Who set my man i’ the stocks?----
I set him there, Sir but his own disorders
Deserved much less advancement.--Lear.
The baron was inflexible in his resolution not to let Matilda leave the
castle. The letter, which announced to her the approaching fate of
young Gamwell, filled her with grief, and increased the irksomeness of a
privation which already preyed sufficiently on her spirits, and began to
undermine her health. She had no longer the consolation of the society
of her old friend father Michael: the little fat friar of Rubygill was
substituted as the castle confessor, not without some misgivings in his
ghostly bosom; but he was more allured by the sweet savour of the good
things of this world at Arlingford Castle, than deterred by his awe
of the lady Matilda, which nevertheless was so excessive, from his
recollection of the twang of the bow-string, that he never ventured to
find her in the wrong, much less to enjoin any thing in the shape of
penance, as was the occasional practice of holy confessors, with or
without cause, for the sake of pious discipline, and what was in those
days called social order, namely, the preservation of the privileges
of the few who happened to have any, at the expense of the swinish
multitude who happened to have none, except that of working and being
shot at for the benefit of their betters, which is obviously not the
meaning of social order in our more enlightened times: let us therefore
be grateful to Providence, and sing Te Deum laudamus in chorus with the
Holy Alliance.
The little friar, however, though he found the lady spotless, found the
butler a great sinner: at least so it was conjectured, from the length
of time he always took to confess him in the buttery.
Matilda became every day more pale and dejected: her spirit, which could
have contended against any strenuous affliction, pined in the monotonous
inaction to which she was condemned. While she could freely range the
forest with her lover in the morning, she had been content to return
to her father’s castle in the evening, thus preserving underanged the
balance of her duties, habits, and affections; not without a hope that
the repeal of her lover’s outlawry might be eventually obtained, by
a judicious distribution of some of his forest spoils among the
holy fathers and saints that-were-to-be,--pious proficients in the
ecclesiastic art equestrian, who rode the conscience of King Henry with
double-curb bridles, and kept it well in hand when it showed mettle
and seemed inclined to rear and plunge. But the affair at Gamwell feast
threw many additional difficulties in the way of the accomplishment of
this hope; and very shortly afterwards King Henry the Second went to
make up in the next world his quarrel with Thomas-a-Becket; and Richard
Coeur de Lion made all England resound with preparations for the
crusade, to the great delight of many zealous adventurers, who eagerly
flocked under his banner in the hope of enriching themselves with
Saracen spoil, which they called fighting the battles of God. Richard,
who was not remarkably scrupulous in his financial operations, was
not likely to overlook the lands and castle of Locksley, which he
appropriated immediately to his own purposes, and sold to the highest
bidder. Now, as the repeal of the outlawry would involve the restitution
of the estates to the rightful owner, it was obvious that it could never
be expected from that most legitimate and most Christian king,
Richard the First of England, the arch-crusader and anti-jacobin by
excellence,--the very type, flower, cream, pink, symbol, and mirror of
all the Holy Alliances that have ever existed on earth, excepting
that he seasoned his superstition and love of conquest with a certain
condiment of romantic generosity and chivalrous self-devotion, with
which his imitators in all other points have found it convenient to
dispense. To give freely to one man what he had taken forcibly from
another, was generosity of which he was very capable; but to restore
what he had taken to the man from whom he had taken it, was something
that wore too much of the cool physiognomy of justice to be easily
reconcileable to his kingly feelings. He had, besides, not only sent
all King Henry’s saints about their business, or rather about their
no-business--their faineantise--but he had laid them under rigorous
contribution for the purposes of his holy war; and having made them
refund to the piety of the successor what they had extracted from the
piety of the precursor, he compelled them, in addition, to give
him their blessing for nothing. Matilda, therefore, from all these
circumstances, felt little hope that her lover would be any thing but an
outlaw for life.
The departure of King Richard from England was succeeded by the
episcopal regency of the bishops of Ely and Durham. Longchamp, bishop
of Ely, proceeded to show his sense of Christian fellowship by arresting
his brother bishop, and despoiling him of his share in the government;
and to set forth his humility and loving-kindness in a retinue of nobles
and knights who consumed in one night’s entertainment some five years’
revenue of their entertainer, and in a guard of fifteen hundred foreign
soldiers, whom he considered indispensable to the exercise of a vigour
beyond the law in maintaining wholesome discipline over the refractory
English. The ignorant impatience of the swinish multitude with these
fruits of good living, brought forth by one of the meek who had
inherited the earth, displayed itself in a general ferment, of which
Prince John took advantage to make the experiment of getting possession
of his brother’s crown in his absence. He began by calling at Reading
a council of barons, whose aspect induced the holy bishop to disguise
himself (some say as an old woman, which, in the twelfth century,
perhaps might have been a disguise for a bishop), and make his
escape beyond sea. Prince John followed up his advantage by obtaining
possession of several strong posts, and among others of the castle of
Nottingham.
While John was conducting his operations at Nottingham, he rode at times
past the castle of Arlingford. He stopped on one occasion to claim Lord
Fitzwater’s hospitality, and made most princely havoc among his venison
and brawn. Now it is a matter of record among divers great historians
and learned clerks, that he was then and there grievously smitten by the
charms of the lovely Matilda, and that a few days after he despatched
his travelling minstrel, or laureate, Harpiton, [3] (whom he retained at
moderate wages, to keep a journal of his proceedings, and prove them all
just and legitimate), to the castle of Arlingford, to make proposals to
the lady. This Harpiton was a very useful person. He was always ready,
not only to maintain the cause of his master with his pen, and to sing
his eulogies to his harp, but to undertake at a moment’s notice any
kind of courtly employment, called dirty work by the profane, which the
blessings of civil government, namely, his master’s pleasure, and the
interests of social order, namely, his own emolument, might require. In
short,
Il eut l’emploi qui certes n’est pas mince,
Et qu’a la cour, ou tout se peint en beau,
On appelloit etre l’ami du prince;
Mais qu’a la ville, et surtout en province,
Les gens grossiers ont nomme maquereau.
Prince John was of opinion that the love of a prince actual and king
expectant, was in itself a sufficient honour to the daughter of a simple
baron, and that the right divine or royalty would make it sufficiently
holy without the rite divine of the church. He was, therefore,
graciously pleased to fall into an exceeding passion, when his
confidential messenger returned from his embassy in piteous plight,
having been, by the baron’s order, first tossed in a blanket and set in
the stocks to cool, and afterwards ducked in the moat and set again in
the stocks to dry. John swore to revenge horribly this flagrant outrage
on royal prerogative, and to obtain possession of the lady by force
of arms; and accordingly collected a body of troops, and marched upon
Arlingford castle. A letter, conveyed as before on the point of a blunt
arrow, announced his approach to Matilda: and lord Fitzwater had just
time to assemble his retainers, collect a hasty supply of provision,
raise the draw-bridge, and drop the portcullis, when the castle was
surrounded by the enemy. The little fat friar, who during the confusion
was asleep in the buttery, found himself, on awaking, inclosed in the
besieged castle, and dolefully bewailed his evil chance.