Next came the Danes, men of stern countenances and ruddy hair. War-chiefs, accustomed to a life of rapine—they knew no pity; and what the Saxon would have spared, when first he trod the shores of Britain, they ruthlessly overthrew. The forest and vale country around the solitary yew, was grievously infested with them. They took shelter in the hollows with which this part of England abounded, and it was difficult to dispossess them. Those hollows or little glens were so deep and narrow, that the rays of the sun frequently did not enliven them for months together; yet still some of the most accessible were brought into cultivation, and rewarded the industrious husbandman with plentiful crops of corn and grass. Others remained in their native wildness, and wild indeed they were. Shallow streams ran through them, and by means of these they could alone be visited: he who sought to explore their secret recesses must force his way beside the channel of the stream; now stepping from stone to stone amid the water’s splash; now clinging to the branches of the trees which drooped on either side. But whether wild or cultivated, there the Danes settled themselves, till they were driven out in the days of Alfred.
Alfred established his throne in righteousness, and the country became respectable and happy. Still the tree grew on, and lifted up its head above the boughs of less stately trees, for the yew does not attain to its highest elevation, or rest in the grandeur of its maturity, till five hundred years have passed away, and when the period arrived, concerning which I shall have to speak, the tree was only in its prime.
The forest had encroached upon the precincts of the fields and meadows, during those disastrous times when the ground was trod by hostile steps, as if it sought to recover its ancient rights; but this might not be, and when peace was restored, the sound of the woodman’s axe was heard again, and the usurping trees fell beneath its stroke. Then, also, many of those whose ample branches had long sheltered the margin of the cleared land, were cut down, to make room for wider clearings; and by degrees the noble yew, which had been in the depth of the dark forest, stood but a little distance from the verge of the common, up which the road led, and which being kept free from trees was reserved for the pasturing of sheep. It was covered with short grass and tufts of wild thyme, round which the bees came humming; and gay flowers, such as the bee-orchis, and the yellow cistus, the pink-eyed pimpernell, and yellow rocket, grew profusely beside the pathway. From the summit of the hill extended a noble panoramic view of hill and dale. Downward, and far as the eye could reach, a precipitous descent toward the vale country was covered with the trees of the old forest, which had gradually been curtailed of its extent; towns and villages varied the plain, through which the river flowed, and the strong castles of Dursley and Berkeley, of Beverstone and Brimpsfield, with their ample hunting-grounds, and the crowding dwellings of those who lived near, were seen at intervals.
Generations came and went, and successive monarchs filled the English throne, till the time of Harold, when on the battle-field of Hastings his noble patrimony passed into the hands of the proud Norman. Great changes then took place; strong castles were erected on the site of ancient Saxon fortresses, and while seed-time and harvest did their work, and gradually advanced and retreated, so gradually did the country emerge from out the darkness of past ages, and attain an eminence among the nations of the earth. But as night succeeds to day, and clouds obscure the cheerful light of the bright sun, so did war succeed to peace, and ruthless men made sorrowful the homes of England. When Stephen and the empress battled for pre-eminence, fell sounds broke up the quiet of the valleys, and fugitives often sought to hide themselves in the still close covert of the forest.
