Historic Boys: Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times
by Elbridge S. Brooks · English · Gutenberg #27157 · 513,410 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Historic Boys: Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times
Author: Elbridge S. Brooks
Illustrator: Reginald B. Birch
John Schönberg
Release date: November 4, 2008 [eBook #27157]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
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HISTORIC BOYS
Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times.
by
E. S. BROOKS.
Illustrated by R. B. Birch and John Schoenberg.
[Illustration: MARCUS ANNIUS VERUS,
AFTERWARD THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS.
(_From a bust in the Capitoline Museum._)]
[Illustration]
London:
Blackie & Son, 49 & 50 Old Bailey, E.C.
Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dublin.
1886.
[Illustration]
PREFACE.
The world's historic boys and girls have been many. In every age and clime
may be found notable examples of young people who, even before they
reached manhood or womanhood, have--for good or evil--left their impress
on their time.
From these the author of this volume has selected the careers of a dozen
young fellows of different lands and epochs, who, even had they not lived
out their "teens," could have rightly claimed a place in the world's
annals as Historic Boys. They are such also as show that, from the
earliest ages, manliness and self-reliance have ever been the chief
groundwork of character, and that in this respect the boy of the
nineteenth century in no way differs from his brother of the second or the
ninth. To bravely front danger, difficulty, or death, if need be, for
principle or right, is as commendable and as heroic in the boy brought up
amid the surging and restless life of London to-day, as in the lads who
trod the narrow streets of Jerusalem, or Rouen, of Florence, or old Rome
centuries ago.
These stories of boy life, in the stirring days of old, have been based
upon historic facts and prepared with a due regard to historic and
chronologic accuracy. Nine of the twelve stories have already appeared in
_St. Nicholas_ magazine, but these have been revised and amplified for
their present use, while the remaining three were specially prepared for
this volume.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I.--MARCUS OF ROME: THE BOY MAGISTRATE, 1
II.--BRIAN OF MUNSTER: THE BOY CHIEFTAIN, 25
III.--OLAF OF NORWAY: THE BOY VIKING, 44
IV.--WILLIAM OF NORMANDY: THE BOY KNIGHT, 65
V.--BALDWIN OF JERUSALEM: THE BOY CRUSADER, 83
VI.--FREDERICK OF HOHENSTAUFEN: THE BOY EMPEROR, 104
VII.--HARRY OF MONMOUTH: THE BOY GENERAL, 126
VIII.--GIOVANNI OF FLORENCE: THE BOY CARDINAL, 154
IX.--IXTLIL' OF TEZCUCO: THE BOY CACIQUE, 178
X.--LOUIS OF BOURBON: THE BOY KING, 196
XI.--CHARLES OF SWEDEN: THE BOY CONQUEROR, 218
XII.--VAN RENSSELAER OF RENSSELAERSWYCK: THE BOY PATROON, 242
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Marcus Annius Verus, afterwards Emperor, from a bust in
the Capitoline Museum, _Frontispiece_
Roman Lictors, 7
Annia, the Sister of Marcus, and her pets, 20
"The boy chieftain knelt and kissed the hem of the darling
little maiden's purple robe," 36
The Castle of Falaise--Birthplace of William the Conqueror, 70
"'So, hollo, my lord duke,' said Hubert, 'what taketh thee
abroad in this guise so early?'" 77
"'Thou the king!' he exclaimed; 'thou that Baldwin of
Jerusalem whom men do call the hero of the Jordan!'" 88
Conrad the Emperor quitting the Crusade, 101
"'Cross at thy peril, Baron Kapparon,' cried Frederick of
Hohenstaufen," 108
Prince Henry picks up the gage of the Percies'
defiance.--"'This shall be my duty,' he said," 140
Hualpilli the Lord of Tezcuco reveals himself,--"'Now who
shall say me nay?' he asked," 184
"I'll make them rue their words ere this day's sun cross
the dome of the Smoking Hill," 190
Cradle of Charles the boy King of Sweden, 219
Eagle Flag of Sweden, 237
"'Suppawn and malck and rulliches, with chocolate and soft
waffles, you know,' said Mistress Margery," 252
"The throng of tenants greeted him with a rousing
birthday cheer," 256
[Illustration]
HISTORIC BOYS.
I.
MARCUS OF ROME: THE BOY MAGISTRATE.
(_Afterward the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus._)
[A.D. 137.]
A perfect autumn day. Above, the clear sky of Italy; below, a grassy
plain, sloping gently down from the brown cliffs and ruined ramparts of
old Veii--the city of the ancient Tuscan kings. In the background, under
the shade of the oaks, a dozen waiting attendants; and here, in the open
space before us, three trim and sturdy Roman youths, all flushed with the
exercise of a royal game of ball. Come, boys and girls of to-day, go back
with me seventeen and a half centuries, and join the dozen lookers-on as
they follow this three-cornered game of ball. They call it the _trigon_.
It is a favorite ball-game with the Roman youth, in which the three
players, standing as if on a right-angled triangle, pitch and catch the
ball, or _pila_, at long distances and with the left hand only. It is not
so easy as you may think. Try it some time and see for yourself.
"This way--toss it this way, Aufidius; our good Sejus will need more
lessons from old Trimalchio, the gladiator, ere he outranks us at
_trigon_."
And with a quick but guarded dash of the left hand the speaker caught the
ball as it came spinning toward him, and with as vigorous a "left-hander"
sent it flying across to young Sejus.
"Faith, my Marcus," said Sejus, as he caught the ball with difficulty,
"the gallop from Lorium has made me somewhat stiff of joint, and I pitch
and catch but poorly. Keep the _pila_ flying, and I may grow more elastic,
though just now I feel much like our last text from Epictetus, that the
good Rusticus gave us yesterday--'a little soul bearing about a corpse.'"
"What then! Art as stiff as that, old Sejus?" gayly shouted Aufidius. "Ho!
brace thee up, man," he cried, as he sent the ball whirling across to
Marcus; "brace thee up, and use rather the words of our wise young Stoic
here--'Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break,
but it stands firm and tames the fury of the waters around it.'"
"'T is well applied, Aufidius. But--said I all that?" Marcus inquired.
"Ay, so didst thou, my Marcus. 'T is all down on my tablets." And with
merry talk the game went on.
But soon old Ballio, the _ordinarius_, or upper servant, left the oak
shade and said to Marcus: "Come, my master; the water-glass shows that we
must soon ride on if we mean to reach Rome by dinner-time."
So the game was broken off, and, after a few nibbles at the cakes and
sweetmeats which one of the slaves carried to "stay the stomachs" of the
travellers, the call "To horse!" was given, and the party moved on toward
the city. The spirits of the lads ran high; and though the one called
Marcus had a sedate and quiet look, he was roused into healthy and hearty
boyishness as, over the Etruscan plains, they galloped on to Rome.
They had been riding, perhaps, a short half hour, when they saw, coming
down a cross-road that entered the highway just beyond them, a large flock
of sheep returning from their summer pasturage on the hills, in charge of
three shepherds and their families. The game and the gallop had made the
boys ripe for mischief; for, though close and patient students, they were
in their hours of sport as ready for a frolic as are any schoolboys of
to-day.
The shepherds, seeing a party of hard riders coming toward them, looked at
their sheep anxiously and eyed the strangers suspiciously. For
sheep-stealing was of common occurrence in those days, and, when changing
pastures, the shepherds were kept constantly on the watch.
The quick eye of Aufidius marked the suspicions of the shepherds.
"Why, Marcus," he exclaimed, "yonder fellows surely take us for
highwaymen."
"Highwaymen, indeed!" said Sejus, indignantly. "Dost think the knaves
could mistake the noble Marcus Verus for a cowardly sheep-stealer."
"And why not," said Marcus, laughingly. "Man looks at man but as his
reason bids him. If shepherds look but for sheep-stealers, to them, at
first, all men are sheep-stealers. Come," he added, gayly, "let us not
disappoint them. What did our teacher Rusticus tell us but yesterday:
'That which is a hinderance is made a furtherance to an act, and that
which is an obstacle on the road helps us on the road.' Shall we not put
his text to the test? Behold our obstacle on the road! Let us ride down
the sheep!"
The spirit of mischief is contagious. Down the highway dashed the whole
party, following the lead of Marcus and his cry of "Forward, friends!"
while the now terrified shepherds turned their huddling sheep around, and
with many cries and much belaboring struggled back to the cross-road to
escape the pretended robbers. But the swift horses soon overtook the
slow-footed shepherds, and the laughing riders, with uplifted weapons and
shouts of seeming victory, were quickly at the heels of the flock. Then
came a change. The shepherds, finding that they could not outrun their
pursuers, stopped, wheeled around, and stood on the defensive, laying
valiantly about them with crook and staff.
"'Go on and increase in valor, O boy! this is the path to immortality,'"
shouted the nimble Aufidius, and with this quotation from Virgil, he
swooped down and caught up a struggling lamb.
"What says your philosophy now, O Marcus?" said Sejus as, rather
ruefully, he rubbed an aching shin, sore from the ringing thwack of a
shepherd's crook.
Marcus dodged a similar blow and replied "That nothing happens to any man,
O Sejus, which he is not fitted by nature to bear. But I have had enough.
Let us go our way in peace."
And turning from the fray, the whole party rode rather ingloriously from
the field of defeat, while the victors vowed a lamb to Pales, the special
patroness of shepherds, for their deliverance from "so blood-thirsty" a
band of robbers.
So, flushed and merry over their adventure, the three lads rode on to
Rome; but, ere they came in sight of the yellow Tiber, a fleet Numidian
slave came running toward them, straight and swift as an arrow, right in
the middle of the highway. Marcus recognized him as one of the runners of
his uncle, the proconsul Titus Antoninus, and wondered as to his mission.
The Numidian stopped short at sight of the party, and, saluting Marcus,
handed him a small scroll. The boy unrolled it, and at once his face
became grave.
"For me; this for me?" he said, and, in seeming surprise, laid his hand
upon the arm of his friend Aufidius. Then, as if remembering that he was a
Stoic, whose desire was to show neither surprise, pleasure, nor pain, let
what might happen, he read the scroll carefully, placed it in his mantle,
and said, half aloud: "How ridiculous is he who is surprised at any thing
which happens in life!"
"What is it that so disturbs you, O Marcus?" Aufidius asked.
"Friends," said the lad, "this scroll from my uncle Antoninus tells me
that I am named by the Emperor's council as prefect[A] of the city while
the consuls and magistrates are at the Latin Games."
"Hail to thee, Prefect! hail! hail! hail!" cried Aufidius and Sejus, while
the whole company joined in a respectful salute.
"Would it were some one more worthy than I, Aufidius," said Marcus,
solemnly.
"Nay, it is rightly decreed, my Marcus," protested his friend, proudly.
"Did not Hadrian, the Emperor, himself say of thee: '_Non Verus, sed
Verissimus!_'[B] and who but thee, Marcus Verissimus--Marcus the most
true--should be the governor of Rome?"
"But think of it, friends! I am but a boy after all. Who can respect a
prefect of sixteen?" still queried the modest Marcus.
Sejus at once dipped into history.
"And why not, O Marcus?" he asked. "Was not Tiberius Caesar a public orator
at nine, and Augustus a master of the horse at seventeen? Was not Titus a
quaestor[C] before he was eighteen, and the great Julius himself a priest
of Jupiter at fourteen? And why, then, should not Marcus Verus, in whose
veins runs the blood of the ancient kings, rightly be prefect of the city
at sixteen?"
"Thou art a good pleader, my Sejus," Marcus said pleasantly. "Since, then,
I must be prefect, may I be a just one, and take for my motto the text of
the good Rusticus: 'If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true,
do not say it.' So, forward, my good friends! The lictors await me at the
city gate."
So they pressed forward and, with more decorum, rode along the Via Cassia
and across the Milvian Bridge to the broader Via Lata and the city gate.
Here an escort of six lictors with their rods of office welcomed Marcus,
and, thus accompanied, the young magistrate passed down the Via Lata--the
street now known as "the Corso," the great thoroughfare of modern Rome--to
the palace of his uncle Antoninus, near the Coelian Gate.
[Illustration: Lictors.]
"Hail, Prefect!" came the welcome of the noble uncle (one of the grand
characters of Roman history). "And how fare the hens of Lorium?" For the
good proconsul, so soon to be hailed as Caesar and Emperor, loved the
country pleasures and country cares of his farm at Lorium more than all
the sculptured magnificence of the imperial city.
"The hens are well conditioned, O Antoninus," answered the boy, simply.
"But what said I?" his uncle exclaimed gayly. "What cares a prefect of
Rome for the scratching hens of Lorium? As for me, most noble Prefect, I
am but a man from whom neither power nor philosophy can take my natural
affections"; and, as the parrot swinging over the door-way croaked out his
"_Salve!_" (Welcome!), arm-in-arm uncle and nephew entered the palace.
Marcus Annius Verus was in all respects a model boy. Not the namby-pamby
model that all human boys detest, but a right-minded, right-mannered,
healthy, wealthy, and wise young Roman of the second century of the
Christian era. At that time (for the world was not yet Christianized)
there flourished a race of teachers and philosophers known as Stoics--wise
old pagans, who held that the perfect man must be free from passion,
unmoved by either joy or grief, taking every thing just as it came, with
supreme and utter indifference. A hard rule that, but this lad's teachers
had been mainly of the "School of the Stoics," as it was called, and their
wise sayings had made so deep an impression on the little Marcus that,
when only twelve years old, he set up for a full-fledged Stoic. He put on
the coarse mantle that was the peculiar dress of the sect, practised all
their severe rules of self-denial, and even slept on the hard floor or
the bare ground, denying himself the comfort of a bed, until his good
mother, who knew what was best for little fellows, even though they were
Stoics, persuaded him to compromise on a quilt. He loved exercise and
manly sport; but he was above all a wonderful student--too much of a
student, in fact; for, as the old record states, "his excess in study was
the only fault of his youth." And yet he loved a frolic, as the adventure
with the shepherds proves.
Of the best patrician blood of old Rome; the relative and favorite of the
great Emperor Hadrian; a splendid scholar, a capital gymnast, a true
friend, a modest and unassuming lad; he was trying, even at sixteen, to
make the best of himself, squaring all his actions by the rule that he, in
after years, put into words: "I do my duty; other things trouble me not."
Is not this young pagan of seventeen centuries back worthy to be held up
as a model boy? Manly boys, with good principles, good manners, and good
actions, are young gentlemen always, whenever and wherever they may live;
and quickly enough, as did young Marcus of Rome, they find their right
place in the regard and affections of the people about them.
Well, the days of waiting have passed. The great festival to Jove, the
_Feriae Latinae_, has drawn all the high magistrates to Mount Albanus, and
in their stead, as prefect of the city, rules the boy Marcus. In one of
the _basilicae_, or law courts of the great Forum, he sits invested with
the toga of office, the ring and the purple badge; and, while twelve
sturdy lictors guard his curule chair, he listens to the cases presented
to him and makes many wise decisions--"in which honor," says the old
record, "he acquitted himself to the general approbation." It was here no
doubt that he learned the wisdom of the words he wrote in after life: "Do
not have such an opinion of things as he who does the wrong, or such as he
wishes thee to have, but look at them as they are in truth."
"Most noble Prefect," said one of the court messengers, or _accensi_, as
they were called, "there waits, without, one Lydus the herdsman, demanding
justice."
"Bid him enter," said Marcus; and there came into the _basilica_ one whose
unexpected appearance brought consternation to Aufidius and Sejus, as they
waited in the court, and caused even the calm face of Marcus to flush with
surprise. Lydus the herdsman was none other than their old acquaintance,
the shepherd of the Etruscan highway!
"Most noble Prefect," said the shepherd, with a low salutation, "I am a
free herdsman of Lake Sabatinus, and I ask for justice against a band of
terrible highwaymen who lurk on the Via Cassia, near to old Veii. Only
three days since, did these lawless fellows beset me and my companions,
with our flocks, on the highway, and cruelly rob and maltreat us. I pray
thee, let the _cohortes vigilum_[D] search out and punish these robbers;
and let me, too, be fully satisfied for the sheep they did force from
me."
"Not so fast, man," said Marcus, as the shepherd concluded his glib
recital. "Couldst thou identify these knaves, if once they were
apprehended?"
"Ay, that could I, noble Prefect," replied the shepherd, boldly. "They
were led on by three as villainous rascals as go unhung, and these had
with them a crowd of riotous followers."
"Ha! is it so?" said Marcus. "Aufidius! Sejus! I pray you, step this way."
His two friends, in some wonder as to his intention, approached the
tribunal; and Marcus, stepping down from his curule chair, placed himself
between them. "Three villainous rascals, thou didst say. Were they aught
like us, think'st thou?"
"Like you? O noble young Prefect!" began the shepherd, protestingly. But
when, at a word from Marcus, the three lads drew back their arms as if to
brandish their weapons, and shouted their cry of attack, the mouth of
Lydus stood wide open in amazement, his cropped head fairly bristled with
fright, and, with a hasty exclamation, he turned on his heel, and fled
from the _basilica_.
"Ho there, bring him back!" Marcus commanded; and guarded by two lictors,
Lydus was dragged reluctantly back into the presence of the young prefect.
"So, my shepherd," said Marcus, "thou hast recognized thy villainous
rascals. Surely, though, thy fear was larger than thine eyeballs; for thou
didst multiply both the followers and the harm done to thee. Thou hast
asked for justice, and justice thou shalt have! Forasmuch as I and my
companions did frighten thee, though but in sport, it is wise to do well
what doth seem but just. I, then, as prefect of the city, do fine Marcus
Annius Verus, Aufidius Victorianus, and Sejus Fruscianus, each, one
hundred _sestertii_ (about twenty shillings), for interfering with
travellers on the public highway; and I do command the lictors to mark the
offenders unless they do straightway pay the fine here laid upon them."
Aufidius and Sejus looked troubled. They had barely a hundred _sestertii_
between them; but Marcus drew forth an amount equal to the three fines,
and, handing the money to an _accensus_, bade him pay the shepherd. With
many a bow, Lydus accepted the money, and with the words, "O noble young
Prefect! O wise beyond thy years!" he would have withdrawn again.
"Hold!" said Marcus, ascending the tribunal, "hear the rest! Because thou
hast placed a false charge before this tribunal, and hast sought to profit
by thy lying tongue, I, the Prefect, do command that thou dost pay over to
the _scriba_ (clerk of the court) the sum of three hundred _sestertii_, to
be devoted to the service of the poor; and that thou dost wear the wooden
collar until thy fine is paid."
Very soberly and ruefully, Lydus paid over as the price of his big stories
exactly the sum which he had received from the _scriba_, and departed from
the _basilica_ of the boy prefect, if not a poorer, at least a sadder and
a wiser man.
The days of Marcus' magistracy were soon over, and when the great festival
of Jove was ended, and the magistrates had returned to the city, the lad
gave up the curule chair and the dress and duties of his office, and
retired to his mother's house, bearing with him the thanks of the
magistrates, the approval of the Emperor, and the applause of the people.
The villa of the matron Domitia Lucilla, the mother of Marcus, stood
embowered in delightful gardens on the Coelian Hill, the most easterly
of the famous Seven Hills of Rome. In an age of splendor, when grand
palaces lined the streets and covered the hill-slopes of the imperial
city, when fortunes were spent upon baths and gardens, or wasted on a gala
dress, or on a single meal, this pleasant house was conducted upon a plan
that suited the home ways of the mother and the quiet tastes of the son.
Let us enter the spacious vestibule. Here in the door-way, or _ostium_, we
stop to note the "_Salve!_" (Welcome!) wrought in mosaic on the marble
floor, and then pass into the _atrium_, or great living-room of the house,
where the female slaves are spinning deftly, and every thing tells of
order and a busy life. Now, let us pass on to the spacious court-yard, in
the very heart of the house. In the unroofed centre a beautiful fountain
shoots its jets of cooling spray from a marble cistern of clear water.
And here, by the shining fountain, in the central court, stand two
persons--Marcus and his mother. The lad has laid aside his _toga_, or
outside mantle, and his close-fitting, short-sleeved tunic, scarcely
reaching to his knees, shows a well-knit frame and a healthy, sun-browned
skin. His mother, dressed in the tunic and long white _stola_, or outer
robe, is of matronly presence and pleasant face. And, as they talk
together in low and earnest tones, they watch with loving eyes, from the
cool shadows of the high area walls, the motions of the dark-eyed little
Annia, a winsome Roman maiden of thirteen, as, perched upon a cage of pet
pigeons, she gleefully teases with a swaying peacock plume now the
fluttering pigeons and now the wary-eyed Dido, her favorite cat.
"But there is such a thing as too much self-denial, my Marcus," said the
mother in answer to some remark of the lad.
"Nay, this is not self-denial, my mother; it is simple justice," replied
the boy. "Are not Annia and I children of the same father and mother? Is
it just that I should receive all the benefit of our family wealth, and
that she should be dependent on my bounty?"
"Divide then thy father's estate, my son. Let Annia and thyself share
alike, but give it not all to thy sister," his mother suggested.
"'Receive wealth without arrogance and be ready to let it go,' is what the
Stoic Commodus hath taught me," the boy replied. "To whom we love much we
should be ready to give much. Is it not so, my mother?"
"So I believe, my son," the matron answered.
"And if I seek to act justly in this matter, shall I not follow thy
counsels, my mother?" Marcus continued; "for thou hast said, 'No longer
talk about the kind of a man a good man ought to be, but be such.'"
"Ah, Marcus," the pleased mother exclaimed, "thou wilt be a happy man,
too, if thou canst go ever by the right way, and think and act in the
right way, as now. Thou art a good youth."
"And what is goodness, mother," argued the young philosopher, "but the
desire to do justice and to practise it, and in this to let desire end?
Let me, then, as I desire, give all my father's estate to my sister Annia.
My grandfather's is sufficient for my needs. So shall Annia have her fair
marriage portion, and we, my mother, shall all be satisfied."
And now, his sister Annia, wearying of her play with the pigeons, dropped
her peacock plume and ran merrily toward her brother.
