The Magnificent Century

by Thomas B. Costain

  Behind the high walls of Merton, Hubert heard what was being said and knew that the scales had been weighted, that his trial would be no more than a formality. He refused to leave the priory, claiming the right of sanctuary. Henry stormed into action. He hurried off a letter to the Lord Mayor of London, asking that the citizens organize themselves and bring Hubert de Burgh back dead or alive. It was night when this missive was received, but the Lord Mayor responded at once by ringing all the bells of London. The townspeople, roused from slumber, poured out of their houses in instant response and were delighted when the word was circulated of the service the King had asked of them. The night was spent in preparation, and by dawn the march was begun. It was estimated that as many as twenty thousand men had armed themselves, and the roads into Surrey were black with unorganized but eager citizens.

  It was fortunate that among the men around the King at this juncture there was one with a cool head. The old Earl of Chester, who had no love for Hubert de Burgh and no desire to shield him from punishment, was apprehensive of the results of this appeal to mob rule. He pointed out to the King that the situation was certain to get out of control. The strength of London, once allowed to assert itself, might be turned later to less agreeable objectives. Henry was brought finally to a realization of the danger. Fortunately, also, the Lord Mayor was a man of great common sense, Henry FitzAlwyn, a son of the renowned Roger FitzAlwyn who had been the first to hold the office. The FitzAlwyns were drapers and believed in the motto which the members of that powerful guild carried under the two lions, “Unto God only be honor and glory.” The Lord Mayor had enough of conscience to see the danger in the situation and he was quick to issue an order to the trained bands to break up and return home.

  Reluctantly the long marching lines halted, turned, and retraced their steps to London. At the head of the line they displayed the chains which had been forged for the limbs of the now thoroughly hated ex-minister.

  The excitement died down, but Hubert was not reassured thereby. It was quite clear to him that his opponents, with the young King urging them on, would be satisfied with nothing but his ruin and death. The deposed justiciar, who had laughed when the French prince threatened to hang him from the battlements of Dover, succumbed now to an emotion quite new to him, a feeling of panic. He fled from Merton Priory, intending to join his faithful princess wife at Bury St. Edmunds.

  The events which followed in rapid succession were like a mirror held up for one brief moment to the beliefs, the moods, the deep faiths, the contradictions, of the Middle Ages. Hubert progressed no farther than a crossroad settlement in the forests of Surrey where Brentwood now stands and where he sought lodging at a manor owned by one of his nephews, the Bishop of Norwich. He had retired for the night when there was a sudden clamor of horses’ hoofs on the road outside and loud voices demanding entrance. Not waiting to dress, the deposed minister escaped from the house and made his way in the dark to the chapel of Boisars, which was nearby, and there his pursuers found him, kneeling before the altar with a cross in his extended hands. Dragged out by command of Geoffrey of Crowcomb, who had charge of the pursuit, he was taken to the crossroad smithy, and the blacksmith, routed out in turn, was ordered to forge fetters for his wrists and ankles. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and recognizing the prisoner, the stout smith refused.

  “It is my lord Hubert de Burgh,” he said. Remembering Dover and Sandwich and forgetting everything else, he threw down his hammer. “I’ll never make chains for my lord Hubert de Burgh!”

  No manner of threats could make the brave smith change his mind, so Geoffrey of Crowcomb and his men placed the prisoner on horseback, bound his feet under the animal’s belly, and took him to London and the Tower. Here he was lodged far down under the spacious apartments where formerly he had dined in state, in the lowest of the remote cells of the White Tower.

  The high churchmen of the land had been as anxious as the nobility to get rid of the arrogant climber who had raised himself above them. Violation of sanctuary, however, was an offense they could not condone. The Bishop of London felt called upon to inform the King that, unless the prisoner was taken back to the chapel, he would excommunicate everyone connected with this act of violence, beginning with Henry himself and going all the way down to the groom who held the bridle of Geoffrey of Crowcomb’s horse. Reluctantly the King gave in and the deposed minister was restored to the sanctuary from which he had been torn. A large force was placed on guard and a patrol thrown about the little chapel; and then the whole nation waited and watched to see what would happen.

  Henry was burning with impatience to have the obnoxious Hubert safely out of the way so that he could start on the long-anticipated gratifications and excitements of personal rule. The men about him were urging him on to arbitrary extremes. The watch about the chapel of Boisars was conducted, nevertheless, with a scrupulous regard for the traditions and ethics of sanctuary. None of the followers of the fugitive was permitted to communicate with him, but his servants carried food to the chapel each day. Hubert, never moving more than a few feet from the altar, answered the proposals which were sent in to him with resolute negatives. Would he agree to go into exile? No. Would he give himself up on the royal promise to spare his life and make his punishment life imprisonment? No.

