The new palace of Edward the Confessor, the palace of Westminster,
opened its gates, to receive the Saxon King and the Norman Duke,
remounting on the margin of the isle, and now riding side by side.
And as the Duke glanced, from brows habitually knit, first over the
pile, stately, though not yet completed, with its long rows of round
arched windows, cased by indented fringes and fraet (or tooth) work,
its sweep of solid columns with circling cloisters, and its ponderous
towers of simple grandeur; then over the groups of courtiers, with
close vests, and short mantles, and beardless cheeks, that filled up
the wide space, to gaze in homage on the renowned guest, his heart
swelled within him, and, checking his rein, he drew near to his
brother of Bayeux, and whispered,--
"Is not this already the court of the Norman? Behold yon nobles and
earls, how they mimic our garb! behold the very stones in yon gate,
how they range themselves, as if carved by the hand of the Norman
mason! Verily and indeed, brother, the shadow of the rising sun rests
already on these halls."
"Had England no people," said the bishop, "England were yours already.
But saw you not, as we rode along, the lowering brows? and heard you
not the angry murmurs? The villeins are many, and their hate is
strong."
"Strong is the roan I bestride," said the Duke; "but a bold rider
curbs it with the steel of the bit, and guides it with the goad of the
heel."
And now, as they neared the gate, a band of minstrels in the pay of
the Norman touched their instruments, and woke their song--the
household song of the Norman--the battle hymn of Roland, the Paladin
of Charles the Great. At the first word of the song, the Norman
knights and youths profusely scattered amongst the Normanised Saxons
caught up the lay, and with sparkling eyes, and choral voices, they
welcomed the mighty Duke into the palace of the last meek successor of
Woden.
By the porch of the inner court the Duke flung himself from his
saddle, and held the stirrup for Edward to dismount. The King placed
his hand gently on his guest's broad shoulder, and, having somewhat
slowly reached the ground, embraced and kissed him in the sight of the
gorgeous assemblage; then led him by the hand towards the fair chamber
which was set apart for the Duke, and so left him to his attendants.
William, lost in thought, suffered himself to be disrobed in silence;
but when Fitzosborne, his favourite confidant and haughtiest baron,
who yet deemed himself but honoured by personal attendance on his
chief, conducted him towards the bath, which adjoined the chamber, he
drew back, and wrapping round him more closely the gown of fur that
had been thrown over his shoulders, he muttered low,--"Nay, if there
be on me yet one speck of English dust, let it rest there!--seizin,
Fitzosborne, seizin, of the English land." Then, waving his hand, he
dismissed all his attendants except Fitzosborne, and Rolf, Earl of
Hereford [49], nephew to Edward, but French on the father's side, and
thoroughly in the Duke's councils. Twice the Duke paced the chamber
without vouchsafing a word to either, then paused by the round window
that overlooked the Thames. The scene was fair; the sun, towards its
decline, glittered on numerous small pleasure-boats, which shot to and
fro between Westminster and London or towards the opposite shores of
Lambeth. His eye sought eagerly, along the curves of the river, the
grey remains of the fabled Tower of Julius, and the walls, gates, and
turrets, that rose by the stream, or above the dense mass of silent
roofs; then it strained hard to descry the tops of the more distant
masts of the infant navy, fostered under Alfred, the far-seeing, for
the future civilisation of wastes unknown, and the empire of seas
untracked.
The Duke breathed hard, and opened and closed the hand which he
stretched forth into space as if to grasp the city he beheld. "Rolf,"
said he, abruptly, "thou knowest, no doubt, the wealth of the London
traders, one and all; for, foi de Gaillaume, my gentil chevalier, thou
art a true Norman, and scentest the smell of gold as a hound the
boar!"
Rolf smiled, as if pleased with a compliment which simpler men might
have deemed, at the best, equivocal, and replied:
"It is true, my liege; and gramercy, the air of England sharpens the
scent; for in this villein and motley country, made up of all races,--
Saxon and Fin, Dane and Fleming, Pict and Walloon,--it is not as with
us, where the brave man and the pure descent are held chief in honour:
here, gold and land are, in truth, name and lordship; even their
popular name for their national assembly of the Witan is, 'The
Wealthy.' [50] He who is but a ceorl to-day, let him be rich, and he
may be earl to-morrow, marry in king's blood, and rule armies under a
gonfanon statelier than a king's; while he whose fathers were
ealdermen and princes, if, by force or by fraud, by waste or by
largess, he become poor, falls at once into contempt, and out of his
state,--sinks into a class they call 'six-hundred men,' in their
barbarous tongue, and his children will probably sink still lower,
into ceorls. Wherefore gold is the thing here most coveted; and by
St. Michael, the sin is infectious."
William listened to the speech with close attention. "Good," said he,
rubbing slowly the palm of his right hand over the back of the left;
"a land all compact with the power of one race, a race of conquering
men, as our fathers were, whom nought but cowardice or treason can
degrade,--such a land, O Rolf of Hereford, it were hard indeed to
subjugate, or decoy, or tame--"
"So has my lord the Duke found the Bretons; and so also do I find the
Welch upon my marches of Hereford."
"But," continued William, not heeding the interruption, "where wealth
is more than blood and race, chiefs may be bribed or menaced; and the
multitude--by'r Lady, the multitude are the same in all lands, mighty
under valiant and faithful leaders, powerless as sheep without them.
But to my question, my gentle Rolf; this London must be rich?" [51]
"Rich enow," answered Rolf, "to coin into armed men, that should
stretch from Rouen to Flanders on the one hand, and Paris on the
other."
"In the veins of Matilda, whom thou wooest for wife," said
Fitzosborne, abruptly, "flows the blood of Charlemagne. God grant his
empire to the children she shall bear thee!"
The Duke bowed his head, and kissed a relic suspended from his throat.
Farther sign of approval of his counsellor's words he gave not, but
after a pause, he said:
"When I depart, Rolf, thou wendest back to thy marches. These Welch
are brave and fierce, and shape work enow for thy hands."
"Ay, by my halidame! poor sleep by the side of the beehive you have
stricken down."
"Marry, then," said William, "let the Welch prey on Saxon, Saxon on
Welch; let neither win too easily. Remember our omens to-day, Welch
hawk and Saxon bittern, and over their corpses, Duke William's Norway
falcon! Now dress we for the complin [52] and the banquet."