"O Marcus," she cried, "'t will soon be time for the bath. Do come and
toss the _pila_ with me;--that is," she added, with mock reverence, "if so
grand a person as the prefect of Rome can play at ball!"
"And why not, my Annia," asked her mother, proudly; "even the world-ruling
Julius loved his game of ball."
"Ah, but our Marcus is greater than the great Caesar. Is he not, mother?"
Annia asked, teasingly.
"Aye, that he is," the mother answered, feelingly; "for, know that he has
this day given up to thee, his sister, one half of his heritage, and
more--unwise and improvident youth!" she added, fondly.
"So let it end, mother," the boy said, as the pretty Annia sprang to him
with a caress. "Come, Annia, let us see who can toss the _pila_ best--a
woman of property, such as thou, or the prefect of three days." And as
hand in hand the brother and sister passed cheerily through the pillared
portico, the mother looked after them with a happy heart and said, as did
that earlier noble Roman matron of whom history tells us: "_These_ are my
jewels!"
[Illustration: ANNIA, THE SISTER OF MARCUS, AND HER PETS.]
The days passed. Winter grew to spring. The ides of March have come. And
now it is one of the spring holidays of Rome, the fourteenth of March in
the year 138--the _Equiria_, or festival of Mars. Rome is astir early, and
every street of the great city is thronged with citizens and strangers,
slaves and soldiers, all hurrying toward the great pleasure-ground of
Rome--the Circus Maximus. Through every portal the crowds press into the
vast building, filling its circular seats, anxious for the spectacle. For
the magistrate of the games for this day, it is said, is to be the young
Marcus Annius, he who was prefect of the city during the last Latin Games;
and, more than this, the festival is to close with a grand _venatio_--a
wild-beast hunt!
There is a stir of expectation; a burst of trumpets from the Capitol; and
all along the Sacred Street and through the crowded Forum goes up the
shout, "Here they come!" With the flutes playing merrily, with swaying
standards and sacred statues gleaming in silver and gold, with proud young
cadets on horse and on foot, with priests in their robes and guards with
crested helms, with strange and marvellous beasts led by burly keepers,
with a long string of skilled performers, restless horses, and gleaming
chariots, through the Forum and down the Sacred Street winds the long
procession, led by the boy magistrate, Marcus of Rome, the favorite of the
Emperor. A golden chaplet, wrought in crusted leaves, circles his head; a
purple _toga_ drapes his trim, young figure; while the flutes and trumpets
play their loudest before him, and the stout guards march at the heels of
his bright-bay pony. So into the great circus passes the long procession,
and as it files into the arena, two hundred thousand excited
people--think, boys, of a circus-tent that holds two hundred thousand
people!--rise to their feet and welcome it with hearty hand-clapping. The
trumpets sound the prelude, the young magistrate (standing in his
_suggestus_, or state box) flings the _mappa_, or white flag, into the
course as the signal for the start; and, as a ringing shout goes up, four
glittering chariots, rich in their decorations of gold and polished ivory,
and each drawn by four plunging horses, burst from their arched stalls and
dash around the track. Green, blue, red, white--the colors of the drivers
stream from their tunics. Around and around they go. Now one and now
another is ahead. The people strain and cheer, and many a wager is laid as
to the victor. Another shout! The red chariot, turning too sharply, grates
against the _meta_, or short pillar that stands at the upper end of the
track, guarding the low central wall; the horses rear and plunge, the
driver struggles manfully to control them, but all in vain; over goes the
chariot, while the now maddened horses dash wildly on until checked by
mounted attendants and led off to their stalls. "Blue! blue!" "Green!
green!" rise the varying shouts, as the contending chariots still struggle
for the lead. White is far behind. Now comes the seventh or final round.
Blue leads! No, green is ahead! Down the home stretch they go in a
magnificent dash, neck and neck, and then the cheer of victory is heard,
as, with a final spurt the green rider strikes the white cord first and
the race is won!
And there, where the race is fiercest and the excitement most intense,
sits the staid young Marcus, unmoved, unexcited, busy with his ivory
tablets and his own high thoughts! For this wise young Stoic, true to his
accepted philosophy, had mastered even the love of excitement--think of
that, you circus-loving boys! He has left it on record that, even as a
youth, he had learned "to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at
the games in the circus," and while he looked upon such shows as dangerous
and wasteful (for in those days they cost the state immense sums), he
felt, still, that the people enjoyed them, and he said simply: "We cannot
make men as we would have them; we must bear with them as they are and
make the best of them we can." And so it happened that at this splendid
race at which, to please the people, he presided as magistrate, this boy
of sixteen sat probably the only unmoved spectator in that whole vast
amphitheatre.
Now, in the interval between the races, come the athletic sports;
foot-racing and wrestling, rope-dancing and high leaping, quoit-throwing
and javelin matches. One man runs a race with a fleet Cappadocian horse;
another expert rider drives two bare-backed horses twice around the track,
leaping from back to back as the horses dash around. Can you see any very
great difference between the circus performance of A. D. 138 and one of
A. D. 1886?
Among the throng of "artistes" on that far-off March day there came a
bright little fellow of ten or eleven years, a rope-dancer and a favorite
with the crowd. Light and agile, he trips along the slender rope that
stretches high above the arena. Right before the magistrate's box the boy
poises in mid air, and even the thoughtful young director of the games
looks up at the graceful motions of the boy. Hark! a warning shout goes
up; now, another; the poor little rope-dancer, anxious to find favor in
the eyes of the young noble, over-exerts himself, loses his balance on the
dizzy rope, and, toppling over, falls with a cruel thud to the ground, and
lies there before the great state box with a broken neck--dead. Marcus
hears the shout, he sees the falling boy. Vaulting from his canopied box
he leaps down into the arena, and so tender is he of others, Stoic though
he be, that he has the poor rope-dancer's head in his lap even before the
attendants can reach him. But no life remains in that bruised little
body, and, as Marcus tenderly resigns the dead gymnast to the less
sympathetic slaves, he commands that ever after a bed shall be laid
beneath the rope as a protection against such fatal falls. This became the
rule; and, when next you see the safety-net spread beneath the
rope-walkers, the trapeze performers, and those who perform similar
"terrific" feats, remember that its use dates back to the humane order of
Marcus, the boy magistrate, seventeen centuries ago.
But, in those old days, the people had to be amused--whatever happened.
Human life was held too cheaply for a whole festival to be stopped because
a little boy was killed, and so the sports went on. Athletes and gymnasts
did their best to excel; amidst wild excitement the chariots whirled
around and around the course, and then the arena was cleared for the final
act--the wild beast hunt.
The wary keepers raise the stout gratings before the dens and cages, and
the wild animals, freed from their prisons, rush into the great open
space, blink stupidly in the glaring light, and then with roar and growl
echo the shouts of the spectators. Here are great lions from Numidia and
tigers from far Arabia, wolves from the Apennines and bears from Libya,
not caged and half-tamed as we see them now, but wild and fierce, loose in
the arena. Now the hunters swarm in, on horse and on foot,--trained and
supple Thracian gladiators, skilled Gaetulian hunters, with archers, and
spearmen, and net-throwers. All around the great arena rages the cruel
fight. Here, a lion stands at bay; there, a tigress crouches for the
spring; a snarling wolf snaps at a keen-eyed Thracian, or a bear with
ungainly trot shambles away from the spear of his persecutor. Eager and
watchful the hunters shoot and thrust, while the vast audience, more
eager, more relentless, more brutal than beast or hunter, applaud and
shout and cheer. But the young magistrate, who had, through all his life,
a marked distaste for such cruel sport, turns from the arena, and, again
taking out his tablets, busies himself with his writing, unmoved by the
contest and carnage before him.
The last hunted beast lies dead in the arena; the last valorous hunter has
been honored with his _palma_, or reward, as victor; the slaves stand
ready with hook and rope to drag off the slaughtered animals; the great
crowd pours out of the vast three-storied building; the shops in the
porticos are noisy with the talk of buyers and sellers; the boy magistrate
and his escort pass through the waiting throng; and the Festival Games are
over. But, ere young Marcus reaches the Forum on his return, a shout goes
up from the people, and, just before the beautiful temple of the Twin
Gods, Castor and Pollux, where the throng is densest, flowers and wreaths
are thrown beneath his pony's feet, and a storm of voices raises the
shout:
"_Ave Imperator! Ave Caesar!_"
"What means that shout, Aufidius?" he asked his friend, who rode in the
escort. But the only reply Aufidius made was to join his voice with that
of the enthusiastic throng in a second shout; "_Ave Imperator! Auguste,
Dii te servent!_" (Hail, O Emperor! The gods save your majesty!)
Then Marcus knew that the decree of the dying Emperor Hadrian had been
confirmed, and that he, Marcus Annius Verus, the descendant of the ancient
kings, the boy philosopher, the unassuming son of a noble mother, had been
adopted as the son and successor of his uncle Antoninus, who was to reign
after Hadrian's death, and that where he went, through the Forum and up
the Sacred Street, there rode the heir to the greatest throne in the
world, the future Emperor of Rome.
A Stoic still, unmoved, save for the slight flush that tinged his cheek as
he acknowledged the greeting of the happy people, he passed on to his
mother's house, and, in that dear home, amid the green gardens of the
Coelian Hill, he heard her lips speak her congratulations, and bent his
head to receive her kiss of blessing.
"I lose a son, but gain an emperor," she said.
"No, my mother," the boy replied, proudly, "me thou shalt never lose. For,
though I leave this dear home for the palace of the Caesars, my heart is
still here with that noble mother from whom I learned lessons of piety and
benevolence and simplicity of life, and abstinence from evil deeds and
evil thoughts."
Before five months had passed the great Emperor Hadrian died at Baiae, in
his hill-shaded palace by the sea, and the wise, country-loving uncle of
Marcus succeeded to the throne as the Emperor Antoninus Pius. During all
his glorious reign of twenty-three years, he had no more devoted admirer,
subject, helper, and friend, than his adopted son and acknowledged
successor, Marcus, who, in the year A. D. 161, ascended the throne of the
Caesars as the great Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
The life of this Roman Marcus was one of unsought honors and titles. At
six, a knight of the Equestrian Order; at eight, one of the priests of
Mars; at twelve, a rigid Stoic; at sixteen, a magistrate of the city; at
seventeen, a quaestor, or revenue officer; at nineteen, a consul and Caesar;
at forty, an emperor,--he was always clear-headed and clean-hearted,
beloved by his people and honored by all, making this one rule the guide
of all his actions: "Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man, to
do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, with affection
and freedom and justice."
A noble boy; a noble man; preserving, as has been said of him, "in a time
of universal corruption, a nature sweet, pure, self-denying, and
unaffected,"--he teaches us all, boys and men alike, a lesson of real
manliness. Here are two of his precepts, which we are none of us too young
to remember, none of us too old to forget: "The best way of avenging
thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer"; "Let me offer to the gods
the best that is in me; so shall I be a strong man, ripened by age, a
friend of the public good, a Roman, an emperor, a soldier at his post
awaiting the signal of his trumpet, a man ready to quit life without a
fear." The foremost boy of his time, manly, modest, princely, brave, and
true, we can surely find no more fitting representative with which to open
this series of "Historic Boys" than the boy magistrate, Marcus of Rome,
the greatest and best of the Antonines.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[A] _Praefectus urbi_: governor of the city.
[B] Not true, but _most_ true.
[C] An officer of the treasury.
[D] Armed police.
[Illustration]
II.
BRIAN OF MUNSTER: THE BOY CHIEFTAIN.
(_Afterward Brian Boru, King of Ireland._)
[A.D. 948.]
Into that picturesque and legend-filled section of Ireland now known as
the County Clare, where over rocks and boulders the Shannon, "noblest of
Irish rivers," rushes down past Killaloe and Castle Connell to Limerick
and the sea, there rode one fair summer morning, many, many years ago, a
young Irish lad. The skirt of his parti-colored _lenn_, or kilt, was
richly embroidered and fringed with gold; his _inar_, or jacket,
close-fitting and silver-trimmed, was open at the throat, displaying the
embroidered _lenn_ and the _torc_, or twisted collar of gold about his
sturdy neck, while a purple scarf, held the jacket at the waist. A
gleaming, golden brooch secured the long plaid _brat_, or shawl, that
dropped from his left shoulder; broad bracelets encircled his bare and
curiously tattooed arms, and from an odd-looking golden spiral at the back
of his head his thick and dark-red hair fell in flowing ringlets upon his
broad shoulders. Raw-hide shoes covered his feet, and his bronze shield
and short war-ax hung conveniently from his saddle of skins. A strong
guard of pikemen and gallowglasses, or heavy-armed footmen, followed at
his pony's heels, and seemed an escort worthy a king's son.
A strong-limbed, cleanly-built lad of fifteen was this sturdy young
horseman, who now rode down to the Ath na Borumma, or Ford of the Tribute,
just above the rapids of the Shannon, near the town of Killaloe. And as he
reined in his pony, he turned and bade his herald, Cogoran, sound the
trumpet-blast that should announce to the Clan of Cas the return, from his
years of fosterage, of the young _flaith_, or chieftain, Brian, the son of
Kennedy, King of Thomond.
But ere the strong-lunged Cogoran could wind his horn, the hearts of all
the company grew numb with fear as across the water the low, clear strains
of a warning-song sounded from the haunted gray-stone,--the mystic rock of
Carrick-lee, that overhung the tumbling rapids:
"Never yet for fear of foe,
By the ford of Killaloe,
Stooped the crests of heroes free--
Sons of Cas by Carrick-lee.
"Falls the arm that smites the foe,
By the ford of Killaloe;
Chilled the heart that boundeth free,
By the rock of Carrick-lee.
"He who knows not fear of foe,
Fears the ford of Killaloe;
Fears the voice that chants his dree,
From the rock of Carrick-lee."
Young Brian was full of the superstition of his day--superstition that
even yet lives amid the simple peasantry of Ireland, and peoples rocks,
and woods, and streams with good and evil spirits, fairies, sprites, and
banshees; and no real, native Irish lad could fail to tremble before the
mysterious song. Sorely troubled, he turned to Cogoran inquiringly, and
that faithful retainer said in a rather shaky voice:
"'T is your warning-song, O noble young chief! 't is the voice of the
banshee of our clan--_A-oib-hinn_, the wraith of Carrick-lee."
Just then from behind the haunted gray-rock a fair young girl appeared,
tripping lightly across the large stepping-stones that furnished the only
means of crossing the ford of Killaloe.
"See--see!" said Cogoran, grasping his young lord's arm; "she comes for
thee. 'T is thy doom, O Master--the fiend of Carrick-lee!"
"So fair a fiend should bring me naught of grief," said young Brian,
stoutly enough, though it must be confessed his heart beat fast and loud.
"O Spirit of the Waters!" he exclaimed; "O banshee of Clan Cas! why thus
early in his life dost thou come to summon the son of Kennedy the King?"
The young girl turned startled eyes upon the group of armed and warlike
men, and grasping the skirt of her white and purple _lenn_, turned as if
to flee,--when Cogoran, with a loud laugh, cried out:
"Now, fool and double fool am I,--fit brother to Sitric the blind, the
black King of Dublin! Why, 't is no banshee, O noble young chief, 't is
but thy foster-sister, Eimer, the daughter of Conor, Eimer the
golden-haired!"
"Nay, is it so? St. Senanus be praised!" said Brian, greatly relieved.
"Cross to us, maiden; cross to us," he said. "Fear nothing; 't is but
Brian, thy foster-brother, returning to his father's home."
The girl swiftly crossed the ford and bowed her golden head in a vassal's
welcome to the young lord.
"Welcome home, O brother," she said. "Even now, my lord, thy father awaits
the sound of thy horn as he sits in the great seat beneath his kingly
shield. And I----"
"And thou, maiden," sad Brian, gayly, "thou must needs lurk behind the
haunted rock of Carrick-lee, to freeze the heart of young Brian at his
home-coming, with thy banshee song."
Eimer of the golden hair laughed a ringing laugh. "Say'st thou so,
brother?" she said. "Does the 'Scourge of the Danes' shrink thus at a
maiden's voice?"
"Who calls me the 'Scourge of the Danes'?" asked Brian.
"So across the border do they say that the maidens of King Callaghan's
court call the boy Brian, the son of Kennedy," the girl made answer.
"Who faces the Danes, my sister, faces no tender foe," said Brian, "and
the court of the King of Cashel is no ladies' hall in these hard-striking
times. But wind thy horn, Cogoran, and cross we the ford to greet the
king, my father."
Loud and clear the herald's call rose above the rush of the rapids, and as
the boy and his followers crossed the ford, the gates of the palace, or
_dun_, of King Kennedy of Thomond were flung open, and the band of
welcomers, headed by Mahon, Brian's eldest brother, rode out to greet the
lad.
Nine hundred years ago the tribe of Cas was one of the most powerful of
the many Irish clans. The whole of Thomond, or North Munster, was under
their sway, and from them, say the old records, "it was never lawful to
levy rent, or tribute, or pledge, or hostage, or fostership fees," so
strong and free were they. When the clans of Munster gathered for battle,
it was the right of the Clan of Cas to lead in the attack, and to guard
the rear when returning from any invasion. It gave kings to the throne of
Munster, and valiant leaders in warfare with the Danes, who, in the tenth
century, poured their hosts into Ireland, conquering and destroying. In
the year 948, in which our sketch opens, the head of this powerful clan
was Cennedigh, or Kennedy, King of Thomond. His son Brian had, in
accordance with an old Irish custom, passed his boyhood in "fosterage" at
the court of Callaghan, King of Cashel, in East Munster. Brought up amid
warlike scenes, where battles with the Danish invaders were of frequent
occurrence, young Brian had now, at fifteen, completed the years of his
fostership, and was a lad of strong and dauntless courage, cool and
clear-headed, and a firm foe of Ireland's scourge--the fierce "Dub-Gaile,"
or "Black Gentiles," as the Danes were called.
The feast of welcome was over. The bards had sung their heroic songs to
the accompaniment of the _cruot_, or harp; the fool had played his pranks,
and the juggler his tricks, and the chief bard, who was expected to be
familiar with "more than seven times fifty stories, great and small," had
given the best from his list; and as they sat thus in the _cuirmtech_, or
great hall, of the long, low-roofed house of hewn oak that scarcely rose
above the stout earthen ramparts that defended it, swift messengers came
bearing news of a great gathering of Danes for the ravaging of Munster,
and the especial plundering of the Clan of Cas.
"Thou hast come in right fitting time, O son!" said Kennedy the King.
"Here is need of strong arms and stout hearts. How say ye, noble lords and
worthy chieftains? Dare we face in fight this, so great a host?"
But as chiefs and counsellors were discussing the king's question,
advising fight or flight as they deemed wisest, young Brian sprung into
the assembly, war-ax in hand.
"What, fathers of Clan Cas," he cried, all aflame with excitement, "will
ye stoop to parley with hard-hearted pirates--ye, who never brooked
injustice or tyranny from any king of all the kings of Erin--ye, who never
yielded even the leveret of a hare in tribute to Leinsterman or Dane? 'T
is for the Clan of Cas to demand tribute,--not to pay it! Summon our
vassals to war. Place me, O King, my father, here at the Ford of the
Tribute and bid me make test of the lessons of my fostership. Know ye not
how the boy champion, Cuchullin of Ulster, held the ford for five long
days against all the hosts of Connaught? What boy hath done, boy may do.
Death can come but once!"
The lad's impetuous words fired the whole assembly, the gillies and
retainers caught up the cry, and, with the wild enthusiasm that has marked
the quick-hearted Irishman from Brian's day to this, "they all," so says
the record, "kissed the ground and gave a terrible shout." Beacon fires
blazed from cairn and hill-top, and from "the four points"--from north and
south and east and west, came the men of Thomond rallying around their
chieftains on the banks of Shannon.
With terrible ferocity the Danish hosts fell upon Ireland. From Dublin to
Cork the coast swarmed with their war-ships and the land echoed the tramp
of their swordmen. Across the fair fields of Meath and Tipperary, "the
smooth-plained grassy land of Erinn," from Shannon to the sea, the kings
and chieftains of Ireland gathered to withstand the shock of the invaders.
Their chief blow was struck at "Broccan's Brake" in the County Meath, and
"on that field," says the old Irish record, "fell the kings and
chieftains, the heirs to the crown, and the royal princes of Erinn." There
fell Kennedy the King and two of his stalwart sons. But at the Ford of the
Tribute, Brian, the boy chieftain, kept his post and hurled back again
and again the Danes of Limerick as they swarmed up the valley of the
Shannon to support their countrymen on the plains of Meath.
The haunted gray-stone of Carrick-lee, from which Brian had heard the song
of the supposed banshee, rose sharp and bold above the rushing waters; and
against it and around it Brian and his followers stood at bay, battling
against the Danish hosts. "Ill-luck was it for the foreigner," says the
record, "when that youth was born--Brian, the son of Kennedy." In the very
midst of the stubborn fight at the ford, and around from a jutting point
of the rock of Carrick-lee, a light shallop came speeding down the rapids.
In the prow stood a female figure, all in white, from the gleaming golden
_lann_, or crescent, that held her flowing veil, to the hem of her
gracefully falling _lenn_, or robe. And above the din of the strife a
clear voice sang:
"First to face the foreign foe,
First to strike the battle blow;
Last to turn from triumph back,
Last to leave the battle's wrack;
Clan of Cas shall victors be
When they fight at Carrick-lee."
It was, of course, only the brave young Eimer of the golden hair bringing
fresh arms in her shallop to Brian and his fighting-men; but as the sun,
bursting through the clouds, flashed full upon the shining war-ax which
she held aloft, the superstitious Danes saw in the floating figure the
"White Lady of the Rapids," the banshee, _A-oib-hinn_, the fairy guardian
of the Clan of Cas. Believing, therefore, that they could not prevail
against her powerful aid, they turned and fled in dismay from the flowing
river and the haunted rock.
