The King and his lords marched southwards through Sussex, boasting
themselves lords of the land, and very much doubting whether Earl Simon
would dare to follow them, and meet them in the open field. At Flimwell
the King put to death certain of the country folk who had surprised and
slain some of his people in the woods. Already many of the rough troops
in Henry’s service had begun to grumble at the emptiness of the land
through which they marched, for they had had but little pillaging to
keep them in a good humour, no great cellars to drain dry, no towns to
trifle with. The King, being a generous man where other folks’ coffers
were concerned, as he had proved in the Sicilian farce, turned royal
pimp and purveyor to his army. The Abbey of Robertsbridge lay in their
path, and Henry let his men loose to plunder the place, and despoiled
the monks still further by making them pay heavy ransom for their lives.
The news of the sacking of Robertsbridge came to Abbot Reginald five
miles away at Battle, and though he may have rejoiced over the humbling
of a rival, he was warned by his brother Abbot’s flaying, and made haste
to appear loyal. The Cistercians of Robertsbridge had been shrewd and
greedy neighbours, and had snatched manors and land that might have
fallen to the children of St. Benedict. Grants in Pett, Guestling,
Icklesham, Playden, and Iden, and also lands in Snargate, Worth,
Combden, Sedlescombe, and Ewhurst, showed that there had been cause for
jealousy between the two. Reginald of Brecon may have had some thought
of a possible transference of land from the Cistercians to his own
“house.” To show his loyalty he called out his tenants, and marched out
in state as a war lord to meet the King, carrying presents with him, and
wearing a mild and pliant manner. Riding back beside the King he spoke
sadly of the poverty of St. Martin, and how the Pope’s perquisitions and
pilferings had emptied his treasure-chest. The King should have had it,
had he not pledged much of the Abbey plate to the Jews, but his sweet
lord was wholly welcome to such food and drink as could be got together.
Abbot Reginald’s presents were perilously mean, and were not to be
bulked out by pompous language. Even then, his discretion might not have
miscarried but for the over anxious zeal of that cunning fox, Dom
Silvius. The almoner had bleated a “gaudeamus” over the humbling of the
Cistercian upstarts at Robertsbridge. He had sought an audience of Abbot
Reginald before the monks met in the chapter house, and had put forward
the plan that his superior actually accepted. It might be possible to
follow the middle path, pay little, and make some profits, and at least
escape from being robbed. Silvius took upon himself the secret burying
of the Abbey treasure, and Silvius’s zeal for St. Martin was so
notorious that none of the brethren quarrelled with his energy.
Battle that night was like a garden smothered in locusts, so thick was
the swarm of armed men, servants, vagabonds, mules and horses. Henry,
Prince Edward, the King of the Romans, and the great lords were lodged
in the Abbey, and dined in state in the abbot’s hall. Swarthy,
swaggering men were everywhere, crowding and jostling, poking their
noses into every corner of the five boroughs, kissing the women, and
taking the food and drink that the monks and burghers surrendered to
them for the blessing of peace and piety. Troops crowded the gardens,
the orchards, and the Abbot’s park. And though some measure of order
reigned, the atmosphere was surcharged with thunder, Reginald and his
people feeling themselves like Roman provincials at the mercy of a host
of Huns.
In the thick of all this sultriness Dom Silvius must needs discover that
some of the reliquaries had been left in the Abbey church. Silvius soon
had the sacristan by the girdle, protesting fervently that the
reliquaries must be saved from possible sacrilege, and buried with the
rest of the Abbey treasure. Silvius played the part of a mad miser and
busybody that night. He had spades brought, and sneaked out into the
darkness with the sacristan and two of the younger brothers at his
heels.
It so happened that Dom Silvius spoilt the whole plot by being over
anxious for the property of St. Martin. Some of Comyn’s Scotch soldiers,
slinking about for anything to thieve, caught the monks burying the
reliquaries in a piece of garden ground beyond the great _garde-robe_.
The Scotchmen were quick to scent a trick, collared Silvius and his
comrades, brought torches and tools, and set to work on their own
authority. Not only did they discover two of the reliquaries that had
been buried, but struck their spades on the whole of the Abbey treasure
that had been hidden in a pit. Scotchmen, monks, treasure, torches, and
all went in a whirl to the great hall where the King was dining. And
Abbot Reginald hid his face in a flagon when he saw Silvius dragged in,
spitting like a furious cat.
The King’s eyes were not pleasant to behold. He had the “merry-thought”
of a chicken in his hand, and was scraping the flesh from it with a
silver knife. He looked attentively at the treasure that Comyn’s men
tumbled on the floor below the dais. Then he broke the “merry-thought”
in two, and folding the pieces in his fist, bade Reginald choose his
lot.
Reginald of Brecon pulled out the shorter of the two. The King laughed,
a dry cackle that was ominous.
“The shorter the bone, the shorter the shrift, gentlemen,” he said. “We
will take care of this treasure for you, my lord Abbot. As for the
cellars, storehouses, burgher tenements, and all such belongings, we
make a night’s gift of them to those who thirst and hunger.”
