THE CAMP OF REFUGE.
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[Illustration: ISLE OF ELY AND CAMP OF REFUGE.]
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THE
CAMP OF REFUGE:
A Tale
OF
THE CONQUEST OF THE ISLE OF ELY.
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EDITED,
WITH NOTES AND APPENDIX, BY
SAMUEL H. MILLER, F.R.A.S.,
_Joint Author of “The Fenland, Past and Present.”_
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SECOND ANNOTATED EDITION.
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_ILLUSTRATED WITH MAPS._
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WISBECH: LEACH & SON.
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO.
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WISBECH
LEACH AND SON, PRINTERS.
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THE EDITOR’S PREFACE.
A generation has passed away since “THE CAMP OF REFUGE” first issued
from the press. Although published anonymously, it shows that its
author had a very extensive knowledge of the history and topography of
the Fen district.
The book, however, while it embodied much real history, was put forth
with no higher pretension than that of a tale, whose characters were
historic personages, and whose incidents occurred, in the main, during
the Norman Conquest.
Knowing that this interesting book had become very scarce, and thinking
that it would prove as acceptable to this, and perhaps to the next,
generation as it did to the past—the present publishers determined to
offer a new edition to the public; trusting at the same time that its
contents will help to foster a loyalty and a love for our English
nation.
But with a new edition some few comments appeared necessary; therefore
Notes to the text, a short Appendix, and two Maps have been added, not
with a view merely to embellish the original work, nor to convert it
into a real history, but to assist, in some measure, the youthful
reader, or mayhap those, too, who have but limited means of consulting
the many sources of information upon which the ground-work of the tale
rests.
S. H. M.
_June, 1880._
SECOND ANNOTATED EDITION.
In preparing this edition, care has been taken to correct whatever
defects, typographical or otherwise, may have been found in the former
one; several fresh foot-notes have been introduced, the Appendix has
been re-arranged and enlarged, and a Map (adapted from _Dugdale’s
Monasticon_), representing the ground plan of the Spalding Monastery,
or “Succursal Cell,” has also been added.
These emendations and additions, it is confidently hoped, will ensure
for the book a more extended appreciation than it has hitherto enjoyed.
S. H. M.
_May, 1887._
THE CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. The Messenger 1
II. The Succursal Cell at Spalding 18
III. The Great House at Ely 40
IV. The Monks of Ely Feast 56
V. The Monks of Ely take counsel 76
VI. Ivo Taille-Bois and the Ladie Lucia 96
VII. Hereward’s Return 106
VIII. Lord Hereward goes to get his own 120
IX. Elfric the ex-novice, and Girolamo of Salerno, prepare
to play at devils 145
X. The House at Crowland 153
XI. The Linden Grove and Ladie Alftrude 172
XII. The Marriage and the Ambuscade 185
XIII. How Lord Hereward and his Ladie lived at Ey 203
XIV. Hereward is made Knight 215
XV. The Castle at Cam-Bridge and a Battle 232
XVI. The Traitorous Monks of Peterborough 245
XVII. Hereward goes to Brunn, and is disturbed there 260
XVIII. The Danes and their King’s son 281
XIX. The Norman Witch 308
XX. The Norman Duke tries again 320
XXI. The Monks of Ely complain and plot 335
XXII. Hereward brings Corn and Wine to Ely 360
XXIII. A Chapter and a Great Treason 389
XXIV. The Dungeon 413
XXV. The Normans in the Camp 428
XXVI. A Fire and a Rescue 446
XXVII. Hereward still Fights 458
XXVIII. The Happy End 466
Appendix—
Note A. Foundation of Ely Abbey 480
Note B. The Legend of S. Lucy 480
Note C. Ovin’s Cross at Ely 481
Note D. Spalding Priory 481
Note E. Archbishop Parker’s Salt Vat 481
Note F. Abbey of S. Alban 482
Note G. Crowland Abbey 482
Note H. Ramsey Abbey 483
Note I. Thorney Abbey 483
Note J. King’s Lynn in the 18th Century 484
Note K. Camp of Refuge Surrendered 485
Note L. Peterborough Abbey 486
Note M. The Gift of Brand 487
Note N. Knut’s Visit to Ely 487
Fenland Bibliography 487
Maps—The Isle of Ely (_Frontispiece._)
The Fen District.
