through Europe, and everywhere gave joy to the rulers of the various
realms. Brave soldier as he was, he of the lion heart had succeeded in
offending all his kingly comrades in the Crusade, and they rejoiced over
his captivity as one might over the caging of a captured lion. The
emperor called upon his vassal, Duke Leopold, to deliver the prisoner to
him, saying that none but an emperor had the right to imprison a king.
The duke assented, and the emperor, filled with glee, sent word of his
good fortune to the king of France, who returned answer that the news
was more agreeable to him than a present of gold or topaz. As for John,
the brother of the imprisoned king, he made overtures for an alliance
with Philip of France, redoubled his intrigues in England and Normandy,
and secretly instigated the emperor to hold on firmly to his royal
prize. All Europe seemed to be leagued against the unlucky king, who lay
in bondage within the stern walls of a German prison.
And now we feel tempted to leave awhile the domain of sober history, and
enter that of romance, which tells one of its prettiest stories about
King Richard's captivity. The story goes that the people of England knew
not what had become of their king. That he was held in durance vile
somewhere in Germany they had been told, but Germany was a broad land
and had many prisons, and none knew which held the lion-hearted king.
Before he could be rescued he must be found, and how should this be
done?
Those were the days of the troubadours, who sang their lively lays not
only in Provence but in other lands. Richard himself composed lays and
sang them to the harp, and Blondel, a troubadour of renown, was his
favorite minstrel, accompanying him wherever he went. This faithful
singer mourned bitterly the captivity of his king, and at length, bent
on finding him, went wandering through foreign lands, singing under the
walls of fortresses and prisons a lay which Richard well knew. Many
weary days he wandered without response, almost without hope; yet still
faithful Blondel roamed on, heedless of the palaces of the land, seeking
only its prisons and strongholds.
At length arrived a day in which, from a fortress window above his head,
came an echo of the strain he had just sung. He listened in ecstasy.
Those were Norman words; that was a well-known voice; it could be but
the captive king.
"O Richard! O my king!" sang the minstrel again, in a song of his own
devising.
From above came again the sound of familiar song. Filled with joy, the
faithful minstrel sought England's shores, told the nobles where the
king could be found, and made strenuous exertions to obtain his ransom,
efforts which were at length crowned with success.
Through the alluring avenues of romance the voice of Blondel still comes
to us, singing his signal lay of "O Richard! O my king!" but history has
made no record of the pretty tale, and back to history we must turn.
The imprisoned king was placed on trial before the German Diet at Worms,
charged with--no one knows what. Whatever the charge, the sentence was
that he should pay a ransom of one hundred thousand pounds of silver,
and acknowledge himself a vassal of the emperor. The latter, a mere
formality, was gone through with as much pomp and ceremony as though it
was likely to have any binding force upon English kings. The former, the
raising of the money, was more difficult. Two years passed, and still it
was not all paid. The royal prisoner, weary of his long captivity,
complained bitterly of the neglect of his people and friends, singing
his woes in a song composed in the polished dialect of Provence, the
land of the troubadours.
"There is no man, however base, whom for want of money I would let lie
in a prison cell," he sang. "I do not say it as a reproach, but I am
still a prisoner."
A part of the ransom at length reached Germany, whose emperor sent a
third of it to the duke of Austria as his share of the prize, and
consented to the liberation of his captive in the third week after
Christmas if he would leave hostages to guarantee the remaining
payment.
Richard agreed to everything, glad to escape from prison on any terms.
But the news of this agreement spread until it reached the ears of
Philip of France and his ally, John. Dread filled their hearts at the
tidings. Their plans for seizing on England and Normandy were not yet
complete. In great haste Philip sent messengers to the emperor, offering
him seventy thousand marks of silver if he would hold his prisoner for
one year longer, or, if he preferred, a thousand pounds of silver for
each month of captivity. If he would give the prisoner into the custody
of Philip and his ally, they would pay a hundred and fifty thousand
marks for the prize.
The offer was a tempting one. It dazzled the mind of the emperor, whose
ideas of honor were not very deeply planted. But the members of the Diet
would not suffer him to break his faith. Their power was great, even
over the emperor's will, and the royal prisoner, after his many weary
months of captivity, was set free.
Word of the failure of his plans came quickly to Philip's knavish ears,
and he wrote in haste to his confederate, "the devil is loose; take care
of yourself," an admonition which John was quite likely to obey. His
hope of seizing the crown vanished. There remained to meet his placable
brother with a show of fraternal loyalty.
