The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune, by A. D. Crake This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune Author: A. D. Crake Release Date: September 5, 2004 [EBook #13375] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVAL HEIRS *** Produced by Martin Robb THE RIVAL HEIRS: Being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune; by Rev. A. D. Crake. PREFACE. CHAPTER I. THE ANGLO-SAXON HALL. CHAPTER II. THE BLACK AND DARK NIGHT. CHAPTER III. THE WEDDING OF THE HAWK AND THE DOVE. CHAPTER IV. THE NORMAN PAGES. CHAPTER V. A FRAY IN THE GREENWOOD. CHAPTER VI. A REVELATION. CHAPTER VII. FRUSTRATED. CHAPTER VIII. VAE VICTIS. CHAPTER IX. A HUNT IN THE WOODS. CHAPTER X. EVEN THE TIGER LOVES ITS CUB. CHAPTER XI. ALIVE--OR DEAD? CHAPTER XII. THE ENIGMA SOLVED. CHAPTER XIII. "COALS OF FIRE." CHAPTER XIV. THE GUIDE. CHAPTER XV. RESTORED TO LIFE. CHAPTER XVI. RETRIBUTION. CHAPTER XVII. THE ENGLISH HEIR TAKES POSSESSION. CHAPTER XVIII. AT THE ABBEY OF ABINGDON. CHAPTER XIX. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CONQUEROR. CHAPTER XX. THE MESSENGER FROM THE CAMP OF REFUGE. CHAPTER XXI. TWO DOCUMENTS. CHAPTER XXII. THE CHAPTER HOUSE OF ABINGDON. CHAPTER XXIII. "GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY." CHAPTER XXIV. THE CASTLE OF OXFORD. CHAPTER XXV. IN THE FOREST OF LEBANON. CHAPTER XXVI. "QUANTUM MUTATUS AB ILLO HECTORE." CHAPTER XXVII. THE FRIENDS WHO ONCE WERE FOES. CHAPTER XXVIII. AESCENDUNE ONCE MORE. PREFACE. This little volume, now presented to the indulgence of the reader, is the third of a series intended to illustrate the history and manners of our Anglo- Saxon forefathers, whom a great historian very appropriately names "The Old English:" it does not claim the merit of deep research, only of an earnest endeavour to be true to the facts, and in harmony with the tone, of the eventful period of "The Norman Conquest." The origin of these tales has been mentioned in the prefaces to the earlier volumes, but may be briefly repeated for those who have not seen the former "Chronicles." The writer was for many years the chaplain of a large school, and it was his desire to make the leisure hours of Sunday bright and happy, in the absence of the sports and pastimes of weekdays. The expedient which best solved the difficulty was the narration of original tales, embodying the most striking incidents in the history of the Church and of the nation, or descriptive of the lives of our Christian forefathers under circumstances of difficulty and trial. One series of these tales, of which the first was Aemilius, a tale of the Decian and Valerian persecutions, was based on the history of the Early Church; the second series, on early English history, and entitled "The Chronicles of Aescendune." The first of these Chronicles described the days of St. Dunstan, and illustrated the story of Edwy and Elgiva; the second, the later Danish invasions, and the struggle between the Ironside and Canute; the third is in the hands of the reader. The leading events in each tale are historical, and the writer has striven most earnestly not to tamper with the facts of history; he has but attempted to place his youthful readers, to the best of his power, in the midst of the exciting scenes of earlier days--to make the young of the Victorian era live in the days when the Danes harried the shires of Old England, or the Anglo-Saxon power and glory collapsed, for the time, under the iron grasp of the Norman Conqueror. Sad and terrible were those latter days to the English of every degree, and although we cannot doubt that the England of the present day is greatly the better for the admixture of Norman blood, nor forget that the modern English are the descendants of victor and vanquished alike,--yet our sympathy must be with our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, in their crushing humiliation and bondage. The forcible words of Thierry, in summing up the results of the Conquest, may well be brought before the reader. He tells us that we must not imagine a change of government, or the triumph of one competitor over the other, but the intrusion of a whole people into the bosom of another people, broken up by the invaders, the scattered community being only admitted into the new social order as personal property--"ad cripti glebae," to quote the very language of the ancient acts; so that many, even of princely descent, sank into the ranks of peasants and artificers--nay, of thralls and bondsmen--compelled to till the land they once owned. We must imagine, he adds, two nations on the surface of the same country: the Normans, rich and free from taxes; the English (for the term Saxon is an anachronism), poor, dependent, and oppressed with burdens; the one living in vast mansions or embattled castles, the other in thatched cabins or half-ruined huts; the one people idle, happy, doing nought but fight or hunt, the other, men of sorrow and toil--labourers and mechanics; on the one side, luxury and insolence; on the other, misery and envy,--not the envy of the poor at the sight of the riches of others, but of the despoiled in presence of the spoilers. These countries touched each other in every point, and yet were more distinct than if the sea rolled between them. Each had its language: in the abbeys and castles they only spoke French; in the huts and cabins, the old English. No words can describe the insolence and disdain of the conquerors, which is feebly pictured in the Etienne de Malville of the present tale. The very name of which the descendants of these Normans grew proud, and which they adorned by their deeds on many a field of battle--the English name- -was used as a term of the utmost contempt. "Do you think me an Englishman?" was the inquiry of outraged pride. Not only Normans, but Frenchmen, Bretons--nay, Continentals of all nations, flocked into England as into an uninhabited country, slew and took possession. "Ignoble grooms," says an old chronicler, "did as they pleased with the best and noblest, and left them nought to wish for but death. These licentious knaves were amazed at themselves; they went mad with pride and astonishment, at