The Siege of Norwich Castle: A story of the last struggle against the Conqueror

by M. M. Blake

Stout Earl Warrenne, and the astute Bishop of Coutances, and the accomplished lance, Robert Malet, held many a consultation as they rode round the invested fortress, and scanned it eagerly to see if haply they might discover some weak point which should give them advantage in the attack.

But they decided that they must become masters of the great gate, and so of the ditch, before they could make any assault on the castle itself.

A month had passed away before they were so masters; but being so, they had their opponents in a veritable trap. The besieged knew well that a harder struggle than ever lay before them in their awful isolation, cut off from communion with their fellow-creatures by a wall of human fury as effectually as if they had been wrecked on some desert island in that vast ocean of the west, the opposite shores of which were all unknown to them, though its great eastern rollers dashed in spray upon the Breton and Norman coasts.

Through all this weary time of fear and suspense, with its harassing duties and oppressive sorrows, the Countess Emma found comfort in two dumb friends: Oliver, the earl's Spanish destrier, who had been left in the fortress when De Guader embarked for Denmark; and the brave tassel-gentle, that had been Ralph's gift to her upon the day on which she had promised to share his fortunes, good or ill.

Oliver had been restored to his master, after he had been struck down by Odo's mace, by one of those strange accidents which seem to have the finger of fate in them. Some of the old thegn Ealdred's men had visited the battlefield several days after the fight, to see how the land lay and what the king's men were doing. They were attacked by a band of Norman soldiers, headed by a knight who was mounted on a splendid destrier. The animal was full of strength and courage, but the rider being, as they afterwards found, one Stephen Main-de-fer, a parvenu who had made his fortune out of the woes of England, like so many of his countrymen, and who had won his spurs without having learned to ride, instead of profiting by the noble booty that had fallen to his share, was brought to his ruin thereby; for the fiery barb, unused to such handling as he gave it, and doubtless wondering, like Johnny Gilpin's steed, 'what thing upon his back had got,' became unmanageable in the excitement of the fray, and threw his clumsy new master heavily to the earth. There he lay sprawling, as little versed in carrying his armour as in managing his horse, and Ealdred's men did not lose their opportunity of despatching him. After a short struggle, his followers beat their retreat, and the destrier fell into the hands of the Anglo-Danes, who took him back with them to their refuge in the Fens, where he was immediately recognised with much jubilation by Grillonne, and restored to his master.

So it came to pass that Ralph de Guader had been able to ride back into Blauncheflour on his trusty Oliver.

Since the earl had quitted the castle, Emma had visited the barb morning and night, and had taken him many a dainty wastel cake or sugary comfit such as horses love; and, stroking his satin neck with many an endearment, longed for the time when she should see his master on his back again. A time which would never come!

At such moments she would often have the tassel-gentle on her wrist, and the bird seemed almost human, so intelligent and tame was he.

She needed some comfort, for she had one great sorrow. The gentle and loving Dame Amicia de Reviers, who had watched over her from her cradle, was stricken down by paralysis, and a few days later died. It was really but the natural end of a long and happy life; but Emma, in the mood for self-torture, blamed herself for having dragged the aged dame into tumult and terror, and shed tears that were beyond the usual bitterness of grief. She was buried in the holy precincts of St. Martin at Bayle, which stood before the castle gate, the besiegers granting a truce for the occasion, with that chivalrous courtesy that was so oddly mixed with the ferocity of the times.

So the king's men and the earl's met in friendly sympathy one day, and prepared for bitter contest on the morrow, when the besiegers planned to make assault upon the walls themselves.