wound, sickness, or other reasonable hindrance.
That, having undertaken to carry out any enterprise, they would devote
to it night and day, unless they were called away for the service of
their king and country. [Pg164]
That, if they made a vow to acquire any honor, they would not draw
back without having attained it or its equivalent.
That they would be faithful keepers of their word and pledged faith,
and that, having become prisoners in fair warfare, they would pay to
the uttermost the promised ransom, or return to prison at the day and
hour agreed upon, on pain of being proclaimed infamous and perjured.
That, on returning to the court of their sovereign, they would render
a true account of their adventures, even though they had sometimes
been worsted, to the king and the registrar of the order, on pain of
being deprived of the order of knighthood.
That, above all things, they would be faithful, courteous, and humble,
and would never be wanting to their word for any harm or loss that
might accrue to them."
It would not do to take these holy principles, or the pageant of
knight-errantry, for a picture of Normandy in general. We can only
remind ourselves with satisfaction that this leaven was working in the
mass of turbulent, vindictive society. The priests worked very hard
to keep their hold upon their people, and the authority of the church
proved equal to many a subtle weakness of faith and quick strain of
disloyalty. We should find it difficult to match the amazing control
of the state by the church in any other country,—even in the most
superstitiously devout epochs. When the priesthood could not make the
Normans promise to keep the peace altogether, they still obtained
an astonishing [Pg165] concession and truce. There was no fighting
from Wednesday evening at sunset until Monday morning at sunrise.
During these five nights and four days no fighting, burning, robbing,
or plundering could go on, though for the three days and two nights
left of the week any violence and crime were not only pardonable, but
allowed. In this Truce of God, not only the days of Christ's Last
Supper, Passion, and Resurrection were to remain undesecrated, but
longer periods of time, such as from the first day of Advent until
the Epiphany, and other holy seasons. If the laws of the Truce were
broken, there were heavy penalties: thirty years' hard penance in
exile for the contrite offender, and he must make reparation for all
the evil he had committed, and repay his debt for all the spoil. If he
died unrepentant, he was denied Christian burial and all the offices
of the church, and his body was given to wild beasts and the fowls of
the air.
To be sure, the more ungodly portion of the citizens fought against
such strict regulations, and called those knights whom the priests
armed, "cits without spirit," and even harder names, but for twelve
years the Truce was kept. The free days for murder and theft were
evidently made the most of, and from what we can discover, it appears
as if the Normans used the Truce days for plotting rather than for
praying. Yet it was plain that the world was getting ready for great
things, and that great emergencies were beginning to make themselves
evident. New ideas were on the wing, and in spite of the despotism of
the church, sometimes by [Pg166] very reason of it, we can see that
men were breaking their intellectual fetters and becoming freer and
wiser. A new order of things was coming in; there was that certain
development of Christian ideas, which reconciles the student of
history in every age to the constant pain and perplexity of watching
misdirected energies and hindering blunders and follies.
"It often happens that popular emotions, however deep and general,
remain barren, just as in the vegetable world many sprouts come to
the surface of the ground, and then die without growing any more or
bearing any fruit. It is not sufficient for the bringing about of
great events and practical results, that popular aspirations should
be merely manifested; it is necessary further that some great soul,
some powerful will, should make itself the organ and agent of the
public sentiment, and bring it to fecundity, by becoming its type—its
personification."[6]
[6] Guizot.
[Illustration: CONFERRING KNIGHTHOOD ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE.]
