THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH.
KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE.
“_In twelve great battles overcame_
_The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned._”
THE light burns low on our pageant, and the scene grows dim and
confused; yet we know only too well that a desperate struggle is going
on. The battle-cries of warriors and the shrieks of the wounded are ever
in our ears. The glare of blazing roof-trees lights up for a moment the
ghastly scene, and reveals the pitiless work of slaughter. As it
flickers out all is gloom and silence; it is the only peace that the
stricken land knows.
The scene shifts, but the drama is ever the same. There seems to be no
end to the hordes of attackers. They come by sea and they come by land;
most terrible of all are they whose serpent-headed ships are now seen
faintly on the strand. The tide of war sets in their favour, though they
are beaten back from time to time before the despairing onset of the
Britons.
Now you see amidst the press the noble form of that gallant British
prince who is the very soul of the island defence. Arthur, the peerless
knight, steps before us, “every inch a king.” He shines like a star in
the gloom. Legend, song, and story have so woven themselves about his
name and fame, so many fables have been told about him, so many wondrous
deeds and miracles have been ascribed to him, that historians dispute
his very existence.
What do the old chroniclers tell us of him? They tell us that he was the
son of Uther Pendragon, a valiant British king, who kept the Saxons at
bay through many hard-fought years. Arthur’s birth had been kept a
secret, and the child had been placed by the great wizard Merlin in the
care of a knight named Sir Ector, who brought him up as his son. The
ruin of the country seemed to be at hand, when Merlin induced the
Archbishop of Canterbury to summon a meeting of all the great barons and
nobles in London on Christmas Eve, in order that a king might be chosen.
To this meeting came Sir Ector, his son Sir Kay, and Arthur.
While they were at prayers a huge block of marble uprose in the
churchyard. On the top of it was an anvil of solid steel, in which was
embedded by the point a sword of marvellous brightness, bearing on its
jewelled hilt these words, “Whoso pulleth me out of this stone and anvil
is rightwise king born of England.” In vain did ambitious knights and
squires, day after day, strive to draw forth the magic sword. All
failed, and men despaired of discovering the rightful king. Now it
chanced that on New Year’s Day a tournament was held, and amongst the
knights who rode to take part therein was Sir Kay, who was accompanied
by Arthur as his squire. As they rode towards the field, Sir Kay
discovered that he had left his sword behind him at his lodging. He
prayed Arthur to ride back for his sword, and Arthur, as a dutiful
squire, obeyed. When, however, he came to the lodging he found it
closed, for all who dwelt there had gone to the jousting.
On his way Arthur had passed the churchyard where the sword was
upstanding in the anvil. Thither he rode, and, seizing the sword, easily
pulled it out and carried it to Sir Kay, who did many warlike feats with
it. Then he showed it to his father, who knew the secret of Arthur’s
birth, and guessed what had taken place. The sword was replaced, but
Arthur drew it forth as easily as before. On this the old knight and his
son knelt before Arthur, and acknowledged him as “rightwise king born of
England.”
On Twelfth Day, in the presence of all the kings and lords of the land,
Arthur again drew the sword from the anvil, though no one else could
move it. Still the great lords were loath to recognize the boy as king;
and Merlin, seeing that Arthur’s right would not be admitted without
bloodshed, gathered as many as he could of the best knights of the
realm, and used all his magic arts to aid the good cause. On one
occasion the kings and barons besieged Arthur in a strong tower, but
when he was in the direst peril he sallied forth and attacked his
besiegers. His horse was slain under him, and he was at the mercy of his
foes. Then he drew the magic sword which he had taken from the anvil,
and the fortune of war instantly turned in his favour. His sword—the
far-famed Excalibur—gleamed like the radiance of thirty torches. Its
flashing beams half-blinded Arthur’s foes—they could not see to strike;
and so he vanquished them, and gained his first victory.