A gay pageant passed one day within sight of the noble yew. Men carrying branches of the beech, and damsels with flowers in their hands, wound up the road; and with them came a train of oxen, dragging a large tree, which had been cut from out the forest. The tree was wreathed with flowers; the horns of the oxen too were tastefully adorned, and when they reached the summit of the hill, the tree was set up, round which the light-hearted party danced right merrily. All this was done in honour of king Richard’s marriage. He had sought the sister of the Emperor Wenceslaus, fair Anne of Luxemburg; and when, at length, the final arrangements were adjusted, she left the palace of her brother, attended by the Duke of Saxony, and a great number of knights and damsels, with men-at-arms, and a goodly company, all well appointed to do her honour. They journeyed through Brabant to Brussels, where the Duke and Duchess received the young queen with great respect, and caused her attendants to be honourably entertained, for the Duke was her uncle, and he rejoiced much in the prospects of his niece. Anne expected merely to have spent a few pleasant days in the society of the Duke and Duchess, but, when about to leave them, intelligence was brought that twelve large Norman vessels, well equipped, and filled with armed men, were cruising in the sea between Calais and Holland, and that, under the pretence of seizing all who fell into their hands, they were really waiting for the coming of the lady, whom the king of France was desirous of getting into his possession, that he might frustrate the intended alliance between the English and Germans. The young queen was exceedingly alarmed at such unexpected intelligence. She remained in consequence with her uncle and aunt, till the Lords de Roasselaus and de Bousquehoir, having been deputed by the Duke to negotiate with the King of France, obtained passports for the safe conveyance of Anne and her attendants through his dominions, as far as Calais, as also for the remanding of the Normans into port.
The young queen then set forwards, after taking leave of her august relations and the ladies of the court, who witnessed her departure with much regret. The Duke added to her train five hundred spears, and, as she passed through Ghent and Bruges, the citizens received her with the utmost honour. Thus she journeyed on, till being arrived at Gravelines, the earls of Salisbury and Devonshire approached to do her homage, with five hundred spears, and as many archers. They conducted her to Calais, and, having safely confided her to the care of the English barons, who were appointed to that honour by the king, they returned homeward. Great was the joy of the Londoners, when the train, having passed over the sea to Dover, came within sight of the city gates. Ladies of the highest rank were assembled to receive their queen, all in their best attire, and with them came the great authorities both of the court and city. The gates were then thrown open with much solemnity, and Anne of Luxemburg having been conducted with chivalrous magnificence to the Palace of Westminster, the ceremony of her marriage was completed on the twentieth day after Christmas.
Christmas was well kept that year both in town and country; but when the trees burst forth into leaf and beauty, and the contented note of the solitary cuckoo, was heard in the still forest, the country people thought that they would rejoice again, and this occasioned the May-pole to be set up. They did not gather any branches from the yew, for the yew is a funereal tree, used to deck the grave of him who has nought to do with the cheerful scenes of busy life.
With the noble train who entered London came Margaret of Silesia, daughter of the Duke of Theise, and niece to the King of Bohemia, as the confidential friend, and first-cousin of the queen. This lady was received with great distinction, and apartments were assigned her in the palace, not only on account of her youth, but that she might enjoy a frequent intercourse with the friend who was most dear to her. But these halcyon days were not of long continuance. The queen died at Shene in Surry, and so bitterly did the king bewail her loss, that he denounced a malediction on the scene of her last illness, and commanded, in the wildness of his grief, that not one stone should be left upon another of the palace where she died. Margaret felt the death of the queen severely; she loved her cousin with a sister’s love, and the circumstance of their having left their native land together, and their being to each other what none else could be in a foreign country, had formed between them a bond of no common interest.
The queen deceased without children; but Margaret having married a gentleman of the ducal family of Norfolk, knight of the garter and standard-bearer of England, their only child and heiress, Alana, became the wife of Sir William Tyndale, who was equally respectable in point of antiquity and alliances. His family possessed the valuable domain and title of Tyndale in Northumberland, so called from the south Tyne, which, rising in the mountains and moors of Cumberland, waters that dale, and having joined the north Tyne near Hexham, falls into the German ocean at Tynmouth. Their baronial residence rose proudly on an eminence which commanded the southern banks of the river. It consisted of a spacious antique quadrangle; the roof and walls being of immense strength and thickness, extended in the form of the letter H; the whole was defended by a fosse, and surmounted with four principal towers, in the position of north and south.
“That castle rose upon the steep, of the green vale of Tyne;
While far below, as low they creep,
From pool to eddy dark and deep,
Where alders bend and willows weep,
You hear her streams repine.”