But fast upon young Brian's victory came the tearful news of the battle of
Broccan's Brake and the defeat of the Irish kings. Of all the brave lad's
family only his eldest brother Mahon escaped from that fatal field; and
now he reigned in place of Kennedy, his father, as King of Thomond. But
the victorious Danes overran all Southern Ireland, and the brothers Mahon
and Brian found that they could not successfully face in open field the
hosts of their invaders. So these two "stout, able, valiant pillars,"
these two "fierce, lacerating, magnificent heroes," as the brothers are
called in the curious and wordy old Irish record, left their mud-walled
fortress-palace by the Shannon, and with "all their people and all their
chattels" went deep into the forests of Cratloe and the rocky fastnesses
of the County Clare; and there they lived the life of robber chieftains,
harassing and plundering the Danes of Limerick and their recreant Irish
allies, and guarding against frequent surprise and attack. But so
hazardous and unsettled a life was terribly exhausting, and "at length
each party of them became tired of the other," and finally King Mahon made
peace with the Danes of Limerick.
But "Brian the brave" would make no truce with a hated foe. "Tell my
brother," he said, when messengers brought him word of Mahon's treaty,
"that Brian, the son of Kennedy, knows no peace with foreign invaders.
Though all others yield and are silent, yet will I never!"
And with this defiance the boy chieftain and "the young champions of the
tribe of Cas" went deeper into the woods and fastnesses of the County
Clare, and for months kept up a fierce guerilla warfare. The Danish
tyrants knew neither peace nor rest from his swift and sudden attacks.
Much booty of "satins and silken cloths, both scarlet and green, pleasing
jewels and saddles beautiful and foreign" did they lose to this active
young chieftain, and much tribute of cows and hogs and other possessions
did he force from them. So dauntless an outlaw did he become that his name
struck terror from Galway Bay to the banks of Shannon, and from Lough Derg
to the Burren of Clare. "When he inflicted not evil on the foreigners in
the day," the quaint old record asserts, "he was sure to do it in the next
night, and when he did it not in the night he was sure to do it in the
following day."
To many an adventurous boy the free outlaw life of this daring lad of nine
centuries ago may seem alluring. But "life in the greenwood" had little
romance for such old-time outlaws as Brian Boru and Robin Hood and their
imitators. To them it was stern reality, and meant constant struggle and
vigilance. They were outcasts and Ishmaels--"their hands against every man
and every man's hand against them,"--and though the pleasant summer
weather brought many sunshiny days and starlit nights, the cold, damp, and
dismal days took all the poetry out of this roving life, and sodden
forests and relentless foes brought dreary and disheartening hours. Trust
me, boys, this so-called "free and jolly life of the bold outlaw," which
so many story-papers picture, whether it be with Brian Boru in distant
Ireland, nine hundred years ago, or in Sherwood Forest with Robin Hood, or
with some "Buckeye Jim" on our own Montana hill-sides to-day, is not "what
it is cracked up to be." Its attractiveness is found solely in those
untruthful tales that give you only the little that seems to be sweet, but
say nothing of the much that is so very, very harsh and bitter. Month by
month the boy chieftain strove against fearful odds, day by day he saw his
brave band grow less and less, dying under the unpitying swords of the
Danes and the hardships of this wandering life, until of all the
high-spirited and valiant comrades that had followed him into the hills of
Clare only fifteen remained.
One chill April day, as Brian sat alone before the gloomy cave that had
given him a winter shelter in the depths of the forests of Clare, his
quick ear, well trained in wood-craft, caught the sound of a light step in
the thicket. Snatching his ever-ready spear, he stood on guard and
demanded:
"Who is there?"
No answer followed his summons. But as he waited and listened, he heard
the notes of a song, low and gentle, as if for his ear alone:
"Chieftain of the stainless shield,
Prince who brooks no tribute fee;
Ne'er shall he to pagan yield
Who prevailed at Carrick-lee.
Rouse thee, arm thee, hark and heed,
Erin's strength in Erin's need."
"'T is the banshee," was the youth's first thought. "The guardian of our
clan urgeth me to speedier action." And then he called aloud: "Who sings
of triumph to Brian the heavy-hearted?"
"Be no longer Brian the heavy-hearted; be, as thou ever art, Brian the
brave!" came the reply, and through the parting thicket appeared, not the
dreaded vision of _A-oib-hinn_, the banshee, but the fair young face of
his foster-sister, Eimer of the golden hair.
"Better days await thee, Brian, my brother," she said; "Mahon the King
bids thee meet him at Holy Isle. None dared bring his message for fear of
the death-dealing Danes who have circled thee with their earth-lines. But
what dare not I do for so gallant a foster-brother?"
With the courtesy that marked the men of even those savage times, the boy
chieftain knelt and kissed the hem of the daring little maiden's purple
robe.
"And what wishes my brother, the king, O Eimer of the golden hair?" he
said. "Knows he not that Brian has sworn never to bend his neck to the
foreigner?"
"That does he know right well," replied the girl. "But his only words to
me were: 'Bid Brian my brother take heart and keep this tryst with me, and
the sons of Kennedy may still stand, unfettered, kings of Erin.'"
[Illustration: "THE BOY CHIEFTAIN KNELT AND KISSED THE HEM OF THE DARLING
LITTLE MAIDEN'S PURPLE ROBE."]
So Brian kept the tryst; and where, near the southern shores of Lough
Derg, the Holy Isle still lies all strewn with the ruins of the seven
churches that gave it this name, the outlawed young chieftain met the
king. Braving the dangers of Danish capture and death, he had come
unattended to meet his brother.
"Where, O Brian, are thy followers?" King Mahon inquired.
"Save the fifteen faithful men that remain to me in the caves of
Uim-Bloit," said the lad, "the bones of my followers rest on many a field
from the mountains of Connaught to the gates of Limerick; for their
chieftain, O my brother, maketh no truce with the foe."
"Thou art but a boy, O Brian, and like a boy thou dost talk," said the
king, reprovingly. "Thy pride doth make thee imprudent. For what hast thou
gained, since, spite of all, thy followers lie dead!"
"Gained!" exclaimed the young chieftain, impetuously, as he faced Mahon
the King; "I have gained the right to be called true son of the Clan of
Cas--of ancestors who would brook no insult, who would pay no tribute fee
to invaders, who would give no hostage; and as to my trusty liegemen who
have fallen--is it not the inheritance of the Clan of Cas to die for their
honor and their homes?" demanded Brian. "So surely it is no honor in
valorous men, my brother, to abandon without battle or conflict their
father's inheritance to Danes and traitorous kings!"
The unyielding courage of the lad roused the elder brother to action, and,
secretly, but swiftly, he gathered the chiefs of the clan for council in
the _dun_ of King Mahon by the ford of Killaloe. "Freedom for Erin and
death to the Danes!" cried they--"as the voice of one man," says the
record. Again the warning beacons flamed from cairn and hill-top. In the
shadow of the "Rock of Cashel," the royal sun-burst, the banner of the
ancient kings, was flung to the breeze, and clansmen and vassals and
allies rallied beneath its folds to strike one mighty blow for the
redemption of Ireland.
In the county of Tipperary, in the midst of what is called "the golden
valley," this remarkable "Rock of Cashel" looms up three hundred feet
above the surrounding plain, its top, even now, crowned with the ruins of
what were in Brian's day palace and chapel, turret and battlement and
ancient tower. Beneath the rough archway of the triple ramparts at the
foot of the rock, and up the sharp ascent, there rode one day the herald
of Ivar, the Danish King of Limerick. Through the gate-way of the palace
he passed, and striding into the audience-hall, spoke thus to Mahon the
King:
"Hear, now, O King! Ivar, the son of Sitric, King of Limerick and sole
Over-lord of Munster, doth summon thee, his vassal, to give up to him this
fortress of Cashel, to disperse thy followers, to send to him at Limerick,
bounden with chains, the body of Brian the outlaw, and to render unto him
tribute and hostage."
King Mahon glanced proudly out to where upon the ramparts fluttered the
flag of Ireland.
"Say to Ivar, the son of Sitric," he said, "that Mahon, King of Thomond,
spurns his summons, and will pay no tribute for his own inheritance."
"And say thou too," cried his impetuous younger brother, "that Brian, the
son of Kennedy, and all the men of the Clan of Cas prefer destruction and
death rather than submit to the tyranny of pirates and the over-lordship
of foreigners and Danes!"
"Hear then, Mahon, King of Thomond; hear thou and all thy clan, the words
of Ivar, the son of Sitric," came the stern warning of the Danish herald.
"Thus says the king: I will gather against thee a greater muster and
hosting, and I will so ravage and destroy the Clan of Cas that there shall
not be left of ye one man to guide a horse's head across a ford, an abbot
or a venerable person within the four corners of Munster who shall not be
utterly destroyed or brought under subjection to me, Ivar the king!"
"Tell thy master," said Mahon the King, unmoved by this terrible threat,
"that the Clan of Cas defy his boastful words, and will show in battle
which are lords of Erin."
"And tell thy master," said his brother, "that Brian the outlaw will come
to Limerick not bound with chains, but to bind them."
The Danish power was strong and terrible, but the action of the two
valiant brothers was swift and their example was inspiriting. Clansmen and
vassals flocked to their standard, and a great and warlike host gathered
in old Cashel. Brian led them to battle, and near a willow forest, close
to the present town of Tipperary, the opposing forces met in a battle that
lasted "from sunrise to mid-day." And the sun-burst banner of the ancient
kings streamed victorious over a conquered field, and the hosts of the
Danes were routed. From Tipperary to Limerick, Brian pursued the flying
enemy; and capturing Limerick, took therefrom great stores of booty and
many prisoners; and the queer old Irish record thus briefly tells the
terrible story of young Brian's vengeance--a story that fittingly shows us
the cruel customs of those savage days of old, days now fortunately gone
for ever: "The fort and the good town he reduced to a cloud of smoke and
to red fire afterward. The whole of the captives were collected on the
hills of Saingel, and every one that was fit for war was killed, and every
one that was fit for a slave was enslaved."
And from the day of Limerick's downfall the star of Ireland brightened, as
in battle after battle, Brian Boru,[E] the wise and valiant young
chieftain, was hailed as victor and deliverer from sea to sea.
But now he is a lad no longer, and the story of the boy chieftain gives
place to the record of the valiant soldier and the able king. For upon the
death of his brother Mahon, in the year 976, Brian became King of
Thomond, of Munster, and Cashel. Then uniting the rival clans and tribes
under his sovereign rule, he was crowned at Tara, in the year 1000,
"Ard-righ," or "High King of Erinn." The reign of this great king of
Ireland was peaceful and prosperous. He built churches, fostered learning,
made bridges and causeways, and constructed a road around the coast of the
whole kingdom. In his palace at Kincora, near the old _dun_ of his father,
King Kennedy, by the ford of Killaloe, he "dispensed a royal hospitality,
administered a rigid and impartial justice, and so continued in prosperity
for the rest of his reign, having been at his death thirty-eight years
King of Munster and fifteen years Sovereign of all Ireland."
So the boy chieftain came to be King of Ireland, and the story of his
death is as full of interest and glory as the record of his boyish deeds.
For Brian grew to be an old, old man, and the Danes and some of the
restless Irishmen whom he had brought under his sway revolted against his
rule. So the "grand old king of ninety years" led his armies out from the
tree-shaded ramparts of royal Kincora, and meeting the enemy on the plains
of Dublin, fought on Friday, April 23, 1014, near the little fishing
station of Clontarf, the "last and most terrible struggle of Northman and
Gael, of Pagan and Christian, on Irish soil." It was a bloody day for
Ireland; but though the aged king and four of his six sons, with eleven
thousand of his followers were slain on that fatal field, the Danes were
utterly routed, and the battle of Clontarf freed Ireland forever from
their invasions and tyrannies.
"Remember the glories of Brian the brave,
Though the days of the hero are o'er;
Though lost to Mononia and cold in the grave,
He returns to Kincora no more!
That star of the field, which so often has poured
Its beam on the battle, is set;
But enough of its glory remains on each sword
To light us to victory yet!"
So sings Thomas Moore in one of his inspiring "Irish Melodies"; and when
hereafter you hear or read of Brian Boru, remember him not only as
Ireland's greatest king, but also as the dauntless lad who held the ford
at Killaloe, and preferred the privations of an outlaw's life to a
disgraceful peace; and who, dying an old, old man, still kept his love of
country undiminished, and sealed with his blood the liberty of his native
land, declaring, as the poet Moore puts it in his glowing verse:
"No, Freedom! whose smiles we shall never resign,
Go tell our invaders, the Danes,
That 't is sweeter to bleed for an age at thy shrines
Than to sleep but a moment in chains!"
Kincora, the royal home of Brian the King, is now so lost in ruins that
travellers cannot tell the throne-room from the cow-house; Cashel's high
rock is deserted and dismantled; and on the hill of Tara the palace of the
ancient Irish kings is but a grass-grown mound. But, though palaces
crumble and nations decay, the remembrance of truth and valor and glowing
patriotism lives on forever, and to the boys and girls of this more
favored time the stories of noble lives and glorious deeds come as a
priceless legacy, bidding them be stout-hearted in the face of danger and
strong-souled in spite of temptation. So to every lover of daring deeds
and loyal lives time cannot dim the shining record of the great King of
Ireland, Brian Boru--Brian of Munster: the Boy Chieftain.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[E] _Boru_, or _Borumha_, the tribute; therefore "Brian of the Tribute."
[Illustration]
III.
OLAF OF NORWAY: THE BOY VIKING.
(_Afterward King Olaf II., of Norway--"St. Olaf."_)
[A.D. 1010.]
Old Rane, the helmsman, whose fierce mustaches and shaggy shoulder-mantle
made him look like some grim old northern wolf, held high in air the great
bison-horn filled with foaming mead.
"Skoal to the Viking! Hael; was-hael!"[F] rose his exultant shout. From a
hundred sturdy throats the cry re-echoed till the vaulted hall of the
Swedemen's conquered castle rang again.
"Skoal to the Viking! Hael; was-hael!" and in the centre of that throng of
mail-clad men and tossing spears, standing firm and fearless upon the
interlocked and uplifted shields of three stalwart fighting-men, a
stout-limbed lad of scarce thirteen, with flowing light-brown hair and
flushed and eager face, brandished his sword vigorously in acknowledgment
of the jubilant shout that rang once again through the dark and
smoke-stained hall, "Was-hael to the sea-wolf's son! Skoal to Olaf the
King!"
Then above of the din and clash of shouting and of steel rose the voice of
Sigvat the saga-man, or song-man of the young viking, singing loud and
sturdily:
"Olaf the King is on his cruise,
His blue steel staining,
Rich booty gaining,
And all men trembling at the news.
Up, war-wolf's brood! our young fir's name
O'ertops the forest trees in fame,
Our stout young Olaf knows no fear.
Though fell the fray,
He's blithe and gay,
And warriors fall beneath his spear.
Who can't defend the wealth they have
Must die or share with the rover brave!"
A fierce and warlike song, boys and girls, to raise in honor of so young a
lad. But those were fierce and warlike days when men were stirred by the
recital of bold and daring deeds--those old, old days, eight hundred years
ago, when Olaf, the boy viking, the pirate chief of a hundred mail-clad
men, stood upon the uplifted shields of his exultant fighting-men in the
grim and smoke-stained hall of the gray castle of captured Sigtun, oldest
of Swedish cities.
Take your atlas, and, turning to the map of Sweden, place your finger on
the city of Stockholm. Do you notice that it lies at the easterly end of a
large lake? That is the Maelar, beautiful with winding channels,
pine-covered islands, and rocky shores. It is peaceful and quiet now, and
palace and villa and quaint northern farm-house stand unmolested on its
picturesque borders. But channels, and islands, and rocky shores have
echoed and re-echoed with the war-shouts of many a fierce sea-rover since
those far-off days when Olaf, the boy viking, and his Norwegian ships of
war plowed through the narrow sea-strait, and ravaged the fair shores of
the Maelar with fire and sword.
Stockholm, the "Venice of the North," as it is called, was not then in
existence; and little now remains of old Sigtun save ruined walls. But
travellers may still see the three tall towers of the ancient town, and
the great stone-heap, alongside which young Olaf drew his ships of war,
and over which his pirate crew swarmed into Sigtun town, and planted the
victorious banner of the golden serpent upon the conquered walls.
For this fair young Olaf came of hardy Norse stock. His father, Harald
Graenske, or "Greymantle," one of the tributary kings of Norway, had
fallen a victim to the tortures of the haughty Swedish queen; and now his
son, a boy of scarce thirteen, but a warrior already by training and from
desire, came to avenge his father's death. His mother, the Queen Aasta,
equipped a large dragon-ship or war-vessel for her adventurous son, and
with the lad, as helmsman and guardian, was sent old Rane, whom men called
"the far-travelled," because he had sailed westward as far as England and
southward to Norvasund (by which name men then knew the Straits of
Gibraltar). Boys toughened quickly in those stirring days, and this lad,
who, because he was commander of a dragon-ship, was called Olaf the
King--though he had no land to rule,--was of viking blood, and quickly
learned the trade of war. Already, among the rocks and sands of Sodermann,
upon the Swedish coast, he had won his first battle over a superior force
of Danish war-vessels.
Other ships of war joined him; the name of Olaf the Brave was given him by
right of daring deeds, and "Skoal to the Viking!" rang from the sturdy
throats of his followers as the little sea-king of thirteen was lifted in
triumph upon the battle-dented shields.
But a swift runner bursts into the gray hall of Sigtun. "To your ships, O
King; to your ships!" he cries. "Olaf, the Swedish king, men say, is
planting a forest of spears along the sea-strait, and, except ye push out
now, ye may not get out at all!"
The nimble young chief sprang from the upraised shields.
"To your ships, vikings, all!" he shouted. "Show your teeth, war-wolves!
Up with the serpent banner, and death to Olaf the Swede!"
Straight across the lake to the sea-strait, near where Stockholm now
stands, the vikings sailed, young Olaf's dragon-ship taking the lead. But
all too late; for, across the narrow strait, the Swedish king had
stretched great chains, and had filled up the channel with stocks and
stones. Olaf and his Norsemen were fairly trapped; the Swedish spears
waved in wild and joyful triumph, and King Olaf, the Swede, said with grim
satisfaction to his lords: "See, jarls and lendermen, the Fat Boy is caged
at last!" For he never spoke of his stout young Norwegian namesake and
rival save as "Olaf Tjocke,"--Olaf the Thick, or Fat.
The boy viking stood by his dragon-headed prow, and shook his clenched
fist at the obstructed sea-strait and the Swedish spears.
"Shall we, then, land, Rane, and fight our way through?" he asked.
"Fight our way through?" said old Rane, who had been in many another tight
place in his years of sea-roving, but none so close as this. "Why, King,
they be a hundred to one!"
"And if they be, what then?" said impetuous Olaf. "Better fall as a viking
breaking Swedish spears, than die a straw-death[G] as Olaf of Sweden's
bonder-man. May we not cut through these chains?"
"As soon think of cutting the solid earth, King," said the helmsman.
"So; and why not, then?" young Olaf exclaimed, struck with a brilliant
idea. "Ho, Sigvat," he said, turning to his saga-man, "what was that
lowland under the cliff where thou didst say the pagan Upsal king was
hanged in his own golden chains by his Finnish queen?"
"'T is called the fen of Agnefit, O King," replied the saga-man, pointing
toward where it lay.
"Why, then, my Rane," asked the boy, "may we not cut our way out through
that lowland fen to the open sea and liberty?"
"'T is Odin's own device," cried the delighted helmsman, catching at his
young chief's great plan. "Ho, war-wolves all, bite ye your way through
the Swedish fens! Up with the serpent banner, and farewell to Olaf the
Swede!"
It seemed a narrow chance, but it was the only one. Fortune favored the
boy viking. Heavy rains had flooded the lands that slope down to the
Maelar Lake; in the dead of night the Swedish captives and stout Norse
oarsmen were set to work, and before daybreak an open cut had been made in
the lowlands beneath Agnefit, or the "Rock of King Agne," where, by the
town of Sodertelje, the vikings' canal is still shown to travellers; the
waters of the lake came rushing through the cut, and an open sea-strait
waited young Olaf's fleet.
"Unship the rudder; hoist the sail aloft!" commanded Rane the helmsman
"Sound war-horns all! Skoal to the Viking; skoal to the wise young Olaf!"
A strong breeze blew astern; the Norse rowers steered the rudderless ships
with their long oars, and with a mighty rush, through the new canal and
over all the shallows, out into the great Norrstrom, or North Stream, as
the Baltic Sea was called, the fleet passed in safety while the loud
war-horns blew the notes of triumph.
So the boy viking escaped from the trap of his Swedish foes, and, standing
by the "grim gaping dragon's head" that crested the prow of his war-ship,
he bade the helmsman steer for Gotland Isle, while Sigvat the saga-man
sang with the ring of triumph:
"Down the fiord sweep wind and rain;
Our sails and tackle sway and strain;
Wet to the skin
We're sound within.
Our sea-steed through the foam goes prancing,
While shields and spears and helms are glancing.
From fiord to sea,
Our ships ride free,
And down the wind with swelling sail
We scud before the gathering gale."
What a breezy, rollicking old saga it is. Can't you almost catch the spray
and sea-swell in its dashing measures, boys?
Now, turn to your atlases again and look for the large island of Gotland
off the south-eastern coast of Sweden, in the midst of the Baltic Sea. In
the time of Olaf it was a thickly peopled and wealthy district, and the
principal town, Wisby, at the northern end, was one of the busiest places
in all Europe. To this attractive island the boy viking sailed with all
his ships, looking for rich booty, but the Gotlanders met him with fair
words and offered him so great a "scatt," or tribute, that he agreed not
to molest them, and rested at the island, an unwelcome guest, through all
the long winter. Early in the spring he sailed eastward to the Gulf of
Riga and spread fear and terror along the coast of Finland. And the old
saga tells how the Finlanders "conjured up in the night, by their
witchcraft, a dreadful storm and bad weather; but the king ordered all
the anchors to be weighed and sail hoisted, and beat off all night to the
outside of the land. So the king's luck prevailed more than the
Finlanders' witchcraft."
