Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

“Now mount, every man, and let us begone,” said the count triumphantly. “By the bones of John the Baptist! we have made an example of this Icingla, and done enough to deter others from setting themselves against our good Lord Louis. Ride on;” and as the count spoke he turned his horse’s head, and, followed by his band of ruffians, rode leisurely by the twilight, up the glade by which he had come on his errand of devastation.

Nor had the French in any degree failed in the work which they came to do. When Wolf, seeing that the coast was clear, emerged from his hiding-place, and came into the open space to gaze on the burning house, night had already fallen, and the sight was terrible to behold, and all the more so to him that he feared the inmates had fallen victims. The fire, indeed, was raging, and devouring its prey like a fiend, and coiling, as the serpent does, round its victim. In some places it had reached the roof, and was leaping towards the sky, on which the reflection of the flames was red as blood, and there was every prospect of the flames meeting in such a way as to reduce the old house to a heap of ashes and ruins. Driven by the wind, the fire reached the outbuildings, and stables, barns, brewhouse, and cow-houses, and pigeon-houses were involved in one general conflagration. Only the little chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan, from the fact of its standing apart from the other buildings, and in the quarter opposite to that towards which the wind was blowing, had a chance of escape.

At this stage, and while all but one wing of the house was enveloped in flame and smoke, Styr the Anglo-Saxon, having accidentally learned that some catastrophe had occurred, joined his son in the darkness, and he did not come a moment too soon. Scarcely had Wolf, in hurried accents, explained what had happened, when shouts and screams of agony reached their ears, and, listening to ascertain the direction from which the cries came, they, by the lurid light which the fire threw around, descried, at the casement of an upper chamber in the wing still unscathed, faces of men and women in mortal terror of the most terrible of deaths. Styr guessed all: the inhabitants of Oakmede had fled to the hiding-hole to escape the hands of the foreign soldiery, and, ignorant that the house was on fire, had remained in concealment till the flames had seized the stairs, and their means of escape had been cut off. Their position was now truly awful; and the old man shuddered at the sight.

Nevertheless, Styr’s presence of mind did not desert him. He remembered that in the orchard was a ladder, and he hoped that it might be long enough to enable them to descend. Thither, as if he had suddenly shaken off twenty years of his age, he rushed, Wolf, in keeping pace with him, much marvelling at his father’s swiftness of foot. But when the ladder was brought, and when, to the joy of those who were imperilled, it was placed against the wall, their joy was suddenly turned into sorrow, and a simultaneous cry of despair rose from their lips as they perceived that it was too short to serve the purpose of saving them.

But Styr did not despair: it was not his way in life. Calmly he ascended the ladder step by step, till he was almost on the highest, while Wolf held it below to keep it steady. And much had the domestics to rejoice that the veteran’s stature was tall, and his shoulder strong. One by one he caught them in his iron arms – first the women, then the men – and descended with them on his shoulders, and all this he did calmly and in solemn silence, like a man who felt his responsibility, and was determined to acquit himself of it with credit. But when the last of the domestics was saved – and by that time the moon had risen – he turned round and gazed on them with the air of a person who wishes to ask a question, but dreads to receive the answer.

“Where,” said he at length, struggling to find words – “where, in the name of St. Dunstan and St. Edward, is the Hleafdian?”

Men and maids alike stared at each other, but for a time returned no answer.

“Marry, we know not,” at last said the steward.

Styr the Anglo-Saxon raised his shaggy eyebrows, and darted on the circle a look of reproach, such as, even seen by moonlight, none of those present ever forgot during their lives, and then hid his face in his hands, as if praying.

“Now,” said he, after a moment, “let everybody who would be saved bear back and away, for danger cannot be far distant.”

“Move away,” repeated Wolf, setting the example; and everybody with precipitation got out of reach of the tottering walls.

The prescience of the old man was speedily vindicated. All was soon over, and flames rushed from every casement, including even that by which the domestics had made their narrow escape. Then the roof gave way, a cloud of vapour darkened the sky, a pillar of fire rose high, and the old walls tottered and fell with a crash.

Next morning, when tidings of the catastrophe spread through homesteads and hamlets, and when the peasantry flocked to see what was to be seen, the old hall of the Icinglas was a heap of blackened ruins. But what had befallen Dame Isabel was the question which everybody asked, and the question which nobody could answer.

