Heroines of the Crusades Part 2

The princesses were listening with rapt attention while Maude related the romance of a northern Jarl, who each night when the moon hung her silver lamp on high, moored his ocean palace beneath the shadow of a castle, beetling the sea, to woo fair Ulnah the Pearl of the Orkneys. The maiden, leaning spell-bound from the lattice, had yielded to the enchanter's song, and dropped a pale pearl upon the deck of the war-s.h.i.+p; the wizard-bird that nestled in its shroudings had spread its broad wings and hovered broodingly above the cas.e.m.e.nt, when flaming torches--splas.h.i.+ng oars--and wild shouts, announced the coming of her father's fleet.

At this point of the story a messenger hastily entered and summoned Agatha to the presence of her dread father.

With sad presentiments the princess rose and silently obeyed the mandate.

None were present with the Conqueror in the audience chamber save Matilda, Lanfranc, and the Saxon secretary, Ingulfus.

"Seat thyself beside me, daughter, and listen to my words," said the haughty monarch, with unwonted tenderness. "That I bade thee pledge thy hand to Earl Edwin to secure the peace of England, instead of trusting that event to my good sword, hath long grieved me sore; and often have I prayed the holy saints to absolve me of the sin. Heaven has heard my prayer and averted thy doom."

An involuntary shudder shook the slight frame of Agatha, but no sound escaped her lips.

"The brave Alphonso, King of Gallicia," continued the king, "has sent to woo thee for his bride; amba.s.sadors wait in the antechamber, and the good Lanfranc has consented to release thee from thy extorted vow. With this costly ring the prince of Spain plights thee his faith."

Agatha instinctively drew back her hand.

"Nay, shrink not, my daughter. The Saxon was unworthy of thy love. Knowest thou not he is leagued with thy father's foes? Resign thou his troth-gift, I will restore it to the proud Rebel. Bid thy maidens robe thee in apparel befitting thy rank, (certes, the Spanish diadem will well become thy jetty locks.) Even now a splendid convoy of vessels ride at anchor in the harbor to convey thee to thy future lord, and the pious Ingulfus, who hath long desired to visit the Holy Sepulchre, shall attend thee to the coast of Spain."

Agatha neither spoke nor moved.

"Give me thy troth-gift, silly girl," cried her father angrily, bending his brow upon her, with the terrible frown, at which bold hearts were wont to quail.

Mechanically the trembling victim, drew from her bosom the talismanic s.h.i.+eld. Lanfranc took it from her hand, placed the ring upon her finger, repeated the words of absolution, and the ceremony of betrothal, and when he ceased, Agatha lay at her father's feet, pale and cold in a death-like swoon. But bitterly as Matilda wept over her suffering daughter, her heart was torn with still keener anguish, at the maledictions p.r.o.nounced upon her first-born and favorite son. Robert had been betrothed in infancy to the heiress of Maine; and had cherished the most romantic attachment for his affianced bride. On the death of the princess the people demanded him for their lord, and the young regent, generous and rash, had proceeded to take possession of the duchy, and administer justice in his own name.

William now required him to resign the fief, not only, but to give his hand to Maude, the beautiful captive, who had so long been the companion of his sisters. With the true spirit of chivalry, Robert indignantly replied;

"The lovely Maude hath already bestowed her affections on Earl Edwin, and Robert's bride shall never bear to the altar a reluctant heart. Thou hast sacrificed the meek Agatha to the l.u.s.t of dominion, but the gentle Maude shall never suffer from thy tyranny, while the sword of a belted knight can defend her. If ever I am king of England, the lands of Huntingdon shall be hers, with free right to choose her own lord."

"Boast not thyself of to-morrow, England shalt thou never have. I have won it by mine own good sword, the vicars of Christ have set its crown upon my head, and placed its sceptre in my hand, and all the world combined shall not take it from me," cried the monarch in a paroxysm of rage.

"I only demand the suzerains.h.i.+p of Normandy and Maine, which all men say is my just inheritance," replied Robert.

"Thou would'st do well to remember the fate of Absalom, and the misfortunes of Rehoboam, and beware of evil counsellors," retorted William.

Robert insolently rejoined, "I did not come hither to listen to sermons, but to claim the invest.i.ture which has been promised me. Answer me positively, are not these things my right?"

"It is not my custom to strip before I go to bed," replied the Conqueror; "and as long as I live, I will not divide my native realm, Normandy, with another, for it is written in the holy evangelists, 'Every kingdom divided against itself shall become desolate.'"

"If it is inconvenient for thee to keep thy word, I will depart from Normandy, and seek justice from strangers, here I will not remain a subject," retorted Robert, with equal pride and scorn.

"Par le splendeur de De," shouted William, half unsheathing his sword. "It is not to be borne, that he who owes his existence to me, should aspire to be my rival in mine own dominions. May the curse of Cain light upon thy undutiful head."

Thus they parted, Robert to take refuge with his mother's brother, in Flanders, and William to return to his distracted kingdom, where the fires of civil war still smouldered in the ashes of freedom.

In such scenes was Adela nurtured, and thus in an atmosphere of intrigue and superst.i.tion, was a character naturally penetrating and impetuous, prepared to devise and carry forward the wildest schemes.

Public calamities, and domestic vexations, impaired the peace and irritated the temper of the English monarch. Bodesmen from the north, brought news of leagues and plots against his power, while messengers from Normandy, conveyed tidings of the disaffections of his peers, and the hostilities of the French king.

Richard, his most dutiful and affectionate son, had accompanied him to England. The young prince was exceedingly fond of the chase, and often spent whole days hunting in the New Forest of Hamps.h.i.+re.

