Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

To the rescue! to the rescue, ho! they have ta’en Fernan Gonsalez!”

Interrupting without ceremony, and taking the ballad out of the singer’s mouth, Oliver repeated the verse at the top of his voice, so emphasising several of the words as to leave little room for mistake as to his meaning. As he did so he observed a figure climb slowly but without difficulty up a parapet, at such a distance from him that there was no possibility of communicating by words; but the figure, on reaching the top of the parapet, reared itself and stood in the form of a boy dressed in crimson, holding some musical instrument in his hand, and looking scrutinously from window to window, and from casement to casement, apparently with the object of discovering from which had come the voice of the person who had caught up his song. Oliver, to aid him, took his cap, put his hand between the bars of the window, and dexterously tossed the cap in the air. The signal was observed and had the desired effect. The singer returned it, and having dropped nimbly to the ground disappeared, while Oliver, withdrawing into the interior of his chamber, began to marvel what consequences would flow from this unexpected incident.

But days and weeks elapsed, and nothing came to alter his situation; and Oliver, thinking he was forgotten by those on whom he had been relying, was musing over the song that had raised his hopes, and ever and anon asking himself with a smile whether or not it would be possible to persuade De Moreville’s daughter to play the part of the infanta who bribed the alcaydé with her jewels to set free the great Count of Castile, and who then fled with him to his own land, when there occurred an event which changed the aspect of his affairs.

It was somewhere about the middle of May, 1216, and Oliver had been nearly eleven months in captivity, and Hugh de Moreville, with Ralph Hornmouth in attendance, had been many months absent from Chas-Chateil, being, in fact at the court of Paris; and the castle, which was well garrisoned, was under the command of a Norman knight who had seen about fifty winters, and who rejoiced in the name of Anthony Waledger. He was a man of courage and prudence, Sir Anthony Waledger, and had married the “lady governess” of Beatrix de Moreville, she being a distant kinswoman of the house. And Hugh de Moreville had the most implicit confidence in her husband’s fidelity and discretion. It is true that the old knight was a man of violent temper and intemperate habits, and much given to brimming goblets and foaming tankards. Besides, he had the character of having sometimes in moments of danger shown too much of the discretion which is the better part of valour. But De Moreville overlooked his weaknesses, believing him to be incapable of betraying his trust or failing in his duty. Moreover, the knight had faith in his garrison, and felt so secure that he would readily have staked his head on holding out Chas-Chateil against any army in England till the arrival of succour; and his confidence was all the greater because he knew that he had the means – no matter how closely the castle might be invested – of communicating with the baronial party in time to be rescued, for there was a subterranean passage, the existence of which Waledger believed to be known to none save himself and the baron whom he served. In this he was partly wrong, inasmuch as Styr, the Anglo-Saxon, from his residence at Chas-Chateil in the days of Edric Icingla, was aware that there was this underground passage, and even knew the chamber that communicated with it. But he knew no more, and if put into it could no more have guessed where it was to lead or where it was to terminate than De Moreville’s horse-boy, Clem the Bold Rider, or Richard de Moreville, the baron’s nephew, who were equally ignorant that such a passage existed. Everything, however, tended to inspire the governor of Chas-Chateil with a feeling of security. Indeed, over his cups he was in the habit of talking big to De Moreville’s knights and squires, and especially to De Moreville’s nephew Richard, about his engines of war, and what he could do with their aid.

“Sirs,” he was wont to say at such moments, “let who will tremble at a false tyrant’s frown, I defy his malice. Let him do his worst, and, by the head of St. Anthony, if King John makes his appearance before the castle of Chas-Chateil, the said king will be the luckiest of Johns if he can escape from before it alive and at liberty.”

