Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

C >> Charlotte Mary Yonge >> Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

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"It was King Harold Godwinson," said Tostig.

"Why did I not learn this sooner?" said Hardrada. "He should never have
had to boast of the slaughter of our men."

"It may have been imprudent," said Tostig, "but he was willing to grant
me peace and a great dominion. If one of us must die, I had rather he
should slay me, than I slay him."

So spoke Tostig, who had, of late, been rushing from country to country
to stir up foes against his brother. Surely he would have given worlds
to check the ruin he had wrought, though his sense of honor would not
allow him to forsake his ally.

"He is but a little man, but he sits firmly in his stirrups," returned
Harald Hardrada; and then, to cheer his men in their desperate case, he
chanted aloud one of his impromptu war-songs:

"Advance, advance,
The helmets glance;
But blue swords play
In our array.

"Advance, advance,
No hawberks glance--
But hearts are here
That know no fear."

"These verses sound but ill," said the Sea-King, interrupting himself;
"we will make some better;" and, careful of his verses as a Skald in his
last battle, as well as in his first, he sung:

"In battle morn we seek no lee,
With skulking head and bending knee,
Behind the hollow shield;
With eye and hand we guard the head,
Courage and promptness stand instead,
Of hawberk, on this field."

It was his death-song. Early in the battle his throat was pierced by an
arrow; and learning his death, Harold Godwinson sent once more to offer
Tostig pardon, and leave to the Northmen to return home; but they
refused quarter, and Tostig would not forsake them. The other Northmen
from the ships joined them, and the fight raged with more fury than
ever in the "death-ring," as the Skalds termed it, round the banner
Land-Waster. Tostig fell there, and only a few fled to their ships,
protected by a brave Norseman, who stood alone to guard Stamford bridge,
then only consisting of a few planks, till an Englishman crept under,
thrust up his spear, and slew him from below.

However, Harold's condition was too critical to allow of his wasting
his strength on a defeated foe; he allowed Hardrada's son to return
unmolested to Norway with his fleet and the remains of his army, and he
gave great offence to his men by not sharing the plunder of the camp
with them.

So died the last of the Sea-Kings, by the last Anglo-Saxon victory.

CAMEO VI.

THE NORMAN INVASION.
(1066.)

The Duke of Normandy seems to have considered himself secure of the fair
realm of England, by the well-known choice of Edward the Confessor, and
was reckoning on the prospects of ruling there, where the language and
habits of his race were already making great progress.

On a winter day, however, early in 1066, as William, cross-bow in hand,
was hunting in the forests near Rouen, a horseman galloped up to him and
gave him, in a low voice, the information that his cousin, King Edward
of England, was dead, and that Earl Harold of Kent had been crowned in
his stead.

With fierce rage were these tidings given, for the bearer of them was
no other than Tostig, who attempted to bring the Normans against his
brother, before seeking the aid of Harald Hardrada in the north.

No less was the ire of the Norman Duke excited, but he was of too stern
and reserved a nature to allow his wrath to break out at once into
words. Sport, however, was at an end for him; he threw down his
cross-bow, and walked out of the forest, his fine but hard features
bearing so dark and gloomy an expression, that no one dared to ask what
had disturbed him.

Without a word, he entered the castle, and there strode up and down the
hall, his hands playing with the fastenings of his cloak, until suddenly
throwing himself on a bench, he drew his mantle over his face, turned it
to the wall, and became lost in deep musings.

His knights stood round, silent and perplexed, till a voice was heard
humming a tune at a little distance, and the person entered who, more
than any other, shared the counsels of Duke William, namely, William
Fitzosborn, Count de Breteuil, son of that Osborn the seneschal who had
been murdered in the Duke's chamber.

The two Williams were of the same age, had been brought up together,
and Fitzosborn now enjoyed the office of seneschal, and was on a more
intimate footing with his lord than any other was admitted to by the
dark and reserved prince. All the knights gathered round him to ask what
ailed the Duke.

"Ah!" said he, "you will soon hear news that will not please you;" and
as William, roused by his voice, sat up on the bench, he continued:
"Sir, why hide what troubles you? It is rumored in the town that the
King of England is dead, and that Harold has broken his faith, and
seized the realm."

"You are right," replied the Duke. "I am grieved at the death of King
Edward, and at the wrong Harold has done me."