Then away "through the wild sea" to Denmark sailed the young pirate king,
and here he met a brother viking, one Thorkell the Tall. The two chiefs
struck up a sort of partnership; and coasting southward along the western
shores of Denmark, they won a sea-fight in the Ringkiobing Fiord, among
the "sand hills of Jutland." And so business continued brisk with this
curiously matched pirate firm--a giant and a boy--until, under the cliffs
of Kinlimma, in Friesland, hasty word came to the boy viking that the
English king, Ethelred "The Unready," was calling for the help of all
sturdy fighters to win back his heritage and crown from young King Cnut,
or Canute the Dane, whose father had seized the throne of England. Quick
to respond to an appeal that promised plenty of hard knocks, and the
possibility of unlimited booty, Olaf, the ever ready, hoisted his blue and
crimson sails and steered his war-ships over sea to help King Ethelred,
the never ready. Up the Thames and straight for London town he rowed.
"Hail to the serpent banner! Hail to Olaf the Brave!" said King Ethelred,
as the war-horns sounded a welcome; and on the low shores of the Isle of
Dogs, just below the old city, the keels of the Norse war-ships grounded
swiftly, and the boy viking and his followers leaped ashore. "Thou dost
come in right good time with thy trusty dragon-ships, young King," said
King Ethelred; "for the Danish robbers are full well entrenched in London
town and in my father Edgar's castle."
And then he told Olaf how, "in the great trading place which is called
Southwark," the Danes had raised "a great work and dug large ditches, and
within had builded a bulwark of stone, timber and turf, where they had
stationed a large army."
"And we would fain have taken this bulwark," added the King, "and did in
sooth bear down upon it with a great assault; but indeed we could make
naught of it."
"And why so?" asked the young viking.
"Because," said King Ethelred, "upon the bridge betwixt the castle and
Southwark have the ravaging Danes raised towers and parapets, breast high,
and thence they did cast down stones and weapons upon us so that we could
not prevail. And now, Sea-King, what dost thou counsel? How may we avenge
ourselves of our enemies and win the town?"
Impetuous as ever, and impatient of obstacles, the young viking said:
"How? why, pull thou down this bridge, King, and then may ye have free
river-way to thy castle."
"Break down great London Bridge, young hero?" cried the amazed king. "How
may that be? Have we a Duke Samson among us to do so great a feat?"
"Lay me thy ships alongside mine, King, close to this barricaded bridge,"
said the valorous boy, "and I will vow to break it down, or ye may call me
caitiff and coward."
"Be it so," said Ethelred, the English king; and all the war-chiefs
echoed: "Be it so!" So Olaf and his trusty Rane made ready the war-forces
for the destruction of the bridge.
Old London Bridge was not what we should now call an imposing structure,
but our ancestors of nine centuries back esteemed it quite a bridge. The
chronicler says that it was "so broad that two wagons could pass each
other upon it," and "under the bridge were piles driven into the bottom of
the river."
So young Olaf and old Rane put their heads together, and decided to wreck
the bridge by a bold viking stroke. And this is how it is told in the
"Heimskringla," or Saga of King Olaf the Saint:
"King Olaf ordered great platforms of floating wood to be tied
together with hazal bands, and for this he took down old
houses; and with these, as a roof, he covered over his ships so
widely that it reached over the ships' sides. Under this screen
he set pillars, so high and stout that there both was room for
swinging their swords, and the roofs were strong enough to
withstand the stones cast down upon them."
"Now, out oars and pull for the bridge," young Olaf commanded; and the
roofed-over war-ships were rowed close up to London Bridge.
And as they came near the bridge, the chronicle says:
"There were cast upon them, by the Danes upon the bridge, so many stones
and missile weapons, such as arrows and spears, that neither helmet nor
shield could hold out against it; and the ships themselves were so greatly
damaged that many retreated out of it."
But the boy viking and his Norsemen were there for a purpose, and were not
to be driven back by stones or spears or arrows. Straight ahead they
rowed, "quite up under the bridge."
"Out cables, all, and lay them around the piles," the young sea-king
shouted; and the half-naked rowers, unshipping their oars, reached out
under the roofs and passed the stout cables twice around the wooden
supports of the bridge. The loose end was made fast at the stern of each
vessel, and then, turning and heading down stream, King Olaf's twenty
stout war-ships waited his word:
"Out oars!" he cried; "pull, war-birds! Pull all, as if ye were for
Norway!"
Forward and backward swayed the stout Norse rowers; tighter and tighter
pulled the cables; fast down upon the straining war-ships rained the
Danish spears and stones; but the wooden piles under the great bridge were
loosened by the steady tug of the cables, and soon with a sudden spurt the
Norse war-ships darted down the river, while the slackened cables towed
astern the captured piles of London Bridge. A great shout went up from the
besiegers, and "now," says the chronicle, "as the armed troops stood thick
upon the bridge, and there were likewise many heaps of stones and other
weapons upon it, the bridge gave way; and a great part of the men upon it
fell into the river, and all the others fled--some into the castle, some
into Southwark." And before King Ethelred, "The Unready," could pull his
ships to the attack, young Olaf's fighting-men had sprung ashore, and,
storming the Southwark earthworks, carried all before them, and the battle
of London Bridge was won.
And the young Olaf's saga-man sang triumphantly:
"London Bridge is broken down--
Gold is won and bright renown;
Shields resounding,
War-horns sounding,
Hildar shouting in the din!
Arrows singing,
Mail-coats ringing,
Odin makes our Olaf win!"
And perhaps, who knows, this wrecking of London Bridge so many hundred
years ago by Olaf, the boy viking of fifteen, may have been the origin of
the old song-game dear to so many generations of children:
"London Bridge is fallen down, fallen down, fallen down--
London Bridge is fallen down, my fair lady!"
So King Ethelred won back his kingdom, and the boy viking was honored
above all others. To him was given the chief command in perilous
expeditions against the Danes, and the whole defence of all the coast of
England. North and south along the coast he sailed with all his war-ships,
and the Danes and Englishmen long remembered the dashing but dubious ways
of this young sea-rover, who swept the English coast and claimed his dues
from friend and foe alike. For those were days of insecurity for merchant
and trader and farmer, and no man's wealth or life was safe except as he
paid ready tribute to the fierce Norse allies of King Ethelred. But soon
after this, King Ethelred died, and young Olaf, thirsting for new
adventures, sailed away to the south and fought his way all along the
French coast as far as the mouth of the river Garonne. Many castles he
captured; many rival vikings subdued; much spoil he gathered; until at
last his dragon-ships lay moored under the walls of old Bordeaux, waiting
for fair winds to take him around to the Straits of Gibraltar, and so on
"to the land of Jerusalem."
One day, in the booty-filled "fore-hold" of his dragon-ship, the young
sea-king lay asleep; and suddenly, says the old record, "he dreamt a
wondrous dream."
"Olaf, great stem of kings, attend!" he heard a deep voice call; and,
looking up, the dreamer seemed to see before him "a great and important
man, but of a terrible appearance withal."
"If that thou art Olaf the Brave, as men do call thee," said the vision,
"turn thyself to nobler deeds than vikings' ravaging and this wandering
cruise. Turn back, turn back from thy purposeless journey to the land of
Jerusalem, where neither honor nor fame awaits thee. Son of King Harald,
return thee to thy heritage; for thou shalt be King over all Norway."
Then the vision vanished and the young rover awoke to find himself alone,
save for the sleeping foot-boy across the cabin door-way. So he quickly
summoned old Rane, the helmsman, and told his dream.
"'T was for thy awakening, King," said his stout old follower. "'T was the
great Olaf, thine uncle, Olaf Tryggvesson the King, that didst call thee.
Win Norway, King, for the portent is that thou and thine shall rule thy
fatherland."
And the war-ships' prows were all turned northward again, as the boy
viking, following the promise of his dream, steered homeward for Norway
and a throne.
Now in Norway Earl Eric was dead. For thirteen years he had usurped the
throne that should have been filled by one of the great King Olaf's line;
and, at his death, his handsome young son, Earl Hakon the Fair, ruled in
his father's stead. And when young King Olaf heard this news, he shouted
for joy and cried to Rane:
"Now, home in haste, for Norway shall be either Hakon's heritage or mine!"
"'T is a fair match of youth 'gainst youth," said the trusty helmsman;
"and if but fair luck go with thee, Norway shall be thine!"
So, from "a place called Furovald," somewhere between the mouths of Humber
and of Tees, on the English coast, King Olaf, with but two stout war-ships
and two hundred and twenty "well-armed and chosen persons," shook out his
purple sails to the North Sea blasts, and steered straight for Norway.
As if in league against this bold young viking the storm winds came
rushing down from the mountains of Norway and the cold belt of the Arctic
Circle and caught the two war-ships tossing in a raging sea. The storm
burst upon them with terrific force, and the danger of shipwreck was
great. "But," says the old record, "as they had a chosen company and the
king's luck with them all went on well.
"Thou able chief!"
sings the faithful saga-man,
"With thy fearless crew
Thou meetest with skill and courage true
The wild sea's wrath
On thy ocean path.
Though waves mast-high were breaking round,
Thou findest the middle of Norway's ground,
With helm in hand
On Saelo's strand."
Now _Sael_ was Norse for "lucky" and Saelo's Island means the lucky
island.
"I'll be a lucky king for landing thus upon the Lucky Isle," said rash
young Olaf, with the only attempt at a joke we find recorded of him, as,
with a mighty leap, he sprang ashore where the sliding keel of his
war-ship ploughed the shore of Saelo's Isle.
"True, 't is a good omen, King," said old Rane the helmsman, following
close behind.
But the soil of the "lucky isle" was largely clay, moist and slippery,
and as the eager young viking climbed the bank his right foot slipped, and
he would have fallen had not he struck his left foot firmly in the clay
and thus saved himself. But to slip at all was a bad sign in those old,
half-pagan, and superstitious times, and he said, ruefully: "An omen; an
omen, Rane! The king falls!"
"Nay, 't is the king's luck," says ready and wise old Rane. "Thou didst
not fall, King. See; thou didst but set fast foot in this thy native soil
of Norway."
"Thou art a rare diviner, Rane," laughed the young king much relieved, and
then he added solemnly: "It may be so if God doth will it so."
And now news comes that Earl Hakon, with a single war-ship, is steering
north from Sogne Fiord; and Olaf, pressing on, lays his two ships on
either side of a narrow strait, or channel, in Sandunga Sound. Here he
stripped his ships of all their war-gear, and stretched a great cable deep
in the water, across the narrow strait. Then he wound the cable-ends
around the capstans, ordered all his fighting-men out of sight, and waited
for his rival. Soon Earl Hakon's war-ship, crowded with rowers and
fighting-men, entered the strait. Seeing, as he supposed, but two harmless
merchant-vessels lying on either side of the channel, the young earl bade
his rowers pull between the two. Suddenly there is a stir on the quiet
merchant-vessels. The capstan bars are manned; the sunken cable is drawn
taut. Up goes the stern of Earl Hakon's entrapped war-ship; down plunges
her prow into the waves, and the water pours into the doomed boat. A loud
shout is heard; the quiet merchant-vessels swarm with mail-clad men, and
the air is filled with a shower of stones, and spears, and arrows. The
surprise is complete. Tighter draws the cable; over topples Earl Hakon's
vessel, and he and all his men are among the billows struggling for life.
"So," says the record, "King Olaf took Earl Hakon and all his men whom
they could get hold of out of the water and made them prisoners; but some
were killed and some were drowned."
Into the "fore-hold" of the king's ship the captive earl was led a
prisoner, and there the young rivals for Norway's crown faced each other.
The two lads were of nearly the same age--between sixteen and
seventeen,--and young Earl Hakon was considered the handsomest youth in
all Norway. His helmet was gone, his sword was lost, his ring-steel suit
was sadly disarranged, and his long hair, "fine as silk," was "bound about
his head with a gold ornament." Fully expecting the fate of all captives
in those cruel days--instant death,--the young earl nevertheless faced his
boy conqueror proudly, resolved to meet his fate like a man.
"They speak truth who say of the house of Eric that ye be handsome men,"
said the King, studying his prisoner's face. "But now, Earl, even though
thou be fair to look upon, thy luck hath failed thee at last."
"Fortune changes," said the young earl. "We both be boys; and thou, king,
art perchance the shrewder youth. Yet, had we looked for such a trick as
thou hast played upon us, we had not thus been tripped upon thy sunken
cables. Better luck next time."
"Next time!" echoed the king; "dost thou not know, Earl, that as thou
standest there, a prisoner, there may be no 'next time' for thee?"
The young captive understood full well the meaning of the words. "Yes,
King," he said; "it must be only as thou mayst determine. Man can die but
once. Speak on; I am ready!" But Olaf said: "What wilt thou give me, Earl,
if at this time I do let thee go, whole and unhurt?"
"'T is not what I may give, but what thou mayst take, King," the earl made
answer. "I am thy prisoner; what wilt thou take to free me?"
"Nothing," said the generous young viking, advancing nearer to his
handsome rival. "As thou didst say, we both be boys, and life is all
before us. Earl, I give thee thy life, do thou but take oath before me to
leave this my realm of Norway, to give up thy kingdom, and never to do
battle against me hereafter."
The conquered earl bent his fair young head.
"Thou art a generous chief, King Olaf," he said. "I take my life as thou
dost give it, and all shall be as thou wilt."
So Earl Hakon took the oath, and King Olaf righted his rival's capsized
war-ship, refitted it from his own stores of booty, and thus the two lads
parted; the young earl sailing off to his uncle, King Canute, in England,
and the boy viking hastening eastward to Vigen, where lived his mother,
the Queen Aasta, whom he had not seen for full five years.
It is harvest-time in the year 1014. Without and within the long, low
house of Sigurd Syr, at Vigen, all is excitement; for word has come that
Olaf the sea-king has returned to his native land, and is even now on his
way to this, his mother's house. Gay stuffs decorate the dull walls of the
great-room, clean straw covers the earth-floor, and upon the long,
four-cornered tables is spread a mighty feast of mead and ale and coarse
but hearty food, such as the old Norse heroes drew their strength and
muscle from. At the door-way stands the Queen Aasta with her maidens,
while before the entrance, with thirty "well-clothed men," waits young
Olaf's stepfather, wise Sigurd Syr, gorgeous in a jewelled suit, a scarlet
cloak, and a glittering golden helmet. The watchers on the house-tops hear
a distant shout, now another and nearer one, and soon, down the highway,
they catch the gleam of steel and the waving of many banners; and now they
can distinguish the stalwart forms of Olaf's chosen hundred men, their
shining coats of ring-mail, their foreign helmets, and their crossleted
shields flashing in the sun. In the very front rides old Rane, the
helmsman, bearing the great white banner blazoned with the golden serpent,
and, behind him, cased in golden armor, his long brown hair flowing over
his sturdy shoulders, rides the boy viking, Olaf of Norway.
It was a brave home-coming; and as the stout young hero, leaping from his
horse, knelt to receive his mother's welcoming kiss, the people shouted
for joy, the banners waved, the war-horns played their loudest; and thus,
after five years of wandering, the boy comes back in triumph to the home
he left when but a wild and adventurous little fellow of twelve.
The hero of nine great sea-fights, and of many smaller ones, before he was
seventeen, young Olaf Haraldson was a remarkable boy, even in the days
when all boys aimed to be battle-tried heroes. Toughened in frame and
fibre by his five years of sea-roving, he had become strong and
self-reliant, a man in action though but a boy in years.
"I am come," he said to his mother and his stepfather, "to take the
heritage of my forefathers. But not from Danish nor from Swedish kings
will I supplicate that which is mine by right. I intend rather to seek my
patrimony with battle-ax and sword, and I will so lay hand to the work
that one of two things shall happen: Either I shall bring all this kingdom
of Norway under my rule, or I shall fall here upon my inheritance in the
land of my fathers."
These were bold words for a boy of seventeen. But they were not idle
boastings. Before a year had passed, young Olaf's pluck and courage had
won the day, and in harvest-time, in the year 1015, being then but little
more than eighteen years old, he was crowned King of Norway in the
Drontheim, or "Throne-home," of Nidaros, the royal city, now called on
your atlas the city of Drontheim. For fifteen years King Olaf the Second
ruled his realm of Norway. The old record says that he was "a good and
very gentle man"; but history shows his goodness and gentleness to have
been of a rough and savage kind. The wild and stern experiences of his
viking days lived again even in his attempts to reform and benefit his
land. When he who had himself been a pirate tried to put down piracy, and
he who had been a wild young robber sought to force all Norway to become
Christian, he did these things in so fierce and cruel a way that at last
his subjects rebelled, and King Canute came over with a great army to
wrest the throne from him. On the bloody field of Stiklestad, July 29,
1030, the stern king fell, says Sigvat, his saga-man,
"beneath the blows
By his own thoughtless people given."
So King Canute conquered Norway; but after his death, Olaf's son, Magnus
the Good, regained his father's throne. The people, sorrowful at their
rebellion against King Olaf, forgot his stern and cruel ways, and
magnified all his good deeds so mightily, that he was at last declared a
saint, and the shrine of Saint Olaf is still one of the glories of the old
cathedral in Drontheim. And, after King Magnus died, his descendants ruled
in Norway for nearly four hundred years; and thus was brought to pass the
promise of the dream that, in the "fore-hold" of the great dragon-ship,
under the walls of old Bordeaux, came so many years before to the daring
and sturdy young Olaf of Norway, the Boy Viking.
FOOTNOTES:
[F] "Hail and Health to the Viking!"
[G] So contemptuously did those fierce old sea-kings regard a peaceful
life, that they said of one who died quietly on his bed at home: "His was
but a straw-death."
[Illustration]
IV.
WILLIAM OF NORMANDY: THE BOY KNIGHT.
(_Afterward William the Conqueror, King of England._)
[A.D. 1040.]
It was a time of struggle in France. King and barons, lords and vassals,
were warring against each other for the mastery. Castles were besieged,
cities sacked, and fertile fields laid waste; and in that northern section
of France known as the Duchy of Normandy the clash and crush of conflict
raged the fiercest around the person of one brave-hearted but sorely
troubled little man of twelve--William, Lord of Rouen, of the Hiesmos and
of Falaise, and Duke of Normandy.
Left an orphan at eight by the death of his famous father--whom men called
Robert the Magnificent before his face and Robert the Devil behind his
back--the boyhood of the young duke had been full of danger and distress.
And now in his gloomy castle at Rouen--which his great-grandfather,
Richard the Fearless, had built nearly a hundred years before--new trouble
threatened him, as word came that King Henry of France, the "suzerain," or
overlord of Normandy, deeming his authority not sufficiently honored in
his Norman fief, had invaded the boy's territories, and with a strong
force was besieging the border castle of Tillieres,[H] scarce fifty miles
to the south.
The beleaguering hosts of France swarmed round the strong-walled castle,
and the herald of France demanded entrance. In the audience-hall the
warden of the marches, or borders of Normandy, received him.
"Gilbert of Crispin," said the herald, "thy master and suzerain, King
Henry of France, demands from thee the keys and possession of this his
fortress of Tillieres, granting therefor, to thee and thy followers,
pardon and safe conduct. But and if thou failest, then will he raze these
walls to the ground, and give to thee and thy followers the sure and
speedy death of traitors."
Bluff old Gilbert of Crispin, with scarcely restrained rage, made instant
answer:
"Sir herald," he said, "tell thy master, the King of France, that Gilbert
of Crispin defies and scorns him, and that he will hold this castle of
Tillieres for his liege and suzerain, Duke William of Normandy, though all
the carrion kites of France should flap their wings above it."
Defiance begets defiance, and both besiegers and besieged prepared for a
stubborn conflict. Suddenly the watcher from the donjon spied a flurry of
dust toward the north, out of the distance came hurrying forms, then the
sun played on shield and lance and banneret, and the joyful shout of the
watchman in the tower rang out: "Rescue! rescue and succor from our Duke!"
A band of knights rode from the French camp to intercept the new-comers.
Then came a halt and parley, and just as doughty Gilbert of Crispin was
preparing a sally for the support of his friends the parley ceased, the
Norman knights rode straight to the castle, and a loud trumpet-peal
summoned the warder to the gates. "Open; open in the name of the Duke!"
came the command.
The ponderous drawbridge slowly fell, the grim portcullis rose with creak
and rattle, the great gate swung open wide, and into the castle yard rode
Duke William himself.
A handsome, ruddy, stalwart lad of twelve; old-looking for his years, and
showing, even then, in muscle and in face, the effect of his stormy
boyhood. An open, manly brow, wavy chestnut hair, and a face that told of
thoughtful purpose and a strong will.
"Good Crispin," said the boy duke as his faithful liegeman came forward to
greet him, "suffer me to have my will. 'T is wiser to fly your hawk at a
stag-royal than a fox. Henry of France may be fair or false to us of
Normandy but 't is safer in these troublous times to have him as friend
rather than foe. You, in whose charge my father Duke Robert left me years
ago, know well how when scarce seven years old I placed my hands between
this same King Henry's and swore to be his man. I will be true to my
fealty vows hap what may, and though it cometh hard to your stout Norman
heart to give up without a blow what you are so loyal to defend, suffer
me, as your suzerain, to give up this my fortress to my overlord. Trust me
't will be best for Normandy and for your duke."
Gilbert of Crispin grumbled and chafed at the command of his young lord,
but he obeyed, and the castle which he had hoped to defend was handed over
to King Henry as hostage for Normandy's faith.
And when the crafty king, who as the boy duke had wisely said was fox
rather than stag-royal, was safely in possession he said, with all the
stately courtesy he could assume when occasion served: "Fair Cousin
William, so loyal and loving a concession as is this of thine, at a time
when blows were far easier to give, merits more from me than thanks. The
fealty of vassal to suzerain is well, but so fair a deed as this of thine
is the height of knightly valor. And where such knightly valor doth live
the knightly spurs should follow. Kneel before thy lord!"
