“Louis, availing himself of John’s weakness,” says Carte, “sent William Fitzpiers, Earl of Essex, and Robert Fitzwalter, and William Huntingfield into Essex and Suffolk, and marching himself into Sussex, took all the fortresses in the county, but could not quell William de Collingham, who, with a thousand archers, made incursions from the woods and forests in those parts, killed several thousands of the French in different encounters, and held out all the time that the hostilities lasted. There was no attacking this man,” adds Carte, “in the fortresses wherein he kept without great disadvantage.”
It was not, however, till the French had learned by severe experience what manner of man Collingham was, and the ferocity of his “Ravens”—for so his followers were called, from the fierce raven on his banner—that they came to regard him as invincible and his camp as impregnable. In the effort to put him down, more than one continental warrior of high name was tried and found wanting. Especially did there fail in this endeavour a very valiant captain of free lances, who had been entrusted with the castle of Lewes, and who was deemed equal to any enterprise of the kind.
He was a native of Rheims, his name was Clarembald, and he was one of the mercenary leaders who had come with Louis to conquer England, bringing with him a rather remarkable surname, which, no doubt, he hoped to exchange for a territorial title derived from some earldom or barony on the Thames, or the Humber, or the Tweed. In fact, from his nocturnal excursions into towns and villages in Anjou and Normandy during the wars of King John and Philip Augustus, Clarembald had won the surname of “Eveille-chiens,” or Wake-dog, and he had rendered the surname very terrible to such as had learned what it was to have the misfortune to be the foe of his friends.
When Louis seized the castles of the king’s adherents in Sussex, Clarembald was appointed governor of Lewes, one of the castles of the Warrens, and he began to rule the neighbourhood with a rod of iron. Nowhere did the inhabitants of England find the invaders so tyrannical and so merciless. In vain the unfortunate English endeavoured to soften his heart by rendering him every possible honour. It only made him worse. He vexed them, tormented them, plundered them, hounded his dogs on their cattle so as to drive them into the marshes, and by breaking their limbs or backs killed or rendered them worthless. Nay more, he lamed their horses, slaughtered their sheep, and treated them very much as the French magnates of the fourteenth century treated Jacques Bonhomme, till the said Jacques, rendered furious by cruel treatment, turned on his persecutors, and proved to the world, during that outbreak known as the “Jacquerie,” how much worse than the beasts of the forest a human being can become when brutalised by long and continuous oppression.
Now Clarembald Eveille-chiens received very peremptory orders from Prince Louis to attack and destroy the camp of refuge in Sussex, and the bold warrior immediately prepared for the enterprise, only regretting, as far as he was concerned, that it was not one in which there was any chance of plunder.
It was late in autumn when Clarembald Eveille-chiens left the castle of Lewes, encamped in the wood, set up his standard, which was the colour of blood, and, investing the camp of refuge on all sides, constructed dykes and gangways over the marshes, and commenced on one side a causeway through the waters, so that his soldiers might enter the islet and put its occupants to the sword. But he soon found that the work in which he was engaged was no child’s play. Not only were the workmen harassed and interrupted in their operations by mocking jests and flights of arrows, but, night after night, Oliver Icingla, in spite of the watch that was kept, contrived to cross the marshes in his white jacket, and made attacks so sudden and unforeseen that the French at length verily suspected that he dealt in magic.
One night in December, when the snow lay pretty thick, and the frost was severe, and the ground hard as iron, and Eveille-chiens was absent from his camp on one of the many love adventures with which he diverted his leisure hours, the French were suddenly aroused from their slumbers by shouts of
“Hey for the fierce raven!
Ho for the fierce raven!”
and found that Oliver in his white jacket, accompanied by six men, each of them as fearless and most of them stronger than himself, was among them and felling down everything in his way. Penetrating even to Clarembald’s tent, with the hope of taking the doughty warrior captive, they no sooner observed that it was empty than they seized on his red banner, carried it off as a trophy, and cutting their way with shouts of scorn and defiance through their startled foes, reached the island in safety. Oliver immediately climbed a high tree that grew close to the edge of the water, and fastened the red banner to one of the most prominent branches.
“There,” said he, as he descended and it began to flap in the keen, frosty wind—“there let it hang in wind and rain till Wake-dog plucks up courage to come and reclaim it. By the Holy Cross, the sight of it may tempt him to do something very venturesome, for surely it cannot fail to have the effect on him which scarlet has on the wounded bull.”