The malaria of the depopulated district, and the painful emotions awakened in his sensitive nature, by the sight of famis.h.i.+ng wretches, vainly seeking food and shelter, brought on a delirious fever, which soon terminated his life. He was interred in Winchester Cathedral.

The last tone of the curfew bell was reverberating through the silent halls of the palace, when the distracted father, haunted by the piteous lamentations, and reproachful ravings of his departed son, threw himself despairingly upon his couch.

"News from beyond seas," said the chamberlain, entering, and presenting him a letter. William cut the silk and read.

"In the name of the blessed Mary, ever virgin, St. Michael, and St.

Valery, doth thy poor scribe Ingulfus pray, that strength may be given thee, duke William, by grace of G.o.d, king of England, to bear the dreadful tidings, which much it grieves me to convey. When this comes to thee thou wilt know that thy sweet daughter, Agatha, liveth no more. From the day of our departure she shed no tears, but a tender wailing sound, like the moan of a wounded dove, issued ever from her lips. Her heart, she said, was devoted to her first spouse, and she prayed that the Most High would rather take her to himself, than allow her ever to be wedded to another.

Her prayer was granted.

"The faintness which we witnessed at her betrothal, returned upon her by night and by day, but she never murmured; and on the eve of the blessed St. Agnes, having received the rites of our holy Church, she died, with the crucifix in her hand, and the name of Edwin on her lips."

The scroll dropped from the hand of the stricken father and a remorseful pang wrung his heart.

Again the chamberlain entered ushering in a dark figure wrapped in a long serge cloak, like those usually worn by monks. Kneeling at the monarch's feet, the stranger spoke. "Knowing, oh king! thy munificence to thy faithful servants, and moved by the love I bear thy throne and realm, I have discovered to Fitz Osborne the secret haunts of thine enemies, and to obtain thy royal favor, have brought from the Isle of Ely, that which I hope will please thee well. Behold the head of the Saxon chief."

The Conqueror shrank back in horror, as the well-known features of Edwin, pale and distorted with the death agony, and the long, fair locks all dabbled with gore, met his bewildered gaze.

"Cursed traitor!" shouted he, starting from his seat, "dost thou think to win my favor by bringing me the head of thy murdered lord? Ho! seneschal, convey this Judas to the lowest cell of the donjon. There shall he learn how William rewards the betrayer of innocent blood." The prisoner was borne from his presence.

The monarch buried his face in his hands, and burst into tears of uncontrollable anguish.

"Woe is me, my daughter,--Done to death by thy father's unholy ambition--Thy Edwin hunted and slain on his own hearth-stone. What has this sceptre brought me? Toilsome days, and sleepless nights,--a divided household,--and children cut off in the flower of their youth. Truly, saith the Scripture; 'Woe unto him that coveteth an evil covetousness unto his house.'"

As he bowed his head his eyes fell upon the fatal, silver s.h.i.+eld. Lifting it reverently from the floor, and wiping the clotted blood from its polished surface, with some difficulty, he deciphered the Saxon inscription, which has been thus elegantly translated.

"Edwin his pledge has left in me, Now to the battle prest: His guardian angel may she be, Who wears me on her breast.

To him true hearted may she prove, Oh! G.o.d, to thee I pray; Edwin shall well requite her love, Returning from the fray.

But if, forgetful of her vows, May Heaven avert the thought, She sell this love-charm of her spouse, Which never could be bought;

If of her own free will she cast This talisman away; May Edwin's life no longer last, To rue that fatal day."

CHAPTER V.

"Still to the truth direct thy strong desire, And flee the very air where dwells a liar.

Fail not the ma.s.s, there still with reverent feet, Each morn be found, nor scant thy offering meet, Haste thee, sir knight, where dames complain of wrong; Maintain their right, and in their cause be strong."

The last act in the b.l.o.o.d.y tragedy of England's subjection, was consummated in the year 1074, when Earl Waltheof, having been drawn into a plot against the crown, and betrayed by his Norman wife, Judith, to her uncle, the Conqueror, was beheaded on a rising ground, just without the gates of Winchester, the first Anglo-Saxon that perished by the hand of the executioner.

The perfidious Judith had fixed her affections on a French Count, but William had already secured a willing agent of his own purposes, in the person of Simon, a Norman n.o.ble, lame and deformed, on whom he designed to bestow her hand, with the rich earldoms of Northampton and Huntingdon.

The haughty Judith scorned the alliance, and stripped of rank and power, retired to the wilds of Yorks.h.i.+re in obscurity and contempt.

The bitter tears occasioned by the melancholy fate of Agatha and Edwin, were fresh upon the cheek of Maude, when the heavy tidings of her father's cruel death, overwhelmed her in a tide of deeper anguish. A lingering illness followed, yet sweet dreams stole ever upon her rest, and the watchful Adela comprehended, that transported to the home of her childhood, in the gaiety of life's early morn, she trod again the breezy upland, and fragrant glade, wandered through wood and wold, with Edwin by her side, or sitting by the star-lit fountain, challenged the nightingale from out the leafy holt, with s.n.a.t.c.hes of Runic rhyme, and Saxon melody.

But young life combating disease, slowly led her back from the gates of the grave. One by one the bright visions faded, and sadly her eyes unclosed to a consciousness of the dark realities before her.

William had determined that the hand of the beautiful heiress of Huntingdon, should compensate the pliant Simon for the mortifying refusal of her stepmother. The betrothal was to take place directly on the Conqueror's arrival in Normandy, but the happy oblivion of Maude, no less than the entreaties of Adela, and the menacing of Robert served to delay the doom they could not finally avert.