And as the boy knelt bareheaded before him King Henry with drawn sword
gave him the _accolade_--three smart taps with the flat of the sword on
the shoulder and one with the palm of the hand on the cheek. Then said the
king: "William of Normandy, in the name of God, St. Michael, and St.
George, I dub thee knight. Be valiant, bold, and loyal. Speak the truth;
maintain the right; protect the defenceless; succor the distressed;
champion the ladies; vindicate thy knightly character, and prove thy
knightly bravery and endurance by perilous adventures and valorous deeds.
Fear God, fight for the faith, and serve thy suzerain and thy fatherland
faithfully and valiantly."
So Duke William was made a knight at the earliest age at which knighthood
was conferred. And he rode back to his castle at Rouen; and both there and
at his neighboring castle of Vaudreuil, farther down the valley of the
Seine, it was a day of pleasure and feasting for vassals and retainers
when the boy knight first donned his armor and sprang to his saddle
without aid of stirrup--"so tall, so manly in face, and so proud of
bearing," says the old record, "that it was a sight both pleasant and
terrible to see him guiding his horse's career, flashing with his sword,
gleaming with his shield, and threatening with his casque and lance."
But soon, boy though he was, he had terrible work to do. Rebellion was
abroad in his realm, and King Henry's foxy qualities were shown when,
in spite of his promises, he still farther invaded the Norman land, and
gave support to the boy's rebellious subjects. And, worse still, as if to
heap additional insult on his young life, Thurstan Goz, charged with the
defence of a portion of the Norman borders, rose in open rebellion and
garrisoned with recreant Normans and purchased Frenchmen the castle of
Falaise--not only the birthplace, but the favorite castle of the boy
duke,--insolently declaring that if the lad dared attempt its release that
he, Thurstan the rebel, had a plenty of raw hides with which to "tan the
tanner."[I]
Frequent dangers and distresses had taught the boy to curb his sometimes
fiery temper. But this special insult was past all endurance, and even his
self-control was lost in indignation.
Scarce had the courserman, who had sped with the news to the duke's castle
at Rouen, delivered his message than the boy flamed with rage, and turning
to his guardian, Ralph of Wacey, captain-general of the armies of
Normandy, he cried:
"Good cousin, this is not to be borne. I have done King Henry's will, and
been faithful to my fealty vows, but this passeth even my bent. Fling out
our standard. Summon every loyal Norman to our aid--knight and archer and
cross-bowman. Cry '_Maslon!_' and '_Dix aie!_'[J] and let us straight
against this dastard rebel at Falaise."
Quick to act whenever the need arose, the boy duke was soon leading his
army of loyal Normans against the massive castle in which he first saw the
light.
From one of those very turret windows which to-day still look down from
this old castle on the cliffs upon the lovely valley or glen of the Ante,
where Norman peasant women still wash their clothes as they did in Duke
William's day, the recreant Thurstan saw the banners of the approaching
host, and laughed grimly to think how he had outwitted the boy, and how
those steep cliffs, or _felsens_ (which give the place its name of
Falaise), could never be scaled by the armor-encased troops of his young
lord.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF FALAISE--BIRTHPLACE OF WILLIAM THE
CONQUEROR.]
But Thurstan reckoned without his host. Friendship is an even better ally
than battering-rams and scaling-ladders. Duke William had played as a
little child in this very town and castle of Falaise, and not a Norman
peasant girl but loved and petted him, not a Norman peasant lad but was
proud of the daring and muscle of the brave young duke. At one of those
very washing booths in which it was said Duke Robert first saw and loved
the beautiful Herleva, the tanner's daughter, a peasant girl, pounding her
wash on the sloping board, saw across the treeless slopes the advancing
banners of the duke. The clothes were left unpounded, and speeding to the
little town, she told her news; the loyal men of Falaise flocked to meet
their duke, the gates of the town were opened to him, and from the most
accessible side the Norman host advanced to the assault of the massive
castle walls.
Spurred on to fresh energy and immediate action by the loyalty of his
townsmen and the sight of the rebel standard floating from the walls of
his own castle, the boy knight led the assault upon the outworks, and
proved in this, his first deed of arms, the truth of his biographer that
he was one who "knew when to strike and how to strike." Catapult and
balista, battering-ram and arbalast, cloth-yard shaft and javelin did
their work, a breach was made in the walls, and only the darkness put a
stop to the assault.
Then, spent with the conflict and fearful as to the result, Thurstan saw
that rebellion against this determined boy was no child's play, and with
his haughty spirit considerably humbled he sought an audience with the
duke and craved pardon and easy terms of surrender.
No boy of thirteen, even in this refined and enlightened nineteenth
century, can refrain from "crowing" over a defeated antagonist. It is
human nature and boy-nature especially. What then must it have been in
those cruel and vindictive days eight hundred years ago, when every man's
hand was ready to strike, and every victor's sword was quick to destroy.
But see how in even an ignoble age the manly boy can still be noble.
"Thurstan Goz," said the duke, "that you have warred against me I can
forgive; that you have disgraced this the dearest estate of Duke Robert,
my father, and of me his son, I can also forgive. But that you should
forfeit your vows of fealty and rebelliously conspire against this your
home-land of Normandy I can never forgive. I give you your life. Depart in
peace. But, as you hope for life, never show yourself in this our realm
again. You are banished from Normandy forever!"
The boyhood of William of Normandy seems to have been full of just such
evidences as this of his love of justice, his kind-heartedness, his moral
and physical courage--qualities which even in these days of universal
education and grander opportunities would stamp a boy as noble and manly,
and which were especially remarkable in that age of narrower views and
universal ignorance, when even this just and wise boy prince could simply
make a rude cross as his ducal signature.
So desirous was he for peace and quietness in his realm that, boy though
he was, he stood among the foremost advocates of the measure by which the
Church sought to limit crime and violence and bloodshed, by instituting
what was known as the "Truce of God," and by the terms of which all men
agreed to abstain from violent deeds (except in cases of actual warfare)
from the night of Wednesday to the following Monday morning in each week.
All of William's biographers, however they criticise his later acts, unite
in speaking of the excellences of his boyhood: of his wisdom in the choice
of counsellors, and his willingness to listen to and follow their advice;
of his personal goodness in an age of widespread viciousness; of his grace
and skill in athletic sports and warlike exercises, and his expertness
beyond all his companions in the excitements and successes of the chase.
Of this last-named pastime he was passionately fond, even from early
boyhood, and few excelled him, either in the eagerness with which he
followed the game, or the skill which he displayed in the hunt.
This thought came also to the two mail-clad watchers who, shielded from
view by a group of large trees, looked with interest upon a youthful
hunter, who, in one of the glades that broke the great stretch of forest
near to beautiful Valognes, sped his cloth-yard shaft from his mighty
longbow of English yew, and sent it whizzing full four hundred feet,
straight to the heart of a bounding buck that dashed across the glade
scarce forty yards from the ambushed watchers.
"By the mass, a wondrous hit!" exclaimed the older knight. "Why, man, he
drew that shaft from nocking-point to pile.[K] I would have sworn that
mortal man--let alone a lad like that--could not have drawn such a bow, or
sped so true a shaft."
"There is but one lad that can do it in all Normandy, and that is yonder
hunter," said the younger knight enthusiastic in spite of himself. "Hast
thou not known that none but Duke William can bend Duke William's bow--a
murrain on him too!"
"So, is it our quarry--is it the duke, say'st thou?" hurriedly asked the
older knight. "Then the saints keep me out of range of his shaft. Draw
off, he comes this way"; and grizzled Grimald de Plessis, the Saxon baron,
drew still farther behind the tree-trunks as the young duke and his only
companion, Golet, his merryman or fool, dashed across the glade to where
the stricken stag lay dead.
But his companion, young Guy of Burgundy, fingered his light cross-bow
nervously. "Ten thousand curses on this coward Truce!" he exclaimed
beneath his breath as the duke, all unconscious of his danger, hurried
past the ambush. "But for that I might even now speed my shaft and wing
the tanner where he stoops above his game. Did'st ever see a fairer
chance?"
But wary De Plessis caught the lad's uplifted arm. "Have down thy hand and
bethink thee of that same Truce," he said. "'T is a wise restriction on
your wayward wits, my lord count. The duke's men are much too nigh at hand
to make such a bow-shot safe even for thee, and to-morrow's venture which
we have in hand may be made without breaking this tyrant Truce or braving
the ban of Holy Church. I would have a score of good men at my back ere I
try to wing so stout a bird as he," and De Plessis and the hot-headed Guy
withdrew from their dangerous ambush, while the duke, calling in his
lagging followers, turned over his prize to his huntsmen and rode on to
his castle.
"To-morrow's venture," of which the Saxon baron spoke, was to be the
sorriest chance that had yet happened to the brave young duke. For this
very Guy of Burgundy, cousin and comrade to William since his earliest
days, brought up in his court, and beholden to him for many favors, and
even for his knighthood, had--moved by jealousy--conspired with the
foremost barons of Western Normandy to put the young duke to death. That
very next night was the attempt to be made here in the duke's own castle
of Valognes, away up in the north-western corner of France, some fifteen
miles or so to the south of Cherbourg town--the modern naval and
shipbuilding city, off which the _Kearsarge_ and the _Alabama_ had their
famous sea-fight in the days of the American civil war--June 19, 1864.
But a well-known poet has told us that
"The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley,"
and this even the over-confident conspirators discovered. For, before they
could reach the castle on the night appointed, Golet, the duke's faithful
fool, had fathomed their plans, and with fleetest foot dashed into the
castle and up the narrow stairway to the bedchamber of the sleeping duke.
Bang, bang, bang, came a noisy pounding on the closed door, rousing the
lad, sorely tired from his day's hunting. Again and again the _pel_, or
jester's staff, clamored against the door, and now the fully aroused duke
caught his faithful servant's words:
"Up, up, my lord duke! Open, open! Where art thou, Duke William? Wherefore
dost thou sleep? Flee, flee, or thou art a dead man! Up, up, I say! All
are armed; all are marshalled; and if they capture thee, never, never wilt
thou again see the light of day!"
So earnest a warning was not calculated to allow even the most tired of
huntsmen to sleep. William sprang from his bed, and with nothing but a
_capa_, or short, hooded cloak thrown over his half-clad body, without
even clapping on his inseparable spurs, he leaped to his horse and rode
for his life. All unattended he galloped through the night, fording now
the shallow Doure and now the ebbing Vire, stopping for one short prayer
for safety at the shrine of St. Clement, near Isigny, and speeding along
the unfrequented road between Bayeux and the sea, until just before
sunrise he galloped into the little hamlet of Rie or Rye, close to the
shore. Foam-flecked and mud-bespattered, his flagging horse dashed past
the _manoir_ or castle of the lord of the hamlet whose name was Hubert.
[Illustration: "SO, HOLLO, MY LORD DUKE," SAID HUBERT, "WHAT TAKETH THEE
ABROAD IN THIS GUISE SO EARLY?"]
The old Norman was an early riser, and was standing at his castle gate
sniffing the morning air. His ear caught the sound of hoofs, and as the
lad galloped up, the stout old baron rubbed his eyes in surprise to see
his sovereign in such sorry plight.
"So, hollo, my lord duke," he cried; "what taketh thee abroad in this
guise so early? Is aught of danger afoot?"
"Hubert," said the duke, "dare I trust thee?"
"And why not," was the reply. "Have I ever played thee false? Speak, and
speak boldly."
Then William told his story, and without a moment's hesitation the loyal
baron hurried his early guest into the castle, summoned his three sons,
gave the lad a fresh horse, and said to his boys: "Mount, and mount
quickly. Behold your lord in dire stress. Leave him not till you have
lodged him safely in Falaise."
He bade them God-speed and hurried them off none too soon, for scarce had
the sounds of their horses' hoofs died away before the duke's pursuers
came riding hard behind. And Hubert, apparently as good a conspirator as
any of them, sent them on a wild-goose chase over the wrong road, while
the boy duke, with his faithful escort of Hubert's sons, crossed the ford
of Folpendant and reached Falaise at last in safety--in not a very
presentable condition after his hard all-night ride for his life, but,
says the old record, "what mattered that so that he was safe?"
Such a break-neck race with death[L] could have but one result. The young
duke realized at last the fierceness and relentlessness of his rivals and
enemies, and, sorrowing most of all at the treachery of the lad who had
been his playmate and comrade in arms in mimic fight and serious quarrel,
at the chase and in the tourney, he turned reluctantly for succor to the
only man to whom he might rightly look for aid--his liege lord and
suzerain, Henry, King of France.
That crafty and unscrupulous king, whose relations with his boy vassal had
been one continual game of "fast and loose," as desire dictated or
opportunity served, gave a secret chuckle of joy as Duke William and his
slender escort of knights and men-at-arms rode into the palace yard at
Poissy, only a few miles north-west of modern Versailles. And when at last
he saw the youth an actual suppliant at his throne his thought was: "Ah
ha! Duke William and Normandy are in my power at last."
But King Henry's lips seldom spoke his thoughts.
"Cousin of Normandy," he said, "you have done well and wisely to pray my
aid against your rebel barons and this wicked boy of Burgundy. To whom
else should you turn but to the overlord to whom your great father, Duke
Robert, confided you as a sacred trust years ago?"
The lad might justly have inquired how King Henry had kept the trust his
father had confided in him. But he only said:
"'T is not for me but for my father's duchy that I plead. The very life of
Normandy is in jeopardy, my liege."
"And right valiantly will we relieve it, lad," the king exclaimed. "Send
out your rallying-call. Summon your loyal vassals. Join force and arm with
me, and the banners of France and Normandy shall wave above conquered
rebels and a victorious field."
Action quickly succeeded words. An army was speedily raised. The loyal
Normans of the eastern counties hurried to the standard of their young
lord, and at the head of a combined French and Norman force, king and
duke, in the summer of the year 1047, confronted the rebel knights under
Guy of Burgundy, Grimbald de Plessis, Neel of St. Savior, and Randolf of
Bayeux, on the open slopes of Val-es-dunes, or the valley of the
sand-hills, not far from the town of Caen, and almost within sight of the
English Channel.
Duke William led the left wing and King Henry the right. There was a
shouting of battle-cries--the _Dix aie_ of the loyal Normans and the
_Montjoye-St. Denys_ of France mingling with _St. Savior_ and _St. Armand_
from the rebel ranks. Then, as in a great tournament, horse and rider,
shield, sword, and lance closed in desperate combat. It was a battle of
the knights. King Henry went down twice beneath the thrust of Norman
lances, but was on his horse again fighting valiantly in his vassal's
cause, and Duke William, in this his first pitched battle, by a day of
mingled courage, good fortune, prowess, and personal success, laid the
basis of that wonderful career that filled his daring and victorious
future, and fitted him to bear the proud though bloody title of the
Conqueror. Hand to hand, not with lance but with sword, he vanquished in
open conflict the champion of the rebel knights, Hardrez of Bayeux, and
ere darkness fell his enemies were vanquished and in desperate flight for
life, and his power as Duke of Normandy was established finally and
forever.
Great in his victory the boy knight was greater still in his generous
treatment of the conquered rebels. Only one, Grimbald de Plessis, who had
been the prime mover in the treason, suffered imprisonment and death. All
were pardoned, and young Guy of Burgundy, like the coward he seems to have
been, slipped sullenly away rather than face his generous rival and
old-time playfellow, and in his distant court of Burgundy spent his after
years in unsuccessful plots against his always successful rival.
And here our story of the boy William ends. Conqueror at Val-es-dunes,
when yet scarcely nineteen, his course from that time on through his busy
manhood, was one of unvarying success in battle and in statecraft. The
wonderful victory at Senlac, or Hastings, which, on the 14th of October,
1066, gave him the throne of England, and made him both king and
conqueror, has placed his name in the foremost rank of the military heroes
of the world. From this point his story is known to all. It is a part of
the history of our race. It is, indeed, as Palgrave the historian says:
"Magnificent was William's destiny. Can we avoid accepting him as the
Founder of the predominating empire now existing in the civilized world?
Never does the sun set upon the regions where the British banner is
unfurled. Nay, the Stars and Stripes of the Transatlantic Republic would
never have been hoisted, nor the Ganges flow as a British stream, but for
Norman William's gauntleted hand."
Eight hundred years of progress have removed us far from the savagery of
Duke William's day. The nations of the world are, each year, less and less
ready to fly at each other's throats like "dogs of war," whenever any
thing goes wrong or their "angry passions rise." The desires of to-day are
largely in the direction of universal peace and brotherhood. But still we
honor valor and courage and knightly and noble deeds. And though, as we
study the record of that remarkable life that so changed the history of
the world eight centuries back, we can see faults and vices, shortcomings
and crimes even, in the stirring life of William, Duke of Normandy and
King of England, still, as we look upon his spirited statue that now
stands in the market-place of Falaise, almost beneath the ruined walls of
the grim old castle in which he was born, and which he stormed and carried
when a boy of scarce fourteen, our thoughts go back to his stormy and
turbulent boyhood. And, as we do so, we see, not the Conqueror of England,
the enslaver of the Saxons, the iron-handed tyrant of the Curfew-bell and
the Doomsday-book, but the manly, courageous, true-hearted, perplexed, and
persecuted little fellow of the old Norman days, when, spite of trouble
and turmoil, he kept his heart brave, and true, and pure, and was in all
things the real boy knight--in those fresh and generous days of youth,
when, as Mr. Freeman, the brilliant historian of the Norman Conquest,
says: "He shone forth before all men as the very model of every princely
virtue."
FOOTNOTES:
[H] Tillieres, the Tuileries or tile-kiln, was old French for clay-pit or
brick-yard, and is the name also of a famous French palace.
[I] Young William's mother, Herleva of Falaise, was the daughter of
Fulbert, a prosperous tanner of the town, and the boy was taunted with
what was esteemed his low birth--as if, indeed, an honest tanner was not
the superior of a robber baron!
[J] The old Norman battle-cries.
[K] "Nocking-point to pile" in old-time archery meant the full length of
the arrow from the point where it "notched" the bow-string to the
arrowhead itself.
[L] The place at which young William in his flight from Valognes forded
the river Vire is still called "_la voie du Duc_."--the Duke's Way.
[Illustration]
V.
BALDWIN OF JERUSALEM: THE BOY CRUSADER.
(_Known as Baldwin III., the Fifth of the Latin Kings of Jerusalem._)
[A.D. 1147.]
[Illustration]
Through a flood of sunlight, cooled by mountain breezes, breaks a
straggling mass of hill and plain and deep ravine crowded with gray-walled
buildings, crumbling ruins, dismantled towers, glittering minarets and
crosses, stout walls and rounded domes. A palace here, a broken arch or
cross-crowned chapel there; narrow and untidy streets thronged with a
curious crowd drawn from every land and race--Syrian and Saxon, Norman and
Nubian, knight and squire, monk and minstrel,--such was Jerusalem, "city
of ruins," when, seven hundred years ago, the Red-Cross banner floated
from its towered walls and the Holy City stood as the capital of the
short-lived and unfortunate realm of the Crusaders--the Latin kingdom of
Jerusalem.
I take it for granted that most of my young readers know something of the
history of the Crusades--those wonderful religious wars, when Europe
overflowed into Asia and under the banner of the Cross sought by blood and
blows and daring deeds to gain possession from the Saracen conquerors--or,
as they were called, the "Infidel,"--of the tomb of Him whose mission was
"Peace on Earth; Good-Will to Men." But how many of them know any thing of
that eventful and romantic chapter in the history of Palestine, when, for
eighty-eight years, from the days of Duke Godfrey, greatest of the
Crusaders, to the time of Saladin, greatest of the Sultans, the Holy City
was governed by Christian nobles and guarded by Christian knights, drawn
from the shores of Italy, the downs of Normandy, and the forests of Anjou?
It is a chapter full of interest and yet but little known, and it is at
about the middle of this historic period, in the fall of the year 1147,
that our sketch opens.
In the palace of the Latin kings, on the slopes of Mount Moriah, a boy of
fifteen and a girl of ten were leaning against an open casement and
looking out through the clear September air toward the valley of the
Jordan and the purple hills of Moab.
"Give me thy gittern, Isa," said the boy, a ruddy-faced youth, with gray
eyes and auburn hair; "let me play the air that Rene, the troubadour,
taught me yesterday. I'll warrant thee 't will set thy feet a-flying, if I
can but master the strain," and he hummed over the gay Provencal measure:
"O Magali! thy witcheries
In vain shall try me!
When thou art fish, I'll fisher be
And fish for thee!"
But, bewitching little maiden though she was, the fair young Isabelle had
no thought of becoming a fish. She had now found something more absorbing
than the song of the troubadour.
"Nay, my lord, rather let me try the gittern," she said. "See, now will I
charm this snaily from its cell with the air that Rene taught _me_," and
together the two heads bent over one of the vicious little "desert snails
of Egypt," which young Isabelle of Tyre had found crawling along the
casement of the palace.
"Snaily, snaily, little nun,
Come out of thy cell, come into the sun;
Show me thy horns without delay,
Or I'll tear thy convent-walls away,"
sang the girl merrily, as she touched the strings of her gittern. But his
snailship continued close and mute, and the boy laughed loudly as he
picked up the snail and laid it on his open palm.
"'T is in vain, Isa," he said; "this surly snail is no troubadour to come
out at his lady's summons. Old Hassan says the sluggards can sleep for
full four years, but trust me to waken this one. So, holo! See, Isa, there
be his horns--ah! oh! the Forty Martyrs grind thy Pagan shell!" he cried,
with sudden vehemence, dancing around the room in pain, "the beast hath
bitten me! Out, Ishmaelite!" and he flung the snail from him in a rage,
while Isabelle clung to the casement laughing heartily at her cousin's
mishap.
But the snail flew across the room at an unfortunate moment, for the arras
parted suddenly and a tall and stalwart man, clothed in the coarse woollen
gown of a palmer, or pilgrim to Jerusalem, entered the apartment just in
time to receive the snail full against his respected and venerated nose.
