HOW ARCHBISHOP ALDRED DIED OF SORROW.
In the tragedies of the next few months Hereward took no part; but they
must be looked at near, in order to understand somewhat of the men who
were afterwards mixed up with him for weal or woe.
When William went back to the South, the confederates, Child Edgar
the Atheling, Gospatrick, and their friends, had come south again from
Durham. It was undignified; a confession of weakness. If a Norman had
likened them to mice coming out when the cat went away, none could
blame him. But so they did; and Osbiorn and his Danes, landing in
Humber-mouth, “were met” (says the Anglo-Saxon chronicle) “by Child
Edgar and Earl Waltheof and Marlesweyn, and Earl Gospatrick with the men
of Northumberland, riding and marching joyfully with an immense army”;
not having the spirit of prophecy, or foreseeing those things which were
coming on the earth.
To them repaired Edwin and Morcar, the two young Earls, Arkill and Karl,
“the great Thanes,” or at least the four sons of Karl,--for accounts
differ,--and what few else of the northern nobility Tosti had left
unmurdered.
The men of Northumberland received the Danes with open arms. They would
besiege York. They would storm the new Norman Keep. They would proclaim
Edgar king at York.
In that Keep sat two men, one of whom knew his own mind, the other did
not. One was William Malet, knight, one of the heroes of Hastings, a
noble Norman, and châtelain of York Castle. The other was Archbishop
Aldred.
Aldred seems to have been a man like too many more,--pious and virtuous
and harmless enough, and not without worldly prudence; but his prudence
was of that sort which will surely swim with the stream, and “honor the
powers that be,” if they be but prosperous enough. For after all, if
success be not God, it is like enough to Him in some men’s eyes to
do instead. So Archbishop Aldred had crowned Harold Godwinsson, when
Harold’s star was in the ascendant. And who but Archbishop Aldred should
crown William, when his star had cast Harold’s down from heaven? He
would have crowned Satanas himself, had he only proved himself king _de
facto_--as he asserts himself to be _de jure_--of this wicked world.
So Aldred, who had not only crowned William, but supported his power
north of Humber by all means lawful, sat in York Keep, and looked at
William Malet, wondering what he would do.
Malet would hold it to the last. As for the new keep, it was surely
impregnable. The old walls--the Roman walls on which had floated the
flag of Constantine the Great--were surely strong enough to keep out
men without battering-rams, balistas, or artillery of any kind. What
mattered Osbiorn’s two hundred and forty ships, and their crews of some
ten or fifteen thousand men? What mattered the tens of thousands of
Northern men, with Gospatrick at their head? Let them rage and rob round
the walls. A messenger had galloped in from William in the Forest of
Dean, to tell Malet to hold out to the last. He had galloped out again,
bearing for answer, that the Normans could hold York for a year.
But the Archbishop’s heart misgave him, as from north and south at once
came up the dark masses of two mighty armies, broke up into columns,
and surged against every gate of the city at the same time. They had no
battering-train to breach the ancient walls; but they had--and none knew
it better than Aldred--hundreds of friends inside, who would throw open
to them the gates.
One gate he could command from the Castle tower. His face turned pale
as he saw a mob of armed townsmen rushing down the street towards it; a
furious scuffle with the French guards; and then, through the gateway,
the open champaign beyond, and a gleaming wave of axes, helms, and
spears, pouring in, and up the street.
“The traitors!” he almost shrieked, as he turned and ran down the ladder
to tell Malet below.
Malet was firm, but pale as Aldred.
“We must fight to the last,” said he, as he hurried down, commanding his
men to sally at once _en masse_ and clear the city.
The mistake was fatal. The French were entangled in the narrow streets.
The houses, shut to them, were opened to the English and Danes; and,
overwhelmed from above, as well as in front, the greater part of the
Norman garrison perished in the first fight. The remnant were shut up in
the Castle. The Danes and English seized the houses round, and shot
from the windows at every loophole and embrasure where a Norman showed
himself.
“Shoot fire upon the houses!” said Malet.
“You will not burn York? O God! is it come to this?”
“And why not York town, or York minster, or Rome itself, with the Pope
inside it, rather than yield to barbarians?”
Archbishop Aldred went into his room, and lay down on his bed. Outside
was the roar of the battle; and soon, louder and louder, the roar of
flame. This was the end of his time-serving and king-making. And he said
many prayers, and beat his breast; and then called to his chaplain for
blankets, for he was very cold. “I have slain my own sheep!” he moaned,
“slain my own sheep!”
His chaplain hapt him up in bed, and looked out of the window at the
fight. There was no lull, neither was there any great advantage on
either side. Only from the southward he could see fresh bodies of Danes
coming across the plain.
“The carcass is here, and the eagles are gathered together. Fetch me
the holy sacrament, Chaplain, and God be merciful to an unfaithful
shepherd.”
The chaplain went.
“I have slain my own sheep!” moaned the archbishop. “I have given them
up to the wolves,--given my own minster, and all the treasures of the
saints; and--and--I am very cold.”
When the chaplain came back with the blessed sacrament, Archbishop
Aldred was more than cold; for he was already dead and stiff.
But William Malet would not yield. He and his Normans fought, day after
day, with the energy of despair. They asked leave to put forth the body
of the archbishop; and young Waltheof, who was a pious man, insisted
that leave should be given.
So the archbishop’s coffin was thrust forth of the castle-gate, and
the monks from the abbey came and bore it away, and buried it in the
Cathedral church.
And then the fight went on, day after day, and more and more houses
burned, till York was all aflame. On the eighth day the minster was in
a light low over Archbishop Aldred’s new-made grave. All was
burnt,--minster, churches, old Roman palaces, and all the glories of
Constantine the Great and the mythic past.
The besiegers, hewing and hammering gate after gate, had now won all
but the Keep itself. Then Malet’s heart failed him. A wife he had, and
children; and for their sake he turned coward and fled by night, with a
few men-at-arms, across the burning ruins.
Then into what once was York the confederate Earls and Thanes marched in
triumph, and proclaimed Edgar king,--a king of dust and ashes.
And where were Edwin and Morcar the meanwhile? It is not told. Were they
struggling against William at Stafford, or helping Edric the Wild
and his Welshmen to besiege Chester? Probably they were aiding the
insurrection,--if not at these two points, still at some other of their
great earldoms of Mercia and Chester. They seemed to triumph for a
while: during the autumn of 1069 the greater part of England seemed
lost to William. Many Normans packed up their plunder and went back to
France; and those whose hearts were too stout to return showed no mercy
to the English, even as William showed none. To crush the heart of the
people by massacres and mutilations and devastations was the only hope
of the invader; and thoroughly he did his work whenever he had a chance.