← catalogue

The Comic History of England

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett · English · Gutenberg #44860 · 1,576,640 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Comic History of England
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Comic History of England

Author: Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

Illustrator: John Leech


        
Release date: February 9, 2014 [eBook #44860]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44860

Credits: Produced by David Widger from page scans graciously provided
        by Google Books


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND ***

THE COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND

By Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett

With Reproductions of the 200 Engravings by JOHN LEECH

And Twenty Page Illustrations

London

George Routledge And Sons, Limited

Broadway, Ludgate Hill Manchester and New York


[Illustration: 011]


[Illustration: frontispiece]


[Illustration: 014]




PREFACE.

In commencing this work, the object of the Author was, as he stated in
the Prospectus, to blend amusement with instruction, by serving up,
in as palatable a shape as he could, the facts of English History. He
pledged himself not to sacrifice the substance to the seasoning; and
though he has certainly been a little free in the use of his sauce, he
hopes that he has not produced a mere hash on the present occasion. His
object has been to furnish something which may be allowed to take its
place as a standing dish at the library table, and which, though light,
may not be found devoid of nutriment. That food is certainly not the
most wholesome which is the heaviest and the least digestible.

Though the original design of this History was only to place facts in
an amusing light, without a sacrifice of fidelity, it is humbly presumed
that truth has rather gained than lost by the mode of treatment that
has been adopted. Persons and tilings, events and characters, have
been deprived of their false colouring, by the plain and matter-of-fact
spirit in which they have been approached by the writer of the "Comic
History of England." He has never scrupled to take the liberty of
tearing off the masks and fancy dresses of all who have hitherto been
presented in disguise to the notice of posterity. Motives are treated in
these pages as unceremoniously as men; and as the human disposition was
much the same in former times as it is in the present day, it has been
judged by the rules of common sense, which are alike at every period.

Some, who have been accustomed to look at History as a pageant, may
think it a desecration to present it in a homely shape, divested of its
gorgeous accessories. Such persons as these will doubtless feel offended
at finding the romance of history irreverently demolished, for the sake
of mere reality. They will-perhaps honestly though erroneously-accuse
the author of a contempt for what is great and good; but the truth is,
he has so much real respect for the great and good, that he is desirous
of preventing the little and bad from continuing to claim admiration
upon false pretences.





THE COMIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND.




BOOK I.




CHAPTER THE FIRST. THE BRITONS--THE ROMANS--INVASION BY JULIUS CÆSAR.


IT has always been the good fortune of the antiquarian who has busied
himself upon the subject of our ancestors, that the total darkness
by which they are overshadowed, renders it impossible to detect the
blunderings of the antiquarian himself, who has thus been allowed to
grope about the dim twilight of the past, and entangle himself among its
cobwebs, without any light being thrown upon his errors.

[Illustration: 028]

But while the antiquarians have experienced no obstruction from others,
they have managed to come into collision among themselves, and have
knocked their heads together with considerable violence in the process
of what they call exploring the dark ages of our early history. We are
not unwilling to take a walk amid the monuments of antiquity, which we
should be sorry to run against or tumble over for want of proper light;
and we shall therefore only venture so far as we can have the assistance
of the bull's-eye of truth, rejecting altogether the allurements of
the Will o' the Wisp of mere probability. It is not because former
historians have gone head oyer heels into the gulf of conjecture, that
we are to turn a desperate somersault after them. *

     * Some historians tell us that the most conclusive evidence
     of things that have happened is to be found in the reports
     of the _Times_. This source of information is, however,
     closed against us, for the _Times_, unfortunately, had no
     reporters when these isles were first inhabited.

The best materials for getting at the early history of a country are its
coins, its architecture, and its manners. The Britons, however, had not
yet converted the Britannia metal--for which their valour always made
them conspicuous--into coins, while their architecture, to judge from
the Druidical remains, was of the wicket style, consisting of two or
three stones stuck upright in the earth, with another stone laid at
the top of them; after the fashion with which all lovers of the game
of cricket are of course familiar. As this is the only architectural
assistance we are likely to obtain, we decline entering upon the subject
through such a gate; or, to use an expression analogous to the pastime
to which we have referred, we refuse to take our innings at such a
wicket. We need hardly add, that in looking to the manners of our
ancestors for enlightenment, we look utterly in vain, for there is no
Druidical Chesterfield to afford us any information upon the etiquette
of that distant period. There is every reason to believe that our
forefathers lived in an exceedingly rude state; and it is therefore
perhaps as well that their manners--or rather their want of
manners--should be buried in oblivion.

[Illustration: 029]

It was formerly very generally believed that the first population of
this country descended from Æneas, the performer of the most filial act
of pick-a-back that ever was known; and that the earliest Britons
were sprung from his grandson--one Brutus, who, preserving the family
peculiarity, came into this island on the shoulders of the people. *
Hollinshed, that greatest of antiquarian _gobemouches_, has not only
taken in the story we have just told, but has added a few of his own
ingenious embellishments. He tells us that Brutus fell in with the
posterity of the giant Albion, who was put to death by Hercules, whose
buildings at Lambeth are the only existing proofs of his having ever
resided in this country.

     * The story of Brutus and the Trojans has been told in such
     a variety of ways, that it is difficult to make either head
     or tail of it. Geoffrey of Monmouth says that Brutus found
     Britain deserted, except by a few giants--from which it is
     to be presumed that Brutus landed at Greenwich about the
     time of the fair. Perhaps the introduction of troy-weight
     into our arithmetic may be traced to the immigration of the
     Trojans, who were very likely to adopt the measures--and why
     not the weights--with which they had been familiar.

Considering it unprofitable to dwell any longer on those points, about
which all writers are at loggerheads, we come at once to that upon which
they are all agreed, which is, that the first inhabitants were a tribe
of Celtæ from the Continent: that, in fact, the earliest Englishmen were
all Frenchmen; and that, however bitter and galling the fact may be,
it is to Gaul that we owe our origin. We ought perhaps to mention
that Cæsar thinks our sea-ports were peopled by Belgic invaders, from
Brussels, thus causing a sprinkling of Brussels sprouts among the native
productions of England.

The name of our country--Britannia--has also been the subject of
ingenious speculation among the antiquarians. To sum up all their
conjectures into one of our own, we think they have succeeded in
dissolving the word Britannia into Brit, or Brick, and tan, which would
seem to imply that the natives always behaved like bricks in tanning
their enemies. The suggestion that the syllable tan, means tin, and that
Britannia is synonymous with tin land, appears to be rather a modern
notion, for it is only in later ages that Britannia has become
emphatically the land of tin, or the country for making money.

The first inhabitants of the island lived by pasture, and not by trade.
They as yet knew nothing of the till, but supported themselves by
tillage. Their dress was picturesque rather than elegant. A book of
truly British fashions would be a great curiosity in the present day,
and we regret that we have no _Petit Courier des Druides_, or Celtic
_Belle Assemblée_, to furnish _figurines_ of the costume of the period.
Skins, however, were much worn, for morning as well as for evening
dress; and it is probable that even at that early age ingenuity may
have been exercised to suggest new patterns for cow cloaks and other
varieties of the then prevailing articles of the wardrobe.

The Druids, who were the priests, exercised great ascendancy over
the people, and often claimed the spoils of war, together with other
property, under the plea of offering up the proceeds as a sacrifice to
the divinities. These treasures, however, were never accounted for; and
it is now too late for the historians to file, as it were, a bill in
equity to inquire what has become of them.

Cæsar, who might have been so called from his readiness to seize upon
everything, now turned his eyes and directed his arms upon Britain.
According to some he was tempted by the expectation of finding pearls,
which he hoped to get out of the oysters, and he therefore broke in upon
the natives with considerable energy.

[Illustration: 031]

Whatever Caesar looking for the Pearls for which Britain was formerly
celebrated, may have been Caesar's motives the fact is pretty well
ascertained, that at about ten o'clock one fine morning in August--some
say a quarter past--he reached the British coast with 12,000 infantry,
packed in eighty vessels. He had left behind him the whole of his
cavalry--the Roman horse-marines--who were detained by contrary winds
on the other side of the sea, and though anxious to be in communication
with their leader, they never could get into the right channel. At about
three in the afternoon, Cæsar having taken an early dinner, began to
disembark his forces at a spot called to this day the Sandwich Flats,
from the people having been such flats as to allow the enemy to effect a
landing. While the Roman soldiers were standing shilly-shallying at the
side of their vessels, a standard-bearer of the tenth legion, or, as we
should call him, an ensign in the tenth, jumped into the water, which
was nearly up to his knees, and addressing a claptrap to his comrades
as he stood in the sea, completely turned the tide in Caesar's favour.
After a severe shindy on the shingles, the Britons withdrew, leaving
the Romans masters of the beach, where Cæsar erected a marquee for the
accommodation of his cohorts. The natives sought and obtained peace,
which had no sooner been concluded, than the Roman horse-marines were
seen riding across the Channel. A tempest, however, arising, the horses
were terrified, and the waves beginning to mount, added so much to the
confusion, that the Roman cavalry were compelled to back to the point
they started from. The same storm gave a severe blow to the camp of
Cæsar, on the beach, dashing his galleys and transports against the
rocks which they were sure to split upon. Daunted by these disasters,
the invaders, after a few breezes with the Britons, took advantage of
a favourable gale to return to Gaul, and thus for a time the dispute
appeared to have blown over.

Cæsar's thoughts, however, still continued to run in one, namely, the
British, Channel. In the spring of the ensuing year, he rigged out 800
ships, into which he contrived to cram 32,000 men, and with this
force he was permitted to land a second time by those horrid flats at
Sandwich. The Britons for some time made an obstinate resistance in
their chariots, but they ultimately took a fly across the country, and
retreated with great rapidity. Cæsar had scarcely sat down to breakfast
the next morning when he heard that a tempest had wrecked all his
vessels. At this intelligence he burst into tears, and scampered off to
the sea coast, with all his legions in full cry, hurrying after him.

[Illustration: 032]

The news of the disaster turned out to be no exaggeration, for there
were no penny-a-liners in those days; and, having carried his ships a
good way inland, where they remained like fish out of water, he set out
once more in pursuit of the enemy. The Britons had, however, made
the most of their time, and had found a leader in the person of
Gassivelaunus, _alias_ Caswallon, a quarrelsome old Gelt, who had so
frequently thrashed his neighbours, that he was thought the most likely
person to succeed in thrashing the Romans. This gallant individual was
successful in a few rough off handed engagements; but when it came
to the fancy work, where tactics were required, the disciplined Roman
troops were more than a match for him. His soldiers having been driven
back to their woods, he drove himself back in his chariot to the
neighbourhood of Chertsey, where he had a few acres of ground, which he
called a Kingdom. He then stuck some wooden posts in the middle of the
Thames, as an impediment to Cæsar, who, in the plenitude of his vaulting
ambition, laid his hands on the posts and vaulted over them.

The army of Cassivelaunus being now disbanded, his establishment was
reduced to 4000 chariots, which he kept up for the purpose of harassing
the Romans. As each chariot required at least a pair of horses, his 4000
vehicles, and the enormous stud they entailed, must have been rather
more harassing to Cassivelaunus himself than to the enemy.

This extremely extravagant Celt, who had long been the object of the
jealousy of his neighbours, was now threatened by their treachery. The
chief of the Trinobantes, who lived in Middlesex, and were perhaps the
earliest Middlesex magistrates, sent ambassadors to Cæsar, promising
submission. They also showed him the way to the contemptible cluster of
houses which Cassivelaunus dignified with the name of his capital. It
was surrounded with a ditch, and a rampart made chiefly of mud, the
article in which military engineering seemed to have stuck at that early
period. Cassivelaunus was driven by Cæsar from his abode, constructed of
clay and felled trees, and so precipitate was the flight of the Briton,
that he had only time to pack up a few necessary articles, leaving
everything else to fall into the hands of the enemy.

The Roman General, being tired of his British campaign, was glad to
listen to the overtures of Cassivelaunus; but these overtures consisted
of promissory notes, which were never realised. The Celt undertook to
transmit an annual tribute to Cæsar, who never got a penny of the money;
and the hostages he had carried with him to Gaul became a positive
burden to him, for they were never taken out of pawn by their
countrymen. It is believed that they were ultimately got rid of at a
sale of unredeemed pledges, where they were put up in lots of half a
dozen, and knocked down as slaves to the highest bidder.

[Illustration: 033]

Before quitting the subject of Caesar's invasion, it may be interesting
to the reader to know something of the weapons with which the early
Britons attempted to defend themselves. Their swords were made of
copper, and generally bent with the first blow, which must have greatly
straitened their aggressive resources, for the swords thus followed
their own bent, instead of carrying out the intentions of the persons
using them. This provoking pliancy of the material must often have made
the soldier as ill-tempered as his own weapon. The Britons carried also
a dirk, and a spear, the latter of which they threw at the foe, as
an effectual means of pitching into him. A sort of reaping-hook was
attached to their chariot wheels, and was often very useful in reaping
the laurels of victory.

For nearly one hundred years after Cæsar's invasion, Britain was
undisturbed by the Romans, though Caligula, that neck-or-nothing tyrant,
as his celebrated wish entitles him to be called, once or twice had
his eye upon it. The island, however, if it attracted the Imperial eye,
escaped the lash, during the period specified.




CHAPTER THE SECOND. INVASION BY THE ROMANS UNDER
CLAUDIUS--CARACTACUS--BOADICEA--AGRICOLA---GALGACUS--SEVERUS--VORTIGERN
CALLS IN THE SAXONS.

It was not until ninety-seven years after Cæsar had seized upon the
island that it was unceremoniously clawed by the Emperor Claudius. Kent
and Middlesex fell an easy prey to the Roman power; nor did the brawny
sons of Canterbury--since so famous for its brawn--succeed in repelling
the enemy. Aulus Plautius, the Roman general, pursued the Britons under
that illustrious character, Caractus. He retreated towards Lambeth
Marsh, and the swampy nature of the ground gave the invaders reason to
feel that it was somewhat too

     "Far into the bowels of the land
     They had march'd on without impediment."

Vespasian, the second in command, made a tour in the Isle of Wight, then
called Vectis, where he boldly took the Bull by the horns, and seized
upon Cowes with considerable energy. Still, little was done till
Ostorius Scapula--whose name implies that he was a sharp blade--put his
shoulder to the wheel, and erected a line of defences--a line in
which he was so successful that it may have been called his peculiar
_forte_--to protect the territory that had been acquired.

After a series of successes, Ostorius having suffocated every breath
of liberty in Suffolk, and hauled the inhabitants of Newcastle over the
coals, drove the people of Wales before him like so many Welsh rabbits;
and even the brave Caractacus was obliged to fly as well as he could,
with the remains of one of the wings of the British army. He was taken
to Rome with his wife and children, in fetters, but his dignified
conduct procured his chains to be struck off, and from this moment we
lose the chain of his history.

Ostorius, who remained in Britain, was so harassed by the natives that
he was literally worried to death; but in the reign of Nero (a.d. 59),
Suetonius fell upon Mona, now the Isle of Anglesey, where the howlings,
cries, and execrations of the people were so awful, that the name of
Mona was singularly appropriate. Notwithstanding, however, the terrific
oaths of the natives, they could not succeed in swearing away the lives
of their aggressors. Suetonius, having made them pay the penalty of so
much bad language, was called up to London, then a Roman colony; but he
no sooner arrived in town, than he was obliged to include himself among
the departures, in consequence of the fury of Boadicea, that greatest
of viragoes and first of British heroines. She reduced London to ashes,
which Suetonius did not stay to sift; but he waited the attack of
Boadicea a little way out of town, and pitched his tent within a modern
omnibus ride of the great metropolis. His fair antagonist drove after
him in her chariot, with her two daughters, the Misses Boadicea, at her
side, and addressed to her army some of those appeals on behalf of "a
British female in distress," which have since been adopted by British
dramatists. The valorous old vixen was, however, defeated; and rather
than swallow the bitter pill which would have poisoned the remainder of
her days, she took a single dose and terminated her own existence.

Suetonius soon returned with his suite to the Continent, without having
finished the war; for it was always a characteristic of the Britons,
that they never would acknowledge they had had enough at the hands of an
enemy. Some little time afterwards, we find Cerealis engaged in one of
those attacks upon Britain which might be called serials, from their
frequent repetition; and subsequently, about the year 75 or 78, Julius
Frontinus succeeded to the business from which so many before him had
retired with very little profit.

The general, however, who cemented the power of Rome--or, to speak
figuratively, introduced the Roman cement among the Bricks or
Britons--was Julius Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus, the
historian, who has lost no opportunity of puffing most outrageously his
undoubtedly meritorious relative.

[Illustration: 035]

Agricola certainly did considerable havoc in Britain. He sent the Scotch
reeling oyer the Grampian Hills, and led the Caledonians a pretty dance.

Portrait of Julius Agricola. He ran UP a kind of rampart between the
Friths of Clyde and Forth, from which he could come forth at his
leisure and complete the conquest of Caledonia. In the sixth year of his
campaign, a.d. 83, he crossed the Frith of Forth, and came opposite to
Fife, which was played upon by the whole of his band with considerable
energy. Having wintered in Fife, upon which he levied contributions to
a pretty tune, he moved forward in the summer of the next year, a.d.
84, from Glen Devon to the foot of the Grampians. He here encountered
Galgacus and his host, who made a gallant resistance; but the Scottish
chief was soon left to reckon without his host, for all his followers
fled like lightning, and it has been said that their bolting came upon
him like a thunderbolt.

Agricola having thoroughly beaten the Britons--on the principle,
perhaps, that there is nothing so impressible as wax--began to think of
instructing them. He had given them a few lessons in war which they
were not likely to forget, and he now thought of introducing among
their chiefs a tincture of polite letters, commencing of course with the
alphabet. The Britons finding it as easy as A, B, C, began to cultivate
the rudiments of learning, for there is a spell in letters of which few
can resist the influence. They assumed the toga, which, on account of
the comfortable warmth of the material, they very quickly cottoned;
they plunged into baths, and threw themselves into the capacious lap of
luxury.

For upwards of thirty years Britain remained tranquil, but in the reign
of Hadrian, a.d. 120, the Caledonians, whose spirit had been "scotched,
not killed," became exceedingly turbulent. Hadrian, who felt his
weakness, went to the wall of Agricola, * which was rebuilt in order to
protect the territory the Romans had acquired. Some years afterwards the
power of the empire went into a decline, which caused a consumption
at home of many of the troops that had been previously kept for the
protection of foreign possessions. Britain took this opportunity of
revolting, and in the year 207, the Emperor Severus, though far advanced
in years and a martyr to the gout, determined to march in person against
the barbarians. He had no sooner set his foot on English ground than
his gout caused him to feel the greatest difficulties at every step,
and having been no less than four years getting to York, he knocked
up there, a.d. 211, and died in a dreadful hobble. Caracalla, son and
successor to the late Emperor Severus, executed a surrender of land
to the Caledonians for the sake of peace, and being desirous of
administering to the effects of his lamented governor in Rome, left the
island for ever.

     * The remains of this wall are still in existence, to
     furnish food for the Archeologians who occasionally feast on
     the bricks, which have become venerable with the crust of
     ages. A morning roll among the mounds in the neighbourhood
     where this famous wall once existed, is considered a most
     delicate repast to the antiquarian.

[Illustration: 036]

The history of Britain for the next seventy years may be easily written,
for a blank page would tell all that is known respecting it. In the
partnership reign of Dioclesian and Maximian, a.d. 288, "the land we
live in" turns up again, under somewhat unfavourable circumstances, for
we find its coasts being ravaged about this time by Scandinavian and
Saxon pirates. Carausius, a sea captain, and either a Belgian or Briton
by birth, was employed against the pirates, to whom, in the Baltic
sound, he gave a sound thrashing. Instead, however, of sending the
plunder home to his employers, he pocketed the proceeds of his own
victories, and the Emperors, growing jealous of his power, sent
instructions to have him slain at the earliest convenience. The wily
sailor, however, fled to Britain, where he planted his standard, and
where the tar, claiming the natives as his "messmates," induced them
to join him in the mess he had got into. The Roman eagles were put to
flight, and both wings of the imperial army exhibited the white feather.
Peace with Carausius was purchased by conceding to him the government of
Britain and Boulogne, with the proud title of Emperor.

