Stories of the Olden Time Part 18

7. And now King Harold showed himself a man. He turned at once from the north of England to the south. He raised the folk of the southern, as he had raised those of the central and northern s.h.i.+res, and in sixteen days--after a march which in those times was a prodigious feat--he was intrenched upon the fatal down which men called Heathfield then, and Senlac, but Battle to this day--with William and his French Normans opposite him on Telham Hill.

8. Then came the battle of Hastings. You all know what befell upon that day, and how the old weapon was matched against the new--the English axe against the Norman lance--and beaten only because the English broke their ranks.

9. It was a fearful time which followed. I can not but believe that our forefathers had been, in some way or other, great sinners, or two such conquests as Canute's and William's would not have fallen on them within the short s.p.a.ce of sixty years. They did not want for courage, as Stamford Brigg and Hastings showed full well. English swine, their Norman conquerors called them often enough, but never English cowards.

10. Their ruinous vice, if we trust the records of the time, was what the old monks called _accidia_, and ranked it as one of the seven deadly sins: a general careless, sleepy, comfortable habit of mind, which lets all go its way for good or evil--a habit of mind too often accompanied, as in the case of the Anglo-Danes, with self-indulgence, often coa.r.s.e enough. Huge eaters and huger drinkers, fuddled with ale, were the men who went down at Hastings--though they went down like heroes--before the staid and sober Norman out of France.

11. But these were fearful times. As long as William lived, ruthless as he was to all rebels, he kept order and did justice with a strong and steady hand; for he brought with him from Normandy the instincts of a truly great statesman. And in his sons' time matters grew worse and worse. After that, in the troubles of Stephen's reign, anarchy let loose tyranny in its most fearful form, and things were done which recall the cruelties of the old Spanish _conquistadores_ in America.

Scott's charming romance of "Ivanhoe" must be taken, I fear, as a too true picture of English society in the time of Richard I.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Battle Abbey._]

12. And what came of it all? What was the result of all this misery and wrong? This, paradoxical as it may seem: that the Norman conquest was the making of the English people; of the free commons of England.

13. Paradoxical, but true. First, you must dismiss from your minds the too common notion that there is now in England a governing Norman aristocracy, or that there has been one, at least since the year 1215, when the Magna Charta was won from the Norman John by Normans and by English alike. For the first victors at Hastings, like the first _conquistadores_ in America, perished, as the monk chronicles point out, rapidly by their own crimes; and very few of our n.o.bility can trace their names back to the authentic Battle Abbey roll.

14. The cause is plain: The conquest of England by the Normans was not one of those conquests of a savage by a civilized race, or of a cowardly race by a brave race, which results in the slavery of the conquered, and leaves the gulf of caste between two races--master and slave. The vast majority, all but the whole population of England, have always been free, and free as they are not when caste exists to change their occupations. They could intermarry, if they were able men, into the rank above them; as they could sink, if they were unable men, into the rank below them.

15. Nay, so utterly made up now is the old blood-feud between Norman and Englishman, between the descendants of those who conquered and those who were conquered, that, in the children of the Prince of Wales, after eight hundred years, the blood of William of Normandy is mingled with the blood of Harold, who fell at Hastings. And so, by the bitter woes which followed the Norman conquest was the whole population, Dane, Angle, and Saxon, earl and churl, freeman and slave, crushed and welded together into one h.o.m.ogeneous ma.s.s, made just and merciful toward each other by the most wholesome of all teachings, a community of suffering; and if they had been, as I fear they were, a lazy and a sensual people, were taught--

That life is not as idle ore, But heated hot with burning fears, And bathed in baths of hissing tears, And battered with the strokes of doom To shape and use.