"The saints protect us!" exclaimed the palmer, drawing back in surprise
and clapping a hand to his face. "Doth the king of Jerusalem keep a
catapult in this his palace with which to greet his visitors?" Then,
spying the two young people, who stood in some dismay by the open
casement, the stranger strode across the room and laid a heavy hand upon
the boy's shoulder, while little Isa's smothered laugh changed to an
alarmed and tremulous "Oh!"
"Thou unmannerly boy," said the palmer, "how dar'st thou thus assault a
pilgrim to the holy shrines?"
But the lad stood his ground stoutly. "Lay off thine hand, sir palmer," he
said. "Who art thou, forsooth, that doth press thy way into the private
chambers of the king?"
"Nay, that is not for thee to know," replied the palmer. "Good faith, I
have a mind to shake thee well, sir page, for this thy great
impertinence."
But here little Isa, having recovered her voice, exclaimed hurriedly: "O
no,--not page, good palmer. He is no page; he is----"
"Peace, Isa," the lad broke in with that peculiar wink of the left eyelid
well known to every boy who deals in mischief and mystery. "Let the gray
palmer tell us who _he_ may be, or, by my plume, he goeth no farther in
the palace here."
The burly pilgrim looked down upon the lad, who, with arms akimbo and
defiant face, barred his progress. He laughed a grim and dangerous laugh.
"Thou rare young malapert!" he said. "Hath, then, the state of great King
Godfrey fallen so low that chattering children keep the royal doors?"
Then, seizing the boy by the ear, he whirled him aside and said: "Out of
my path, sir page. Let me have instant speech with the king, thy master,
ere I seek him out myself and bid him punish roundly such a saucy young
jackdaw as thou."
"By what token askest thou to see the king?" the boy demanded, nursing his
wounded ear.
"By this same token of the royal seal," replied the palmer, and he held
out to the lad a golden signet-ring, "the which I was to show to
whomsoever barred my path and crave due entrance to the king for the gray
palmer, Conradin."
"So, 't is the queen-mother's signet," said the boy. "There is then no
gainsaying thee. Well, good palmer Conradin, thou need'st go no farther.
_I_ am the King of Jerusalem."
The palmer started in surprise. "Give me no more tricks, boy," he said,
sternly.
"Nay, 't is no trick, good palmer," said little Isabelle, in solemn
assurance. "This is the king."
The palmer saw that the little maid spoke truly, but he seemed still full
of wonder, and, grasping the young king's shoulder, he held him off at
arm's length and looked him over from head to foot.
"Thou the king!" he exclaimed. "Thou that Baldwin of Jerusalem whom men do
call the hero of the Jordan, the paladin of the Sepulchre, the young
conqueror of Bostra? Thou--a boy!"
"It ill beseemeth me to lay claim to hero and paladin," said young King
Baldwin, modestly. "But know, sir pilgrim, that I am as surely King
Baldwin of Jerusalem as thou art the palmer Conradin. What warrant, then,
hast thou, gray palmer though thou be, to lay such heavy hands upon the
king?" And he strove to free himself from the stranger's grasp.
[Illustration: "THOU THE KING!" HE EXCLAIMED; "THOU THAT BALDWIN OF
JERUSALEM WHOM MEN DO CALL THE HERO OF THE JORDAN!"]
But the palmer caught him round the neck with a strong embrace. "What
warrant, lad?" he exclaimed heartily. "Why, the warrant of a brother, good
my lord. Thousands of leagues have I travelled to seek and succor thee.
Little brother of Jerusalem, here am I known only as a gray palmer at the
holy shrines, but from the Rhine to Ratisbon and Rome am I hailed as
Conrad, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor!"
It was now the boy's turn to start in much surprise. "Thou the great
emperor--and in palmer's garb?" he said. "Where, then, are thy followers,
valiant Conrad?"
"Six thousand worn and weary knights camp under the shadow of Acre's
walls," replied the emperor, sadly, "the sole remains of that gallant
train of close on ninety thousand knights who followed the banner of the
Cross from distant Ratisbon. Greek traitors and Arab spears have slain the
rest, and I am come, a simple pilgrim, to do deep penance at the holy
shrines, and thereafter to help thee, noble boy, in thy struggles 'gainst
the Saracen."
"And the King of France?" asked Baldwin.
"King Louis is even now at Antioch, with barely seven thousand of his
seventy thousand Frankish knights," the emperor replied. "The rest fell,
even as did mine, by Greek craft, by shipwreck, and by Infidel device."
It is a sad story--the record of the Second Crusade. From first to last it
tells but of disaster and distress amidst which only one figure stands out
bright and brave and valorous--the figure of the youthful king, the boy
Crusader, Baldwin, of Jerusalem. It was a critical time in the Crusader's
kingdom. The old enthusiasm that had burned in Duke Godfrey's followers
had been dulled by forty years of Syrian listlessness. Fierce foes without
and treacherous feuds within harassed and weakened the Christian kingdom.
Edessa, its strongest outpost, fell before the Saracens. Jerusalem was
threatened. The Holy Sepulchre was in danger; and though King Baldwin was
a valiant lad the old Bible saying was fast being proved: "Every kingdom
divided against itself is brought to desolation." France and Germany,
roused at last to action by the glowing eloquence of St. Bernard, poured
their thousands eastward, and Europe felt again the tramp of armies
marching under the Red-Cross banner on a new Crusade. But from Hungary to
Syria disaster followed disaster, and of the thousands of knights and
spearmen who entered the Crusade only a miserable remnant reached
Palestine, led on by Conrad, Emperor of Germany, and Louis, King of
France. The land they came to succor was full of jealousy and feud, and
the brave boy king alone gave them joyful welcome. But young Baldwin had
pluck and vigor enough to counterbalance a host of laggards.
"Knights and barons of Jerusalem," he said, as he and the pilgrim emperor
entered the audience-hall, "'t is for us to act. Lay we aside all paltry
jealousy and bickering. Our brothers from the West are here to aid us. 'T
is for us to wield the sword of Godfrey and raise the banner of the Cross,
and marching in the van deal death to the pagan Saracen. Up, guardians of
the Holy Sepulchre, strike for the Kingdom and the Cross!"
The Syrian climate breeds laziness, but it also calls out quick passion
and the fire of excitement. Catching the inspiration of the boy's earnest
spirit, the whole assemblage of knights and barons, prelates and people,
shouted their approval, and the audience-chamber rang again and again with
the war-cry of the Crusaders, "_Dieu li volt! Dieu li volt!_"[M]
Erelong, within the walls of Acre, the three crusading kings, the monarchs
of Germany, of France, and of Jerusalem, resolved to strike a sudden and
terrible blow at Saracen supremacy, and to win glory by an entirely new
conquest, full of danger and honor--the storming of the city of Damascus.
Oldest and fairest of Syrian cities, Damascus, called by the old Roman
emperors the "eye of all the East," rises from the midst of orchards and
gardens, flowering vines, green meadows, and waving palms; the mountains
of Lebanon look down upon it from the west, and far to the east stretches
the dry and sandy plain of the great Syrian desert. Full of wealth and
plenty, deemed a paradise by Saracens and Christians alike, the beautiful
city offered to the eager crusading host a rich and wonderful booty.
With banners streaming and trumpets playing their loudest, with armor and
lance-tips gleaming in the sun, the army of the Crusaders, a hundred
thousand strong, wound down the slopes and passes of the Lebanon hills and
pitched their camp around the town of Dareya, in the green plain of
Damascus, scarce four miles distant from the city gates. Then the princes
and leaders assembled for counsel as to the plan and manner of assault
upon the triple walls.
The camp of King Baldwin and the soldiers of Jerusalem lay in advance of
the allies of France and Germany, and nearer the beleaguered city, as the
place of honor for the brave young leader who led the van of battle. From
the looped-up entrance to a showy pavilion in the centre of King Baldwin's
camp, the fair young maiden, Isabelle of Tyre, who, as was the custom of
the day, had come with other high-born ladies to the place of siege,
looked out upon the verdant and attractive gardens that stretched before
her close up to the walls of Damascus. A lovelier scene could scarcely be
imagined, and to the Crusaders, wearied with their march, under a burning
July sun, across the rugged and tedious steeps of Lebanon, the rich
landscape, bright with golden apricots, brilliant pomegranate blossoms,
full-leaved foliage and flowering vines, all springing from a carpet of
living green, was wonderfully attractive. To the little Lady Isabelle the
temptation was too strong to be resisted, and she readily yielded to a
suggestion from young Renaud de Chatillon, a heedless and headstrong
Frankish page, who "double-dared" her, even as boys and girls do nowadays,
to go flower-picking in the enemy's gardens. Together they left the
pavilion, and, passing the tired outposts unperceived, strolled idly down
to the green banks of the little river that flowed through the gardens and
washed the walls of Damascus. The verdant river-bank was strewn thick with
flowers and the fallen scarlet blossoms of the pomegranate, while luscious
apricots hung within easy reach, and the deep shade of the walnut trees
gave cool and delightful shelter. What wonder that the heedless young
people lost all thought of danger in the beauty around them, and,
wandering on a little and still a little farther from the protection of
their own camp, were soon deep in the mazes of the dangerous gardens.
But suddenly they heard a great stir in the grove beyond them; they
started in terror as a clash of barbaric music, of cymbals and of atabals,
sounded on their ears, and, in an instant, they found themselves
surrounded by a swarm of swarthy Saracens. The Lady Isabelle was soon a
struggling prisoner, but nimble young Renaud, swifter-footed and more wary
than his companion, escaped from the grasp of his white-robed captor,
tripped up the heels of a fierce-eyed Saracen with a sudden twist learned
in the tilt-yard, and sped like the wind toward King Baldwin's camp,
shouting as he ran: "Rescue, rescue from the Infidels!" Out of the
Crusader's camp poured swift and speedy succor: a flight of spears and
arrows came from either band, but the dividing distance was too great, and
with a yell of triumph the Saracens and their fair young captive were lost
in the thick shadows. Straight into King Baldwin's camp sped Renaud, still
shouting: "Rescue, rescue! the Lady Isabelle is prisoner!" Straight
through the aroused and swarming camp to where, within the walls of
Dareya, the crusading chiefs still sat in council. Down at King Baldwin's
feet he dropped, and cried breathlessly: "My lord King, the Lady Isabelle
is prisoner to the Saracens!"
"Isa a prisoner!" exclaimed the young king, springing to his feet.
"Rescue, rescue, my lords, for the sweet little lady of Tyre! Let who
will, follow me straight to the camp of the Unbelievers!"
There was a hasty mounting of steeds among the Crusader's tents; a hasty
bracing-up of armor and settling of casques; shields were lifted high and
spears were laid in rest, and, followed by a hundred knights, the boy
Crusader dashed impetuously from his camp and charged into the thick
gardens that held his captive cousin. His action was quicker than
Isabelle's captors had anticipated; for, halting ere they rode within the
city, the Saracens had placed her within one of the little palisaded
towers scattered through the gardens for the purpose of defence.
Quick-witted and ready-eared, the little lady ceased her sobs as she heard
through the trees the well-known "_Beausant!_" the war-cry of the Knights
of the Temple, and the ringing shout of "A Baldwin to the rescue!" Leaning
far out of the little tower, she shook her crimson scarf, and cried
shrilly: "Rescue, rescue for a Christian maiden!" King Baldwin saw the
waving scarf and heard his cousin's cry. Straight through the hedgeway he
charged, a dozen knights at his heels; a storm of Saracen arrows rattled
against shield and hauberk, but the palisades were soon forced, the
swarthy captors fell before the levelled lances of the rescuers, the lady
Isabelle sprang from the grasp of a Saracen rider to the arms of the king,
and then, wheeling around, the gallant band sped back toward the camp ere
the bewildered Saracens could recover from their surprise. But the
reaction comes full soon, and now from every quarter flutter the white
_bournous_, the striped _aba_, the red and yellow _keffiah_ of the Saracen
horsemen. They swarm from garden, and tower, and roadway, and through the
opened city gates fresh troops of horsemen dash down the wide causeway
that crosses the narrow river. With equal speed the camp of the Crusaders,
fully roused, is pouring forth its thousands, and King Baldwin sees, with
the joy of a practised warrior, that the foolish freak of a thoughtless
little maiden has brought about a great and glorious battle. The rescued
Isabelle is quickly given in charge of a trusty squire, who bears her back
to camp, and then, at the head of the forward battle, the boy Crusader
bears down upon the Saracen host, shouting: "Ho, knights and barons,
gallant brothers of the Cross, follow me, and death to the Infidel."
The battle is fairly joined. The great Red-Cross banner flames out upon
the breeze; behind it stream the black war-flag of the Temple and the
eight-pointed Cross of the Hospital; right and left press the Oriflamme of
France and the Imperial Eagle of Germany, while above the tossing mass of
spears and pennons and mail-clad knights rise the mingling war-cries of
"_Beausant!_" "St. Denys!" and "St. George!" and the deeper and more
universal shout of the Crusaders' battle-cries: "_Christus vincit!_" and
"_Dieu li volt!_"[N]
Rank on rank, with spears in rest and visors closed, the crusading knights
charge to the assault. Fast behind the knights press the footmen--De
Mowbray's English archers, King Louis' cross-bowmen, Conrad's spearmen,
and the javelin-men of Jerusalem. Before the fury of the onset the mass of
muffled Arabs and armored Saracens break and yield, but from hedge and
tower and loop-holed wall fresh flights of arrows and of javelins rain
down upon the Christian host, and the green gardens of Damascus are torn
and trampled with the fury of the battle. Above King Baldwin's head still
streams the sacred banner; his cross-handled sword is dyed with Saracen
blood, and his clear young voice rings loud above the din: "Christian
warriors; generous defenders of the Cross; fight--fight on as fought our
fathers!"
"_Beausant!_" rings the cry of the Templars; "A Baldwin--a Baldwin for
Jerusalem!" shout the boy king's knights. The "_Allah il Allah!_" and the
wild war-shouts of the Saracens grow less and less defiant; the
entrenchments are stormed, the palisades and towers are forced, the enemy
turn and flee, and by the "never-failing valiancy" of the boy Crusader and
his followers the gardens of Damascus are in the hands of the Christian
knights.
But now fresh aid pours through the city gates. New bodies of Saracens
press to the attack, and, led in person by Anar, Prince of Damascus, the
defeated host rallies for a final stand upon the verdant river-banks of
the clear-flowing Barada.
Again the battle rages furiously. Still Baldwin leads the van, and around
his swaying standard rally the knights of Jerusalem and the soldier-monks
of the Temple and the Hospital. Twice are they driven backward by the
fury of the Saracen resistance, and young Renaud de Chatillon, battling
bravely to retrieve his thoughtless action, which brought on the battle,
is forced to yield to another lad of eleven, a brown-faced Kurdish boy,
who in after years is to be hailed as the conqueror of the
Crusaders--Saladin, the greatest of the Sultans. The battle wavers. The
French knights can only hold their ground in stubborn conflict; the
heathen mass grows denser round the Red-Cross banner, the soldiers of
Jerusalem are thrown into disorder, and the boy-leader's horse, pierced by
a spear-thrust, falls with his rider on a losing field. "_Allah il
Allah!_" rings the shrill war-cry of the Turkish host, and the Crescent
presses down the Cross. But hark! a new cry swells upon the air. "A
Conrad! Ho, a Conrad! Rescue for the Cross!" and through the tangled and
disordered mass of the cavalry of France and Palestine bursts the stalwart
German emperor and a thousand dismounted knights. The Saracen lines fall
back before the charge, while in bold defiance the sword of the emperor
gleams above his crest. As if in acceptance of his unproclaimed challenge,
a gigantic Saracen emir, sheathed in complete armor, strides out before
the pagan host, and the fiercely raging battle stops on the instant, while
the two great combatants face each other alone. Their great swords gleam
in the air. With feint and thrust, and stroke and skilful parry the
champions wage the duel of the giants, till suddenly, in one of those
feats of strength and skill that stand out as a marvellous battle-act,
the sword of the emperor with a single mighty stroke cleaves through the
Saracen's armor-covered body, and the gigantic emir, cut completely in
twain, falls bleeding at his conqueror's feet. The Turks break in dismay
as their champion falls. Young Baldwin rallies his disordered forces, the
war-cries mingle with the trumpet-peal, and, on foot, at the head of their
knights, the two kings lead one last charge against the enemy and drive
the fleeing host within the city walls. With shouts of victory, the
Christian army encamp upon the field their valor has conquered, and
Damascus is almost won.
Within the city, now filled with fears of plunder and of death,
preparations for flight were made, and in the great mosque women and
children invoked the aid of Mahomet to shield them from an enemy more
relentless than Arab or Saracen--a host whose banner-cry was dark and
terrible: "Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood." The city
seemed doomed to capture. But--"there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and
the lip." In the camp of the Crusaders the exultant leaders were already
quarrelling over whose domain the conquered city should be when once its
gates were opened to Christian victors. The Syrian princes, the great
lords of the West, the monkish Knights of the Temple and of the Hospital,
alike claimed the prize, and the old fable of the hunters who fought for
the possession of the lion's skin even before the lion was captured was
once more illustrated. For, meantime, in the palace at Damascus, the
captive page Renaud stood before the Saracen Prince Anar, and the Prince
asked the boy: "As between thine honor and thy head, young Christian,
which wouldst thou desire to keep?"
"So please your Highness," replied the wise and politic young page, "my
honor, if it may be kept with my head; but if not--why then, what were
mine honor worth to me without my head?"
"Thou art a shrewd young Frank," said the Prince Anar. "But thou mayst
keep thy head and, perchance, thine honor too, if that thou canst hold thy
ready tongue in check. Bear thou this scroll in secret to the Nazarene
whom men do call Bernard, Grand Master of those dogs of Eblis, the Knights
of the Temple, and, hark ye, see that no word of this scroll cometh to the
young King Baldwin, else shall the bow-strings of my slaves o'ertake thee.
Go; thou art free!"
"My life upon the safe delivery of thy scroll, great Prince," said young
Renaud, overjoyed to be freed so easily, and, soon in the Crusaders' camp,
he sought the Grand Master and handed him the scroll in secret. The face
of the Templar was dark with envy and anger, for his counsels and the
claims of the Syrian lords had been set aside, and the princedom of
Damascus which he had coveted had been promised to a Western baron.
"So," said the Grand Master, as he read the scroll, "the Count of Flanders
may yet be balked. What says the emir? Three casks of bezants and the
city of Caesarea for the Templars if this siege be raised. 'T is a princely
offer and more than can be gained from these Flemish boors."
"Gallant lords and mighty princes," he said, with well-assumed candor,
returning to the council. "'T is useless for us to hope to force the gates
through this mass of gardens, where men do but fight in the dark. Rather
let us depart to the desert side of the city, where, so say my spies, the
walls are weaker and less stoutly protected. These may soon be carried.
Then may we gain the city for the noble Count of Flanders, ere that the
Emir Noureddin, who, I learn, is coming with a mighty force of Infidels,
shall succor the city and keep it from the soldiers of the Cross."
This craftily given advice seemed wise, and the crusading camp was quickly
withdrawn from the beautiful and well-watered gardens to the dry and arid
desert before the easterly walls of the city. Fatal mistake! the walls
proved stout and unassailable, the desert could not support the life of so
large an army, whose supplies were speedily wasted, and through the
gardens the Christians had deserted fresh hosts of Arabs poured into the
city. Victory gave place to defeat and rejoicing to despair. Days of
fruitless assault were followed by nights of dissension, and finally the
crusading host, worn by want and divided in counsel, abruptly ended a
siege they could no longer maintain. But in the final council young
Baldwin pleaded for renewed endeavor.
"And is it thus, my lords," he said, "that ye do give up the fairest prize
in Syria, and stand recreant to your vows as valiant soldiers of the
Cross?"
[Illustration: Conrad the Emperor quitting the Crusade.]
"King Baldwin," said Conrad, "thou art a brave and gallant youth, and were
all like thee, our swords had not been drawn in vain. But youth and valor
may not hope to cope with greed. We are deceived. We have suffered from
treason where it should have least been feared, and more deadly than
Saracen arrows are the secret stabs of thy barons of Syria."
"Now, by the Forty Martyrs," cried the young king hotly, "what thou dost
claim I may not disprove by words; for here have been strange and secret
doings. But for the honor of my country and my crown I may not idly
listen to thy condemning speech. I dare thee to the battle-test, emperor
and champion though thou be. Conrad of Germany, there lies my gage!"
"Brave youth," said Conrad, picking up the boy's mailed glove, so
impetuously flung before him, and handing it to Baldwin with gentle
courtesy, "this may not be. For even did not our vows under the 'Truce of
God' forbid all personal quarrels, it is not for such a noble-hearted lad
as thou to longer stand the champion for traitors."
So the victory, almost assured by the intrepidity of the boy Crusader, was
lost through the treachery of his followers; but it is at least some
satisfaction to know that the betrayers were themselves betrayed, and that
the three casks of golden bezants proved to be when opened but worthless
brass.
King Louis and Conrad the Emperor returned to their European dominions in
anger and disgust.
The Second Crusade, which had cost so terribly in life and treasure, was a
miserable failure, with only a boy's bravery to light up its dreary
history. Sadly disappointed at the result of his efforts, young Baldwin
still held his energy and valor unsubdued. For years he maintained his
kingdom intact in the midst of intrigue and corruption, and, victorious
over the Saracens at the battle of the Mount of Olives and at the Siege of
Ascalon, he proved his right to be entitled a successful leader and "the
model knight."
Free-handed, chivalrous, handsome, brave, and generous, he is a pleasant
picture to contemplate amidst the darkness, distrust, and greed of those
old crusading days. Beloved by all alike--Saracen as well as
Christian--his name has come down to us as that of "the most high-minded
of the Latin kings of Jerusalem."
Poisoned by his Arab physician, who loved the young king while hating so
stout a foe to the cause of Mahomet, he died at thirty-three, mourned by
all Jerusalem; even his generous foe, the Saracen Noureddin, refusing to
take advantage of his rival's death. "Allah forbid," said this chivalrous
Oriental, "that I should disturb the proper grief of a people who are
weeping for the loss of so good a king, or fix upon such an opportunity to
attack a kingdom which I have now no reason to fear."