CHAPTER XLIII

FOUND DYING

WHEN Dame Isabel Icingla comprehended the cause of Wolf the varlet’s intrusion, and meditated for a moment on the intelligence he brought, she became pale as death, uttered an exclamation of terror, and shuddered with horror at the idea of herself and her household being at the mercy of men who knew nothing of mercy but the name. Nevertheless, she was true to herself and her dignity. Falling on her knees, she prayed earnestly for heavenly support, and called not only on St. Moden, the patron of the Morevilles, but on St. Edward and other Saxon saints whom the Icinglas were in the habit of invoking at moments of anger and in times of trouble, to shield her from the danger that beset her; and having done this, the Norman lady doubtless felt that she had done her duty, at least, in placing herself under powerful and holy protection.

It appeared, however, that the three maidens who had been listening, or pretending to listen, while she read to them a narrative of saintly life, did not thoroughly sympathise with Dame Isabel’s pious sentiments. At all events, they failed to follow her example in so far as concerned the invoking of saintly aid. In fact, no sooner did they become aware of their peril than they fluttered, and started up, and screamed, and fled like larks at the approach of the sparrowhawk, and, hurrying pell-mell from the room, followed the other inmates of Oakmede, who were rushing in haste and consternation to a hiding-hole which was formed by a kind of double wall in one wing of the old building, and in which, according to tradition, the Icinglas had found refuge when assailed by the Danes in the days of Harold Harefoot and other of the Danish kings who ruled in England before the coronation of the Confessor.

When, therefore, Dame Isabel rose from her knees and looked round, she found herself unattended, save by the spaniel which had growled and barked at Wolf’s entrance, and which now looked up in her face, and, in default of the faculty of speech, seized the skirt of her russet robe, as if to implore her to fly. The instinct of self-preservation seconded the suggestion of the dog, and after rushing into the passage, and in vain summoning the fugitive nymphs to return, she, hesitating no longer, tottered tremblingly down the stair that led to the hall in which Oliver and De Moreville had supped on Christmas Eve, and, escaping by the rear of the house, she made for the little chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan, with some vague notion that she should be safe under the roof and before the altar of an edifice which in her eyes was so sacred.

But here Dame Isabel was exposed to a severe disappointment. In her hurry and tremor she had forgotten that the door of the chapel was locked; and as she paused in extreme perplexity, and stood for a moment pondering what to do next, or where she was to betake herself, she almost fainted from the intensity of her alarm as the tramp of steeds, and the ringing of bridles, and the clash of steel, and the voices of men, sounded in her ear, and intimated that the outlandish soldiers, whom she knew to be so brutal and bloodthirsty, were passing within a stone’s throw of her, and that she was only concealed from their eyes by the trees and the roofs of the outbuildings.

Under such circumstances, Dame Isabel hesitated no longer, but, attended by the faithful spaniel, she passed with trembling steps through the orchard, and, just as darkness was about to descend on the earth, she, recking little of mud and mire, fled into the woodlands. For a time she wandered about, not knowing whither she went, and aware that the woodland was not without its dangers, but fearing little from the bear, or the wolf, or the yellow hyæna, in comparison with her dread of the monsters in human form, at whose approach she had left the home where for years she had dwelt, sadly indeed, but in peace and safety. Fatigued at length, after wandering for hours without reaching a house, she came to a halt, and seating herself under a tree, in the moonlight, the faithful dog at her side, she thought of her dead husband and her absent son, and shed bitter tears, and then stretched herself on the cold grass and fell asleep.

Next day, Styr the Anglo-Saxon made a diligent search for Dame Isabel in the neighbourhood of Oakmede. But, though aided by Wolf and others, he utterly failed to discover any traces of the Norman lady, and was driven to the conclusion that she had perished in the fire. The old man, however, was not satisfied with the part which had been played by the domestics; and when after his fruitless search he returned towards evening to his cottage, he bitterly reflected on the conduct both of the men and maidens who had, on such an occasion, left the Hleafdian to her fate, not even sparing his own son. Indeed, Styr reproached Wolf so sharply, that the boy, to avoid a quarrel, left the cottage to look after Ayoub and Muradel, which, in the morning, were found quietly standing near the spot where their stable had been, and apparently wondering at the change that had been wrought by the fire in the aspect of everything around.