The assumption of the rank of Emperor of Boulogne seems to us about as
absurd as usurping the throne of Broadstairs, or putting on the imperial
purple at Herne Bay; but Carausius having been originally a mere pirate,
was justly proud of his new dignity. Having swept the seas, he commenced
scouring the country, and his victories were celebrated by a day's
chairing, at which he assisted as the principal figure in a procession
of unexampled pomp and pageantry. The throne, however, is not an easy
_fauteuil_, and Carausius had scarcely had time to throw himself back
in an attitude of repose, when he was murdered at Eboracum (York)
(a.d. 297), by one Alectus, his confidential friend and minister. In
accordance with the custom of the period, that the murderer should
succeed his victim, Alectus ruled in Britain until he, in his turn, was
slain at the instigation of Constantius Chlorus, who became master
of the island. That individual died at York (a.d. 306), where his son
Constantine, afterwards called the Great, commenced his reign, which was
a short and not a particularly merry one, for after experiencing several
reverses in the North, he quitted the island, which, until his death in
337, once more enjoyed tranquillity.

Rome, which had so long been mighty, was like a cheese in the same
condition, rapidly going to decay, and she found it necessary to
practise what has been termed "the noble art of self-defence," which
is admitted on all hands to be the first law of Nature. Britain they
regarded as a province, which it was not their province to look after.
It was consequently left as pickings for the Picts, * nor did it come
off scot free from the Scots, who were a tribe of Celtæ from Ireland,
and who consequently must be regarded as a mixed race of Gallo-Hibernian
Caledonians. They had, in fact, been Irishmen before they had been
Scotchmen, and Frenchmen previous to either. Such were the translations
that occurred even at that early period in the greatest drama of
all--the drama of history.

     * "The Picts," says Dr. Henry, "were so called from Pictich,
     a plunderer, and not from _picti_, painted." History, in
     assigning the latter origin to their name, has failed to
     exhibit them in their true colours.

Britain continued for years suspended like a white hart--a simile
justified by its constant trepidation and alarm--with which the Romans
and others might enjoy an occasional game at bob-cherry. Maximus (a.d.
382) made a successful bite at it, but turning aside in search of the
fruits of ambition elsewhere, the Scots and Picts again began nibbling
at the Bigaroon that had been the subject of so much snappishness.

The Britons being shortly afterwards left once more to themselves,
elected Marcus as their sovereign (a.d. 407); but monarchs in those days
were set up like the king of skittles, only to be knocked down again.
Marcus was accordingly bowled out of existence by those who had raised
him; and one, Gratian, having succeeded to the post of royal ninepin,
was in four months as dead as the article to which we have chosen to
compare him. After a few more similar ups and downs, the Romans, about
the year 420, nearly five centuries after Cæsar's first invasion,
finally cried quits with the Britons by abandoning the island.

In pursuing his labours over the few ensuing years, the author would
be obliged to grope in the dark; but history is not a game at
blind-man's-buff, and we will never condescend to make it so. It is
true, that with the handkerchief of obscurity bandaging our eyes, we
might turn round in a state of rigmarole, and catch what we can; but
as it would be mere guesswork by which we could describe the object of
which we should happen to lay hold, we will not attempt the experiment.

It is unquestionable that Britain was a prey to dissensions at home
and ravages from abroad, while every kind of faction--except
satisfaction--was rife within the island.

Such was the misery of the inhabitants, that they published a pamphlet
called "The Groans of the Britons" (a.d. 441), in which they invited
Ætius, the Roman consul, to come over and turn out the barbarians,
between whom and the sea, the islanders were tossed like a shuttlecock
knocked about by a pair of battledores. Ætius, in consequence of
previous engagements with Attila and others, was compelled to decline
the invitation, and the Britons therefore had a series of routs, which
were unattended by the Roman cohorts.

The southern part of the island was now torn between a Roman faction
under Aurelius Ambrosius, and a British or "country party," at the head
of which was Vortigern. The latter is said to have called in the Saxons;
and it is certain that (a.d. 449) he hailed the two brothers Hengist
and Horsa, * who were cruising as Saxon pirates in the British Channel.
These individuals being ready for any desperate job, accepted the
invitation of Vortigern, to pass some time with him in the Isle of
Thanet. They were received as guests by the people of Sandwich, who
would as soon have thought of quarrelling with their bread and butter as
with the friends of the gallant Vortigern. From this date commences the
Saxon period of the history of Britain.

     * Horen, means a horse; and the white horse, even now,
     appears as the ensign of Kent, as it once did on the shield
     of the Saxons. It is probable that when Horsa came to
     London, he may have put up somewhere near the present site
     of the White Horse Cellar. Vide "Palgrave's Rise and
     Progress of the English Commonwealth."




CHAPTER THE THIRD. THE SAXONS--THE HEPTARCHY.

In obedience to custom, the etymologists have been busy with the word
Saxon, which they have derived from _seax_, a sword, and we are left to
draw the inference that the Saxons were very sharp blades; a presumption
that is fully sustained by their fierce and warlike character. Their
chief weapons were a battleaxe and a hammer, in the use of which they
were so adroit that they could always hit the right nail upon the head,
when occasion required. Their shipping had been formerly exceedingly
crazy, and indeed the crews must have been crazy to have trusted
themselves in such fragile vessels. The bottoms of the boats were of
very light timber, and the sides consisted of wicker, so that the fleet
must have combined the strength of the washing-tub with the elegant
lightness of the clothes' basket. Like their neighbours the wise men of
Gotham, or Gotha, who went to sea in a bowl, the Saxons had not scrupled
to commit themselves to the mercy of the waves, in these unsubstantial
cockle-shells. The boatbuilders, however, soon took rapid strides, and
improved their craft by mechanical cunning.

Another fog now comes over the historian, but the gas of sagacity is
very useful in dispelling the clouds of obscurity. It is said that
Hengist gave an evening party to Vortigern, who fell in love with
Bowena, the daughter of his host--a sad flirt, who, throwing herself
on her knee, presented the wine-cup to the king, wishing him, in a neat
speech, all health and happiness. Vortigern's head was completely turned
by the beauty of Miss Bowena Hengist, and the strength of the beverage
she had so bewitchingly offered him.

[Illustration: 040]

A story is also told of a Saxon _soirée_ having been given by Hengist
to the Britons, to which the host and his countrymen came, with short
swords or knives concealed in their hose, and at a given signal drew
their weapons upon their unsuspecting guests. Many historians have
doubted this dreadful tale, and it certainly is scarcely credible that
the Saxons should have been able to conceal in their stockings the short
swords or carving-knives, which must have been very inconvenient to
their calves. Stonehenge is the place at which this cruel act of the
hard-hearted and stony Hengist is reported to have occurred; and as
antiquarians are always more particular about dates when they are most
likely to be wrong, the 1st of May has been fixed upon as the very day
on which this horrible _réunion_ was given. It has been alleged, that
Vortigern, in order to marry Bowena, settled Kent upon Hengist; but it
is much more probable that Hengist settled himself upon Kent without the
intervention of any formality.

It is certain that he became King of the County, to which he affixed
Middlesex, Essex, and a part of Surrey; so that, as sovereigns went in
those early days, he could scarcely be called a petty potentate. The
success of Hengist induced several of his countrymen, after his death,
to attempt to walk in his shoes; but it has been well and wisely said,
that in following the footsteps of a great man an equally capacious
understanding is requisite.

The Saxons who tried this experiment were divided into Saxons proper,
Angles, and Jutes, who all passed under the common appellation of Angles
and Saxons. The word Angles was peculiarly appropriate to a people so
naturally sharp, and the whole science of mathematics can give us no
angles so acute as those who figured in the early pages of our history.

In the year 447, Ella the Saxon landed in Sussex with his three sons,
and drove the Britons into a forest one hundred and twenty miles long
and thirty broad, according to the old writers, but in our opinion just
about as broad as it was long, for otherwise there could have been no
room for it in the place where the old writers have planted it. Ella,
however, succeeded in clutching a very respectable slice, which was
called the kingdom of South Saxony, which included Surrey, Sussex, and
the New Forest; while another invading firm, under the title of Cerdic
and Son, started a small vanquishing business in the West, and by
conquering Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, founded the kingdom of
Wessex. Cerdic was considerably harassed by King Arthur of fabulous
fame, whose valour is reported to have been such, that he fought twelve
battles with the Saxons, and was three times married. His first and
third wives were carried away from him, but on the principle that no
news is good news, the historians tell us that as there are no records
of his second consort, his alliance with her may perhaps have been a
happy one. The third and last of his spouses ran off with his nephew
Mordred, and the enraged monarch having met his ungrateful kinsman in
battle, they engaged each other with such fury, that, like the Kilkenny
cats, they slew one another.

About the year 527, Greenwine landed on the Essex flats, which he had no
trouble in reducing, for he found them already on a very low level.
In 547, Ida, with a host of Angles, began fishing for dominion off
Flamborough head, where he effected a landing. He however settled on a
small wild space between the Tyne and the Tees, a tiny possession, in
which he was much teased by the beasts of the forest, for the place
having been abandoned, Nature had established a Zoological Society of
her own in this locality. The kingdom thus formed was called Bernicia,
and as the place was full of wild animals, it is not improbable that the
British Lion may have originally come from the place alluded to.

Ella, another Saxon prince, defeated Lancashire and York, taking the
name of King of the Deiri, and causing the inhabitants to lick the dust,
which was the only way they could find of repaying the licking they had
received from their conqueror. Ethelred, the grandson of Ida, having
married the daughter of Ella, began to cement the union in the
old-established way, by robbing his wife's relations of all their
property. He seized on the kingdom of his brother-in-law, and added it
to his own, uniting the petty monarchies of Deiri and Bemicia into the
single sovereignty of Northumberland.

[Illustration: 042]

Such were the several kingdoms which formed the Heptarchy.
Arithmeticians will probably tell us that seven into one will never go;
but into one the seven did eventually go by a process that will be shown
in the ensuing chapter.




CHAPTER THE FOURTH. THE UNION OF THE HEPTARCHY UNDER EGBERT.

If it be a sound philosophical truth, that two of a trade can never
agree, we may take it for granted that, _à fortiori_, seven in the same
business will be perpetually quarrelling. Such was speedily the case
with the Saxon princes; and it is not improbable that the disturbed
condition, familiarly known as a state of sixes and sevens, may have
derived its title from the turmoils of the seven Saxon sovereigns,
during the existence of the Heptarchy. Nothing can exceed the
entanglement into which the thread of history was thrown by the battles
and skirmishes of these princes. The endeavour to lay hold of the thread
would be as troublesome as the process of looking for a needle, * not
merely in a bottle of hay, but in the very bosom of a haystack. Let us,
however, apply the magnet of industry, and test the alleged fidelity
of the needle to the pole by attempting to implant in the head of the
reader a few of the points that seem best adapted for striking him.

     * "A needle in a bottle of hay," is an old English phrase,
     of which we cannot trace the origin. Bottled hay must have
     been sad dry stuff, but it is possible the wisdom of our
     ancestors may have induced them to bottle their grass as we
     in the present day bottle our gooseberries.

We will take a run through the whole country as it was then divided,
and will borrow from the storehouse of tradition the celebrated pair
of seven-leagued boots, for the purpose of a scamper through the seven
kingdoms of the Heptarchy.

We will first drop in upon Kent, whose founder, Hengist, had no worthy
successor till the time of Ethelbert. This individual acted on the
principle of give and take, for he was always taking what he could, and
giving battle. He seated himself by force on the throne of Mercia, into
which he carried his arms, as if the throne of Kent had not afforded him
sufficient elbow-room. This, however, he resigned to Webba, the rightful
heir: but poor Webba (_query_ Webber) was kept like a fly in a spider's
web, as a tributary prince to the artful Ethelbert. This monarch's reign
derived, however, its real glory from the introduction of Christianity
and the destruction of many Saxon superstitions. He kept up a friendly
correspondence with Gregory, the punster pope, and author of the
celebrated _jeu de mot_ on the word Angli, in the Roman market-place.*

     * The pun in question is almost too venerable for
     repetition, but we insert it in a note, as no History of
     England seems to be complete without it. The pope, on seeing
     the British children exposed for sale in the market-place at
     Rome, said they would not be Angles but Angels if they had
     been Christians. _Non Angli sed Angeli forent si fuissent
     Christiani._


[Illustration: 044]

Ethelbert died in 616, having been not only king of Kent, but
having filled the office of Bretwalda, a name given to the most
influential--or, as we should call him, the president or chairman--of
the sovereigns of the Heptarchy. His son, Eadbald, who succeeded, failed
in supporting the fame of his father. It would be useless to pursue the
catalogue of Saxons who continued mounting and dismounting the throne
of Kent--one being no sooner down than another came on--in rapid
succession. It was Egbert, king of Wessex, who, in the year 723, had
the art to seat himself on all the seven thrones at once; an achievement
which, considering the ordinary fate of one who attempts to preserve his
balance upon two stools, has fairly earned the admiration of posterity.

Let us now take a skip into Northumberland--formed by Ethelred in the
manner we have already alluded to, out of the two kingdoms of Deiri and
Bemicia--which, though not enough for two, constituted for one a very
respectable sovereignty. The crown of Northumberland seems to have been
at the disposal of any one who thought it worth his while to go and take
it; provided he was prepared to meet any little objections of the owner
by making away with him. In this manner, Osred received his _quietus_
from Kenred, a kinsman, who was killed in his turn by another of the
family: and, after a long series of assassinations, the people quietly
submitted to the yoke of Egbert.

The kingdom of East Anglia presents the same rapid panorama of murders
which settled the succession to all the Saxon thrones; and Mercia,
comprising the midland counties, furnishes all the materials for a
melodrama. Offa, one of its most celebrated kings, had a daughter,
Elfrida, to whom Ethelbert, the sovereign of the East Angles, had made
honourable proposals, and had been invited to celebrate his nuptials at
Hereford. In the midst of the festivities Offa asked Ethelbert into a
back room, in which the latter had scarcely taken a chair when his head
was unceremoniously removed from his shoulders by the father of his
intended.

Offa having extinguished the royal family of East Anglia, by snuffing
out the chief, took possession of the kingdom. In order to expiate his
crime he made friends with the pope, and exacted a penny from every
house possessed of thirty pence, or half-a-crown a year, which he sent
as a proof of penitence to the Roman pontiff. Though at first intended
by Offa as an offering, it was afterwards claimed as a tribute, under
the name of Peter's Pence, which were exacted from the people; and the
custom may perhaps have originated the dishonourable practice of robbing
Paul for the purpose of paying Peter.

After the usual amount of slaughter, one Wiglaff mounted the throne,
which was in a fearfully rickety condition. So unstable was this
undesirable piece of Saxon upholstery that Wiglaff had no sooner sat
down upon it than it gave way with a tremendous crash, and fell into the
hands of Egbert, who was always ready to seize the remaining stock of
royalty that happened to be left to an unfortunate sovereign on the eve
of an alarming sacrifice.

The kingdom of Essex can boast of little worthy of narration, and in
looking through the Venerable Bede, we find a string of names that are
wholly devoid of interest.

The history of Sussex is still more obscure, and we hasten to Wessex,
where we find Brihtric, or Beortric, sitting in the regal armchair that
Egbert had a better right to occupy. The latter fled to the court of
Offa, king of Mercia, to whom the former sent a message, requesting
that Egbert's head might be brought back by return, with one of Offa's
daughters, whom Beortric proposed to marry. The young lady was sent
as per invoice, for she was rather a burden on the Mercian court; but
Egbert's head, being still in use, was not duly forwarded.

Feeling that his life was a toss up, and that he might lose by heads
coming down, Egbert wisely repaired to the court of the Emperor
Charlemagne. There he acquired many accomplishments, took lessons in
fencing, and received that celebrated French polish of which it may be
fairly said in the language of criticism, that "it ought to be found on
every gentleman's table."

Mrs. Beortric managed to poison her husband by a draft not intended for
his acceptance, and presented by mistake, which caused a vacancy in the
throne of Wessex. Egbert having embraced the opportunity, was embraced
by the people, who received him with open arms, on his arrival from
France, and hailed him as rightful heir to the Wessexian crown, which he
had never been able to get out of his head, or on to his head, until the
present favourable juncture. In a few years he got into hostilities
with the Mercians, who being, as we are told by the chroniclers, "fat,
corpulent, and short-winded," soon got the worst of it. The lean and
active droops of Egbert prevailed over the opposing cohorts, who were at
once podgy and powerless. As they advanced to the charge, they were met
by the blows of the enemy, and as "it is an ill wind that blows nobody
good," so the very ill wind of the Mercians made good for the soldiers
of Egbert, who were completely victorious.

[Illustration: 046]

Mercia was now subjugated; Kent and Essex were soon subdued; the East
Angles claimed protection; Northumberland submitted; Sussex had for some
time been swamped; and Wessex belonged to Egbert by right of succession.
Thus, about four hundred years after the arrival of the Saxons, the
Heptarchy was dissolved, in the year 827, after having been in hot water
for centuries. It was only when the spirit of Egbert was thrown in, that
the hot water became a strong and wholesome compound.




CHAPTER THE FIFTH. THE DANES--ALFRED.


[Illustration: 047]

SCARCELY had unanimity begun to prevail in England, when the country was
invaded by the Danes, whose desperate valour there was no disdaining.
Some of them, in the year 832, landed on the coast, committed a series
of ravages, and escaped to their ships without being taken into custody.
Egbert encountered them on one occasion at Char-mouth, in Dorsetshire,
but having lost two bishops--who, by the bye, had no business in a
fight--he was glad to make the best of his way home again.

The Danes, or Northmen, having visited Cornwall, entered into an
alliance with some of the Briks, or Britons, of the neigh-bourhood,
and marched into Devonshire; but Egbert, collecting the cream of
the Devonshire youth, poured it down upon the heads of his enemies.
According to some historians, Egbert met with considerable resistance,
and it has even been said that the Devonshire cream experienced a severe
clouting. It is certainly sufficient to make the milk of human kindness
curdle in the veins when we read the various recitals of Danish
ferocity. Egbert, however, was successful at the battle of Hengsdown
Hill, where many were put to the sword, by the sword being put to them,
in the most unscrupulous manner. This was the last grand military drama
in which Egbert represented the hero. He died in 836, after a long
reign, which had been one continued shower of prosperity.

Ethelwolf, the eldest son of Egbert, now came to the throne, but
misunderstanding the maxim, _Divide et impera_, he began to divide his
kingdom, as the best means of ruling it, and gave a slice consisting of
Kent and its dependencies to his son Athelstane.

The Scandinavian pirates having no longer an opponent like Egbert,
ravaged Wessex; sailed up the Thames, which, if they could, they would
have set on fire; gave Canterbury, Rochester, and London a severe dose,
in the shape of pillage; and got into the heart of Surrey, which lost
all heart on the approach of the enemy. Ethelwolf, however, taking
with him his second son Ethelbald, met them at Okely--probably in the
neighbourhood of Oakley Street--and at a place still retaining the name
of the New Cut, made a fearful incision into the ranks of the enemy.
The Danes retired to settle in the isle of Thanet, to repose after
the settling they had received in Surrey, at the hands of the Saxons.
Notwithstanding the state of his kingdom, Ethelwolf found time for an
Italian tour, and taking with him his fourth son, Alfred the Great--then
Alfred the Little, for he was a child of six--started to Rome, on that
very vague pretext, a pilgrimage. He spent a large sum of money abroad,
gave the Pope an annuity for himself, and another to trim the lamps of
St. Peter and St. Paul, which has given rise to the celebrated _jeu
de mot_ that, "instead of roaming about and getting rid of his cash
in trimming foreign lamps, he ought to have remained at home for the
purpose of trimming his enemies."

On his return through France, he fell in love with Judith, the daughter
of Charles the Bald, the king of the Franks, who probably gave a good
fortune to the bride, for Charles being known as the bald, must of
course have been without any heir apparent. When Ethelwolf arrived at
home with his new wife, he found his three sons, or as he had been in
the habit of calling them, "the boys,"--indignant at the marriage of
their governor. According to some historians and chroniclers, Osburgha,
his first wife, was not dead, but had been simply "put away" to make
room for Judith. It certainly was a practice of the kings in the middle
age, and particularly if they happened to be middle-aged kings, to "put
away" an old wife; but the real difficulty must have been where on earth
to put her. If Osburgha consented quietly to be laid upon the shelf, she
must have differed from her sex in general.