Fitzosborn answered with such counsels as his master would best be
pleased to hear. "Sir, no one should grieve over what cannot be undone,
far less over what may be mended. There is no cure for King Edward's
death, but there is a remedy for Harold's evil deeds. You have warlike
vassals; he has an unjust cause. What needs there, save a good heart?
for what is well begun, is half done."

William's wishes lay in the direction his friend pointed out, but he was
wary, and weighed his means before undertaking the expedition against so
powerful and wealthy a state as England. His resources seemed as nothing
in comparison with those of England; his dukedom was but a petty state,
himself a mere vassal; and though he had reason to hope that the English
were disaffected toward Harold, yet, on the other hand, he was not
confident of the support of his own vassals--wild, turbulent men, only
kept in cheek by his iron rule, without much personal attachment to one
so unbending and harsh, and likely to be unwilling to assist in his
personal aggrandizement.

He paused and calculated, waiting so long that Tostig, in his
impatience, went to Norway, and tried to find a prompter for Harold.
Messages in the meantime passed between Normandy and England without
effect. William claimed the performance of the oaths at Rouen, and
Harold denied any obligation to him, offering to be his ally if he would
renounce the throne, but otherwise defying him as an enemy.

Having at length decided, William summoned his vassals to meet at
Lillebonne, and requested their aid in asserting his right to the
English Crown.

When he left them to deliberate, all with one consent agreed that they
would have nothing to do with foreign expeditions. What should they
gain? The Duke had no right to ask their feudal service for aught but
guarding their own frontier. Fitzosborn should he the spokesman, and
explain the result of their parliament.

In came the Duke, and Fitzosborn, standing forth, spoke thus: "Never, my
lord, were men so zealous as those you see here. They will serve you as
truly beyond sea as in Normandy. Push forward, and spare them not. He
who has hitherto furnished one man-at-arms, will equip two; he who has
led twenty knights, will bring forty. I myself offer you sixty ships
well filled with fighting men."

Fitzosborn was stopped by a general outcry of indignation and dissent,
and the assembly tumultuously dispersed; but not one of the vassals was
allowed to quit Lillebonne till after a private conference with William,
and determined as they might be when altogether, yet not a count or
baron of them all could withstand the Duke when alone with him; and it
ended in their separately engaging to do just as Fitzosborn had promised
for them; and going home to build ships from their woods, choose out the
most stalwart villains on their estates to be equipped as men-at-arms
and archers, to cause their armorers to head the cloth-yard shafts,
repair the hawberks of linked chains of steel, and the high-pointed
helmets, as yet without visors, and the face only guarded by a
projection over the nose. Every one had some hope of advantage to be
gained in England; barons expected additional fiefs, peasants intended
to become nobles, and throughout the spring preparations went on
merrily; the Duchess Matilda taking part in them, by causing a vessel to
be built for the Duke himself, on the figure-head of which was carved a
likeness of their youngest son William, blowing an ivory horn.

William, in the meantime, sought for allies in every quarter, beginning
with writing to beg the sanction of the Pope, Alexander II., as Harold's
perjury might be considered an ecclesiastical offence.

The Saxons were then in no favor at Rome; they had refused to accept
a Norman Primate appointed by Edward; and Stigand, their chosen
Archbishop, was at present suspended by the Court of Rome, for having
obtained his office by simony: the whole Anglo-Saxon Church was reported
to be in a very bad and corrupt state, and besides, Rome had never
enjoyed the power and influence there that the Normans had permitted
her. Lanfranc, Abbot, of St. Stephens, at Caen, and one of the persons
most highly esteemed by William, was an Italian of great repute at Rome,
and thus everything conspired to make the Pope willing to favor the
attempt upon England.

He therefore returned him a Bull (a letter so called from the golden
bull, or bulla, appended to it), appointing him, as the champion of
the Church, to chastise the impious perjurer Harold, and sent him a
consecrated banner, and a gold ring containing a relic of St. Peter.

Thus sanctioned, William applied to his liege lord Philippe I. of
France, offering to pay homage for England as well as Normandy; but
Philippe, a dull, heavy, indolent man, with no love for his great
vassal, refused him any aid; and William, though he made the application
for form's sake, was well pleased to have it so.

"If I succeed," he said, "I shall be under the fewer obligations."

