 | The knights of England, France, and Scotland |  |
THE FAITH OF WOMAN.
A woman, and a dog — where once their love is set!”
— Old MS.
It was the morning after the exterminating fight at Hastings.
The banner blessed of the Roman pontiff streamed on the tainted
air, from the same hillock whence the dragon standard of
the Saxons had shone unconquered to the sun of yester-even!
Hard by was pitched the proud pavilion of the conqueror, who,
after the tremendous strife and perilous labors of the preceding
day, reposed himself in fearless and untroubled confidence upon
the field of his renown; secure in the possession of the land,
which he was destined to transmit to his posterity for many a
hundred years, by the red title of the sword.
To the defeated Saxons, morning, however, brought but a
renewal of those miseries which, having yesterday commenced
with the first victory of their Norman lords, were never to conclude,
or even to relax, until the complete amalgamation of the
rival races should leave no Normans to torment, no Saxons to
endure; all being merged at last into one general name of
English, and by their union giving origin to the most powerful,
and brave, and intellectual people, the world has ever looked
upon since the extinction of Rome's freedom.
At the time of which we are now speaking, nothing was
the necks of the unhappy natives their yoke of iron; nothing
by the poor, subjugated Saxons, but how to escape for the moment
the unrelenting massacre which was urged far and wide
by the remorseless conquerors throughout the devastated country.
With the defeat of Harold's host, all national hope of
freedom was at once lost to England. Though, to a man, the
English population were brave and loyal, and devoted to their
country's rights, the want of leaders — all having perished side
by side on that disastrous field — of combination, without which
myriads are but dust in the scale against the force of one united
handful — rendered them quite unworthy of any serious fears,
and even of consideration, to the bloodthirsty barons of the invading
army. Over the whole expanse of level country which
might be seen from the slight elevation whereon was pitched
the camp of William, on every side might be descried small
parties of the Norman horse, driving in with their bloody lances,
as if they were mere cattle, the unhappy captives; a few of
whom they now began to spare, not from the slightest sentiment
of mercy, but literally that their arms were weary with
the task of slaying, although their hearts were yet insatiate of
blood.
It must be taken now into consideration by those who listen
with dismay and wonder to the accounts of pitiless barbarity —
of ruthless, indiscriminating slaughter on the part of men whom
they have hitherto been taught to look upon as brave indeed as
lions in the field, but not partaking of the lion's nature after
the field was won — not only that the seeds of enmity had long
been sown between those rival people, but that the deadly crop
of hatred had grown up, watered abundantly by the tears and
blood of either; and, lastly, that the fierce fanaticism of religious
persecution was added to the natural rancor of a war
waged for the ends of conquest or extermination. The Saxon
beneath his banner, or buckled on the arms of liberty, were all
involved under the common ban of the pope's interdict. They
were accursed of God, and handed over by his holy church to
the kind mercies of the secular arm; and therefore, though but
yesterday they were a powerful and united nation, to-day they
were but a vile horde of scattered outlaws, whom any man
might slay wherever he should find them, whether in arms or
otherwise — amenable for blood neither to any mortal jurisdiction,
nor even to the ultimate tribunal to which all must submit
hereafter, unless deprived of their appeal like these poor fugitives,
by excommunication from the pale of Christianity. For
thirty miles around the Norman camp, pillars of smoke by day,
continually streaming upward to the polluted heaven, and the
red glare of nightly conflagration, told fatally the doom of many
a happy home! Neither the castle nor the cottage might preserve
their male inhabitants from the sword's edge, their females
from more barbarous persecution. Neither the sacred
hearth of hospitality nor the more sacred altars of God's churches
might protect the miserable fugitives; neither the mail-shirt of
the man-at-arms nor the monk's frock of serge availed against
the thrust of the fierce Norman spear. All was dismay and
havoc, such as the land wherein those horrors were enacted has
never witnessed since, through many a following age.
High noon approached, and in the conqueror's tent a gorgeous
feast was spread. The red wine flowed profusely, and
song and minstrelsy arose with their heart-soothing tones, to
which the feeble groans of dying wretches bore a dread burden
from the plain whereon they still lay struggling in their great
agonies, too sorely maimed to live, too strong as yet to die.