  The Earl of Chester, one of the most determined of his opponents but also the fairest of them, died while the siege was in progress. Hubert, informed of this and realizing, perhaps, that one of his few props had been taken away, read a service for the soul of the departed, crying earnestly, “May the Lord be merciful to him!” Nothing could express more vividly the curious addictions to form, the inhibitions, the deep devotions of the age, than this picture of a fugitive, faced with debasement and perhaps death but scrupulously supplied with food to maintain his solitary vigil (a little reminiscent of the custom of offering wine to a condemned man after his stomach has been cut away in the gory business of drawing and quartering), bowing reverently before the altar in the darkness of the encircled chapel and saying prayers for the soul of one of the stiff-necked men who had brought him to this pass.

  Finally it occurred to the tradition-bound group about the King that a little logic might be applied to the solution of this strange situation. Why go on supplying the stubborn man with food? The daily rations were discontinued. Hubert de Burgh held out as long as he could. Then, a pale and weakened version of himself, he came to the door of the chapel and gave himself up.

  Another ride to the Tower followed, the legs of the prisoner tied again under the belly of the horse and all London turning out to watch the ignominious finale of Hubert de Burgh’s defiance of the law.

  Placed on trial early in November, the prisoner refused to plead or submit to the judgment of the court of earls sitting to hear his case. Instead he threw himself on the King’s will. This was probably the wisest course for him to pursue, but it carried with it his willingness to surrender all his possessions.

  It has been explained earlier that the Knights Templars had established themselves in elaborate quarters on the banks of the river outside the city and that they had become the nation’s bankers. They were ideally situated to act in that capacity, being subject to no laws other than their own and having military strength to defend themselves and their stores against any form of aggression. It is likely that, for security, they had located the countinghouse somewhere in the center of the group of buildings which made up the New Temple, approached no doubt through winding passages and many strong doors. The vaults were located as a matter of necessity immediately beneath the countinghouse, for the men of that day were not yet accustomed to banking practices and had the habit of dropping in at odd moments to demand that their particular possessions be produced for visual inspection.

  When the officers of the King visited the New Temple with the demand that everything held there for Hubert de Burgh be surrendered, they were told that nothing could be yielded up, even to the King, except with the consent of the de
positor. This negative answer, delivered by the white-cloaked knight who presided over the banking operations, was respectful but quite firm, and it was clear that it would be backed by force if necessary. The corridors were filled with knights wearing the red cross of the Templars on the shoulder, silent men who observed the rule of the order, “I have set a watch on my mouth,” and whose first duty was vigilance, which they followed even to the extent of sleeping in secure and peaceful London in shirt and breeches and with a lamp burning by the bedside. They were prepared, it was apparent, to fight and die, if need be, rather than permit any violation of the rules of the order.

  The messengers of the King carried back the answer, and Hubert was brought out from his dark cell and ordered to agree to the seizure of all his wealth. Realizing the futility of refusal, he made a gesture of despair and did what was demanded of him. The paper was returned to the New Temple, and the silent custodians of the nation’s wealth repaired to the vaults below where the treasure of the once great justiciar was kept.

  It proved to be a tremendous haul. Hubert de Burgh had been feathering his nest in real earnest. The eyes of the King must have gleamed with excitement when he saw what the chests yielded up—gold, plate, rings sparkling with precious stones, imposingly high standing-cups (there were 158 cups of gold or silver, all elaborately decorated), uncut gems. There was so much, in fact, that the servants of the King advised against taking it all at once. A large part was left in the Temple in boxes with the royal seal.

  Feeling ran higher than ever against the prisoner when this proof of his rapacity was uncovered. The new men about the King, covetous of a chance to accumulate wealth for themselves, insisted that his guilt had been proven and that he should be put to death. It soon became apparent, however, that the evidence available would not justify the verdict for which they clamored. It was not difficult to prove venality, but the charges of murder and of dabbling in black magic were found to be based wholly on idle rumor. The verdict finally arrived at, after much searching of all possibilities of suiting the royal will, was mild enough on the surface. He was deprived of all offices and honors save his earldom. The savings turned over by the Templars were confiscated to the Crown, but he was permitted to keep his private landholdings. He was to be held in close captivity in Devizes Castle until such time as he took the vows of the Knights Templars and left England for service in the Crusades.

  His captivity was close indeed. He was held in solitary confinement in the main tower of Devizes, shackled to the wall. When he heard that Peter des Roches was demanding the custody of his person, which meant only one thing to the prisoner, an intent to do away with him, he contrived with inside help to make his escape and got as far as Devizes Church, where he sought sanctuary. Now the familiar pattern was re-enacted, but with a few differences in method and result. He was dragged from the church and taken to the lowest vault in the castle, where he was chained to the dungeon wall with three pairs of iron rings instead of the usual one. The bishops of Salisbury and London repaired at once to the kingly presence and demanded that the prisoner be restored to sanctuary. Hubert was, accordingly, taken back to the church and a patrol was established around it. One divergence was made from the previous formula, however; no food was allowed the harried fugitive sitting on the frithstool beside the altar.

  The ending was different and more to the taste of the people of England, who were beginning to think the persecution had been carried far enough. Two of Hubert’s friends, Richard Siward and Gilbert Basset, who had already fallen out with Peter des Roches and were ready for any act of defiance, rode to the church, scattered the patrol, and carried him off with them. They reached the Wye and found a boat to take them across the river to Chepstow. Hubert de Burgh had reached a sanctuary at last which could, not be violated. He was in territory where the King’s writ did not run.