When he requested aid from Matilda's brother Baldwin, Count of Flanders,
the answer he received was a query, how much land in England he would
allot as a recompense. He sent, in return, a piece of blank parchment;
but others say, that instead of being an absolute blank, it contained
his signature, and was filled up by Baldwin, with the promise of a
pension of three hundred marks.

Everything was at length in readiness; nine hundred ships, or rather
large open boats, were assembled at the mouth of the Dive; lesser barks
came in continually, and counts, barons, and knights, led in their
trains of horsemen and archers.

All William's friends were round him, and his two half-brothers, the
sons of Arlette, Robert, Count of Eu, and Odo, the warlike Bishop of
Bayeux. Matilda was to govern in his absence, and his eldest son,
Robert, a boy of thirteen, was brought forward, and received the homage
of the vassals, in order that he might be owned as heir of Normandy, in
case any mishap should befall his father on the expedition.

Nothing delayed the enterprise but adverse winds, and these prevailed so
long that the feudal army had nearly exhausted their forty days' stock
of provisions; knight and man-at-arms murmured, and the Duke was
continually going to pray in the Church of St. Valery, looking up at the
weathercock every time he came out.

On the eve of St. Michael, the Duke's anxious face became cheerful, for
a favorable wind had set in, and the word was given to embark. Horses
were led into the ships, the shields hung round the gunwale, and the
warriors crowded in, the Duke, in his own Mora, leading the way, the
Pope's banner at his mast's head, and a lantern at the stern to guide
the rest.

By morning, however, he outstripped all the fleet, and the sailor at the
mast-head could see not one; but gradually first one sail, then another,
came in sight, and by the evening of Michaelmas-day, 1066, the whole
nine hundred were bearing, down upon Pevensey.

Those adverse winds had done Willium more favor than he guessed, for
they had delayed him till Harold had been obliged to quit his post of
observation in Sussex, and go to oppose the Northmen at York, and thus
there was no one to interfere with the landing of the Normans, who
disembarked as peacefully at Pevensey as if it had been Rouen itself.

William was almost the first to leap on shore; but as he did so, his
foot slipped, and he fell. Rising, with his hands full of mud, he called
out, "Here have I taken possession of the land which by God's help I
hope to win!" Catching his humor, one of his knights tore a handful of
thatch from a neighboring cottage, and put it into his hand, saying,
"Sir, I give you seizin of this place, and promise that I shall see you
lord of it before a month is past."

The troops were landed first, then the horses, and lastly the
carpenters, who set up at once three wooden forts, which had been
brought in the ships prepared to be put together. After dinner, William
ordered all the ships to be burnt, to cut off all hope of return. He
continued for several days at Pevensey, exercising the troops: and
viewing the country. In one of these expeditions, he gave, what was
thought, a remarkable proof of strength; for on a hot day, as they were
mounting a steep hill, Fitzosborn grew faint and exhausted by the weight
of his ponderous iron hawberk. The Duke bade him take it off, and
putting it on over his own, climbed the hill and returned to his camp
wearing both at once.

His landing, though he saw no one, had in reality been watched by a
South-Saxon Thane, who, having counted Ins ships and seen his array,
mounted, and, without resting day or night, rode to York, where, as
Harold was dining, two days after the battle of Stamford Bridge, he
rushed into the hall, crying out, "The Normans are come! they have built
a fort at Pevensey!"

No time was to be lost, and at the dawn Harold and all his army were
marching southward, sending a summons to the thanes and franklins of
each county as he passed, to gather to the defence of the country.

His speed was too great, however, for the great mass of the people to be
able to join him, even if they had been so minded, and they were for
the most part disposed to take no part in the struggle, following the
example of the young Earls of Mercia, Edwin and Morkar, who held aloof,
unwilling alike to join Harold or the Normans.

When Harold reached London, his army was so much lessened by fatigue and
desertion, that his mother, Gytha, and his two youngest brothers, Gyrtha
and Leofwyn, advised him not to risk a battle, but to lay the country
waste before the Normans, and starve them out of England. Harold
answered, with the generous spirit that had been defaced and clouded by
his ambition, "Would you have me ruin my kingdom? By my faith, it were
treason. I will rather try the chances of a battle with such men as I
have, and trust to my own valor and the goodness of my cause."