_Charles Kingsley._

_XLII.--KING RICHARD CUR DE LION IN THE HOLY LAND._

1. At the end of August, 1191, Richard led his crusading troops from Acre into the midst of the wilderness of Mount Carmel, where their sufferings were terrible; the rocky, sandy, and uneven ground was covered with bushes full of long, sharp p.r.i.c.kles, and swarms of noxious insects buzzed in the air, fevering the Europeans with their stings; and in addition to these natural obstacles, mult.i.tudes of Arab hors.e.m.e.n harra.s.sed them on every side, slaughtering every straggler who dropped behind from fatigue, and attacking them so unceasingly that it was remarked, that throughout their day's track there was not one s.p.a.ce of four feet without an arrow sticking in the ground.

Richard fought indefatigably, always in the van, and ready to reward the gallant exploits of his knights. A young knight who bore a white s.h.i.+eld, in hopes of gaining some honorable bearing, so distinguished himself that Richard thus greeted him at the close of the day: "Maiden knight, you have borne yourself as a lion, and done the deed of six crusaders."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Battle of Arsaaf._]

2. At Arsaaf, on the 7th of September, a great battle was fought.

Saladin and his brother had almost defeated the two religious orders (the Templars and the Hospitallers), and the gallant French knight Jacques d'Avesne, after losing his leg by a stroke from a cimeter, fought bravely on, calling on the English king until he fell overpowered by numbers. Cur de Lion and Guillaume des Barres retrieved the day, hewed down the enemy on all sides, and remained masters of the field. It is even said that Richard and Saladin met hand to hand, but this is uncertain. This victory opened the way to Joppa, where the crusaders spent the next month in the repair of the fortifications, while the Saracen forces lay at Ascalon.

3. While here, Richard often amused himself with hawking, and one day was asleep under a tree when he was aroused by the approach of a party of Saracens, and springing on his horse Frannelle, which had been taken at Cyprus, he rashly pursued them and fell into an ambush. Four knights were slain, and he would have been seized had not a Gascon knight named Guillaume des Parcelets called out that he himself was the Malak Rik (great king), and allowed himself to be taken. Richard offered ten n.o.ble Saracens in exchange for this generous knight, whom Saladin restored together with a valuable horse that had been captured at the same time. A present of another Arab steed accompanied them; but Richard's half-brother, William Longsword, insisted on trying the animal before the king should mount it. No sooner was he on its back, than it dashed at once across the country, and before he could stop it he found himself in the midst of the enemy's camp. The two Saracen princes were extremely shocked and distressed lest this should be supposed a trick, and instantly escorted Longsword back with a gift of three chargers, which proved to be more manageable.

4. From Joppa the crusaders marched to Ramla, and thence, on New Year's Day, 1192, set out for Jerusalem through a country full of greater obstacles than they had yet encountered. They were too full of spirit to be discouraged until they came to Bethany, where the two Grand Masters represented to Richard the imprudence of laying siege to such fortifications as those of Jerusalem at such a season of the year, while Ascalon was ready in his rear for a post whence the enemy would attack him.

5. He yielded, and retreated to Ascalon, which Saladin had ruined and abandoned, and began eagerly to repair the fortifications so as to be able to leave a garrison there. The soldiers grumbled, saying they had not come to Palestine to build Ascalon, but to conquer Jerusalem; whereupon Richard set the example of himself carrying stones, and called on Leopold, the Duke of Austria, to do the same. The sulky reply, "He was not the son of a mason," so irritated Richard, that he struck him a blow; Leopold straightway quitted the army, and returned to Austria.

6. It was not without great grief and many struggles that Cur de Lion finally gave up his hopes of taking Jerusalem. He again advanced as far as Bethany; but a quarrel with Hugh of Burgundy, and the defection of the Austrians made it impossible for him to proceed, and he turned back to Ramla. While riding out with a party of knights, one of them called out, "This way, my lord, and you will see Jerusalem."

"Alas!" said Richard, hiding his face with his mantle, "those who are not worthy to win the Holy City are not worthy to behold it." He returned to Acre; but there hearing that Saladin was besieging Joppa, he embarked his troops and sailed to its aid.

