HOW HEREWARD CAME IN TO THE KING.
After these things Hereward summoned all his men, and set before them
the hopelessness of any further resistance, and the promises of amnesty,
lands, and honors which William had offered him, and persuaded them--and
indeed he had good arguments enough and to spare--that they should go
and make their peace with the King.
They were so accustomed to look up to his determination, that when it
gave way theirs gave way likewise. They were so accustomed to trust his
wisdom, that most of them yielded at once to his arguments. That the
band should break up, all agreed. A few of the more suspicious, or more
desperate, said that they could never trust the Norman; that Hereward
himself had warned them again and again of his treachery. That he was
now going to do himself what he had laughed at Gospatrick and the rest
for doing; what had brought ruin on Edwin and Morcar; what he had again
and again prophesied would bring ruin on Waltheof himself ere all was
over.
But Hereward was deaf to their arguments. He had said as little to them
as he could about Alftruda, for very shame; but he was utterly besotted
on her. For her sake, he had determined to run his head blindly into
the very snare of which he had warned others. And he had seared--so he
fancied--his conscience. It was Torfrida’s fault now, not his. If she
left him,--if she herself freed him of her own will,--why, he was free,
and there was no more to be said about it.
And Hereward (says the chronicler) took Gwenoch, Geri, and Matelgar, and
rode south to the King.
Where were the two young Siwards? It is not said. Probably they, and a
few desperadoes, followed the fashion of so many English in those sad
days,--when, as sings the Norse scald,
“Cold heart and bloody hand
Now rule English land,”--
and took ship for Constantinople, and enlisted in the Varanger guard,
and died full of years and honors, leaving fair-haired children behind
them, to become Varangers in their turn.
Be that as it may, Hereward rode south. But when he had gotten a long
way upon the road, a fancy (says the chronicler) came over him. He was
not going in pomp and glory enough. It seemed mean for the once great
Hereward to sneak into Winchester with three knights. Perhaps it seemed
not over safe for the once great Hereward to travel with only three
knights. So he went back all the way to camp, and took (says the
chronicler) “forty most famous knights, all big and tall of stature,
and splendid,--if from nothing else, from their looks and their harness
alone.”
So Hereward and those forty knights rode down from Peterborough, along
the Roman road. For the Roman roads were then, and for centuries after,
the only roads in this land; and our forefathers looked on them as the
work of gods and giants, and called them after the names of their old
gods and heroes,--Irmen Street, Watling Street, and so forth.
And then, like true Englishmen, our own forefathers showed their respect
for the said divine works, not by copying them, but by picking them to
pieces to pave every man his own court-yard. Be it so. The neglect
of new roads, the destruction of the old ones, was a natural evil
consequence of local self-government. A cheap price, perhaps, after all,
to pay for that power of local self-government which has kept England
free unto this day.
Be that as it may, down the Roman road Hereward went; past Alconbury
Hill, of the old posting days; past Wimpole Park, then deep forest; past
Hatfield, then deep forest likewise; and so to St. Alban’s. And there
they lodged in the minster; for the monks thereof were good English,
and sang masses daily for King Harold’s soul. And the next day they went
south, by ways which are not so clear.
Just outside St. Alban’s--Verulamium of the Romans (the ruins whereof
were believed to be full of ghosts, demons, and magic treasures)--they
turned, at St. Stephen’s, to the left, off the Roman road to London; and
by another Roman road struck into the vast forest which ringed London
round from northeast to southwest. Following the upper waters of the
Colne, which ran through the woods on their left, they came to Watford,
and then turned probably to Rickmansworth. No longer on the Roman
paved ways, they followed horse-tracks, between the forest and the rich
marsh-meadows of the Colne, as far as Denham, and then struck into a
Roman road again at the north end of Langley Park. From thence, over
heathy commons,--for that western part of Buckinghamshire, its soil
being light and some gravel, was little cultivated then, and hardly all
cultivated now,--they held on straight by Langley town into the Vale of
Thames.
Little they dreamed, as they rode down by Ditton Green, off the heathy
commons, past the poor, scattered farms, on to the vast rushy meadows,
while upon them was the dull weight of disappointment, shame, all but
despair; their race enslaved, their country a prey to strangers, and all
its future, like their own, a lurid blank,--little they dreamed of what
that vale would be within eight hundred years,--the eye of England, and
it may be of the world; a spot which owns more wealth and peace, more
art and civilization, more beauty and more virtue, it may be, than any
of God’s gardens which make fair this earth. Windsor, on its crowned
steep, was to them but a new hunting palace of the old miracle-monger
Edward, who had just ruined England. Runnymede, a mile below them down
the broad stream, was but a horse-fen fringed with water-lilies, where
the men of Wessex had met of old to counsel, and to bring the country to
this pass. And as they crossed, by ford or ferry-boat, the shallows of
old Windsor, whither they had been tending all along, and struck into
the moorlands of Wessex itself, they were as men going into an unknown
wilderness: behind them ruin, and before them unknown danger.
On through Windsor Forest, Edward the Saint’s old hunting-ground; its
bottoms choked with beech and oak, and birch and alder scrub; its upper
lands vast flats of level heath; along the great trackway which runs
along the lower side of Chobham Camp, some quarter of a mile broad,
every rut and trackway as fresh at this day as when the ancient Briton,
finding that his neighbor’s essedum--chariot, or rather cart--had worn
the ruts too deep, struck out a fresh wandering line for himself across
the dreary heath.
