“At your will,” replied the viscount, sighing deeply; “but I marvel greatly at so much talk. Boasting is nothing worth unless it be accomplished. When we are in taverns or in festive halls, drinking the strong wines, and looked upon by ladies drawing the kerchiefs round their smooth necks, every man is eager for war and glory. Some, at such times, in imagination conquer Yaumont and Aguilant, and others Roland and Oliver; but when we are in the field, on our steeds, our limbs benumbed with cold, with our shields round our necks, and our spears lowered, and the enemy approaches, then we wish we had never made such vows. For such boasts, in truth, I would not give a bezant; not that I say this to excuse myself; for I vow and promise, by the finger of St. John the Baptist, which was of late brought from Constantinople, that if our lord, Louis, will cross the sea, and enter England, I will accompany him with all my forces, and do my devoir in aiding him to gain the realm which is by right his lady’s.”
Hugh de Moreville smiled grimly as the Viscount of Melun made his vow, and took the dishes, and again moving, with the fiddles and guitar playing, and the demoiselles singing, he knelt before Blanche of Castile, and said that “the heron he would distribute in time, but meanwhile he implored her to say that which her heart would dictate;” and the princess, having vowed, in case of need, to embark for the war which Louis and his lords had sworn to undertake, the bird was cut up and eaten, and the ceremony closed.
And now Louis of France delayed no longer. Next day he presented himself to Philip Augustus, and begged that his voyage might not be obstructed, for that he was under a vow which he could not break; and the king, though somewhat against his inclination, granted his son’s request; and Louis, with his lords and knights, and Hugh de Moreville, hastened to Calais.
At that time, one of the most remarkable of naval heroes was a Fleming by birth, who had originally been in a convent, and who was popularly known as Eustace the Monk. It is said that, on the death of his brother without children, Eustace cast the cowl, and threw aside the monk’s habit, and abandoned the convent to inherit the property. But, be that as it may have been, he had become a captain of pirates, and made his name terrible on the sea. Allured into the service of Louis, Eustace had fitted out at Calais a fleet to transport the French army to the English coast; and the prince, having embarked with his fighting men, put to sea. The voyage was not particularly prosperous. The winds were stormy, and the mariners of the Cinque Ports were eager and earnest in their attacks on the French armament. Louis, however, escaped all perils, and on the 26th of May, 1216, landed at Sandwich.
But no sooner did he set foot in England than the legate excommunicated him, and the pope, on hearing that he had crossed the Channel, exclaimed, significantly—
“Sword, sword, spring from the scabbard, and sharpen thyself to kill!”
CHAPTER XXVI
A PAINFUL INTERVIEW
HUGH DE MOREVILLE did not await the sailing of Prince Louis and the fleet which Eustace the Monk had fitted out at Calais. Indeed, the Norman baron was all eagerness to reach London, and communicate to his confederates the intelligence that the French prince was really coming with a formidable force. Embarking in a swift vessel, and having a prosperous voyage, he soon reached the English coast, and, hastening to the capital, carried to Fitzwalter, and De Quency, and Stephen Langton, intelligence that his important mission to the court of Paris had been crowned with complete success.
De Moreville was still in London at his great mansion in Ludgate, but preparing to set out for Chas-Chateil, where he had reason to believe all was not quite right, and whither he had already despatched Ralph Hornmouth, in whom he had great faith, when one morning a visitor was announced, and the Norman baron, on looking up, perceived that it was Walter Merley. The young noble, however, looked haggard, careworn, and sad, and marvellously unlike the keen and sanguine partisan of Fitzwalter and the barons who had appeared as a guest at the board of Constantine Fitzarnulph, and aided in alluring the citizens into the alliance which enabled the confederates to seize the capital and strike dismay into the king.
“Walter Merley,” said De Moreville, a little taken by surprise at his visitor’s woe-begone look, “I give thee welcome, and have news of great import to tell thee, so I pray thee be seated.”