Danes, Saxons and Normans; or, Stories of our ancestors

by John G. Edgar

"O king!" cried others, "why dost thou let him go free? He is not worthy to live—the traitor, the perjurer, the murderer of so many thousand men."

The war, after raging for some time longer, was terminated by a treaty. Curthose was bribed with a grant of land and with a promise of succeeding to the crown in the event of his surviving Rufus; while his adherents were pardoned and returned to their estates. But how did Rufus treat the Anglo-Saxons who had secured him victory? How did he fulfil the promises made to the Saxon chiefs who had brought their countrymen around him in the hour of need?

No sooner was the war at an end than Rufus became infinitely more tyrannical than ever his father had been. In vain Lanfranc, who had, as it were, stood sponsor, reminded the Red King of the pledges he had given.

"Remember your promises," said the venerable prelate.

"Tush!" stammered out Rufus; "how can a king keep all the promises he makes?"

Lanfranc was horrified. Dumb with amazement at the idea of solemn engagements, for which he had stood security, being thus repudiated, the archbishop retired into privacy, and soon after went the way of all flesh. The death of Lanfranc was regarded as a national calamity; and the Red King, freed from all restraint, and pursuing his career without scruple and without fear, lived like a scoundrel, and reigned like a tyrant.

Rufus seems to have had as little sympathy with the sentiments of that gallant French monarch who said that "society without ladies would be like the year without the spring; or, rather, like spring without the flowers," as with the sentiment of another French monarch, who said that, "if good faith were banished from all the rest of the world, it should still be found in the breasts of kings." No gentle wife had the Red King to exercise a softening influence on his harsh heart. From the first he was a confirmed bachelor, and his morals were dissolute in the extreme. It is true that at the court of Winchester no mediæval Diana of Poictiers or Madame Pompadour scandalized the grave and decorous by the spectacle of an abandoned woman, arrayed in purple and fine linen, enjoying a degree of royal favour not vouchsafed to a wedded wife. But Rufus indulged without restraint in amours with females too obscure to be mentioned by chroniclers; and such was the reputation of the king's court that, when he made progresses through England, women who had not discarded decency left their homes to save their honour, and took refuge in the depths of the forests.

At the same time the country through which the Red King passed was ruthlessly ravaged by his train. Goods and provisions were lawlessly seized; and such was the spirit of the courtiers that, when they found in the houses of the Saxons more than they could consume, they amused themselves by giving articles of food to the flames, and using wine to wash the feet of their horses.

Another kind of oppression was heavily felt by the vanquished race. The king deemed it necessary to construct a new wall round the Tower, to build a bridge over the Thames, and to add a great hall to the palace of Westminster. All around London men were taxed, and bands of labourers were forcibly compelled to take part in the works. Murmurs and complaints were frequent; but murmurs were useless and complaints unavailing.

In fact, under the government of the Red King, the affairs of England were conducted without the least reference to the feelings of those to whom he owed his throne. Deep, of course, was the discontent.