Battle after battle was fought before Arthur was acknowledged as king by
all men in the land, but at length the hour arrived when no one dared to
dispute his title to supremacy. Then he wedded the beauteous but false
Guinevere, and set up again the Round Table which his father Uther had
founded. Around it were a hundred and fifty seats, and on the seats sat
Arthur’s knights, all of equal degree, none first and none last. The
chronicle of their deeds is too long to tell: many were the brave deeds
they did together, many were the battles they fought, many were the
distressed ladies they succoured, and great was the fame and glory that
enshrined them. “Britain for the Britons” was their cry, and they
haughtily sang:——
“Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May;
Blow trumpet, the long night hath rolled away!
Blow through the living world. Let the king reign!
“Shall Rome or heathen rule in Arthur’s realm?
Flash brand and lance, fall battle-axe on helm;
Fall battle-axe and flash brand! Let the king reign!”
So Arthur leads on the Britons, with the image of the Virgin on his
shield, and points his sword Excalibur towards the swarming foe. Twelve
great battles he fights with the English, and for a time holds them at
bay. Then some of his followers desert to the enemy, and he is sore
beset. One by one his knights fall around him, and then he, too, is
stricken to the ground. Sore wounded, Arthur calls the last of his
knights, and bids him throw Excalibur into a lake. The sword is flung
high into the air, and as it falls, lo, a hand comes out of the water
and catches the magic brand by the hilt. Three times it is brandished,
and then it vanishes for ever beneath the waves.
“Alas!” cries Arthur, “my end draws near. Carry me to the edge of the
water.” The knight does so, and there, awaiting the dying king, is a
black barge, his destined bier. On the deck are three queens, with black
hoods and crowns of gold. “Now, put me in the barge,” says Arthur; and
when this is done, the queens receive him with great mourning and
wailing, and one of them cries, “Ah, my dear brother, why hast thou
tarried so long?” Then Arthur bids the knight farewell, and the barge
slowly moves across the water. Sad and lonely, the knight watches it
disappear
“Down that long water, opening on the deep,
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less, and vanish into light,
And the new sun rose bringing the new year.”
So fades Arthur from our view, a dim and mystical figure in life, a
vision of undying splendour in death. Let the historians say what they
will, men will still believe in him; they will still see the wearer of
his mantle in every true knight, and still hold him a shining example to
all who “bear without abuse the grand old name of gentleman.”
[Illustration: =Sir Tristram at the Court of Arthur.=
(_From the fresco by William Dyer, R.A., in the King’s Robing-Room in the
Houses of Parliament._)]
[Illustration: Hengist & Horsa]
“_The blue-eyed race_
_Whose force rough-handed should renew the world._”
What warriors be these who now pass by? Tall, big-boned, blue-eyed men
they are, with long yellow hair falling upon their shoulders from
beneath their winged helmets.
Their home is a sad, barren, overcrowded country, and their poverty
drives them to a life of plunder on the seas and to the shores of more
favoured lands. They love fighting as the breath of their nostrils; and
now, in their long ships, these dreaded pirates harry Britain at a
hundred points. Death frights them not, for he who falls gloriously in
battle rides Odin’s horse to Valhalla, where his days will be spent in
cleaving the helmets and hacking the limbs of like heroes with himself,
and his nights in feasting on a great boar whose flesh never grows less
and in drinking great draughts of mead out of the skulls of his enemies.
For the “niddering” coward who dies ingloriously in his bed these
English pirates have nothing but scorn and contempt. To avoid the shame
of a peaceful death they will hurl themselves from the cliffs, or push
out in a frail craft into tempestuous seas, and perishing amidst the
wind and the waves, win the right to enter Odin’s halls. A Roman poet
says of them: “Fierce are they beyond other foes; the sea is their
school of war and the storm their friend; they are sea-wolves that live
on the plunder of the world.” Such are the foes against whom Arthur
fights and falls.
The warriors whom we now greet are Hengist and Horsa, the two English
chiefs who first won a foothold for themselves on the soil of Britain.
