A CONQUEROR IN IMAGINATION
When King John died at Newark, and when the boy Henry was crowned at
Gloucester, Louis of France and the Anglo-Norman barons were still
before Dover. But Hugh de Burgh held out gallantly; and Louis, wearying
of an enterprise in which there was no prospect of success, swallowed
the vow he had made never to move from before the castle till he had
taken it and hanged the garrison, and resolved on withdrawing from the
siege, and employing his energies to consolidate the conquests he had
already achieved in England. Accordingly, he returned to London, which
was still devoted to his cause, and on the 6th of November took
possession of the Tower, which, doubtless, he considered a stronghold
which would stand him in good stead, in case of the citizens becoming
refractory, and requiring to be kept down with the strong hand.
So far the French prince, notwithstanding his check at Dover, saw no
reason to despair of ultimate triumph over the obstacles which barred
his way to the throne, and, looking upon young Henry’s coronation as a
farce, he was already a conqueror in imagination. Moreover, he daily
showed himself more and more indifferent to the opinions of his
Anglo-Norman allies, bestowing all his confidence on the lords and
knights who had accompanied him from France, and not scrupling to make
Robert Fitzwalter and his confederates feel the full humiliation of
their position. It is difficult to guess whether or not Fitzwalter
believed the story which was current as to the death of his daughter,
Maude the Fair, by the poisoned egg. But even if so, his conscience must
sometimes have reproached him when he reflected that, in order to
gratify his revenge for a private wrong, he had played a part similar to
that of Count Julian of Spain, when, five hundred years earlier, he, in
order to avenge the wrongs of his daughter, Caba, had invited the Moors
to seize the kingdom of Roderick, overthrew the monarchy of the Goths,
and placed his native land and its inhabitants at the mercy of foreign
invaders. Probably, however, Fitzwalter seldom thought either of Count
Julian’s country or of his own, but gave his whole attention to his own
safety and his own interests, and troubled himself very lightly with the
misery which he had been the means of bringing on England and on
Englishmen.
At all events, when Louis, having taken possession of the Tower, again
marched from the capital to pursue his career of conquest, Fitzwalter
accompanied the French prince, and aided him in his various enterprises.
His position, indeed, and that of the other Anglo-Normans who aided the
foreigners to ravage the country, even if they were destitute of
patriotism, could hardly have been very pleasant; for at that time there
existed no love between the barons of England and the warriors of
France; and it appears that the continental adventurers were in the
habit of assuming airs of superiority, and treating the islanders with
something very like contempt, vapouring about their own prowess,
repeating the wretched joke about Englishmen being born with tails like
horses as a punishment for somebody having cut off the tail of Thomas à
Becket’s horse, and describing the islanders, without distinction of
race, as “English tails.”
Now it must have been sufficiently mortifying to Fitzwalter, and De
Quency, and De Roos to be supposed to have tails like horses, and
perhaps still more mortifying to them as Normans to be treated as
English. Nevertheless, they bore all taunts and insults as best they
could, and fought side by side with their laughing allies--no doubt
valiantly and well. First they besieged and took the castle of Hertford,
and then the great castle of Berkhampstead, a place renowned in the
history of the Norman Conquest. Elated by his successes, Louis proceeded
to St. Albans, and threatened to burn the magnificent abbey which Offa,
the Saxon king, had founded and dedicated to the proto-martyr of
Britain, if the abbot did not come and do him homage. Trembling for the
edifice, and trembling for his own safety, the abbot, nevertheless,
declined to do what, as an Englishman, he could not do with honour.
However, the holy man offered a large sum of money as a bribe, and
Louis, having accepted the abbot’s gold instead of his homage, passed
on. But ere this a serious misunderstanding had broken out in his camp,
and threatened mischievous consequences. When Berkhampstead was taken by
the French, Fitzwalter suggested that the castle, on which he pretended
to have an hereditary claim, should be committed to his custody. Louis
thereupon consulted the French knights who were with him whether or not
he should do as Fitzwalter wished.
“No,” answered they, scornfully. “How can any confidence be placed in
English tails, who are traitors to their own sovereign?”
Louis returned to Fitzwalter.
“You must wait patiently till the kingdom is conquered,” said he, “and I
will then give every man what he has a right to possess.”
Fitzwalter remonstrated, but Louis curtly refused to listen longer to
the proposal; and the Anglo-Norman baron grew purple with rage. A
violent quarrel ensued; and it looked as if the French prince was about
to lose an adherent whose value in calm moments he could hardly fail to
recognise. Fitzwalter, however, had linked himself too firmly with the
Frenchman to have it in his power to break his chains, and the matter
was accommodated. But the friends of the Anglo-Norman baron, exposed to
frequent insults of the kind, grew sullen and discontented; and Louis
began to perceive that it would not be prudent to rely too far on the
fidelity of men born on English ground, and to concert measures for
surrounding himself with a force of foreigners sufficient to render him
independent of aid from the natives. With this view he consented to a
truce with the Protector from Christmas to Easter, and resolved to
employ the interval in a voyage to France, and to make a great attempt
to persuade his crafty sire to furnish a force formidable enough to
overawe all his enemies, and to terminate his successes as a conqueror
with a crowning triumph.
Accordingly, Louis, having appointed the Lord De Coucy as his lieutenant
in England, set out for the coast of Sussex to embark at Shoreham for
the Continent, dreading no interruption. This time he found himself
wrong in his calculations. There was a serious obstacle in the way, in
the shape of a small but very formidable body of men, headed by a
warrior in his teens, wearing a long white jacket, and wielding a very
formidable battle-axe, who rushed to the assault with very little
respect for persons--whether royal or knightly--under a white silken
banner on which figured a fierce raven with open beak, and spread wings,
and outstretched neck.