LANFRANC, PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND.
Waltheof, instead of continuing his journey northward, left his retinue
privily, and, with as small a following as the state of the country
rendered imperative, made his way to Canterbury and craved audience of
the Primate, appealing to him in the double capacity of a spiritual
father, and, for the time, while King William should be absent, as a
temporal superior also, the archbishop having been appointed justiciary
of the kingdom in conjunction with Robert, Earl of Morton, and Geoffry,
Bishop of Coutances.
After certain ceremonious delays, he was received. Lanfranc, Archbishop
of Canterbury and Primate of all England, was a man of high character
and subtle intellect, uniting the business capacities and breadth of
view of the man of the world, to the piety and earnestness of a sincere
churchman.
A Lombard by birth, he had attained eminence in his youth as a law
student at Pavia. His birth was not noble, but his parents were said to
have been of senatorial rank, which indicated a good social position.
His eloquence as a lawyer was so great, that he triumphed over veteran
opponents, and soon became famous. Italy, however, was at that time
torn by dissensions, and he was early involved in political quarrels,
so that he deemed it wise to quit the arena of his forensic triumphs,
and to seek the less genial but safer climate of Normandy. Here he soon
attained high eminence, and opened a school at Avranches, to which
scholars came in crowds; but suddenly the illustrious advocate
disappeared, and no one knew whither.
He was discovered, some three years later, living the life of a
penitent in the secluded monastery of Bec, a small establishment
founded by his countryman Herluin, but which afterwards became famous
through having supplied Canterbury with three archbishops. After a
time, Lanfranc became the prior of Bec, and was as much sought as a
religious teacher as he had hitherto been as a lawyer.
In his newly-awakened zeal, Lanfranc took it upon him to denounce the
intended marriage of the Duke of Normandy with Matilda of Flanders; the
Pope having threatened excommunication, as the couple were within the
prohibited degrees of relationship.
One fine day, the quiet monks of Bec, working in their garden amongst
their cabbages and onions, were surprised by the advent of a gay
company of knights in holiday attire, surrounding an ecclesiastic who
rode pompously upon a fine white mule. The excitement increased to
boiling point when the visitor was found to be the duke's chaplain
Herfast, whom we have already introduced to the reader as holding the
Bishopric of Elmham in 1075, and that his retinue was composed of
nobles high in favour at the court; and the much-impressed monks
hastened to tell their prior of the honour shown him. But the prior was
giving audience to a beggar, and made the duke's emissaries wait till
his conference was leisurely concluded. He understood perfectly well
that William wished to bribe him, by this display of favour, into
giving his assent to the wedding, and he had a mind to assert his
independence.
Herfast was as ignorant as he was pompous, and the accomplished prior
took every opportunity of exposing his guest's ignorance, even placing
in his hands an abcdarium, or spelling-book, to the great amusement of
the spectators and the huge wrath of Herfast, who rode back to his
royal master with a fine tale of the insolence of the Lombard upstart.
William was so incensed, that he fell into a paroxysm of rage, ordered
Lanfranc out of the country, and sent a band of soldiers to burn one of
the granges of the monastery to the ground, as a practical witness to
his anger at the way in which his courtiers had been treated.
Imagine the consternation amongst the monks of Bec. Lanfranc, however,
was equal to the occasion. William had ordered him to quit the country.
But the brethren of Bec were poor, and there were no parliamentary
trains in those dark ages to carry passengers from one end of a country
to the other for a penny a mile. They must travel in the saddle or on
foot. Churchmen, for the most part, patronised mules of considerable
size and high breeding, and journeyed in no small state. But the only
animal the stables of Bec could boast was a sorry steed, angular of
joint and far from sound. None the less the prior mounted it, and set
off for Rouen, where he had been bidden to appear before the duke ere
he quitted the country.
William came forth to meet the haughty churchman, who had dared to
thwart and condemn him, and to make fun of his chaplain, accompanied by
a gallant train of knights and squires. He expected to meet a cavalcade
almost as numerous and magnificent as his own.
His face was dark with anger, and he wrapped himself in thoughtful
taciturnity, meditating a rebuke befitting the insolence with which his
condescension and favour had been met.
He grew impatient when along the straight level road nothing could be
seen but a single horseman on a lame jade, whose nose almost touched
the ground at every step, and whose pace was easily kept up with by a
follower on foot.
As this sorry trio approached, however, he saw that the men were
habited as monks, and Herfast, who rode beside his royal master on his
sleek white mule, flushed deeply red.
''Tis Lanfranc himself!' he exclaimed.
[Illustration: Lanfranc jests with the Conqueror.]
'What new mummery is this?' demanded William, his keen eyes straying
over the comical figure of the prior and his wretched mount, and a
smile gleaming over his stern face, brief but irrepressible, for
William was a lover of horseflesh, and spared no pains or expense in
the importation of fine horses from Spain for his own use. The creature
he bestrode was a splendid animal, and the strongest of contrasts to
the prior's pitiful nag.