But, ever and anon, their wail waxed feebler and less frequent;
for many a plunderer was on foot, licensed to ply his odious
calling in the full light of day — reaping his first if not his richest
fared the wretches who lay there, untended by the hand of love
or mercy, “scorched by the death-thirst, and writhing in vain;”
but worse fared they who showed a sign of life to the relentless
robbers of the dead, for then the dagger — falsely called that of
mercy — was the dispenser of immediate immortality. The
conqueror sat at his triumphant board, and barons drank his
health: “First English monarch, of the pure blood of Normandy!”
— “King by the right of the sword's edge!” — “Great,
glorious, and sublime!” Yet was not his heart softened, nor
was his bitter hate toward the unhappy prince who had so often
ridden by his side in war, and feasted at the same board with
him in peace, relinquished or abated. Even while the feast
was at the highest, while every heart was jocund and sublime,
a trembling messenger approached, craving on bended knee
permission to address the conqueror and king — for so he was
already schooled by brief but hard experience to style the devastator
of his country.
“Speak out, Dog Saxon!” cried the ferocious prince; “but
since thou must speak, see that thy speech be brief, an' thou
wouldst keep thy tongue uncropped thereafter!”
“Great duke and mighty,” replied the trembling envoy, “I
bear you greeting from Elgitha, herewhile the noble wife of
Godwin, the queenly mother of our late monarch — now, as she
bade me style her, the humblest of your suppliants and slaves.
Of your great nobleness and mercy, mighty king, she sues you,
that you will grant her the poor leave to search amid the heaps
of those our Saxon dead, that her three sons may at least lie in
consecrated earth — so may God send you peace and glory
here, and everlasting happiness hereafter!”
“Hear to the Saxon slave!” William exclaimed, turning as
if in wonder toward his nobles; “hear to the Saxon slave, that
dares to speak of consecrated earth, and of interment for the
Hence! tell the mother of the dead dog, whom you have dared
to style your king, that for the interdicted and accursed dead
the sands of the seashore are but too good a sepulchre!”
“She bade me proffer humbly to your acceptance the weight
of Harold's body in pure gold,” faintly gasped forth the terrified
and cringing messenger, “so you would grant her that permission.”
“Proffer us gold! what gold, or whose? Know, villain, all
the gold throughout this conquered realm is ours. Hence, dog
and outcast, hence! nor presume e'er again to come, insulting
us by proffering, as a boon to our acceptance, that which we
own already, by the most indefeasible and ancient right of conquest!
— Said I not well, knights, vavasours, and nobles?”
“Well! well and nobly!” answered they, one and all. “The
land is ours, and all that therein is: their dwellings, their demesnes,
their wealth, whether of gold, or silver, or of cattle —
yea, they themselves are ours! themselves, their sons, their
daughters, and their wives — our portion and inheritance, to be
our slaves for ever!”
“Begone! you have our answer,” exclaimed the duke, spurning
him with his foot; “and hark ye, arbalast-men and archers,
if any Saxon more approach us on like errand, see if his coat
of skin be proof against the quarrel of the shaft!”
And once again the feast went on; and louder rang the revelry,
and faster flew the wine-cup, round the tumultuous board.
All day the banquet lasted, even till the dews of heaven fell on
that fatal field, watered sufficiently already by the rich gore of
many a noble heart. All day the banquet lasted, and far was
it prolonged into the watches of the night; when, rising with
the wine-cup in his hand — “Nobles and barons,” cried the
duke, “friends, comrades, conquerors, bear witness to my vow!
Here, on these heights of Hastings, and more especially upon
and where our last foe fell — there will I raise an abbey to HIS
eternal praise and glory. Richly endowed, it shall be, from the
first fruits of this our land. Battle, it shall be called, to send
the memory of this, the great and singular achievement of our
race, to far posterity; and, by the splendor of our God, wine shall
be plentier among the monks of Battle, than water in the noblest
and richest cloister else, search the world over! This
do I swear: so may God aid, who hath thus far assisted us for
our renown, and will not now deny his help, when it be asked
for his own glory!”
