The mighty Conqueror of England was the central figure of the age
in which he lived--the greatest soldier of an age of soldiers, and
not less statesman than warrior.
Born to a life of warfare, the Conquest had been but the
culminating point of a career spent in the tented field--but on
that one event he staked his all.
For had he been vanquished at Senlac there was no hope of flight;
the English commanded the sea, while his suzerain of France, ever
on the watch to regain those Norman dominions which Rollo had won,
would have taken instant advantage of the loss of its military
leaders to re-annex Normandy to the French crown, and must have
succeeded.
Had William fallen in England the Norman name and glory would have
perished at Hastings.
Doubtless, he felt how great was the stake he had placed at the
hazard of the die, and having won it, he used it as his own.
Yet he was not all of stone. The Anglo-Saxon chronicler says of
him--"He was mild to those good men who loved God, although stern
beyond measure to those who resisted his will."
Hence the power which men like Lanfranc or Anselm had over him; and
it must be added that his life was exemplary as a private
individual, his honour unsullied, his purity unstained.
Stern was the race of which he was the head and the ruling spirit.
Well does the old chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, say:
"God had chosen the Normans to humble the English nation, because
He perceived that they were more fierce than any other people."
And we modern English must remember that we are the descendants of
old English and Normans combined. They came to "high mettle" the
blood of our race, and when the conquerors and the conquered were
moulded into one people, the result was the Englishmen who won
Crecy and Agincourt against overwhelming odds, whose very name was
a terror to continental soldiery, as Froissart abundantly
testifies.
Grieve as we may over the tyranny and wrong of the Conquest,
England would never have been so great without it as she afterwards
became.
Etienne knelt in the abbey chapel until the last worshippers had
gone out, when a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a gentle
voice said:
"The King awaits thee, my son, in the abbot's audience chamber."
In spite of his boldness, Etienne felt a strange tremor as he
passed through the cloisters and approached the dreaded monarch.
But he himself belonged to the same stern race, and when the
folding doors opened, and he saw the King seated in the abbot's
chair, he had perfectly recovered his composure. With winning grace
he bent the knee before his liege, and gazed into that face whose
frown was death.
But it was not frowning now; the expression was almost paternal,
for the Conqueror loved a gallant youth.
"Rise up, my son," he said; "the holy father here tells me you bear
stirring news."
"My liege, he hath spoken rightly. I have to tell of rebellion and
sacrilege; our English vassals have risen against us, and my brave
father has fallen by their hands; our castle is in their holding,
and they have driven the brethren of St. Benedict homeless from
their monastery."
"And who has dared this deed?"
"Wilfred, son of the rebel who fell at Senlac."
"Wilfred of Aescendune! I remember the stripling when he sought his
father's corpse on the battlefield, but had heard that he had lost
his life in the fire which consumed the monastery."
"Nay, sire, he had fled to the rebels, and we doubt not now that he
and the outlaws, with whom he found a home, fired the monastery,
themselves, to cover his flight."
"Tell me, then, what could have driven him to so violent a course,
and tell me truly; for some cause there must have been."
It must be remembered that, at this period, William had not given
up all hope of reconciling the English to his rule.
"I know no cause, sire, save--"
"Save what?" said he sternly, for Etienne hesitated.
"My liege, the lad, whom your royal will made the heir to the lands
my father had won by his services on the field of battle, never
lost his sympathy with the rebel rout around, or all had perhaps
been well; he struck me in defence of a churl whom I found stealing
game, and I challenged him to fight."
"And did he shirk the contest? I should not have thought it of
him."
"He ran away, sire, and was brought back; was sent to the monastery
by my father for a time of penance as a punishment; the same night
the building was burnt by the outlaws, as we have every reason to
think by his connivance, since he joined them and became their
head, while we all thought him dead."
"And how didst thou learn he yet lived?"
"By his actions; the outlaws under his command burnt our farms,
slew our men in the woods, and not our common men only, whose loss
might better be borne, but they murdered a noble youth, my fellow
page, entrusted to my father's care, Louis de Marmontier; and
finally, by the help of a false guide, they entrapped my father and
his retainers into a marsh, which they set on fire, and all
perished."
Etienne spoke these words with deep emotion, but still firmly and
distinctly.
"Fear not, my son, thy father's death shall be avenged, or my sword
has lost its power. Weep not for the dead--women weep, men avenge
wrongs on the wrongdoer; but tell me, art thou certain of these
facts? didst thou or any one else see this Wilfred at the head of
the outlaws?"
"My liege, I saw him myself; I penetrated their fastnesses in the
forest, and but narrowly escaped with life."
"And saw Wilfred of Aescendune?"
"Distinctly, my liege, almost face to face, in command of the
rebels."
"And then, what happened after the death of thy father?"
"They issued from the woods, seized the castle--the few defenders
left had fled to Warwick--and then summoned the whole neighbourhood
to arms. The bale fires were blazing on every hill. The Count of
Warwick bid me tell you, my liege, that he will hold his castle
till aid arrives, but that he is powerless to check the wave of
insurrection which is spreading over the country far and wide."
"It is well; our banner shall be unfurled and these English shall
feel the lion's wrath, which they have provoked. Tomorrow is
Ascension Day--the truce of God--on Friday we march. Meanwhile I
commend thee to the abbot's hospitality; he will bring thee to the
banquet tomorrow after the High Mass. Remember, a true warrior
should be as devout in church as fearless in the field."
Etienne left the presence, assured that the death of his father
would be speedily avenged, and slept more soundly that night than
he had since the fatal fire in the marshes. He loved his father,
and it must be remembered that he knew not that father's crimes.