In the middle of this eleventh century, the time of William the
Conqueror's youth, the opposing elements of Christian knighthood, and
the fighting spirit of the viking blood, were each to find a champion
in the same leader. The young duke's early years were a hard training,
and from his loveless babyhood to his unwept death, he had the bitter
sorrows that belong to the life of a cruel man and much-feared
tyrant. It may seem to be a strange claim to make for William the
Conqueror—that he represented Christian knighthood—but we must
remember that fighting was almost the first duty of [Pg167] man in
those days, and that this greatest of the Norman dukes, with all his
brutality and apparent heartlessness and selfishness, believed in his
church, and kept many of her laws which most of his comrades broke as
a matter of course. We cannot remind ourselves too often that he was a
man of [Pg168] pure life in a most unbridled and immoral age, if we
judge by our present standards of either purity or immorality. There
is always a temptation in reading or writing about people who lived
in earlier times, to rank them according to our own laws of morality
and etiquette, but the first thing to be done is to get a clear
idea of the time in question. The hero of Charlemagne's time or the
Conqueror's may prove any thing but a hero in our eyes, but we must
take him in relation to his own surroundings. The great laws of truth
and justice and kindness remain, while the years come and go; the
promises of God endure, but while there is, as one may say, a common
law of heavenly ordering, there are also the various statute laws that
vary with time and place, and these forever change as men change, and
the light of civilization burns brighter and clearer.
In William the Conqueror's lifetime, every landed gentleman fortified
his house against his neighbors, and even made a secure and loathsome
prison in his cellar for their frequent accommodation. This seems
inhospitable, to say the least, and gives a tinge of falseness to such
tender admonitions as prevailed in regard to charity and treatment of
wayfarers. Yet every rich man was ambitious to go down to fame as a
benefactor of the church; all over Normandy and Brittany there was a
new growth of religious houses, and those of an earlier date, which
had lain in ruins since the Northmen's time, were rebuilt with pious
care. There appears to have been a new awakening of religious interest
in the year 1000, which lasted late into the century. There was a
[Pg169] surprising fear and anticipation of the end of the world,
which led to a vast number of penitential deeds of devotion, and it
was the same during the two or three years after 1030, at the close of
the life of King Robert of France.
Normandy and all the neighboring countries were scourged by even worse
plagues than the feudal wars. The drought was terrible, and the famine
which followed desolated the land everywhere. The trees and fields
were scorched and shrivelled, and the poor peasants fought with the
wild beasts for dead bodies that had fallen by the roadside and in the
forests. Sometimes men killed their comrades for very hunger, like
wolves. There was no commerce which could supply the failure of one
country's crops with the overflow of another's at the other side of
the world, but at last the rain fell in France, and the misery was
ended. A thousand votive offerings were made for very thankfulness,
for again the people had expected the end of the world, and it had
seemed most probable that such an arid earth should be near its final
burning and desolation.
In the towns, under ordinary circumstances, there was a style of
living that was almost luxurious. The Normans were skilful architects,
and not only their minsters and monasteries, but their houses
too, were fit for such proud inhabitants, and rich with hangings
and comfortable furnishings. The women were more famous than ever
for needlework, some of it most skilful in design, and the great
tapestries are yet in existence that were hung, partly for warmth's
sake, about the stone walls of the castles. [Pg170] Sometimes the
noble ladies who sat at home while their lords went out to the wars,
worked great pictures on these tapestries of various events of family
history, and these family records of battles and gallant bravery by
land and sea are most interesting now for their costume and color,
beside their corroboration of historical traditions.
We have drifted away, in this chapter, from William the Conqueror
himself, but I believe that we know more about the Normandy which
he was to govern, and can better understand his ambitions, his
difficulties, and his successes. A country of priests and soldiers,
of beautiful women and gallant men; a social atmosphere already
alive with light, gayety, and brightness, but swayed with pride and
superstition, with worldliness and austerity; loyal to Rome, greedy
for new territory, the feudal lords imperious masters of complaining
yet valiant serfs; racked everywhere by civil feuds and petty wars and
instinctive jealousies of French and foreign blood—this was Normandy.
The Englishmen come and go and learn good manners and the customs of
chivalry, England herself is growing rich and stupid, for Harthacnut
had introduced a damaging custom of eating four great meals a day,
and his subjects had followed the fashion, though that king himself
had died of it and of his other habit of drinking all night long with
merry companions. [Pg171]
[Illustration]
IX.
