It was, however, a perilous step to take, and the prelates, nobles, and knights gasped and stared at the idea of a boy of ten occupying a throne that was menaced by royal and feudal warriors who had hosts of fighting men at their backs, nearly every English county at their feet, and the King of Scots and the Prince of Wales as their humble servants.
But it was a step which Pembroke did not fear to take. His brave heart did not fail him in the day of trial, and he was ready to do all, dare all, and risk all, rather than witness the realisation of the vision which his patriot soul abhorred—the vision of a French prince enthroned at Westminster, and lording it over England with the insolence of a conqueror.
Well was it for England that there was one man at that terrible crisis who had the capacity to think and the courage to act.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CORONATION OF THE BOY HENRY
AMONG the provincial cities of England at the opening of the thirteenth century, Gloucester was accounted one of the strongest, fairest, and most stoutly loyal. It had long, indeed, been of importance, and boasted of historical associations which connected it with the ancient world. Occupied by the Romans, sacked by the sea-kings, and known to fame as the scene of the memorable single combat between Edmund Ironside and Canute the Great—the crown of England being the stake—and a favourite residence of Edward the Confessor, its importance as a barrier against the Welsh had been recognised by William the Conqueror, who selected its castle as his winter palace, and strongly fortified the city on the north and south with strong gates and stone walls, surmounted by frowning battlements. The town consisted of four streets forming a cross, and named Northgate and Southgate, Eastgate and Westgate, and boasted of a royal castle, with a chase or park, and a grand Gothic abbey, with lofty tower and oriel window, surrounded by its fish-ponds, or “vivaries,” and physic garden, and vineyards, and all “the means and appliances” for making monastic life comfortable and pleasant. The strength and wealth of the place were such that while England was ringing with arms and the shouts of “Montjoie St. Denis!” Queen Isabel and her son Henry had remained within its walls in thorough security; and while towns had been besieged and fortresses taken, Gloucester had neither been taken nor besieged up to the hour when King John died, in misery, at Newark-on-the-Trent.
It was Friday, the 28th of October, 1216, the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, and Gloucester presented a scene of considerable excitement, though the weather was the reverse of exhilarating. Not a glimpse was there of the “merry sunshine, which makes the heart so gay.” The sky was obscured with a drizzling mist; gloom hung over the whole city; the Severn, swollen with recent rain, threatened to overflow its sedgy banks; the orchards and woodlands around were soddened with wet; and the deer in the king’s park crouched together, sought shelter under the dripping branches of the trees, looking for all the world as if they had some instinctive dread of a return of the flood of Deucalion—
“Piscium cum summâ genus hæsit ulmo,
Nota quæ sedes fuerat columbis,
Et superjecto pavidæ natarunt
Æquore damæ.”
Nevertheless Gloucester was excited. Men with white crosses on their breasts strode hither and thither, gossiping citizens ventured forth into the wet streets to hear the latest news, and laughing nymphs with fair faces gazed watchfully from basement and loophole, as if impatient for some spectacle to gratify their curiosity; for on that day, in spite of Louis of France and the Anglo-Norman barons who had brought him into England, Henry, the son of John, was to be crowned king, and the place appointed for the ceremony was the abbey of Gloucester—that abbey to which, more than a hundred years later, the remains of his murdered grandson were to be brought by Abbot Thokey from Berkeley Castle, under circumstances so melancholy.
At this time Henry of Winchester was in his tenth year. He was a strong, healthy boy, and good-looking, with the fair hair and fair complexion of the Plantagenets. But one unfortunate defect there was in his countenance. Part of one of his eyelids hung down in such a way as partly to cover the eyeball, and thus gave an unpleasant expression to a face which would otherwise have been handsome. Such as the boy was, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, took him by the hand, led him to the castle hall in which were assembled Neville, William Ferrars, Earl of Derby, and the few magnates who had come at his invitation to Gloucester, and, placing him in the midst of them, said—
“Behold your king!”