Julian’s adventures in the post of a soldier.
“I was born at Caen, in Normandy. My mother’s name was Matilda; as for
my father, I am not so certain, for the good woman on her death-bed
assured me she herself could bring her guess to no greater certainty
than to five of duke William’s captains. When I was no more than
thirteen (being indeed a surprising stout boy of my age) I enlisted into
the army of duke William, afterwards known by the name of William the
Conqueror, landed with him at Pemesey or Pemsey, in Sussex, and was
present at the famous battle of Hastings.
“At the first onset it was impossible to describe my consternation,
which was heightened by the fall of two soldiers who stood by me; but
this soon abated, and by degrees, as my blood grew warm, I thought no
more of my own safety, but fell on the enemy with great fury, and did a
good deal of execution; till, unhappily, I received a wound in my thigh,
which rendered me unable to stand any longer, so that I now lay among
the dead, and was constantly exposed to the danger of being trampled to
death, as well by my fellow-soldiers as by the enemy. However, I had the
fortune to escape it, and continued the remaining part of the day and
the night following on the ground.
“The next morning, the duke sending out parties to bring off the
wounded, I was found almost expiring with loss of blood; notwithstanding
which, as immediate care was taken to dress my wounds, youth and a
robust constitution stood my friends, and I recovered after a long and
tedious indisposition, and was again able to use my limbs and do my
duty.
“As soon as Dover was taken I was conveyed thither with all the rest of
the sick and wounded. Here I recovered of my wound; but fell afterwards
into a violent flux, which, when it departed, left me so weak that it
was long before I could regain my strength. And what most afflicted me
was, that during my whole illness, when I languished under want as well
as sickness, I had daily the mortification to see and hear the riots
and excess of my fellow-soldiers, who had happily escaped safe from the
battle.
“I was no sooner well than I was ordered into garrison at Dover Castle.
The officers here fared very indifferently, but the private men much
worse. We had great scarcity of provisions, and, what was yet more
intolerable, were so closely confined for want of room (four of us being
obliged to lie on the same bundle of straw), that many died, and most
sickened.
“Here I had remained about four months, when one night we were alarmed
with the arrival of the earl of Boulogne, who had come over privily
from France, and endeavored to surprise the castle. The design proved
ineffectual; for the garrison making a brisk sally, most of his men
were tumbled down the precipice, and he returned with a very few back to
France. In this action, however, I had the misfortune to come off with a
broken arm; it was so shattered, that, besides a great deal of pain and
misery which I endured in my cure, I was disabled for upwards of three
months.
“Soon after my recovery I had contracted an amour with a young
woman whose parents lived near the garrison, and were in much better
circumstances than I had reason to expect should give their consent to
the match. However, as she was extremely fond of me (as I was indeed
distractedly enamored of her), they were prevailed on to comply with her
desires, and the day was fixed for our marriage.
“On the evening preceding, while I was exulting with the eager
expectation of the happiness I was the next day to enjoy, I received
orders to march early in the morning towards Windsor, where a large army
was to be formed, at the head of which the king intended to march into
the west. Any person who hath ever been in love may easily imagine what
I felt in my mind on receiving those orders; and what still heightened
my torments was, that the commanding officer would not permit any one
to go out of the garrison that evening; so that I had not even an
opportunity of taking leave of my beloved.
“The morning came which was to have put me in the possession of my
wishes; but, alas! the scene was now changed, and all the hopes which I
had raised were now so many ghosts to haunt, and furies to torment me.
“It was now the midst of winter, and very severe weather for the season;
when we were obliged to make very long and fatiguing marches, in which
we suffered all the inconveniences of cold and hunger. The night in
which I expected to riot in the arms of my beloved mistress I was
obliged to take up with a lodging on the ground, exposed to the
inclemencies of a rigid frost; nor could I obtain the least comfort of
sleep, which shunned me as its enemy.
“In short, the horrors of that night are not to be described, or perhaps
imagined. They made such an impression on my soul, that I was forced to
be dipped three times in the river Lethe to prevent my remembering it in
the characters which I afterwards performed in the flesh.”
Here I interrupted Julian for the first time, and told him no such
dipping had happened to me in my voyage from one world to the other:
but he satisfied me by saying “that this only happened to those spirits
which returned into the flesh, in order to prevent that reminiscence
which Plato mentions, and which would otherwise cause great confusion in
the other world.”
He then proceeded as follows: “We continued a very laborious march to
Exeter, which we were ordered to besiege. The town soon surrendered, and
his majesty built a castle there, which he garrisoned with his Normans,
and unhappily I had the misfortune to be one of the number.