"Yet," said Gyrtha, "if it be so, forbear thyself to fight. Either
willingly or under force, thou art sworn to Duke William. Thine oath
will weigh down thine arm in battle, but we, who are all unpledged,
are free to fight in defence of our realm. Thou wilt aid us if we are
defeated, avenge us if we are slain."

Harold disregarded this advice, and was resolved to lead the host
himself; he gathered his followers from Kent and Wessex, and marched
southward.

CAMEO VII.

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.
(1066.)

The first night after leaving London, Harold slept at Waltham Abbey, and
had much conference with the Abbot, who was his friend, and appointed
two Monks, named Osgood and Ailric, to attend him closely in the coming
battle.

On the 12th of October, Harold found himself seven miles from the
enemy, and halted his men on Heathfield-hill, near Hastings, the most
advantageous ground he could find.

On the highest point he planted his standard bearing the figure of a
man in armor, and marshalling his Saxons round it, commanded them to
entrench themselves within a rampart and ditch, and to plant within them
a sort of poles, on the upper part of which, nearly the height of a man
from the ground, they interwove a fence of wattled branches, so that
while the front rank might pass under to man the rampart, the rear might
be sheltered from the arrows of the enemy.

These orders given, Harold and Gyrtha rode together to a hill, whence
they beheld the Norman camp, when for a moment Harold was so alarmed
at the number of their tents that he spoke of returning to London and
acting as his mother had advised; but Gyrtha showed him that it was too
late; he could not turn back from the very face of the enemy, without
being supposed to fly, and thus yielding his kingdom at once.

Three Saxons presently came to the brothers who had been seized as spies
by the Normans, and, by order of William, led throughout his camp, and
then sent away to report what they had seen. Their story was that the
Norman soldiers were all Priests, at which Harold laughed, since they
had been deceived by the short-cut locks and smooth chins of the
Normans, such as in England were only worn by ecclesiastics, warriors
always wearing flowing locks and thick moustaches.

Several messages passed between the two camps, William sending offers
of honors and wealth to Harold and Gyrtha if they would cease their
resistance; but when all were rejected, he sent another herald to defy
Harold as a perjured traitor under the ban of the Church;--a declaration
which so startled the Saxons, that it took strong efforts on the part of
the gallant Gyrtha to inspirit them to stand by his brother.

This over, William addressed his soldiers from a little hillock, and
put on his armor, hanging-round his neck, as a witness of Harold's
falsehood, one of the relics on which the oath had been taken. He
chanced to put on his hawberk with the wrong side before, and seeing
some of his men disconcerted, fancying this a token of ill, he told them
that it boded that his dukedom should be turned to a kingdom.

His horse was a beautiful Spanish barb sent him by the King of Castile;
and so gallantly did he ride, that there was a shout of delight from his
men, and a cry, "Never was such a Knight under Heaven! A fair Count he
is, and a fair king he will be! Shame on him who fails him!"

William held in his hand the Pope's banner, and called for the
standard-bearer of Normandy; but no one liked to take the charge,
fearful of being hindered from gaining distinction by feats of personal
prowess. Each elder knight of fame begged to be excused, and at last
it was committed to Tunstan the White, a young man probably so called
because he had yet to win an achievement for his spotless shield.

The army was in three troops, each drawn up in the form of a wedge, the
archers forming the point; and the reserve of horse was committed to
Bishop Odo, who rode up and down among the men, a hawberk over his
rochet and a club in his hand.

On went the Normans in the light of the rising sun of the 13th of
October, Taillefer, a minstrel-knight, riding first, playing on his harp
and singing the war-song of Roland the Paladin. At seven o'clock they
were before the Saxon camp, and Fitzosborn and the body under his
command dashed up the hill, under a cloud of arrows, shouting, "Notre
Dame! Dieu aide!" while the Saxons within, crying out, "Holy Rood!" cut
down with their battle-axes all who gained the rampart, and at length
drove them back again.

A second onset was equally unsuccessful, and William, observing that the
wattled fence protected the Saxons from the arrows, ordered the archers
to shoot their arrows no longer point blank, but into the sky, so that
they might fall on the heads of the Saxons. Thus directed, these shafts
harassed the defenders grievously; and Harold himself was pierced in the
left eye, and almost disabled from further exertion in the command.

