By times in the morning, the treasure, which filled six coffers of the
largest, was put into boats to be floated down Thamesis unto our abbey;
and some of us going by water and some by land, we all proceeded
thitherward, amidst the rejoicings and blessings of all the people.
Right glad were they all for the destruction of Sir Ingelric's
stronghold! Had it been the fitting season they would have carried
palm-branches before us, as was used at that blessed entrance into
Jerusalem; but it was dead winter, and the morning, though bright and
clear, was nipping cold. The first time it was I did see our hardy lord
abbat muffle his chin, in a skin or fur brought from foreign parts. A
glorious reception, I ween, was that which awaited us! Our brotherhood,
to the number of one hundred and fifty, formed in goodly order of
procession with the banners of our church displayed, and with the prior
at their head bearing our richest rood, met us at the edge of the
Falbury, all singing--"Beati qui veniant,"--"Blessed are those that come
in the name of the Lord; blessed are those that come from the doing of
good." And our good vassals of the township, and the franklins of
Reading and the vicinage, were all there in their holiday clothes, and
our near-dwelling serfs in their cleanest sheep-skin jackets, shouting
and throwing up their caps; our abbey bells ringing out lustily and
merrily the while. Needs not to say that we sang our best in the choir
at that Te Deum, or that the feast which was ready by the hour of noon
was sumptuous and mirthful. Nor was the joy less that evening in the
castle at Caversham, whither I and some few others went with Sir Alain
and the abbat; for the lord of Caversham being ever of a pleasant humour
and ofttimes jocose, did say that forasmuch as I, Felix the novice, and
Philip the merry lay-brother, did first carry Alice by night in the
little basket unto the castle, to the scandal of some and to the
amazement of all, so ought we now to carry back and present to the ladie
Alfgiva the restored damsel; and hereat the young Lord Arthur had
clapped his hands, and said so it ought to be.
And from this happy evening the bountiful ladie of Caversham grew well
and strong, and the children grew up together in all love and
loveliness. Somewhat squalid were they both when they were first brought
home, but in a brief space of time they were plump and ruddy with
health. The little maiden was then in her sixth year; the little lord,
as hath been said, only in his tenth. Truly it is wondrous to think how
soon they grew up into womanhood and manhood! And I the while was
passing from blooming manhood to sober age; yet did I not grieve with
Horatius--_Eheu! Fugaces._
When at our leisure we did examine the great treasure brought from the
evil castellum at Speen, we found much money that bore the impress of
the mint of our house, and divers pieces of plate which had been stolen
by the countess's people out of our church. These things, as of right,
we did keep; but the rest of the plate we restored to the lawful owners
thereof when we could discover them, which, sooth to say, did not happen
on every occasion. Of the money which was not thought to be our own we
did make two portions, and gave one to the poor and sent the other to
King Stephen, who ever needed more money than he could get. But let men
do ever so right and be ever so just and holy, they will still be
exposed to evil constructions, and the sharp malice of evil tongues; and
therefore no marvel was it that many did say we made a great profit unto
ourselves out of the sacking of Sir Ingelric's castle.
And now, touching Sir Ingelric's dark wife; she was shut up for a short
season in Reading Castle, and was then carried away to the eastern
parts, and was there confined in a solitary and very strong house of
religion that stood on the sea-shore. Of the other prisoners, some,
being foreigners, were shipped and sent beyond sea, and the rest of
them, being native, were sent unto King Stephen's army.
By the time we had returned unto our abbey, from Oxenford, it was hard
upon the feast of the Epiphany, of the year of grace eleven hundred and
forty-three. At the first coming of spring the king, who had been to
London and the eastern parts to collect a great force, marched through
Reading and tarried a few hours at our house, without doing any notable
damage thereunto, excepting always that he did _borrow_ from us all the
coined money in our mint, which he did intend to repay so soon as the
country should be settled. But it grieved us much to learn that he, too,
had hired and brought into England great tumultuary companies of
Flemings and Bourguignons and other half-baptized, unholy, ungodly men,
who had no bowels of compassion for the people of England, no respect
for our holy places, but an insatiate appetite for plunder. And these
black bands, on marching away to the westward, brake open divers
nunneries and burned sundry towns and churches, maugre all that the
legate bishop of Winchester, who was with his brother the king, could
say or do to prevent them. This sacrilege brought down vengeance and
discomfiture upon the king's cause, and did drive away from his banner
for that time our good Lord of Caversham. Matilda and her princely boy
Henry remained in Bristowe Castle, or about that fair western country by
the shores of the broad Severn, or on the banks of the Avon; but some of
her partisans had made themselves formidable at Sarum; and to check the
incursions of these the king turned the nunnery at Wilton into a castle,
driving out the chaste sisterhood and girding their once quiet abode
with bulwarks and battlements. But while he was upon this ill-judged
work the great Robert, Earl of Gloucester, on the first of the kalends
of July, fell suddenly upon his encamped army, and by surprise and
superiority of force did gain a great victory over King Stephen. The
king with his brother the bishop fled with shame, and the earl's men
took the king's people and his plate and money-chest, and other things.