Slight as the smile was, and hastily repressed, Lanfranc saw it, and
took instant advantage.
'By your commands,' said the audacious prior airily, 'I am leaving your
dominions, but it is only at a foot's pace that I can proceed on such a
wretched beast as this; give me a better horse, and I shall be better
able to obey your commands.'
William had a keen sense of humour, and perhaps felt that the clever
Lombard would be a formidable foe.
He laughed a royal laugh of magnificent amusement. 'Who ever heard
before,' he asked, 'of an offender venturing to ask a donation from the
very judge he has offended?'
Herfast grew redder than ever with chagrin and mortification, for he
saw very plainly that the subtle prior had mollified the duke by his
intrepid joke. And so it was, and from this strange meeting resulted no
less a matter than the establishment of a friendship which lasted till
William's death.
Not long afterwards, Lanfranc went to Rome to plead with the Pope, and
urge him to give his sanction to that marriage which the prior had
hitherto opposed so bitterly. And this he did without inconsistency,
for his opposition had been based upon William's defiance of the Holy
See; when, therefore, he persuaded the haughty duke to humble himself,
and plead meekly for a dispensation, with promises that he and his
bride would bind themselves to many duties in return, amongst others,
to endow each an abbey and two hospitals, the seeming submission of
Lanfranc was really a triumph.
After a while, though much against his will, Lanfranc was induced to
leave Normandy, and assume the onerous post of Primate of William's
newly-conquered kingdom of England. He even appealed to Pope Alexander
II. to extricate him from the difficulties of such high office, and to
permit him to return to the monastic life, which above all things
delighted him. But the Pope refused to interfere, and Lanfranc accepted
the inevitable, and set to work with courageous zeal to make the best
of his manifold duties. And he acquitted himself like a brave and good
man, steering a wise course amongst the jealous Normans and aggrieved
Saxons, selecting virtuous men to fill the posts which became vacant;
and though, no doubt, partaking the prejudices of the conquerors, yet
securing good men amongst the Saxon clergy as friends. The Church of
England owes much to him, for he was distinctly an imperialist, and
stoutly resisted papal aggression, laying the seeds of that nationality
which has saved us from so many evils.
It may be imagined that the simple-minded and gentle Waltheof, much
more adept at wielding a seax than at chopping logic, and who was as
wax in the hands of his clever wife, was as water under the treatment
of this subtle Lombard, who could mould to his wishes even the
self-willed and astute William.
The archbishop received the Earl of Northumberland with much pomp and
circumstance, giving him the ceremonious honour due to his high rank
and his position as husband of the king's niece, so that Waltheof had
to beg for a private interview.
This being granted, the unhappy hero knew not how to begin his forced
confession, and the keen black eyes with which Lanfranc searched his
face did not lessen his confusion.
But the archbishop had no intent to deal harshly with his illustrious
penitent.
His features softened with a winning smile. 'What hast thou to say to
me, my son?' he asked in a gentle voice. 'Why hesitate? Dost thou not
know me for a true friend?'
'Alas, father! I have a sad tale of sin and weakness to reveal to thine
ears,' said the son of Siward at length. 'But I pray thee advise me. I
have taken an oath, and since then, heated with wine, and somewhat
overawed by numbers, I have taken a second contrary thereto. By which
am I bound? Am I forsworn in that, notwithstanding this second oath, I
sent the messenger to thee, who, if nought mischanced, reached
Canterbury some four days agone?'
'Thou hast sinned, my son, answered the archbishop gravely; 'but not so
heavily but that, after due penance, the offence may be pardoned. An
unwilling oath, taken under the compulsion of an excited crowd, can
scarce bind as that which was the fruit of calm reflection and sober
judgment. Rather must it be accounted evil in thee, that thou didst
consort with a man who was anathema of the Holy Church.' His mobile
face grew stern, but it was a sternness not unmixed with sorrow.
'Nay,' answered Waltheof eagerly, 'I knew not of that till the banquet
was well-nigh ended, when it was impossible to turn back.'
He was relieved at the tone of the archbishop, yet could not keep
reflecting bitterly in his heart, that this light treatment of a forced
oath when taken by the son of Siward _against_ William, was very
different to the view taken of that made by the son of Godwin _for_
William. Harold had been branded a perjurer for abjuring a forced oath.
'Nevertheless,' said the archbishop, not yet relaxing his face, 'thou
hadst knowledge that the men whose bread was broken for thee were
acting in direct opposition to the mandate of thy king-lord and
kinsman, whose clemency had pardoned thy former misdeeds against him,
whose hand had been reached to thee in fellowship, and whose niece had
been given to thee to be bone of thy bone, flesh of thy flesh.'
