A Legend of Reading Abbey

by Charles MacFarlane

  VI.

  While she was yet at Oxenford, Matilda had rudely summoned the Bishop ofWinchester, legate to the pope and brother to King Stephen, to appear inher presence and give an account of his actions and intentions. Thebishop had replied that he was getting ready for her; and this was trueenough, for he was manning and victualling the castles which he hadbuilt within his diocese as at Waltham, Farnham, and divers otherplaces. Upon quitting our house at Reading, Matilda hoped, by a rapidmarch, to surprise the bishop within Winchester, and to make himcaptive, and to send him loaded with chains to join the king his brotherin Bristowe Castle, in despite of his legatine and episcopal characterand the authority of the holy see. But the lord bishop was ever wary andwell advised, and before the countess could reach Winchester he withdrewfrom that most royal city, having first fortified his episcopalresidence therein, and set up his brother's standard on the roof.Matilda was treacherously admitted into the royal castle at Winchester,whither she summoned her half-brother the great Earl of Gloucester, andher uncle David, king of Scots, who had been for some time in Englandvainly endeavouring to make her follow mild and wise counsels. The Scotsking and Gloucester, and the Earls of Hereford and Chester, wentstraight to Winchester and abided with the queen and her court in thecastle. But the bishop had made his palace as strong as the castle, andwhen the party of Matilda laid siege to it, the bishop's garrison, beingresolved not to yield, did many valorous and some very sinful deeds.They sallied more than once against the people of Matilda, and put themto the rout; and they hurled combustibles from the palace, and set fireto the houses of the town that stood nearest to the palace in order todrive thence the enemy's archers; but by their thus doing, the abbey ofnuns within the town, and the monastery called the Hide without the townwalls were consumed, to their great sin and shame. Here was a crucifixmade of gold and silver and precious stones, the gift of King Canute,the Dane; and it was seized by the ravenous flames, and was thrown fromthe rood-loft to the ground, and was afterwards stripped of itsornaments by order of the bishop-legate himself, and more than fivehundred marks of silver and thirty marks of gold were found in it, andgiven as largesse to the soldiers; for, whether they stood for Stephenor for Matilda, or whether they did battle with the sanction of thechurch or warred against its authority, these fighting men did mainlylook to pay and plunder. And at a later season the abbey of nuns atWarewell was also burned by William de Ypres, an abandoned man, whofeared neither God nor men, and who did change sides as often as anyone; but at this season he was for King Stephen, and he set fire to thereligious house for that some of Matilda's people had secured themselveswithin it.

  Having made a ruin all round the episcopal palace, the bishop'sgarrison, being confident of succour, waited the event. The legate didnot make them wait long. Being reinforced by Queen Maud and the stoutcitizens of London, who to the number of two thousand took the field forKing Stephen, clad in coats of mail, and wearing steel casques on theirheads, like noble men of war (more money, I wis, had they in theirpouches than most of our noble knights or pseudo proceres), he turnedrapidly back upon Winchester, and besieged the besiegers there. By thefirst day of the Kalends of August, or nigh upon the festival of SaintAfra, saint and martyr, the bishop did gird with a close siege the royalcastle of Winchester. Herein were Matilda, the King of Scots, the Earlsof Gloucester, Hereford, and Chester, and many others of note; and ofall these not one would have escaped if it had not been for the respectpaid by the bishop and the party of King Stephen for the festivals ofthe church, which verily ought to be held by all parties as Truces ofGod, neither party doing anything while such truce lasts. But when thesiege had endured the space of forty and two days, and when those withinthe royal castle had eaten up all their victual, the 14th day ofSeptember arrived, which blessed day was the festival of the HolyRood, and a sabbath-day besides; and lo! at a very early hour in themorning of that day--_Festa duplex_, while my lord bishop's host werehearing mass, or confessing their sins--which alas! were but toonumerous--Matilda mounted a swift horse, and, attended by a strong andwell-mounted escort, crept secretly and quietly out of the castle. Herhalf-brother the Earl of Gloucester followed her at a short distance oftime, with a number of knights, English, Angevins and Brabancons, whohad all engaged to keep between the countess and her pursuers, and torisk their own liberty for the sake of securing hers. They all got agood way upon the Devizes road before the beleaguerers knew that theywere gone. But so soon as it was known that they had broken the Truce ofGod, the bishop's people were to horse, and began a hot pursuit; and atStourbridge the Earl of Gloucester and his band of knights wereovertaken, and, after a fierce battle, were for the most part madeprisoners. But while the long fight lasted, the countess, still pressingon her swift steed, reached Devizes, the work of, and the cause of somuch woe unto, the magnificent castle-building Roger, late bishop ofSarum. But the strong castle of Devizes was not furnished with victual,so that the countess could not tarry there; and being in a great fear asto what might befal her on the road, she put herself upon a feretrum ordeath-bier, as if she were dead, and caused herself to be drawn in ahearse from Devizes unto Gloucester, whereat she arrived in that guise,not without the wonderment of men and the anger of the saints. Of allwho had formed her strong rearward guard on her flight from Winchestercastle, the Earl of Hereford alone reached Gloucester castle, and hearrived in a wretched state, being wounded and almost naked. The otherbarons and knights who escaped from the fight of Stourbridge threw awaytheir arms and essayed to escape in the disguise of peasants; but someof them, betrayed by their foreign speech, were seized by the Englishserfs, who bound them with cords and drove them before them with whipsto deliver them up to their enemies. Yea some of the churls did cruellymaltreat and maim these proud knights from beyond sea, thereby takingvengeance for the great wrongs and cruelties which by them had beencommitted. Nay men of prelatical dignity were not respected, for theyhad had no bowels for the people, who now stripped them naked andscourged them. The King of Scots, Matilda's uncle, got safe back to hisown kingdom; but her half-brother, the most important prisoner thatcould be taken, was conveyed to Stephen's queen Maud, who laid him fastin Rochester castle, but without loading him with chains as Matilda haddone unto Stephen, for Queen Maud was merciful and generous of heart.

