CHAPTER XXIII
TURNING TO BAY
It soon appeared too clear to be doubted, even by the most incredulous,that the King of England was bent on having his revenge on theAnglo-Norman barons at all hazards and at all sacrifices, and that thefeudal magnates who had confederated to humble their sovereign in thedust had too good grounds for the alarm with which the news of hispreparations inspired them. Ere October (then known as the wine-month)drew to a close, and the vineyards and orchards yielded their annualcrop--indeed, almost ere the corn was gathered from the fields into thegarners and barnyards--the torch of war was lighted, and an army ofmercenaries was let loose on “merry England.”
The knights despatched by John as early as the middle of June to raisefighting men on the Continent had executed their commission with a zealand fidelity worthy of a better cause; and all the bravoes andcut-throats of Flanders, France, and Brabant, attracted by the hope ofpay and plunder, came to the trysting-places on the coast as vultures tothe carnage, headed by captains already notorious for cruel hearts andruthless hands. Falco, and Manlem, and Soltim, and Godeschal, and WalterBuch, were men quite as odious--unless they are belied bychroniclers--as Hugh de Moreville had represented them to be. Falco wasknown as “without bowels,” Manlem as “the bloody,” Soltim as “themerciless,” Godeschal as “the iron-hearted,” and Walter Buch as “themurderer,” and none of them knew much more of humanity than the name andthe form. All of them were not, however, destined to reach the landwhich was to be made over to their tender mercies. A large number, underthe command of Walter Buch, were caught in a gale and wrecked and lost,as if even the elements had interfered between England and her king’swrath. But the others weathered the storm and gradually reached theEnglish coast; and early in October John found himself at the head of aforce so formidable and so fierce that he intrusted the castle of Doverto the custody of Hubert de Burgh, a valiant warrior and a Norman nobleof great note in his day, and led his hireling army towards Rochester.
Rochester Castle--the stately ruins of which, hard by the Medway, stillattest its ancient grandeur, and recall the days when it stood in feudalpride, guarded by moat, and rampart, and lofty battlements--was deemed aplace of immense importance; and Robert Fitzwalter and his confederateshad intrusted it to the keeping of William Albini, Earl of Arundel, agreat noble whose family had long maintained feudal state at CastleRising, in Norfolk, and whose ancestor had acquired Arundel with thehand of Adelicia of Louvaine, the young widow of Henry Beauclerc. Albiniwas a brave warrior, and quite equal to the duties of his post underordinary circumstances; but the castle was without engines of war, andvery slenderly furnished with provisions, when, about the middle ofOctober, John, with his army of foreigners, appeared before the walls,and summoned the place to surrender.
No doubt William Albini was “some whit dismayed.” Perhaps, however, heexpected some aid from the barons, who were with their fighting men inLondon. Accordingly, he prepared for resistance; and the barons, onhearing that John had left Dover, did march out of the city with somevague idea of relieving the imperilled garrison. On drawing near to theking’s army, however, they began to remember that the better part ofvalour was discretion, and after their vanguard was driven back theyquickly retreated to the capital and took refuge behind the walls,leaving Albini to his fate.
Meanwhile, John laid siege to Rochester, and, impatient to proceed withhis campaign before winter set in, hurried on the operations, and, bymaking promises to the besiegers and hurling threats at the besieged,did everything in his power to bring the business to a close. But, withall chances against him, Albini made an obstinate resistance, and weekspassed over without any clear advantage having been gained by the king.Even after his sappers had thrown down part of the outer wall, matterscontinued doubtful. Withdrawing into the keep, the garrison boldlyresisted, and for a time kept the assailants at bay. At length, by meansof a mine, one of the angles was shattered, and John urged hismercenaries to force their way through the breach. But this proved amore difficult matter than he expected. Every attempt to enter was sobravely repulsed, that the king, under the influence of rage andmortification, indulged in loud threats of vengeance. At length, on thelast day of November, when his patience was well-nigh exhausted, famine,which had been for some time at work among the besieged, brought mattersto a crisis, and William Albini and his garrison threw themselves on theroyal mercy.
“Hang every man of them up!” cried John, who at that moment naturallythought with bitter wrath of the delay which they had caused him whentime was so peculiarly valuable.
“Nay, sire,” said Sauvery de Manlem, the captain of mercenaries, “thatwere perilous policy, and would lead to retaliations on the baronialside too costly to be hazarded by men who hire out their swords formoney.”