Ground Plan of the Spalding Monastery and Boundaries,
_from Dugdale’s Monasticon_ (_to face page 481._)
THE FEN DISTRICT.
[Illustration:
_Horace E. Miller, del._
MAP _to_ “CAMP OF REFUGE.”]
THE CAMP OF REFUGE.
CHAPTER I.
THE MESSENGER.
It was long ago; it was in the year of grace one thousand and seventy,
or four years after the battle of Hastings, which decided the right of
power between the English and Norman nations, and left the old Saxon
race exposed to the goadings of the sharp Norman lance, that a novice
went on his way from the grand abbey of Crowland to the dependent house
or succursal cell of Spalding,[1] in the midst of the Lincolnshire
fens. The young man carried a long staff or pole in his hand, with
which he aided himself in leaping across the numerous ditches and
rivulets that intersected his path, and in trying the boggy ground
before he ventured to set his feet upon it. The upper end of his staff
was fashioned like unto the staff of a pilgrim, but the lower end was
armed with a heavy iron ferrule, from which projected sundry long steel
nails or spikes. It was a fen-pole,[2] such, I wist, as our fenners yet
use in Holland, Lindsey, and Kesteven. In a strong and bold hand this
staff might be a good war-weapon; and as the young man raised the
skirts of his black garment it might have been seen that he had a short
broad hunting-knife fastened to his girdle. He was a fair-haired,
blue-eyed, and full-lipped youth, with an open countenance and a ruddy
complexion: the face seemed made to express none but joyous feelings,
so that the grief and anxiety which now clouded it appeared to be quite
out of place. Nor was that cloud always there, for whensoever the
autumn sun shone out brightly, and some opening in the monotonous
forest of willows and alders gave him a pleasant or a varied prospect,
or when the bright king-fisher flitted across his path, or the wild
duck rose from the fen and flew heaven-ward,[3] or the heron raised
itself on its long legs to look at him from the sludge, or the timid
cygnet went sailing away in quest of the parent swan, his countenance
lighted up like that of a happy thoughtless boy. Ever and anon too some
inward emotion made him chuckle or laugh outright. Thus between sadness
and gladness the novice went on his way—a rough and miry way proper to
give a permanent fit of ill-humour to a less buoyant spirit, for he had
quitted the road or causeway which traversed the fens and was pursuing
a devious path, which was for the greater part miry in summer, but a
complete morass at the present season of the year. Notwithstanding all
his well-practised agility, and in spite of the good aid of his long
staff, he more than once was soused head over ears in a broad
water-course. With a good road within view, it may be thought that he
had some strong motive for choosing this very bad one; and every time
that his path approached to the road, or that the screen of alders and
willows failed him, he crouched low under the tall reeds and bulrushes
of the fen, and stole along very cautiously, peeping occasionally
through the rushes towards the road, and turning his ear every time
that the breeze produced a loud or unusual sound. As thus he went on,
the day declined fast, and the slanting sun shone on the walls of a
tall stone mansion, battlemented and moated—a dwelling-house, but a
house proper to stand a siege:[4] and in these years of trouble none
could dwell at peace in any house if unprovided with the means of
holding out against a blockade, and of repelling siege and assault. All
round this manor-house, to a wide space, the trees had been cut down
and the country drained; part of the water being carried off to a
neighbouring mere, and part being collected and gathered, by means of
various cuts, to fill the deep moat round the house.
Here the young man, in fear of being discovered by those who occupied
that warlike yet fair-looking dwelling, almost crawled on the ground.
