his example. Both entered the Cistercian order, and led holy lives,
avoiding all preferment--a difficult matter for Waltheof, stepson to one
king and cousin to another. His brother Simon took such offence at his
lowliness, that he actually threatened to burn down the convent of
Waldon, where Waltheof was living, because he thought it shame to see a
descendant of Siward a common monk in a poor monastery.
However, in time, promotion was thrust on them. Aelred became Abbot of
Rivaux, and Waltheof Abbot of Melrose.
Of the King and his son, more will be said in the next chapter.
CAMEO XVII. THE BATTLE OF THE STANDARD. (1135-1138.)
_King of England_.
1135. Stephen.
1137. Louis VII.
_King of Scotland_.
1124. David I.
_Kings of France_.
1107. Louis VI.
_Emperors of Germany_.
1125. Lothar II.
1138. Konrad II.
Earl Egbert of Gloucester was the son of Henry Beauclerc and of a
beautiful Welsh princess named Nesta, who had fallen into his hands in
the course of the war which he maintained for his brother William Rufus,
on the borders of Wales. Henry was much attached to the boy, and gave
him a princely education, by which he profited so as to become not only
learned, but of a far purer and more chivalrous character than was often
to be found among the great men of his time.
Henry I. provided for him, by giving to him the hand of the Lady Amabel
Fitzaymon, heiress of Glamorgan, and a ward at the disposal of the
crown, in whose right he became Earl of Gloucester.
Robert and his cousin, Stephen de Blois, both attended the death-bed of
Henry I., and heard his dying words: “I leave to my children whatever I
have gained. Let them do justice to those I have injured.”
No sooner had the King expired, than Stephen set off for England, where
he was already very popular, partly on account of his courteous manners
and goodly person, partly for the sake of his wife, Matilda of Boulogne,
who was treading in the steps of her aunt, the good Queen Maude. He
landed at Dover in the midst of a frightful thunder-storm, and though he
found that city and Canterbury closed against him, he met with a joyful
reception in London and Winchester. He bribed Hugh Bigod, the late
King’s seneschal, to swear that Henry had on his deathbed disinherited
Maude, and left the kingdom to him; and the Archbishop, William de
Corboil, was credulous enough to believe the tale, and crown the
usurper; but discovery of the falsehood hastened the old man’s death.
While this was passing, Robert of Gloucester was conducting the funeral
of his father; causing his body to be _salted_, instead of embalmed, and
bringing it to England to be buried at Reading, an abbey that Henry had
built and endowed for his burial-place. It is now completely ruined, and
few vestiges remain to show what the buildings were, far less any trace
of the tomb of the scholarly and cruel son of the Conqueror.
The Empress Maude was at the same time attending her husband, Geoffrey
Plantagenet, in a dangerous illness; and thus Stephen was enabled
to obtain possession of both England and Normandy, and received
the submission of all the nobles. The Earl of Gloucester, thinking
resistance vain, took the oath of fealty; reserving, however, the right
of recalling it if any injury was offered to him or to his property.
The next year Geoffrey de Bel raised an army, and entered Normandy; but
was met there by Stephen, wounded, and forced to retreat, leaving only
a few castles still holding out for the Empress. Stephen was besieging
that of Bertran, with an army composed partly of Normans and partly of
natives of his wife’s county of Boulogne, when, while he was taking
his mid-day sleep, a quarrel arose between the two brothers. Waking in
haste, and alarmed for his Boulognais, he took part against the Normans,
calling out, “Down with the traitors!” The Normans were greatly
offended, and, having retired to their tents, they held a council
together, and ended by making him the following plain-spoken address:
“Sir, a folly is better ended than continued. By ill advice, we took you
for our lord for a little while. If you blame us for it, you will not be
wrong. You have beaten our men, and called us traitors. Certes, we were
traitors when we left our rightful lady for a stranger. We have held
with you against our lady the Empress, and we repent, for we have sinned
against God and man: but we will no longer continue in the sin; and
therefore we bid you mount, and leave this host, for we will not suffer
you to remain in this country, unless it be the will of our lady the
Empress.”
Stephen begged them to let him remain till the next day but they swore
that, if he did, it should be the worse for him, and immediately
escorted him beyond the bounds of Normandy. They then brought back
Maude, with her husband and children; and the dukedom continued in the
hands of Geoffrey as long as he lived.