“Here we were confined closer than I had been at Dover; for, as the
citizens were extremely disaffected, we were never suffered to go
without the walls of the castle; nor indeed could we, unless in large
bodies, without the utmost danger. We were likewise kept to continual
duty, nor could any solicitations prevail with the commanding officer
to give me a month’s absence to visit my love, from whom I had no
opportunity of hearing in all my long absence.
“However, in the spring, the people being more quiet, and another
officer of a gentler temper succeeding to the principal command, I
obtained leave to go to Dover; but alas! what comfort did my long
journey bring me? I found the parents of my darling in the utmost misery
at her loss; for she had died, about a week before my arrival, of a
consumption, which they imputed to her pining at my sudden departure.
“I now fell into the most violent and almost raving fit of despair. I
cursed myself, the king, and the whole world, which no longer seemed
to have any delight for me. I threw myself on the grave of my deceased
love, and lay there without any kind of sustenance for two whole days.
At last hunger, together with the persuasions of some people who took
pity on me, prevailed with me to quit that situation, and refresh myself
with food. They then persuaded me to return to my post, and abandon a
place where almost every object I saw recalled ideas to my mind which,
as they said, I should endeavor with my utmost force to expel from it.
This advice at length succeeded; the rather, as the father and mother of
my beloved refused to see me, looking on me as the innocent but certain
cause of the death of their only child.
“The loss of one we tenderly love, as it is one of the most bitter and
biting evils which attend human life, so it wants the lenitive which
palliates and softens every other calamity; I mean that great reliever,
hope. No man can be so totally undone, but that he may still cherish
expectation: but this deprives us of all such comfort, nor can anything
but time alone lessen it. This, however, in most minds, is sure to
work a slow but effectual remedy; so did it in mine: for within a
twelve-month I was entirely reconciled to my fortune, and soon after
absolutely forgot the object of a passion from which I had promised
myself such extreme happiness, and in the disappointment of which I had
experienced such inconceivable misery.
“At the expiration of the month I returned to my garrison at Exeter;
where I was no sooner arrived than I was ordered to march into the
north, to oppose a force there levied by the earls of Chester and
Northumberland. We came to York, where his majesty pardoned the heads of
the rebels, and very severely punished some who were less guilty. It was
particularly my lot to be ordered to seize a poor man who had never been
out of his house, and convey him to prison. I detested this barbarity,
yet was obliged to execute it; nay, though no reward would have bribed
me in a private capacity to have acted such a part, yet so much sanctity
is there in the commands of a monarch or general to a soldier, that
I performed it without reluctance, nor had the tears of his wife and
family any prevalence with me.
“But this, which was a very small piece of mischief in comparison with
many of my barbarities afterwards, was however, the only one which
ever gave me any uneasiness; for when the king led us afterwards into
Northumberland to revenge those people’s having joined with Osborne the
Dane in his invasion, and orders were given us to commit what ravages
we could, I was forward in fulfilling them, and, among some lesser
cruelties (I remember it yet with sorrow), I ravished a woman, murdered
a little infant playing in her lap, and then burned her house. In short,
for I have no pleasure in this part of my relation, I had my share
in all the cruelties exercised on those poor wretches; which were so
grievous, that for sixty miles together, between York and Durham, not a
single house, church, or any other public or private edifice, was left
standing.
“We had pretty well devoured the country, when we were ordered to march
to the Isle of Ely, to oppose Hereward, a bold and stout soldier, who
had under him a very large body of rebels, who had the impudence to rise
against their king and conqueror (I talk now in the same style I did
then) in defense of their liberties, as they called them. These were
soon subdued; but as I happened (more to my glory than my comfort) to
be posted in that part through which Hereward cut his way, I received
a dreadful cut on the forehead, a second on the shoulder, and was run
through the body with a pike.
“I languished a long time with these wounds, which made me incapable of
attending the king into Scotland. However, I was able to go over with
him afterwards into Normandy, in his expedition against Philip, who
had taken the opportunity of the troubles in England to invade that
province. Those few Normans who bad survived their wounds, and had
remained in the Isle of Ely, were all of our nation who went, the rest
of his army being all composed of English. In a skirmish near the town
of Mans my leg was broke and so shattered that it was forced to be cut
off.
“I was now disabled from serving longer in the army; and accordingly,
being discharged from the service, I retired to the place of my
nativity, where, in extreme poverty, and frequent bad health from the
many wounds I had received, I dragged on a miserable life to the age of
sixty-three; my only pleasure being to recount the feats of my youth, in
which narratives I generally exceeded the truth.
“It would be tedious and unpleasant to recount to you the several
miseries I suffered after my return to Caen; let it suffice, they
were so terrible that they induced Minos to compassionate me, and,
notwithstanding the barbarities I had been guilty of in Northumberland,
to suffer me to go once more back to earth.”