Nevertheless he quitted his track to get nearer to the house; and then,
cowering among some reeds and bulrushes, he put his open hand above his
eyebrows, and gazed sharply at the moat, the drawbridge, the low
gateway with its round-headed arch, the battlements, and the black
Norman flag that floated over them. The while he gazed, the blast of a
trumpet sounded on the walls, and sounded again, and once again; and,
after the third blast, a noise as of many horses treading the high road
or causeway was heard among the fen reeds. The novice muttered, and
almost swore blasphemously, (albeit by the rules of the order he was
bound to use no stronger terms than _crede mihi_, or _planè_, or
_certè_, or _benedicamus Domina_;)[5] but he continued to gaze under
his palm until the sounds on the road came nearer and trumpet replied
to trumpet. Then, muttering “This is not a tarrying place for the feet
of a true Saxon!” he crawled back to the scarcely perceptible track he
had left, and kept on, in a stooping posture but at a rapid pace, until
he came to a thick clump of alders, the commencement of a wood which
stretched, with scarcely any interruption, to the banks of the river
Welland. Here, screened from sight, he struck the warlike end of his
staff against the trunk of a tree, and said aloud, “Forty Norman
men-at-arms! by Saint Etheldreda[6] and by the good eye-sight that
Saint Lucia[7] hath vouchsafed unto me! Forty Norman cut-throats, and
we in our succursal cell only five friars, two novices, two
lay-brothers, and five hinds! and our poor upper buildings all made of
wood, old and ready to burn like tow! and not ten bows in the place or
five men knowing how to use them! By Saint Ovin[8] and his cross! were
our walls but as strong as those of the monks of Ely, and our war-gear
better, and none of us cowards, I would say, ‘Up drawbridge! defy this
Norman woodcutter, who felled trees in the forest for his bread until
brought by the bastard to cut Saxon throats and fatten upon the lands
of our thanes and our churches and monasteries! I would spit at the
beard of this Ivo Taille-Bois, and call upon Thurstan my Lord Abbat of
Ely, and upon the true Saxon hearts in the Camp of Refuge, for
succour!’” And the passionate young man struck the trunk of the poor
unoffending tree until the bark cracked, and the long thin leaves,
loosened by autumn, fell all about him.
He then continued his journey through the low, thick, and monotonous
wood, and after sundry more leaps, and not a few sousings in the water
and slips in the mud, he reached the bank of the Welland at a point
just opposite to the succursal cell of Spalding. A ferry-boat was
moored under the walls of the house. He drew forth a blast horn; but
before putting it to his lips to summon the ferryman across, he
bethought him that he could not be wetter than he was, that he had got
his last fall in a muddy place, and that the readiest way to cleanse
himself before coming into the presence of his superior would be to
swim across the river instead of waiting to be ferried over. This also
suited the impatient mood he was in, and he knew that the serf who
managed the boat was always slow in his movements, and at times liable
to sudden and unseasonable fits of deafness. So, throwing his heavy
staff before him, like a javelin, and with so much vigour that it
reached and stuck deep into the opposite bank, he leaped into the river
and swam across after it. Before he came to the Welland the sun had
gone down; but it was a clear autumnal evening, and if he was not seen
in the twilight by a lay-brother stationed on the top of the house to
watch for his return and to keep a look-out along the river, it must
have been because the said lay-brother was either drowsy and had gone
to sleep, or was hungry and had gone down to see what was toward in the
kitchen.
The succursal cell of Spalding was but a narrow and humble place
compared with its great mother-house at Crowland: it seemed to stand
upon piles[9] driven deep into the marshy ground; the lower part of the
building was of stone, brick, and rubble, and very strong; but all the
upper part was of wood, even as the wayfaring novice had lamented. A
few small round-headed arches, with short thick mullions, showed where
was the chapel, and where the hall, which last served as refectory,
chapter, and for many other uses. Detached from the chapel was a low
thick campanile or bell-tower, constructed like the main building,
partly of stone, brick, and rubble, and partly of timber, the upper
part having open arches, through which might be seen the squat old bell
and the ponderous mallet, which served instead of a clapper. The
Welland almost washed the back of the house,[10] and a deep trench,
filled by the water of the river, went round the other sides. Without
being hailed or seen by anyone, the young man walked round from the
river bank to the front of the house, where the walls were pierced by a
low arched gateway, and one small grated window a little above the
arch. “The brothers are all asleep, and before supper time!” said the
novice, “but I must rouse old Hubert.” He then blew his horn as loud as
he could blow it. After a brief pause a loud but cracked voice cried
from within the gates, “Who comes hither, after evening song?”