Athelstane being dead, Ethelbald was now the king's eldest son, and had
made every arrangement for a fight with his own father for the throne,
when the old gentleman thought it better to divide his crown than run
the risk of getting it cracked in battle. "Let us not split each other's
heads, my son," he affectingly exclaimed, "but rather let us split the
difference." Ethelbald immediately cried halves when he found his
father disposed to cry quarter, and after a short debate they came to a
division. The undutiful son got for himself the richest portion of the
kingdom of Wessex, leaving his unfortunate sire to sigh over the eastern
part, which was the poorest moiety of the royal property. The ousted
Ethelwolf did not survive more than two years the change which had made
him little better than half-a-sove-reign, for he died in 867, and was
succeeded by his son Ethelbald. This person was, to use an old simile,
as full of mischief "as an egg is full of meat," and indeed somewhat
fuller, for we never yet found a piece of beef, mutton, or veal, in the
whole course of our oval experience. Ethelbald, however, reigned only
two years, having first married and subsequently divorced his father's
widow Judith, whose venerable parent Charles the Bald, was happily
indebted to his baldness for being spared the misery of having his grey
hairs brought down in sorrow to the grave by the misfortunes of his
daughter. This young lady, for she was still young in spite of her two
marriages, her widowhood, and divorce, had retired to a convent near
Paris, when a gentleman of the name of Baldwin, belonging to an
old standard family, ran away with her. He was threatened with
excommunication by the young lady's father, but treating the menaces of
Charles the Bald as so much balderdash, Mr. Baldwin sent a herald to the
Pope, who allowed the marriage to be legally solemnised.

We have given a few lines to Judith because, by her last marriage,
she gave a most illustrious line to us; for her son having married the
youngest daughter of Alfred the Great, was the ancestor of Maud, the
wife of William the Conqueror.

Ethelbald was succeeded by Ethelbert, whose reign, though it lasted
only five years, may be compared to a rain of cats and dogs, for he
was constantly engaged in quarrelling. The Danes completely sacked and
ransacked Winchester, causing Ethelbert to exclaim, with a melancholy
smile, to one of his courtiers, "This is indeed the bitterest cup of
sack I ever tasted." He died in 866 or 867, and was succeeded by his
brother Ethelred, who found matters arrived at such a pitch, that he
fought nine pitched battles with the Danes in less than a twelvemonth.
He died in the year 871, of severe wounds, and the crown fell from his
head on to that of his younger brother Alfred. The regal diadem was
sadly tarnished when it came to the young king, who resolved that it
should not long continue to lack lacker; and by his glorious deeds
he soon restored the polish that had been rubbed off by repeated
leathering. He had scarcely time to sit down upon the throne when he was
called into the field to fulfil a very particular engagement with the
Danes at Wilton. They were compelled to stipulate for a safe retreat,
and went up to London for the winter, where they so harassed Burrhed the
king of Mercia, in whose dominions London was situated, that the poor
fellow ran down the steps of his throne, left his sceptre in the regal
hall, and, repairing to Rome, finished his days in a cloister.

The Danes still continued the awful business of dyeing and scouring,
for they scoured the country round, and dyed it with the blood of the
inhabitants. Alfred, finding himself in the most terrible straits,
conceived the idea of getting out of the straits by means of ships, of
which he collected a few, and for a time he went on swimmingly.

He taught Britannia her first lesson in ruling the waves, by destroying
the fleet of Guthrum the Dane, who had promised to make his _exit_ from
the kingdom on a previous defeat, but by a disgraceful quibble he had,
instead of making his _exit_, retired to Exeter. From this place he
now retreated, and took up his quarters at Gloucester, while Alfred, it
being now about Christmas time, had repaired to spend the holidays at
Chippenham. It was on Twelfth-night, which the Saxons were celebrating
no doubt with cake and wine, when a loud knocking was heard at the gate,
and on some one going to answer the door, Guthrum and his Danes rushed
in with overwhelming celerity. Alfred, who had been probably favouring
the company with a song--for he was fond of minstrelsy--made an
involuntary shake on hearing the news, and ran off, followed by a small
band, in an allegro movement, which almost amounted to a galop.

[Illustration: 050]

The Saxon monarch finding himself deserted by his coward subjects, and
without an army, broke up his establishment, dismissed every one of his
servants, and, exchanging his regal trappings for a bag of old clothes,
went about the country in various disguises. He had taken refuge as a
peasant in the hut of a swineherd or pig-driver, whose wife had put some
cakes on the fire to toast, and had requested Alfred to turn them while
she was otherwise employed in trying to turn a penny.

His Majesty being bent upon his bow, never thought of the cakes, which
were burnt up to a cinder, and the old woman, looking as black as the
cakes themselves, taunted the king with the smallness of the care he
took, and the largeness of his appetite. "You can eat them fast enough,"
she exclaimed, "and I think you might have given the cakes a turn." *
"I acknowledge my fault," replied Alfred, "for you and your husband
have done me a good turn, and one good turn, I am well aware, deserves
another."

     * Though all the historians have given this anecdote, they
     vary in the words attributed to the old woman, and make no
     allusion to the reply of Alfred. So accomplished a monarch
     would hardly have found nothing at all to say for himself;
     and though he did not turn the cakes, he most probably
     turned the conversation in the manner we have described.

The monarch retired to a swamp, which he called AEthelingay--now
Athelney--or the Isle of Nobles, and some of his retainers, who stuck to
their sovereign through thick and thin, joined him in the morasses
and marshes he had selected for his residence. Alfred did not despair,
though in the middle of a swamp he had no good ground for hope, until
he heard that Hubba, the Dane, after making a hubbub in Wales, had
been killed by a sudden sally in an alley near the mouth of the Tau, in
Devonshire. Alfred, on this intelligence, left his retreat, and having
recourse to his old clothes bag, disguised himself as the "Wandering
Minstrel," in which character he made a very successful appearance at
the camp of Guthrum. The jokes of Alfred, though they would sound very
old Joe Millerisms in the present day, were quite new at that remote
period, and the Danes were constantly in fits; so that the Saxon king
was preparing, by splitting their sides, to eventually break up the
ranks of his enemy. He could also sing a capital song, which with his
comic recitations, conundrums, and charades, rendered him a general
favourite; and his vocal powers may be said to have been instrumental to
the accomplishment of his object.

Having returned to his friends, he led them forth against Guthrum, who
retreated to a fortified position with a handful of men, and Alfred, by
a close blockade, took care not to let the handful of men slip through
his fingers.

Guthrum, tired of the raps on the knuckles he had received, threw
himself on the kind indulgence of a British public, and appeared before
the Saxon king in the character of an apologist. Alfred's motto was,
"Forget and Forgive;" but he wisely insisted on the Danes embracing
Christianity, knowing that if their conversion should be sincere, they
would never be guilty of any further atrocities. He stood godfather
himself to Guthrum, who adopted the old family name of Athelstane,
and all animosities were forgotten in the festivities of a general
christening. A partition of the kingdom took place, and Alfred gave
a good share, including all the east side of the island, to his new
godson. The Danes settled tranquilly in their new possessions, though in
the very next year (879), a small party sailed up the Thames and landed
on the shores of Fulham; but finding the hardy sons of that suburban
coast in a posture of defence, the Northmen took to their heels, or
rather to their keels, by returning to their vessels. The would-be
invaders repaired to Ghent to try their luck in the Low Countries, for
which their ungentle-manly conduct in violating their treaties most
peculiarly fitted them.

Alfred employed the period of peace in building and in law, both of
which are generally ruinous, but which were exceedingly profitable
in his judicious hands. He restored London, over which he placed his
son-in-law, Ethelred, as Earl Eolderman or Alderman, and he established
a regular militia all over the country, who, if they resembled the
militia of modern times, must have kept away the invaders by placing
them in the position familiarly known as "more frightened than hurt."

In the year 893, however, the Danes under Hasting, having ravaged
all France, and eaten up every morsel of food they could find in that
country, were compelled to come over to England in search of a meal.
A portion of the invaders in two hundred and fifty ships, landed near
Romney Marsh, at a river called Limine, and there being no one to oppose
them in Limine, they proceeded to Appledore. Hasting, with eighty sail,
took Milton; but he was soon routed out, and cutting across the Thames,
he removed to Banfleet, which was only "over the way;" where he was
broken in upon by Alderman Ethelred at the head of some London citizens.
The cockney cohorts seized the wife and two sons of Hasting, who would
have been killed but for the magnanimity of Alfred, though it has been
hinted that in sending them back to his foe, the Saxon king calculated
that as women and children are only in the way when business is going
forward, their presence might add to the embarrassments of the Danish
chieftain. That such was really the case, may be gleaned from the fact
that on a subsequent occasion Hasting and his followers were compelled
to leave their wives and families behind them in the river Lea, into
which the Danish fleet had sailed when Alfred ingeniously drew all
the water off, and left the enemy literally aground. This manouvre was
accomplished partially by digging three channels from the Lea to the
Thames, and partially by the removal of the water in buckets, though
the bucket got very frequently kicked by those engaged in this perilous
enterprise.

The river Lea would have been sufficiently deep for the purposes of
Hasting had not Alfred been deeper still, and the fleet, which had been
the floating capital of the Danes, became a deposit in the banks for the
benefit of the Saxons. In the spring of 897 Hasting quitted England;
but several pirates remained; and two ships being taken at the Isle
of Wight, Alfred, on being asked what should be done with the crews,
exclaimed, "Oh! they may go and be hanged at Winchester!" The king's
orders having been taken literally, the marauders were carried to
Winchester, and hanged accordingly.

Alfred, having tranquillised the country, died in the year 901, after
a glorious reign of nearly thirty years, and is known to this day as
Alfred the Great, an epithet which has never yet been earned by one of
his successors.

The character of this prince seems to have been as near perfection as
possible. His reputation as a sage has not been injured by time, nor has
the mist of ages obscured the brightness of his military glory. He was
a lover of literature, and a constant reader of every magazine of
knowledge that he could lay his hands upon. An anecdote is told of his
mother, Osburgha, having bought a book of Saxon poetry, illustrated
according to the taste of our own times, with numerous drawings. Alfred
and his brothers were all exclaiming, "Oh give it me!" with infantine
eagerness, when his parent hit on the expedient of promising that he who
could read it first should receive it as a present. Alfred, proceeding
on the modern principle of acquiring "Spanish without a Master," and
"French comparatively in no time," succeeded in picking up Anglo-Saxon
in six self-taught lessons. He accordingly won the book, which was, no
doubt, of a nature well calculated to "repay perusal."

Nor were war and literature the only pursuits in which Alfred indulged;
but he added the mechanical arts to his other accomplishments. The
sun-dial was probably known to Alfred; but that acute prince soon saw,
or, rather, found from not seeing, that a sun-dial in the dark was worse
than useless. Not content with being always alive to the time of day, he
became desirous of knowing the time of night, and used to burn candles
of a certain length with notches in them to mark the hours. * These
were indeed melting moments, but the wind often blew the candles out,
or caused them to burn irregularly. Sometimes they would get very long
wicks, and, if every one had gone to bed, no one being up to snuff,
might render the long wicks rather dangerous. In this dilemma he asked
himself what could be done, and his friend Asser, the monk, having
said half sportively, "Ah! you are on the horns of a dilemma," Alfred
enthusiastically replied, "I have it; yes; I will turn the horns to my
own advantage, and make a horn lanthorn." Thus, to make use of a figure
of a recent writer, Alfred never found himself in a difficulty without,
somehow or other, making light of it.

     * The practice of telling the time by burning candles was
     ingenious, but could not have been always convenient. It
     must have been very awkward when a thief got into one of the
     candles, thus exposing time to another thief besides
     procrastination. After Alfred's invention of the lanthorn,
     it might have been worn as a watch, in the same manner as
     the modern policeman wears the bull's-eye.

He founded the navy, and, besides being the architect of his own
fortunes, he studied architecture for the benefit of his subjects,
for he caused so many houses to be erected, that during his reign the
country seemed to be let out on one long building lease. He revised the
laws, and his system of police was so good, that it has been said any
one might have hung out jewels on the highway without any fear of their
being stolen. Much, however, depends on the kind of jewellery then in
use, for some future historian may say of the present generation, that
such was its honesty, precious stones,--that is to say, precious large
stones,--might be left in the streets without any one offering to take
them up and walk away with them.

Alfred gave encouragement not only to native, but to foreign talent, and
sent out Swithelm, bishop of Sherbum, to India, by what is now called
the overland journey, and the good bishop was therefore the original
Indian male--or Saxon Waghom. He brought from India several gems, and
a quantity of pepper--the gems being generously given by Alfred to his
friends, and the pepper freely bestowed on his enemies.

He died on the 26th of October, 901, in the fifty-third year of his age,
and thirtieth of his reign, having fought in person fifty-six times; so
that his life must have been one continued round of sparring with one or
other of his enemies. All the chroniclers and historians have agreed
in pronouncing unqualified praise upon Alfred; and unless puffing had
reached a perfection, and acquired an effrontery which it has scarcely
shown in the present day, he must be considered a paragon of perfection
who never yet had a parallel. It is certain we have had but one Alfred,
from the Saxon period to the present; but we have now a prospect of
another, who, let us hope, may evince, at some future time, something
more than a merely nominal resemblance to him who has been the subject
of this somewhat lengthy chapter.




CHAPTER THE SIXTH. FROM KING EDWARD THE ELDER TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST.


[Illustration: 054]

ON the death of Alfred, his second son, Edward, took possession of the
throne, when he was served with a notice of ejectment by his cousin
Ethelwald. Preparations were made for commencing and defending an action
at Wimbum, when Ethelwald, intimidated by the strength of his opponent,
declined to go on with the proceedings, and judgment, as in case of
a nonsuit, was claimed on Edward's behalf. Subsequently, however,
Ethelwald moved, apparently with a view to a new trial, towards Bury,
where some of the Kentish men had ventured; and an action having come
off, he incurred very heavy damage, which ended in his paying the
costs of the day with his own existence. Edward derived much aid from
Ethelfleda, a sister, who acted as a sister, by assisting him in his
wars against his enemies. This energetic specimen of the British female
inherited all the spirit of her father, as well as his mantle, which we
find in looking into our own Mackintosh. * She is called "The Lady of
Mercia" by the old chroniclers; but as she was always foremost in a
fight, there seems something slyly satirical in giving the name of lady
to a person of the most fearfully unladylike propensities. She beat
the Welsh unmercifully, filling their country with wailings as well as
covering their backs with wails, and she took prisoner the king's wife,
with whom it may be presumed she came furiously to the scratch before
the capture was accomplished. Ethelfleda died in the year 920, and
her brother in 925, the latter being succeeded by his natural son,
Athelstane, who had no sooner got the crown on his head, than he found
several persons preparing to have a snatch at it. He, however, defeated
all his enemies, and devoted his time to polishing his throne, adding
lustre to his crown, and giving brightness to his sceptre. It was in
this reign that England first became an asylum for foreign refugees, to
whom Athelstane always extended his hospitality. Louis d'Outremer, the
French king, and several Celtic princes of Armorica or Brittany, played
at hide-and-seek in London lodgings, while keeping out of the way of
their rebellious subjects.

     * Sir James Mackintosh's "History of England," Vol. I. chap,
     ii., p. 49,

It is probable that the part of the metropolis called Little Britain,
may have derived its name from the princes having established a little
Brittany of their own in that locality. Athelstane appears also to
have taken a limited number of pupils into his own palace to board and
educate, for Harold, the king of Norway, consigned his son Haco to the
care and tuition of the Saxon monarch.

Athelstane died in the year 940, in his forty-seventh year, and was
succeeded by Edmund the Atheling, a youth of eighteen, whose taste for
elegance and splendour obtained for him the name of the Magnificent. He
gave very large dinner parties to his nobles, and at one of these his
eye fell upon one Leof, a notorious robber, returned from banishment,
one of the Saxon swell mob who had been transported, but had escaped;
and who, from some remissness on the part of the police, had obtained
admission to the palace. Edmund commanded the proper officer to turn him
out, but Leof--tempted no doubt by the sideboard of plate--insisted on
remaining at the banquet. Edmund, who, as the chroniclers tell us, was
heated by wine, jumped up from his seat, and forgetting the king in the
constable, seized Leof by his collar and his hair, intending to turn
him out neck and crop. Leof still refusing to "move on," the impetuous
Edmund commenced wrestling with the intruder, who, irritated at a sudden
and severe kick on his shins, drew a dagger from under his cloak, and
stabbed the sovereign in a vital part. The nobles, who had formed a
circle round the combatants, and had been encouraging their king with
shouts of "Bravo, Edmund!"

"Give it him, your majesty!" were so infuriated at the foul play of the
thief, and his un-English recourse to the knife, that they fell upon him
at once, and cut him literally to pieces.

[Illustration: 056]

Edred, the brother and successor of Edmund, though not twenty-three
years of age, was in a wretched state of health when he came to the
throne. He had lost his teeth, and of course had none to show when
threatened by his enemies; and he was so weak in the feet, that he
literally seemed to be without a leg to stand upon. Nevertheless he
succeeded in vanquishing the Danes, who could not hurt a hair of his
head; but, as the chroniclers tell us that every bit of his hair had
fallen off, his security in this respect is easily accounted for. The
vigour that marked his reign has, however, been attributed to Dunstan,
the abbot, who now began to figure as a political character.

Edred soon died, and left the kingdom to his little brother Edwy, a lad
of fifteen, who soon married Elgiva, a young lady of good family,
and took his wife's mother home to live with them. On the day of his
coronation he had given a party, and the gentlemen, including Odo,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dunstan, the monk, were still sitting over
their wine, when Edwy slipped out to join the ladies. Odo and Dunstan,
who were both six-bottle men, became angry at the absence of their royal
host, and the latter, at the suggestion of the former, went staggering
after the king to lug him back to the banquet-room. Edwy was quietly
seated with his wife and her mother in the boudoir--for it being a
gentlemen's party, no ladies seem to have been among the guests--and
the monk, hiccuping out some gross abuse of the queen and her mamma,
collared the young king, who was dragged back to the wine-table.

Though this outrage may have been half festive, interlarded with
exclamations of "Come along, old boy," "Don't leave us, old chap," and
other similar phrases of social familiarity, Edwy never forgave the
monk, whom he called upon to account for money received in his late
capacity of treasurer to the royal household. Dunstan being what is
usually termed a "jolly dog," and a "social companion," was of course
most irregular in money matters; and finding it quite impossible to make
out his books, he ran away to avoid the inconvenience of a regular
settlement.

Dunstan, nevertheless, resolved to pay his royal master off on the
first opportunity; and a rising having been instigated by his friend and
pot-companion, Archbishop Odo, Edgar, the brother of Edwy, was declared
independent sovereign of the whole of the island north of the Thames.
Dunstan returned from his brief exile; but, in the mean time, Edwy
had been deprived of his wife, Elgiva, by forcible abduction, at the
instigation of the odious Odo. The lovely unfortunate had her face
branded with a hot iron, and the most cruel means were taken to deprive
her of the beauty which was supposed to be the cause of her ascendancy
over the heart of her royal husband. Some historians have attributed
this outrage to the designs of Dunstan, and among the many irons that
monk was known to have had in the fire, may have been the very irons
with which this horrible barbarity was perpetrated. Her scars were,
however, obliterated by some Kalydor known at the time, and probably the
invention of some knightly Sir Rowland of that early era. She was on the
point of rejoining Edwy at Gloucester, when she was savagely murdered
by the enemies of her husband, who did not long survive her, for in the
following year, 958, he perished either by assassination or a broken
heart.

Edgar, a mere lad, of whom Dunstan had made a ladder for his own
ambition, now succeeded to his brother's dignities, if a series of
nothing but indignities can deserve to be so called. The wily monk had
now become Archbishop of Canterbury, and encouraged the new king to make
royal progresses among his subjects, in the course of which he is said
to have gone up on the river Dee, in an eight-oared cutter, rowed by
eight crowned sovereigns. In this illustrious water party Kenneth,
king of Scotland, pulled the stroke oar, their majesties of Cumbria,
Anglesey, Galloway, Westmere, and the three Welsh sovereigns, making up
the remainder of the royal crew, over which Edgar himself presided as
coxswain.

Though the young king gave great satisfaction in his public capacity,
his private character was exceedingly reprehensible. His inconstancy
towards the fair got him into sad disgrace, and his friend Dunstan on
one occasion administered to him a severe reprimand. The monk, however,
finished by fining him a crown, prohibiting him from putting on, during
a period of seven years, that very uncomfortable article of the regalia.
As the head is proverbially uneasy which wears a crown, the sentence
passed upon the king must have been a boon rather than a punishment.