But Richard was delayed in his purpose of reaching England, and danger
again threatened him. He had been set free near the end of January,
1194. He dared not enter France, and Normandy, then invaded by the
French, was not safe for him. His best course was to take ship at a
German port and sail for England. But it was the season of storms; he
lay a month at Anvers imprecating the weather; meanwhile, avarice
overcame both fear and honor in the emperor's heart, the large sum
offered him outweighed the opposition of the lords of the Diet, and he
resolved to seize the prisoner again and profit by the French king's
golden bribe.
Fortunately for Richard, the perfidious emperor allowed the secret of
his design to get adrift; one of the hostages left in his hands heard of
it and found means to warn the king. Richard, at this tidings, stayed
not for storm, but at once took passage in the galliot of a Norman
trader named Alain Franchemer, narrowly escaping the men-at-arms sent to
take him prisoner. Not many days afterwards he landed at the English
port of Sandwich, once more a free man and a king.
What followed in Richard's life we design not to tell, other than the
story of his life's ending with its romantic incidents. The liberated
king had not been long on his native soil before he succeeded in
securing Normandy against the invading French, building on its borders a
powerful fortress, which he called his "Saucy Castle," and the ruins of
whose sturdy walls still remain. Philip was wrathful when he saw its
ramparts growing.
"I will take it were its walls of iron," he declared.
"I would hold it were the walls of butter," Richard defiantly replied.
It was church land, and the archbishop placed Normandy under an
interdict. Richard laughed at his wrath, and persuaded the pope to
withdraw the curse. A "rain of blood" fell, which scared his courtiers,
but Richard laughed at it as he had at the bishop's wrath.
"Had an angel from heaven bid him abandon his work, he would have
answered with a curse," says one writer.
"How pretty a child is mine, this child of but a year old!" said
Richard, gladly, as he saw the walls proudly rise.
[Illustration: STATUE OF RICHARD COEUR DE LION.]
He needed money to finish it. His kingdom had been drained to pay his
ransom. But a rumor reached him that a treasure had been found at
Limousin,--twelve knights of gold seated round a golden table, said the
story. Richard claimed it. The lord of Limoges refused to surrender it.
Richard assailed his castle. It was stubbornly defended. In savage wrath
he swore he would hang every soul within its walls.
There was an old song which said that an arrow would be made in Limoges
by which King Richard would die. The song proved a true prediction. One
night, as the king surveyed the walls, a young soldier, Bertrand de
Gourdon by name, drew an arrow to its head, and saying, "Now I pray God
speed thee well!" let fly.
The shaft struck the king in the left shoulder. The wound might have
been healed, but unskilful treatment made it mortal. The castle was
taken while Richard lay dying, and every soul in it hanged, as the king
had sworn, except Bertrand de Gourdon. He was brought into the king's
tent, heavily chained.
"Knave!" cried Richard, "what have I done to you that you should take my
life?"
"You have killed my father and my two brothers," answered the youth.
"You would have hanged me. Let me die now, by any torture you will. My
comfort is that no torture to me can save _you_. You, too, must die; and
through me the world is quit of you."
The king looked at him steadily, and with a gleam of clemency in his
eyes.
"Youth," he said, "I forgive you. Go unhurt."
Then turning to his chief captain, he said,--
"Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and let him depart."
He fell back on his couch, and in a few minutes was dead, having
signalized his last moments with an act of clemency which had had few
counterparts in his life. His clemency was not matched by his piety. The
priests who were present at his dying bed exhorted him to repentance and
restitution, but he drove them away with bitter mockery, and died as
hardened a sinner as he had lived. It should, however, be said that this
statement of the character of Richard's death, given by the historian
Green, does not accord with that of Lingard, who says that Richard sent
for his confessor and received the sacraments with sentiments of
compunction.
As for Bertrand, the chronicles say that he failed to profit by the
kindness of the king. A dead monarch's voice has no weight in the land.
The pardoned youth was put to death.
_ROBIN HOOD AND THE KNIGHT OF THE RUEFUL COUNTENANCE._
"Where will the old duke live?" asks Oliver, in Shakespeare's "As you
like it."
"They say he is already in the forest of Arden," answers Charles, "and a
many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of
England, and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world."