beholding themselves so powerful--at having servants richer than their own fathers had been {i}." Whatever they willed they deemed permissible to do; they shed blood at random, tore the bread from the very mouths of the famished people, and took everything--money, goods, lands {ii}. Such was the fate which befell the once happy Anglo- Saxons. And it was not till after a hundred and forty years of slavery, that the separation of England from Normandy, in the days of the cowardly and cruel King John, and the signing of Magna Carta, gave any real relief to the oppressed; while it was later still, not till after the days of Simon de Montfort, when resistance to new foreigners had welded Norman and English into one, that the severed races became really united, as Englishmen alike. Then the greatest of the Plantagenets, Edward the First, the pupil of the man he slew at Evesham, was proud to call himself an Englishman-- the first truly English king since the days of the hapless Harold; and one of whom, in spite of the misrepresentations of Scottish historians and novelists, English boys may be justly proud: his noble legislation was the foundation of that modern English jurisprudence, in which all are alike in the eyes of the law. Not long after came the terrible "hundred years war," wherein Englishmen, led by the descendants of their Norman and French conquerors, retaliated upon Normandy and France the woes they had themselves endured. Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt avenged Hastings; the siege of Rouen under Henry the Fifth was a strange Nemesis. During that century the state of France was almost as sad as that of England during the earlier period; it was but a field for English youth to learn the arts of warfare at the expense of the wretched inhabitants. But these events, sad or glorious, as the reader, according to his age, may consider them, were long subsequent to the date of our tale; they may, however, well be before the mind of the youthful student as he sighs over the woes of the Conquest. Two remarks which the writer has made in the prefaces to the former Chronicles he will venture to repeat, as essential to the subject in each case. He has not, as is so common with authors who treat of this period, clothed the words of his speakers in an antique phraseology. He feels sure that men and boys spoke a language as free and easy in the times in question as our compatriots do now. We cannot present the Anglo-Saxon or Norman French they really used, and to load the work with words culled from Chaucer would be simply an anachronism; hence he has freely translated the speech of his characters into the modern vernacular. Secondly, he always calls the Anglo-Saxons as they called themselves, "English;" the idea prevalent some time since, and which even finds its place in the matchless story of Ivanhoe, or in that striking novelette by Charles Mackay, "The Camp of Refuge," that they called themselves or were called "Saxons," is now utterly exploded among historians. It is true the Welsh, the Picts, and Scots called them by that designation, and do still; {iii} but they had but one name for themselves, as the pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle make manifest--"Englishmen." Nor did their Norman conquerors affect to call them by any other title, although in their mouths the honoured appellation was, as we have said, but a term of reproach {iv}. The author has chosen his two heroes, Wilfred and Etienne, if heroes they can be called, as types of the English and Norman youth of the period, alike in their merits and in their vices. The effects of adversity on the one, and of success and dominant pride on the other--happily finally subdued in each case beneath the Cross on Calvary--form the chief attempt at "character painting" in the tale. It is not without a feeling of regret that he sends forth from his hands the last of these "Chronicles," and bids farewell to the real and imaginary characters who have seemed to form a part of his world, almost as if he could grasp their hands or look into their faces. They are interwoven, too, with many treasured remembrances of past days, of the listening crowd of boys, now scattered through the world, and lost to the sight of the narrator, but who once by their eager interest encouraged the speaker, and at whose request the earliest of these tales was written. Happy indeed would he be, could he hope the written page would arouse the same interest, which the spoken narrative undoubtedly created, or the tales had never been published. And now the writer must leave his tale to speak for itself, only taking this opportunity of assuring old friends, whose remembrances of a vanished past may be quickened by the story, how dear the memory of those days is to him; and to show this, however feebly, he begs leave to dedicate this tale to those who first heard it, on successive Sunday evenings, in the old schoolroom of All Saints' School, Bloxham. A. D. C. CHAPTER I. THE ANGLO-SAXON HALL. It was the evening of Thursday, the fifth of October, in year of grace one thousand and sixty and six. The setting sun was slowly sinking towards a dense bank of clouds, but as yet he gladdened the woods and hills around the old hall of Aescendune with his departing light. The watchman on the tower gazed upon a fair scene outspread before him; at his feet rolled the river, broad and deep, spanned by a rude wooden bridge; behind him rose the hills, crowned with forest; on his right hand lay the lowly habitations of the tenantry, the farmhouses of the churls, the yet humbler dwellings of the thralls or tillers of the soil; the barns and stables were filled with the produce of a goodly harvest; the meadows full of sheep and oxen--a scene of rich pastoral beauty. On his left hand a road led to the northeast, following at first the upward course of the river, until it left the stream and penetrated into the thick woodland. Just as the orb of day was descending into the dense bank of cloud afore mentioned, the watchman marked the sheen of spear and lance, gilded by the departing rays, where the road left the forest. Immediately he blew the huge curved