An old legend tells us that they were scouring the coasts of Kent what
time Vortigern, the British king, was sore beset by the Picts and Scots.
Half beside himself with terror at their raids, he calls on these
adventurers to aid him. If they will drive back the northern barbarians,
they shall have food and pay for their services. The bargain is struck.
Hengist and Horsa beach their keels on the gravel spit at Ebbsfleet and
land their warriors. The Picts and Scots are driven back, and the
victorious English return from the fray. Then they ask a whimsical
boon—namely, as much land as a bull’s hide can encompass. The request
is granted, and Hengist cuts his bull’s hide into long strips, and with
them engirdles a rocky place, whereon he erects a fortress. Thus the
English secure their first foothold in Britain.
The news is wafted across the sea, and a new swarm of “sea-wolves”
appears. They come in seventeen ships, and on the stern of the leading
vessel the banner of the White Horse waves in the breeze. With the
newcomers arrives a new conqueror, wearing no helmet and carrying no
battle-axe, but armed only with a pair of beautiful blue eyes and a face
of surpassing loveliness. She is Hengist’s fair daughter Rowena, the
English princess who is destined to win more British acres by her bright
glances than the “sea-wolves” have won by their swords and numberless
forays. Vortigern feasts with her father, and she hands him the cup of
greeting which she has kissed, and bids him “Waes hael.” He falls a
willing victim to her charms; he woos and wins her, and as a marriage
gift Vortigern bestows upon her brothers a large part of his kingdom.
Bitterly resenting this gift, the jealous Britons gather in arms and
attack the English. Horsa is slain at the battle of the
Fort-of-the-Eagles, and for a time the banner of the White Horse is
trailed in the dust. Hengist, driven to his ships, returns with
reinforcements, offering peace to the British chiefs, whom he invites to
a feast. Both sides are to come unarmed to the hospitable board; but
Hengist orders his followers to conceal their swords beneath their
garments, and when the wine-cup has gone round, the fatal signal is
given, and they fall upon their guests and slaughter every Briton
present save Vortigern. The legends vary, but the truth remains that the
English mastered the Britons on the south and east coasts, and
established large settlements. Hengist’s success was the signal for a
host of other English adventurers to put their fortune to the test. They
swarmed across the North Sea, and the work of conquest and settlement
began.
Little boots it to tell of the savage and gory strife that raged in this
island during the century and a half which followed. “Some of the
Britons,” says an old chronicler, “were caught in the hills and
slaughtered; others were worn out with hunger, and yielded to a
life-long slavery. Some passed across the sea; others trusted their
lives to the clefts of the mountains, to the forests, and to the rocks
of the sea.” One hundred and fifty years after Hengist and Horsa landed
on the Isle of Thanet the English ruled in this land from the North Sea
to the Severn, and from the English Channel to the Firth of Forth.
Britain had become England. No longer was it the land of the Britons but
the land of the English. In the wild, rugged western part of the island
the Britons alone remained independent. Gradually their land was shorn
from them till only the hills and valleys of Wales were left to them.
There they remain to this day, speaking the speech of Arthur, and
singing the lays of those far-off ages when the whole fair land of
Britain was theirs from sea to sea.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ETHELBERT AND BERTHA.
“_Our clock strikes when there is a change from hour to hour;
but no hammer in the Horologe of Time peals through the Universe
when there is a change from Era to Era._”
Hand in hand a king and queen pass by, linked in wedded love and in
undying fame. She is a sweet Frankish princess, with the light of tender
affection in her eye, and the sweet serenity of an uplifting faith on
her brow. He is a tall, bearded Saxon, with the martial air of one who
has fought battles from his youth up; yet withal he is calm and
reflective, equally at home on the battlefield, in the council chamber,
and on the judgment seat. He is a pagan and she is a Christian; he bows
before Odin, she before Christ.