Many a merry man, indeed, was there with Robin Hood in Sherwood forest,
and, if we may believe the stories that live in the heart of English
song, there they fleeted the time as carelessly as men did in the golden
age; for Robin was king of the merry greenwood, as the Norman kings were
lords of the realm beside, and though his state was not so great nor his
coffers so full, his heart was merrier and his conscience more void of
offence against man and God. If Robin lived by plunder, so did the king;
the one took toll from a few travellers, the other from a kingdom; the
one dealt hard blows in self-defence, the other killed thousands in war
for self-aggrandizement; the one was a patriot, the other an invader.
Verily Robin was far the honester man of the two, and most worthy the
admiration of mankind.
Nor was the kingdom of Robin Hood so much less extensive than that of
England's king as men may deem, though its tenants were fewer and its
revenues less. For in those days forest land spread widely over the
English isle. The Norman kings had driven out the old inhabitants far
and wide, and planted forests in place of towns, peopling them with deer
in place of men. In its way this was merciful, perhaps. Those rude old
kings were not content unless they were hunting and killing, and it was
better they should kill deer than men. But their cruel game-laws could
not keep men from the forests, and the woods they planted served as
places of shelter for the outlaws they made.
William the Conqueror, so we are told, had no less than sixty-eight
forests peopled with deer, and guarded against intrusion of common man
by a cruel interdict. His successors added new forests, until it looked
as if England might be made all woodland, and the red deer its chief
inhabitants. Sherwood forest, the favorite lurking-place of the bold
Robin, stretched for thirty miles in an unbroken line. But this was only
part of Robin's "realm of plesaunce." From Sherwood it was but a step to
other forests, stretching league after league, and peopled by bands of
merry rovers, who laughed at the king's laws, killed and ate his
cherished deer at their own sweet wills, and defied sheriff and
man-at-arms, the dense forest depths affording them innumerable
lurking-places, their skill with the bow enabling them to defend their
domain from assault, and to exact tribute from their foes.
Such was the realm of Robin Hood, a realm of giant oaks and silvery
birches, a realm prodigal of trees, o'ercanopied with green leaves until
the sun had ado to send his rays downward, carpeted with brown moss and
emerald grasses, thicketed with a rich undergrowth of bryony and
clematis, prickly holly and golden furze, and a host of minor shrubs,
while some parts of the forest were so dense that, as Camden says, the
entangled branches of the thickly-set trees "were so twisted together,
that they hardly left room for a person to pass."
Here were innumerable hiding-places for the forest outlaws when hunted
too closely by their foes. They lacked not food; the forest was filled
with grazing deer and antlered stags. There was also abundance of
smaller game,--the hare, the coney, the roe; and of birds,--the
partridge, pheasant, woodcock, mallard, and heron. Fuel could be had in
profusion when fire was needed. For winter shelter there were many
caverns, for Sherwood forest is remarkable for its number of such places
of refuge, some made by nature, others excavated by man.
Happy must have been the life in this greenwood realm, jolly the outlaws
who danced and sang beneath its shades, merry as the day was long their
hearts while summer ruled the year, while even in drear winter they had
their caverns of refuge, their roaring wood-fires, and the spoils of the
year's forays to carry them through the season of cold and storm. A
follower of bold Robin might truly sing, with Shakespeare,--
"Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy,
But winter and rough weather."
But the life of the forest-dwellers was not spent solely in enjoyment of
the pleasures of the merry greenwood. They were hunted by men, and
became hunters of men. True English hearts theirs, all Englishmen their
friends, all Normans their foes, they were in no sense brigands, but
defenders of their soil against the foreign foe who had overrun it, the
successors of Hereward the Wake, the last of the English to bear arms
against the invader, and to keep a shelter in which the English heart
might still beat in freedom.
No wonder the oppressed peasants and serfs of the fields sang in gleeful
strains the deeds of the forest-dwellers; no wonder that Robin Hood
became the hero of the people, and that the homely song of the land was
full of stories of his deeds. We can scarcely call these historical
tales: they are legendary; yet it may well be that a stratum of fact
underlies the aftergrowth of romance; certainly they were history to
the people, and as such, with a mental reservation, they shall be
history to us. We propose, therefore, here to convert into prose "a
lytell geste of Robyn Hode."
