AN AWKWARD PREDICAMENT
When the army of the Count de Perche had been routed at Lincoln during
Whitsuntide, and the armament of Eustace the Monk destroyed at the mouth
of the Thames, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, the position of Prince Louis
became desperate, and he felt infinitely more eager to get out of
England without dishonour than he had felt to invade it a year earlier.
But this proved no easy business; and the prince had to pass several
months of such intense anxiety as he was little prepared to experience.
On hearing of the catastrophe of Lincoln, Louis immediately abandoned
the siege of Dover, and made for London, perhaps still hoping against
hope. But even in the capital, which had been his stronghold, he soon
discovered that he was the reverse of secure. Plots and conspiracies to
drive out the French were almost every week brought to light, and
countenanced by many who had once shouted most loudly, “All hail, Lord
Louis!” Constantine Fitzarnulph, indeed, continued true to the end; but,
as a body, the rich citizens were most anxious to get out of the scrape
into which they had been beguiled by the confederate barons who at
Lincoln had surrendered like so many sheep.
Such being the state of affairs, Louis never knew what a day might bring
forth; and he became somewhat apprehensive of consequences, as he
informed Philip Augustus by letter, saying, at the same time, “Our
losses are brought on by God more than by man.”
The King of France, somewhat alarmed, summoned the messengers of Louis
to his presence.
“Does William Marshal still live?” asked he.
“Yes, sire,” answered they.
“Then,” said Philip, much relieved, “I have no fears for my son.”
The French king was so far right that the adversaries of Prince Louis
had now much more compassion for him than his friends, who blamed him
for all their misfortunes; and Pembroke was as moderate in the day of
triumph as he had been inflexible in the day of adversity. But he did
not, therefore, fail in his duty to the young king or to the country,
the affairs of which, as protector, he had undertaken to administer. He
was a man who understood not only how to conquer but how to conciliate;
and in order to begin the work of conciliation he felt strongly the
necessity of ridding England of the invaders without any unnecessary
delay. Therefore he marched his army on London, while the mariners of
the Cinque Ports sailed into the Thames, and, beleaguering the city both
by land and water, so that no provisions could enter it, he reduced the
French prince to such extreme distress that he shouted out very
earnestly for peace. Accordingly a conference was appointed with a view
of settling the terms on which peace was to be concluded.
The 11th of September was appointed for this important conference; and
on that day, Henry, attended by the protector, and Louis by such of his
nobles as had survived the war, met near Kingston, on an islet of the
Thames. Everything went smoothly, for Louis was all eagerness to shake
himself clear of his perplexities; and Pembroke, so far from being
inclined to bear hard on vanquished foes, was sincerely anxious to
convert them into friends. Accordingly, such terms were agreed to as
enabled the French prince to leave England without dishonour, and gave
the captive barons an opportunity of recovering their liberty and
returning to their allegiance.
“It was concluded,” says the chronicler, “that Prince Louis should have
fifteen thousand marks for the charges he had been at, and abjure his
claim to any interest in the kingdom; and withal to work his father for
restitution of such provinces in France as appertained to the English
crown, and that when he himself should be king he should resign them in
a peaceable manner. On the other hand, King Henry takes his oath, and
after him the legate and the protector, to restore unto the barons of
the realm, and others his subjects, all their rights and privileges, for
which the discord began between the late king and his people. After
this, Prince Louis is honourably attended to Dover, and departs out of
England about Michaelmas.”
Almost ere the ships which carried the French prince and his surviving
comrades from the land which they had hoped to make their own had
reached France, affairs in England assumed their wonted aspect, and
Englishmen most devoutly thanked Heaven that peace was restored to the
suffering country. Nor did Pembroke leave his work half done. The Great
Charter having been carefully revised, and so modified as not to
interfere with “the king’s government being carried on,” was solemnly
confirmed, to the satisfaction of all parties; and young Henry, when he
entered London, on the occasion of going to be crowned with the golden
crown of the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, “was received with great
joy by the people.”
Gay indeed was the city of London on that day, and gladly the citizens,
rejoicing in the restoration of peace--with the exception of
Constantine Fitzarnulph, who muttered vague threats about “biding his
time,” and shut himself up in his high, large dwelling--decked their
houses, and rushed to window and housetop to witness the procession,
which certainly contrasted marvellously with the procession which,
twelve months earlier, had been witnessed, at a period so gloomy, by the
citizens of Gloucester. Keen was the curiosity of the dames and damsels
to see what they could of the pageant; and even Dame Waledger, albeit
looking somewhat sullen, and Beatrix de Moreville, albeit looking
somewhat sad, came forth to view the magnificent cavalcade from the
balcony of the great mansion of the De Morevilles, in Ludgate. De
Moreville himself was away in the far North, shut up within the strong
walls of Mount Moreville, his mind alternating between vague hopes and
desperate resolutions, never even mentioning his daughter to Ralph
Hornmouth, but one day forming a project for placing Alexander, King of
Scots, on the English throne, another day vowing by the bones of St.