Among the events connected with the reign of Edgar, his marriage with
Elfrida must always stand conspicuous. He had heard much of a provincial
beauty, the daughter of Olgar, or Ordgar, Earl of Devonshire, and the
king sent his favourite, the Earl of Athelwold, to see this rustic
_belle_, with a view of ascertaining whether the flower would be worth
transplanting to the palace of the sovereign. Athelwold, on seeing the
young lady, fell in love with her himself, from her extreme beauty; but
wrote up to Edgar, declaring that she might well be called "the mistress
of the village plain," for her plainness was absolutely painful; and
indeed he added in a P.S., "She is so disfigured by a squint, as to give
me the idea of the very squintes-sence of ugliness." Athelwold attributed
her reputation for beauty to her fortune, and declared that her money
turned her red hair into golden locks, causing her to be well "worthy
the attention of Persons about to Marry."

Edgar soon gave his consent to Athelwold's espousing the lady, on the
ground of her being a good match for him; but she proved more than a
match for him a short time afterwards. Edgar, at the expiration of the
honeymoon, proposed to visit his friend, who made excuses as long as
he could, inasmuch that he was seldom at home, and that he could not
exactly say when his majesty would be sure of catching him. The king,
however, good-naturedly promising to be satisfied with pot-luck, fixed a
day for his visit; ana Athelwold, confessing all to his wife, begged her
to disguise her charms, by putting on her shabbiest gown, and to behave
herself in such a manner as to make the king believe he had lost nothing
in not having married her.

"I should like to see myself appearing as a dowdy before my sovereign,"
was the lady's feminine reply, and she paid more than usual attention to
her _toilette_ in order to attract the favourable notice of Edgar. The
monarch finding himself deceived by Athelwold, asked him to come and
hunt in a wood, when, without any preliminary beating about the bush,
and exclaiming, "You made game of me, thus do I make game of you," he
stabbed the unfortunate earl, and returned home to marry his widow.
Edgar did not live many years after this ungentlemanly conduct, but died
at the early age of two-and-thirty. Though he had been favourable to
priestcraft, and patronised the cunning foxes of the Church, he was an
enemy to wolves, and offered so much per head for all that were killed,
until the race was exterminated, and the cry of "Wolf" became synonymous
with a false alarm of danger.

Edgar was succeeded (a.d. 975) by Edward, his son by his first wife, who
was not more than fourteen or fifteen years old; and thus, at that age
before which an individual in the present day is not legally qualified
to drive a cab, this royal hobbledehoy assumed the reins of government.
His mother-in-law, Elfrida, endeavoured to grasp them for her own son
Ethelred, an infant of six, but Dunstan having at that moment the whip
hand, prevented her from reaching the point she was driving at.

Edward, who acquired the name of the Martyr, was accordingly crowned
at Kingston, where coronations formerly came off; but he did not long
survive, for hunting one day near Corfe Castle, he made a morning call
on his mother-in-law, Elfrida, and requested that a drop of something
to drink might be brought to him. As Elfrida was offering him the ale
in front, her porter dropped upon him in the back, and inflicted a stab
which caused him to set spurs to his horse; but falling off from loss
of blood, he was drawn--a lifeless bier--for a considerable distance.
Elfrida has been acquitted by some of having been the instigator of this
cruel act, but as it is said she whipped her little son Ethelred for
crying at the news of the death of his half-brother Edward, we can
scarcely admit that there is any doubt of which we can give her the
benefit. Both mother and son became so exceedingly unpopular that an
attempt was made to set up a rival on the throne, to the exclusion of
Ethelred, and the crown was offered to the late king's natural daughter,
whose name was Edgitha.

Edgitha, however, having observed that the regal diadem was looked upon
as a target, at which any one might take the liberty to aim,
preferred the comfortable hood of the nun--for she was the inmate of
a monastery--to the jewelled cap of royalty. The crown was accordingly
placed by Dunstan, at Easter, a.d. 979, on the weak head of Ethelred;
and it is said that the monk was in such a fit of ill-temper at the
coronation, that he muttered some frightful maledictions against the
boy-king, while in the very act of crowning him, The youthful sovereign
was also indebted to Dunstan for the nickname of the Unready, which was
probably equivalent to the term "slow coach," that is sometimes used to
denote a person of sluggish disposition and not very brilliant mental
faculties.

[Illustration: 059]

Ethelred was wholly incompetent to wear the crown, which was so much
too heavy for his weak head, that he appeared to be completely bonneted
under the burden. It sat upon him more like a porter's knot than a regal
diadem; while the sceptre, instead of being gracefully wielded by a firm
hand, was to him no better than a huge poker in the fragile fingers of a
baby.

During the early part of his reign, his mother Elfrida exercised
considerable influence, but she at length retired from government, and
took to the building business, erecting and endowing monasteries in
order to expiate her sins. She became a sort of infatuated female
Gubitt, and at every fresh qualm of conscience ran up another floor,
which was, familiarly speaking, the "old story" with persons in her
unfortunate predicament. The money expended in the erection of religious
houses was thought to be an eligible investment in those days for
sinners, who having no solid foundation for their hopes, were glad to
take any ground to build upon.

The Danes had for some time been tranquil, but their natural
fearlessness, made them ready for anything, and seeing Ethelred in a
state of utter unreadiness on the throne, they indulged the hope of
driving oft the "slow coach" in an early stage of his sovereignty.

It happened that young Sweyn, a scapegrace son of the king of Denmark,
had been turned out of doors by his father, and having become by the
injudicious step of his parent a gentleman at large, amused himself by
occasional attacks upon the kingdom of Ethelred. This sovereign, who,
instead of being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, appears to have
been born one entire spoon of the real fiddleheaded pattern, * commenced
the dangerous practice of paying the foe to leave him alone, which was
of course holding out the prospect of a premium to all who took the
trouble to bully him. He paid down £10,000 in silver to the sea-kings,
on condition of their retiring from his country, which they did until
they had spent all the money, when they returned, threatening to pay him
off, or be paid off themselves, an arrangement that Ethelred three times
mustered the means of carrying into operation.

     * Others think this royal spoon was not fiddle headed, but
     that he was the earliest specimen of the king's pattern, of
     his enemy. Emma, who was called the "Flower of Normandy,"
     consented to transplant herself to England, and became the
     acknowledged daisy of the British Court.

Young Sweyn had now become king of Denmark, and had made friends with
Olave, king of Norway, the son of old Olave, a deceased pirate, who had
made his fortune by sweeping the very profitable crossing from his own
country to England. These two scamps ravaged the southern coast in 994,
and Ethelred, the unready king, was obliged to buy them off with ready
money. In the year 1001, they made another demand of £24,000, which left
the sovereign not a single dump, except those into which he naturally
fell at the draining of his treasury.

Ethelred, who, if he was unready for everything else, appears to have
been always ready for a quarrel, had contrived to fall out with Richard
the Second, Duke of Normandy, and he was on the point of taking up arms,
when he laid his hand at the feet of Emma.

We would willingly take an enormous dip of ink, and letting it fall on
our paper, blot out for ever from our annals the Danish massacre,
which occurred at about the period to which our history has arrived.
Unfortunately, however, were we to overturn an entire inkstand, we
should only add to the blackness of the page, which tells us that
the Danes were savagely murdered at a time when they were living as
fellow-subjects among the people.

It was on the feast of St. Brice, soon after his marriage with Emma,
that the order to commit this sanguinary act was given by Ethelred. It
is true that the Danish mercenaries had given great provocation by their
insolence. They had, according to the old chroniclers, * sunk into such
effeminacy that they washed themselves once a week and combed their
heads still more frequently. We cannot perhaps accuse the chroniclers of
being over nice in their objections to the Danish habits of cleanliness,
but we really are at a loss to see the effeminacy of taking a bath every
seven days, and preventing the hair from becoming in appearance little
better than a quantity of hay in a state of unraked roughness. It was
on the 15th of November, 1002, which happened to be one of their weekly
washing days, that the Danes were surprised and treated in the barbarous
manner we have alluded to. The Lady Gunhilda, the sister of Sweyn, and
the wife of an English earl of Danish extraction, was one of the victims
of the massacre, and died fighting to the last with that truly feminine
weapon, the tongue, predicting that her death would be followed by
the downfall of the English nation. This act of ferocity naturally
exasperated Sweyn, who resolved on invading England, and he prepared a
considerable fleet, the vessels belonging to which appear to have been
got up much in the same style as the civic barges on the Thames, for
they were gaily gilded, and had all sorts of emblematical devices
painted over them. Sweyn himself arrived in the _Great Dragon_, a boat
made in the inconvenient form of that disagreeable animal. Had the
patron saint of England been at hand to do his duty at that early
period, the great dragon would have been speedily overcome, but it is
a familiar observation, that people of this-sort are never to be found
when they are really wanted.

     * Wallingford, p. 547.

The invaders landed at Exeter, which was governed by a Norman baron,
a favourite of the queen; but, as frequently happens in the course of
events as well as on the race-course, the favourite proved deceptive
when the enemy took the field, and resigned the place to pillage. The
Danish foe marched into Wiltshire, and in every town they passed through
they ordered the best of everything for dinner, when, after eating to
excess of all the delicacies of the season, they had the indelicacy to
settle their hosts when the bill was brought to them for settlement.
To prevent even the possibility of old scores being kept against them,
which they might one day be called upon to pay off, they burned down
the houses, thus making a bonfire of all the property, including account
books, papers, and wooden tallies that the establishment might contain.
The entertainers or land-lords had no sooner presented a bill; than it
was met by a savage endorsement on their own backs; and, though
drawing and accepting may be regarded as a very customary, commercial
transaction, still, when the drawer draws a huge sword the acceptor is
likely to get by far the worst of it.

[Illustration: 62]

An Anglo-Saxon army was, however, organised at last, to oppose the
Danes; but Alfric the Mercian--an old traitor, who had on a former
occasion played the knave against the king--was put at the head of it.
Ethelred had punished the first treachery of the father by putting out
the eyes of the son; but this castigation of the "wrong boy," the young
one instead of the old one, had not proved effectual. His majesty must
have been as blind as he had rendered the innocent youth, to have again
entrusted Alfric with command; and the consequences were soon felt, for
the old impostor pretended to be taken suddenly ill, just as his men
were going into battle. He called them off at the most important moment;
and instead of stopping at home by himself, putting his feet in warm
water, and laying up while the battle was being fought under directions
which he could just as easily have given from his own room, he shouted
for help from the whole army; and by sending some for salts, others
for senna, a cohort here for a pill, and a legion there for a leech, he
managed to keep the whole of the forces occupied in running about for
him.

Sweyn in the meantime got clear off with all his booty, and by the time
that Alfric announced himself to be a little better, and able to go out,
the enemy had vanished altogether from the neighbourhood.

An appetite for conquest was not however the only appetite which the
Danes indulged, for their voracity in eating was such that they created
a panic wherever they showed themselves. They ravaged Norfolk, and
having reduced it to its last dumpling, they fell upon Yarmouth, whose
bloaters they speedily exhausted, when they tried Cambridge,
having probably been attracted thither by the fame of its sausages.
Subsequently they advanced upon Huntingdonshire and Lincolnshire,
where they continued as long as they could find a bone to pick with
the inhabitants. They then crossed the Baltic (a.d. 1004), having been
obliged to quit England on account of there being literally nothing
to eat; so that a joint occupation with the natives had become utterly
impossible. Those only, who from its being the land of their birth, felt
that they must always have a stake in the country, could possibly have
mustered the resolution to remain in it. The vengeance of Sweyn being
unsatisfied, he returned in the year 1006, when he carried fire and
sword into every part, and it has been said with much felicity of
expression, that amidst so much sacking the inhabitants had scarcely a
bed to lie down upon.

[Illustration: 063]

Unable to offer him any effectual check, the Great Council tried what
could be done with ready money, and £36,000 was the price demanded
to pay out this formidable "man in possession" from the harassed and
exhausted country. The sum was collected by an income-tax of about
twenty shillings in the pound, or even more, if it could be got out of
the people by either threats or violence. Such as had paid the Danes
directly to save their homes from destruction were obliged to pay over
again, like a railway traveller who loses his ticket; and the natives
seem to have got into a special train of evils, in which every engine of
persecution was used against them.

[Illustration: 064]

In 1008 new burdens were thrown upon the people, who for every
nine nides of land were bound to find a man armed with a helmet and
breastplate. This would seem no very difficult matter, considering that
two or three such men are found annually at the Lord Mayor's show; but
in former times they had something more difficult to do than walk in
a procession. Though two shillings and his beer will, it is believed,
secure the services of an ancient knight, armed _cap-d-pie_ at an hour's
notice in our own day, such a person was not to be had so cheap in the
time of Ethelred. In addition to this infliction, every three hundred
and ten hides of land were bound to build and equip a ship for the
defence of the country; but it seems, after all, nothing but fair, that
the hides should club together to save themselves from tanning. The
fleet thus raised was, however, soon rendered valueless, in consequence
of the various commanders having refused to row in the same boat, or
rather insisting on pulling different ways, to the utter annihilation of
their master's interest.

Ethelred had selected for his favourite a low fellow of the name of
Edric, who was exceedingly eloquent, and had not only talked one of
the king's daughters into accepting his hand, but had even talked
the monarch himself into sanctioning the unequal marriage. Edric had
obtained for his brother Brightric a high post in the navy, as commander
of eight vessels; but the latter got into a quarrel with his nephew,
Wulfnoth, who was known by the odd appellation of the "Child of the
South Saxons," or the Sussex lad, as we should take the liberty
of calling him. The "child" determined on flight; but with a truly
infantine objection to run alone, he got twenty of the king's ships to
run along with him. Brightric cruised after him with eighty sail, but
the tempest rising, and the rudders at the stem refusing to act, he
was driven on shore by stem necessity. Wulfnoth, who had done a little
ravaging on his own private account along the southern coast, returned
to make firewood of the timbers of Brightric, which fortune had so
cruelly shivered.

Ethelred was completely panic-stricken at the news of this reverse,
and hurried home as fast as he could to summon a council, but every
resolution that was passed no one had the resolution to execute. To add
to the king's embarrassments, "Thurkill's host" came over, com-prising
the flower of the Scandinavian youth, which planted itself in Kent, and
caused a sad blow to the country. Various short peaces were purchased by
the Saxons at so much a piece; but, as Pope Gregory would have had it,
every arrangement was not a sale, but a sell on the part of Thurkill,
who continued sending in a fresh account for every fresh transaction.
Ethelred was now in the very midst of traitors, and it was impossible
that he should ever be brought round in such a circle. He had not a
single officer to whom a commission could be safely entrusted. Edric,
his favourite, having taken offence, joined the enemy in an attack upon
Canterbury, which had lasted for twenty days, when some one left the
gate of the city ajar, either by design or accident.

Alphege, the good archbishop, who had defended the place, was instantly
loaded with chains; and though he felt himself dreadfully fettered,
he declined to purchase his ransom, for the very best of all reasons,
namely, that he had not the money to pay for it. The old man, wisely
making a virtue of necessity, proclaimed his determination not to part
with a shilling, "and indeed," said he, "I couldn't if I would; for to
tell you the truth, I haven't got it."

The venerable prelate turning his pockets inside out, proved that he
was penniless, when they offered to release him if he would persuade
Ethelred to subscribe handsomely to the Danish rent, as we are fully
justified in calling it. The archbishop, however, grew exceedingly
saucy, when they pelted him with the remains of the feast, throwing
bones, bottles, and bread, in rapid succession at the primate, who
meekly bowed his head--or perhaps bobbed it up and down--to the
treatment he experienced. The good old man remained for some time
unshaken, till a shower of marrow-bones threw him on his knees, and one
of the ruffians with a coarse pun exclaiming--"Let us make no more bones
about it, but despatch him at once," brutally realised his own ferocious
suggestion.

[Illustration: 065]

Thurkill now sent in another account of £48,000 as the price of his
promised allegiance, which was certainly not worth a week's purchase,
but Ethelred somehow or other found and paid the money. Sweyn, on
hearing of this proceeding, pretended to be very angry with Thurkill,
and fitted out a formidable fleet, with the avowed intention of killing
with one stone two birds--namely, the Danish crow, and the Saxon pigeon.
The ships of Sweyn were elaborately carved for show, and consequently
not very well cut out for service. Nevertheless they were quite strong
enough to vanquish the dispirited Saxons, who would have been overawed
at the sight of a Danish oar, and might have been knocked down with a
feather.

Sweyn landed at York, and leaving his fleet in the care of his son
Canute, carried fire and sword into the north; but as the inhabitants
were all favourable to his cause, he had no more occasion to take fire
into the north, than to carry coals to Newcastle. The king had sought
refuge in London, which refused to give in until Ethelred sneaked out,
when the citizens having been threatened, according to Sir Francis
Palgrave, * with damage to their "eyes and limbs," threw open their
gates to the conqueror. The unready monarch made for the Isle of Wight,
but finding apartments dear and living expensive, he packed off his wife
and children to his brother-in-law, Richard of Normandy, who lived in a
court at Rouen. The duke made them as çomfortable as he could, and the
lady Emma having fished for an invitation for her husband, at length
succeeded in getting him asked, to the infinite delight of old
"Slowcoach," who for once got ready at a very short notice to avail
himself of the asylum that was offered him. Sweyn was now king of
England, a.d. 1013, but after a reign of six weeks, entitling him
to only half a quarter's salary, he died at Gainsborough, very much
lamented by all who did not know him. The Saxon nobles who had so
recently sent Ethelred away, now wanted him back again. They despatched
a message, however, to the effect that, if he would promise to be a good
king, and never be naughty any more, they would be glad to accept him
once more as their sovereign. Ethelred turning his son Edmund into a
postman, forwarded a letter by hand, promising reform, but stipulating
that there should be no "fraud or treachery," or in other words, no
humbug on either side. This arrangement, though growing out of mutual
distrust, and being little better than a provision which each party
thought necessary in consequence of the dishonesty of both, must be
regarded as highly important in a constitutional point of view, for it
is evidently the germ of those great compacts, which have since been
occasionally concluded between the sovereign and the people.

     * Chap. xiii., p. 310,


[Illustration: 067]

Ethelred, on his arrival at home, found that Canute, the son of Sweyn,
having been declared king by the Danes, had coolly set himself up as
landlord of the Crown and Sceptro at Greenwich. Ethelred and Canute
continued for three years like "the Lion and the Unicorn, fighting for
the Crown," with about equal success, when death overtook "Slowcoach,"
after a long and inglorious reign. He died on St. George's Day, 1016,
having been for five-and-thirty years man and boy, on and off the throne
of England.




CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. EDMUND IRONSIDES--CANUTE--HAROLD
HAREFOOT--HARDICANUTE--EDWARD THE CONFESSOR--HAROLD--THE BATTLE OF
HASTINGS.

On the decease of Ethelred the citizens of London offered the throne
to his son Edmund, who had got the strange nickname of Ironsides. He
obtained this appellation from his extreme toughness; for it has been
said by a contemporary that if you gave him a poke in the ribs they
rattled like the bars of a gridiron, or the railings round an area.
There can be no doubt that Edmund had strength on his side, as far as he
was personally concerned, but Canute, or as some called him, C'nute and
'Cute, often overreached young Ironsides in cunning.

In one of their battles--the fifth of a series--the Danes were on the
point of defeat, when Edric, whom Edmund, however hard in the ribs, was
soft enough in the head to trust after former treachery, raised the cry
that the young leader had fallen. By some ingenious contrivance, Edrio
had cut off somebody's head which resembled Edmund in features, and,
perhaps, improving the likeness with burnt cork or other preparations,
raised it on a spear in the field, exclaiming "Flee, English! flee,
English! dead is Edmund." * The whole army became paralysed at the
sight, and even Ironsides himself was completely put out of countenance,
for he was unable to tell at the moment whether his head was really upon
his own shoulders. How Edric could have had the face to practise such
an imposition may puzzle the reader of the present day; but it was
exceedingly likely that the trick would be aided by Edmund undergoing,
as he no doubt would at the moment, a sudden change of countenance.

     * These are the very words, exactly as they have been
     preserved,--Vide Sir F. Palgrave, chapter xliii. page 308.


