It was the evening of Saturday, the 14th of October, in the year of
grace 1066.
All was over; the standard--the royal standard of Harold--had gone
down in blood, and England's sun had set for generations on the
fatal field of Senlac or Hastings.
The orb of day had gone down gloomily; had it but gone down one
hour earlier, all might yet have been well; it but lingered to
behold the foe in possession of the hill where the last gallant
Englishmen died with Harold, not one who fought around the standard
surviving their king.
The wind had arisen, and was howling in fitful gusts across the
ensanguined plain of the dead; dark night gathered over the gloomy
slopes, conquered at such lavish waste of human life--dark, but not
silent; for in every direction arose the moans of the wounded and
dying.
On the fatal hill, where the harvest of death had been thickest,
the Conqueror had caused his ducal pavilion to be reared, just
where Harold's standard had stood, and where the ruined altar of
Battle Abbey stands now. They had cleared away the bodies to make
room for the tent, but the ground was sodden with the blood of both
Englishman and Norman.
The sounds of revelry issued from beneath those gorgeous hangings,
and mocked the plaintive cries of the sufferers around.
"O Earth, Earth, such are thy rulers!" exclaimed a solemn voice.
"To gratify one man's ambition, this scene disfigures thy surface,
and mocks the image of God in man."
So spake a good monk, Norman although he was, who had followed
Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, into England as his chaplain,
selected because he could speak the English tongue--that warrior
prelate, who in conjunction with Odo of Bayeux blessed the
Conqueror's banners, and ministered in things sacred to the "pious"
invaders.
He wandered, this good brother, from one dying sinner to another,
absolving the penitent, and ministering to the parched lips of many
a sufferer. His own long brown garment was stiff at the extremities
with gore, but he heeded it not.
And at last, when he came to a heap of slain just where the Normans
had first hewn their way through the English entrenchments, after
the sham retreat had drawn away so many of their defenders, he was
attracted by the sound of convulsive weeping.
There, kneeling beside the body of an English warrior, he saw a boy
of some fourteen years, sobbing as if his young heart would break,
while he addressed the slain one with many a plaintive cry.
"Father, wake; speak but once more to me; thou canst not be dead.
Oh my father, only once more speak to thy son."
"Alas! my poor boy, he will speak no more until the earth gives up
her dead, and refuses to cover her slain; but we will comfort his
soul with masses and prayers. How didst thou come hither, my poor
child?"
"I followed him to the battle, and he bade me tarry by the stuff;
but when all was lost Guthlac ran away, and I came hither to die
with him if need should be. Oh my father, would God I had died for
thee."
"Father, good father, what clamour is this?" said a deep voice,
"some English lad mourning a sire?"
"Even so, my Lord of Blois. The poor child mourns his father."
"There be many mourners now. William Malet, with a lady whom Harold
loved, and two good monks of Waltham, have just found the body of
the perjured usurper. The face was so mangled, that no man might
know him, but she recognised him by a mark on his body. So they
have carried it away by the duke's command to bury it by the shore
which he strove so vainly to guard."
"Oh may I but bear his body home to my poor mother," moaned the
lad.
"We will ask the Conqueror to grant thy petition, poor mourner,"
said the sympathising monk.
"William will not refuse his prayer, father, if thy superior, the
Bishop of Coutances, urges it; he is all-powerful just now," said
Eustace of Blois. "The poor boy shall plead himself. Come, my lad,
to the pavilion; there shalt thou ask for and obtain the poor boon
thou cravest."
The unhappy Wilfred--for our readers have of course recognised the
young heir of Aescendune--repressed his sobs, strove to wipe away
his tears, as if he felt them unmanly, and followed his conductors,
the knight and the monk, towards the ducal tent.
There William, attended by all his chief officers--by Odo of Bayeux
and Geoffrey of Coutances, by Hugh de Bigod and Robert de Mortain,
and some few others of his mightiest nobles, was taking the evening
meal, served by a few young pages, themselves the sons of nobles or
knights, who learnt the duties of chivalry by beginning at the
lowest grade, if to wait on the Conqueror could be so considered.
Speaking to the sentinel, the good chaplain was allowed to enter,
and whisper low in the ear of the bishop.
"I can refuse thee nought after thy good service," said the courtly
prelate. "Thou say'st the poor boy has a boon to crave--the body of
his sire, and begs through me--I will out, and speak to him."
"Thy name, my son?" said Geoffrey to Wilfred.
"Wilfred, son of the Thane of Aescendune, in Mercia."
"Hast thou been in the battle?"
"Only since all was over, or I had died by his side."
"The saints have preserved thee for better things than to die in a
cause accursed by the Church. Nay, my son, I blame thee not, thou
art too young to know better."
And truly the boy's face and manner, winning though suffused with
tears, might have softened a harder heart than beat beneath the
rochet of the Bishop of Coutances, warrior prelate though he was.
So, without any further delay, he led the boy into the presence of
the mighty Conqueror.
"Who is this stripling? an English lad, my lord of Coutances?"