Moden to raise his own banner and make an effort to redeem the lost
cause of Louis, and on a third declaring that his career was run, and
that nothing remained but to take the cowl and become a monk in the
great abbey which his ancestor had founded at Dryburgh, on the Tweed;
but Sir Anthony Waledger, who, freed from his captivity and solaced by
the wine-cup, bore defeat more easily, was, though carefully concealed,
looking scornfully out on the triumph of those against whom he had
fought, if not with chivalrous courage, at least with fiendish
malevolence.
And grand and brilliant indeed--with its banners, and martial music, and
heralds--looked the company of earls and barons and knights and squires
who attended the boy-king in his procession, their plumes and mantles
waving and their bridles ringing as they rode haughtily along, their
steeds stepping proudly, as if they disdained the ground. But no one
looked that day higher and braver than Oliver Icingla, who, side by side
with William Longsword, Salisbury’s young heir, rode gallantly along on
his black horse Ayoub, no longer wearing the white jacket in which he
had made himself so terrible to the French, but arrayed, as beseemed his
rank, in cap and white feather, and gay mantelet of scarlet, now and
then, also, recognised by the crowd, and cheered as “The Icingla,” and
as the boy-warrior whose axe had been wielded with such good effect
against England’s foes.
And as the cavalcade reached Ludgate, on the way westward, the gate
presented a slight impediment and there was a brief halt in the
procession, and as Oliver raised his eyes to that balcony where De
Moreville’s daughter was under the wing of Dame Waledger, they
encountered that marvellously fair face, with eyes like the violet and
hair like the raven’s wing, which had haunted him in all his adventures,
and, as he gallantly raised his cap, his heart for a moment leaped with
the emotion of a young lover suddenly face to face with her he adores.
But it was only for a moment. Quick as the lightning’s flash his memory
recalled that terrible dream, the recollection of which he had in vain
endeavoured to banish, and so powerful was the impression which it had
left, that he almost involuntarily breathed a prayer to be delivered
from temptation. As he did so the procession resumed its course towards
Westminster, and Oliver rode on, musing silently, and all that day and
all that night his thoughts were gloomy, and he was still in melancholy
mood next morning when, having been roused at sunrise, he mounted to
accompany William de Collingham to take possession of Chas-Chateil in
King Henry’s name.
And Beatrix de Moreville became more sad. Part of her sadness arose from
the belief that Oliver Icingla had all but forgotten the fair kinswoman
whose presence had cheered his heart in captivity as sunshine lights up
the landscape in latest October, or only remembered to think of her with
dislike as the daughter of a man by whom he had been deeply injured. But
this was not all that preyed upon the mind of Beatrix de Moreville, and
brought the tears to her eyes. She was aware that Constantine
Fitzarnulph, known to her only as a person of strong will and violent
ambition, had become madly enamoured of her; that he had vowed that the
Norman maiden should be his bride. She was aware that he had secured the
co-operation of the Waledgers, male and female, who, reflecting on De
Moreville’s harshness in other days, and deeming him now ruined and
powerless either to benefit or to injure, had neither scruples nor fears
so far as the Norman baron was concerned; and she was aware, also, that
Fitzarnulph had, in all the confidence of untold wealth and municipal
influence, sworn by the blood of St. Thomas, citizen as he was, he
should wed the proud demoiselle, even if it cost the country a
revolution and ten thousand lives to fill up the social gap that
separated them.
Such being her position, and being endowed with all the sensitive
delicacy of a flower reared in a forest, De Moreville’s daughter,
finding herself abandoned by her sire, shut up in that great house in
Ludgate, worried daily by Dame Waledger, pestered by Sir Anthony, and
with no one of her own age, and rank, and sex to sympathise with her
woes, brooded pensively as she recalled the past, with all its romance,
and sighed heavily as she thought of the future, with all its hazards.
It was, in truth, a woeful termination to the sweet and fanciful musings
of which Oliver’s captivity at Chas-Chateil had been the origin. Why, O
why, did the heir of the Icinglas dream that frightful dream in the
Sussex forest?