  There he remained for two years.

  The Passing of a Great Man

  IT HAD BEEN part of the misfortune of Hubert de Burgh that his companion in the shaping of a sound and moderate national policy had died before the surge of opposition came to flood tide. Stephen Langton, one of the truly great figures of English history, passed away on July 9, 1228.

  He was an old man when permitted to return to England in 1218, and the years which followed were hard for him. He stood like a guardian angel with drawn sword before the Charter and allowed no hostile hand to be laid on it. When he saw to what a sorry pass the country had been brought by absenteeism and papal exactions, he returned to Rome in 1220 to lay the facts before Honorius; riding slowly and painfully for nearly three months over rough and rocky roads. The Pope, who was eminently reasonable in all things, lent an attentive ear to the arguments of the great archbishop. The result was that Pandulfo was recalled and a promise made that it would no longer be deemed necessary for a legate to reside permanently in England. As a result the primate returned the following year, in great peace of mind and great discomfort of body.

  In 1222 he held a synod at Oseney and dictated the drafting and adoption of a new series of constitutions which were so sound in form and yet so advanced in conception that traces of them are still included in ecclesiastical law.

  In 1225 he girded himself to the task of riding all the way to Salisbury, where something very interesting was happening. It becomes necessary at this point to pause and tell of a truly great experiment which was being tried in the design and building of English churches.

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  In 1174 a fire destroyed the Norman choir at Canterbury and the task of rebuilding it was delegated to a great architect named William of Sens, who was brought over from Normandy for the purpose. William of Sens proceeded to make the restoration a reflection of the very best in French construction. In the course of the work, however, he fell from a scaffold and was so badly injured that the completion of the building passed into the hands of a native assistant who is known as William the Englishman. This truly great man, an unsung genius who flashes out of obscurity for this one brief moment, realized that the opportunity had been placed in his hands to cut English architecture free from French leading strings and to create a type of structure which would be forever England. He succeeded in directing into original lines what his predecessor had started, and in doing so began a movement which was reflected immediately in all construction work and came to be called Early English. It was an escape from the massiveness of Norman building into something more delicate and lofty and at the same time an avoidance of the excesses to which the French turned. The pointed arch took the place of the semicircular and led to great developments in high vaulting, The flying buttress came into existence. The sturdy pillar of earlier days changed to more slender and refined piers. The personal contribution of William the Englishman can be found in Canterbury’s Trinity Chapel and especially in the unbroken vista stretching eastward from the choir.

  The new movement was well under way when the conviction became fixed in the mind of good Bishop Richard le Poor of Salisbury that the old cathedral erected there by St. Osmund on a hill so high that no word of the services could be heard when the wind was blowing was no longer adequate. He felt that the time had come to see what English brains and hands could accomplish, and on the pleasant meadowland which stretched down to the winding Avon he began the erection of a new cathedral which would be from foundation to the topmost pinnacle of the spire, in conception and execution, in every stone carved for pillar or flying buttress, in every length of timber planed and dressed for altar or rail, as English as the penny and the longbow. It was in his mind also that a greater cohesion of style would be possible if the work could be done in one generation and not allowed to drag over centuries.

  The start was made in the year 1220, the direction being put in the hands of an architect and builder named Elias de Derham. This selection proved a most fortunate one. Elias de Derham, appointed a canon of Salisbury and given full control, proceeded to put into effect with skill and dispatch the ideas of the bishop. He gathered
about him the best masons in England and he set up a system of prompt delivery of the fine gray stone from the Chilmark quarries sixteen miles away and the black Purbeck marble from the south of Dorset. He obtained some of the “strange devices” which William of Sens had used to unload Caen marble from the ships plying the Channel, and these he used to hoist the carved stone into position on the high walls when the usual system of ramps proved too slow. The work progressed so smoothly, in fact, that by 1225, when Stephen Langton came to Salisbury, a portion of the cathedral was already completed. The Lady Chapel was finished and roofed and slated, and enough of the nave was standing to allow the consecration of three altars. In thirty-three more years the work would be completed (save for the tower and spire, which were built the following century), a record for speed which astonished the world of the thirteenth century in which it was wrought.

  It is a matter for deepest regret that no pen has set down in detail what the aging archbishop saw when he reached Salisbury. The pleasant meadows around the rising gray walls had been turned into a town of shops and cutting houses where the chisels of the masons turned the Chilmark stone into graceful forms and the finer tools of the stone carvers evolved the magnificent figures which made the west elevation a portrait gallery of amazing variety and imagination. He must have talked to the artists who were doing all this, the men who spent their whole lives at the work to which they were dedicated. They were different from other men, these absorbed workers in wool tunics of red or green or blue, in shoes of leather bound with thongs, in hoods of soft moleskin, whose eyes turned so often to the sky from which their inspiration came, their faces calm and unvexed by the frets of life in town. He would have been interested in the schools which they had set up in the workshops, where a new generation of young men were learning to carry on.