Wolf had not departed five minutes when Styr and his wife were startled by a strange scratching and whining at the other door, which caused their watch-dog to bark loudly, and when it was opened, Dame Isabel’s spaniel entered, looking the picture of woe, and ever and anon turning and pointing towards the door, and gazing earnestly in their faces, as if imploring them to follow. Styr and his wife guessed all, and without loss of time followed the dog into the woodland till they reached the leafless oak associated with traditions of Druidical rites, and there, within the broken circle of rough stones, lay a woman in a wimple and a russet gown, her hands clasped as if she prayed. It was Dame Isabel, and she was not dead but dying.

The Anglo-Saxon and his wife carried her reverentially to their cottage, and used all the means in their power to restore her; but their efforts proved vain. She recovered, indeed, sufficiently to tell the sad story of her flight and of her wanderings; but, this done, she sank into a sleep from which she never awoke. Next morning she was a corpse, cold and rigid, and the monks from a neighbouring religious house, to which she had been a benefactress in the days when she was a great baroness and wife of one of Cœur-de-Lion’s most puissant knights, came and removed the body to their church, where masses were said for the soul that had departed under circumstances so melancholy, and then the remains of Dame Isabel were conveyed with all honour to Oakmede and laid among the bones of the Icinglas in the little chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan.

CHAPTER XLIV

A MYSTERIOUS EXIT

FORTUNATELY for Oliver Icingla, he did not persevere in his resolution of doing battle with a whole herd of wild bulls, for if he had he could hardly have failed to get the worst of the encounter, and died much more obscurely than, as the last of his line, it was his ambition to do. Immediately changing his plan, he hastened to climb the tree under whose branches he had made his couch; and having called the bloodhound to desist from the fray, he resolved on keeping the seat which he occupied till the cattle thought fit to take themselves elsewhere.

However, Oliver very soon became convinced that he was likely in that case to have a much longer vigil than suited his inclination or convenience. Adopting, therefore, the expedient of moving from tree to tree – which was just possible, seeing that they grew thick and that the branches interlaced – he ultimately, with much difficulty, and not without considerable danger to neck and limb, and which was all the greater from his being incumbered with his axe, contrived to get to a safe distance from the spot where the herd were still madly and furiously tearing up the ground that had been smeared with blood, and bellowing with savage rage. Muttering his thanks to the saints for his release from a peril which he had so little foreseen, Oliver took his way towards the camp of refuge, which he contrived to reach a little after sunrise. But he soon found that he was scarcely himself: his dream haunted him awake and asleep, and next day he was prostrate, and so feverish that the aid of the anchorite of the isle was invoked.

In a few days, however, Oliver recovered his strength sufficiently to move about, and he was seated among the ruins and conversing with Collingham about their position and prospects when Wolf the varlet suddenly presented himself, and related, with tears in his eyes, all that had befallen at Oakmede, from the moment when he was alarmed by the approach of the French to the hour when Dame Isabel was laid at rest in St. Dunstan’s Chapel. Oliver listened sadly and in silence, and did not indicate even by a gesture either his indignation or his wish to have revenge. But he internally swore a solemn oath to fight the Count de Perche whenever and wherever he should meet him, and not to part till one or the other had fallen, and in the event of his killing the count to cut off his head and carry it to Oakmede and hang it by the hair on a tree, that it might be food for crows.

Collingham was differently affected, and intimated that he, at all events, was determined to have an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.

“By the rood,” exclaimed he, as Wolf told the story, “this noble Count de Perche shall know better ere long with what manner of man he has to deal. He has whetted the beak of my raven, and there is not a raven in Sussex like to lack its food this spring if I can find French carrion enough to supply them.”

Within half an hour of Wolf’s arrival in the island proclamation was made in a loud voice – “Let no man in this camp henceforth take quarter from or give quarter to the foreign invaders, on pain of being held mean and niddering; and if any man in the camp will not conform to this rule let him depart on the morrow at break of day.”