Well-nigh a century and a half have gone since Hengist and Horsa sped
their keels to these shores as the advance-guard of those great
invasions which planted a new race on the soil. Generations of English
men and women have come and gone since their sires with battle-axe and
brand reft the land from its old inhabitants. No longer do the English
war with the Britons, the remnant of whom dwell safely in the wild
mountains and valleys of the west, or serve their new masters as slaves.
They now war with each other. Ambitious kings strive to make themselves
supreme in the land, and many a fierce fight is fought between the
rivals. Now and then a powerful king reduces his fellow-kings to
obedience, but frequently the conqueror of one month is the hunted
fugitive of the next. Ethelbert, the king who now passes by with Bertha
his wife, has made himself overlord of all the land except Northumbria.
With this exception, his sceptre is supreme from the Forth to the
English Channel.
Rome, once the proud and ruthless “mistress of the world,” has lost for
ever her ancient sway. No longer does the wide world stand in awe of
her. But on the ruins of her lost dominion a new, a merciful, and a
blessed power is springing up. She has become the centre of the
Christian religion, and ere long she stretches out her missionary arms
to the isles of the west. St. Patrick is commissioned as the ambassador
of God to convert the Scots in Ireland to the new faith. Devoted men in
skin-clad boats of wicker-work cross the channel from the Emerald Isle
to carry the good news to the natives of south-west Scotland. Amongst
them is the great Columba of Donegal, prince in the eyes of his fellows,
but in his own a meek bondsman of Christ. With his twelve companions he
steers for the rising sun, and his barks run ashore on the little bare
island of Iona, where he lands and builds his wattled church and the
rude huts of his infant monastery. From this retreat, which has become
one of the most sacred spots on earth, Columba’s friends go fearlessly
through the land into the wildest glens and the remotest clachans,
preaching the gospel, and slowly and surely winning the Picts and Scots
to Christianity.
But England is still in her pagan darkness; she knows nothing except by
vague rumour of the new faith which is slowly transforming the world.
The English still worship their fierce old deities; still swear by oak,
thorn, and ash; still look to Valhalla as the meed of the warrior who
dies in hard-fought battle. Men of kindred blood still struggle for
mastery under their kings, and the vanquished are still found in the
slave-markets of the Continent.
It is the sight of English lads exposed for sale in Rome which touches
the heart of a young deacon, and stirs him to cherish the conversion of
these islanders as the great ideal of his life. He sees the white limbs,
the fair faces, the blue eyes, and the yellow hair of the lads, and asks
the merchant whence they come. “From Britain,” is the answer. “Are they
Christians or pagans?” is his next question; and when he learns that
they are pagans, he sighs heavily and exclaims, “Ah! grief of griefs
that the prince of darkness should lay claim to beings of such fair
form; that there should be so much grace in the countenance, yet none in
the soul.”
When he learns that they are of the race of Angles, his propensity to
pun—ever the weakness of the scholar—finds a rare opportunity. “The
Angles,” cried he, “should be _angels_. From Deira come they? They shall
be snatched _de ira Dei_—from the wrath of God. And their king, say
you, is Ella? _Hallelujah_ shall be sung in Ella’s land.” Thus out of
his infinite pity for the afflicted and distressed, Gregory’s heart
begins to yearn towards the far-off islanders still in heathen bondage.
The old stories tell us that he purchased the slaves, clothed them and
taught them, and sent them back to England. Several times he begs to be
allowed to visit England in order to realize his old wish, but Rome
cannot spare him. In the fullness of time he becomes Pope, and though
the triple crown is on his head and he is surrounded with the splendour
of a sovereign, he does not forget the beautiful barbarians in their
island home, and he only waits a favourable opportunity to send a
mission to them.
The long-looked-for opportunity soon arrives. Ethelred of Kent weds the
fair daughter of the King of the Franks, and the marriage contract
guarantees the Christian princess the right to exercise her religion
unmolested. She brings in her train a single priest, and in the little
church of St. Martin’s, Canterbury—built in Roman times, and still
remaining as the oldest Christian church in the land—she kneels before
the altar, and prays oft and earnestly that the land of her adoption may
be won for Christ. She pleads with her noble-minded husband to forsake
his gods and embrace the new faith. He hears, and he ponders, and at
length, in answer to her prayers, sends a message to Rome, inviting
Gregory to send the mission which he has long contemplated.