"He has come to beg permission to carry away the body of his sire.
Bend thy knee, my lad, and salute thy future king."
"Nay, thy present one; coronation will but put the seal on
accomplished facts," said Eustace.
But young though Wilfred was, he had his father's spirit in him,
and spoke in broken sentences.
"My lord," he said, "I cannot own thee as my king. My father would
not have me abjure all he taught me before his body is yet cold. I
but ask thee as a kind enemy, who wars not with the dead, to give
me leave to remove him from this fatal spot--to take him home. Thou
wilt not deny an English lad this poor boon, mighty duke as thou
art."
William understood English well, and was touched by the boyish
spirit of the address, by the absence of fear.
"Thou dost not fear me then?" he said.
"He who lies dead on yon field for his country's sake taught me to
despise fear."
"Thou art verily a bold youth, and were there many like thee,
England might yet be hard to win. A noble father must have begotten
so brave a son."
Then turning to his guests:
"But I hope yet," he added, "to win the hearts of such as he. They
loved Canute, although he conquered them. Am I less a foreigner
than he? and may not I win their love as he did?"
"Begin then thy reign with an act of clemency, my royal son," said
the bishop.
"I do; the lad shall have the protection he needs, and the
assistance of our people, so far as our power yet extends."
The tears started once more into Wilfred's eyes.
"I thank thee, my Lord Duke, for my dead father's sake, and for my
living mother, and will pray the saints to forgive thee the
bloodshed of this day."
It was a curious ending to his speech, especially as the bloodshed
was supposed to be on account of the saints, over whose bones the
ill-fated Harold had taken his famous oath; but William had respect
for courage and outspoken truthfulness, and more than once promoted
men to high office in Church or State, who had withstood him in the
face.
He only added, "When we meet again, my son, thou mayst judge thy
king differently."
Wilfred left the ducal tent; the authority of Count Eustace
speedily procured the assistance of some Norman camp followers, and
the body was reverently removed from the heap of slain, and placed
upon a litter. Wilfred slept in the tent of Eustace, and in the
morning commenced his homeward journey, with the funeral cortege.
It is unnecessary to enter further into the details of that most
sad journey. Suffice it to say that he was able to transfer the
precious burden from Norman to English hands, and that he arrived
home in safety, whither Guthlac had preceded him, with the tidings
that all save himself had perished alike.
Therefore the return of Wilfred was like that of one dead and alive
again, lost and found; and the poor widow felt she had yet
something besides her daughter Edith to live for.
The immediate effects of the conquest were not felt for some few
weeks in the central parts of Mercia, and nought interfered with
the solemn function customary at funerals in those ages.
The second morning after the return of Wilfred was fixed for the
burial of the deceased thane, in the priory church which his father
had built in the place of an earlier structure burnt by the Danes
in 1006.
It was a noble pile for those early days, built chiefly of stone,
which was fast superseding wood as a material for churches,
dedicated to St. Wilfred. The lofty roof, the long choir beyond the
transept, gave magnificence to the fabric, which was surrounded
without by the cloisters of the priory, of which it was the central
feature.
In the south transept--for it was a cruciform church--was a chapel
dedicated especially to St. Cuthbert, where the ashes of the
deceased thane's forefathers reposed in peace beneath the pavement.
There lay Ella of Aescendune, murdered by a Dane named Ragnar; his
two sons, Elfric, who died young, and Alfred, who succeeded to the
inheritance. There, as in a shrine, the martyr Bertric reposed,
who, like St. Edmund, had died by the arrows of the heathen Danes,
there the once warlike Alfgar, the father of our thane, rested in
peace, his lady Ethelgiva by his side {vi}.
The body lay in the great hall, where he had so recently feasted
his retainers after the return from Stamford Bridge. Six large
tapers burned around it, and watchers were there both by day and
night.
There his people crowded to gaze upon the sternly composed features
for the last time; there knelt in prayer his disconsolate widow,
her son and daughter: they scarcely ever left the hallowed remains
until the hour came when, amidst the lamentations of the whole
population, the body of the gallant Edmund was borne to the tomb in
that chapel of St. Cuthbert, where those gallant ancestors whose
story we have told in former chronicles awaited him--"earth to
earth, and dust to dust."
It was a touching procession. The body was borne by the chief
tenants yet living, and surrounded by chanting monks, whose solemn
"Domine refugium nostrum" fell with awful yet consoling effect upon
the ears of the multitude. The churls and thralls, sadly thinned by
the sword, followed behind their lady and her two children, Wilfred
and Edith.
They placed the bier before the high altar while the requiem mass
was sung, six monks kneeling beside it, three on each side, with
lighted tapers. Then the coffin was sprinkled with hallowed water,
perfumed with sweet incense, and borne to its last resting place in
the chapel of St. Cuthbert, where they laid him by the side of his
father, Alfgar the Dane.
"Ego sum resurrectio et vita, dixit Dominus--I am the Resurrection
and the Life, saith the Lord."