“It is I, Elfric[11] the novice.”
“The voice is verily that of child Elfric; but I must see with my eyes
as well as hear with mine ears, for the Norman be prowling all about,
and these be times when the wolf counterfeiteth the voice of the lamb.”
“Open, Hubert, open,” cried the novice, “open, in the name of Saint
Chad![12] for I am wet, tired, and a-hungred, and the evening wind is
beginning to blow coldly from the meres. Open thy gate, Hubert, and let
fall the bridge; I am so hungry that I could eat the planks! Prithee,
is supper ready?”
To this earnest address no answer was returned; but after a minute or
two the twilight showed a cowled head behind the grates of the
window—a head that seemed nearly all eyes, so intensely did the
door-porter look forth across the moat—and then the voice which before
had been heard below, was heard above, saying, “The garb and figure be
verily those of Elfric, and the water streams from him to the earth.
Ho! Elfric the novice—an thou be he—throw back thy hood, and give the
sign!”
“Abbat Thurstan[13] and Saint Etheldreda for the East Englanders!”
shouted the young man.
Here, another voice was heard from within the building calling out
“Hubert, whom challengest? Is it Elfric returning from Crowland?”
“Yea,” quoth the portarius, “it is Elfric the novice safe back from
Crowland, but dripping like a water-rat, and shivering in the wind.
Come, help me lower the bridge, and let him in.”
The gate was soon opened, and the narrow drawbridge lowered. The youth
entered, and then helped to draw up the bridge and make fast the
iron-studded door. Within the archway every member of the little
community, except those who were preparing the evening repast or
spreading the tables in the refectory, and the superior who was
prevented by his gout and his dignity from descending to the door-way
to meet a novice (be his errand what it might), was standing on
tip-toe, and open-mouthed for news; but Elfric was a practised
messenger, and knowing that the bringer of bad news is apt to meet with
a cold welcome, and that the important tidings he brought ought to be
communicated first to the head of the house, he hurried through the
throng, and crossing a cloistered court, and ascending a flight of
stairs, he went straight to the cell of Father Adhelm,[14] the
sub-prior of Crowland Abbey, who ruled the succursal cell of Spalding.
The monks followed him into the room; but the novices and lay-brothers
stopped short at the threshold, taking care to keep the door ajar so
that they might hear whatsoever was said within. “I give thee my
benison, oh, my child! and may the saints bless thee, for thou art back
sooner than I weened. But speak, oh Elfric! quick! tell me what glad
tidings thou bringest from my Lord Abbat and our faithful brethren at
Crowland, and what news of that son of the everlasting fire, our evil
neighbour Ivo Taille-Bois?”
After he had reverentially kissed the hand of his superior, Elfric the
novice spake and said:—
“Father, I bring no glad tidings; my news be all bad news! Ivo
Taille-Bois is coming against us to complete his iniquities, by
finishing our destruction; and the Abbat[15] and our faithful brethren
at Crowland are harassed and oppressed themselves, and cannot help us!”
The faces of the monks grew very long; but they all said in one voice,
“Elfric, thou dreamest. Elfric, thou speakest of things that cannot be;
for hath not my Lord Abbat obtained the king’s peace, and security for
the lives of all his flock and the peaceful possession of all our
houses, succursal cells, churches and chapels, farms and lands
whatsoever, together with our mills, fisheries,[16] stews, warrens, and
all things appertaining to our great house and order?”[17]
One of the primary duties imposed upon novices was to be silent when
the elders spake. Elfric stood with his hands crossed upon his breast
and with his eyes bent upon the floor, until his superior said “Peace,
brothers! let there be silence until the youth hath reported what he
hath heard and seen.” And then turning to Elfric, Father Adhelm added,
“Bring you no missive from our good Abbat?”
“Yea,” said the novice, “I am the bearer of an epistle from my Lord
Abbat to your reverence; and lo! it is here.” And he drew forth from
under his inner garment a round case made of tin, and presented it most
respectuously to the superior.
“I am enduring the pains of the body as well as the agony of the
spirit,” said the superior, “and my swollen right hand refuses its
office; brother Cedric, undo the case.”