And now let the pageant proceed. Splendid and imposing it is. Somewhere
on the Isle of Thanet, where Cæsar’s legions had landed, and Hengist and
Horsa had drawn their keels ashore, a double throne is set up beneath
the open sky. Ethelbert and his chiefs will meet the monks under no
roof, lest witchcraft should prevail. Beneath the canopy of heaven king
and queen—he willing to be convinced, but withal calmly critical; she,
prayerfully expectant—seat themselves. They have hardly done so before
the voices of the monks chanting a psalm are borne on the breeze. Louder
and louder it swells as the procession draws near, headed by a picture
of the Saviour and a silver crucifix.
Halting at the foot of the throne, the head of the mission, Augustine,
begins to declare with all the fervour of his nature the blessings and
hopes of the new faith, and earnestly beseeches the king to forswear his
gods. Ethelbert listens, but the hour of his conversion is not yet. His
answer reveals his clear judgment and his open mind. “Your promises are
fair, but new and uncertain. I cannot abandon the rites which my people
have hitherto observed, but I will hold you harmless and treat you
hospitably. Nor will I forbid any one whom you can convince to join in
your faith.” No fairer answer can be expected, and Augustine begins his
labours under happy auspices. Ere long Ethelbert is baptized with ten
thousand of his subjects, and Augustine has done his greatest and most
enduring work; he has won a kingdom for his Master.
Pass on, Ethelbert and Bertha, linked in wedded love and in undying
fame! It is your blessed privilege to plant the cross of Christ in the
southern shires of this our England. Long and sore will be the struggle
ere its beams irradiate the whole land, but it will conquer at last, and
in the long roll of saints and martyrs who have striven valiantly in the
divine work your twin names shall stand proud and high.
[Illustration: =COLUMBA PREACHING.=
(_From the picture by William Hole, R.S.A._)]
[Illustration: =Augustine preaching to Ethelbert and Bertha.=
(_From the picture by Stephen B. Carlill._)]
[Illustration]
THE SINGER OF THE FIRST ENGLISH SONG.
“_Then felt I like some watcher of the skies_
_When a new planet swims into his ken._”
Who comes hither? A simple, shy monk, half-withdrawing from the gaze of
the bystanders, and unwitting that it is he whom men greet with such
resounding acclaim. Kings and knights have flaunted their plumed helms
and storied banners before us; but here is a conqueror in the realm of
peace, a paladin of the mind and heart. His home was in the abbey which
royal Hilda had founded on the wind-swept east cliff of Whitby. Not
always did he wear the cowl of the monk. When the divine gift which
placed him first in the muster-roll of English poets descended upon him
he was an obscure cowherd who tended the cattle and slept in the byre.
When the day’s work was done, and the servants of the abbey feasted
together, he was wont to flee abashed as the harp came towards him and
his turn arrived to tune the simple lay for the entertainment of his
fellows.
Once when he had risen from the feast and crept quietly to his shed, he
fell asleep and dreamed that One came to him and said, “Cædmon, sing Me
something.” “I know not how to sing,” replied the man; “and for this
cause left I the feast.” “Yet,” said the Vision, “you must sing to Me.”
“What shall I sing?” he asked. “Sing,” the Vision said, “about the
beginning of created things.” At once Cædmon began a hymn in praise of
the Creator of the world. Beautiful images flashed into his mind, noble
words flew to his lips. He had won a victory far beyond that of any
conqueror in any age; he had marshalled in triumph the legions that most
surely sway the hearts and inspire the deeds of his countrymen; he had
composed the first great English song.
We salute thee, Cædmon. Thy name will ever be dear to those who cherish
their noble English tongue, and rejoice in the majestic literature which
has glorified it for all time.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]