  Sir Alain de Bohun, who had joined the legate with a good force beforethe siege of Winchester Castle was begun, made haste to enter into thatcastle when it was abandoned by Matilda and given up by the few soldiersthat remained in it. It was no thirst for blood and no appetite forplunder that made our good Caversham lord enter into the fortalice; butit was his fatherly love for his only boy, and his tenderness for thelittle Alice, who had grown up as his daughter. He thought that in sohurried and rough a departure the children whom he had traced toWinchester Castle must have been left therein; but although he searchedevery part of the castle, as well below ground as above, he could notfind the children, or any trace of them, nor could he from the prisonerstaken learn more than that a fine young boy and a beautiful little girl,together with sundry foreign damsels, had been sent from Winchester aday or twain before the legate commenced the siege of the castle. SirAlain, albeit sorely disappointed, thanked Heaven that the children hadnot been separated. A little later in this year's terrible war, when SirAlain de Bohun had discomfited a force commanded by Sir Ingelric ofHuntercombe, his once cherished friend, but now his deadliest foe, andhad well nigh taken Sir Ingelric prisoner, a writing was in secretdelivered unto the good lord of Caversham by one who wore pilgrim'sweeds, but who was a wolf in sheep's clothing, and, in verity, a fautorand spy of the countess. Sir Alain being competently learned, and wellable to read without the assistance of his mass-priest, who was notthere to aid him, did peruse the secret missive, which did tell him inthe name of Matilda that she had his son in sure-keeping, and wouldnever deliver him up or permit the eye of father or mother to be blessedwith the sight of him until Sir Alain should have abandoned the traitorStephen and have joined the rightful queen of E
ngland; and that if helong failed so to do, the boy would be sent beyond sea and immured in anAngevin castle, where all traces of him would be for ever lost, andwhere, doubtlessly, he would soon perish. "But if," said the letter,"Sir Alain de Bohun will follow the loyal and wise example of his oncefriend Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe and come join the queen, her gracewill receive him with honour, and Sir Ingelric will forget that which ispassed, and the boy shall be restored, and the little maiden likewise,and they shall be contracted in marriage, and the queen will give a richdower to Alice out of her own royal domains, and Sir Ingelric and SirAlain may live neighbourly and happily together as aforetime."

  Sir Alain, who could write as well as read, replied in few words thathis conscience forbade his breaking oaths to King Stephen; that he couldnot change sides either through fear or through interest; that he couldnot subject his lance to the distaff, or believe that the warlikebaronage of England would ever live quietly under the rule of a woman;that he must trust to God and his saints for the protection of his onlychild, as also for the well-being of his not less than daughter; andthat if it were the will of Heaven that the children, who had beenbrought up so lovingly together, should be conjoined at some future dayin holy matrimony (of which in happier days there had been some talkbetween him and the little maiden's father), it would not be in thepower of empress or queen to prevent it. "If," said Sir Alain de Bohunin terminating his epistle, "if, oh Matilda! thou shouldest so farforget the tender feelings of a woman and mother as to do harm to mineonly son, and thereby bring my wife with sorrow to the grave, God willso strengthen mine arm in battle as to enable me to take a fearfulvengeance upon thy party and upon some that are nearest to thee. Butthou wilt not do that which thou sayest. So let me have no more secret,tampering missives. When Thamesis flows backward from Caversham toOxenford instead of pursuing its course to the everlasting sea, then,but not until then, will Sir Alain de Bohun prove false to his oath andtraitor to King Stephen."