horn which he carried at his belt; and at the blast the inhabitants of the castle and village poured forth; loud shouts of joy rent the air--the deeper exclamations of the aged, the glad huzzas of children-- and all hastened along the road to greet the coming warriors. For well they knew that a glorious victory had gladdened the arms of old England; that at Stamford Bridge the proud Danes and Norwegians had sustained a crushing defeat, and been driven to seek refuge in their ships, and that these warriors, now approaching, were their own sons, husbands, or fathers, who had gone forth with Edmund, Thane of Aescendune, to fight under the royal banner of Harold, the hero king. Who shall describe the meeting, the glad embraces, the half-delirious joy with which those home-bred soldiers were welcomed? No hirelings they, who fought for mere glory, or lust of gold, but husbands, fathers of families--men who had left the ploughshare and pruning hook to fight for hearth and altar. "Home again"--home, saved from the fire and sword of the Northman, of whom tradition told so many dread stories--stories well known at Aescendune, where a young son of the then thane fifty years agone had died a martyr's death, pierced through and through by arrows, shot slowly to death because he would not save himself by denying his Lord {v}. At that dismal period the whole district had been devastated with fire and sword, and there were old men amongst the crowd who well remembered the destruction of the former hall and village by the ferocious Danes. And now God had heard their litanies: "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us," and had averted the scourge through the stout battle-axes and valiant swords of these warrior peasants and their noble leaders, such as Edmund, son of Alfgar. Amidst all this joy the Lady Winifred of Aescendune stood upon the steps of the great hall to receive her lord, fair as the lily, a true Englishwoman, a loving wife and tender mother. And by her, one on each side, stood her two children, Wilfred and Edith. He was an English boy of the primitive type, with his brown hair, his sunburnt yet handsome features, the fruit of country air and woodland exercise; she, the daughter, a timid, retiring girl, her best type the lily, the image of her mother. And now the noble rider, the thane and father, descended from his war steed, and threw himself into the arms of the faithful partner of his joys and sorrows, who awaited his embrace; there was a moment of almost reverential silence as he pressed her to his manly breast, and then arose a cry which made the welkin ring: "Long life to Edmund and Winifred of Aescendune!" The bonfires blazed and illuminated the night; the bells (there were three at S. Wilfred's priory hard by) rang with somewhat dissonant clamour; strains of music, which would seem very rough now, greeted the ears; but none the less hearty was the joy. "The comet--what do you say of the comet now?" said one. "That it boded ill to the Northmen," was the reply of his neighbour. They referred to that baleful visitor, the comet of 1066, which had turned night into day with its lurid and ghastly light, so that the very waves of the sea seemed molten in its beams, while the beasts of the field howled as if they scented the coming banquet of flesh afar off. Well might they stand aghast who gazed upon this awful portent, which had seemed to set the southern heavens on fire. The banquet was spread in the great hall, and the returned warriors supped with their lord ere they retired to gladden their own families. Little was said till the desire for eating and drinking was appeased. But the minstrels sang many a song of the glories of the English race, particularly of the thanes of Aescendune, and of the best and noblest warrior amongst them--Alfgar, the companion of the Ironside, the father of the present earl, who had been borne to his grave full of years and honour amidst the tears of his people, in the very last year of the Confessor. But when the boards were removed, the thanks rendered to the God who had given all, the huge fire replenished, the wine and mead handed round, then Edmund the Thane rose amidst the expectant silence of his retainers. "The health of Harold, our noble king, elected to that post by the suffrages of all true Englishmen! Nobler title no king on earth may claim." It was drunk with acclamation. "The memory of our brethren who went forth with us from Aescendune, and have left their bones at Stamford Bridge. Weep not for them, they have fallen in no unjust war, but for hearth and altar, for their country and their God; and this I swear, that while I rule at Aescendune, their souls shall never lack a mass at St. Wilfred's altar, nor their widows and orphans food and shelter." This toast was drunk in solemn silence, and Edmund continued: "Our toils are not yet over; we have one more battle to fight, and that may serve to free us from further need of fighting for the rest of our lives. William the Norman landed with sixty thousand men in Sussex, as many of you already know, while we were in Northumbria, or I trow he had never landed at all. The day after tomorrow we don our harness again to meet this new foe, but it will be child's play compared with that which is past. Shall we, who have conquered the awful Harold Hardrada, the victor of a hundred fights, fear these puny Frenchmen? They have come in a large fleet; a fishing boat will be too roomy to take them back; their bones will whiten and enrich the fields of Sussex for generations." "The day after tomorrow!