Among the men of name that were taken at Wilton was William Martell, the
great favourite and sewer to the king, who was sent to Wallingford
Castle, that terrible stronghold of Brian Fitzcount, which few men could
mention without turning pale. Thus sundry more years passed with
variable successes, and every year heaped on each side fresh
calamities, to the great ruin of the whole land. And still both parties
brought over their hungry bands of adventurers, and still many of our
great men, caring neither for one party nor for the other, continued
their castle-building and their plundering for their own account, and
still the poor and despairing people of England said that Christ and his
saints were asleep. Villages and hamlets were fast disappearing, and
that our towns were not _all_ sacked and burned in these nineteen years
of war, and that the substance of every man was not taken from him, was
owing to the prayers of the church, and to the leagues and
confederations which the franklins and free burghers did make among
themselves, binding themselves by a solemn covenant each to assist the
others. At first those who were men of war did laugh at these leagues,
but after they had sustained many a check and defeat they were taught to
respect the valour of our free men. I have known the weaver quit his
shuttle and go forth to battle with sword and spear, and bring back
captive from the field a knight and great lord; and when numerous deeds
of the like sort had been done by the honest folk who took up arms only
for the defence of their own houses and properties and lives, the great
lords and powerful men did either avoid these townships, or treat them
with more gentleness and justice.
It was in this year, at the fall of the leaf, that John-à-Blount died at
Maple-Durham, and was buried there. After that our indulgent abbat had
confessed him and shrieved him (upon penances duly performed by the said
John), and had quitted and fully released him from the cucullus, the
poor youth again put on the steel cap, and went to Caversham to serve
as one of the garnison of that good house. Good were the lord and the
happy little lordling unto John, and I ween the Ladie Alfgiva had a
great care taken of him when she saw how sad he was, and how fast
wasting. But neither cook nor leach, neither generous wine nor
comfortable words, could restore strength, or infuse hope, or induce a
composure and tranquillity of mind, or keep poor John any long season
among us. His heart seemed broken within him; and there was a flush on
his wasted cheek, and then a terrible coughing. So at last my whilome
companion being able to do nothing, quitted Caversham and went to
Maple-Durham, that he might die there among some of his kindred, and be
buried under the sward by the wattled hillock which marked the grave of
his father. That young Angevin Herodias was as much John's murtheress as
she could have been if she had put poison in his meat, or a dagger into
his heart. May his soul find peace, and her great sin forgiveness! We
did most of us weep as well as pray for poor John-à-Blount.
In the year next after the battle at Wilton, King Stephen gained a great
victory in the meadows which lie near to the abbey of Saint Albans, and
our Lord Abbat Reginald did plant a goodly vineyard on the slopes by the
side of our house at Reading, and did make an orchard a little beyond
Kennet. Many other battles were there in this same year of woe; and that
great partisan of the countess, Robert Marmion, was slain in a fierce
fight at Coventry; and Geoffrey Mandeville, Earl of Essex, was slain at
Burwell; and Ernulphus, Earl Mandeville's son, was taken after his
father's death and banished the land. There seemed no end to these
slayings and banishings and imprisonings in foul prisons. Verily those
who made the mischief did not escape from its effects! The cup of woe
they mixed for the nation was put to their own lips; turn and turn about
they nearly all perished or suffered the extremities of evil fortune!
None gained, all lost in the end, by this intestine and unnatural war.