John listened, acknowledged that there was reason in Manlem’s words, andconsented to spare life. Accordingly, Albini and his knights were sentas prisoners to the castles of Corfe and Nottingham; the other menbelonging to the garrison were pressed into the royal service.
The loss of Rochester was felt to be a severe blow to the baronialcause; and the pope having meantime annulled the charter, as having beenexacted from the king by force, John’s star was once more in theascendant, and after making arrangements for the safe keeping ofRochester, and little guessing the circumstances under which thefortress was to change hands within the next six months, he marched fromKent to St. Albans, his mercenary forces spreading terror wherever theyappeared. But it was towards the North that his eye and his thoughtswere directed; for the chiefs of the houses of De Vesci, De Roos, DeVaux, Percy, Merley, Moubray, De Brus, and D’Estouteville wereconspicuous among the confederate barons; and, moreover, Alexander, theyoung King of Scots, had not only allied himself with the feudalmagnates, but raised his father’s banner, on which “the ruddy lionramped in gold,” and at the head of an army crossed the Tweed to makegood his title to the three Northern counties with which the barons hadgifted him.
At St. Albans, accordingly, about the middle of December, John dividedhis forces into two armies: one he placed under William Longsword, Earlof Salisbury, to keep the barons in check and maintain the royalauthority in Hertford, Essex, Middlesex, and Cambridge; while at thehead of the other he marched northward to avenge himself on the baronsof the North and the King of Scots. With a craving for vengeance stillgnawing at his heart, he passed the festival of Christmas at the castleof Nottingham, and then, still breathing threats, precipitated histroops on the North.
It was on the 2nd of January, 1216, when John entered Yorkshire withfire and sword. The snow lay thick on the ground; the streams werefrozen; and the cold was intense; but the king, who but recently hadbeen branded by his foes as a tyrant fit only to loll in luxury, andaverse to war and fatigue, now appeared both hardy and energetic, andurged his bravoes up hill and down dale. It was a terrible expedition,and one long after remembered with horror. Fire and sword rapidly didtheir work in the hands of the mercenaries who composed the royal army;men were slaughtered; houses and stackyards given to the flames; andtowns, castles, and abbeys ruthlessly destroyed. Beyond the Tyne thecountry fared almost worse. Morpeth, the seat of Roger de Merley,Alnwick, the seat of Eustace de Vesci, and Wark, one of the castles ofRobert de Roos, were stormed and sacked; and John, crossing the Tweed atBerwick, prepared to inflict his vengeance on the King of Scots.
“Now,” said he to his captains, as he found himself beyond the Marches,“we must unkennel this young red fox.”
The captains of the royal army offered no objection; and while Johnburned Roxburgh--a royal burgh and castle at the junction of the Teviotand the Tweed--the mercenaries pursued the King of Scots to the gates ofEdinburgh, and, during their return, deliberately burned Haddington,Dunbar, Berwick, and the fair abbey of Coldingham, associated with thelegend of St. Ebba and her nuns. Nothing, indeed, was spared; and John,having intrusted the government of the country between the Tees and theTweed to Hugh Baliol and Philip de Ullecotes, with knights a
ndmen-at-arms sufficient to defend it, returned southward with suchsatisfaction as he could derive from the reflection that he had takenrevenge on his baronial foes, and included in his vengeance manythousands who had not given him the slightest cause of offence.
But whatever may have been his feelings on the subject--and it isimpossible to suppose that he had not his hours of compunction--John wasdestined, ere long, to find that his revenge had been dearly purchased.Scarcely had he returned to the South with blood on his hands, and theexecrations of two countries ringing in his ears, when he receivedtidings which made his heart sink within him.
It was when the winter had passed, and the spring had come and gone,that messengers brought to John, who was then at Dover, intelligencethat his baronial foes, driven to desperation, had taken a step whichwas likely to detach his mercenary soldiers from his standard, and leavehim almost alone and face to face with an exasperated nation. It was aterrible contingency, and one on which the king, in pursuing his schemesof vengeance, had not calculated. But there was no mistake about thenews; and John trembled as he foresaw how that, as soon as it spreadamong his mercenaries, the army which, while ministering to hisvengeance, had made him odious to the nation on whose support he mightotherwise have counted in case of the worst, would melt as surely as hadmelted the winter’s snow through which he had urged on that army todevastation and carnage.
Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter Page 25