--start again the day after tomorrow, oh, my lord!" said a gentle, pleading voice. "It must be so, my love; but why doubt that the God who has already given us such an earnest of victory will protect us still, and preserve us to each other?" All the charm of the banquet was gone to the devoted wife, but young Wilfred pressed to his father's side. "Thou wilt take me this time, father." "Why, my boy, thou art barely fifteen, not old enough or strong enough yet to cope with men." "But these Normans are hardly men." "I fear me too much for thy tender age." "Oh, father, let me go." "Nay, thy mother needs thy care." "But I must begin some day, and what day better than this? I can fight by thy side." "There is really little danger, my wife," he said, in reply to the pleading looks of the mother; "I would not take him to meet the Danes, but there is less danger in these dainty Frenchmen. The grandson of Alfgar should be encouraged, not restrained, when he seeks to play the man, even as we repress not, but stimulate the first feeble attempts of the young falcon to strike its prey." The Lady Winifred said no more at the time, for the duties of a host demanded her lord's care. The moon was high in the heavens ere the last song was sung, the last tale told, and the guests dismissed with these parting words: "And now, my merry men all, your own homes claim your presence. One day ye may safely give to rest; the day after tomorrow we march again; for Harold will complete his levies on the 10th, and we must not be behind. Goodnight! Saints and angels guard your well-deserved rest." The brief period of rest passed rapidly away, and the last night came--the last before departure for the fatal field of Senlac. Oh, how little did the Englishmen who left their homes with such confidence dream of the fatal collapse of their fame and glory which awaited them! They fell into the fatal error of underestimating their foe. Had it been otherwise, a host had assembled which had crushed the foreign invader; whereas there were few thanes in the midlands, and scarce any in the northern shires, who thought it worth while to follow Harold to Sussex. So there were many who cried, "We have defended the northern shores and beaten the Danes; let the men of Sussex take their turn with these puny Frenchmen; we will turn out fast enough if they be beaten." Alas! it was too late to "turn out" when the only Englishman whose genius equalled that of William lay dead on the fatal field, and there was no king in Israel. Amidst the general confidence begotten of the victory at Stamford Bridge there were some upon whom the dread shadow of the future had fallen, and who realised the crisis; foremost amongst these was the patriot king himself. He knew the foe, and was perhaps the only man in the country who did; he knew that civilisation had only sharpened the genius of the descendants of Rollo, without abating one jot of their prowess; that they were more terrible now than when they ravaged Normandy, two centuries earlier. Yet he flinched not from the struggle. And amidst all the confidence of her dependants, some such shadow seemed to have fallen on the Lady Winifred. An unaccountable presentiment of evil weighed upon her spirits. She could not leave her husband one moment while he was yet spared to her; ever and anon she was surprised into tender words of endearment, foreign to the general tenor of her daily life, which partook of the reserve of an unemotional age. She begged hard that Wilfred might remain at home, but only prevailed so far as to obtain a promise that he should not actually enter the battle, and with this she was forced to rest content, to the great delight of the boy. That last night--how brief it seemed! How frequent the repetition of the same loving words! How fervent the aspiration for the day of their happy reunion, the danger over!--how chilling the unexpressed, unspoken doubt, whether it would ever take place! Yet it seemed folly to doubt, after Stamford Bridge. The supper, ordinarily, in those times, the social meal of the day, was comparatively a silent one. The very tones of the harp seemed modulated in a minor key, contrasting strongly with the jubilant notes of the previous night; and at an early hour, the husband and wife retired to their bower, to sit long in the narrow embrasure of the window, looking out on the familiar moonlit scene, her head on his breast, ere they retired to rest. "Dear heart, thou seemest dull tonight, and yet thou wert not so when we parted for the last fight. Thou didst thy best then to cheer thy lord." "I know not why it is, but a chill foreboding seems to distress my spirits now, my Edmund; it must be mere weakness, but I feel as if I should never sit by thy dear side again." "We are in God's hands, my dear one, and must trust all to Him. I go forth at the call of duty, and thou couldst not bid me to stay at home that men may call me 'niddering.'" "Nay, nay, my lord, forgive thy wife's weakness; but why take Wilfred too?" "He will be in no danger; he shall tarry with old Guthlac by the stuff. There will be many present like him, and whatever may chance to me or others, there can be no danger to them, for victory must follow our Harold. Hadst thou seen him at the Bridge thou couldst not doubt; he is the Ironside alive again, and as great as a general as a warrior. "And now, dearest, a faint heart is faithlessness to God; let us commit ourselves in prayer to Him, and sleep together in peace." The eastern sky was aglow with the coming dawn when they arose. Soon all was bustle in the precincts, the neighing of horses, the clatter of arms; then came the hasty meal, the long lingering farewell; and the husband and father rode away with his faithful retainers; his boy, full of spirits, by his side, waving his plumed cap to mother and sister as they watched the retiring band until lost in the distance. They retired, the Lady Winifred and her daughter Edith, to the summit of the solitary tower, which arose over the entrance gate of the hall; there, with eyes fast filling with tears, they watched the departing band as it entered into the forest, then gorgeous with all the tints of autumn, the golden tints of the ash and elm, the reddish-brown of the beech--all combining to make a picture, exceeding even the tender hues of spring in beauty. But all this loveliness was the beauty of decay, the prelude to the fall of the leaf; the forests were but arrayed in their richest garb for the coming death of winter. Into these forests, prophetic in their hues of decay, glided the brilliant train of Edmund, the last English lord of Aescendune. Farewell, noble hearts! Happier far ye who go forth to die for your country than they who shall live to witness her captivity. CHAPTER II. THE