  _Circa id tempus_, or nigh upon the time that Sir Alain sent thisresponse unto Matilda, Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, having composed hisfeud with that family and kindred, espoused the rich widow of that SirJocelyn who had burned his wife, the mother of the little Alice, in hishouse, and who had been by him slain in the Falbury of Reading, almostat our gates. The ladie of Sir Jocelyn had acquired an ill-fame duringher widowhood, for she was greedy of other people's goods and avariciousof her own, faithless unto her friends, merciless to her foes, and toher vassals and serfs haughty and cruel. It was as much from thedarkness of her deeds as from her foreign and dark complexion, that shehad gotten all through the country the name of The Dark Ladie. But shewas rich, passing rich, and aspiring, and allied with some of ourgreatest men, and Sir Ingelric had given up his whole soul to ambitionand gold. This unseemly matrimony was mainly brought about by thecountess, and there were others of the like sort, which all terminatedin misery and woe, and in visible manifestations of God's wrath andvengeance.

  The Dark Ladie, who had done much mischief in the land in her widowedcondition, became still more terrible as the wife of Sir Ingelric, andthat lost knight became all the worse for his union with her. Theycrammed their castle at Speen with a most ungodly garrison, and withprisoners they kept and tortured for ransom.

  King Stephen being a close prisoner in the castle of Bristowe, and theEarl of Gloucester being well guarded in Rochester Castle, each of thecontending parties was, in a manner, without a head, for Stephen'sbrother, the bishop-legate, was, after all, but a priest, and the womanMatilda was nothing without her half-brother. A negociation wastherefore set on foot for a mutual release of prisoners. This wasseveral times interrupted, and at each interruption the party of KingStephen threatened to send the Earl of Gloucester out of the land untoBoulogne, there to be buried in a castle-prison deep under the ground,and the party of Matilda threatened to send King Stephen over to Irelandand consign him to the wild Irishry; but at last, on the first of thekalends of November, it was agreed between them that the great Earl ofGloucester should be exchanged for King Stephen; and the earl and theking being both liberated, each betook himself to the head-quarters ofhis friends and partisans. Both factions now stood much as they didpreviously to the battle of Lincoln; but fearfully had the people ofEngland suffered in the interim. And yet, after all these sufferings,neither faction did turn its thoughts _ad regnum tranquillandum_; butboth did prepare for more battles and sieges, sending forth their bandsof foreigners and leaving the cruel castle-holders to seize, torture,plunder and kill. While the land was thus weeping tears of blood, theking and his brother, the bishop, made repair unto London, where theking had his best friends, and where the legate did summon a greatecclesiastical council to meet at Westminster on the 7th of the kalendsof December, _ad pacem componendam_, for the composing of peace unto thechurch and kingdom. When this council met on the appointed day, whichwas in the octaves of Saint Andrew, King Stephen addressed the prelates:he mildly and briefly complained of the wrongs and hardships he hadsuffered from his vassals, unto whom he had never denied justice whenasked for it; he said that if it would please the nobles and bishops ofthe realm to aid him with men and money, he trusted so to work as torelieve them from the fear of a shameful submission to the yoke of awoman, and so to succeed in his enterprises as to put an end tointestine war and havoc, and establish his throne in peace. When theking had done speaking, the legate his brother, who only nine monthsbefore had in the synod held at Winchester declared for Matilda, roseand proclaimed that the pope had ordered him to release and restore hisbrother, that Matilda had observed nothing of what she had sworn to him;that the great barons of England had performed their engagements towardsher, and that she, not knowing how to use her prosperity withmoderation, had violated all her engagements and oaths; that she hadeven made attempts against his, the legate's, liberty and life; and thatthis freed him from the obligations of the oaths he had taken to theCountess of Anjou, for he would not longer call her queen. The legatefurther said that the judgment of Heaven was visible in the promptpunishment of her perfidy, and that God himself now restored his brotherthe rightful King Stephen to the throne. Albeit there were some amongthem who had but lately quitted the party of Matilda, the prelates andgreat men at Westminster assembled did agree that all loyal men oughtforthwith to arm for King Stephen, and that the adherents of thecountess should be everywhere stripped of their usurped authority,whether in church or civil government; that forced elections should beall annulled, and that sentence of excommunication should go forthagainst all the obstinate and irreclaimable partisans of the countess.And the Bishop of Winchester, as legatus a latere, did stand up with anew bull of the pope in his right hand, and pronounced the dreadsentence against all such as should disturb the peace in favour of theCountess of Anjou, or should build new castles in the land, or invadethe rights and privileges of the church, or wrong the poor anddefenceless.