At the same time David, King of Scotland, recollecting the oath to
Maude, which he and Stephen had together sworn, took up arms in her
cause, and invaded England, forcing the inhabitants to take the oath
of allegiance. His troops were a fearfully wild, untamed race,
undisciplined and cruel, and it was a dreadful thing to let loose such
a host of savage marauders without any possibility of restraining them.
The Galwegians, Picts by race, were the worst; but the Highlanders and
Borderers were also dreadfully cruel: and the English armed to protect
themselves against the inroad of their ancient foes.
The clergy of the North even deemed it a sacred war, and, by the
authority of Thurstan, Archbishop of York, gathered their flocks, and
came, each priest at the head of his parishioners, to the place of
assembly at York, where three days were spent in prayer and fasting; and
then the old Archbishop administered to them an oath never to desert
each other, and dismissed them with his blessing. Raoul, Bishop of
Durham, was deputed by him to take the lead, and to have the charge of
the consecrated standards of St. Cuthbert of Durham, St. Peter of York,
St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfred of Ripon. These were all suspended
from one pole, like the mast of a vessel, surmounted by a cross, in the
centre of which was fixed a silver casket, containing the consecrated
wafer of the Holy Sacrament. The pole was fixed into a four-wheeled car,
on which the Bishop stood. Such cars were much used in Italy, where
each city had its own consecrated Gonfalone, on its caroccio, hung with
scarlet cloth and drawn by oxen. The English collected under this sacred
standard were the stout peasants of the North, the bowmen of Yorkshire
and Nottinghamshire; each with a bow of his own height, and a sheaf of
arrows two cubits long; and there were also many barons of Norman birth,
of whom Walter L’Espee was the leader. Some of these barons held their
lands under David of Scotland, as Earl of Cumberland, and two of them,
Bernard Baliol and Robert Bruce, the last an old friend of the King,
went to the Scottish camp, to remonstrate with him. Bruce begged him to
retreat, described the horrors committed by his wild Scots, told him of
the strength of the English force, and ended by declaring with tears
that it would now become his duty to renounce his allegiance, and array
himself against his beloved prince. Good King David shed tears, but
William Macdonochie, the fierce lord of Galloway, burst out with the
exclamation, “Bruce, thou art a false traitor!” and the insulted baron
renounced all he held in Scotland, gave up his allegiance, and rode back
to the English army, at Northampton, bringing tidings that the Scots
were coming.
The host arrayed itself around their car, where the sacred standard
waved above their head, and the Bishop of Durham addressed them from
beneath it, reminding them of former victories. Walter L’Espee was
the first to respond. Grasping the hand of the Earl of Albemarle, he
exclaimed, “I pledge thee my troth that to-day I will overcome the
Scots, or die!” “So swear we all,” cried the other barons; and the
whole host knelt down, the Bishop pronounced over them the words of
absolution, they replied with one mighty sound of united voices, “Amen!”
and arose. The knights and squires sat with gathered reins and knees in
rest, the yeomen stood each with his good yew bow ready strung, awaiting
the onslaught.
Less union was there in the hostile army, where it might be said that
there was no authority, for David was unable to restrain his wild
subjects from the North and West. The men of Galloway insisted on
beginning the attack; but as they wore no defensive armor, and had no
weapons but long, thin pikes, besides being more fierce than steady,
the king hesitated. “Why trust to a plate of steel or rings of iron?”
exclaimed Malise of Strathern. “I, who wear no armor, will go as far as
any one with breastplate of mail.” “You brag of what you dare not do!”
said the Norman Alan de Percy. But the King found himself obliged to
yield the precedence to the Galwegians, trusting far more to the lowland
knights and men-at-arms, whom he arrayed under his gallant son, Prince
Henry, while he himself commanded the reserve of Northern Scots.