BLACK AND DARK NIGHT. It was the evening of Saturday, the 14th of October, in the year of grace 1066. All was over; the standard--the royal standard of Harold--had gone down in blood, and England's sun had set for generations on the fatal field of Senlac or Hastings. The orb of day had gone down gloomily; had it but gone down one hour earlier, all might yet have been well; it but lingered to behold the foe in possession of the hill where the last gallant Englishmen died with Harold, not one who fought around the standard surviving their king. The wind had arisen, and was howling in fitful gusts across the ensanguined plain of the dead; dark night gathered over the gloomy slopes, conquered at such lavish waste of human life--dark, but not silent; for in every direction arose the moans of the wounded and dying. On the fatal hill, where the harvest of death had been thickest, the Conqueror had caused his ducal pavilion to be reared, just where Harold's standard had stood, and where the ruined altar of Battle Abbey stands now. They had cleared away the bodies to make room for the tent, but the ground was sodden with the blood of both Englishman and Norman. The sounds of revelry issued from beneath those gorgeous hangings, and mocked the plaintive cries of the sufferers around. "O Earth, Earth, such are thy rulers!" exclaimed a solemn voice. "To gratify one man's ambition, this scene disfigures thy surface, and mocks the image of God in man." So spake a good monk, Norman although he was, who had followed Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, into England as his chaplain, selected because he could speak the English tongue--that warrior prelate, who in conjunction with Odo of Bayeux blessed the Conqueror's banners, and ministered in things sacred to the "pious" invaders. He wandered, this good brother, from one dying sinner to another, absolving the penitent, and ministering to the parched lips of many a sufferer. His own long brown garment was stiff at the extremities with gore, but he heeded it not. And at last, when he came to a heap of slain just where the Normans had first hewn their way through the English entrenchments, after the sham retreat had drawn away so many of their defenders, he was attracted by the sound of convulsive weeping. There, kneeling beside the body of an English warrior, he saw a boy of some fourteen years, sobbing as if his young heart would break, while he addressed the slain one with many a plaintive cry. "Father, wake; speak but once more to me; thou canst not be dead. Oh my father, only once more speak to thy son." "Alas! my poor boy, he will speak no more until the earth gives up her dead, and refuses to cover her slain; but we will comfort his soul with masses and prayers. How didst thou come hither, my poor child?" "I followed him to the battle, and he bade me tarry by the stuff; but when all was lost Guthlac ran away, and I came hither to die with him if need should be. Oh my father, would God I had died for thee." "Father, good father, what clamour is this?" said a deep voice, "some English lad mourning a sire?" "Even so, my Lord of Blois. The poor child mourns his father." "There be many mourners now. William Malet, with a lady whom Harold loved, and two good monks of Waltham, have just found the body of the perjured usurper. The face was so mangled, that no man might know him, but she recognised him by a mark on his body. So they have carried it away by the duke's command to bury it by the shore which he strove so vainly to guard." "Oh may I but bear his body home to my poor mother," moaned the lad. "We will ask the Conqueror to grant thy petition, poor mourner," said the sympathising monk. "William will not refuse his prayer, father, if thy superior, the Bishop of Coutances, urges it; he is all-powerful just now," said Eustace of Blois. "The poor boy shall plead himself. Come, my lad, to the pavilion; there shalt thou ask for and obtain the poor boon thou cravest." The unhappy Wilfred--for our readers have of course recognised the young heir of Aescendune--repressed his sobs, strove to wipe away his tears, as if he felt them unmanly, and followed his conductors, the knight and the monk, towards the ducal tent. There William, attended by all his chief officers--by Odo of Bayeux and Geoffrey of Coutances, by Hugh de Bigod and Robert de Mortain, and some few others of his mightiest nobles, was taking the evening meal, served by a few young pages, themselves the sons of nobles or knights, who learnt the duties of chivalry by beginning at the lowest grade, if to wait on the Conqueror could be so considered. Speaking to the sentinel, the good chaplain was allowed to enter, and whisper low in the ear of the bishop. "I can refuse thee nought after thy good service," said the courtly prelate. "Thou say'st the poor boy has a boon to crave--the body of his sire, and begs through me--I will out, and speak to him." "Thy name, my son?" said Geoffrey to Wilfred. "Wilfred, son of the Thane of Aescendune, in Mercia." "Hast thou been in the battle?" "Only since all was over, or I had died by his side." "The saints have preserved thee for better things than to die in a cause accursed by the Church. Nay, my son, I blame thee not, thou art too young to know better." And truly the boy's face and manner, winning though suffused with tears, might have softened a harder heart than beat beneath the rochet of the Bishop of Coutances, warrior prelate though he was. So, without any further delay, he led the boy into the presence of the mighty Conqueror. "Who is this stripling? an English lad, my lord of Coutances?" "He has come to beg permission to carry away the body of his sire. Bend thy knee, my lad, and salute thy future king." "Nay, thy present one; coronation will but put the seal on accomplished facts," said Eustace. But young though Wilfred was, he had his father's spirit in him, and spoke in broken sentences. "My lord," he said, "I cannot own thee as my king. My father would not have me abjure all he taught me before his body is yet cold. I but ask thee as a kind enemy, who wars not with the dead, to give me leave to remove him from this fatal spot--to