Not for one moment did he suspect that he had been concerned in the
burning of the monastery, nor did he dream that there had been
aught in the death of the Lady of Aescendune save the hand of
nature.
The one absorbing passion of his life at this moment was hatred of
his successful rival--not so much as his rival, but as the murderer
of his father.
All the Norman inhabitants of the neighbourhood crowded the abbey
church on the morrow, and were present at the Mass of the day; the
poor English were there in small numbers; they could not worship
devoutly in company with their oppressors, but frequented little
village sanctuaries, too poverty stricken to invite Norman
cupidity, where, on that very account, the poor clerics of English
race might still minister to their scattered flocks, and preach to
them in the language Alfred had dignified by his writings, but
which the Normans compared to the "grunting of swine."
And the service in the church over, how grand was the company which
met in the banqueting hall of the palace on the island!
The Conqueror sat at the head of the board; on his right hand the
Count d'Harcourt, head of an old Norman family, which still
retained many traces of its Danish descent, and was as little
French-like as Normans of that date could be; De le Pole,
progenitor of a fated house, well-known in English history; De la
Vere, the ancestor of future Earls of Oxford; Arundel, who
bequeathed his name to a town on the Sussex coast, where his
descendants yet flourish; Clyfford, unknowing of the fate which
awaited his descendants in days of roseate hue; FitzMaurice, a name
to become renowned in Irish story; Gascoyne, ancestor of a judge
whose daring justice should immortalise his name; Hastings, whose
descendant fell the victim of the Boar of Gloucester in later days;
Maltravers, whose name was destined to be defiled at Berkeley
Castle in Plantagenet times; Peverel, a name now familiar through
the magic pen of Scott; Talbot, whose progeny, in times when the
Normans' children had become the English of the English, burnt the
ill-fated "Maid" at Rouen {xx}.
There was a bishop present who blessed the meats, but Etienne could
have spared the presence of Geoffrey of Coutances, whom he knew as
the friend of Wilfred, and the author of many inconvenient (and, as
Etienne thought, impertinent) inquiries about that young
unfortunate, after the burning of the old priory.
Who shall describe the splendour of that feast? We will not attempt
it, nor will we try to analyse the feelings of the country youth so
suddenly introduced into so brilliant an assembly.
But amidst the intoxication of the scene his mind continually
wandered to the sombre forests, the blackened marsh, the Dismal
Swamp, and his desolated home; and he would almost have given his
very soul to stand face to face, foot to foot, with his youthful
rival, sword in hand, with none to interfere between them, and so
to end the long suspense.
While some such dream was floating before his imagination, and its
details were painted vivid as life upon the retina of the mind, a
quiet voice, but one not without some authority, whispered in his
ears:
"My son, I would fain ask thee of a youth in whom I am somewhat
interested, and who is, I am told, yet alive, risen, as it were,
from the dead--Wilfred of Aescendune."
Etienne's face would have made a fine study for a painter, as he
encountered the gaze of Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances.
The bishop drew the youth gently into a deep embrasure, where a
curtain before the opening veiled a window seat, for the feast was
now over, and the guests were mingling in general conversation.
"Father," said Etienne "am I, whom he has made an orphan, a fit
witness?"
"My son," said Geoffrey, "I respect an orphan's feelings, yet in
justice to the lad whom, as thou sayest, I once befriended, I must
ask a few questions. He appeared to me naturally affectionate and
ingenuous--one who would love those who treated him well, but who
would grievously resent scorn and contempt; tell me honestly, didst
thou receive him as a brother, as thou wert bound to do,
considering the alliance between thy father and his mother, or
didst thou regard him simply as thy rival?"
Etienne hesitated.
"My son, thou cravest knighthood; the true knight is bound to speak
the truth."
"I own, father, that I felt him my rival."
"And never thought of him as a brother?"
"Never."
"Then, naturally, this led to injurious words and contemptuous
deeds?"
"I cannot deny it; nor do I now regret it, knowing what he is."
"Perchance, my son, thou hast had much to do with making him what
he is. One more thing: of course Wilfred would naturally sympathise
with the old retainers of his father. Tell me, didst thou ever
ill-use them in his sight?"
"I may have done so sometimes. But, my lord, you, who at the head
of an army, recently sanctioned the mutilation of the rebels in
Dorsetshire--"
"My child, peace and war are different things, and in the latter,
men are compelled to do that, from which in days of peace they
would shrink, only that timely severity may prevent further
bloodshed, and so save many Christian lives. But I am speaking of
what thou didst to thine own father's vassals in time of
peace--didst thou ill-treat them before thy English brother?"
"I may have been sharp sometimes, and used the ashen twig freely."
"Only the ashen twig? My son, tell me all the story about the
'young poaching churl' who was the cause of such deadly enmity
between you."
Etienne told it with reluctance.
"Pray was the lad in any manner dear to Wilfred?"
"He was his foster brother," said Etienne, covering his face as
conscience smote him, for he remembered the death of Eadwin, and
the way in which the mother of the murdered boy had returned good
for evil.
"Then, my son, thou canst not acquit thyself of blame."
"But even if I were in fault so far, father, the terrible events
which have occurred since do not lie at my door--the burning of the
monastery, the death of my poor father."
"Only so far as this, that all might have been prevented hadst thou
received Wilfred as a brother, for thou didst drive him to the
woods--according to thine own account. But depend upon it, there is
more behind. A brave youth like Wilfred would not have fled simply
for fear of the combat, nor would one who loved his own people, as
your story proves, have connived at the burning of an English
monastery--monks and all. Nay, my son, the mystery is not solved
yet; in God's own time it will be, and depend upon it, there will
be much to forgive on both sides. Think of this when thou repeatest
thy paternoster tonight; for the present we will close this
conference."