[Illustration: 068]

Ironsides, though for the moment put to flight, having been as it were
frightened at his own shadow, found on reflection, in the first piece of
water he came to, that his head was in its right place, though his heart
had slightly failed him, and he consequently paused in his retreat,
and met Canute face to face, on the road to Gloucestershire. Ironsides,
stepping forward in front of his army, made the cool proposition to
Canute that instead of risking the lives of so many brave men, they
should settle the quarrel by single combat. Considering that Edmund had
not only the advantage of patent-safety sides, which rendered him nearly
battle-axe proof, but was also about twice the height of his antagonist,
it is not surprising that Canute declined coming in immediate contact
with the metallic plates, which would have acted as a powerful battery
upon the diminutive Dane. Had he accepted the crafty challenge, every
blow inflicted on Ironsides would have been a severe rap on the knuckles
to Canute, who might as well have run his head against a brick wall as
engage in a single combat with a person of such undoubted metal. It
was, however, agreed that they should divide the realm, and though as
a general rule it is not advisable to do anything by halves, this
arrangement was decidedly beneficial to all parties. The armies were
both delighted at the proposal, and their joy affords proof that their
discretion formed a great deal more than the better part of their
valour.

Canute took the north, and Edmund the south, with a nominal superiority
over the former, so that the crown is said by the chroniclers to have
belonged to Ironsides. It was certainly better that the ascendency
should have been given to one of the two, for if their territory
had been equal the crown must have been divided, and he that had the
thickest head might have claimed the larger share of the regal diadem.
Edmund lived only two months after the agreement had been signed, and
as Canute took the benefit of survivorship, it has been good-naturedly
suggested that he must have been either the actual or virtual murderer
of Ironsides. There are only one or two facts which spoil this ingenious
and amiable theory; the first of which is, that there is no proof of his
having been killed at all,--an uncertainty that is quite sufficient
to allow the benefit of the doubt to those who have been named as his
murderers. Hume has, without hesitation, appointed Oxford as the
scene of the assassination, and has been kind enough to select two
chamberlains as the perpetrators of the deed, but we have been unable
to collect sufficient evidence to go to a jury against the anonymous
chamberlains, whom we beg leave to dismiss with the comfortable
assurance that they quit these pages without any stain on their
characters.

Canute, as the succeeding partner in the late firm of Edmund and Canute,
found himself, in 1017, all alone in his glory on the British throne.
His first care was to call a public meeting of "bishops," "duces," and
"optimates," at which he voted himself into the chair; and he caused it
to be proposed and seconded that he should be king to the exclusion of
all the descendants of Ethelred. There can be no doubt that the meeting
was packed, for every proposition of Canute was received with loud cries
of "hear," and repeated cheers. Strong resolutions were passed against
Edwy, the grown-up brother of Edmund Ironsides. Proceedings were
instantly commenced; he was declared an outlaw, and was soon taken in
execution in the then usual form.

Edmund and Edwy, the two infant sons of Ironsides, were protected by the
plea of infancy; but Canute sent them out to dry-nurse to the king of
the Swedes, with an intimation that if their mouths could be stopped by
Swedish turnips, or anything else, the arrangement would be satisfactory
to the English monarch. His Swedish majesty, whether moved by pity or
actuated by the feeling of "None of my child," sent the babies on to
Hungary, where they were taken in, but not done for, as Canute had
desired. The little Edmund died early, but his brother Edward settled
respectably in life, married a relation of the Emperor of Germany,
became a family man, and one of his daughters was subsequently a Mrs.
Malcolm, the lady of Malcolm, king of Scotland.

Edmund and Alfred, the other sons of Ethelred by Emma of Normandy, who
were still living with their uncle Robert, had a sort of lawyer's letter
written in their name to Canute, threatening an action of trover for the
sceptre, unless it were immediately restored.

After offering a moiety--being equal to a composition of ten shillings
in the pound--he proposed to settle the matter by marrying their mamma,
who consented to this arrangement; and the claims of the infants were
never heard of again. Neglected by their mother, they forgot their
mother tongue--they grew up Normans instead of Saxons, say the old
chroniclers, which seems to be going a little too far, for a Saxon
cannot become a Norman by living in Normandy, any more than a man
becomes a horse by residence in a stable.

After triumphing over his enemies, Canute somewhat altered for the
better, and became a quiet, gentlemanly, but rather jovial man. He was
fond of music, patronised vocalists, and occasionally wrote ballads, one
of which is still preserved. As it was said of a certain performer,
that he would have been a good actor if he had been possessed of figure,
voice, action, expression, and intelligence; so we may say of Canute,
that if he had known anything of sense or syntax, if he had been happy
at description, or possessed the slightest share of imagination, he
would have been a very fair poet.

A portion of one of Canute's once popular ballads has been preserved,
and if the other verses resembled the one that has come down to us,
there is no reason to regret that the rest is out of print and that
nobody has kept the manuscript.

The following is the queer quatrain which remains as the sole specimen
of his majesty's poetical abilities:--

     "Merrily sing the monks within Ely,
     When C'nute King rowed there by;
     Row, my knights, row near the land,
     And hear we these monks sing."

This dismal distich is said to have been suggested by his hearing the
solemn monastic music of the choir as he rowed near the Minster of Ely;
but we suspect the song must have been rather of a secular kind, or the
term merrily would have been exceedingly inappropriate. *

     * Some writers have endeavoured to justify the royal author
     or vindicate the characters of the monks of Ely, by saying,
     that in those days "merry" meant "sad." These gentlemen
     might just as well argue that black meant white--a
     proposition some people would not hesitate to put forth as a
     plea for the errors of royalty.


[Illustration: 071]

About the year 1017, Edric, the royal favourite, evinced some
disposition to strike for an advance of salary, when Canute resisting
the demand, the king and the courtier came to high words. Eric
of Northumbria, who happened to be sitting in the room with his
battle-axe,--which was in those days as common a companion as an
umbrella or a walking-stick in the present age,--got up, on a hint from
the king, and axed the miserable Edric to death.

Canute, who was also king of the Danes, the Swedes,--whose sovereign was
his vassal--and of the Northmen, had many turbulent subjects abroad as
well as at home, but he was in the habit of employing one against the
other, so that it was utterly immaterial to him which of them were
slain, so that he got rid of some of them. He kept a strong hand over
his Danish earls, and even his nephew, "the doughty Haco,"--though why
he should have been called "doughty," is a matter of much doubt--was
exiled for disregard of the royal authority.

The Swedes, who were always boiling over, got at last completely mashed
by Earl Godwin; and the kings of Fife, who, although mere _piccoli_,
were monarchs of some note, having exerted themselves in a melancholy
strain for independence, at length fell, for the sake of harmony, into
the general submission to Canute. Six nations were now reduced into one
general subordi----nation to the English king, who of course became the
object of the grossest flattery, and upon one memorable occasion was
nearly sacrificed to the puffing system of his injudicious friends.
One day, when in the plenitude of his power, he caused the throne to
be removed from the throne-room and erected, during low tide, on the
sea-shore. Having taken his seat, surrounded by his courtiers, he issued
a proclamation to the ocean, forbidding it to rise, and commanding it
not, on any account, to leave its bed until his permission for it to
get up was graciously awarded. The courtiers backed the royal edict,
and encouraged with the grossest adulation this first great practical
attempt to prove that Britannia rules the waves. Such a rule, however,
was soon proved to be nothing better than a rule _nisi_, which it is
impossible to make absolute when opposed by Neptune's irresistible
motion of course. Every wave of Canute's sceptre was answered by a wave
from the sea, and the courtiers, who were already up to their ankles
in salt water, began to fear that they should soon be pickled in the
foaming brine.

At length the monarch himself found his footstool disposed to go on
swimmingly of its own accord, and there was every prospect that the
whole party would undergo the ceremony of an immediate investiture of
the bath. The sovereign, who was very lightly shod, soon found that his
pumps were not capable of getting rid of the water, which was now rising
very rapidly. Having sat with his feet in the sea for a few minutes,
and not relishing the slight specimen of hydropathic treatment he had
endured, he jumped suddenly up, and began to abuse his courtiers for the
mess into which he had been betrayed by their outrageous flattery.

[Illustration: 072]

One of the attendants who had remained at the back of the others during
this ridiculous scene, observed drily, that the whole party would have
been inevitably washed and done for, if Canute had not made a timely
retreat. The sovereign was so humbled by this incident, that he took off
his crown upon the spot, made a parcel of it at once, forwarded it to
Winchester Cathedral, and never wore it again.

Water, as we all know, can subdue the strongest spirit, and though the
spirit of Canute could bear a great deal of mixing, it is evident that
the sea had shown him his own weakness. In the year 1030 he went on a
pilgrimage to Rome, with no other staff than a wooden one in his hand;
and instead of a valet to follow him, he had a simple wallet at his
back. From a letter he wrote to his bishops while abroad, it would seem
that he received presents of "vases of gold and vessels of silver, and
stuffs, and garments of great price;" so that by the time he got home
again, his wallet must have been a tolerable burden for the royal back.
He died at Shaftesbury, in 1035, about three years after his return from
Rome, and was buried at Winchester; so that he finally laid his head
where his crown had been already deposited.

On the death of Canute there was the usual difficulty as to what was to
be done with the British crown; for there were two or three who thought
the cap fitted themselves, and who consequently claimed the right to
wear it. There is no doubt that Hardicanute, the only legitimate son of
the late king, would have tried it on had it not been left by will to
Harold, while his brother Sweyn was the legatee of Norway. A compromise
was, however, effected, by which Harold took everything north of the
Thames, including, of course, the Baker Street and Finsbury districts,
while Hardicanute, to whom Denmark had been bequeathed, took the
territories on the south shore, commencing in the Belvidere Road,
Lambeth, and terminating at the southern extremity of the kingdom. He
however, left his English dominions to the management of his mother and
Earl Godwin, while he himself lingered in Denmark; on account of the
convivial habits of the Scandinavian chiefs; for Hardicanute drank, as
the phrase goes, "like a fish," though the liquid he imbibed was very
different from that which the finny tribe are addicted to.

Edward and Alfred, the two sons of Ethelred, had come over to be in the
way in case of anything turning up on the death of Canute, but Edward
finding himself rather too much in the way, and fearing an unpleasant
removal, took a return ticket for himself and party for Normandy.
Alfred, after vainly attempting to land at Sandwich, happily thought of
Heme Bay, and though it was in the height of the season, he of course
found no one there to resist his progress. Having ventured up to
Guildford on the invitation of Godwin, Alfred and his soldiers found a
sumptuous repast and comfortable lodgings prepared for them. But Godwin
had been more downy even than the beds, and the soldiers having been
seized and imprisoned found wet blankets thrown on their hopes of
hospitable treatment. Edward himself was cruelly murdered, and Harold,
who was called Harefoot, from the speed with which he could ran, was now
able to walk over the course, for there was no opposition to him in the
race for the stakes of Royalty. He was fond of nothing but hunting, and
as he could catch a hare by his own velocity he generally had the game
in his own hands. He died a.d. 1040, after a short reign of four years;
and though, if he had lived to old age, he might have proved a good
sovereign in the long-run, he was certainly not happy in the walk of
life where fortune had placed him.

Hardicanute, a name signifying Canute the Hardy, or the tough, came over
on the death of Harold; but with all his toughness he evinced or assumed
some tenderness at the cruel fate of his brother Alfred. He showed his
sympathy for one by brutality towards another, and subjected Harold's
memory to the most barbarous indignities.

Godwin, fearing that he might share the obloquy of his former master,
propitiated Hardicanute by giving him a magnificent toy, consisting of
a gilt ship, with a crew of eighty men, each having a bracelet of
pure gold weighing sixteen ounces, and dressed in the most valuable
habiliments. The new king no doubt melted the gold very speedily
in drink, to which he was so much addicted, that he actually died
intoxicated at a party given at Clapham, by one Clapa, from whose name,
or home, that suburb was called. His majesty was, according to the
chroniclers, "on his legs," and the waiters had of course left the room,
when Hardicanute unable to get further than "Gentlemen," staggered into
his seat, and was carried out--mortally inebriated. *

     * Other historians say in so many words, that "he died
     drunk." We prefer using the milder expression of "mortally
     inebriated,"


[Illustration: 075]

The throne being now vacant, Edward, the half-brother of the late king,
who happened to be on the spot, was induced to step up and take a seat,
though he was the senior of the late sovereign. In those days, however,
the rules of hereditary descent were not very rigidly followed, for
it was success that chiefly regulated succession. Edward's cause had,
however, derived much support from Earl Godwin, the most extraordinary
teetotum of former times. He had practised the political _chassez
croisser_ to an extent that even in our own days has seldom been
surpassed. He had turned his coat so frequently that he had lost all
consciousness of which was the right side and which the wrong; but he
always treated that side as the right which happened to be uppermost.

Godwin had, it is said, commenced life as a cowboy, but he soon raised
himself above the low herd, and eventually succeeded in making his
daughter Editha the queen of Edward. The king, who had lived much in
Normandy, and had derived some assistance from Duke William, afterwards
the Conqueror, had formed many Norman predilections, which created
jealousy among his Saxon subjects. In 1061, he had received as a visitor
his brother-in-law, one Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who, on returning
home with his followers through Dover, insolently demanded gratuitous
lodgings of one of the inhabitants. The Dover people, who are still
remarkable for their high charges, and who seldom think of providing
a cup of tea under two shillings, or a bed for less than half-a-crown,
resisted the demands of Eustace and his friends, when a fight ensued,
and the Normans were compelled to make the best of their way out of the
neighbourhood.

Eustace, still smarting under the blows he had received, ran howling
to Edward, like a boy who, upon receiving a thrashing, flies to his big
brother for redress. The king desired Godwin, who was governor of Dover,
to chastise the place; but the earl positively refused, and insisted
that the Count of Boulogne could not complain if, when he required to be
served gratuitously, he had got regularly served out. Edward, irritated
at this message, prepared for war, and Godwin, who was joined by his
sons, Sweyn and Harold, had collected a powerful army; but when it came
to the point, the soldiers on both sides gave evident symptoms of
a desire to see the matter amicably arranged. As the king's forces
consisted chiefly of the fryd or militia, there can be little doubt
where the panic commenced; and Godwin's men, recognising among the foe
some of their fellow-countrymen trembling from head to foot, immediately
commenced shaking hands, so that there was an end to all firmness on
both sides. A truce was consequently concluded, and the disputes of
the parties referred to the arbitration of the Witenagemote; who doomed
Sweyn to outlawry, and Godwin and Harold to banishment. Thus the "king's
darlings," as they had been called, were disposed of, and the pets
became the object of petty vengeance. Editha, the daughter of Godwin,
shared in the general disgrace of her family; for the king, her husband,
"reduced her," say the chroniclers, "to her last groat;" and with this
miserable fourpence she was consigned to a monastery, where she was
waited on by one servant of all-work, and controlled by the abbess, who
was the sister of her royal tyrant.

Edward being now released from the presence of Godwin, began to think
of seeing his friends, and invited William of Normandy to spend a
few months at the English court. He came with a numerous retinue, and
finding most of the high offices in the possession of Normans, he was
able to feel himself perfectly at home. On the conclusion of his stay he
departed, with a gift of horses, hounds, and hawks; in fact, a miniature
menagerie, which had been presented to him by his host, without
considering the inconvenience occasioned by adding "a happy family" to
the luggage of the Norman visitor.

Edward was not allowed much leisure, for his guest had no sooner
departed, than he found himself threatened by Earls Godwin and Harold,
who sailed up to London, and landed a large army in the Strand. This
important thoroughfare, which has been in modern times so frequently
blockaded, was stopped up at that early period by men who were paving
their way to power; so that paviours of some kind have for ages been a
nuisance to the neighbourhood.

Edward agreed to a truce, by which Godwin and his sons were restored to
their rank; but the earl, while dining soon afterwards with Edward at
Windsor, was, according to some, choked in the voracious endeavour to
swallow a tremendous mouthful. Thus perished, from an appetite larger
than his windpipe, one of the most illustrious characters of his age.
Harold, his son, succeeded him in his titles and estates; but as the
latter are said to have consisted chiefly of the Goodwin Sands,
the legatee could not hope to keep his head above water on such an
inheritance.

Harold commenced his career by worrying Algar, a rival earl, who got
worried to death (a.d. 1059), and he then turned his attention to the
father-in-law of his victim, one Griffith, a Welsh sovereign, whose
army not liking the bother of war, cut off his head and sent it as a
peace-offering to the opposite leader. This unceremonious manner of
breaking the neck of a difficulty by decapitating their king, says more
for the decision than the loyalty of the Welsh people.

[Illustration: 077]

It was not long after this circumstance, that Harold, going out in a
fishing-boat on the coast of Sussex with one or two bungling mariners,
got carried out to sea, and was ultimately washed ashore like an old
blacking-bottle in the territory of Guy, Count of Ponthieu. Having been
picked up by the count, poor Harold was treated as a waif, and impounded
until a heavy sum was paid for his ransom. William of Normandy, upon
hearing that an earl and retinue were pawned in the distinguished name
of Harold, good-naturedly redeemed them, at a great expense, but made
the English earl solemnly pledge himself to assist his deliverer in
obtaining the English crown at the death of Edward. The king expired
on the 5th of January, 1066, leaving the crown to William, according to
some, and to Harold, according to others; but as no will was ever found,
it is probable enough that he agreed to leave the kingdom first to one
and then to the other, according to which happened to have at the moment
the ear of the sovereign. *

     * This Edward was generally called the Confessor, but how he
     got the name we are unable to say with certainty. It has
     been ingeniously suggested that it was on the _lucus a non
     lucendo_ principle, and that he was called the Confessor,
     from his never confessing anything.

Harold, forgetting the circumstance of his awkward predicament in the
fishing-boat, and ungrateful of William's services, immediately assumed
the title of king, and got his coronation over the very same evening. It
is even believed by some that the ceremony was so hastily performed as
to have been a mere _tête-à-tête_ affair between Stigand, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, and the new sovereign.

When William received the news of Harold's accession he was having
a game with a bow and arrows in his hunting-ground near Rouen. His
trembling knees suddenly took the form of his bow, and his lip began to
quiver. He threw himself hastily into a skiff, and crossing the Seine,
never stopped till he reached his palace, where he walked up and down
the hall several times, occasionally sitting down for a moment in the
porter's chair, then starting up and resuming his promenade up and
down the passage. On recovering from his reverie he sent ambassadors
to demand of Harold the fulfilment of his promise; but that dishonest
person replied, that he being under duress when he gave his word, it
could not be considered binding.

[Illustration: 078]

William accordingly called a public meeting of Normans, at which it
was resolved unanimously, that England should be invaded as speedily
as possible. A subscription was immediately entered into to defray the
cost, and volunteers were admitted to join the expedition without the
formality of a reference. Tag from Maine ana Anjou, Rag from Poitou and
Bretagne, with Bob-tail from Flanders, came rapidly pouring in; while
the riff of the Rhine, and the raff of the Alps, formed altogether a mob
of the most miscellaneous character. Those families who are in the
habit of boasting that their ancestors came in with the Conqueror,
would scarcely feel so proud of the fact if they were aware that the
companions of William comprised nearly all the roguery and vagabondism
of Europe.

A large fleet having been for some time in readiness at St. Valery, near
Dieppe, crossed in the autumn of 1066, and on the 28th of September the
Normans landed without opposition at Pevensey, near Hastings. William,
who was the last to step on shore, fell flat upon his hands and face,
which was at first considered by the soldiers as an evil omen; but
opening his palm, which was covered with mud, he gaily exclaimed, "Thus
do I lay my hands upon this ground--and be assured that it is a pie you
shall all have a finger in." This speech, or words to the same effect,
restored the confidence of the soldiers, and they marched to Hastings,
where they waited the coming of the enemy.

[Illustration: 081]

Harold, who had come to London, left town by night for the Sussex coast,
and halted at Battle, where the English forces kept it up for two or
three days and nights with Bongs and revelry. At length, on Saturday,
the 14th of October, William gave the word to advance, when a gigantic
Norman, called Taillefer, who was a minstrel and a juggler, went forward
to execute a variety of tricks, such as throwing up his sword with one
hand and catching it with the other; balancing his battle-axe on the
tip of his chin; standing on his head upon the point of his spear, and
performing other feats of pantomimic dexterity. He next proceeded to
sing a popular ballad, and having asked permission to strike the first
blow, he succeeded in making a tremendous hit; but some one happening to
return the compliment, he was very soon quieted. The men of London, who
formed the bodyguard of Harold, made a snug and impenetrable barrier
with their shields, under which they nestled very cosily. *

     * Some of them, who were buried under their bucklers, may
     have been inhabitants of Bucklersbury, which may have
     derived its name from the practice we have described.