take him home. Thou wilt not deny an English lad this poor boon, mighty duke as thou art." William understood English well, and was touched by the boyish spirit of the address, by the absence of fear. "Thou dost not fear me then?" he said. "He who lies dead on yon field for his country's sake taught me to despise fear." "Thou art verily a bold youth, and were there many like thee, England might yet be hard to win. A noble father must have begotten so brave a son." Then turning to his guests: "But I hope yet," he added, "to win the hearts of such as he. They loved Canute, although he conquered them. Am I less a foreigner than he? and may not I win their love as he did?" "Begin then thy reign with an act of clemency, my royal son," said the bishop. "I do; the lad shall have the protection he needs, and the assistance of our people, so far as our power yet extends." The tears started once more into Wilfred's eyes. "I thank thee, my Lord Duke, for my dead father's sake, and for my living mother, and will pray the saints to forgive thee the bloodshed of this day." It was a curious ending to his speech, especially as the bloodshed was supposed to be on account of the saints, over whose bones the ill-fated Harold had taken his famous oath; but William had respect for courage and outspoken truthfulness, and more than once promoted men to high office in Church or State, who had withstood him in the face. He only added, "When we meet again, my son, thou mayst judge thy king differently." Wilfred left the ducal tent; the authority of Count Eustace speedily procured the assistance of some Norman camp followers, and the body was reverently removed from the heap of slain, and placed upon a litter. Wilfred slept in the tent of Eustace, and in the morning commenced his homeward journey, with the funeral cortege. It is unnecessary to enter further into the details of that most sad journey. Suffice it to say that he was able to transfer the precious burden from Norman to English hands, and that he arrived home in safety, whither Guthlac had preceded him, with the tidings that all save himself had perished alike. Therefore the return of Wilfred was like that of one dead and alive again, lost and found; and the poor widow felt she had yet something besides her daughter Edith to live for. The immediate effects of the conquest were not felt for some few weeks in the central parts of Mercia, and nought interfered with the solemn function customary at funerals in those ages. The second morning after the return of Wilfred was fixed for the burial of the deceased thane, in the priory church which his father had built in the place of an earlier structure burnt by the Danes in 1006. It was a noble pile for those early days, built chiefly of stone, which was fast superseding wood as a material for churches, dedicated to St. Wilfred. The lofty roof, the long choir beyond the transept, gave magnificence to the fabric, which was surrounded without by the cloisters of the priory, of which it was the central feature. In the south transept--for it was a cruciform church--was a chapel dedicated especially to St. Cuthbert, where the ashes of the deceased thane's forefathers reposed in peace beneath the pavement. There lay Ella of Aescendune, murdered by a Dane named Ragnar; his two sons, Elfric, who died young, and Alfred, who succeeded to the inheritance. There, as in a shrine, the martyr Bertric reposed, who, like St. Edmund, had died by the arrows of the heathen Danes, there the once warlike Alfgar, the father of our thane, rested in peace, his lady Ethelgiva by his side {vi}. The body lay in the great hall, where he had so recently feasted his retainers after the return from Stamford Bridge. Six large tapers burned around it, and watchers were there both by day and night. There his people crowded to gaze upon the sternly composed features for the last time; there knelt in prayer his disconsolate widow, her son and daughter: they scarcely ever left the hallowed remains until the hour came when, amidst the lamentations of the whole population, the body of the gallant Edmund was borne to the tomb in that chapel of St. Cuthbert, where those gallant ancestors whose story we have told in former chronicles awaited him--"earth to earth, and dust to dust." It was a touching procession. The body was borne by the chief tenants yet living, and surrounded by chanting monks, whose solemn "Domine refugium nostrum" fell with awful yet consoling effect upon the ears of the multitude. The churls and thralls, sadly thinned by the sword, followed behind their lady and her two children, Wilfred and Edith. They placed the bier before the high altar while the requiem mass was sung, six monks kneeling beside it, three on each side, with lighted tapers. Then the coffin was sprinkled with hallowed water, perfumed with sweet incense, and borne to its last resting place in the chapel of St. Cuthbert, where they laid him by the side of his father, Alfgar the Dane. "Ego sum resurrectio et vita, dixit Dominus--I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord." CHAPTER III. THE WEDDING OF THE HAWK AND THE DOVE. It was a feature peculiar to the Norman Conquest, that while its real injustice and disregard of moral right could hardly be surpassed in the annals of warfare, the conquerors strove to give to every act of violence and wrong the technical sanction of law and the appearance of equity. This was easily done: first, by assuming that William was the lawful successor of Edward the Confessor, and that all who had opposed him were therefore in the position of conquered rebels; and secondly, since the Pope had excommunicated Harold, and sanctioned the invasion, by treating all his aiders and abettors as heretics or schismatics. Generally these harsh doctrines were pushed to their legitimate consequences in cruel wrong inflicted upon an innocent people, and the Anglo- Saxon thanes and nobles who survived the first years of conquest were reduced to serfdom or beggary; but there were exceptions. William doubtless intended at first to govern justly, and strove to unite the two nations--English and Norman; therefore, when the occasion offered, he