Over the Blackwater by Sandhurst, and along the flats of Hartford
Bridge, where the old furze-grown ruts show the track-way to this day.
Down into the clayland forests of the Andredsweald, and up out of them
again at Basing, on to the clean crisp chalk turf; to strike at Popham
Lane the Roman road from Silchester, and hold it over the high downs,
till they saw far below them the royal city of Winchester.
Itchen, silver as they looked on her from above, but when they came down
to her, so clear that none could see where water ended and where air
began, hurried through the city in many a stream. Beyond it rose the
“White Camp,”’ the “Venta Belgarum,” the circular earthwork of white
chalk on the high down. Within the city rose the ancient minster church,
built by Ethelwold,--ancient even then,--where slept the ancient kings;
Kennulf, Egbert, and Ethelwulf the Saxons; and by them the Danes,
Canute the Great, and Hardicanute his son, and Norman Emma his wife, and
Ethelred’s before him; and the great Earl Godwin, who seemed to Hereward
to have died, not twenty, but two hundred years ago;--and it may be an
old Saxon hall upon the little isle whither Edgar had bidden bring the
heads of all the wolves in Wessex, where afterwards the bishops built
Wolvesey Palace. But nearer to them, on the down which sloped up to
the west, stood an uglier thing, which they saw with curses deep and
loud,--the keep of the new Norman castle by the west gate.
Hereward halted his knights upon the down outside the northern gate.
Then he rode forward himself. The gate was open wide; but he did not
care to go in.
So he rode into the gateway, and smote upon that gate with his
lance-but. But the porter saw the knights upon the down, and was afraid
to come out; for he feared treason.
Then Hereward smote a second time; but the porter did not come out.
Then he took the lance by the shaft, and smote a third time. And he
smote so hard, that the lance-but flew to flinders against Winchester
Gate.
And at that started out two knights, who had come down from the castle,
seeing the meinie on the down, and asked,--
“Who art thou who knockest here so bold?”
“Who I am any man can see by those splinters, if he knows what men are
left in England this day.”
The knights looked at the broken wood, and then at each other. Who could
the man be who could beat an ash stave to flinders at a single blow?
“You are young, and do not know me; and no shame to you. Go and tell
William the King, that Hereward is come to put his hands between the
King’s, and be the King’s man henceforth.”
“You are Hereward?” asked one, half awed, half disbelieving at
Hereward’s short stature.
“You are--I know not who. Pick up those splinters, and take them to King
William; and say, ‘The man who broke that lance against the gate is here
to make his peace with thee,’ and he will know who I am.”
And so cowed were these two knights with Hereward’s royal voice, and
royal eye, and royal strength, that they went simply, and did what he
bade them.
And when King William saw the splinters, he was as joyful as man could
be, and said,--
“Send him to me, and tell him, Bright shines the sun to me that lights
Hereward into Winchester.”
“But, Lord King, he has with him a meinie of full forty knights.”
“So much the better. I shall have the more valiant Englishmen to help my
valiant French.”
So Hereward rode round, outside the walls, to William’s new entrenched
palace, outside the west gate, by the castle.
And then Hereward went in, and knelt before the Norman, and put his
hands between William’s hands, and swore to be his man.
“I have kept my word,” said he, “which I sent to thee at Rouen seven
years agone. Thou art King of all England; and I am the last man to say
so.”
“And since thou hast said it, I am King indeed. Come with me, and dine;
and to-morrow I will see thy knights.”
And William walked out of the hall leaning on Hereward’s shoulder, at
which all the Normans gnashed their teeth with envy.
“And for my knights, Lord King? Thine and mine will mix, for a while
yet, like oil and water; and I fear lest there be murder done between
them.”
“Likely enough.”
So the knights were bestowed in a “vill” near by; “and the next day the
venerable king himself went forth to see those knights, and caused them
to stand, and march before him, both with arms, and without. With whom
being much delighted, he praised them, congratulating them on their
beauty and stature, and saying that they must all be knights of fame
in war.” After which Hereward sent them all home except two; and waited
till he should marry Alftruda, and get back his heritage.
“And when that happens,” said William, “why should we not have two
weddings, beausire, as well as one? I hear that you have in Crowland a
fair daughter, and marriageable.”
Hereward bowed.
“And I have found a husband for her suitable to her years, and who may
conduce to your peace and serenity.”
Hereward bit his lip. To refuse was impossible in those days. But--
“I trust that your Grace has found a knight of higher lineage than him,
whom, after so many honors, you honored with the hand of my niece.”
William laughed. It was not his interest to quarrel with Hereward. “Aha!
Ivo, the wood-cutter’s son. I ask your pardon for that, Sir Hereward.
Had you been my man then, as you are now, it might have been different.”
“If a king ask my pardon, I can only ask his in return.”
“You must be friends with Taillebois. He is a brave knight, and a wise
warrior.”
“None ever doubted that.”
“And to cover any little blots in his escutcheon, I have made him an
earl, as I may make you some day.”
“Your Majesty, like a true king, knows how to reward. Who is this knight
whom you have chosen for my lass?”
“Sir Hugh of Evermue, a neighbor of yours, and a man of blood and
breeding.”
“I know him, and his lineage; and it is very well. I humbly thank your
Majesty.”
“Can I be the same man?” said Hereward to himself, bitterly.
And he was not the same man. He was besotted on Alftruda, and humbled
himself accordingly.