Doubtless the ghoul (for he that rifles tombs is none other) who perpetrated this enormity described himself as an archæologist. Possibly he was of gentle birth and had received a University education. If so, so much the greater his crime, for he could not plead ignorance. Surely no seriously minded person can urge that the knowledge thus gained as to ancient methods of burial, age of the remains, and so on, warranted such sacrilege.[42] We can only hope that the chieftain was granted five minutes with the archæologist when that individual at length entered the land of shadows. Doubtless the archæologist had no qualms whatever, and slept soundly in the belief that by his 'researches' he had wrought great things for mankind; but when he encountered the chieftain it is unlikely that they would see eye to eye. 'Happy are they who deal so with men in this world that they are not afraid to meet them in the next,' and happier still are they who deal so reverently with the earthly memorials of the dead, that there may be many to speak in their favour when they approach the Great Tribunal.
THE HALL OF THE KNIGHTS
This particular form of irreverence, however, has been a byword throughout all the ages; civilisation and education have done little to check it, possibly because the romantic spirit which forbids such crimes is born, not made. King Arthur's bones were dug up in the twelfth century. 'Mummie is become Merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharoah is sold for balsoms,' wrote Sir Thomas Browne five hundred years later. In 1788 the massive stone coffin which held the remains of our illustrious King Alfred was discovered facing the High Altar at Hyde Abbey, Winchester, whither they had been translated in 1110. The coffin was broken in pieces, the bones found in it were scattered, and the lead enveloping the remains was sold by the workmen. A stone from the wrecked tomb, bearing the name ÆLFRED, was carried off to Cumberland as a curio. Hyde Abbey was razed to make way for a county Bridewell. 'At almost every stroke of the mattock,' relates an eye-witness, 'some antient sepulchre or other was violated.' Examples of such desecrations can be multiplied without number. The Great Alaric was wise indeed when he had the course of a river changed so that his bones, when lying at the bottom of it, might never be disturbed.
Our ancient laws dealt sternly with this matter. 'If any man shall dig up a body that has already been buried,' ruled Henry the First, 'he shall be wargus,' that is, banished from his district as a rogue. 'Malice provoketh not to dig up tombes and graves,' wrote an unknown Elizabethan scholar, commenting on this; 'and though it should, yet religion doth now restraine it, by reason it is counted sacriledge to violate anythinge in churches or churchyards. Covetousness made some to dig up the dead, because ornaments, jewels, or money, were in times past buried with many; but now that custome seasing, no man for desire of gaine is invited to commit this offence, and it now being generally reputed a most vile acte, no man will presume to transgresse these lawes, and every man is a law to himself therein.' But in this 'enlightened' age, when we are held to be above the need of such legislation, there is nothing to prevent the archæologist from practising his hobby where and when he please—so long as he avoids the churchyards. 'Tush,' he cries, 'here lies an ancient heathen who was not even buried in consecrated ground. We may find some curious relics buried with him. Up with his bones.'
'Freedom for all men' may be a glorious motto, yet when we view these crimes (and the carved initials which deface so many of our most sacred monuments) we cannot but muse that there are many who should never be free—at least from the restraint of discipline. 'None can love freedom heartily, but good men: the rest love not freedom, but licence.'[43]
FOOTNOTES:
[32] There are 242 pages in this editio princeps, after which should come a leaf with (a) blank (b) device of John Hervey or Hervagius. It was english'd by Thomas Underdowne, and published in small octavo by Frauncis Coldocke, at the sign of the greene Dragon in Paules churchyeard, in 1587.
[33] "Il estoit bon musicien, tres-bon Poëte François et Italien, se delectant singulierement a lire les belles et naifues rithmes de nos Poëtes Prouençaux . . . . . . . tellement qu'il a compose en son temps plusieurs beaux et gracieux Romans comme La conqueste de la douce mercy, et Le mortifiement de vaine plaisance . . . . . Mais sur toutes choses aimoit il d'un amour passionnez la peinture . . . . . qu'il estoit en bruit et reputation entre les plus excellents Peintres et Enlumineurs de son temps." (Nostradamus). He had a fine library which contained all the most celebrated compositions of the Provençal poets and troubadours.
[34] It was quite a dramatic scene. Bertrand taunted the Prince until the latter named a sum; and to his surprise De Guesclin at once cried "Done!" and all at the table sprang to their feet. "Oh Sir," they cried to the Prince, "what have you done!" "I hold you to your word," cried Du Guesclin—and so it was. See Hay du Chastelet, Claude Menard, and other biographers, also the Inventaire des Chartres, tome VI. (See also footnote on page [216].)