In the year of grace eleven hundred and forty-five King Stephen again
passed by Reading, and went and laid close siege to Wallingford Castle;
but he could not prevail against that mighty robber and spoiler Brian
Fitzcount; and on the feast of St. Benedict, at the close of this same
year, I, with the saints' aid, having completed my noviciate, took the
great vows and became a cloister-monk, with much credit and applause
from the whole community, the sweetmeats and all delicate cates being
furnished for that feast by the bountiful Ladie Alfgiva, and both Sir
Alain de Bohun and his son Arthur being present at the feast. That night
there came from the plashy margent of Thamesis a meteor of rare size and
brightness, and it stopped for the space of an Ave Maria over our house,
and shined in all its brightness upon the tower; as was noted by all the
brotherhood, who did please to say that it was a good omen, portending
that I should rise high in office, and be an ornament and shining light
to the house: and truly since then I have passed through offices of
trust and honour, and my name hath been made known unto some of our
order in foreign parts, and I am now by the grace of our ladie sub-prior
of this royal abbey of Reading. Also is it to be noted that in this
important year we, the monks of Reading, were enabled to keep our great
fair in the Falbury, on the day of St. Lawrence and the three days next
following, according to the particular charter of privilege granted by
our founder Henricus Primus, who commanded in the aforesaid charter that
no people should be hindered or troubled either in their coming to the
fair or in their going from it, under heavy penalties to be paid in fine
silver. And the wise Beauclerc had thus ordered, for that the men of
Newbury having a fair of their own about the same season, for the sale
of cattle and much cheese, were likely to waylay and stop such as were
coming to our fair, as in verity they afterwards did, despite of our
charter and to the peril of their own souls. But the castle-builders and
the robbers that were liege-men unto them, had done the Fair-wending
franklins much more harm than had been done them by the wicked men of
Newbury; and in this sort our fair of St. Lawrence had been thinly
attended for some years, and had not brought to our house in tolls,
fees, and droits, one-half so much as the value of the alms we
distributed upon that saint's day.
In the year which followed upon my vows, the husband of Matilda, the
Count of Anjou, much grieving for the long absence of his son Henry, and
seeing that the presence of one so young did no good to his mother's
cause in England, entreated that he might be sent back into Anjou, and
young Henry was sent thither accordingly. It had been well for England
if the count had gotten back his wife also, but he was too glad to leave
Matilda where she was, for there had not been for many a year any love
between them, and from the day of his marriage with her until Matilda's
return to her own country to wage war in it, the count was said never to
have known a day's peace. During his long abode in Bristowe Castle the
boy Henry had been carefully nurtured and instructed by his uncle the
Earl of Gloucester, and by some teachers gathered in England and in
foreign parts; and, to speak the truth of all men, the said earl was
well nigh as learned as his father the Beauclerc, and a great encourager
of humanizing letters. That great earl was also much commended by his
friends for his constancy to the cause of his half-sister Matilda, and
for his perseverance in all manner of fortunes, and for the equanimity
with which he bore defeat and calamity; but, certes, it had been better
for us if his perseverance had been less, and if his equanimity had been
disturbed by the woes and unutterable anguishes the people of England
did suffer from his so long perseverance. But the hand of death was now
upon him, and the great earl died soon after the departure of Henry
Fitz-empress, and was buried at Bristowe in the choir of the church of
St. James, which he had founded. And no long while after the departure
of her son and the death of her valorous half-brother, the countess, to
the great trouble of her husband, quitted England and went into Anjou;
and King Stephen, surprising and vanquishing his enemy the Earl of
Chester, who had gotten possession of Lincoln town, did triumphantly
enter into that town and abide there, which no king durst do before him,
for that certain wizards had prophesied evil luck to any king that went
into Lincoln town. Being thus within Lincoln, and somewhat elated with
the smiles of capricious fortune, King Stephen summoned the great
barons and magnates of the land unto him, and at the solemnization of
the Nativity of our Lord, he wore the regal crown upon his head, or, as
others have it, he was re-crowned and consecrated anew in the mother
church at Lincoln; and having the crown of England, to all seeming,
firmly fixed on his brow, he caused the magnates all to swear allegiance
to his son Prince Eustace as his lawful successor in the realm. No great
man gainsayed the king, but all present made a great show of loyalty and
affection as well to the son as to the father. Many there were of them
who had no truth or steadiness in their hearts; but Sir Alain, our good
Lord of Caversham, was there, and likewise the young Lord Arthur, and it
was with a faith as pure and entire as that of a primitive Christian
that the nobles twain placed their hands within the hands of Prince
Eustace and vowed to be his true men for aye. And as it was now time
that Arthur should enter upon a more active life, and put himself in
training for the honours of knighthood, and as Prince Eustace conceived
much affection for him, as did all who ever knew the hopeful youth,
Arthur was left in the family of the prince to serve him as page and
esquire. Yet was the young lord's absence from among us very short, for
Prince Eustace came nigh unto Reading to prepare for the laying of
another siege to Wallingford Castle, which still lay upon the fair bosom
of the country like a hugeous and hideous nightmare, and whensoever it
was not beleaguered the wicked garnison went forth to do that which for
so many years they had been doing. Brian Fitzcount, the lord of
Wallingford, Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, and others not a few, had
gone beyond sea with the countess; but they meditated a speedy return
with more bands of foreign marauders, and many of their similars and
fautors shut themselves up in their home-castles, which were spread all
over the country. These things prevented the entire blessing of peace;
yet was England more tranquil than she had been since the Beauclerc's
death, and by a succession of sieges Stephen would have gotten the men
of anarchy within his power if other accidents had not happened.