From nine in the morning till nine in the afternoon the Normans
continued watching for the English to emerge from under their shields,
as a cat waits for a mouse to quit its hiding-place. As the mouse
refuses to come to the scratch, so the Londoners declined to quit their
snuggery, until William had the happy idea of ordering his bowmen
to shoot into the air; and they were thus down upon the foe, with
considerable effect, by the falling of the arrows. Still the English
stood firm until William, by a pretended retreat, induced the soldiers
of Harold to quit their position of safety. Three times were the Saxon
snails tempted to come out of their shells by this crafty manouvre, but
their courage was still unshaken, until an arrow, shot at random, hit
Harold in the left eye, when his dispirited followers fled like winking.

The English king was carried to the foot of the standard, where a few of
his soldiers formed round him a little party of Protectionists. William
fought with desperate valour, and was advancing towards the banner, when
an English billman drew a bill which he made payable at sight on
the head of the Duke of Normandy. Fortunately the precious metal of
William's helmet was sufficient to meet the bill, which must otherwise
have crushed the Norman leader. Harold, whose spirit never deserted
him, observed with reference to the wound in his eye, that it was a bad
look-out, but he must make the best of it. At length he fell exhausted,
when the English having lost their banner, found their energies
beginning to flag, and William became the Conqueror.




BOOK II. THE PERIOD FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF KING JOHN.




CHAPTER THE FIRST. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.


Before entering on our account of the reign of William the Conqueror, a
bird's-eye view of the early biography of that illustrious person may
be acceptable. He was born in 1024, of miscellaneous parents, and was a
descendant of the illustrious Rollo, who wrested Normandy from Charles
the Simple, whose simplicity consisted no doubt in his submitting to be
done out of his possessions. William had been in his early days one of
those intolerable nuisances, an infant prodigy, and at eight years old
exhibited that ripeness of judgment and energy of action for which the
birch is in our opinion the best remedy. He had quelled a disturbance
in his own court, when very young; but a beadle in our own day can do as
much as this, for a disturbance in a court is often quelled by that
very humble officer. His marriage with Matilda, daughter of the Earl of
Flanders, gave him the benefit of respectable connection, so useful to
a young man starting in life; and after trying with all his might to
acquire Maine, his success in obtaining it added to his influence.

Such was the man whom we left in our last chapter on the field of
Battle, and on our return to him we find him building Battle Abbey in
memory of his victory. He caused a list or roll to be made of all the
nobles and gentlemen who came over with him from Normandy, and many
of them were men of mark, if we are to judge by their signatures. This
earliest specimen in England of a genuine French roll was preserved for
some time under the name of the roll of Battle Abbey, but the monks were
in the habit of making it a medium for advertisement, by allowing
the insertion of fresh names, to gratify that numerous class who are
desirous of being thought to have come in with the Conqueror. The
roll of Battle Abbey was no longer confined to the thorough-bred,
but degenerated into a paltry puff, made up in the usual way, with
paste--and scissors.

William, instead of going at once to London, put up for a few days at
Hastings, expecting the people to come and ask for peace; but though
he remained at home the greater part of the day, the callers were by no
means numerous. He accordingly took his departure for Romney, which he
savagely rummaged. He then went on to Dover, which Holinshed describes
as the lock and key of all England, but the inhabitants, finding the
lock and key in hostile hands, sagaciously made a bolt of it.

William's soldiers had no sooner taken possession of Dover than they
were all seized with severe illness, but whether they availed themselves
of the celebrated Dover Powders is exceedingly dubious. The Conqueror
at length went towards London, where the Witan had proclaimed as king
a poor little boy of the name of Edgar Atheling, the son of Edmund
Ironsides. William, however, nearly frightened the Witan out of its
wits by burning Southwark, and a deputation started from town to
Berkhampstead, to make submission to the Conqueror. Young Edgar made a
formal renunciation of the throne, which was not his to renounce, and
indeed, when he sat upon it the child fell so very far short, that for
him to feel the ground under his feet was utterly impossible.

After these concessions, the day was fixed for William's coronation in
Westminster Abbey, on the 26th of December, 1066, when the ceremony was
performed amid enthusiastic cheering which lasted for several minutes.

The Normans outside not being accustomed to Saxon habits, mistook the
applause for disapprobation, and thinking that their duke was being
hooted, or perhaps pelted, with "apples, oranges, nuts, and pears," they
began to avenge the fancied insult by taking it out in violence towards
the populace. Houses were burnt down in every direction, when the noise
made without became audible to those within, who rushed forth to join in
the row, and William, it is said, was left almost alone in the abbey, to
finish his own coronation. He, however, went through the whole ceremony,
and even added a few extemporaneous paragraphs to the usual coronation
affidavit, by the introduction of an oath or two of his own, after the
interruption of the ceremony.

The Conqueror having taken some extensive premises at Barking, went
to reside there for a short time, and was visited by several English
families, among whom that of the warrior Coxo--since abbreviated
into Cox--was one of the most illustrious. William found considerable
difficulty in satisfying the rapacity of his followers, who thought
nothing of asking for a castle, a church, an abbey, or a trifle of
that kind by way of remuneration for their services. He scattered those
articles right and left, according to the chroniclers; but it would
be difficult to say where he got them from, were it not that the
chroniclers are so skilled in castle-building that they have always a
stock on hand to devote to the purposes of history.

After six months' residence in England, William, having got his
half-year's salary as king, was in funds to enable him to take a trip
to Normandy. He took with him a complete sideboard of English--not
British--plate, and with the treasures of this country dazzled the eyes
of his continental friends and subjects. A party of Young England gents
who accompanied him attracted also, by their long flowing hair, the
admiration of foreigners.

Odo, William's half-brother, who had been left at home to rule in the
absence of the king, soon--as the reader may anticipate from the obvious
pun that must ensue--rendered himself utterly odious. His treatment
of the conquered people was cruel in the extreme; he filled the cup of
misery not only to the brim, but degradation was kept continually on
draft, every new blow being a fresh tap for the victims of tyranny. The
very smallest beer will, however, ferment at last if kept continually
bottled up; and though the Entire of England had been for a time
rendered flat, there was a good deal of genuine British stout at bottom.
A general effervescence broke out on the departure of William, who had
acted hitherto as a cork; but Odo evinced a disposition to play the
screw, by drawing out whatever he could in the absence of his superior.

A general conspiracy seemed to be on the point of breaking out, when
William, who had allowed letter after letter to remain unanswered which
had been sent to entreat him to come home, started late one night for
Dieppe, on his return to England. His first care was to assuage the
discontent, and he had already learned the acknowledged trick, that the
shortest way of stopping a British mouth, is by liberally feeding it. He
accordingly gave a series of Christmas dinners, and he invited several
Saxon earls, to meet a succession of bovine barons. If the banquets
were intended as a bait, there is no doubt that the English very readily
swallowed them. By way of further propitiating the people, he published
a law in the Saxon tongue, decreeing "that every son should inherit from
his father," or in other words, should take after him. If, however, he
was liberal in his invitations to dinner, he took care that the people
should pay the bill, for he had scarcely finished entertaining them,
when he began taxing them most oppressively.

William did not acquire the title of Conqueror quite so speedily as has
been generally imagined, for he was occupied at least seven years in
running about the country from one place to the other, wiping out,
by many severe wipes, the remaining traces of insubordination to his
government. In the year 1068 he besieged Exeter, where Githa, the aged
mother of Harold, was leading a quiet life, surrounded by a bevy of
venerable gossips. The Conqueror routed them out, and they repaired to
Bath, where their taste for tittle-tattle might have been indulged, but
meeting with rudeness from the celebrated Bath chaps, they hastened to
Flanders. William now sent for his wife Matilda, whom he had not brought
over until he could form some idea how long he was likely to remain in
his new quarters. A cheap coronation was got up for her at Winchester,
the contract having been taken by Aldred, Archbishop of York, who it is
believed found all the materials for the ceremony, without extra charge;
and as the queen was rather short, we may presume that everything was
cut down to a low figure. A little after this event, Harold's two sons,
Godwin and Edmund, with a little brother, facetiously called Magnus,
came over from Ireland, and hovered about the coast of Cornwall, where
young Magnus, being a minor, perhaps hoped for sympathy. They planted
their standard, expecting that the inhabitants would fly to it, but
they only flew at it, to tear it in pieces. Poor Magnus, with infantine
tenderness, cried like a baby over the insulted bunting. Tired with
their ill success, the three brothers eventually went over as suppliants
to Denmark, where the unhappy beggars were received by Sweyn with
amiable hospitality.

In the ensuing year, William turned Somerset so completely upside down
that it could not have known whether it stood on its head or its heels;
and in every shire he took, he built a castle, by way of insuring
the lives of himself and his followers in the county. According to
Hollinshed, the greatest indignities were passed upon the conquered
people. They were compelled even to regulate their beards in a
particular fashion, from which the youngest shaver was not exempt. They
were obliged to "round their hair," which probably means that they were
obliged to keep it curled, and thus even in their _coiffure_ they were
ruled by a rod of iron. In addition to this, they were forced to
"frame themselves in the Norman fashion," which must have made them the
pictures of misery.

[Illustration: 086]

William had, in one of his amiable moods, probably over a bottle of
wine, promised Edwin, the brother-in-law of Harold, his daughter in
marriage. When, however, the earl came to claim his fair prize, the
Conqueror not only withdrew his consent, but insulted the suitor, and
a scene ensued very similar to the common incident in a farce, when
a testy old father or guardian flies into a passion with the walking
gentleman, exclaiming "Hoity-toity!" and calling him a young jackanapes.
Edwin, irritated at this treatment, collected an army in the north, and
waited near the river Ouse; but the courage of his soldiers soon oozed
out when the Conqueror made his appearance. William was victorious; but
he had much to contend against during the first few years of his reign,
and an invasion of the Danes, under Osborne, was a very troublesome
business.

The Normans, having shut themselves up in York, set fire to some of
the houses outside the city, to check the approach of the foe; but
the flames catching the minster, a "night wi' Burns" seemed to be
inevitable. Not wishing to remain to be roasted, they risked the minor
inconvenience of being basted, and made a very lively sally out of the
city. They were nearly all killed, and the Danes took possession of
York; but the place being reduced to ashes, was little better than an
extensive dust-hole. Osborne and his followers not wishing to winter
among the cinders, retired to their ships, and William thus had time to
make further arrangements.

The Conqueror was hunting in the Forest of Dean when he heard of the
catastrophe, and having his lance in his hand, he swore he would never
put it down until he had exterminated the enemy. This must have been a
somewhat inconsiderate vow, for though it may have been chivalrous to
declare he would never put down his lance until a certain remote event,
the weapon must have been at times a very inconvenient companion, as he
did not commence his campaign until the spring; but as his vow came into
operation immediately, the lance must have been a dead weight in his
hand during the whole of the winter season. At length he mounted his
horse, and rode rough-shod over the people of York, after which he took
Durham, and ultimately repaired to Hexham, to which he administered a
regular Hexham tanning.

Bobbery, under the less obnoxious name of confiscation, now became very
general, and William commenced the wholesale subtraction of lands,
with a view to their division among his Norman followers. The conquered
English had nearly all their property seized, and those who had but
little shared the lot of the wealthiest in the spoliation to which all
were subjected. William de Percy profited largely in purse; and if in
those days manners made the man, he must have been a made man indeed,
for he got no less than eighty manors. Several other names will be found
in Domesday Book, drawn up about fifteen years after the conquest, from
whicn some of our oldest ancestors may learn full particulars of their
early ancestors.

The title of Richmond had its origin from a Breton ruffian of the name
of Allan, who having got a mount near York as his share of the plunder,
gave it the name of Riche-Mont, or Rich-Mount; and the first Earl of
Cumberland was a low fellow named Reuouf Meschines, the latter title
being no doubt derived from _mesquin_, to express something mean and
pitiful in this individual's character. The boast of having come in with
the Normans is equivalent to a confession of belonging to a family whose
founder was a thief, or at least a receiver of stolen articles.

The resistance to the Conqueror was, in many parts of England,
exceedingly obstinate, and Hereward of Lincoln, commonly called
"England's Darling," or the Lincoln pet, was one of the most resolute of
William's enemies. Such was the impetuosity of the pet, that the Normans
imagined he must be a necromancer: and William, in order to turn
the superstitions of the people to his own account, engaged a rival
conjuror, or sorceress, who was placed with much solemnity on the top of
a wooden tower, among the works that were proceeding for the defence of
the invader's army. Hereward, however, seizing his opportunity, set
fire to the wizard's temple, and the unfortunate conjuror being puzzled,
terminated his career amidst a grand pyrotechnic display, which proved
for Hereward and his party a blaze of triumph.

The English had established a camp of refuge at Ely, but the hungry
monks, whose profession it was to fast, were the first, when provisions
ran short, to grumble at the scarcity. Their vows were evidently
as empty as themselves, and though they had pledged themselves to
abstinence, they began eating their own words with horrible voracity.
They betrayed the isle to the Conqueror; but Hereward refusing to
submit, plunged, like a true son of the soil, into the swamps and
marshes, where the Normans would not venture to follow him. Protected
to a certain extent in the bosom of his mother earth, he carried on a
vexatious warfare, until William offered terms which took the hero out
of the mud, and settled him in the estates of his ancestors.

It has been customary with historians to cut the conquest exceedingly
short, as if _Veni, vidi, vici_, had been the motto of William; and
that, in fact, the Anglo-Saxons had surrendered at his nod,--overcome by
the waving of his plume--if he ever wore one; or in other words, knocked
down with a feather. Such, however, was not the case; for it took seven
years' apprenticeship to accustom the hardy natives of our isle to the
subjection of a conqueror.

While William was in Normandy, whither he had been called to protect
his possessions in Maine--for, as we are told by that mad wag, Matthew
Paris, he never lost sight of the Main chance,--Philip of France offered
some assistance to Edgar Atheling. This individual accordingly set sail,
but the unlucky dog had scarcely got his bark upon the sea, when
the winds set up a dismal howl, and he was driven ashore near
Northumberland. Edgar and a few friends escaped to Scotland, and at the
advice of his brother-in-law, Malcolm sought a reconciliation with the
Conqueror, who allowed the Atheling his lodging in the palace of Rouen,
with a pound's worth of silver a day for his maintenance.

The king was soon recalled to England by an insurrection, got up by
Roger Fitz Osborn, who, together with a large number of persons who were
all subject to Fitz, determined on resisting the insolent oppression of
the Conqueror. Young Roger, whose father, William Fitz Osborn, had been
of great service to the Norman invader, was engaged to Emma de Gael, a
daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, when the banns were most unreasonably
forbidden by the sovereign. The young couple, however, determined not to
be foiled, had made a match of it; and at the wedding feast, which was
given at Norwich, some violent speeches were made, in the course of
which William was denounced as a tyrant and a humbug, amid repeated
shouts of "hear, hear," from the whole of the company.

The grand object of the Norman rebels was to bring round Earl Waltheof,
and having taken care to heat him with wine, they did succeed in
bringing him round in a most wonderful manner. He assented to every
proposition, and his health was drunk with enthusiasm, followed, no
doubt, by the usual complimentary chorus, attributing to him the festive
virtues of jollity and good fellowship. The next morning, however,
after "a consultation with his pillow," according to the Saxon
chroniclers--from which we are to infer that he and his pillow laid
their heads together, on the principle of goose to goose--he began to
think he had acted very foolishly at the party of the previous night,
and, jumping out of bed, packed off a communication to those with whom
he had promised to co-operate. After presenting his compliments, he
"begged to say, that the evening's amusement not having stood the test
of the morning's reflection, he was under the painful necessity of
withdrawing any consent he might have given to any enterprise that might
have been proposed at the meeting of the day preceding."

The conspiracy, which had commenced in drinking, ended, very
appropriately, in smoke; nearly all who took a part in the Norwich
wedding were killed, and it has been well said by a modern writer that
a share in the Norwich Union was not in those days a very profitable
matter. It was about the year 1077 that William began to be wounded
by that very sharp incisor--the tooth of filial disobedience. When
preparing for the conquest of England he had promised, in the event of
success, to resign Normandy to his son Robert, and had even taken an
oath--clenched, probably, with the exclamation, "So help me, Bob!"--that
if Robert assisted in his father's absence the boy should have the
Duchy.

Having conquered England, the Governor returned, and wanted Normandy
back again, observing, with coarse quaintness, that he was "not going
to throw off his clothes till he went to bed," or, in other words,
insisting that Robert, who had got into his father's shoes, should
instantly evacuate the paternal high-lows. Robert was brave, but by
no means foppish in his dress, ana had acquired the nickname of Robert
Curt-hose or Short-stockings. He probably derived this appellation from
a habit of wearing socks, and it is not unlikely that he was familiarly
known as Bob Socks among his friends and acquaintances. Young Socks,
who had always been irritable, was on one occasion roused to a pitch of
passion by having the contents of a pitcher pitched upon his head by his
two brothers, from the balcony of his own lodging. He became mad with
rage, and, irritated by the water on the brain, he ran upstairs with a
drawn sword in his hand, when the king, hearing the row among the three
boys, rushed to the spot, and succeeded in quelling it in a manner not
very favourable to young Socks, who ran away from home towards Rouen.
Through the intercession of his mother, he was persuaded to return
home, and it is probable that "B. S."--the initials of Bob Socks--was
"entreated to return home to his disconsolate mother, when all would be
arranged to his satisfaction." Nevertheless, his pocket-money continued
to be as short as his hose, and his companions declared it to be a shame
that he never had a shilling to spend in anything. He accordingly went
to his father, and demanded Normandy, but the monarch refused him,
reprimanded him for his irregular habits, and recommended him to adopt
"the society of serious old men,"--the "heavy fathers" of that early
period. Robert declared irreverently that the old pumps were exceedingly
dry companions, and reiterated his demand for Normandy. The king
wrathfully refused, when young Socks announced his determination to take
his valour to the foreign market, and place it at the service of any one
who chose to pay him his price for it.

He visited various localities abroad, where he recounted his grievances,
and borrowed money, making himself a sort of begging-letter impostor,
and going about as if with a board round his neck, inscribed "Turned out
of doors," or "Totally destitute." Though he collected a good round sum,
he spent the whole of it in minstrels, jugglers, and parasites, so that
he divided his time between the enjoyment of popular songs, conjuring
tricks, and paid paragraphs, embodying the most outrageous puffs of his
own character. After leading a vagabond life for some time, he was set
up by Philip of France, in a castle on the confines of Normandy; but as
he was only allowed lodging, he had to find his board as he could, by
plundering his neighbours. One day he had sallied forth in search of
a victim, when he found himself engaged in single combat with a tall
gentlemanly man in a mail coat and a vizor, forming a sort of iron veil,
which covered his countenance. The combatants had been for some time
banging at each other with savage vehemence, when Robert delivered "one,
two, three," with such rapid succession on the head of his antagonist,
that the latter, unable to resist so many plumpers coming at once to the
pole, retired from the contest.

The stalwart knight being regularly knocked up, was glad to knock under,
and fell to the earth with a piteous howl, in which Robert recognised
the _falsetto_ of his own father. Young Socks, who had a good heart,
burst into tears, and instead of falling on his antagonist to finish him
as he had designed, he fell upon his own knee to ask forgiveness of his
parent. William, who would have been settled in one more crack, took
advantage of his son's assistance, but went away muttering maledictions
against Young Socks, who subsequently finding the vindictiveness of his
father's character, declined any further communication with the "old
gentleman," and never saw him again.

In the reign of William the Church was always disposed to be militant,
and among the most pugnacious priests was Walcher de Lorraine, the
Bishop of Durham, who, it is said, often turned his crozier into a
lance, by having, we presume, a long movable hook at the end of it. He
divided his time between preaching and plunder, correcting the morals
of the people one day, and on the next picking their pockets. He was,
in fact, alternately teaching and thrashing them, as if the only way to
impress them with religious truth, was to beat it regularly into them.

At length, however, the right reverend robber having become very
unpopular in his neighbourhood, agreed to attend a public meeting of the
inhabitants at Gateshead, to offer explanations on the subject of the
murder of one Liulf, a noble Englishman, and on other miscellaneous
business. The attendance was far more numerous than select, and the old
bishop becoming exceedingly nervous, ran away into the church with all
his retinue. The people declared that if he did not come out they would
smoke him out, by setting fire to the building; and they had proceeded
to carry their threats into execution, when, half suffocated with the
heat, the bishop came to the door with his face muffled up in the skirts
of his coat, and addressed a few words to the mob in so low a tone, that
our reporters being at a considerable distance--almost eight centuries
off--have not succeeded in catching them. The bishop, however, caught it
at once, for he was slain after a short and rather irregular discussion.
The words "Slay ye the bishop," were distinctly heard to issue from a
voice in the crowd, and the speaker,--whoever he was,--having put the
question, the ayes and the bishop had it.