The history of the Crusades is the story of two hundred years of strife
and battle, relieved only by some bright spots when the flash of a heroic
life lights up the blackness of superstition and of cruelty. And among its
valiant knights, equal in honor and courage and courtesy with Godfrey and
Tancred and Richard of England and Saladin and St. Louis, will ever stand
the name and fame of this gallant young ruler of the short-lived Latin
kingdom of Jerusalem--Baldwin, the Boy Crusader.
FOOTNOTES:
[M] "It is the will of God!"
[N] "Christ conquers," and "It is the will of God."
[Illustration]
VI.
FREDERICK OF HOHENSTAUFEN: THE BOY EMPEROR.
(_Afterward Frederick the Second, Emperor of Germany._)
[A.D. 1207.]
Gleaming with light and beauty, from the wavy sea-line where the blue
Mediterranean rippled against the grim fortress of Castellamare to the
dark background of olive groves and rising mountain walls, Palermo, "city
of the golden shell," lay bathed in all the glory of an Italian afternoon
one bright spring day in the year 1207.
Up the Cassaro, or street of the palace, and out through the massive
gate-way of that curious old Sicilian city,--half Saracen, half Norman in
its looks and life,--a small company of horsemen rode rapidly westward to
where the square yellow towers of La Zisa rose above its orange groves.
Now La Zisa was one of the royal pleasure-houses, a relic of the days when
the swarthy Saracens were lords of Sicily.
In the sun-lit gardens of La Zisa, a small but manly-looking lad of
thirteen, with curly, golden hair and clear blue eyes, stood beneath the
citron trees that bordered a beautiful little lake. A hooded falcon
perched upon his wrist, and by his side stood his brown-skinned attendant,
Abderachman the Saracen.
"But will it stay hooded, say'st thou?" the boy inquired, as he listened
with satisfaction to the tinkling bells of the nodding bird which
Abderachman had just taught him to hood. "Can he not shake it off?"
"Never fear for that, little Mightiness," the Saracen replied. "He is as
safely blinded as was ever the eagle of Kairewan, whose eyes the Emir took
for his crescent-tips, or even as thou art, O _el Aaziz_,[O] by thy barons
of Apulia."[P]
The look of pleasure faded from the boy's face.
"Thou say'st truly, O Abderachman," he said. "What am I but a hooded
falcon? I, a king who am no king! Would that thou and I could fly far from
this striving world, and in those great forests over sea of which thou
hast told me, could chase the lion like bold, free hunters of the Berber
hills."
"Wait in patience, O _el Aaziz_; to each man comes his day," said the
philosophic Saracen. "What says the blessed Koran: 'Allah is
all-sufficient and propitious to such as put their trust in him.'"
But now there was heard a rustle of the citron hedge, a clatter of hoofs
rang on the shell-paved roadway, and the armed band that we saw spurring
through Palermo's gates drew rein at the lake-side. The leader, a burly
German knight, who bore upon his crest a great boar's head with jewelled
eyes and gleaming silver tusks, leaped from his horse and strode up to the
boy. His bow of obeisance was scarcely more than a nod.
"Your Highness must come with me," he said, "and that at once."
The boy looked at him in protest. "Nay, Baron Kapparon,--am I never to be
at my ease?" he asked. "Let me, I pray thee, play out my day here at La
Zisa, even as thou didst promise me."
"Tush, boy; promise must yield to need," said the Knight of the Crested
Boar. "The galleys of Diephold of Acerra even now ride in the Cala port,
and think'st thou I will yield thee to his guidance? Come! At the palace
wait decrees and grants which thou must sign for me ere the Aloe-stalk
shall say us nay."
"Must!" cried the boy, as an angry flush covered his face; "who sayeth
'_must_' to the son of Henry the Emperor? Who sayeth 'must' to the
grandson of Barbarossa? Stand off, churl of Kapparon! To me, Sicilians
all! To me, sons of the Prophet!" and, breaking away from the grasp of the
burly knight, young Frederick of Hohenstaufen dashed across the small
stone bridge that led to the marble pavilion in the little lake. But only
Abderachman the Saracen crossed to him. The wrath of the Knight of
Kapparon was more dreaded than the commands of a little captive king.
The burly baron laughed a mocking laugh. "Well blown, _ser Sirocco_!"[Q]
he said, insolently, "but for all that, your Mightiness, I fear me, must
bide with me, churl though I be. Come, we waste words!" and he moved
toward the lad, who stood at bay upon the little bridge.
Young Frederick slipped his falcon's leash. "Cross at thy peril, Baron
Kapparon!" he cried; "one step more, and I unhood my falcon and send him
straight to thy disloyal eyes. Ware the bird! His flight is certain, and
his pounce is sharp!" The boy's fair face grew more defiant as he spoke,
and William of Kapparon, who knew the young lad's skill at falconry,
hesitated at the threat.
But as boy and baron faced each other in defiance, there was another stir
of the citron hedge, and another rush of hurrying hoofs. A second armed
band closed in upon the scene, and a second knightly leader sprang to the
ground. A snow-white plume trailed over the new-comer's crest, and on his
three-cornered shield was blazoned a solitary aloe-stalk, sturdy, tough,
and unyielding.
"Who threatens the King of Sicily?" he demanded, as, sword in hand, he
stepped upon the little bridge.
The German baron faced his new antagonist. "So! is it thou, Count
Diephold; is it thou, Aloe of Acerra?" he said. "By what right dar'st thou
to question the Baron of Kapparon, guardian of the king, and Chief
Captain of Sicily?"
"'Guardian,' forsooth! 'Chief Captain,' say'st thou?" cried the Count of
Acerra, angrily. "Pig of Kapparon, robber and pirate, yield up the boy! I,
who was comrade of Henry the Emperor, will stand guardian for his son. Ho,
buds of the Aloe, strike for your master's weal!"
There is a flash of steel as the two leaders cross ready swords. There is
a rush of thronging feet as the followers of each prepare for fight. There
is a mingling of battle-cries--"Ho, for the Crested Boar of Kapparon!"
"Stand, for the Aloe of Acerra!"--when for the third time the purple
citron-flowers sway and break, as a third band of armed men spur to the
lake-side. Through the green of the foliage flashes the banner of
Sicily,--the golden eagle on the blood-red field,--and the ringing voice
of a third leader rises above the din. "Ho, liegemen of the Church! rescue
for the ward of the Pope! Rescue for the King of Sicily!"
The new-comer, Walter of Palear, the "fighting Bishop of Catania" (as he
was called) and Chancellor of Sicily, reined in his horse between the
opposing bands of the Boar and the Aloe. His richly broidered cope,
streaming back, showed his coat of mail beneath, as, with lifted sword, he
shouted:
"Hold your hands, lords of Apulia! stay spears and stand aside. Yield up
the king to me--to me, the Chancellor of the realm!"
[Illustration: "CROSS AT THY PERIL, BARON KAPPARON," CRIED FREDERICK OF
HOHENSTAUFEN.]
"Off now, thou false Chancellor!" cried Count Diephold. "Think'st thou
that the revenues of Sicily are for thy treasure-chest alone? Ho, Boars
and Aloes both; down with this French fox, and up with Sicily!"
"Seize the boy and hold him hostage!" shouted William of Kapparon, and
with extended arm he strode toward poor little Frederick. With a sudden
and nimble turn, the boy dodged the clutch of the baron's mailed fist, and
putting one hand on the coping of the bridge, without a moment's
hesitation, he vaulted over into the lake. Abderachman the Saracen sprang
after him.
"How now, thou pig-headed pirate of Kapparon," broke out Count Diephold;
"thou shalt pay dearly for this, if the lad doth drown!"
But Frederick was a good swimmer, and the lake was not deep. The falcon on
his wrist fluttered and tugged at its jess, disturbed by this unexpected
bath; but the boy held his hand high above his head and, supported by the
Saracen, soon reached the shore. Here the retainers of the Chancellor
crowded around him, and springing to the saddle of a ready war-horse, the
lad shouted: "Ho, for Palermo, all! which chief shall first reach St.
Agatha's gate with me, to him will I yield myself!" and, wheeling his
horse, he dashed through the mingled bands and sped like an arrow through
the gardens of La Zisa.
The three contesting captains looked at one another in surprise.
"The quarry hath slipped," laughed Count Diephold. "By St. Nicholas of
Myra, though, the lad is of the true Suabian eagle's brood. Try we the
test, my lords."
There was a sudden mounting of steeds, a hurrying gallop after the flying
king; but the Chancellor's band, being already in the saddle, had the
advantage, and as young King Frederick and Walter the Chancellor passed
under St. Agatha's pointed arch, the knights of the Crested Boar and of
the Aloe-stalk saw in much disgust the great-gate close in their faces,
and they were left on the wrong side of Palermo's walls,--outwitted by a
boy.
But the baffled knights were not the men to give up the chase so easily.
Twenty Pisan galleys, manned by Count Diephold's fighting men, lay in the
Cala port of Palermo. That very night, they stormed under the walls of
Castellamare, routed the Saracens of the royal guard, sent Walter the
Chancellor flying for his life toward Messina; and, with young Frederick
in his power, Diephold, the usurping Count of Acerra, ruled Sicily in the
name of the poor little king.
In the royal palace at Palermo, grand and gorgeous with columns and
mosaics and gilded walls, this boy of thirteen--Frederick of Hohenstaufen,
Emperor-elect of Germany, King of Sicily, and "Lord of the World"--sat,
the day after his capture by Count Diephold, sad, solitary, and forlorn.
The son of Henry the Sixth of Germany, the most victorious but most cruel
of the Hohenstaufen emperors, and of Constance the Empress, daughter of
Roger, the great Norman King of Sicily, Frederick had begun life on
December the twenty-sixth, 1194, as heir to two powerful kingdoms. His
birth had been the occasion of great rejoicings, and vassal princes and
courtier poets had hailed him as "the Imperial Babe, the Glory of Italy,
the Heir of the Caesars, the Reformer of the World and the Empire!" When
but two years old he had been proclaimed King of the Romans and
Emperor-elect of Germany, and, when but three, he had, on the death of his
father, been crowned King of Sicily and Apulia, in the great cathedral of
Palermo.
But in all those two sovereignties, no sadder-hearted nor lonelier lad
could have been found than this boy of thirteen, this solitary and
friendless orphan, this Frederick of Hohenstaufen, the boy emperor. In
Germany his uncle, Philip of Suabia, disputed with Otho of Brunswick for
the imperial crown. And beautiful Sicily, the land of his birth, the land
over which he was acknowledged as king, was filled with war and blood.
From the lemon groves of Messina to the flowery slopes of Palermo, noble
and priest, Christian and Saracen, French and German, strove for power and
ravaged the land with fire and sword. Deprived sometimes of even the
necessities of life, deserted by those who should have stood loyal to him,
often hungry and always friendless, shielded from absolute want only by
the pity of the good burghers of Palermo, used in turn by every faction
and made the excuse for every feud, this heir to so great power was
himself the most powerless of kings, the most unhappy of boys. And now, as
he sits in his gleaming palace, uncertain where to turn for help, all his
sad young heart goes into an appealing letter which has come down to us
across the centuries, and a portion of which is here given to complete the
dismal picture of this worried young monarch of long ago:
"To all the kings of the world and to all the princes of the universe, the
innocent boy, King of Sicily, called Frederick: Greeting in God's name!
Assemble yourselves, ye nations; draw nigh, ye princes, and see if any
sorrow be like unto my sorrow! My parents died ere I could know their
caresses, and I, a gentle lamb among wolves, fell into slavish dependence
upon men of various tribes and tongues. My daily bread, my drink, my
freedom, all are measured out to me in scanty proportion. No king am I. I
am ruled, instead of ruling. I beg favors, instead of granting them. Again
and again I beseech you, O ye princes of the earth, to aid me to withstand
slaves, to set free the son of Caesar, to raise up the crown of the
kingdom, and to gather together again the scattered people!"
But it is a long lane that has no turning, and before many months another
change came in the kaleidoscope of this young king's fortunes. Pope
Innocent the Third had been named by the Empress Constance as guardian of
her orphaned boy. To him Walter the Chancellor appealed for aid. Knights
and galleys were soon in readiness. Palermo was stormed. Count Diephold
was overthrown and imprisoned in the castle dungeon. Kapparon and his
Pisan allies and Saracen serfs were driven out of Sicily, and the "Son of
Caesar" reigned as king once more. Then came a new alliance. Helped on by
the Pope, a Spanish friendship ripened into a speedy marriage. Frederick
was declared of age when he reached his fourteenth birthday, and a few
months after, on the fifteenth of August, 1209, amid great rejoicings
which filled Palermo with brilliancy and crowded its narrow and crooked
streets with a glittering throng, the "Boy of Apulia," as he was called,
was married to the wise and beautiful Constance, the daughter of Alfonso,
King of Arragon. This alliance gave the young husband the desired
opportunity; for, with five hundred foreign knights at his back he
asserted his authority over his rebellious subjects as King of Sicily. The
poor little prince, whose childhood had known only misfortune and
unhappiness, became a prince indeed, and, boy though he was, took so manly
and determined a stand that, ere the year was out, his authority was
supreme from the walls of Palermo to the Straits of Messina.
Meantime, in Germany, affairs had been going from bad to worse.
Frederick's uncle, Philip of Suabia, had been assassinated at Bamberg, and
Otho of Brunswick, head of the House of Guelf, crossed the Alps, was
crowned Emperor at Rome in defiance of young Frederick's claim to the
Imperial throne, and marched into Southern Italy, threatening the conquest
of his boy rival's Sicilian kingdom.
Again trouble threatened the youthful monarch. Anxious faces looked
seaward from the castle towers; and, hopeless of withstanding any attack
from Otho's hardy and victorious troops, Frederick made preparations for
flight when once his gigantic rival should thunder at Palermo's gates.
"Tidings, my lord King; tidings from the north!" said Walter the
Chancellor, entering the king's apartment one bright November day in the
year 1211. "Here rides a galley from Gaeta in the Cala port, and in it
comes the Suabian knight Anselm von Justingen, with a brave and trusty
following. He beareth word to thee, my lord, from Frankfort and from
Rome."
"How, then; has Otho some new design against our crown?" said Frederick.
"I pray thee, good Chancellor, give the Knight of Suabia instant
audience."
And soon, through the Gothic door-way of that gorgeous palace of the old
Norman and older Saracen lords of Sicily, came the bluff German knight
Anselm von Justingen, bringing into its perfumed air some of the strength
and resoluteness of his sturdy Suabian breezes. With a deep salutation, he
greeted the royal boy.
"Hail, O King!" he said. "I bring thee word of note. Otho, the Guelf, whom
men now call Emperor, is speeding toward the north. Never more need Sicily
fear his grip. The throne which he usurps is shaken and disturbed. The
world needs an emperor who can check disorders and bring it life and
strength. Whose hand may do this so surely as thine--the illustrious Lord
Frederick of the grand old Hohenstaufen line, the elect King of the
Romans, the Lord of Sicily?"
Frederick's eye flashed and his cheek flushed at the grand prospect thus
suddenly opened before him. But he replied slowly and thoughtfully.
"By laws human and by right divine," he said, "the Holy Roman Empire is my
inheritance. But canst thou speak for the princes of the empire?"
"Ay, that can I," said the knight; "I bear with me papers signed and sent
by them. We have each of us examined as to our will. We have gone through
all the customary rights. And we all in common, O King, turn our eyes to
thee."
"I thank the princes for their faith and fealty," said Frederick; "but can
they be trusty liegemen to a boy emperor?"
"Though young in years, O King," said the Suabian, "thou art old in
character; though not fully grown in person, thy mind hath been by nature
wonderfully endowed. Thou dost exceed the common measure of thine equals;
thou art blest with virtues before thy day, as doth become one of the true
blood of that august stock, the Caesars of Germany. Thou wilt surely
increase the honor and might of the empire and the happiness of us, thy
loyal subjects."
"And the Pope?" queried the boy; for in those days the Pope of Rome was
the "spiritual lord" of the Christian world. To him all emperors, kings,
and princes owed allegiance as obedient vassals. To assume authority
without the Pope's consent and blessing meant trouble and excommunication.
Frederick knew this, and knew also that his former guardian, Pope
Innocent, had, scarce two years before, himself crowned his rival Otho of
Brunswick as Emperor of Germany.
"I am even now from Rome," replied Von Justingen; "and the Holy Father,
provoked beyond all patience at the unrighteous ways of this emperor,
falsely so called, hath excommunicated Otho, hath absolved the princes
from their oath of fealty, and now sends to thee, Frederick of
Hohenstaufen, his blessing and his bidding that thou go forward and enter
upon thine inheritance."
The young Sicilian sat for some moments deep in thought. It was a tempting
bait--this of an imperial crown--to one who felt it to be his by right,
but who had never dared to expect nor aspire to it.
"Von Justingen," he said at last, "good knight and true I know thou art,
loyal to the House of Staufen, and loyal to thy German fatherland. 'T is a
royal offer and a danger-fraught attempt. But what man dares, that dare I!
When duty calls, foul be his fame who shrinketh from the test. The blood
of kings is mine; like a king, then, will I go forward to my heritage, and
win or die in its achieving!"
"There flashed the Hohenstaufen fire," said the delighted Von Justingen;
"there spoke the spirit of thy grandsire, the glorious old Kaiser Red
Beard! Come thou with me to Germany, my prince. We will make thee Caesar
indeed, though the false Otho and all his legions are thundering at
Frankfort gates."
So, in spite of the entreaties of his queen, and the protests of his
Sicilian lords, who doubted the wisdom of the undertaking, the young
monarch hurried forward the preparations for his perilous attempt. The
love of adventure, which has impelled many another boy to face risk and
danger, flamed high in the heart of this lad of seventeen, as, with
undaunted spirit, he sought to press forward for the prize of an imperial
throne. On March the eighteenth, 1212, the "Emperor of the Romans Elect,"
as he already styled himself, set out from orange-crowned Palermo on the
"quest for his heritage" in the bleak and rugged north. The galley sped
swiftly over the blue Mediterranean to the distant port of Gaeta, and upon
its deck the four chosen comrades that formed his little band gathered
around the fair-haired young prince, who, by the daring deeds that drew
him from Palermo's sun-lit walls, was to make for himself a name and fame
that should send him down to future ages as _Stupor Mundi
Fredericus_--"Frederick, the Wonder of the World!" In all history there is
scarcely to be found a more romantic tale of wandering than this story of
the adventures of young Frederick of Hohenstaufen in search of his empire.
From Palermo to strong-walled Gaeta, the "Gibraltar of Italy," from Gaeta
on to Rome, he sailed with few adventures, and here he knelt before the
Pope, who, as he had crowned and discrowned Otho of Brunswick, the big and
burly rival of his fair young ward, now blessed and aided the "Boy from
Sicily," and helped him on his way with money and advice. From Rome to
Genoa, under escort of four Genoese galleys, the boy next cautiously
sailed; for all the coast swarmed with the armed galleys of Pisa, the
staunch supporter of the discrowned Otho. With many a tack and many a turn
the galleys headed north, while the watchful look-outs scanned the horizon
for hostile prows. On the first of May, the peril of Pisa was past, and
Genoa's gates were opened to receive him. Genoa was called the "door" to
his empire, but foes and hardships lay in wait for him behind the friendly
door. On the fifteenth of July, the boy and his escort of Genoese lancers
climbed the steep slopes of the Ligurian hills and struck across the
plains of Piedmont for the walls of Pavia, the "city of the hundred
towers." The gates of the grand old Lombard capital flew open to welcome
him, and royally attended, with a great crimson canopy held above his
head, and knights and nobles following in his train, the "Child of Apulia"
rode through the echoing streets.
But Milan lay to the north, and Piacenza to the south, both fiercely
hostile cities, while the highway between Pavia and Cremona rang with the
war-cries of the partisans of Otho, the Guelf. So, secretly, and at
midnight, the Pavian escort rode with the boy out through their city
gates, and moved cautiously along the valley of the Po, to where, at the
ford of the Lambro, the knights of Cremona waited in the dark of an early
Sunday morning to receive their precious charge. And none too soon did
they reach the ford; for, scarcely was the young emperor spurring on
toward Cremona, when the Milanese troops, in hot pursuit, dashed down upon
the returning Pavian escort, and routed it with great loss. But the boy
rode on unharmed; and soon Cremona, since famous for its wonderful
violins, hailed the young adventurer, so says the record, "as if he were
an angel of the Lord."
From Cremona on to Mantua, and then on to Verona, the boy was passed along
by friendly hands and vigilant escorts, until straight before him the
mighty wall of the Alps rose, as if to bar his further progress. But
through the great hill-rifts stretched the fair valley of the Adige; and
from Verona, city of palaces, to red-walled Trent, the boy and his
Veronese escort hurried on along the banks of the swift-flowing river.
Midway between the two cities, his escort turned back; and with but a
handful of followers the young monarch demanded admittance at the gates of
the old Roman town, which, overhung by great Alpine precipices, guards the
southern entrance to the Tyrol. Trent received him hesitatingly; and,
installed in the bishop's palace, he and his little band sought fair
escort up the valley and over the Brenner pass, the highway into Germany.
But now came dreary news.
"My lord King," said the wavering Bishop of Trent, undecided which side to
favor, "'t is death for you to cross the Brenner. From Innspruck down to
Botzen the troops of Otho of Brunswick line the mountain ways, and the
Guelf himself, so say my coursermen, is speeding on to trap your
Mightiness within the walls of Trent."
Here was a dilemma. But trouble, which comes to "Mightinesses," as well as
to untitled boys and girls, must be boldly faced before it can be
overcome.
"My Liege," said the Knight of Suabia, stout Anselm von Justingen, "before
you lie the empire and renown; behind you Italy and defeat. Which shall it
be?"
"The empire or death!" said the resolute boy.
"But Otho guards the Brenner pass, my lords," said the bishop.
"Is there none other road but this?" asked Frederick.