Never had Sir Anthony Waledger boasted more loudly of the impregnability of the fortress he commanded than as he sat at supper in the great hall on the evening of the day to which allusion has been made; and never did the garrison retire to rest with a better prospect of reposing undisturbed till the return of daylight. But it appeared, as Ralph Hornmouth remarked, that “his confidence did not rest on quite so firm a foundation as the Bass rock.” About three hours after sunset, when the moon afforded but a faint light, shouts suddenly resounded through Chas-Chateil, and gradually swelled into such an uproar as if all the fiends had congregated within its walls to fight out the quarrels they had been fostering from the beginning of time.

Oliver Icingla, roused from his repose, started from his couch and rushed to the window; but as there was nothing visible in the direction towards which it looked to explain the uproar, that grew louder and more alarming, he hastily donned his garments, and stood calm, though greatly curious, to await the issue. As he did so, voices were heard; the gaoler opened the door, and as the door opened in rushed, pell-mell, De Moreville’s daughter with her two maidens and the wife of Waledger, all in the utmost trepidation, weeping and wringing their hands, and showing signs of hasty toilets.

“Gentle sir,” said Beatrix, coming towards him, “I implore you by our kindred blood and for the sake of your mother to save us from these cruel men.”

“Assuredly, noble demoiselle,” replied Oliver very calmly, as he took his fair kinswoman’s hand and kissed it most gallantly by the moonlight. “I am under the vows of chivalry, and albeit I wear not the spurs of knighthood, I am bound to save imperilled ladies or to die in their defence. But I marvel who they can be?”

“Oh,” cried the spouse of Waledger, whose consternation increased every moment, “who should they be but your own friends, the ravening wolves whom the false king has brought into the realm – Falco the Cruel, Manlem the Bloody, Soltim the Merciless, Godeschal the Iron-hearted? Woe is me that I should live to be in their power!”

“On my faith, madam,” said Oliver, who had listened to her vehemence and the names and epithets with amazement, “I am more puzzled than ever. Beshrew me if I ever heard of the men before. In truth, their names sound as strange to my ear as if you had called the roll of the Ethiopians who kept guard over the caliph’s palace at Bagdad.”

But at that moment steps sounded in the gallery, and a loud knock at the door made Beatrix de Moreville tremble and the three other women shriek with terror.

CHAPTER XXII

HOW THE KING BIDED HIS TIME

ROBIN GOODMAN, mine host of The Three Cranes, did not speak without good information when he gave the chapmen of Bristol intelligence as to the attitude which public affairs had unexpectedly assumed in the metropolis. In fact, the position of the baron was, for the time being, almost ludicrous.

Great was the exultation, high the excitement, of Robert Fitzwalter and his confederates as they left Runnymede and marched towards London. On the way they were met by the mayor, with the sheriffs and aldermen in scarlet robes, and many citizens, all dressed in violet and gallantly mounted, who, headed by Constantine Fitzarnulph, escorted the heroes of Runnymede along the bush-grown Strand, and over the Fleet Bridge, and through Ludgate to St. Paul’s, where the assembled multitude hailed their return with cheers that rent the sky.

It was a stirring spectacle as the procession moved along the narrow streets, with banners waving and trumpets sounding, and everybody was too much interested to ask what the morrow might bring forth. It was enough that they had won a great victory over the king, who had been in the habit not only of treating them with hauteur, but of making them pay their scutages; and they resolved to celebrate their victory by holding a grand tournament, on the 2nd of July, at Stamford, where so recently they had, at all hazards, set up the standard of revolt, and vowed to dare all and risk all in vindication of their feudal pretensions.