Not a man, however, left the island at the time appointed for malcontents to depart, and from that day the war against the French garrisons was carried on with greater energy and fierceness than before. Blood flowed daily. The soldiers, indeed, could scarcely stir from their quarters to procure forage without being attacked by bands of ten, or twenty, or forty, just as it happened. Oliver spoke little, but he was seldom at rest. His dream had made a strong impression on his imagination, and he never thought of Beatrix de Moreville without feeling desperate. His mother’s sad fate, silently as he had heard of it, had affected him acutely, and, alone and friendless in the world, he felt reckless. Nothing cheered him but action, and he pursued the war so unsparingly that wherever he and his band appeared, the French, unless in strong force, fled, shouting, “Gare le corbeau!” The struggle, as it became more intense, was felt throughout all Sussex. It appeared that the county was rapidly becoming too hot to hold both the foreigners and the patriot warriors of the camp of refuge; such of the natives as had submitted to the yoke and owned Prince Louis as their lord, and given hostages for their good faith, trembled for their lives; and being between two fires, as it were, with Collingham and his thousand volunteers on one side and Eveille-chiens with his mercenary bands on the other, they cursed their hard fate, and durst not walk abroad, not even in the grounds around their houses. So that the dwelling of every Englishman who had bent his knee to the French prince was in the condition of a besieged town, the inmates being furnished with weapons to defend themselves in case of need, and the gates and doors with iron bolts and bars. When the family was about to retire to rest, the head of it, after ascertaining that everything was secure, rose and recited the prayers which are offered up at sea on the approach of a storm, he saying in conclusion, “The Lord bless and aid us!” and all his household answering, “Amen.”

When the Lord de Coucy became aware of the stage which affairs had reached in Sussex, he despatched thither fresh troops and orders to Eveille-chiens to destroy the camp of refuge at all hazards and at any cost, and to put all within it to the sword, and at the same time prevailed on Hugh de Moreville to send Ralph Hornmouth with a body of archers and crossbowmen to aid in the operation. Not much relishing the commission, Eveille-chiens nevertheless mustered his forces, both horse and foot, and approaching the islet – not now environed by water, but merely by marshes – he surrounded the place so completely that he flattered himself that his success was certain.

Collingham took no notice of this arrival; but the French could distinctly see the outlaws as they moved about among the trees and shrubs and stood behind the trees watching the preparations making for their destruction.

“Now by St. Remy, to whom the doves brought the sacred oil,” exclaimed Eveille-chiens, gaily, “this stinking crew can no more escape me now than birds can escape from the net of the fowler!” and, with exultation in his countenance, he turned to Ralph Hornmouth.

“Not unless they have the wings of birds,” replied Hornmouth; “for nought else could save them at the press to which matters have come.”

“But mark you how boldly they show themselves,” said Eveille-chiens, a little indignant that they treated his presence so coolly. “Sir squire,” added he, gravely, “deem you that they have gathered much booty into this stronghold of theirs?”

“Fair sir,” answered Hornmouth, “small chance is there, I trow, of booty being collected by men who follow William de Collingham, who has ever been like the rolling stone that gathers no moss. Besides, if my eyes see aright, they are so poverty-stricken that the beggar would disdain the ragged clothes they wear; and I have heard that when Master Icingla, who is known to your soldiers as ‘White Jacket,’ and six others of the gang fought last week, one to three, against the captain of Bramber, whom the French call Bastard of Melun, and the captain’s mail was well-nigh hacked to pieces, and his sword-arm so disabled that he is never like to couch lance again, he had little to cover his nakedness save his boots, and the long white garment by which he is known to his enemies.”

“Ha, sir squire!” exclaimed Eveille-chiens, vindictively; “you do well to remind me that I owe this White Jacket the only kind of debt which I never, by any chance, forget or fail to pay. If I take him alive I’ll have his eyes put out and his hands cut off by the wrists. By St. Remy, the Bastard of Melun shall have such revenge on the outlaw as I can inflict on his behalf.”

With such feelings, Eveille-chiens pushed on the labours of the men who, under the protection of Hornmouth’s crossbowmen and archers, were busy with the construction of a causeway by which the cavalry might pass the morass, enter the island, and charge and trample down the English patriots in a mass.

Collingham, however, offered no interruption to the operations; and on the second day the aspect of the island was such, and the silence so unbroken, that Hornmouth began to suspect that Collingham meditated some desperate achievement, or had sure intelligence that Philip de Albini and John Marshal were coming to his rescue. About the close of the third day all doubts as to the state of the camp, and the cause of no interruption having taken place, were set at rest.

It was about seven o’clock on the evening of the Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist, and the causeway having been completed, the forces of Eveille-chiens, both cavalry and infantry, were drawn up in order to make the assault. Having stationed his archers and crossbowmen on the margin of the morass to keep the enemy at bay during the passage of the causeway, Hornmouth assumed the post of danger, and led the van across the morass, and penetrated into the island. De Moreville’s squire naturally expected an obstinate and terrible resistance – the resistance of men, under a daring chief, reduced to despair, and determined to sell their lives at the dearest rate. But, to his astonishment, he encountered no opposition while passing the causeway; he entered the island without striking a blow; and penetrated to the ruins in the centre without meeting with a human being.