It was a day in merry spring-tide. Under the sun-sprinkled shadows of
the "woody and famous forest of Barnsdale" (adjoining Sherwood) stood
gathered a group of men attired in Lincoln green, bearing long bows in
their hands and quivers of sharp-pointed arrows upon their shoulders,
hardy men all, strong of limb and bold of face.
[Illustration: ROBIN HOOD'S WOODS.]
Leaning against an oak of centuried growth stood Robin Hood, the famous
outlaw chief, a strong man and sturdy, with handsome face and merry blue
eyes, one fitted to dance cheerily in days of festival, and to strike
valiantly in hours of conflict. Beside him stood the tall and stalwart
form of Little John, whose name was given him in jest, for he was the
stoutest of the band. There also were valiant Much, the miller's son,
gallant Scathelock, George a Green, the pindar of Wakefield, the fat and
jolly Friar Tuck, and many another woodsman of renown, a band of lusty
archers such as all England could not elsewhere match.
"Faith o' my body, the hours pass apace," quoth Little John, looking
upward through the trees. "Is it not time we should dine?"
"I am not in the mood to dine without company," said Robin. "Our table
is a dull one without guests. If we had now some bold baron or fat
abbot, or even a knight or squire, to help us carve our haunch of
venison, and to pay his scot for the feast, I wot me all our appetites
would be better."
He laughed meaningly as he looked round the circle of faces.
"Marry, if such be your whim," answered Little John, "tell us whither we
shall go to find a guest fit to grace our greenwood table, and of what
rank he shall be."
"At least let him not be farmer or yeoman," said Robin. "We war on
hawks, not on doves. If you can bring me a bishop now, or i' faith, the
high-sheriff of Nottingham, we shall dine merrily. Take Much and
Scathelock with you, and away. Bring me earl or baron, abbot or simple
knight, or squire, if no better can be had; the fatter their purses the
better shall be their welcome."
Taking their bows, the three yeomen strode at a brisk pace through the
forest, bent upon other game than deer or antlered stag. On reaching the
forest edge near Barnsdale, they lurked in the bushy shadows and kept
close watch and ward upon the highway that there skirted the wood, in
hope of finding a rich relish to Robin's meal.
Propitious fortune seemed to aid their quest. Not long had they bided in
ambush when, afar on the road, they spied a knight riding towards them.
He came alone, without squire or follower, and promised to be an easy
prey to the trio of stout woodsmen. But as he came near they saw that
something was amiss with him. He rode with one foot in the stirrup, the
other hanging loose; a simple hood covered his head, and hung
negligently down over his eyes; grief or despair filled his visage, "a
soryer man than he rode never in somer's day."
Little John stepped into the road, courteously bent his knee to the
stranger, and bade him welcome to the greenwood.
"Welcome be you, gentle knight," he said; "my master has awaited you
fasting, these three hours."
"Your master--who is he?" asked the knight, lifting his sad eyes.
"Robin Hood, the forest chief," answered Little John.
"And a lusty yeoman he," said the knight. "Men say much good of him. I
thought to dine to-day at Blythe or Dankaster, but if jolly Robin wants
me I am his man. It matters little, save that I have no heart to do
justice to any man's good cheer. Lead on, my courteous friend. The
greenwood, then, shall be my dining-hall."
Our scene now changes to the lodge of the woodland chief. An hour had
passed. A merry scene met the eye. The long table was well covered with
game of the choicest, swan, pheasants, and river fowl, and with roasts
and steaks of venison, which had been on hoof not many hours before.
Around it sat a jolly company of foresters, green-clad like the trees
about them. At its head sat Robin Hood, his handsome face lending
encouragement to the laughter and gleeful chat of his men. Beside him
sat the knight, sober of attire, gloomy of face, yet brightening under
the courteous treatment of his host and the gay sallies of the outlaw
band.
"Gramercy, Sir Woodman," said the knight, when the feast was at an end,
"such a dinner as you have set me I have not tasted for weeks. When I
come again to this country I hope to repay you with as good a one."
"A truce to your dinner," said Robin, curtly. "All that dine in our
woodland inn pay on the spot, Sir Knight. It is a good rule, I wot."
"To full hands, mayhap," said the knight; "but I dare not, for very
shame, proffer you what is in my coffers."
"Is it so little, then?"
"Ten shillings is not wealth," said the knight. "I can offer you no
more."
"Faith, if that be all, keep it, in God's name; and I'll lend you more,
if you be in need. Go look, Little John; we take no stranger's word in
the greenwood."