bade his knights and barons who aspired to an English estate marry the widows or daughters of the dispossessed thanes, and so reconcile the conflicting interests. Hence the blood of the old Anglo-Saxon lords flows in many a family proud of its unblemished descent from the horde of pirates and robbers, whom a century and a half in France had turned into the polished Normans. Alas! the varnish was often only skin deep. "Scratch the Norman, you will find the Dane," said the old proverb--none the less ruthless and cruel because of the gloss of a superficial civilisation. Within a few weeks after the fatal day of Senlac, all resistance on the part of the disunited English, left without a recognised leader, became hopeless; and William was crowned on Christmas Day at Westminster Abbey, which on the previous feast of the Epiphany, in the same year, as we reckon time, had witnessed the coronation of his hapless rival. There he swore to be a just ruler to English and Normans alike, and, doubtless, at the time he was sincere; but history records how he kept his oath, and the course of our story will illustrate it. The lands of all who fought on Harold's side at Hastings were announced to be forfeited; hence the widow and son of Edmund were liable to be ejected from their home and possessions at Aescendune. But the conduct of Wilfred on the night after the battle had won him friends, and they pleaded for the youngster whose gallant bearing had made an impression on the mighty Conqueror himself, who felt a passing interest in the brave boy. Still he would only interpose to stay the execution of the unjust law, and to keep off the greedy Norman nobles, who were already prowling around the fair manor, on one condition: the lady of Aescendune must marry a Norman knight, recommended by himself; in which case, the right of succession after the death of his stepfather should rest with Wilfred, who by that time would doubtless have become Norman in all but lineage--so thought the Duke. At first poor Lady Winifred utterly refused to consent; but when the prior of St. Wilfred reminded her that, in that case, she would lose all power of protecting her tenantry--the widows and orphans of those who had died around her husband, and that by refusal of the terms she threw away Wilfred's inheritance, and consigned herself and children to beggary--then she wavered, and after many a painful scene gave way, and consented to become the bride of Hugo de Malville, the earliest applicant for her hand and estate, when the year of mourning for her lost Edmund should have elapsed. "I may give my hand," she said, "but can never give my heart." The good Bishop of Coutances saw that the preliminaries were fairly arranged, for Hugo de Malville came from his diocese, where, if the truth be told, he had not borne an exemplary character, and the bishop would fain have found a better father for the young Wilfred; only the Conqueror was peremptory, and would brook no interference with his arrangements. Therefore, all the good prelate could do was to see that the marriage contract was fairly drawn up by clerkly hands--that Wilfred stood next in succession. There was need of this, for Hugo had a son of the same age, a hopeful youth, named Etienne, the only being on earth whom he was known to love. This lad was named next in order of succession to Wilfred, failing issue from the new marriage. The morning sun was shining brightly one October day, in the year of grace 1067, on the old moated manor of Aescendune, on its clear river and its deep woods, now bright with all the gorgeous tints of autumn. All the good people of that well-known neighbourhood--well-known we mean to the readers of the former Chronicles--were gathered together in crowds on the green between the castle and the venerable priory of St. Wilfred, founded, as related in the first of these veritable family legends, by Offa of Aescendune. Many a group of friends and kinsfolk had formed itself, some in eager but not loud discussion, in which the guttural tones of that English, so unlike our own, yet its direct progenitor in language, contrasted sharply with an occasional shout in Norman French from some marshal of the ceremonies, bent on clearing the course for the passage of the coming procession. A deep gloom sat on many a brow--on nearly every aged one; for many of the youngsters were merry enough. From the main archway of the old hall issued the bridal procession--whence the funeral of Edmund had but emerged one year before: she, surrounded by such friends and neighbours as yet lived and were permitted to hold their lands up to this time in peace, while he came from a neighbouring castle, newly erected, where he had spent the night with great pomp and state, preceded by heralds with their trumpets, and surrounded by all the knightly robbers who had been already successful in grasping manors and estates round Aescendune. The Bishop of Coutances, vested in white stole, received them at the door of the priory church, attended by the English prior. "Hugo," said he, "wilt thou receive Winifred, here present, as thy wedded wife, according to the rites of our Holy Mother the Church?" "I will," he replied, in firm tones. "Winifred, wilt thou receive Hugo, here present, as thy wedded husband, according to the rites of our Holy Mother the Church?" She faltered, trembled, then said: "I will," but all present must have marked her hesitation. The bishop continued: "I join you in matrimony in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Then he sprinkled them both with hallowed water, and afterwards blessed the ring, praying that she who should wear it might ever be faithful to her spouse, and that they might live in the peace of God and in mutual charity. Hugo placed the ring on her cold, shuddering finger, she trembling like an aspen leaf; after which the bishop led the way to the high altar, where the customary mass "pro sponso et sponsa" was said. Forth they now issued, the heralds first with their trumpets; then the men-at-arms with all the pomp of Norman array; then the principal tenants of the estate, looking more like prisoners than guests; then another troop