7. The crescent (the standard of the Saracens) shone on its walls as he entered the harbor; but while he looked on in dismay, he was hailed by a priest who had leaped into the sea and swum out to inform him that there was yet time to rescue the garrison, though the town was in the hands of the enemy. He hurried his vessel forward, leaped into the water breast-high, dashed upward on the sh.o.r.e, ordered his immediate followers to raise a bulwark of casks and beams to protect the landing of the rest, and rus.h.i.+ng up a flight of steps, entered the city alone.

"St. George! St. George!" That cry dismayed the infidels, and those in the town to the number of three thousand fled in the utmost confusion, and were pursued for two miles by three knights who had been fortunate enough to find him.

8. Richard pitched his tent outside the walls, and remained there with so few troops that all were contained in ten tents. Very early one morning, before the king was out of bed, a man rushed into his tent, crying out: "O king! we are all dead men!" Springing up, Richard fiercely silenced him: "Peace! or thou diest by my hand!" Then, while hastily donning his suit of mail, he heard that the glitter of arms had been seen in the distance, and in another moment the enemy were upon them, seven thousand in number. Richard had neither helmet nor s.h.i.+eld, and only seventeen of his knights had horses; but undaunted he drew up his little force in a compact body, the knights kneeling on one knee covered by their s.h.i.+elds, their lances pointing outward, and between each pair an archer with an a.s.sistant to load his cross-bow; and he stood in the midst encouraging them with his voice, and threatening to cut off the head of the first who turned to fly. In vain did the Saracens charge that ma.s.s of brave men, not one seventh of their number; the s.h.i.+elds and lances were impenetrable; and without one forward step or one bolt from the cross-bows, their pa.s.sive steadiness turned back wave after wave of the enemy.

9. At last the king gave the word for the cross-bowmen to advance, while he, with the seventeen mounted knights charged, lance in rest.

His curtal axe bore down all before it, and he dashed like lightning from one part of the plain to another, with not a moment to smile at the opportune gift from the polite Malek-el-Afdal, who, in the hottest of the fight, sent him two fine horses, desiring him to use them in escaping from this dreadful peril. Little did the Saracen princes imagine that they would find him victorious, and that they would mount two more pursuers!

10. Next came a terrified fugitive with news that three thousand Saracens had entered Joppa! Richard summoned a few knights, and without a word to the rest galloped back into the city. The panic inspired by his presence instantly cleared the streets, and riding back, he again led his troops to the charge; but such were the swarms of Saracens, that it was not till evening that the Christians could give themselves a moment's rest, or look round and feel that they had gained one of the most wonderful of victories. Since daybreak Richard had not laid aside his sword or axe, and his hand was all over blistered. No wonder that the terror of his name endured for centuries in Palestine, and that the Arab chided his starting horse with, "Dost think that yonder is the Malek Rik?" while the mother stilled her crying child by threats that the Malek Rik should take it.

11. These violent exertions seriously injured Richard's health, and a low fever placed him in great danger, as well as several of his best knights. No command or persuasion could induce the rest to commence any enterprise without him, and the tidings from Europe induced him to conclude a peace and return home. Malek-el-Afdal came to visit him, and a truce was signed for three years, three months, three weeks, three days, three hours, and three minutes, thus so quaintly arranged in accordance with some astrological views of the Saracens. Ascalon was to be demolished on condition that free access to Jerusalem was to be allowed to the pilgrims; but Saladin would not restore the piece of the True Cross, as he was resolved not to conduce to what he considered idolatry.

12. Richard sent notice that he was coming back with double his present force to effect the conquest, and the Sultan answered, that if the Holy City was to pa.s.s into Frank hands, none could be n.o.bler than those of the Malek Rik. Fever and debility detained Richard a month longer at Joppa, during which time he sent the Bishop of Salisbury to carry his offerings to Jerusalem. The prelate was invited to the presence of Saladin, who spoke in high terms of Richard's courage, but censured his rash exposure of his own life. On October 9, 1193, Cur de Lion took leave of Palestine, watching with tears its receding sh.o.r.es, as he exclaimed, "O, Holy Land, I commend thee and thy people unto G.o.d. May He grant me yet to return to aid thee!"