"None," replied Von Justingen, "save, indeed, the hunter's track across
the western mountains to the Grisons and St. Gall. But it is beset with
perils and deep with ice and snow."
"The greater the dangers faced, the greater the glory gained," said plucky
young Frederick. "Now, who will follow me, come danger or come death,
across the mountains yonder to the empire and to fortune?" and every man
of his stout little company vowed to follow him, and to stand by their
young master, the Emperor-elect.
So it was that, in the first months of the early fall, with a meagre train
of forty knights, the boy emperor boldly climbed the rugged Alpine
slopes, mounting higher and higher, and braving the dangers of glacier and
avalanche, blind paths and storm and cold, pressed manfully on toward the
peril of an uncertain empire.
But though the risk was great, no one was merrier than he. His inseparable
falcon flew at many a quarry, and his hunting-horn echoed gayly from cliff
to cliff. And when a mighty _urus_, almost the last of the great Alpine
elks, fell beneath his spear, a shout of joy went up, as German and
Italian knights hailed him as a worthy successor of the greatest of
Hohenstaufen huntsmen, his grandfather Barbarossa, the old Kaiser Red
Beard.
Thus, in much peril, but safely and swiftly, the Alpine heights were
crossed, and down the rugged slopes the travel-worn band descended to the
valley of the Plessaur and the quaint old town of Coire. Coming all
unannounced into the little town, the fair face and frank ways of the boy
captivated the good Bishop of Coire, whose word was law in that mountain
land. Still they pushed on, and, winding along the fair valley of the
Rhine, struck across the hills toward the queer old abbey-town of St.
Gall; and, with only sixty knights and a few spearmen of Appenzell, the
young monarch climbed the steps of the Ruppen, the last of the Alpine
passes that had separated him from the land of his forefathers.
But now comes the word that Otho and his knights, hurrying around from
Bregenz, are on the track of the boy, and certain of his capture. On
through St. Gall and along the gleaming lake-side the young emperor
hurries, and, riding down the last of the Alpine slopes, he sees in the
distance the walls of the strong old city of Constance glittering in the
sun.
"Ride ye forward, my lords," said the sturdy Von Justingen to the Bishop
of Coire and the Abbot of St. Gall, who rode with the king. "Gain ye due
welcome for the emperor. For if the Bishop of Constance waver in his
allegiance, and we may not win fair entrance into Constance town, we are
lost indeed," and accompanied by the Archbishop of Bari and ten trusty
knights the two mountain prelates rode on ahead.
Soon a messenger who has been sent forward comes spurring back. "Haste ye,
my Liege!" he cries. "Otho is already in sight; his pennons have been seen
by the look-out on the city towers."
The hurrying hoofs of the royal train clatter over the drawbridge and
through the great gate. Constance is won! but, hard behind, a cloud of
dust marks the swift approach of young Frederick's laggard rival, Otho,
the Guelf.
His herald's trumpet sounds a summons, and the still hesitating Bishop of
Constance with the Archbishop of Bari and the Abbot of St. Gall, backed by
the spearmen of the city band, stand forward on the walls.
"What ho, there, warders of the gate!" came the summons of the herald;
"open, open ye the gates of Constance to your master and lord, Otho the
Emperor!"
The thronging spear-tips and the swaying crests of Otho's two hundred
knights flashed in the sun, and the giant form of the big Brunswicker
strode out before his following. The sight of his dreaded master almost
awed the Bishop of Constance into submission, but the voice of young
Frederick's stanch friend and comrade, Berard, Archbishop of Bari, rang
out clear and quick.
"Tell thy master, Otho of Brunswick," he said, "that Constance gates open
only at the bidding of their rightful lord, Frederick of Hohenstaufen,
Emperor of the Romans and King of Sicily. And say thou, too, O herald,
that I, Berard, Archbishop of Bari, and Legate of our lord the Pope, do at
his command now cut off and excommunicate Otho of Brunswick from the
fellowship of all true men and the protection of the Church!"
Otho, deeply enraged at this refusal and denunciation, spurred furiously
forward, and his knights laid spears in rest to follow their leader; but
the words of excommunication decided the wavering Bishop of Constance to
side with the boy sovereign, and he commanded hastily: "Ho, warders; up
drawbridge--quick!"
The great chains clanked and tightened, the heavy drawbridge rose in air,
and Otho of Brunswick saw the portcullised gate of Constance drop heavily
before his very eyes, and knew that his cause was lost.
By just so narrow a chance did young Frederick of Hohenstaufen win his
empire.
And now it was won indeed. From every part of Germany came princes,
nobles, and knights flocking to the imperial standard. Otho retired to his
stronghold in Brunswick; and on the fifth of December, 1212, in the old
Roemer, or council-house, of Frankfort, five thousand knights with the
electors of Germany welcomed the "Boy from Sicily." Four days after, in
the great cathedral of Mayence, the pointed arches and rounded dome of
which rose high above the storied Rhine, the sad little prince of but five
years back was solemnly crowned in presence of a glittering throng, which
with cheers of welcome hailed him as Emperor supreme.
And here we leave him. Only seventeen, Frederick of Hohenstaufen--the
beggar prince, the friendless orphan of Palermo, after trials and dangers
and triumphs stranger than those of any prince of fairy tales or "Arabian
Nights"--entered upon a career of empire that has placed him in history as
"one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages."
Schooled by the hardships and troubles of his unhappy childhood, the poor
little "Child of Apulia" developed into a courageous and energetic youth,
and into a man of power and action and imperial renown. Years passed away,
and, on the thirteenth of December, 1250, he died at his hunting-lodge of
Firenzuola, in his loved Apulian kingdom. A gray old man stood beside the
dying monarch's bed--Berard, Archbishop of Palermo and Bari, the only
survivor of that dauntless band which, nearly forty years before, had
crossed the trackless Alps determined to win Germany or die. The "Boy
from Sicily," who had started upon the "quest for his heritage" unheralded
and almost unknown, died the most powerful monarch of his day in all the
Christian world, unsurpassed in outward splendor, the possessor of six
royal crowns--Germany, Burgundy, Lombardy, Sicily, Jerusalem, and the Holy
Roman Empire.
A man of magnificent gifts--a great scholar, a far-seeing statesman and
law-maker, a valiant and victorious Crusader, a mighty Emperor, but with
all the weaknesses and cruel ways that marked the monarchs of those hard
old days--this story of his remarkable and romantic boyhood comes down to
us as a lesson of triumph over obstacles, showing us, as do so many nobler
lives than his, how out of distress and trouble and actual hardships, any
boy of energy and spirit may rise to eminence and lofty achievement. The
age is passed when kings and princes rise so far above their fellow-men.
All may be kings and princes in their special callings if they but have
persistent and unflinching determination, and the boy of to-day has it in
his power to become, even as did young Frederick of Hohenstaufen, the Boy
Emperor, something great in his day and generation--perhaps even be
acknowledged, as was he, though from far higher motives, _Stupor Mundi
Fredericus_--"Frederick the Wonder of the World!"
FOOTNOTES:
[O] _El Aaziz_, an Arabic phrase for "the excellent" or "most noble one."
[P] Apulia--Southern Italy.
[Q] The _Sirocco_ is a fierce south-easterly wind of Sicily and the
Mediterranean.
[Illustration]
VII.
HARRY OF MONMOUTH: THE BOY GENERAL.
(_Afterward King Henry the Fifth of England._)
[A.D. 1402.]
A tapestried chamber in the gray old pile known as Berkhampstead Castle.
The bright sunlight of an early English spring streaming through the
latticed window plays upon the golden head of a fair young maid of ten,
who, in a quaint costume of gold-striped taffeta and crimson velvet, looks
in evident dismay upon the antics of three merry boys circling around her,
as she sits in a carved and high-backed oaken chair. In trim suits of
crimson, green, and russet velvet, with curious hanging sleeves and long,
pointed shoes, they range themselves before the trembling little maiden,
while the eldest lad, a handsome, lithe, and active young fellow of
fourteen, sings in lively and rollicking strain:
"Oh, I am King Erik of Denmark,
_Tarran, tarran, tarra_!
Oh, I am King Erik of Denmark,
_Tarran, tarran, tarra_!
Oh, I am King Erik of Denmark shore--
A frosty and crusty old Blunderbore--
With ships and knights a-sailing o'er,
To carry Philippa to Elsinore!"
And then with a rousing shout the three boys swooped down upon the
beleaguered little damsel and dragged her off to the dim stone staircase
that led to the square tower of the keep.
"Have done, have done, Harry," pleaded the little girl as she escaped from
her captors. "Master Lionel, thou surely shouldst defend a princess in
distress."
"Ay, Princess, but our tutor, Master Rothwell, says that I am to obey my
Liege and Prince, and him alone," protested gay young Lionel, "and sure he
bade me play the trumpeter of King Erik."
"A plague on King Erik," cried Philippa, seeking refuge behind the
high-backed chair. "I wish I had ne'er heard of him and his kingdom of
Denmark. O Harry! nurse Joanna tells me that they do eat but frozen
turnips and salted beef in his dreadful country, and that the
queen-mother, Margaret, wears a gambison[R] and hauberk[S] like to a
belted knight."
"Why, of course she does," assented the mischievous Harry; and, drawing a
solemn face he added: "Yes--and she eats a little girl, boiled with
lentils, every saint's day as a penance. That's why they want an English
wife for Erik, for, seest thou, there are so many saints' days that there
are not left in Denmark wee damsels enough for the queen's penance."
But the sight of pretty Philippa's woful tears stayed her brother's
teasing.
"There, there," he said, soothingly; "never mind my fun, Philippa. This
Erik is not so bad a knight I'll warrant me, and when thou art Queen of
Denmark, why, I shall be King of England, and my trumpeter, Sir Lionel
here, shall sound a gallant defiance as I come
"'Sailing the sea to Denmark shore
With squires and bowmen a hundred score,
If ever this frosty old Blunderbore
Foul treateth Philippa at Elsinore,'
and thus will we gallop away with the rescued queen," he added, as seizing
Philippa in his arms he dashed around the room followed by his companions.
But while the four were celebrating, in a wild dance of "all hands
around," the fancied rescue of the misused queen, the tapestry parted and
Sir Hugh de Waterton, the governor of the king's children, entered.
"My lord Prince," he said, "the king thy father craves thy presence in the
council-room."
"So; I am summoned," said the Prince; "good Sir Hugh, I will to the king
at once. That means 'good-by,' Sis; for to-morrow I am off to the Welsh
wars to dance with the lords-marchers and Owen Glendower, to a far
different strain. Yield not to these leaguering Danes, Philippa, but if
thou dost, when I am back from the Welsh wars, I'll hie me over sea
"'With golden nobles in goodly store
To ransom Philippa at Elsinore,'"
and, kissing his sister fondly, Harry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales,
parted the heavy arras and descended to the council-room.
* * * * *
And now the scene changes. Months have passed since that jolly romp in the
old castle, among the hills of Hertfordshire, and under a wet and angry
sky we stand within the king's tent, glad to escape from the driving
storm.
To young Lionel Langley, as he peeped through the outer curtains of the
tent and watched the floods of rain, it seemed as if all the mountains in
the shires of Brecon and Radnor had turned themselves into water-spouts to
drench and drown the camp of the English invaders, as it lay soaked and
shivering there in the marches[T] of Wales. King Henry's tent, we learn
from an old chronicle, was "picchid on a fayre playne," but Lionel thought
it any thing but fair as he turned from the dismal prospect.
"Rain, rain, rain," he grumbled, throwing himself down by the side of
stout Humfrey Wallys, archer in the king's guard; "why doth it always rain
in this fateful country? Why can it not blow over? Why,--why must we stay
cooped up under these soaking tent-tops, with ne'er a sight of fun or
fighting?"
"Ah, why, why, why?" said the good-natured archer, "'t is ever why? with
thee, Sir Questioner. But, if thou be riddling, ask us something easier.
Why doth a cow lie down? Why is it fool's fun to give alms to a blind man?
How many calves' tails doth it take to reach to the moon?"
"H'm," grunted Lionel, "thy riddles be as stale as Michaelmas mutton. I
can answer them all."
"So--canst thou, young shuttle-brain?" cried the archer, "then, by the
mass, thou shalt. Answer now, answer," he demanded, as he tripped up young
Lionel's feet and pinned him to the ground with a pikestaff, "answer, or I
will wash thy knowing face in my sack-leavings. Why doth a cow lie down?"
"Faith, because she cannot sit," lazily answered Lionel.
"Hear the lad! He doth know it, really. Well--why is it not wise to give
alms to a blind man?" demanded Humfrey.
"Because," responded the boy, "even if thou didst, he would be glad could
he see thee hanged--as would I also!"
"Thou young knave! Now--how many calves' tails will it take to reach the
moon?"
"O Humfrey, ease up thy pikestaff, man; I can barely fetch my breath--how
many? Why, one,--if it be long enough," and, wriggling from his captor,
the nimble Lionel tripped him up in turn, and, in sheer delight at his
discomfiture, turned a back somersault and landed almost on the toes of
two unhelmeted knights, who came from the inner pavilion of the royal
tent.
"Why, how now, young tumble-foot--dost thou take this for a mummer's
booth, that thou dost play thy pranks so closely to thy betters?" a quick
voice demanded, and in much shame and confusion Lionel withdrew himself
hastily from the royal feet of his "most dread sovereign and lord," King
Henry the Fourth, of England.
"Pardon, my Liege," he stammered, "I did but think to stretch my stiffened
legs."
"So; thou art tent-weary, too," said the king; and then asked: "And where
learn'dst thou that hand-spring?"
"So please your Majesty, from my lord Prince," the boy replied.
"Ay, that thou didst, I'll warrant me," said the king, good-humoredly. "In
aught of prank or play, or tumbler's trick, 't is safe to look to young
Harry of Monmouth as our pages' sponsor. But where lags the lad, think
you, my lord?" he asked, turning to his companion, the Earl of
Westmoreland. "We should, methinks, have had post from him ere this."
"'T is this fearful weather stays the news, your Majesty," replied the
earl. "No courserman could pass the Berwyn and Plinlimmon hills in so wild
a storm."
"Ay, wild indeed," said the king, peering out through the parted curtains.
"I am fain almost to believe these men of Wales, who vaunt that the false
Glendower is a black necromancer who can call to his aid the dread demons
of the air. Hark to that blast," he added, as a great gust of wind shook
the royal tent. "'T is like a knight's defiance, and, like true knights,
let us answer it. Hollo, young Lionel, be thou warder of thy king, and
sound an answering blast."
Lionel, who was blest with the strong lungs of healthy boyhood, grasped
the trumpet, and a defiant peal rang through the royal tent. But it was an
unequal contest, for instantly, as chronicles old Capgrave, "there blew
suddenly so much wynd, and so impetuous, with a gret rain, that the Kyng's
tent was felled, and a spere cast so violently, that, an the Kyng had not
been armed, he had been ded of the strok."
From all sides came the rush of help, and the king and his attendants were
soon rescued, unharmed from the fallen pavilion. But Humfrey, the stout
old archer, muttered, as he rubbed his well-thumped pate: "Good sooth, 't
is, truly, the art magic of Glendower himself. It payeth not to trifle
with malignant spirits. Give me to front an honest foe, and not these
hidden demons of the air."
As if satisfied with its victory over a mortal king, the fury of the storm
abated, and that afternoon Lionel entered the royal presence with the
announcement: "Tidings, my lord King; tidings from the noble Prince of
Wales! a courier waits without."
"Bid him enter," said the king, and, all bespattered and dripping from his
ride through the tempest, the courier entered and, dropping on his knee,
presented the king a writing from the prince.
"At last!" said Henry, as he hastily scanned the note; "a rift in these
gloomy clouds. Break we our camp, my lord Westmoreland, and back to
Hereford town. We do but spend our strength to little use awaiting a wily
foe in these flooded plains. This billet tells me that Sir Harry Percy
and my lord of Worcester, with our son the Prince, have cooped up the
rebels in the Castle of Conway, and that Glendower himself is in the
Snowdon Hills. As for thee, young Sir Harlequin," he added, turning to
Lionel, "if thou wouldst try thy mettle in other ways than in tumbler's
tricks and in defiance of the wind, thou mayst go with Sir Walter Blount
to thy tutor, the Prince, and the Welsh wars in the north."
Next day, the camp was broken up, and, in high spirits, Lionel, with the
small company of knights and archers detached for service in the north,
left the southern marches for the camp of the prince.
It was the year of grace 1402. Henry of Lancaster, usurping the crown and
power of the unfortunate King Richard II., ruled now as Henry IV., "by the
grace of God, King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland." But
"uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," and, king though he was--"Most
Excellent, Most Dread, and Most Sovereign Lord," as his subjects addressed
him--he was lord and sovereign over a troubled and distracted realm.
Scotland, thronging the Lowlands, poured her bonnets and pikes across the
northern border; France, an ever-watchful enemy, menaced the slender
possessions in Calais and Aquitaine; traitors at home plotted against the
life of the king; and the men of Wales, rallying to the standard of their
countryman, Owen Glendower, who styled himself the Prince of Wales, forced
the English to unequal and disadvantageous battle among their hills and
valleys. So the journey of Lionel to the north was a careful and cautious
one; and, constantly on their guard against ambushes, surprises, and
sudden assaults, the little band of archers and men-at-arms among whom he
rode pushed their watchful way toward the Vale of Conway. They were just
skirting the easterly base of the Snowdon Hills, where, three thousand
feet above them, the rugged mountain peaks look down upon the broad and
beautiful Vale of Conway, when a noise of crackling branches ahead
startled the wary archer, Wallys, and he said to Lionel:
"Look to thine arms, lad; there may be danger here. But no," he added, as
the "view halloo" of the hunters rose in air, "'t is but the merry chase.
Hold here, and let us see the sport."
Almost as he spoke, there burst from the thicket, not a hundred yards
away, a splendid red deer, whose spreading antlers proclaimed him to be a
"stag of twelve" or "stag-royal." Fast after him dashed the excited
hunters; but, leading them all, spurred a sturdy young fellow of eager
fifteen--tall and slender, but quick and active in every movement, as he
yielded himself to the free action of his horse and cheered on the hounds.
The excitement was contagious, and Lionel, spite of the caution of his
friend the archer, could not restrain himself. His "view halloo" was
shouted with boyish impetuosity as, fast at the heels of the other young
hunter, he spurred his willing horse. But now the deer turned to the right
and made for a distant thicket, and Lionel saw the young hunter spring
from his lagging steed, and, with a stout cord reeled around his arm, dash
after the stag afoot, while hounds and hunters panted far behind.
It was a splendid race of boy and beast. The lad's quick feet seemed
scarcely to touch the ground, every spring bringing him nearer and nearer
to his noble prey. There is a final spurt; the coil of cord flies from the
hunter's arm, as his quick fling sends it straight in air; the noose
settles over the broad antlers of the buck; the youth draws back with a
sudden but steady jerk, and the defeated deer drops to earth, a doomed and
panting captive.
"There is but one lad in all England can do that!" cried enthusiastic
Lionel, as with a loud huzza, he spurred toward the spot so as to be "in
at the death."
"Lend me thy knife, page," the boy hunter demanded, as Lionel sprang from
his horse, "mine I think hath leaped from my belt into yonder pool."
Flash! gleamed the sharp steel in air; deep to the hilt it plunged into
the victim's throat, and, kneeling on the body of the dying stag, Harry of
Monmouth, Prince of Wales, the fleetest and most fearless of England's
youthful hunters, looked up into Lionel's admiring face.
"Hey O!" he cried. "Sure, 't is Lionel Langley! Why, how far'st thou, lad,
and how cam'st thou here?"
"I come, my Lord," Lionel replied, "with Sir Walter Blount's following of
squires and archers, whom his Majesty, the King, hath sent to thy
succour."
"You are right welcome all," said Prince Harry, "and you come in good
stead, for sure we need your aid. But wind this horn of mine, Lionel, and
call in the hunt." And as Lionel's notes sounded loud and clear, the rest
of the chase galloped up, and soon the combined trains rode on to the
English camp in the Vale of Conway.
There, in the train of Prince Harry, Lionel passed the winter and spring;
while his young leader, then scarce sixteen, led his hardy troops, a
miniature army of scarce three thousand men, up and down the eastern
marches of Wales, scouring the country from Conway Castle to Harlech Hold,
and from the Irish Sea to Snowden and to Shrewsbury gates. The battles
fought were little more than forays and skirmishes,--the retaliations of
fire and sword, now in English fields and now on Welsh borders; but it was
a good "school of the soldier," in which Lionel learned the art of war,
and Harry of Monmouth bore himself right gallantly.
But greater troubles were brewing, and braver deeds in store. On a fair
July morning in the year 1403, Lionel, who now served the prince as squire
of the body, entering his pavilion hastily, said, in much excitement:
"My Lord, my Lord, the Earl of Worcester has gone!"
"Gone?" echoed the prince. "What dost thou mean? Gone? When--where--how?"
"None know, my Lord," Lionel replied. "This morning his pavilion was found
deserted, and with him are fled Sir Herbert Tressell, and the squires and
archers of my lord of Worcester's train."
Now, the Earl of Worcester was the "tutor," or guardian, of the prince, a
trusted noble of the House of Percy, and appointed by the king to have the
oversight or guidance of young Harry; and his sudden flight from camp
greatly surprised the prince.
"My lord Prince," said Sir Walter Blount, entering as hastily as had
Lionel, "here is a courier from the worshipful Constable of Chester, with
secret tidings that the Percies are in arms against my lord the king."
"The Percies up, and my lord of Worcester fled?" exclaimed the prince.
"This bodes no good for us. Quick, get thee to horse, Lionel. Speed like
the wind to Shrewsbury. Get thee fair escort from my lord of Warwick, and
then on to the king at Burton." And in less than ten minutes Lionel was
a-horse, bearing the prince's billet that told the doleful news of the new
rebellion, spurring fast to Shrewsbury and the King.
Before three days had passed the whole great plot was known, and men shook
their heads in dismay and do
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