The fierce Kelts of Galloway, guided by a tall spear, wreathed with
heather blossom, and shouting, “Albin! Albin!” with harsh, dissonant
cries like the roar of a tempest, fell headlong on the English ranks,
and at first their fury carried them on so that they burst through them
as if they had been a spider’s web. But the Norman chivalry round the
standard stood firm, and hewed down the undefended Galwegians, nor could
the long claymores of the Highland clans, who next attacked them, break
through their steel armor. The charge of Prince Henry’s horsemen had
more effect, and at one time the youth had almost won his way to the
standard, when some traitor in the rear raised a bloody head on the
point of a lance, shouting that the King was slain. In consternation the
Scots gave back; the English saw their advantage, and pressed upon them:
and though David rode forward and displayed the dragon standard which
marked his presence (inherited from the Saxon kings), he could not rally
them, and but just succeeded in protecting their flight to Carlisle,
which then belonged to him as Earl of Cumberland.
This first of the long series of Scottish defeats was called the Battle
of the Standard, from the banner of St. Cuthbert, which was always
thought to bring success. It came forth at the battle of Nevil’s Cross,
and was again victorious, and it was preserved with great reverence till
the Reformation, when, in 1549, Catherine Whittingham, the wife of the
Dean of Durham, burnt it, out of zeal against Popery. It is some comfort
that she was a Frenchwoman.
Stephen had left his Northern subjects to take care of themselves,
because he was full of perplexities in the South. He had tried to please
all parties, and by no means succeeded. He was a humane, kind-hearted
man, and really wished to befriend the unfortunate Saxons; but, on the
other hand, he was afraid to affront their Norman oppressors, whom he
had allowed to build castles, and strengthen themselves in the very way
which it had been Henry Beauclerc’s policy to prevent. Almost every
spot where green mounds and blocks of massive masonry remain within an
ancient moat, is said by tradition to have been “a castle in Stephen’s
time,” and we wonder, considering that he reigned but nine years, how
such immense works could have been effected. Dens of thieves they seem
to have been, and misery and destruction reigned round them; while the
least attempt on the King’s part to restrain the ferocity of their
owners was requited by a threat of bringing in our lady the Empress.
Her party became continually stronger, and Stephen, living in constant
mistrust, added to it by offending several Bishops, even his own
brother, Henry de Blois, by trying, to deprive them of their fortified
castles. Next he made an attack on the Earl of Gloucester, who, being
thus freed from his engagement to keep the peace, after repulsing
Stephen, went to Normandy to fetch the Empress, and inform her that this
was the time for establishing her right.
Maude, gladly accepted his invitation, but her husband Geoffrey seems to
have been glad to be rid of her ungracious company, and chose to remain
in Anjou. She landed in safety, for Stephen was at this time extremely
ill, and her brother placed her in Arundel Castle, which belonged to her
father’s widow, Queen Alice, lately married to William de Albini, the
ancestor of the noble line of Howard. Here Maude remained, while her
brother went to his own estates to raise troops; but in the meantime
Stephen recovered, and advanced on Arundel Castle. Queen Alice sent to
tell him that her stepdaughter had come to seek her protection, and beg
him not to make her do anything disloyal; and Stephen, who had many of
the qualities of a courteous knight, forbore to make any personal attack
on the ladies, but allowed the Empress to depart unmolested to meet Earl
Robert.
He brought her to his castle at Bristol, where she remained two years,
while the warfare was carried on in a desultory manner, chiefly by the
siege of castles. At last Stephen laid siege to Lincoln, where Robert’s
daughter was, with her husband Ralf, Earl of Chester. Her father came to
her relief with an army of 10,000 men. Stephen was advised to retreat;
but he thought his honor concerned, and gave battle. His forces were
soon overwhelmed; but he fought on desperately at the foot of his
standard, so fiercely that no one dared to approach him, though his
sword and battle-axe were both broken. At last a stone brought him to
the ground, and a knight, named William Kames, grappled with him and
held him fast; but even then he refused to yield the fragment of his
sword to any but the Earl of Gloucester, who came up at the moment and
prevented any further violence.
Stephen was given into the keeping of Countess Amabel, and Maude was
conducted in state to Winchester, where Stephen’s own brother, the
Bishop, proclaimed her Queen, standing on the steps of the altar. Her
uncle, King David, came to visit her, and she held her court with great
splendor. It was here that she disgusted every one by her disdainful
manners, and treated her cousin, Stephen’s queen, with such harshness as
to drive her to take up arms again. London had always been favorable to
Stephen, and two months of negotiation were necessary before David
and Robert could prevail on the citizens to receive her. At midsummer,
however, they consented to admit her, and she came to Westminster; but
as soon as a deputation of citizens were in her presence, she showed
her pride and hostile spirit. They asked for charters; she replied by
ordering them to bring money, and telling them they were very bold to
talk of their privileges, when they had just been aiding her enemies.