Cedric took the case, opened it, took out a scroll of parchment, kissed
it as if it had been a relic, unrolled it, and handed it to the
superior.
“Verily this is a long missive,” said the superior, running his eyes
over it, “and alack, and woe the while, it commenceth with words of ill
omen! Brethren my eyes are dim and cannot read by twilight:[18] the
body moreover is faint, I having fasted from everything but prayer and
meditation since the mid-day refection; and then, as ye can bear
witness, I ate no meat, but only picked a stewed pike[19] of the
smallest. Therefore, brethren, I opine that we had better read my Lord
Abbat’s epistle[20] after supper (when will they strike upon that
refectory bell?), and only hear beforehand what Elfric hath to say.”
The cloister-monks gladly assented, for they were as hungry as their
chief, and, not being very quick at reading, were glad that the
superior had not called for lights in the cell, and called upon them to
read the letter.
“Now speak, Elfric, and to the point; tell the tale shortly, and after
the evening meal the lamp shall be trimmed and we will draw our stools
round the hearth in the hall, and read the abbat’s epistle and
deliberate thereupon.”
Upon this injunction of Father Adhelm, the youth began to relate with
very commendable brevity, that the abbey of Crowland was surrounded and
in good part occupied by Norman knights and men-at-arms, who were
eating the brotherhood out of house and home, and committing every kind
of riot and excess; that the abbat had in vain pleaded the king’s
peace, and shown the letters of protection granted him by Lanfranc,[21]
the new foreign primate of the kingdom; that the Normans had seized
upon all the horses and mules and boats of the community; and that the
abbat (having received disastrous intelligence from the north[22] and
from other parts of England where the Saxon patriots had endeavoured to
resist the conqueror), had fallen sick, and had scarcely strength to
dictate and sign the letter he brought.
“These are evil tidings indeed,” said the superior, “but the storm is
yet distant, and may blow over without reaching us. It is many a rood
from Crowland to Spalding, and there is many a bog between us. Those
accursed knights and men-at-arms will not readily risk their horses and
their own lives in our fens; and now that Ivo Taille-Bois hath so often
emptied our granaries, and hath crippled or carried off all our cattle,
we have the protecting shield of poverty. There is little to be got
here but bare walls, and Ivo, having the grant of the neighbouring
lands from the man they call King William, is not willing that any
robber but himself should come hitherward. His mansion guards the
causeway, and none can pass thereon without his _bene placet_. But, oh
Elfric! what of the demon-possessed Ivo? Rests he not satisfied with
the last spoils he made on our poor house? Abides he not true to his
compact that he would come no more, but leave us to enjoy his king’s
peace and the peace of the Lord? Heeds he not the admonition addressed
to him by Lanfranc? Speak, Elfric, and be quick, for methinks I hear
the step of the cellarer by the refectory door.”
“The strong keep no compact with the weak,” responded the novice, “and
these lawless marauders care little for William their king, less for
their archbishop, and nothing for the Lord! While I was hid in Crowland
Abbey waiting for my Lord Abbat’s letter, I heard from one of the
friars who can interpret their speech, that some of these Normans were
saying that Ivo Taille-Bois wanted the snug nest at Spalding to put
cleaner birds into it: that Ivo had made his preparations to dispossess
us. And lo! as I came homeward through the fens, and passed as near as
I might to the manor-house which Taille-Bois made his own by forcibly
marrying the good Saxon[23] owner of it, I heard the flourish of
trumpets, and anon I saw, tramping along the causeway towards the
well-garrisoned manor-house, forty Norman men-at-arms!”
“Not so, surely not so, Elfric,” said the superior in a quake, “danger
cannot be so near us as that!”
“His eyes must have deceived him,” cried all the brothers.
“Nay,” said the youth, “I saw, as plainly as I now see the faces of
this good company, their lances glinting in the setting sun, and their
bright steel caps and their grey mail, and....”
“Fen-grass and willows,”[24] cried the superior, who seemed determined
not to give credit to the evil tidings, “what thou tookest for spears
were bulrushes waving in the breeze, and thy steel-caps and grey mails
were but the silvery sides of the willow-leaves turned upwards by the
wind! Boy, fasting weakens the sight and makes it dim!”