The second day dawned on the place of horror, and not a
Saxon had presumed, since the intolerant message of the duke,
to come to look upon his dead. But now the ground was
needed whereon to lay the first stone of the abbey William had
vowed to God. The ground was needed; and, moreover, the
foul steam from the human shambles was pestilential on the
winds of heaven. And now, by trumpet-sound, and proclamation
through the land, the Saxons were called forth, on pain of
death, to come and seek their dead, lest the health of the conquerors
should suffer from the pollution they themselves had
wrought. Scarce had the blast sounded, and the glad tidings
been announced once only, ere from their miserable shelters,
where they had herded with the wild beasts of the forest —
from wood, morass, and cavern, happy if there they might escape
the Norman spear — forth crept the relics of that persecuted
race. Old men and matrons, with hoary heads, and steps
that tottered no less from the effect of terror than of age —
maidens, and youths, and infants — too happy to obtain permission
to search amid those festering heaps, dabbling their hands
in the corrupt and pestilential gore which filled each nook and
hollow of the dinted soil, so they might bear away, and water
with their tears, and yield to consecrated ground, the relics of
It was toward the afternoon of that same day, when a
long train was seen approaching, with crucifix, and cross, and
censer — the monks of Waltham abbey, coming to offer homage
for themselves, and for their tenantry and vassals, to him whom
they acknowledged as their king; expressing their submission
to the high will of the Norman pontiff — justified, as they said,
and proved by the assertion of God's judgment upon the hill of
Hastings. Highly delighted by this absolute submission, the
first he had received from any English tongue, the conqueror
received the monks with courtesy and favor, granting them high
immunities, and promising them free protection, and the unquestioned
tenor of their broad demesnes for ever. Nay, after he had
answered their address, he detained two of their number — men
of intelligence, as with his wonted quickness of perception he
instantly discovered — from whom to derive information as to
the nature of his newly-acquired country and newly-conquered
subjects. Osgad and Ailric, the deputed messengers from the
respected principal of their community, had yet a further and
higher object than to tender their submission to the conqueror.
Their orders were, at all and every risk, to gain permission to
consign the corpse of their late king and founder to the earth
previously denied to him. And soon, emboldened by the courtesy
and kindness of the much-dreaded Norman, they took courage
to approach the subject, knowing it interdicted, even on
pain of death; and, to their wonder and delight, it was unhesitatingly
granted.
Throughout the whole of the third day succeeding that unparalleled
defeat and slaughter, those old men might be seen
toiling among the naked carcasses, disfigured, maimed, and festering
in the sun, toiling to find the object of their devoted veneration.
But vain were all their labors — vain was their search,
even when they called in the aid of his most intimate attendants,
his brethren, Leofwyn and Gurth, were soon discovered; but
not one eye, even of those who had most dearly loved him,
could now distinguish the maimed features of the king.
At last, when hope itself was now almost extinct, some one
named Edith — Edith the Swan-necked! She had been the
mistress — years ere he had been, or dreamed of being, king —
to the brave son of Godwin. She had beloved him in her youth
with that one, single-minded, constant, never-ending love, which
but few, even of her devoted sex, can feel, and they but once,
and for one cherished object. Deserted and dishonored when
he she loved was elevated to the throne, she had not ceased
from her true adoration; but, quitting her now-joyless home,
had shared her heart between her memories and her God, in
the sequestered cloisters of the nunnery of Croyland. More
days elapsed ere she could reach the fatal spot, and the increased
corruption denied the smallest hope of his discovery:
yet, from the moment when the mission was named to her, she
expressed her full and confident conviction that she could recognise
that loved one so long as but one hair remained on that
head she had once so cherished! It was night when she arrived
on the fatal field, and by the light of torches once more
they set out on their awful duty. “Show me the spot,” she said,
“where the last warrior fell;” and she was led to the place where
had been found the corpses of his gallant brethren: and, with an
instinct that nothing could deceive, she went straight to the corpse
of Harold! It had been turned already to and fro many times by
those who sought it; his mother had looked on it, and pronounced
it not her son's: but that devoted heart knew it at once — and
broke! Whom rank, and wealth, and honors had divided, defeat
and death made one! — and the same grave contained the cold
remains of Edith the Swan-necked and the last scion of the
Saxon kings of England.
| The knights of England, France, and Scotland | |