And so closed Friday, the 15th of June, 1215, every man well satisfied with himself and with his neighbour; and on the morning of Saturday Hugh de Moreville entered London by Bishopsgate, bringing full assurance of aid from Alexander, King of Scots, in case of need. The royal Scot, however, stipulated that he was to have a large reward in the shape of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland – a noble addition to his kingdom, it must be admitted, if the Northern counties had been the barons’ to give. But even at this price they seemed to consider his alliance cheaply purchased, and luxuriated for the time in the success of their revolt. But ere Saturday’s sun set, messengers, breathless with haste, came to tell Fitzwalter that King John had secretly departed from Windsor under cover of night, no one knew whither; and when the barons immediately afterwards met in council, every countenance was elongated and every brow heavy with thought, and the boldest quailed as he reflected what a king, goaded and rendered desperate, might have it in his power to do if he turned savagely to bay. De Moreville shared the apprehension of his friends, but gave vent to no nervous ejaculations.

“I deny not,” said he calmly, “that this is an awkward circumstance, and one against which precautions ought to have been taken. But John is no Arthur or Richard, nor even such a man as his father Henry, that we should much fear the utmost he can do, if he is mad enough to challenge us to the game of carnage. St. Moden and all the saints forbid that I should ever blanch at the thought of battle with a man who, even his own friends would confess, is so much fitter for the wars of Venus, than those of Bellona, and whose wont it has ever been, even while blustering and threatening the powerful, to strike at none but the weak! Come, noble sirs, take heart. By my faith, the game is still ours if we play it with courage, and imitate not the cowardly heron, which flies at the sight of its own shadow.”

“But think of the pope,” said a dozen voices. “How are we to contend with the thunders of the Church, before which the Kings of France and England have both of late been forced to bend their heads in humble submission?”

“By St. Moden,” replied De Moreville, “I fear not, if the worst comes to the worst, to trust to stone walls, and the arm of flesh, and gold. We have strong castles, and fighting men, and the wealth of London at our backs. Nevertheless, I freely own that a king’s name is a tower of strength in the opinion of the unreflecting multitude, and, since such is the case, I opine that it becomes us to counteract the influence of the king’s name and fortify our cause by taking possession of the queen and prince, who are now at the palace of Savernake. It is a bold measure, but this is no time to be squeamish. Speak the word, and I myself will forthwith summon my men and mount my horse, and ride to make the seizure. Falcons fear not falcons; and beshrew me if any but liars shall ever have it in their power to tell that Hugh de Moreville shrank cravenly from a contest for life and death with such a kite as John of Anjou!”

At first the proposal of De Moreville met with little support; but his eloquence ultimately prevailed, and he lost no time in setting out to execute his mission. But the scheme of seizing the queen and the prince was, as the reader already knows, baffled by the king’s precaution; and when the barons who were in London became aware that De Moreville had failed, their alarm became greater than ever, and they resolved to take measures for ascertaining in what danger they really stood, and what chance there was of the king playing them false.

It was now about the close of June, and intelligence reached London that John was at Winchester, and the barons determined to have some satisfactory understanding. Accordingly they sent a deputation to Winchester to inform him of their doubts, and to demand whether or not he really intended to keep the promises he had made at Runnymede. The king received the deputation with apparent frankness, ridiculed their suspicions as being utterly without foundation, and appointed a meeting with them in July, at Oxford, to which city he was on the point of removing.

The barons were neither deceived by the king’s manner nor deluded by his words. They had lost the last lingering respect for his good faith; and they felt instinctively that he was exercising all his duplicity and all his ingenuity to free himself from their wardship and bring about their destruction, and vague rumours that mercenaries were being levied on the Continent added to their alarm. It was even said that John intended to take advantage of their absence at the tournament at Stamford to seize London; and, though he was without any army capable of taking a city, this report influenced them so far that they postponed the tournament, and named a distant day for its taking place at Hounslow.

Ere long affairs reached a new stage, and caused more perplexity. It suddenly became known in London that John, regardless of his promise to hold a conference with the barons at Oxford, had left that city suddenly, ridden to the coast, and embarked in a ship belonging to one of the Cinque Ports, but with what object could not be divined; and though from that time the wildest stories were told on the subject, his movements were shrouded in such mystery that nothing certain was known. Even in the month of September, when the barons met in London and held a council at the house of the Templars, they were utterly at a loss to imagine what had become of the sovereign whom two months earlier they had browbeaten at Runnymede, and bound in chains which they then believed could never be broken.