“Would it were so,” quoth Elfric; “but so was it not! I heard the
trumpet give challenge from the battlements—I heard the other trumpet
give response—I heard the tramping of many hoofs along the hard solid
causeway; and, creeping nearer to the road, I saw lances and horses and
men—and they were even forty!”
“It cannot be,” said one of the monks, “for, when he made his last
paction with us, Ivo Taille-Bois swore, not only by three Saxon saints
but eke by six saints of Normandie, that he would do us and our house
no further wrong.”
“The senses are deceptions,” said another of the brotherhood.
“The foul fiend, who often lurks in these wildernesses and plays fiery
pranks in our fens, may have put it into this youth’s head to mar our
peace with false alarms;” quoth another monk.
“Say _warning_, and not false alarm,” rejoined Elfric rather
petulantly. “If you will not be warned, you will be surprised in your
sleep or at your meals. These forty men-at-arms cannot come hither for
other purpose than that of finishing our ruin and driving us hence. As
sure as the sun riseth they will be here to-morrow morning.”
“The boy chafes, and loses respect for his elders,” said the monk who
had last spoken.
“Let him sup with the cats!” cried the superior.
At this moment a bell was struck below; and at the signal the novices
and lay-brothers ran from the door at which they had been listening,
and the superior, followed by the monks, and at a respectful distance
by the reproved and vexed novice, hobbled down stairs to the refectory.
The aspect of that hall, with its blazing wood fire, abundant tapers
and torches, and well-spread tables, intimated that the superior’s
account of the poverty and destitution to which Ivo the Norman had
reduced the house was only figurative or comparative. That good father
took his place at the head of the table; the monks took their seats
according to their degree of antiquity; the novices and the
lay-brothers sat below the salt;[25] and poor Elfric, submissive to his
penance, sat down cross-legged on the rushes in the middle of the
floor, and in the midst of all the cats of the establishment, who, I
wist, knew as well as the monks the meaning of the dinner and supper
bell, and always trooped into the refectory to share the fragments of
the feast. One of the novices ascended a little pulpit raised high in
one of the angles of the hall, and the superior having blessed the good
things placed before him, this young novice read from the book of
Psalms while the rest of the company ate their meal. After all had been
served, even to the meanest of the lay-brothers, Elfric’s bread and
meat and his stoup of wine were handed to him on the floor—and then
was seen what it signified to sup with the cats, for tabbies, greys,
blacks, and whites all whisked their tails, and purred and mewed, and
scratched round about him, greedy to partake with him, and some of the
most daring even dipped their whiskers into his porringer, or scratched
the meat from his spoon before it could reach his mouth. Nevertheless
the young man made a hearty meal, and so, in spite of their fears and
anxieties, did all the rest of that devout community. As grace was
said, and as the reader was descending from the pulpit to do as the
others had done, the superior, after swallowing a cup of wine, said
rather blithely, “Now trim the good lamp and feed the fire, close the
door, and place seats and the reading-desk round the hearth.” As the
novices and lay-brothers hastened to do these biddings, Father Cedric
whispered to the superior, “Would it not be fitting to shut out the
young and the unordained, and deliberate by ourselves, _maturi
fratres_?”[26] “No,” replied the superior, “we be all alike concerned;
let novices and lay-brothers stay where they are and hear the words of
our Lord Abbat. If danger be so nigh, all must prepare to meet it, and
some may be wanted to run into Spalding town to call upon all good
Christians and true Saxons there to come to the rescue.” Then turning
to the youth on the rushes he said, “Elfric the messenger, thou mayest
rise and take thy seat in thy proper place: I cannot yet believe all
thy news, and thou spokest when thou oughtest not to have spoken; but
these are days of tribulation, and mischief may be nearer than we
thought it. Yet, blessed be God! that provides food and drink for his
creatures, and that makes the bounteous meal and the red wine revive
the heart and courage of man, I feel very differently now from what I
felt before supper, and can better bear the weight of evil news, and
more boldly face the perils that may lie in my path.” By words or by
looks all the brotherhood re-echoed this last sentiment.