ACROSS THE CHANNEL.
"———————————————One decree
Spake laws to them, and said that, by the soul
Only, the nations should be great and free."
—WORDSWORTH.
It is time to take a closer look at England and at the shameful
degradations of Æthelred's time. The inroads of the Danes read like
the early history of Normandy, and we must take a step backward in
the condition of civilization when we cross to the other side of
the Channel. There had been great changes since Ælfred's wise and
prosperous reign, or even since the time of Æthelred's predecessor,
Eadgar, who was rowed in his royal-barge at Chester by eight of his
vassal kings—Kenneth of Scots, Malcolm of Cumberland, Maccus of the
Isles, and five Welsh monarchs. The lord of Britain was gracious
enough to do the steering for so noble a company of oarsmen, and it
was considered the proudest day that ever had shone upon an English
king.
We must remind ourselves of the successive waves of humanity which
had overspread England in past ages, leaving traces of each like
less evident geologic [Pg172] strata. From the stone and bronze age
people, through the Celts with their Pictish and Scottish remnant,
through the Roman invasion, and the Saxon, more powerful and enduring
than any from our point of view, we may trace a kinship to our Normans
across the water. But the English descendants of Celts, Danes, Angles,
Saxons, and Jutes needed to feel a new influence and refreshing of
their better instincts by way of Normandy.
Perhaps each one of the later rulers of Britain thought he had fallen
upon as hard and stormy times and had as much responsibility as
anybody who ever wielded a sceptre, but in the reign of the second
Æthelred, there are much greater dramas being played, and we feel,
directly we get a hint of it, as children do who have been loitering
among petty side-shows on their way to a great play. Here come the
Danes again, the kings of Denmark and the whole population of Norway
one would think, to read the records, and this time they attack
England with such force and determination that within less than forty
years a Danish king is master of Britain.
If Æthelred had been a better man this might never have happened, but
among all the Saxon kings he seems to have been the worst—thoroughly
bad, weak, cowardly, and cruel. He was sure to do things he had better
have left alone, and to neglect his plain duty. Other kings had fallen
on as hard, perplexing times as he, but they had been strong enough
to keep some sort of control of themselves at any rate. Dunstan the
archbishop warned the [Pg173] people, when Æthelred was crowned, that
they had no idea of the trouble that was coming, and through the whole
reign things went from bad to worse. Dreadful things happened which
we can hardly blame the silly king for—like a plague among cattle,
and the burning of London in 982; and a few years afterward there was
a terrible invasion of the Norwegians, and we have seen that aid and
comfort were ready for them over in Bayeux and the pirate cities of
Normandy.
Now we first hear of the Danegelt, great sums of money, always
doubling and increasing, that were paid the Northmen as bribes to go
away and leave England in peace. The paying of this Danegelt became
a greater load than the nation could carry, for the pirates liked
nothing better than to gather a great fleet of ships every few months
and come to anchor off the coast, sending a messenger to make the
highwayman's favorite request, your money or your life! One of the
first sums boldly demanded of Æthelred's aldermen was ten thousand
pounds. We can see how rapidly the wealth of England had increased,
for in Ælfred's time the fine for killing a king was a hundred and
twenty shillings, and this was considered a great sum of money; the
penalty for taking a peasant's life was only five shillings, which
makes us understand, without any doubt, the scarceness and value of
money. Here are some extracts from the English chronicle, which had
been kept since Bede's time and for many years after this, which will
show how miserably every thing was going on: [Pg174]
1001. "The army [the Danes of course] went over the land and did as
was their wont. Slew and burned ... it was sad in every way for they
never ceased from their evil."
1002. "In this year the king and his witan resolved, that tribute
would be paid and peace made with them, on condition that they should
cease from their evil." This they accepted and were paid, £24,000.