[Illustration: 091]

William selected one bishop to avenge another, and chose the furious
Odo, who in spite of cries for mercy, and piteous exclamations of
"O! don't, Odo!" killed every one that came across his path, without
judicial forms, or, familiarly speaking, without judge or jury. This
ambitious butcher looked with a pope's eye at the triple crown of Rome,
and set out for Italy, with plenty of gold, to carry his election to
the papal chair by corruption and bribery. The virtues of the cardinals
might not have proved so strong as the cardinal virtues; but Odo, the
bishop of Bayeux, had no chance of trying the experiment, for he
was stopped in his expedition to Rome, at the Isle of Wight, by his
brother-in-law, the Conqueror. William ordered his arrest; but no one
volunteering to act as bailiff, the king seized the prelate by the
robe, and took him into custody. "I am a clerk--a priest," cried Odo,
endeavouring to get away. "I don't care what you are," exclaimed
William, retaining his hold upon his prisoner. "The pope alone has
the right to try me," shrieked the bishop, getting away, and leaving a
fragment of his robe in the king's hand. "But I've got you, and don't
mean to part with you again in a hurry," muttered William, after
darting forward and effecting the recapture of Odo, who was immediately
committed to a dungeon in Normandy.

The king soon after this incident lost his wife Matilda, and he became,
after her decease, more cruel, avaricious, and jealous of his old
companions-in-arms, than ever. One of the worst acts of his reign was
the making of the New Forest in Hampshire, which he effected by driving
away the inhabitants without the smallest compensation, from a space of
nearly ninety miles in circumference. He appointed a bow-bearer, whose
office still exists as a sinecure, with a salary of forty shillings a
year, for which the gentleman who holds the appointment swears "to be of
good behaviour towards the sovereign's wild beasts," and of course,
in compliance with his oath, would Feel bound to touch his hat to the
British Lion.

After founding the New Forest, the king enacted the most oppressive
laws; placing on the killing of a hare such penalties as are enough
to cause "each particular hair to stand on end," by their extreme
barbarity.

[Illustration: 093]

Towards the end of the year 1086 William, who had grown exceedingly fat,
started for France, to negotiate with Philip about some possessions,
when the latter indulged in some small puns at the expense of the
corpulency of the Conqueror. By comparing him to a fillet of veal on
castors, and suggesting his being exhibited at a prize monarch show,
Philip so irritated William that the latter swore, with fearful oaths,
to make his weight felt in France; and he kept his word, for falling
upon Mantes, he succeeded in completely crushing it. Having, however,
gone out on horseback to see the ruins, the gigantic animal he was
riding stepped on some hot ashes, which set the brute dancing so
vigorously that the pummel of the saddle gave the Conqueror a fearful
pummelling. He was so much shaken by this incident that he resolved
never to ride the high horse, or indeed any other horse again; and he
was soon after removed, at his own request, to the monastery of St.
Gervas, just outside the walls of Rouen. Becoming rapidly worse, his
heart softened to his enemies, most of whom he pardoned, and he then
proceeded to make his will, by which he left Normandy to his son Robert,
and bequeathed the crown of England to be fought for by William and
Henry, with a significant wish, however, that the former might get it.
Henry exclaimed emphatically, "What are you going to give me?" and on
receiving for his answer, "Five thousand pounds weight of silver out of
my treasury," ungraciously demanded what he should do with such a paltry
pittance. "Be patient," replied the king; "suffer thy elder brothers
to precede thee--thy time will comc after theirs;" but Henry, muttering
"It's all very well to say 'be patient,'" hurried out of the room, drew
the cash, weighed it carefully, and brought a strong box to put it in. *

     * For further particulars of Henry's conduct, _vide_
     Orderic, every prospect of the Conqueror being left in the
     city of Rouen to be buried by the parish, when a few of the
     clergy began to think of the funeral. The Archbishop ordered
     that it should take place at St. Stephen's, in Caen, and
     none of the family being present, the undertaker actually
     came down upon a poor good-natured old knight, who had put
     himself rather prominently forward as a sort of provisional
     committee-man. How the affair was settled we are unable to
     state, but we have it on the authority of Oderic, that when
     the Bishop of Evreux had pronounced the panegyric, a man in
     the crowd jumped up, declaring the Conqueror was an old
     thief, and that he--the man in the crowd--claimed the ground
     on which they were then standing. Many of the persons round
     cheered him in his address, and the bishops, for the sake of
     decency, paid out the execution from the Conqueror's grave
     for sixty shillings.

To think of an iron chest at such a moment proved the possession of a
heart of steel; and William, the elder son, was nearly as bad, for
he hastened to England to look after the crown before his father had
expired.

It was on the 9th of September, 1087, that the Conqueror died, and his
last faint sigh was the signal for a rush to the door, in which priests,
doctors, and knights joined with furious eagerness. In vain did a
diminutive bishop ask a stalwart warrior "where he was shoving to?" and
the expostulations of a prim doctor to the crowd, entreating them to
keep back, as there was "plenty of time," were utterly disregarded. The
scene resembled that which may be witnessed occasionally at the pit door
of the Opera, for the whole of William's attendants were eager to get
home for the purpose of being early in securing either some place or
plunder. The inferior servants of the royal robber--like master, like
man--commenced rifling the king's trunks and drawers of all the cash,
jewels, and linen. There seemed scarcely more than it deserves, for
there is no doubt that he was cruel, selfish, and unprincipled. It is,
however, a curious fact, that what receives blacking from one age gets
polished by the next: and this may account for the brilliance that has
been shed in this country over the name of one who introduced the feudal
system, the Game Laws, and other evils, the escape from which has been
the work of many centuries. Though a natural son, he was an unnatural
father, and the result was, that being an indifferent parent, his
children became also indifferent. He had a violent temper, and was such
a brutal glutton that he aimed a blow at Fitz-Osborne, his steward, for
sending to table an under-done crane, when Odo interfered to check
his master's violence. Of his personal appearance we have an authentic
record in a statue placed against one of the pillars of the church of
St. Stephen, at Caen; but as the figure is without a head, we have tried
in vain to form from it some idea of the Conqueror's countenance. From
the absence of the face in the statue we can only infer that William
wore an expression of vacancy.




CHAPTER THE SECOND. WILLIAM RUFUS.


[Illustration: 095]

WILLIAM, the son of the Conqueror, had obtained the nick-name of Rufus,
from his red hair, and these jokes on personal peculiarities afford
a lamentable proof of the rudeness of our ancestors. Having left his
father at the point of death, he hastened to England, where he pretended
to be acting for the king; resorting to what, in puffing phraseology,
is termed the untradesmanlike artifice of "It's the same concern," and
doing business for himself in the name of the late sovereign. One of
his first steps was, of course, towards the treasury, from which he
drew sixty thousand pounds in gold and silver. Having received from his
father a letter of introduction to Archbishop Lanfranc, he rushed,
with the avidity of a man who has got a reference to a new tailor, and
presenting it to the primate, requested that measures might be taken
for putting the crown on his head as soon as possible. Lanfranc, having
secured the place of Prime Minister for himself, issued cards to a few
prelates and barons, inviting them to a coronation on Sunday, the 26th
of September, 1087, when the event came off rather quietly.

When Curt-hose--whom the reader will recognise as our old friend
Socks--first heard of his father's death, he was living on that limited
but rather elastic income, his wits, at Abbeville, or in some part
of Germany. He, however, repaired to Rouen, where he was very well
received; while Henry, the youngest brother, stood like a donkey between
two bundles of hay, not knowing whether he should have a bite at Britain
or a nibble at Normandy.

Rufus had, at the commencement of his reign, to contend with a
conspiracy got up by his uncle Odo, to place Robert on the throne of
England as well as on that of Normandy; for the great experiment of
sitting on two stools at once had not then been sufficiently carried out
to prove the folly of attempting it.

Odo took rapid strides, but as Robert, if he took any stride at all,
must have attempted one from Rouen to Rochester, he remained in his
Duchy, leaving his followers to follow their own inclination at
their own convenience. They had fortified Rochester Castle, but being
besieged, and a famine threatening, they were glad to find a loop-hole
for escape, which they effected by capitulating on certain conditions,
one of which, proposed by Odo, was a stipulation that the band should
not play as the vanquished party left the Castle. Rufus, feeling that a
procession without music would go off flatly, refused his assent to this
proposal, and the band accordingly struck up an appropriate air at each
incident.

[Illustration: 096]

As Odo left the Castle the "Rogue's March" resounded from tower to tower
and battlement to battlement, while the people sang snatches of popular
airs, among which "Go, Naughty Man," and "Down among the Dead Men," were
perhaps the greatest favourites. Odo was eventually banished, and the
insurrection was at an end, for Curt-hose had neither the money nor the
inclination to carry on the war; and, like a defunct railway scheme, the
plan took its place amongst the list of abandoned projects.

In the year 1088 Lanfranc, the king's adviser, died, and was succeeded
by a Norman clergyman, named Ralph, who was called also Le Flambard,
or the Torch, from his being a political incendiary, who had been ever
ready to light up the flame of discontent at a moment's notice. His
nominal offices were treasurer and chaplain, but his real duty was to
raise money for the king, extort for his majesty a large income, and
help him to live up to it. As a taxgatherer and a _bon vivant_ he was
unexceptionable; but we regret that we cannot say so much for him as a
bishop and a gentleman.

This person, however, succeeded only to the political, not to the
ecclesiastical dignities of Odo; for the king, finding the revenues of
Canterbury very acceptable, determined on acting as his own archbishop.
He professed a desire to improve the see by using his own eyes, but his
real view was to get all he could for the indulgence of his pleasures.
Ralph le Flambard seems to have possessed the talent of extortion to
a wonderful degree, and he even set at nought the proverb as to the
impossibility of making "a silk purse out of a sow's ear;" for he
certainty extracted immense sums by getting hold of the ear of the
swinish multitude.

[Illustration: 099]

William Rufus, having been successful against the friends of Robert
in England, determined (a.d. 1089) on attacking the unfortunate and
improvident Curt-hose on his own ground in Normandy. Socks had no money
to carry on the war, for he had not only cleared out his coffers to the
last farthing, but was up to his neck in promises which he never could
hope to realise. His bills were flying like waste-paper about every
Exchange in Europe, and the boldest discounters shook their heads when a
document with the familiar words "Accepted, R. Curt-hose," was shown
to them. He applied, therefore, for aid to the king of the French, his
feudal superior, who sent an army to the confines of Normandy, but sent
a messenger at the same time to the English king, stating the terms on
which the army might be bought off and induced to march back again.

Rufus willingly paid the money, and Socks, in a fit of desperation,
applied to his brother Henry, who had already lent him three thousand
pounds, taking care, however, to get a third of the duchy by way of
security for his money. He accordingly came to Rouen, where he put
down a large sum of money: and what was better still, he put down a
conspiracy to deliver up the city to the enemy. One Conan, a burgess,
who was to have handed over the keys, was condemned to imprisonment for
life; but Henry taking him up to the top of a tower under the pretence
of showing him the scenery, brutally threw him over. The unhappy captive
was beginning to expatiate on the softness of the landscape below, when
Henry, seizing him by the waist, savagely recommended him to test the
reality of so much apparent softness, by throwing himself on the kind
indulgence which the verdant landscape appeared to offer him. The
burgess had no time to reply, before he found himself half-way on his
down journey.

It is difficult in these days to fancy the brother of the sovereign
visiting a condemned culprit in his prison, and taking a walk with him
up to the top of the building, to point out to him the beauties of
the surrounding prospect. That the royal visitor should suddenly turn
executioner in the most barbarous manner, is still more unaccountable.
Henry must surely have received a large quantity of the burgess's sauce
before he could have been provoked to an act which redounds so much to
his discredit in the pages of history.

In the year 1091, William and Robert settled their differences, after
which they began to take advantage of their little brother Henry, whom
they robbed of everything he possessed, until his suite was reduced to
one knight, three esquires, and one chaplain. His flight was a series
of rapid movements, to which this miserable quintette formed a kind
of running accompaniment; but Henry, in spite of every _contretemps_,
behaved himself with dignity as the leader and conductor of his little
band.

Rufus, on his return to England, found it overrun by Malcolm, the Scotch
king, who, however, made a regular Scotch mull of his enterprise. After
a peace as hollow as the "hollow beech tree" which the woodpecker keeps
continually on tap, poor Malcolm was invited to Gloucester, where he
fell into an ambush--a bush in which he was tom to pieces by the sharp
thorns of treachery.

Duke Robert having made repeated applications to his brother, William
Rufus, for the settlement of his claims upon England, at length put the
matter into the hands of his solicitor, Philip of France; who, after
soliciting justice for Curt-hose, marched an army into Normandy. Rufus,
knowing costs to be the only motive of Philip, who, on being handsomely
paid, would certainly throw his client overboard, determined on raising
a large sum; which he accomplished by levying twenty thousand men as
soldiers, and allowing them to buy their discharge at ten shillings
a head, an arrangement which nearly all of them gladly fell into. The
proceeds of this transaction being handed over to Philip, that monarch
shifted his forces from Normandy, leaving Robert to shift for himself;
so that poor Socks was again driven to the most wretched extremities.

Rufus was now troubled by the Welsh, who had overrun Cheshire, probably
on account of its cheeses, for the Welsh were attached to their rabbits
even so early as the eleventh century. The Red King pursued them over
hill and dale, but they daily obtained advantages over him, and on
reaching Snowdon he saw that it would be the height of folly to proceed
further. After a few ups and downs over the mountains, he retreated
with shame, and found occupation at home, a.d. 1094--5, in quelling a
conspiracy headed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, aided by
Richard de Tunbridge, with a variety of Johns, Williams, and Thomases
de What-d'ye-call-'em and So-and-So. Some of the conspirators were
imprisoned, and some hanged; but a few, in anticipation of the fatal
bolt, ran away for the purpose of avoiding it.

Immediately after these events, Robert, roused by the preaching of
Peter the Hermit, familiarly known as _Pietro L'Eremita_, determined
on giving up business as Duke of Normandy and starting as a crusader
for Palestine. In order to raise money for his travelling expenses, and
after having vainly entreated discount for his bills, he proposed to
sell his dukedom to his brother for ten thousand pounds, including the
good-will of the house of Normandy, the crown, which was not a fixture,
the throne with its appropriate hangings, the sceptre the sign of
royalty, and all the palace furniture. The unscrupulous Rufus agreed to
purchase, but being without a penny of his own, he made a demand on the
empty pockets of his subjects.

Several bishops and abbots having already sold all the treasures of
their churches, told the king in plain terms they had nothing more to
give him, when the sovereign replied, "Have you not, I beseech you,
coffins of gold and silver full of dead men's bones?" thus insinuating,
according to Holinshed, "that he would have the money out of their bones
if they did not pay him otherwise." The bishops and abbots were induced
to take the hint of the king; and the term "boning" may have had its
origin from this species of robbery.

Having paid the ten thousand pounds, Rufus went to take possession of
his new purchase, and met with no resistance except from one Helie, Lord
of La Flèche, who professed to have a previous mortgage on part of the
property. Rufus treated him as a mortgagee so far as to pay him off in
the current coin of the age, though a year or two after (a.d. 1100)
as the Bed King was hunting in the New Forest, he heard that Helie had
surprised the town of Mans, and of course astonished the men of Mans
very unpleasantly.

William turned his horse's head towards the nearest seaport, which
happened to be Dartmouth, plunged into the first vessel he found
there, and ordered the sailors to start at once for Normandy. The crew
suggested that it was a very odd start to think of setting off in a gale
of wind; but his majesty began to storm with as much violence as the
elements. He asked--if they ever knew of a king being drowned?--and if
the adage applies to those who deserve hanging as well as to those who
are born for that ceremony, Rufus might have relied on exemption from
a watery terminus. He arrived safely at Harfleur, after one of the
most boisterous passages in his life, which was one of considerable
turbulence. The bare news of his arrival sufficed to frighten Helie,
who first ordered his troops to fall in, and immediately ordered them to
fall out, for he had no further use for them. Helie took to his heels,
and William became sole master of Normandy.

We now come to one of the most remarkable incidents in English history,
and in our desire for accuracy we have grubbed about the records of the
past with untiring energy. We have blown away the dust of ages with the
bellows of research, and have, we think, succeeded in investing this
portion of our annals with a plainness of which the very pike-staff
itself might be fairly envious.

It was on the 1st of August, in the year 1100, that William was passing
the night at Malwood Keep, a hunting-lodge in the New Forest. Had there
been a Court Circular in existence in those days, it would have
recorded the names of Henry, the king's brother, and a host of
sporting fashionables who were present, to share the pleasures of their
sovereign. His majesty was heard at midnight to be talking loudly in his
sleep, and his light having gone out, he was crying lustily for candles.
His attendants rushed to his room, and found him kicking and plunging
under a nightmare, from which he was soon released, when he requested
them to sit and talk to him. When their jokes were on the point of
sending him to sleep, their songs kept him awake: and in the morning an
artisan sent him six arrows as a specimen, with an intimation that there
would be a large reduction on his taking a whole quiver. The king took
the half-dozen on trial, keeping four for himself, and giving two to Sir
Walter Tyrrel, with a complimentary remark that "good weapons are due to
the sportsman that knows how to make a good use of them."

[Illustration: 100]

During a boisterous _déjeûner d la fourchette_, at which the Red King
greatly increased his rubicundity by the quantity of wine he consumed,
a postman arrived with a dream, from the Abbot of St. Peter's, at
Gloucester, done up in an envelope. "Read it out," exclaimed Rufus,
after having glanced at its contents; and on its being found to forbode
a violent death to the king, he ordered a hundred pence to be given to
the dreamer, which, supposing him to have been taking "forty winks,"
would have been at the liberal rate of twopence-halfpenny a wink for
his rather disagreeable doze over the destiny of his sovereign. Rufus
laughed at the prediction, and repaired to the chase, accompanied by
Sir Walter Tyrrel, when a hart, in all its heart's simplicity, came and
stood between the illustrious sportsmen. The extraordinary hilarity of
the bounding hart attracted the attention of Rufus, who drew his bow,
but the string broke, and Rufus not having two strings to his bow,
called out to Tyrrel to shoot at the bald-faced brute for his bare-faced
impudence. Sir Walter instantly obeyed; but the animal, bobbing down his
head, allowed the arrow to go through his own branches towards those of
a huge tree, when the dart, taking a somewhat circuitous route, avoided
the body of the hart and went home to the heart of the sovereign. Tyrrel
ran towards his master, and attempted to revive him; but though there
was plenty of harts-horn in the forest, none could be made available.
The unfortunate regicide, merely muttering to himself some incoherent
expressions as to his having "done it now," galloped to the sea coast,
and tied to France--taking French leave of his country, according to the
usual custom of malefactors.

[Illustration 101]

The royal remains were picked up soon after by one Mr. Purkess, a
respectable charcoal-burner, whose descendants still reside upon the
spot, and who carted Henry off on his own responsibility to Winchester,
where the king was honoured by a decent funeral. Though there were
plenty of lookers-on, there were very few mourners; and in a portrait
of the tomb * which has been preserved, we recognise economy as the most
prominent feature. Henry, the king's brother, made the usual rush to the
treasury, where he filled his pockets with all the available assets; and
the members of the hunting party, finding that the game was up, started
off as fast as they could in pursuit of their own interests.

     * The tomb still stands in the middle of the choir of
     Winchester Cathedral.

The character of Rufus is not one which the loyal historian will love
to dwell upon. The philologist may endeavour to prove the brutal
licentiousness of the king by deriving from Rufus the word ruffian; but
the philologist will, however, be as much in error as the antiquarian
who declared that Rufus, or Roofus, was so called from his being the
builder of Westminster Hall, of which the roof was the most conspicuous
ornament. The Red King died a bachelor, at the age of forty-three, after
a very extravagant life, in the course of which he exhibited strong
symptoms of the royal complaint--which shows itself in a mania for
constructing and altering palaces. He would erect new staircases,
and indulge in the most extravagant flights; but if this had been
accompanied by a few steps taken in the right direction, Posterity would
not have judged very harshly what are, after all, the mere whims of
royalty.




CHAPTER THE THIRD. HENRY THE FIRST, SURNAMED BEAUCLERC.