As the king (who had long and grievously mourned for the license and
castle-building he had permitted at the beginning of his reign, in the
hopes of attaching the great lords to his interest) openly showed his
resolution to curb the excessive power and fierce lawlessness of the
feudal lords, a great outcry was raised against him, and divers of the
lords of his own party began to plot and make league with the barons of
Matilda's faction. Others fell from his side because he could give them
no money or fiefs, unless he robbed other men or laid heavy tallages
upon the poor people. As these selfish men deserted him. Stephen
exclaimed, as he had done before, "False lords, why did ye make me king
to betray me thus! But, by the glory of God, I will not live a
discrowned king!" And so much was granted to him in the end, that
Stephen did die with the crown upon his head. Peradventure might the
king have had the better of his secular foes if in the midst of these
troubles he had not quarrelled with the clergy and braved the wrath of
the holy see. By the death of one pope and the election of another, the
king's brother, the Bishop of Winchester, had ceased to be legatus à
latere, and the legatine office had passed into the hands of Theobald,
archbishop of Canterbury, who had ever leaned to the Angevin party. The
said lord archbishop was no friend to our Lord Abbat Reginald, or to any
of our community, but it becomes not me to rake up the ashes of the
dead, or to disturb with a reproachful voice the grave of the primate of
England; and it needs must be said that the king was over violent in his
regard, and undutiful to our father the pope. For it must ever be
acknowledged that the triple crown of Rome is more than the crown of
England, and that the head of the holy Roman Apostolic and Catholic
church hath a power supreme in spiritualities over all the kings of
Christendom. Nevertheless did King Stephen in an ill hour give a doom of
exile against the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, for that he had
attended at the bidding of the pope, but without consent of the king, a
great council of the church in the city of Rheims, in France. Instead of
submitting to this sentence, the archbishop went and put himself under
the protection of Hugh Bigod, the powerful Earl of Norfolk, who was of
the Angevin faction, and then put forth a sentence of interdict against
King Stephen, and all that part of the kingdom which obeyed the
_usurper_. In the west country, and in some parts of the east and north,
the priests shut up their churches and refused to perform any of the
offices of religion. Good men went between the king and the primate, and
after two years a reconciliation was brought about, Stephen agreeing to
be the most bountiful king and the best friend of the church that the
church had ever yet known in this land. Yet when Archbishop Theobald was
called upon to recognise and anoint Prince Eustace as heir to the
throne, he refused to do it, saying that he was forbidden by our lord
the pope, and that Stephen, being a usurper, could not, like a
legitimate sovereign, transmit his crown to his posterity. The king,
unto whom the archbishop had taken the oath of allegiance, waxed wroth,
and threatened the archbishop with a punishment sharper than banishment;
but, when the first passion of anger was over, he did nothing. Men
censured the archbishop at the time, but they afterwards thought he had
taken the wisest course for putting an end to this long war. In the
interim Henry Fitz-empress had been again in our island. In the year
eleven hundred and forty-nine, having attained the military age of
sixteen, Henry Plantagenet came over to Scotland with a splendid
retinue, to be made a knight by his mother's uncle, King David. The
ceremony was performed with much magnificence in the city of Carlisle,
where the old Scottish king did then keep his court; and most of the
nobles of Scotland and many of our great English barons were present at
the celebration, and did then and there make note of the many high
qualities of the truly great and ever to be remembered son of the
Countess Matilda. All manner of honours and power alighted on the head
of Henry Plantagenet soon after his being knighted at Carlisle. The
death of his father Geoffrey left him in full possession of the dukedom
of Normandie, which he had governed for him, and of the earldom of
Anjou, which was his own birthright; and in that lucky year for the
house of Plantagenet, the year of our redemption eleven hundred and
fifty-two, by espousing Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry acquired that great
dame's rights to the earldom of Poictou and the great duchy of
Aquitaine. Henry was thus the greatest and richest prince in all the
main land of Europe, and albeit he was only in his twentieth year, he
already knew the arts of government and of war better than any of his
neighbours. A great prince was he from his cradle: he was born to
command.