_Charlotte M. Yonge._

_XLIII.--KING JOHN AND THE CHARTER._

1. On his return from the crusade Richard was taken prisoner by the Duke of Austria. He bought his release only to find King Philip attacking his French dominions, and to plunge into wearisome and indecisive wars, in the midst of which he was slain at the Castle of Chaluz. His brother John, who followed him on the throne, was a vile and weak ruler, under whom the great sovereignty built up by Henry II broke utterly down. Normandy, Maine, and Anjou were reft from him by Philip of France, and only Aquitaine remained to him on that side of the sea. In England his l.u.s.t and oppression drove people and n.o.bles to join in resistance to him; and their resistance found a great leader in the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton.

2. From the moment of his landing in England, Stephen Langton had taken up the const.i.tutional position of the primate in upholding the old customs and rights of the realm against the personal despotism of the kings. As Anselm had withstood William the Red, as Theobald had withstood Stephen, so Langton prepared to withstand and rescue his country from the tyranny of John. He had already forced him to swear to observe the laws of Edward the Confessor, in other words the traditional liberties of the realm. When the baronage refused to sail for Poitou, saying that they owed service to him in England, but not in foreign lands, he compelled the king to deal with them not by arms, but by process of law. But the work which he now undertook was far greater and weightier than this. The pledges of Henry the First had long been forgotten when the justiciar brought them to light, but Langton saw the vast importance of such a precedent. At the close of the month he produced Henry's charter in a fresh gathering of barons at St. Paul's, and it was at once welcomed as a base for the needed reforms. From London Langton hastened to the king, whom he reached at Northampton on his way to attack the n.o.bles of the north, and wrested from him a promise to bring his strife with them to legal judgment before a.s.sailing them in arms.

3. With his enemies gathering abroad, John had doubtless no wish to be entangled in a long quarrel at home, and the archbishop's mediation allowed him to withdraw with seeming dignity. After a demonstration therefore at Durham John marched hastily south again, and reached London in October. His justiciar Geoffry Fitz-Peter at once laid before him the claims of the Council of St. Alban's and St. Paul's, but the death of Geoffry at this juncture freed him from the pressure which his minister was putting upon him. "Now, by G.o.d's feet," cried John, "I am for the first time king and lord of England," and he intrusted the vacant justiciars.h.i.+p to a Poitevin, Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, whose temper was in harmony with his own. But the death of Geoffry only called the archbishop to the front, and Langton at once demanded the king's a.s.sent to the charter of Henry the First.

4. In seizing on this charter as a basis for national action, Langton showed a political ability of the highest order. The enthusiasm with which its recital was welcomed showed the sagacity with which the archbishop had chosen his ground. From that moment the baronage was no longer drawn together in secret conspiracies by a sense of common wrong or a vague longing for common deliverance; they were openly united in a definite claim of national freedom and national law.

Secretly, and on the pretext of pilgrimage, the n.o.bles met at St.

Edmundsbury, resolute to bear no longer with John's delays. If he refused to restore their liberties they swore to make war on him till he confirmed them by charter under the king's seal, and they parted to raise forces with the purpose of presenting their demands at Christmas. John, knowing nothing of the coming storm, pursued his policy of winning over the Church by granting it freedom of election, while he imbittered still more the strife with his n.o.bles by demanding scutage[A] from the northern n.o.bles who had refused to follow him to Poitou. But the barons were now ready to act, and early in January, in the memorable year 1215, they appeared in arms to lay, as they had planned, their demands before the king.