1006. "At midwinter the Winchester folk might see an insolent and
fearless army as they went by their gate to the sea, and fetched
them food and treasure over fifty miles from the sea. Then was there
so great awe of the army that no one could think or devise how they
should be driven from the country. Every shire in Wessex had they
cruelly marked with burning and with harrying. The king began then
with his witan earnestly to consider what might seem most advisable to
them all, so that the country might be protected ere it were at last
undone." This time the tribute was £36,000, and another time the ships
put to sea with a Danegelt of £48,000.
England grew more and more miserable and shamefully unable to defend
herself, the captains of her fleet were incapable or treacherous, and
at last, when some of the ships had been wrecked and there had been
some sad disasters at sea, the chronicle has a more despairing tone
than ever. "It was as if all counsel had come to an end," the writer
says, "and the king and aldermen and all the high witan went home, and
let the toil of all the nation lightly perish." [Pg175]
Æthelred the Unready won for himself, in his reign of thirty-eight
years, the hearty contempt and distrust of all his people. There
is a temptation to blame him for the misery of England, and to
attribute it all to his faults and to the low aims and standards of
his character, to his worthless ambitions. But, in a general way,
the great men, or notorious men of history, who stand out before a
dim and half-forgotten background, are only typical of their time
and representative of it. One very good man, or bad man, cannot be
absolutely a single specimen of his kind; there must be others who
rank with him, and who have been his upholders and influencers. So
while the story of any nation is in its early chapters, and seems to
be merely an account of one ruler or statesman after another, we must
not forget that each symbolized his day and generation,—a brave leader
of a brave race, or a dull or placid or serene representative of a
secure, inactive age.
Although there was blundering enough and treachery in Æthelred's
reign, there was a splendid exception in the victories and
steadfastness of the city of London, which was unsuccessfully attacked
again and again by the Danes. The heathen, as the English called their
enemies, were lucky in their two leaders, the king of Norway, and the
king of Denmark. Olaf, the first-named, was converted after a while,
and going from the islands of Orkney to England, he was baptized
there, and the English bishops were very kind to him, and Æthelred
gave him some presents, and made him promise that he would not come
plundering to England any more. [Pg176] We are quite surprised to
hear that the promise was kept. Swegen the Dane promised too, but he
appeared again after a while, and Æthelred thought he would improve
upon the fashion of paying Danegelt by ordering a general massacre of
all the Danes instead. Afterward somebody tried to excuse such a piece
of barbarianism by saying that the Danes had plotted against the king,
but even if they had, Æthelred showed a wretched spirit. It was a time
of peace, but he sent secret messengers all through the country, and
as the English were only too glad to carry out such orders, there was
a terrible slaughter of men, women, and children.
Next year Swegen came back to avenge the wrong, all the more readily
because his own sister and her husband and son were among the
murdered, and the poor woman had made a prophecy, as she fell, dying,
that misery and vengeance should fall upon the English for their
sins. For a long time afterward the Danes were very fierce and kept
England in fear and disorder. Once they laid siege to Canterbury, and
when it had fallen into their hands they demanded Danegelt from the
Archbishop, a very good old man. He had a heart full of pity for his
poor people already so abominably taxed and oppressed in every way,
and was brave enough to squarely refuse, so the Danes slew him with
horrible torture; one might tell many such stories of the cruelty and
boldness of the invaders. Æthelred was perfectly helpless or else
cowardly and indifferent, and presently Swegen, who had gone back
to the North returned with a great fleet and a swarm of followers,
[Pg177] and not long afterward he conquered every sort of opposition,
even that of the brave Londoners, and was proclaimed king of England.
Here was a change indeed! the silly Saxon king and his wife and
children fled across the sea to Normandy, and Swegen sat upon the
throne. He began to reign in splendid state; he had the handsomest
ships afloat, all decked out with figures of men and birds and beasts
wrought in silver and amber and gold, and fine decorations of every
sort. No doubt he had made fine plans and meant to do great deeds, but
he died suddenly within a very short time, and the people believed he
was frightened to death by a vision.