There was loud laughter, and a babel of voices. The flushed gentry at
the table shouted “God strengthen the King.” One monk alone was mad
enough to throw himself between St. Martin and the pleasantry of the
royal spite, and that monk was Dom Silvius.
He broke loose, and rushed with furious and stuttering face to the high
table, brandishing his cross, fanatical as any Egyptian hermit out of
the desert.
“Spoiler of the houses of God!”
The bacon was following the fat into the fire. Abbot Reginald, good man,
lost patience, and threw his platter in Silvius’s face.
Silvius, with a gobbet of gravy on his nose, looked comic enough, but
still burnt like a Telemachus.
“God shall revenge sacrilege! Let the curse of St. Martin——”
Someone from behind took him by the collar, and twisted a fist into the
folds till Silvius was in danger of being choked.
The King lay back in his chair and laughed.
“Take the prophet away, and let him be washed,” he said. “By the heart
of King Richard, I have no use to-night for an Elijah!”
In this way it came about that Dom Silvius took a ride on the back of an
ass, with his feet lashed under the beast’s belly, and a dirty pot
forced down over his ears. The mob pelted Silvius with stones and offal
till he was a mere image covered with blood and dirt. Comyn’s Scots had
the privilege of bringing the martyrdom to an end. They took Silvius
from the back of the ass, and carrying him into the place where the
treasure had been buried, pitched him into the _garde-robe_ drain, and
so left him.
Silvius’s blundering had, however, a grimmer significance, for it
brought upon the Abbey and the town that straggled about it the same
fate that had befallen the despised Cistercians. The King had given the
place over to plunder, and it was at the mercy of the rough soldiery who
were doubly insolent with the fumes of mead and wine. The folk of the
borough of Battle might well have cursed Silvius and the Abbey treasure,
for the devil was let loose among them that May night.
Nor did the darkness hide the violence and the horror, for the very
furniture was thrown out into the street and piled up amid the faggots
to help the bonfires that lit the sport of war. Women and children fled
like frightened birds into the darkness, and were thrice blessed if they
were not caught, and held. The gaudy queans who had followed the army
played King of the Castle on the high altar of the church, pulling each
other down by the skirts, shouting, and tumbling over one another on the
steps. Drunken men burst in the door of the bell tower, and set all the
bells clanging in huge discords. Others caught the monks, and made them
race naked round the cloisters, whipping them with their girdles to make
them nimble.
Gaillard and some of his fellows had come by a cask of wine, and
Gaillard had Black Isoult, Marpasse’s comrade, under his arm, and was
well content with the lady. They needed a house for a night’s revel, and
chose one in the main street, a stone house that joined a forge.
Gaillard’s men broke down the door, while their captain held a torch,
and Isoult sat on the wine cask, laughing.
When the door gave way they were met in the dark entry by a virago with
a hatchet, none other than Bridget, the smith’s wife, who had stormed
against Denise. The men fell back from her, but Isoult showed herself
more valiant, and quite a match for the lady.
“Make way, Gammer Goodbody,” she said, “make way for the red gown.”
Bridget answered her with an oath, and a word that was too familiar to
Isoult’s ears.
The little woman’s black eyes sparkled with spite.
“Here is a respectable slut,” she said, “who has not learnt to kiss the
foot of a lady.”
And she cut Bridget across the forearm with her knife, so that the
smith’s wife dropped her hatchet.
Gaillard sent his men in, and they overpowered the woman. But Isoult
would not let them harm her. Her own spirit of wickedness was equal to
taming the big shrew.
She made them cut off Bridget’s hair, dress her in some of her man’s
clothes, tie a lamb’s skin under her chin, and truss her with her hands
fastened to her ankles. Then while she drank wine with Gaillard and made
merry, seated on a bench, her red gown the colour of freshly shed blood,
she had Bridget rolled across the floor and propped up near her like a
sick duck. Isoult made a mock of the smith’s wife that night because of
the thing she had called her, asking her where her marriage lines were,
and why her man had not come home. Sometimes she threw the dregs from
her ale horn into Bridget’s face, and called her a she-goat and a
rabbit. Bridget still had the courage to curse back again, though her
tongue was less clever than Isoult’s. But when Isoult took a burning
stick from the fire, and began to singe Dame Bridget’s stockings, the
woman took to screaming, and pleaded for pity.
So Dom Silvius let the devil loose in Battle, and the memory of that
night lingered for many a long day.
As for Isoult’s comrade Marpasse, she and Denise had come to Grinstead
amid the woods, and were lodged in the house of a woman who fed swine
and kept a wayside inn. At Grinstead they heard the news that Earl Simon
and the Barons’ host had left London with fifteen thousand burghers to
swell their ranks, and were on the march to deal with the King. The army
would pass not far from Grinstead, so said the woman of the inn, and
Marpasse and Denise took counsel together and put their plans in order.
“Love carries the sword,” said Marpasse, and laughed and kissed Denise.
“I can never look him in the face again.”
“Bah, grey goose! There will be wounds to be healed. A woman’s hands are
useful when the trumpets are hoarse and tired.”