5. John was taken by surprise. He asked for a truce till Easter-tide, and spent the interval in fevered efforts to avoid the blow. Again he offered freedom to the Church, and took vows as a crusader against whom war was a sacrilege, while he called for a general oath of allegiance and fealty from the whole body of his subjects. But month after month only showed the king the uselessness of further resistance. Though Pandulf, the Pope's legate, was with him, his va.s.salage had as yet brought little fruit in the way of aid from Rome; the commissioners whom he sent to plead his cause at the s.h.i.+re courts brought back news that no man would help him against the charter that the barons claimed; and his efforts to detach the clergy from the league of his opponents utterly failed. The nation was against the king. He was far indeed from being utterly deserted. His ministers still clung to him, men such as Geoffry de Lucy, Geoffry de Furnival, Thomas Ba.s.set, and William Briwere, statesmen trained in the administrative school of his father, and who, dissent as they might from John's mere oppression, still looked on the power of the crown as the one barrier against feudal anarchy; and beside them stood some of the great n.o.bles of royal blood, Earl William of Salisbury, his cousin Earl William of Warenne, and Henry, Earl of Cornwall, a grandson of Henry the First. With him too remained Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and the wisest and n.o.blest of the barons, William Marshal, the elder Earl of Pembroke. William Marshal had shared in the rising of the younger Henry against Henry II, and stood by him as he died; he had shared in the overthrow of William Longchamp, and in the outlawry of John. He was now an old man, firm, as we shall see in his aftercourse, to recall the government to the path of freedom and law, but shrinking from a strife which might bring back the anarchy of Stephen's day, and looking for reforms rather in the bringing const.i.tutional pressure to bear upon the king than in forcing them from him by arms.

6. But cling as such men might to John, they clung to him rather as mediators than adherents. Their sympathies went with the demands of the barons when the delay which had been granted was over and the n.o.bles again gathered in arms at Brackley in Northamptons.h.i.+re to lay their claims before the king. Nothing marks more strongly the absolutely despotic idea of his sovereignty which John had formed than the pa.s.sionate surprise which breaks out in his reply. "Why do they not ask for my kingdom?" he cried. "I will never grant such liberties as will make me a slave!" The imperialist theories of the lawyers of his father's court had done their work. Held at bay by the practical sense of Henry, they had told on the more headstrong nature of his sons. Richard and John both held with Glanvill that the will of the prince was the law of the land; and to fetter that will by the customs and franchises which were embodied in the baron's claims seemed to John a monstrous usurpation of his rights.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _King John and the Charter._]

7. But no imperialist theories had touched the minds of his people.

The country rose as one man at his refusal. At the close of May, London threw open her gates to the forces of the barons, now arrayed under Robert Fitz Walter as "Marshal of the Army of G.o.d and Holy Church." Exeter and Lincoln followed the example of the capital; promises of aid came from Scotland and Wales, the northern barons marched hastily under Eustace de Vesci to join their comrades in London. Even the n.o.bles who had as yet clung to the king, but whose hopes of conciliation were blasted by his obstinacy, yielded at last to the summons of the "Army of G.o.d." Pandulf, indeed, and Archbishop Langton still remained with John, but they counseled as Earl Ranulf and William Marshal counseled his acceptance of the charter. None, in fact, counseled its rejection save his new justiciar, the Poitevin Peter des Roches and other foreigners who knew the barons purposed driving them from the land. But even the number of these was small; there was a moment when John found himself with but seven knights at his back and before him a nation in arms. Quick as he was, he had been taken utterly by surprise. It was in vain that in the short respite he had gained from Christmas to Easter, he had summoned mercenaries to his aid and appealed to his new suzerain, the Pope. Summons and appeal were alike too late. Nursing wrath in his heart, John bowed to necessity, and called the barons to a conference on an island in the Thames between Windsor and Staines, near a marshy meadow by the river-side, the meadow of Runnymede.

8. The king encamped on one bank of the river, the barons covered the flat of Runnymede on the other. Their delegates met on the 15th of July in the island between them, but the negotiations were a mere cloak to cover John's purpose of unconditional submission. The Great Charter was discussed and agreed to in a single day.

_John Richard Green._

[Footnote A: Scutage, or s.h.i.+eld-money, was the commutation paid in lieu of military service by all who owed service to the king.]

_XLIV.--AN EARLY ELECTION TO PARLIAMENT._