Robert made speeches to try to soften matters, and David reasoned with
her in vain, till she was convinced of her folly in a way for which he
was little prepared. It is said that she actually flew at him and
struck him; and if she could thus treat a royal uncle, how must not men
inferior in rank have sped?
It was noon, and the deputies went home, as Maude thought, to dinner;
but presently all the bells began to ring, and burghers, armed with bows
and bills, began to swarm in the streets. The followers of the Empress
were too few to resist; so, after a brief council, David galloped off
to the North, and Robert rode with his sister to Oxford, while the
Londoners opened their gates to Matilda, Stephen’s wife, and her son
Eustace.
Robert went to raise more forces, and Maude, hearing that Bishop Henry
de Blois was conferring with his sister-in-law, sharply summoned him to
her presence. He quietly made answer, “_Parabo me_”--I prepare myself;
and Maude, in a passion, set out, intending to surprise him at
Wolvesley, his palace at Winchester. She found it well fortified, and
laid siege to it from the castle at Winchester, where she was joined by
her uncle and brother; and the town was in a miserable state, burnt by
both parties in turn. Twenty churches and two convents were destroyed,
and the Bishop took Knut’s crown out of the Cathedral--to save it from
the enemy, as was said, but it was never seen again. At last Eustace de
Blois and his mother brought such a force that the Empress was besieged
in her turn, and completely starved out. Her garrison resolved to break
through the enemy at all risks, and on Sunday they set forth, Maude
riding first with her uncle David, and Robert following with a band of
knights, under a vow to die rather than let her be taken.
At Stourbridge the pursuers came up with them, many of the knights fell,
and Robert was captured. So closely were the royal fugitives pursued,
that David at one time was in the enemy’s hands, and only escaped by the
stratagem of his godson, David Olifant. Maude and one faithful knight,
by the speed of their horses, reached Devizes, whence she was carried in
a coffin to Gloucester.
Maude could not make up her mind to release her foe, Stephen, even for
the sake of recovering her brother; but the Countess of Gloucester,
considering the King as her own property, acted for herself, and
exchanged him for her husband. Queen Matilda tried to make Robert
promise to bring about peace, to secure England to Stephen, and Normandy
to Maude; but he would make no engagements which he knew she would not
observe, and matters continued in the same state.
CAMEO XVIII. THE SNOWS OF OXFORD. (1138-1154.)
_King of England_.
1135. Stephen.
_Kings of Scotland_.
1124. David I.
1153. Malcolm V.
_King of France_.
1137. Louis VII.
_Emperor Of Germany_.
1139. Konrad II.
_Popes_.
1130. Innocent II.
1143. Celestine II.
1144. Lucius II.
1145. Anastasius II.
1154. Adrian IV.
On the 1st of November, 1138, Stephen was set at liberty, and Robert of
Gloucester, being exchanged for him, rejoined his sister the Empress at
Gloucester; and during this time of quiet her fierce nature seems to
have somewhat softened.
Stephen, meanwhile, had one of his terrible attacks of illness, in which
he lay for hours, if not days, in a death-like lethargy, and, of course,
his followers did nothing but build castles whenever the frost would let
them work, prey on their neighbors, and make the state of the country
far worse than it had been under any of the Normans of hated memory.
Maude’s domain was in better order, as Robert’s rule was modelled on
that of his father’s, in its best points. It is wonderful that Robert,
whose mother was a princess by birth, and had been treated as a wife
till the Etheling marriage had become a matter of policy, should have
put forward no pretensions to the crown, but have uniformly given his
staunch support to his proud and ungrateful sister. In a council held at
Devizes in the course of the winter, it was decided that he should go
to Normandy to entreat the Count of Anjou to bring succors to his wife.