of Norman men-at-arms; then each on his own horse, his squire by his side; the neighbouring barons, who had already built their castles and strengthened themselves in the land; then, preceded and attended by pages in sumptuous tunics of linen, fringed and girded with cloth of gold, the happy pair, he on his war steed, she on her white palfrey--he dark as the raven, she fair as the lily. Wilfred and Etienne were walking side by side in the procession, and it was impossible to help being struck by the contrast in their appearance-- the one supple and lithe in every limb, with dark, restless eyes, and quick, nervous temperament; the other, the English boy, with his brown hair, his sunburnt, yet handsome features--the fruit of country air and exercise--far stouter and sturdier than his foreign rival. They were expected, of course, to be very friendly; but any keen observer would have noted a certain air of distrust which showed itself from time to time in their glances, in spite of the awkward advances they made to each other. How could it be otherwise? Could they forget the deadly feud between their races? Could they forget that each was a claimant of the lands of Aescendune--the one by birth, the other by the right of conquest? And now the bridal train reached the gates of the Hall amidst the plaudits of the Normans and the deep silence of the Englishmen--many of whom would sooner far have seen the fair Winifred in her grave than the wife of Hugo de Malville. "What thinkest thou, Sexwulf, of this most outlandish wedding?" "What can I think, Ulf, but that the good widow has lost her senses through grief at the death of her lord, the noble Edmund, else would the dove never mate the black crow." "Yea, she was pale as death as she entered the church." "Well she may be; she liketh not the match, only she would save the estates for her boy's sake." "Will she be able to save them?" "So the Conqueror hath promised. Wilfred, our young lord, is to inherit if he live; and if he die, then that dark young French lad--a true cub of the old wolf." "If he live. Well, I would not wager much upon his chance of a long life in that case." "Nor I; but we must not say so, if we value our ears, or our necks even." Long and loud was the revelry in the castle of Aescendune that night; as it is written in the old ballad of Imogene: "The tables groaned with the weight of the feast, And many and noble were the guests." But no spectral form sat beside the bride, although there were not wanting those who half imagined the dead Edmund might appear--roused even from the grave, to see the seat he had occupied so many years in honour and worth, filled by this dark-browed Norman stranger. "Let us drink," said the courtly bishop, "to the health and happiness of Norman lord and English lady, and may their union be a type of the union betwixt the two people, who, forgetting that they met as worthy foes at Senlac, may live as brethren under the noblest king in Christendom." The toast was drunk with acclamations; even the English guests thought they meant it in the delirium of the jovial scene, and fancied for a moment that Englishman and Norman might yet live in peace. "Is it not sweet?" said the good prior to one of the English guests. "It reminds me of the happy time when it is said the wolf shall lie down with the lamb." "Methinks the lamb is likely in this case to lie down inside the wolf, especially if he be a Norman wolf." But the speaker, whose attendance was compulsory, or he had not been there, had few sympathisers at the moment. "Let us hope for the best. Sir Hugo will not, cannot forget the solemn covenant he has made today, to love and to cherish, till death part him and his bride." "I hardly think, good father, that day is far off, judging by her looks." The wax tapers cast a sweet, soft light over the pale, sad features of Winifred of Aescendune, daughter of Herstan {vii} of Clifftown, on the Thames, who had but lately, full of years, gone to his rest, spared the sad days of the Conquest--days utterly unanticipated by those who died while Edward the Confessor yet reigned in peace, ere Harold visited the Norman court and swore over the holy bones. She was but fulfilling a sad duty--at least she thought so--as she played her ill-omened part, sacrificing herself for her boy and her only daughter Edith. For what was the alternative? Was it not to go forth as fugitives and vagabonds on the face of the earth--a prey to every foreign noble-- leaving her own dear people of Aescendune to the wolf, without intercessor or protector. And thus it came to pass that Winifred of Aescendune married Hugo de Malville. CHAPTER IV. THE NORMAN PAGES. In the days of chivalry the first step towards the degree of knighthood was that of page. Boys of noble birth, about their twelfth year, were generally transferred from the home of their childhood to the castle of some gallant baron to learn the customs of war and peace at his hand, and to acquire habits of good order and discipline. These lads fared harder by far than modern boys do at our great schools; they slept on harder couches, rose earlier, and had less dainty food. They were forced to pay implicit obedience to their superiors; modesty in demeanour, as becoming their age, was strictly required before their elders; and they had to perform many offices which would now be deemed menial. First they learned how to manage their horses with ease and dexterity; next how to use the sword, the bow, and the lance. They had to attend upon their lords in hunting--the rules of which, like those of mimic war, had to be carefully studied. The various blasts of the horn, indicating when the hounds were slipped, when the prey was flying, and when it stood at bay, had to be acquired, as also the various tracks of the wild animals-- the fox, the wolf, the bear, the wild boar. Nights and days were frequently spent in the pathless woods, and the face of the country had to be carefully studied, while pluck and address were acquired by the necessity of promptitude when the wild beast stood at bay. And when the deer or hart was slain they had to "brittle," or break him up, with all precision, and...