Et interim, Eustace, the son of Stephen, being nearly of the same age as
the son of Matilda, had become a very worthy soldier, and our young Lord
of Caversham had grown up with him, and improved under him. They had
miscarried in the siege of Wallingford Castle, because that house of the
devil was so exceeding strong, and because they were called off to
another more urgent enterprise; but in other quarters they had been more
successful, beating divers of the castle-builders in the field, or
taking them in their dens. Every castle that they took was burned and
destroyed, like Sir Ingelric's castellum at Speen. They brought many
offerings to our shrines, for they were much in our part of the country,
to keep in check the Angevin party to the westward; and whenever he was
not engaged in these duties of war, the young Lord Arthur came to his
home. The winter season allowed him the longest repose, and thus it
befel that the Ladie Alfgiva and that little maiden which I and Philip,
the lay-brother, did first convey to Caversham, became sad instead of
gay at the advance of spring. But Alice was no longer the little maiden
that could lie perdue in a basket, and there had already been many
discourses and conjectures as to the day when she and the young Lord
Arthur would be made one by holy church; for the great love that had
been between them from the days of their childhood was known to all the
country side. Strange it was, but still most true, that Sir Ingelric of
Huntercombe never had made any attempt to recover his fair and good
daughter. Great endeavours he made to get back that dark ladie of the
castle, his wicked and impenitent second wife, and he had at last, by
means, it was said, of the Archbishop of Canterbury, obtained her
release from the nunnery on the eastern coast; but he had never set on
foot any treaty, nor, as far as could be learned, had ever made any
inquiry touching the gentle Alice, who in her heart could not think
without trembling and turning pale of her dark, stern step-mother, and
the days she had passed with her in that foul donjon at Speen.
Though his hair had grown grey and scant under the cap of steel, and his
soul panted for peace as the hunted hart doth for running waters, Sir
Alain de Bohun kept the field almost as constantly as his son; and his
constancy to King Stephen knew no abatement. So much virtue and
steadiness could not be understood in those changeable and treacherous
times; and as it was thought that he put a monstrously high price upon
his services, and was true to one side because he had not been
sufficiently tempted by the other, in the course of the year eleven
hundred and fifty-two there came a secret emissary to offer him one of
the greatest earldoms in England, and one of the richest and noblest
damsels in Anjou as a bride for his son. Sir Alain bound the emissary
with cords, like a felon spy, and sent him and his papers and credential
signets unto King Stephen. No mind was ruffled in Caversham Castle upon
this occurrence except the tender mind of Alice, who bethought her that
she was but a poor portionless maiden, the daughter of a proscribed man
whose estates had long been confiscated and held by the king; but Arthur
saw and soon chased away these vain grievings. His father had manors and
lands enow, and he wished never to be greater or richer than his father,
and Alice was rich in herself, and she was his own Alice, and a greater
treasure than any that dukes or kings or emperors could bestow. Let
there be peace; let there only be peace in the land for the herdsman and
the tiller of the soil, and the industrious vassals, and what earthly
luxury or comfort would be wanting in the house at Caversham? Fools
might contend for more, and barter their souls away to get it, but his
father's son would never be this fool.
I was myself at Caversham at the time of these occurrences, and it was
not long after that I became sub-sacrist in our abbey, and did build at
mine own cost a new rood-loft in the church.
Also in this year deceased, to King Stephen's great grief, the good
Queen Maud, and she was buried at Feversham in Kent.