John examined the knight's effects, and reported that he had told the
truth. Robin gazed curiously at his guest.
"I held you for a knight of high estate," he said. "A heedless
husbandman you must have been, a gambler or wassailer, to have brought
yourself to this sorry pass. An empty pocket and threadbare attire ill
befit a knight of your parts."
"You wrong me, Robin," said the knight, sadly. "Misfortune, not sin, has
beggared me. I have nothing left but my children and my wife; but it is
through no deed of my own. My son--my heir he should have been--slew a
knight of Lancashire and his squire. To save him from the law I have
made myself a beggar. Even my lands and house must go, for I have
pledged them to the abbot of St. Mary as surety for four hundred pounds
loaned me. I cannot pay him, and the time is near its end. I have lost
hope, good sir, and am on my way to the sea, to take ship for the Holy
Land. Pardon my tears, I leave a wife and children."
"Where are your friends?" asked Robin.
"Where are the last year's leaves of your trees?" asked the knight.
"They were fair enough while the summer sun shone; they dropped from me
when the winter of trouble came."
"Can you not borrow the sum?" asked Robin. "Not a groat," answered the
knight. "I have no more credit than a beggar."
"Mayhap not with the usurers," said Robin. "But the greenwood is not
quite bare, and your face, Sir Knight, is your pledge of faith. Go to my
treasury, Little John, and see if it will not yield four hundred
pounds."
"I can promise you that, and more if need be," answered the woodman.
"But our worthy knight is poorly clad, and we have rich cloths to spare,
I wot. Shall we not add a livery to his purse?"
"As you will, good fellow, and forget not a horse, for our guest's mount
is of the sorriest."
The knight's sorrow gave way to hope as he saw the eagerness, of the
generous woodmen. Little John's count of the money added ample
interest; the cloths were measured with a bow-stick for a yard, and a
palfrey was added to the courser, to bear their welcome gifts. In the
end Robin lent him Little John for a squire, and gave him twelve months
in which to repay his loan. Away he went, no longer a knight of rueful
countenance.
"Nowe as the knight went on his way,
This game he thought full good,
When he looked on Bernysdale
He blyssed Robin Hode;
"And when he thought on Bernysdale,
On Scathelock, Much, and John,
He blyssed them for the best company
That ever he in come."
The next day was that fixed for the payment of the loan to the abbot of
St. Mary's. Abbot and prior waited in hope and excitement. If the cash
was not paid by night a rich estate would fall into their hands. The
knight must pay to the last farthing, or be beggared. As they sat
awaiting the cellarer burst in upon them, full of exultation.
"He is dead or hanged!" he cried. "We shall have our four hundred pounds
many times over."
With them were the high-justice of England and the sheriff of the shire,
brought there to give the proceeding the warrant of legality. Time was
passing, an hour or two more would end the knight's grace, only a narrow
space of time lay between him and beggary. The justice had just turned
with congratulations to the abbot, when, to the discomfiture of the
churchmen, the debtor, Sir Richard of the Lee, appeared at the gate of
the abbey, and made his way into the hall.
Yet he was shabbily clad; his face was sombre; there seemed little
occasion for alarm. There seemed none when he began to speak.
"Sir Abbot," he said, "I come to hold my day."
"Hast thou brought my pay?" asked the abbot.
"Not one penny," answered the knight.
"Thou art a shrewd debtor," declared the abbot, with a look of
satisfaction. "Sir Justice, drink to me. What brings you here then,
sirrah, if you fetch no money?"
"To pray your grace for a longer day," said Sir Richard, humbly.
"Your day is ended; not an hour more do you get," cried the abbot.
Sir Richard now appealed to the justice for relief, and after him to the
sheriff, but to both in vain. Then, turning to the abbot again, he
offered to be his servant, and work for him till the four hundred pounds
were earned, if he would take pity on him.
This appeal was lost on the merciless churchman. In the end hot words
passed, and the abbot angrily exclaimed,--
"Out of my hall, thou false knight! Speed thee out, sirrah!"
"Abbot, thou liest, I was never false to my word," said Sir Richard,
proudly. "You lack courtesy, to suffer a knight to kneel and beg so
long. I am a true knight and a true man, as all who have seen me in
tournament or battle will say."
"What more will you give the knight for a full release?" asked the
justice. "If you give nothing, you will never hold his lands in peace."
"A hundred pounds," said the abbot.