'In good sooth, father,' replied Waltheof reluctantly, and with the air
of a schoolboy repeating a lesson by rote, 'I thought mine uncle and
king-lord was playing a somewhat tyrannical part in dividing two true
lovers. I see now that he had reasons which I little suspected.'
This defence had been suggested by Judith.
Lanfranc's fine sensitive face grew sad. Speaking in a low, sorrowful
voice, as though the subject caused him inexpressible pain, he said,
'My son, it was not for light or frivolous reasons that William our
king-lord interfered to thwart the wishes of his earls. Nor was it
without cause, or, in truth, without grievous necessity, that I
declared the anathema of the Holy Church against the son of the man who
did more than any other to crown our Norman duke an English king. Had
it been but a question of a marriage,' the archbishop continued in the
same strain, but in a still softer tone, and rather as if speaking to
himself than to the earl, 'God forbid that I should have parted whom He
had elected in His all-seeing wisdom to unite!' He sighed deeply, for
in his youth he had been the husband of a much-loved wife, whose death
had taken all flavour from earthly joy for him, and had been the cause
of his precipitate retreat from a position of wealth and fame, to seek
consolation in the cloister. 'I have loved Roger Fitzosbern as a son! I
have striven with him in affection! But, alas! in vain. One folly was
added to another, until at last foolishness swelled into crime. He
denied justice to the injured. He invaded the property of his
king-lord, and of his peers; and now he has crowned all by this
attempted treason, brought to the light at the unholy banquet at which
thou wert thyself tempted to evil, Waltheof! Ah! I have wept tears of
blood over this lost sheep. Would that my efforts had recalled him to
the fold! But the time is past.'
He stretched out his thin, transparent hands before him, his dark eyes
fixed upon space, as if contemplating a vision of the bloodshed to
come.
He was silent, and Waltheof, being a man of few words, was silent also.
Suddenly the Lombard turned his gleaming eyes upon the Northumbrian
earl. Waltheof started, for in his heart was no repentance for having
attended the banquet, nor for any of his treasonable designs, but only
a fierce wrath against the Norman wife who had defeated his plans, and
brought him more tightly under the yoke he hated, and it seemed to him
as if those dark eyes could read his most secret thoughts. He shifted
his huge frame uneasily, so that the bracelets which ringed his
tattooed arms almost to the elbow, clanged together, and his large
fingers sought the jewelled haft of the hunting-knife which hung at his
baldric, not threateningly, but from habit.
Yet if his thoughts were read, they were ignored.
'But thou at least art here!' Lanfranc exclaimed, his mobile features
lighted by a brilliant smile. 'Thy better angel has prevailed, and, by
the mercy of Our Lady, has brought thee back to the fold at the
eleventh hour.'
Waltheof looked relieved, and he lifted his head and tossed back the
yellow mane which had fallen over his face.
'I pray thee, father,' he said earnestly, encouraged by the Primate's
smile; 'stand by me in my trouble, and plead my cause with William of
Normandy. _Thou_ hast the power to influence him. Advise me how I may
best act to win his pardon for my transgression; how best assure him of
the sincerity of my return to allegiance.'
[Illustration: Waltheof's Humiliation.]
'I will stand by thee, my son,' replied the archbishop, clasping
Waltheof's great hand in his slender fingers. And he fulfilled his
promise with unswerving fidelity, even to the last, when the
unfortunate son of Siward lay doomed to death in prison; nor, if
Lanfranc could have prevented it, would William have consummated that
greatest blot upon his reign, the execution of the Northumbrian earl.
'Thou art impulsive, my son, and simple-minded, and therefore easily
snared. But I believe not that thy heart is evil, or that thou wouldst
be other than a pious son of our Holy Mother Church.'
'No, indeed!' said Waltheof, much affected by the appeal, which roused
all the natural piety and humility of his nature. He crossed himself
with much fervour. 'Tell me what to do, father. Whatever thou wilt
command I will perform.'
'My son, I would bid thee cross the sea to Normandy and seek William in
person, confessing all frankly, and throwing thyself on his mercy. Nor
would it be detrimental to thy suit if thy hands bore somewhat of the
produce of the lands and honours he has bestowed upon thee with so
lavish a generosity.'
Waltheof shuddered. It was no pleasant prospect to the powerful earl,
whose head had of late been so filled with schemes of ambition, thus to
humble himself a second time to the conqueror of his people.
But Waltheof's courage was more of the physical order than the moral.
He was, besides, of gentle disposition, and sincerely desired to avert
bloodshed, and he thought that his defection from the ranks of the
conspirators would prevent any attempt to meet William in the field.
Therefore he bowed his head. 'Thine advice is meet, father,' he said;
'I will cross the seas and seek William, bearing rich presents to
testify my regret for the past, and present goodwill.'