Geoffrey, however, had no desire to return to her haughty companionship,
and represented that there were still many castles in Normandy
unsubdued. Robert gave efficient aid in taking these; but Geoffrey still
could not persuade himself to meet his wife, though, at Robert’s
persuasion, he consented to give into his charge Henry, his eldest son,
a boy of ten years old, with a large body of troops.
Maude had, in the meanwhile, been placed in the strong fortress at
Oxford; but no sooner had Stephen recovered from his illness, than he
collected his army, and marched southward. In the end of September he
besieged her at Oxford, where at first she thought herself safe; but he
crossed the river, set fire to the city in several places, and blockaded
her in the castle.
Her nobles collected at Wallingford, and sent defiances to Stephen to
fight a pitched battle with them; but he knew his own advantage too
well, and took no notice. Earl Robert, landing near Wareham, tried to
create a diversion by besieging that seaport; but he could not draw the
enemy off from Oxford. Famine prevailed in the castle, and, after much
suffering, it became impossible for the garrison to hold out any longer.
The depth of winter had come, the ground was covered with snow, and the
Isis was frozen over. Maude, whose courage never failed, caused herself
and three of her knights to be dressed in white, and let down from the
battlements upon the snow, where they were met by one of Stephen’s men,
whom they had gained over, and by him were led, unseen and unheard,
through the camp of the enemy, hearing the call of the sentinels, and
trembling with anxiety. For six miles they crept over the snow, and at
last arrived at Abingdon, nearly frozen, for their garments had been far
too scanty for the piercing weather; but they could not remain a moment
for rest or warmth, but took horse, and never paused till they reached
Wallingford Castle. Thither, so soon as the news reached Earl Robert, he
brought her young son, and her troubles were forgotten in her joy.
Thence she repaired with her son to Bristol Castle, where the boy
remained under the care of a learned tutor named Matthew, who instructed
him under the superintendence of Earl Robert.
This great Earl deserved the name of Beauclerc almost as well as his
father; he was well read, and two histories were dedicated to him,
William of Malmesbury’s, and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s wonderful chronicle
of the old British kings, whose blood flowed in Robert’s veins; that
chronicle--wrought out of queer Welsh stories--that served as a
foundation for Edward’s claims on Scotland, and whence came our Lear and
Cymbeline.
All that knightly training could do for young Henry was done by Earl
Robert, and the boy so far answered to his care as to have that mixture
of scholarliness and high spirit that was inherent in the Norman and
Angevin princes. But the shrewd unscrupulousness and hard selfishness of
the Norman were there, too--the qualities from which noble Gloucester
himself was free. It may be, however, that the good Earl did not see
these less promising characteristics of his ward; for, after five years
of the boy’s residence at Bristol, and the old desultory warfare between
the partisans of King and Empress, Count Geoffrey sent for his son, to
take leave of him before going on a crusade; and while Henry was absent,
Earl Robert died, in 1147. It speaks much for Henry Beauclerc’s court
that such men should have grown up in it as Robert of Gloucester and
David of Scotland.
Geoffrey, in the meantime, paid a visit to his younger brother, Baldwin
III. of Jerusalem, a very gallant prince. On his return, Maude came back
to him, and after their eight years’ absence, they met with affection
they never had shown to one another before. She did not attempt to take
the government of Normandy, but left it wholly in Geoffrey’s hands.
Stephen, meanwhile, was unmolested in England till 1149, when Henry
sailed for Scotland, there to be knighted by his uncle, King David;
while, curiously enough, his younger brother Geoffrey was at the very
same time knighted by Stephen’s elder brother, Theobald, Count de Blois.
It was a year of grief to that excellent King, who suffered a great
affliction in the death of the chivalrous Henry, his only son, and the
father of a numerous infant family. His barons feared he would sink
under his sorrow, and came to comfort him; but they found him cheerful.
“I ought not to lament my son’s being taken away from me,” he said,
“since he is gone to enjoy the fellowship of my parents and my brethren,
of whose souls the world was no longer worthy. Should I mourn, it would
be to arraign the goodness and justice of God for removing him to the
mansions of bliss before me. I should rather be thankful, and rejoice
that the Almighty endowed my son with so much grace to behave himself in
a manner to be so beloved and lamented. Soon do I hope to follow, and,
being delivered from temporal miseries, to enjoy a blessed eternity with
the saints in light.”