“He is drowned,” said one.

“He has turned fisherman,” said a second.

“No,” said a third; “he is roaming the narrow seas as a pirate.”

“Doubtless he is living on the water,” said a fourth, “but it is in the company of the mariners of the Cinque Ports, whom he is, by an affectation of frankness and familiarity, alluring to his side in case of a struggle.”

“Such fables are wholly unworthy of credit,” said a fifth. “For my part, I doubt not the truth of what is bruited as to his being weary of royalty and the troubles it has brought with it, and that he has abjured Christianity and taken refuge among the Moors of Granada, whose alliance he formerly sought.”

“Noble sirs,” said Hugh de Moreville, who had recovered from his attack of gout and returned to London, “suffer me to speak. You are all wrong. Pardon me for saying so in plain words. King John is not drowned; nor has he turned fisherman; nor pirate; nor gone to Granada; albeit he may have been more familiar with the mariners of the Cinque Ports than consists with our interest and safety. I had sure intelligence brought me, when I was on the point of coming hither, that he is now in the castle of Dover.”

“The castle of Dover!” exclaimed twenty voices, while a thrill of surprise pervaded the assembly, each man looking at his neighbour.

“Yes, in the castle of Dover,” continued De Moreville, raising his voice; “and he is in daily expectation of the arrival of mercenary troops from the Continent, under the command of Falco, and Manlem, and Soltim, and Godeschal, and Walter Buch, men of such cruel and ruthless natures, that I can scarce even mention their names without the thought of their being let loose in this country scaring the blood out of my body.”

A simultaneous exclamation of horror rose from the assembled barons, and several prayed audibly to God and the saints to shield them and theirs from the terrible dangers with which their homes and hearths were threatened. And when the news became public and spread through the city, the terror proved contagious, and the citizens began to quake for the safety of their wares and their women. Joseph Basing cursed the hour in which he had, even by his presence, sanctioned the entry of the barons into London; and even the countenance of Constantine Fitzarnulph was overcast, and his voice husky. Meanwhile, however, Hugh de Moreville rather rejoiced than otherwise at the danger; and Robert Fitzwalter maintained his dignity, and stood calmly contemplating the peril which he had defied.

“One word more,” said De Moreville. “It is the king’s intention, so far as can be learned, to commence operations by an attempt to take the castle of Rochester.”

“William of Albini is already in command of the garrison, and will do all that a brave man can to defend the castle,” said Fitzwalter. “But forewarned is forearmed; and it were well instantly to despatch a messenger to tell him of the danger that approaches. Where is Walter Merley?”

“Here, my good lord,” answered the young Norman noble, who had figured among the guests of Constantine Fitzarnulph when the chief citizens decided on inviting the “army of God and the Church” to take possession of London.

“Mount without delay, and carry to the Earl of Arundel the intelligence my Lord de Moreville has just brought us.”

“Willingly, my good lord,” replied the stripling; “but ere going I make bold to offer this suggestion, that, since we have been restoring the ancient laws of this land, it would be politic to restore a time-honoured custom which was wont to do good service in the days of the Confessor – I mean, publish the ancient proclamation of war, which used to arouse every Englishman capable of bearing arms – ‘Let each man, whether in town or country, leave his house and come.’”