  Judge ye if the news of these high proceedings at Westminster did notbring with them joy and comfort unto the friends of the late Lord AbbotEdward and all the honest monks of Reading abbey! Besides the sin andshame of his forced election, we had suffered many things at the handsof Anselm during the few months that he had held rule over us. In allthat time he had kept the stout-hearted prior Reginald in the prisonunderground, and had maliciously devised penances and punishments forall such members of the community as had pitied the prisoner. He hadalienated and sold some of the abbey lands to furnish out men-at-armsfor his countess. He had half-starved the brotherhood, and nohospitality had he exercised unto strangers except to some Angevinmarauders; and when he went away to see the countess, which more thanonce he did, he left in the abbey some of these outlandish men to keepus in submission and dread. But now his evil reign was over, for so soonas they had learned what had passed at Westminster, and had gotten arescript from the legate, the elders of our house took counsel togetherand resolved to liberate Reginald the prior, and offer him the mitre,and to throw Father Anselm into the prison instead of the prior.
And thething was easy to do, for by this time Anselm had given offence to everycloister monk, novice, and lay-brother, and the warier sort did allopine that now that King Stephen was liberated, and his enemiesexcommunicated by the legate, the cause of the countess must bealtogether desperate. And so with one voice and one will Anselm wasseized and thrown into the underground cell, and the prior was broughtforth, and conducted in triumph to the abbat's house, and there toldthat he must be our lord abbat. Most true it was that he had neverwished for this post of eminence, and now prayed the brotherhood toelect the chamberlain or the sacrist or any experienced cloister-monkrather than him; but the universal will and voice of the community wouldnot be gainsayed, and in the course of a few days the prior wasunanimously elected, by those who had the right of voting in theChapter, to be our abbat; and then we all carried him into the church inprocession, sang _Te Deum laudamus_, with loud and jubilant voices, rangthe bells until they well nigh cracked, and set him on the abbat'sthrone, and did him all the homage that is due unto the mitred abbat ofa royal abbey; and then brought up Father Anselm, and drove him out ofour gates with many kicks behind, for our new lord abbat would not havehim linger and pine in that cold dark cell underground, saying that heknew to his cost how sad a thing it was, and that to hold any captivetherein would be to make the wholesome air of the house infaust andinsalubrious.

  As he was crossing the Holy Brook the townfolk of Reading, who no moreloved Anselm than did we the monks, caught him by the girdle and threwhim into the stream, so that he was nearly drowned at the place where hehad forced us against our conscience to psalmodize for Matilda. He tookthese things so much to heart that he got him back into Normandie. Itwas said by some that he falsified his history and his very name, andso gained admission into the abbey of Bec, but from the volatile natureof the man, I did rather give my belief to another report--to wit, thathe turned himself into a jongleur or trouvere, and went about Francewith women and menestrels and other lewd people.