Æthelred was in Normandy at the court of Richard the Fearless. You
remember that Richard's sister Emma went over to England to marry
the unready king. Æthelred had one older son, Eadmund Ironside,
beside the two boys who were Emma's children, and the hearts of the
English turned to their old king, and at last they sent for him to
come back, in spite of his faults. He made many fine promises, and
seems to have done a great deal better most of the time during the
last two years that he lived. Perhaps he had taken some good lessons
from the Norman court. But Cnut, Swegen's son, came back to England,
just before he died, as fearless as a hawk, and led his men from one
victory to another, and Æthelred faded out of life to everybody's
relief. When he was dead at last, the witan chose Cnut for king in
his stead, but the Londoners, who were rich and strong, and who hated
the Danes bitterly—the Londoners would have none of the pirates to
[Pg178] reign over them, and elected young Eadmund Ironside, a valiant
soldier and loyal-hearted fellow who feared nothing and was ready to
dare every thing. The two young kings were well matched and fought six
great battles, in most of which Ironside gained the advantage, but
at last the Danes beat him back—and though everybody was ready for a
seventh battle, the witan showed their wisdom for once and forbade any
more fighting, and somehow managed to proclaim peace. The young kings
treated each other most generously, and called each other brother, and
were very cordial and good-natured. They agreed to divide the kingdom,
so that Eadmund Ironside had all England south of the Thames—East
Anglia and Essex and London. Cnut took all the northern country and
owned Eadmund for his over-lord, but within the year Cnut reigned
alone. Eadmund died suddenly—some say that he was murdered, and some
that he had worn himself out with his tremendous activity and anxiety.
It is a great temptation to follow out the story of such a man, and
especially because he lived in such an important time, but we must
hurry now to the point where Norman and English history can be told
together, and only stop to explain such things as will make us able to
understand and take sides in the alliance of the two vigorous, growing
nations.
[Illustration: KING CNUT.
(From the Register of Hyde Abbey.)]
Cnut's life, too, is endlessly interesting. He began by behaving like
a pirate, and the latter part of his reign was a great reform and a
very comfortable time for England, so scarred and spoiled by war. In
the beginning there was a great question about [Pg179] the kingship.
In those days it was a matter of great importance that the king should
be able to rule and able to fight, and the best and most powerful
member of the royal family was the proper one to choose. The English
for a long time had elected their kings, and Cnut, though he held half
the country, was very careful not to seize the rest by force. We
[Pg180] watch with great interest his wielding of rude politics before
the witan; he called them into council and laid his claim before them.
Eadmund Ironside had left two little sons, but nobody thought of their
being his successors. Indeed Cnut showed a great fear of the royal
family, and took care that his rivals should be disposed of; he knew
that the witan and everybody else were tired of the everlasting war
and bloodshed. He was fierce and downright in his demands, and in
the end the heirs of Ironside were all passed over—the Athelings or
princes were all set aside, and Cnut the Dane was king of England.
Ironside's brother, Eadwy, of whom the best things are said, was
outlawed, and died within a few months under very suspicious
circumstances. The two little boys, Ironside's sons, were sent out of
the country to Cnut's half-brother, the king of Sweden, with orders
that they should be put out of the way. The king felt such pity for
the innocent children, that he sent them away to Hungary instead of
having them murdered. The Hungarian king, Stephen, was a saint and a
hero, and he was very kind to the poor exiles, and brought them up
carefully. One died young, but we shall hear again about the other.
Cnut did a very surprising thing next. He sent for Queen Emma to come
back again from the Norman court to marry him. She must have been a
good deal older than he, but she was still a beautiful woman, and
marked with the famous Norman dignity and grace. Cnut promised that if
they should ever have a son born, he should be the next [Pg181] king
of England. Emma's two elder sons, Ælfred and Eadward, were left in
Normandy, and there they grew up quite apart from their mother, and
thinking much more of their Norman descent and belonging than of their
English heritage.