Few listened; nobody answered; and the youth withdrew to ride on his errand, too ardently enthusiastic for the baronial cause even to feel galled that his suggestion had not been deemed worthy of notice, or to perceive the absurdity of asking the grandsons of the conquerors of Hastings to appeal to the vanquished and down-trodden race. But De Moreville both heard and understood it; and laying his hand on Fitzwalter’s arm, he said in a low tone —

“My noble friend, I wish we had among us more of the enthusiasm that glows at that stripling’s heart. By St. Moden, my young friend – albeit of Norman lineage – has strange notions, being English on the spindle side; for his mother, Dame Juliana, is sister of Edgar Unnithing. She has inspired him with a dangerous sympathy for the English race, and would have had him and his elder brother take the king’s side if her counsel had availed. Mort Dieu! I hold it lucky that John has not by his side our young Walter, with his keen eye and scheming brain, whispering such suggestions in his ear as that which was hazarded but now. The false king might, with wit enough, in such a case, have saved himself the trouble of sending for warriors from beyond sea; for he might have found them at his door. But, trust me, resolution, and the determination to act with a strong hand, are much wanted in this emergency. And hearken. The king brings foreigners into this country to fight his battles, forgetting that both parties can play at that game if needs be. Nay, start not; you will ere long come to view this matter in the same light that I do; and I swear by my faith, that rather than be beaten by that anointed, craven, and perjured king, I would not only consent to bringing a foreign army into the kingdom, but to placing a foreign prince on the throne. Tush! what matters it who is the puppet, so long as we, the barons of England, pull the strings?”

“By my halidame, De Moreville,” said Fitzwalter, gravely, “I much marvel that a man so skilled in statecraft, and accounted so sage in camp and council as you are, can indulge in talk so perilous to our enterprise, encompassed as it is with dangers. Credit me that when the cession of the three northern counties to the King of Scots is bruited about, and the condition of his friendship becomes matter of public notoriety, that of itself will be sufficiently difficult to vindicate. Make not the aspect of affairs more repulsive to our best and most leal friends, the citizens of London, by defying their prejudices. Credit me, such a course, if persisted in, will ruin all, and leave us at the mercy of an adversary whose tender mercies are cruel. No more of it, I pray you, as you value all our lives and fortunes, and the welfare of the army of God and the Church.”

“Fitzwalter,” replied De Moreville, earnestly, “be not deceived. Much less easy is it than you think to startle the citizens of London, who care nothing for traditions or love of country. Behind that old Roman wall which you see to the east are men from every clime and of every race, mongrels almost to a man, who have no feeling, no motive in this quarrel, save their aversion to the monarchy and their dislike of the king. Be not deceived. Besides, as I am a Norman gentleman, I swear to you, on my faith, that I do not value their opinion or their support at the worth of a bezant.”

Fitzwalter started, and looked round as if fearing that any one might be within earshot.

“For the rest,” continued De Moreville, conclusively, “I have well considered what I have spoken, and am prepared to abide by it, let William Longsword or the Nevilles do their worst. We are Normans, and not Englishmen, as you well know – none better. You start. Yet a little while, and others will cry out loudly enough in the market-place what now I hardly dare to whisper; for clearly do I see, and confidently do I predict as if I had read it in the book of fate, that matters must be worse before they can be better. I have for some time only thought so; but I have known it ever since I learned that this cowardly yet bloodthirsty king has turned to bay.”

“May the saints in heaven shield this afflicted land,” said Fitzwalter, with a sigh, “and grant us a happy issue out of all our troubles!”

And they parted: Fitzwalter, in no enviable frame of mind, to enter his gilded barge, and go by water to Baynard’s Castle; De Moreville, his brain peopled with conflicting projects, to walk eastward to his hotel outside of Ludgate.

CHAPTER XXIII

TURNING TO BAY

IT soon appeared too clear to be doubted, even by the most incredulous, that the King of England was bent on having his revenge on the Anglo-Norman barons at all hazards and at all sacrifices, and that the feudal magnates who had confederated to humble their sovereign in the dust had too good grounds for the alarm with which the news of his preparations inspired them. Ere October (then known as the wine-month) drew to a close, and the vineyards and orchards yielded their annual crop – indeed, almost ere the corn was gathered from the fields into the garners and barnyards – the torch of war was lighted, and an army of mercenaries was let loose on “merry England.”