Yet at noon, the Normans had been baffled at every quarter, and William,
growing desperate, led a party to attack the entrance of the camp. Again
he was repulsed, and driven back on some rough ground, where many horses
fell, and among them his own Spanish charger. A cry arose that the Duke
was slain; the Normans fled, the Saxons broke out of their camp in
pursuit, when William, throwing off his helmet and striking with his
lance, recalled his troops, shouting, "Look at me! I live, and by Gods
grace I will conquer." All the Saxons who had left the camp were slain,
their short battle-axes being unfit to cope with the heavy swords and
long lances of their enemies; and taught by this success, William caused
some of his troops to feign a flight, draw them beyond the rampart, turn
on them, and cut them down. The manoeuvre was repeated at different parts
of the camp till the rampart was stripped of defenders, and the
Normans forced their way into it, cut down the wattled fence, and gave
admittance to the host of horse and foot who rushed over the outworks.

Yet still the standard floated in the midst of a brave band who--

"Though thick the shafts as snow.
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go,
Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow,
Still fought around their King."

All who came near that close-serried ring of steadfast Saxon strength
were cut down, and the piles of dead Normans round them were becoming
ramparts, when twenty knights bound themselves by an oath that the
standard should be taken, spurred their horses against the ranks, and by
main force, with the loss of ten of their number, forced an opening. Ere
the ranks could close, William and his whole force were charging into
the gap made for a moment, trampling down the brave men, slaughtering on
all sides, yet still unable to break through to the standard.

"Till utter darkness closed her wing
O'er their thin host and wounded King."

Man by man the noble Saxons were hewn down as the Normans cut their way
through them, no more able to drive them back than if they had been the
trees of the forest. Gyrtha, the true-hearted and noble, fell under the
sword of a Norman knight, Leofwyn lay near him in his blood, yet still
Harold's voice was heard cheering on his men, and still his standard
streamed above their heads.

At sunset, that well-known voice was no longer heard, and the setting
sun beheld Tunstan the White perform the crowning achievement of the
day, uproot the standard banner of Normandy that the morning beams had
seen committed to his charge. Not an earl or thane of Wessex was living;
and heaps of slain lay thick on Heathfield hill, and the valley round a
very lake of blood. Senlac, or Sanglac, was its old name, and sounded
but too appropriate to the French ears of the Conqueror, as, in a moment
of sorrow for the fearful loss of life he beheld, he vowed that here
should stand an Abbey where prayer should be made for pardon for his
sins and for the repose of the souls of the slaughtered. Darkness came
on; but the Saxons, retreating under its cover, were still so undaunted
that the Normans could hardly venture to move about the field except in
considerable parties, and Eustace of Boulogne, while speaking to the
Duke, was felled to the earth by a sudden blow.

In the morning, Gytha, the widow of Godwin, who had lost four children
by the perjury and ambition of one of them, came to entreat permission
to bury. Gyrtha and Leofwyn lay near together at the foot of the banner.
Harold was sought in vain, till Edith of the Swan neck, a lady he had
loved, was brought to help in the melancholy quest.

She declared a defaced and mangled corpse to be that of Harold, and it
was carried, with those of the two brothers, to the Abbey of Waltham,
where it was placed beneath a stone bearing the two sorrowful words,
"Infelix Harold."

Years passed on, and the people had long become accustomed to the Norman
yoke, when there was much talk among them of a hermit, who dwelt in a
cell not far from the town, in the utmost penitence and humility. He was
seldom seen, his face was deeply scarred, and he had lost his left eye,
and nothing was known of his name or history; but he was deeply revered
for his sanctity, and when Henry Beauclerc once visited Chester, he
sought a private interview with the mysterious penitent.

It is said, that when the hermit lay on his death-bed, he owned himself
to be Harold, son of Godwin, once King of England for seven months. He
had been borne from the bloody hill, between life and death, in the
darkness of the evening, by the two faithful monks, Osgood and Ailric,
and tended in secret till he recovered from his wounds.

Since that time he had been living in penitence and contrition, unknown
to and apart from the world, and died at length, trusting that his forty
years' repentance might be accepted.

If this tale be true, what a warning might not he have bestowed on
the young prince Henry, destined to run a like course of perjury and
ambition, and to feel it turn back upon him in the dreariness of
desolate old age, when "he never smiled again." Had not the penitent
Harold more peace at the last than the king Henry?

The same story is told of almost every king missed in a lost battle.