[Illustration: 103]

ON returning to Henry, we find him at the porter's lodge, imperiously
demanding the keys of the treasury. While he had just succeeded, by
alternate bribery and bluster, in obtaining the desired bunch from the
hesitating janitor, William de Breteuil, the treasurer, came running
out of breath, and protested, as energetically as the state of his wind
would allow, against the money being carried away, when Robert, the
elder brother, had a prior right to it. Henry, having tried a little
argument, of which he got decidedly the worst, suddenly drew his sword,
and threatened to perforate the treasurer, or any one else who should
oppose his progress. A mob of barons having collected round the
disputants, took part with the new king, in expectation, no doubt,
of getting a share of the plunder. William de Breteuil was compelled
therefore to look on at the pocketing of the cash and jewels by Henry
and his supporters, the treasurer occasionally entering a protest by
mildly observing "Mind, _I've_ nothing to do with it." Having made
use of the cash in buying the adherence of some of those mercenary
weathercocks--from whom it is considered an honour, in these days, to be
descended--Henry got himself crowned on the 5th of August, in the year
1100, at Westminster.

Finding his throne rather rickety, he tried a little of the "soft
sawder" which has always been found serviceable as a cement between the
sovereign and the people. He mixed up a tolerably useful compound in the
shape of a charter of liberties, and by laying it on rather thick to the
Church, he obtained the support of that influential body. He restored
ancient rights, and promised that when he had to draw money from his
people he would always draw it as mild as possible.

Henry's next "dodge" was to try the effect of an English marriage,
and he therefore sent in a sealed tender for the hand of Miss Matilda
Malcolm, or Maud, the daughter of the king of Scots, as she is commonly
called in history. She had already refused as many offers as would have
filled a moderate-sized bonnet-boxy and sent word back that she was
"o'er young to marry yet," in answer to the application of the English
sovereign. She was, however, advised that it would be a capital thing
for the two countries, if she would consent to the match; and as it is
one of the penalties of royalty to wed for patriotism instead of from
choice, she was soon persuaded to agree to the union.

Such instances of devotion are, however, only found among royal
families; for we doubt whether a fair Jemima Jenkins, or a bewitching
Beatina Brown, would consent to become the wife of young Johnson in an
adjacent street, for the sake of healing a parochial feud, or curing the
heartburn of an entire neighbourhood.

The marriage between Maud and Henry was very nearly being prevented by
a report that the young lady had formerly been a nun; but it was proved
that her aunt had been in the habit of throwing over her head something
in the shape of a veil or a pinafore, to prevent the Normans from
staring at her when she went out walking. Miss Matilda had the candour
to acknowledge that she always took off the unbecoming covering directly
she got a little way from home, and it is evident she was not unwilling
to have a sly peep at the Normans, when her aunt was not watching her.
Her marriage was celebrated on the 11th of November; but Anselm, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, who officiated, came out of the Abbey before
the ceremony, and in order to answer all false reports, stuck an
enormous poster on the door, intimating that Maud was "No Nun," in
tremendous capitals.

Henry also obtained some popularity by expelling all the improper
characters that his brother had patronised; but it does not seem that
they were replaced by persons of a much more reputable order. Henry,
however, affecting the estimable qualities of a new broom, began by
sweeping clean, and scavenged the court of all his brother's minions.
Ralph le Flambard, the late king's tax-gatherer, was sent to the Tower,
where he became one of the lions of the place, and by his wit captivated
the keepers who were charged with his captivity. Henry on being urged to
get rid of him, happened to say accidentally, "No, no, give the fellow
sufficient rope and he will hang himself," upon which one of the
courtiers taking his majesty at his word, sent an enormous quantity of
stout cord to the prisoner. Flambard having reduced the guards to the
state in which tipplers wish to be who love their bottles, took the
rope, and hanging himself by the waist, lowered himself into the moat
beneath, from which he escaped to Normandy.

Robert Curt-hose, who had turned crusader a year or two before, came
back (a.d. 1101) with a perfect shrubbery of laurels from Palestine. The
Normans, delighted at seeing their chief smothered in the evergreens of
glory, were easily persuaded to join him in an attack upon England. The
followers of Curt-hose, however, soon began to waver, and after having
received several terrific stripes, their leader agreed to take 3000
marks, by way of annuity, as a compromise for all his claims upon
England. Robert was true to his part of the engagement, but Henry,
under various pretexts, soon discontinued his payments to Socks, who
nevertheless lived in a style of great extravagance. He filled his
court with bad characters, who not only emptied his pockets, but sold or
pawned his clothes; and he is represented as often lying in bed for
want of the necessary articles of attire to enable him to get up to
breakfast. With the crown on his toilet table, and the regal robe
hanging across the back of a chair--for these insignia of royalty were
always left to him--he was still without the minor but indispensable
articles of dress; and he often observed to his minister, "I can't
very well go about with nothing on but that scanty robe and that hollow
bauble." We can imagine him being reduced to the necessity of offering
to pledge his crown, and being met by the depreciatory observation,
"that the article was second-hand, had been a good deal worn, and seemed
very much tarnished."

[Illustration: 105]

At length, in the year 1105, Henry, taking advantage of Robert's reduced
circumstances, made an attack upon Normandy. The troops of Curt-hose
were ill-paid, ill-clad, ill-conditioned, and ill-tempered. In vain
did Curt-hose attempt to rally them; for they only rallied him on
his poverty, and many of them deserted, leaving him to fight his own
battles. His personal valour served him for a short time; he struck out
right and left with enormous vigour, but his almost solitary efforts
became at length absolutely absurd, and he was ultimately "removed in
custody." He was subsequently committed to Cardiff Castle, where he died,
in the year 1134, at the advanced age of nearly eighty; and it was said
by a wag of the day, that Curt-hose had such a facility of running into
debt that he ran up four scores with Time before the debt of Nature was
satisfied.

Henry was now master of Normandy, whither he on one occasion took his
son and heir, William, a lad of eighteen, to receive the homage of the
barons. This was an idle ceremony, for the barons seldom kept their
words; and homage, or hummage, was frequently a mere hum on the part
of those who promised it. The English king was about returning from the
port of Barfleur, when Thomas Fitz-Stephen, a sailor, originated the
disgraceful touting system, by thrusting his card into Henry's hands,
and offering to take the royal party over cheap, in a well-appointed
vessel. His majesty replied, "I have already taken my own passage in
another ship, but the prince and his suite have to be conveyed, and
I shall be happy to hear what you will undertake it for, per head,
provisions, of course, included." The terms were soon arranged, and the
dangerous practice of overcrowding having, even at that time, prevailed
among mercenary speculators, three hundred people were packed into a
craft which might have comfortably accommodated about twenty. The prince
and his gay companions insisted on having a party on board the night
previous to starting, and the crew, as well as the captain, were more
than half-seas-over before they started from the shore of Normandy.
Fitz-Stephen was in such a state at the wheel, that it seemed to him
continually turning round, and the men employed in looking-out thought
the _Bas de Catte_--a well-known rock--had been doubled, when in fact
the vessel was driving rapidly on to it. This recklessness soon led to a
wreck, and the sole survivor was one Berold, a butcher of Rouen, who
has reported the catastrophe with so much accurate minuteness as to
have deserved, though he never got it until now, the proud title of the
father of the penny-a-liners. When Henry heard the news he fainted away,
and never "smiled as he was wont to smile" from that day to the present.
Being deprived of his only legitimate son, he became anxious to secure
the throne to his daughter, the widow Maud, or Matilda, relict of the
Emperor Henry the Fifth; and on Christmas-day, 1126, the bishops, abbots
and barons were assembled at Windsor Castle to swear to maintain her
succession. These parties--the respectable families that "came in with
the Conqueror"--were all guilty of the grossest perjury; which, a few
years ago, would have rendered them all liable to the pillory, and would
in the present day expose them to serious punishment. A quarrel arose
between Stephen, Earl of Boulogne, the king's legitimate nephew, and
Robert, Earl of Gloucester, his illegitimate son, as to which was
entitled to swear first; the real object being to decide which, upon
breaking their oaths as they both fully intended to do--would take
precedence as the successor of Henry. After a good deal of desultory
discussion, a division settled the point in the nephew's favour. Anxious
to see his daughter settled in life, Henry got her married, rather
against her will, to Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou; who, from an odd custom
he had of wearing a piece of broom in his cap, instead of a feather,
acquired the nickname of Plantagenet. The marriage was celebrated at
Rouen, and Henry issued a proclamation ordering everybody to be merry.
Long faces were thus entirely prohibited, there was a penalty on black
looks, and persons unable to laugh on the right side of their mouths
were made to laugh upon the other.

Some anxiety was, however, occasioned to Henry by the existence of his
nephew, William Fitz-Robert, the son of Curt-hose, who had pretensions
to the throne through Matilda, his grandmother, which of course gave him
a claim on the friendship of the house of Baldwin, between whom and the
grandmother there was a close relationship. The apprehensions of Henry
were aroused by William Fitz-Henry being made Earl of Flanders, but the
young man was unfortunately killed by receiving a poke from a pike; and
though the wound was only in the finger, it grew worse from being placed
in the hands of ignorant practitioners. Finding it did not get better,
he observed that it was "really very mortifying," and so it was, for
mortification ensued almost immediately. He died at St. Omer, on the
27th of July, 1128, in the twenty-sixth year of his age; and if his
epitaph had been written, it would have run thus:

     "Here lies a young prince, whose life was cut short
     By medical quacks overturning the sand of it;
     His finger was wounded, but who could have thought
     The doctors would make such a very bad hand of it?"

Henry's latter days were employed in listening to the quarrels of his
his daughter, Matilda, and her husband, who were never out of pickles,
by reason of their family jars, which were very numerous. The king
had resided four years abroad, and had been hunting, on the 25th of
November, for the purpose of chasing sorrow as well as the game, when,
on his return home, he insisted on eating a lamprey, against the orders
of his physicians. The king did not agree with the doctors, and the
lamprey did not agree with the king, who died on the 1st of December,
1135, at the age of sixty-seven.

Henry's chief merit was his love of learning, which had got him the name
of Beau-clerc, or the pretty scholar. He loved the society of men of
letters, and of wild beasts; but the literary lions were, perhaps, his
greatest favourites. He nevertheless desired that these lions should
only roar in his praise; for he punished Luke de Barré, a poet, very
severely for having written some satirical verses, in which the king was
made a laughing-stock. The poet, according to Orderic, burst from the
executioners and dashed out his brains, which had been the cause of
giving offence to his sovereign.




CHAPTER THE FOURTH. STEPHEN.

If the oaths of the bishops and barons had been worth even the ink
expended in alluding to them, there might have been some chance
of Matilda coming quietly to the throne on the death of Henry. The
Anglo-Normans, however, had as little respect for truth as for property,
and were even destitute of the humbler virtue of gallantry towards the
fair, for they began to clamour loudly against the notion of a woman
reigning over them.

Stephen, the late king's nephew, and Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the
illegitimate son of Henry, were the two favourites in the race for the
throne; but the betting was at least ten to one upon the former,
in consequence of his having married Maud, the daughter and heir of
Eustace, Count of Boulogne.

On the arrival of Stephen in England, he made at once for the treasury,
which he cleared completely out, and he devoted the proceeds to
purchasing the fidelity, or rather the mercenary adherence, of the
barons, prelates, and people. Having bribed a sufficiently numerous
party, he procured a decent attendance at his coronation, which took
place on St. Stephen's day, December 22, 1135, at Westminster. He sent
a good round sum to the pope, Innocent the Second, whose innocence seems
to have been chiefly nominal, for he was guilty of accepting a bribe to
give a testimonial in favour of Stephen's title. As long as the
money lasted the barons were tolerably faithful; but "no plunder no
allegiance" was the ordinary motto of the founders of those families
whose present representatives trace themselves up, or rather bring
themselves down, to the days of the Conquest.

The Norman nobles complained that their perjury had not had its
price, and began seizing various castles belonging to Stephen, who,
by purchasing the services of other mercenaries, got his property back
again. At length, however, a coalition was effected between Robert, Earl
of Gloucester, and Matilda, his half-sister, who landed in England on
the 1st of September, 1139, with a retinue of one hundred and forty
knights, an empty purse, and very little credit. Several Normans ran to
meet Matilda on her arrival; but these high-minded founders of our very
first families, hearing that there was no cash, returned to the side of
Stephen.

Matilda went on a visit to the Queen Dowager, Adelais, or Alice, at
Arundel Castle, which was besieged by the king, who, however, respected
the property on account of its owner, and sent Matilda in safety to join
her half-brother Robert, at Bristol, whither he had gone with twelve
followers in search of Bristol board--and lodging. Stephen, having
exhausted the materials for making the golden links which had hitherto
bound the Normans to his side, found them rapidly adhering to Matilda,
whose expectations were not bad, though her present means were limited.

On the 2nd of February, 1141, the king was besieging Lincoln when the
whole of his cavalry wheeled round to the side of the enemy. Relying on
his infantry, he put himself at their head, but treachery was on foot as
well as on horseback. He nevertheless fought desperately, breaking
his sword and battle-axe over the backs of his foes, till he was left
fighting with the hilt of one weapon and the handle of the other.
Having lost the use of his arms, he was surrounded by the enemy, but he
continued alive and kicking till the last, when he was taken prisoner.
He was cruelly thrown into a dungeon at Bristol, and in order that his
muscular activity might be checked, he was loaded with irons. He still
retained his cheerfulness, and may probably have been the original
composer of the celebrated "hornpipe in fetters," which is occasionally
danced by dramatic prisoners.

[Illustration: 109]

Matilda now scraped together all the money she could, to purchase that
very marketable commodity, the allegiance of the Norman nobles and
prelates. Among the latter was Stephen's own brother, the Bishop of
Winchester, who renounced his unfortunate relative, swore fidelity to
Matilda, cursed all her enemies, and, as the price of all this swearing
and cursing, received a large amount of church patronage. Not only did
he crown his new mistress at Winchester, but he crowned his own baseness
by a slashing speech against his own brother, winding up with a fulsome
puff for the new queen, whom he hailed as "the sovereign lady of England
and Normandy." Matilda was by no means successful in handling the
sceptre, which required a stronger arm and more dexterity than she was
mistress of. The Londoners, in particular, showed symptoms of revolt,
and the Bishop of Winchester having got all he could from the queen,
turned round once more in favour of his brother. This episcopal
roundabout was the first to set the example, so frequently followed
in the present day, of blocking up the city; and it is an odd fact that
paving was his pretext, for he stopped up the London thoroughfares in
order to pave the way for the return of his brother to power.

[Illustration: 110]

Matilda, who was in town--probably for the season--contrived to make her
escape by the western suburb, with a small retinue. Some of her knights
quitted her at the bridge which still retains their name; an earl or two
followed her as far as Earl's Court; some turned off at Turaham Green;
but by the time she had reached the little Wick of Chis, her party had
dwindled down into absolute insignificance. Her brother Robert was taken
prisoner, and Stephen being also in captivity, the two parties were
brought to a deadlock for want of leaders. By negotiating a sort of
Bill of Exchange, Robert was released, and Stephen was paid over, in the
shape of "value received," to his own party.

The Bishop of Winchester, who appears to have been an exceedingly
plausible mob orator, now made another speech, in which he showed a
wonderful amount of face by regularly turning his back upon himself, and
unsaying all that he had said in favour of Maud, and against his brother
on a former occasion. He swore and cursed as before, merely altering
the name of the objects of his oaths and execrations, for he now swore
allegiance to his brother instead of to Maud, and cursed the former's,
instead of the latter's enemies.

Stephen was accordingly raised, by the crane of circumstances, from the
depth of his dungeon, and lifted on to his throne; but he found a new
rival in the person of Matilda's son, Prince Henry, so that he had now
a woman and a boy, instead of a mere woman to fight against. Henry, in
a spirit of calculation far beyond his years, married Eleanor, the
divorced wife of Louis the Seventh; but it was only for the sake of her
money, which he expended in getting together an army for an attack upon
England. The opposing forces met, but having already received their pay,
they evinced a disposition to shirk their duty, and--like gentlemen of
the bar, who having got their fees, propose that the matter should be
referred to arbitration--the soldiers of Stephen and Henry recommended a
quiet compromise.

Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stephen, Bishop of Winchester,
were appointed referees, and it was agreed that Stephen should wear
the crown with remainder over to Henry. A good deal of homage was
interchanged, for Henry swore fealty to Stephen, and the son of the
latter swore ditto to Henry. The king in fact cut off his own tail for
the benefit of his former enemy, and Henry took a kind of _post obit_
as a consideration for his not pressing his claims to abbots, also
exchanged affidavits, and swore in direct opposition to what they had
sworn before, making altogether a mass of perjury that would have kept
the Central Criminal Court occupied for half-a-dozen entire sessions.
Stephen, however, died at Dover, on the 25th of October, 1154, so that
he did not live long under the new arrangement.

The historian often finds himself awkwardly situated when called upon
to give a character to a king, and there being a natural objection to
written characters, the difficulty is greater on that account. It maybe
said for Stephen, that he was sober and industrious, tolerably
honest, not addicted to gluttony, or given to drink like many of his
predecessors, and of course, therefore not so much accustomed to wait
at table. He had a pleasing manner, and a good address, except while
confined in prison, when his address was none of the pleasantest. On the
whole, when we look at him as the paid servant of the public, we think
him ill adapted for a steward, since England was always in confusion
while under his care; and as a coachman he was even worse, for he was
quite unfitted to hold the reins of power.




CHAPTER THE FIFTH. HENRY THE SECOND, SURNAMED PLANTAGENET.


[Illustration: 111]

HENRY, who was amusing himself with besieging a castle in Normandy
when he heard of Stephen's death, soon repaired to England with his
middle-aged wife, Eleanor. They were crowned on the 19th of December,
1154; but he had no sooner got the crown on his head, than he went
to business, and commenced a series of sweeping reforms. Finding the
coinage reduced to a state of almost unutterable baseness, he issued a
good supply of new money, and thus gave a fearful smash to the smashers.
He drove out a quantity of foreign scamps, who had been made earls and
barons in the reign of Stephen. After having enjoyed the fee-simple
of castles and estates, they were sent back to take possession of the
plough in tail, and to till as serfs the earth's surface. Finding the
royal income very much reduced, Henry restored it by taking back what
his predecessors had given away; an operation he performed with so much
impartiality, that he deprived his friends and his foes indiscriminately
of all their possessions.

[Illustration: 113]

The policy of Henry the Second, on coming to the throne, seems to have
differed from that of most of his predecessors; for while they had
usually bought the allegiance of all the knaves and rogues about the
court, he preferred the less costly process of rendering them perfectly
powerless. He demolished many of the castles which had been erected by
the barons, as fences rather than defences, for they were little better
than receptacles for stolen property. Nor was he less vigorous in his
measures against the clergy, for, like a skilful chess-player, he felt
that it is better for the king that the bishops and the castles should
be got out of the way when they are likely to prove troublesome. So far,
therefore, from encouraging the exactions of the priesthood, he seems to
have kept a supply of industrious fleas, for the purpose of putting
one now and then into the ear of such of the clergy as came to make
unreasonable requests to him. It is said that, on one occasion, the
prior and monks of St. Swithin's threw themselves prostrate before the
king imploring his protection against the Bishop of Winchester, who had
cut off three meals a day from the ravenous fraternity. Henry perceiving
that the monks were in tolerable condition, inquired how many meals were
still left to them. "Only ten!" roared the prior, in recitative, while
the rest of the party took up the words in dismal chorus.

How they could have contrived to demolish thirteen meals a day is an
enigma to us; but the fact is a wondrous proof of monkish ingenuity. In
the days of ignorance all classes were prepared, no doubt, to swallow a
great deal, but thirteen meals must have required a power of digestion
and a force of appetite that throw into the shade even the aldermanic
attainments of a more civilised period. Henry, who took nothing but his
breakfast, dinner, and tea, was shocked and startled by the awful avowal
of gluttony on the part of the monks of St. Swithin, whom he placed at
once on a diet similar to his own, by reducing them to three meals _per
diem_. It is probable that the monks crammed into three repasts the
quantity they had consumed in thirteen, and thus eluded the force of the
royal order.

By a rigorous determination to "stand no nonsense," either with the
clergy or the nobles, and by ordering the Flemish mercenaries of the
army to the "right about," Henry seemed to commence his reign under very
encouraging auspices.

Not content with his successes at home, he sought to increase his
influence a

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/44860