At first Hornmouth could hardly believe his senses, and next he suspected an ambush; but a little investigation convinced him that there was no mistake about the matter. The island was deserted. Even the anchorite was not to be found among the ruins which he had so long haunted while endeavouring to read the stars and penetrate the future. Hornmouth gave way to superstitious fright, and he felt as if his hairs were standing on end, and when Eveille-chiens came up he found the stout squire staring in blank amazement.

“By bread and salt!” exclaimed he, regaining his courage; “they are gone – vanished, every man and mother’s son of them; and I am no true Christian if this is not magic, or something worse.”

“May St. Remy defend us from the devices of the devil!” exclaimed Eveille-chiens, growing pale – “St. Remy defend us against the devil and our enemies, the tailed English! and I vow, on being restored to my own sweet land, to make a pilgrimage to his shrine, and to present two silver candlesticks and an image of wax to his church.”

CHAPTER XLV

A FRENCH ARMAMENT

LOUIS OF FRANCE, after being so roughly handled by William de Collingham and the sturdy patriots who followed that knight’s banner that he turned pale at the thought of the injury done to his dignity, embarked in haste and confusion, reached the French coast sea-sick, but in safety, and hastened, with visions of a coronation at Westminster, to the court of Paris. But the result was not quite satisfactory. Indeed, he found his royal father in no mood to grant the assistance which he required to complete the conquest of England. Philip Augustus naturally held the papal power in such dread, since the humiliating close of his quarrel with the pope about his marriage with the beautiful Agnes de Méranie, that he protested against being mixed up with the business so distinctly condemned by the holy see. However, he pointed out that, though his hands were tied, there was no particular reason why Blanche of Castile should not aid her husband to the utmost of her power, and hinted that he had no objection to furnish the means of hiring warriors and freighting ships. A word, says the proverb, is sufficient to the wise. Blanche took the hint, and – perhaps without even for the time neglecting her maternal duties to the young St. Louis, the eldest of what Fuller calls “that princely quaternion of brothers which exceeded each other in some quality: Louis the holiest, Alphonso the subtlest, Charles the stoutest, and Robert the proudest” – applied herself, with characteristic energy, to the task of fitting out an armament powerful enough to finish the work which with such high hopes her husband had boldly begun.

The prince, however, did not linger in France. Ere the truce agreed to with Pembroke had expired he was on the sea. Attacked furiously on his voyage by the ships of the Cinque Ports, he lost several of his vessels, but personally escaped all harm, and, landing at Sandwich, he, enraged at the Cinque Ports, burned that town, which enjoyed the reputation of being the first place in England at which ships were built, and then marching to Dover, he made a second attempt to take the castle. But this attempt proved as unsuccessful as the first had done, and, finding Hubert de Burgh still obstinate, Louis abandoned the enterprise, and proceeded to London, where, however, his reception was infinitely less enthusiastic than it had been on that too-memorable day of June when the citizens shouted “Chaire Basileus!” and where, indeed, in spite of Constantine Fitzarnulph, there was at work that dangerous spirit of discontent which is the parent of popular insurrections.

Meanwhile, Blanche of Castile was all activity and determination in promoting the objects of her absent husband, and at Calais a fleet of eighty large ships and a great number of small vessels was equipped under the eye of Eustace the Monk. The work, however, notwithstanding Blanche’s energy and Eustace’s experience, went on slowly, and it was not till the day preceding the Feast of St. Bartholomew that everything was ready, and the military force, consisting of three hundred knights and many thousands of ordinary fighting men, embarked with large anticipations. Indeed, they might, from all they heard, entertain hopes of rivalling the achievements of the Norman adventurers of a hundred and fifty years earlier, of whom it is written that “men who had crossed the sea in the quilted frock and with the dark wooden bow of foot soldiers appeared upon war horses and girded with the knightly baldric to the eyes of the new recruits who crossed the sea after them; and he who had come over a poor knight soon had his own banner and his company of men-at-arms, whose rallying cry was his name; so that the drovers of Normandy and the weavers of Flanders with a little courage and good fortune soon became in England great men, illustrious barons, and their names, base or obscure on one side of the Channel, were noble and glorious on the other.” No wonder that, with such encouraging examples before their eyes, the recruits of Blanche of Castile were enthusiastic and eager.