiently clothed, warmly lodged—in all outward things perhaps equal, if not superior, to the peasantry of most European countries in the present day—never, except in extreme and exceptional cases, cruelly or severely treated, since it was ever the owner's interest to regard the well-doing of his serfs, it had never occurred to her that the whole race was in itself, from innate circumstances, and apart from extraordinary sorrows or sufferings, hopeless, miserable, and conscious of unmerited but irretrievable degradation.

Had she considered the subject, she would of course have perceived and admitted that sick or in health, sorrowful or at ease, to be compelled to toil on, toil on, day after day, wearily, at the bidding and for the benefit of another, deriving no benefit from that toil beyond a mere subsistence, was an unhappy and forlorn condition. Yet, how many did she not see of her own conquering countrymen of the lower orders, small landholders in the country, small artisans and mechanics in the boroughs, reduced to the same labors, and nearly to the same necessity.

With the personal condition or habits of the serfs, the ladies and even the lords of the great Norman families had little acquaintance, little means even of becoming acquainted. The services of their fortalices, all but those menial and sordid offices of which those exalted persons had no cognizance, were discharged by domestics, higher or lower in grade, the highest being of gentle blood, and, in very noble houses, even of noble blood, of their own proud race; and the Saxons, whether bond-servants of the soil, or, what was of rare occurrence at that time, free tenants on man service, were employed in the fields or in the forest, under the bailiff or overseer, who ruled them at his own discretion, and punished them, if punishment were needed, with the stocks, the gyves, or the scourge, without consulting the lord, and of course without so much as the knowledge of the lady.