  Sundry times he promised, and did in his heart intend, to visit ourhouse, and force the restitution of the lands which the usurping Anselmhad alienated to ungodly men; yet King Stephen came not to Reading formany a year, and when he came he could not tarry with us. But the kingsent Sir Alain de Bohun to build up and restore the ruinous castle ofReading; and when this had been done, and when, by the vassals and serfsof the abbey, the walls of the township had been strengthened, weentered upon the enjoyment of such peace and tranquillity as we had notknown during five long years; for the Philistines could not comesuddenly upon us, or easily break through our defences. At Reading,indeed, we did live as in a little Goshen, while war was raging allround about; and albeit we could not always defend our outlying manorsand houses from fire and sword, but suffered many and grievous losses inserfs, cattle, corn, hay, farm-houses, and granges; we yet suffered lessthan other communities, and nothing at all in comparison with the abbatand monks of Abingdon, our neighbours, but not always friends. Drivenfrom their once quiet seat at Oxenford, or too sorely troubled in theirresidence there by the people of the countess, and the constant comingand going of warlike and plundering bands, many of the professors andpupils, _doctores et alumni_, did come unto Reading, and under theshadow of our secure and peaceful walls, pursue those studies whichwere destined to give to England a learned priesthood and a universalincrease of civility. Our brotherhood too did attend to that learningand to the making of many good books which had done honour to theBenedictines ever since their first foundation and in whatsoever countrytheir order was established. Our scribes and copyists once more workedamain in their quiet cells, multiplying with a slow but correct pen theprecious works of antiquity, and the holy books, and the lives ofsaints; and need there was for this labour, since other religious houseshad no peace or leisure, and great and fearful was the destruction ofbooks and codices in the conflagrations and stormings of this longintestine war. But for the labours of the Benedictines and some fewlearned monks of other orders in England, and but for the blessedsaints, who kept alive their love of letters and books, and gave themheart and strength to work even in a season of horror and despair, theland would have been plunged back into utter barbarism, and would havebeen void of learning and of books as when the great Alfred came to thethrone. In the tranquil easy days in which I now write, for the solaceof my lonely hours and for the preservation of the fading memory of thetimes of trouble, and for no fame or vain glory, the sense of thesethings hath already become faint in men's minds, and mayhap, in afterages, when the world shall have made great strides in learning and allcivility, these labours of the Benedictines will be altogetherforgotten, or be treated as nought. Yet was it they that did mainly savethe land from a great retrograde step; and I, Felix, _servus servorum_,the humblest or least worthy member of the order (who have so oftenseen shining in our western turret the midnight lamp which lighted ourcopyists and makers of books at their solitary labours, and who haveseen those labours steadily pursued when the country was ringing withthe din of arms, and was blazing with midnight fires, and when noearthly honour or reward whatsoever seemed to attend their toil), wouldfain put upon record some faint notice of that which was done in theevil times by our house and order: but not unto us the praise, but untothee, oh Lord! They, themselves, sought for no applause--_Celatavirtus_--their virtue is all hidden: not so much as the name ispreserved of these good and laborious monks who did so much for learningand religion.

  It was about the time in which Sir Alain de Bohun did re-edify ReadingCastle, that I, Felix, recovering from my early podagra, under theinstruction and guidance of old father Ambrosius (he hath now been manyyears at rest in the chancel of our church, and I in gratitude do say adaily prayer over his grave), did first addict myself to the use of thepen, beginning with a missal, which our Pisan limner did richlyilluminate; and when this my first essay was finished, I did present itunto the Ladie Alfgiva in her house at Caversham, and that bountiful andright noble ladie did acknowledge the gift by sending unto the abbeyfive milch cows and a goodly stock of Caen fowls, which our community atthat time much needed, for there had been a murrain among cattle, andthe spoilers had again swept bare our best farms.

  Many were the tears shed by me, and many the masses and prayers said byour house for the said Ladie Alfgiva and the two missing children. Griefand anxiety for her son and foster daughter did at times almost bow thatnoble dame to the earth, and her grief was the greater because of herfrequent loneliness and the hazards her lord was running in the manysieges and battles of the times; but although her health declined andher cheek became wan, hope and trust in heaven's goodness did notforsake her. A pious dame was Ladie Alfgiva, and of a nature high andnoble in all things. Though thinking day and night of her only son andher only living child, she never once implored Sir Alain to purchase theboy's release and his restoration to her arms by proving false to hisoath and untrue to the king, and every time that her lord came to hishome she dried her tears and did all that she could to conceal her greatgrief so long as he tarried with her. The virtuous woman is a crown untoher husband, and verily there be wives as well as virgins that merit thecrown the church awards to saints and martyrs. Saint Catherine on thewheel, or Saint Agatha at the fiery stake, suffered not pangs so acuteas those of this bereaved mother; and their torture was soon over, andwhile they suffered they saw from the wheel and stake the heavensopening to the eye, and they heard heavenly music in the air which madethem deaf to the shouts of the infidel rabble that were slaying them. Somuch bliss and so great a foretaste of celestial joy was not vouchsafedunto the secular Ladie Alfgiva, and could not be expected by her:nevertheless had she her happy visions and sweet soothing sounds duringher long bereavement. More than once, in her great loneliness, when herlord was away fighting for King Stephen, as she stood on the battlementsof her castle at eventide, she saw her boy and his playmate Alicesitting on the flowery bank which slopes down to the river, as they usedoften to sit before Sir Ingelric did steal them away; and she heardtheir merry little voice
s on the breeze, and their frolicsome laugh.Some would say that she but took two stray lambs for the lost children,and that the sounds she heard were only made by the evening breeze amongthe tall growing grass and the leafy coppices; but I, Felix, could neverso interpret it unto her. But constantly did I strive to give hercomfort, and to conceal from her the cruelties that were daily committedin the land, and to stop the thoughtless indiscreet tongue of her peoplewho would have filled her ears with horrible tales of murdered childrenand babes, for not the massacre of the Innocents in Judea was so fierceas the slaughter that raged in England.