The Camp of Refuge: A Tale of the Conquest of the Isle of Ely

by Charles MacFarlane

  CHAPTER V.

  THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL.

  At as early an hour as the church services and devotional exerciseswould allow, Thurstan opened a chapter in the chapter-house, whichstood on the north side, hard by the chief gate of the church. As hislordship entered, he said--the words that were appointed to be said onsuch occasions--"May the souls of all the deceased brethren of thishouse, and the souls of all true believers, rest in peace!" And theconvent replied, "Amen!" Then the Lord Abbat spoke again, and said,"_Benedicite_," and the convent bowed their heads. And next he said,"Oh Lord! in thy name!" and then, "Let us speak of the order." Andhereupon all present crossed themselves, and bent their heads on theirbreasts, and the business of the chapter commenced. Only the prior, thesub-prior, the cellarer or bursar, the sacrist, and sub-sacrist, thechamberlain or treasurer, and the other chief officials or_obedientiarii_, and the other cloistered monks, _maturi fratres_,whose noviciate had been long passed, and whose monastic vows had beenall completed, had the right of being present in chapter, and ofdeliberating and voting upon the business of the house and order. Allthat passed in chapter was, in a manner, _sub sigillo confessionis_,and not to be disclosed by any deliberating member to the rest of theconvent, or to any of them, and much less was it to be revealed to anylayman, or to any man beyond the precincts of the abbey. In theseconsultations, on the day next after the festival of Saint Edmund's,the monks of Ely sat long with closed doors. When they came forth ofthe chapter-house it was noticed that the face of the Lord Abbat wasvery red, and that the faces of the prior and cellarer were very pale.A lay-brother, who had been working on the top of the chapter-houseout-side, repairing some chinks in the roof, whispered to his familiarsthat he had heard very high words passing below, and that he haddistinctly heard my Lord Abbat say, "Since the day of my election andinvestiture no brother of this house has been loaded with chains, andthrown into the underground dungeon; but, by the shrine of SaintEtheldreda, were I to find one traitor among us, I would bind him andchain him, and leave him to rot! And were there two of our brotherhoodunfaithful to the good cause, and to King Harold, and plotting tobetray the last hopes of England and this goodly house, and its tombsand shrines and blessed relics, to the Norman, I would do what hathbeen done aforetime in this abbey--I would bury them alive, or buildthem up in the niches left in our deep foundation walls!"[90]

  Now the gossips of the house, making much out of little, went about thecloisters whispering to one another that some sudden danger was athand, and that my Lord Abbat suspected the prior and the cellarer ofsome secret correspondence with the Norman knights that garrisoned DukeWilliam's castle near unto Cam-Bridge.

  "If it be so," said Elfric, the novice from Spalding, "I would adviseevery true Saxon monk, novice, and lay-brother, to keep their eyes uponthe cellarer and the prior!"

  "That shall be done," said an old lay-brother.

  "Aye, we will all watch their outgoings and their comings in," saidseveral of the gossips; "for the prior is a hard-dealing, peremptoryman, and cunning and crafty at the same time, never looking one in theface; and ever since last pasque the cellarer hath shown an evil habitof stinting us underlings and loaf-eaters in our meat and drink."

  "He hath ever been given too little to drink himself to be a trueSaxon," said another; "we will watch him well!"

  And they all said that they would watch the cellarer and eke the prior;that they would for ever love, honour, and obey Thurstan their good andbountiful Lord Abbat; and that they would all die with swords or spearsin their hands rather than see the Normans enter the Camp of Refuge. Soone-hearted was the community at this time.

  Shortly after finishing the chapter in the usual manner, and coming outwith his chaplains, singing _Verba Mea_, Lord Thurstan went into hisown hall, and there assembled all the high and noble guests of thehouse, whether laics, or priests, or monks, and all the obedientiariiand cloistered brothers of the abbey, except the prior and thecellarer, who had gone to their several cells with faces yet paler thanthey were when they came forth from the chapter-house. In my LordAbbat's hall no business was discussed that appertained exclusively tothe house or order: the deliberations all turned upon the generalinterests of the country, or upon the means of prolonging the strugglefor national independence. Thurstan, after reminding the assembly thatthe Saxon heroes of the Camp of Refuge had foiled the Normans in twoattempts they had made to penetrate into the Isle of Ely--the one inthe summer of the present year, and the other in the summer of thepreceding year, one thousand and sixty-nine--and that it was four goodyears since the battle of Hastings, which William the Norman hadbruited on the continent as a victory which had given him possession ofall England, frankly made it known to all present that he had certainintelligence that the Normans were making vast preparations atCam-Bridge, at Bury, at Stamford, at Huntingdon, and even at Brunn, inorder to invade the whole fenny country, and to press upon the Isle ofEly and the Camp of Refuge from many opposite quarters. My Lord Abbatfurther made it known that the duke had called to this service all hisbravest and most expert captains, and a body of troops that had beentrained to war in Brittanie and in other parts wherein there were fensand rivers and meres, and thick-growing forests of willow and alder,even as in the country of East Anglia. He also told them how DukeWilliam had sworn by the splendour of God's face that another yearshould not pass without seeing the Abbey of Ely in flames, the Camp ofRefuge broken into and scattered, the rule of the Normans establishedover the whole land, and the refractory Saxons exterminated. "Now,"said my Lord Abbat, "it behoves us to devise how we shall withstandthis storm, and to select some fitting and experienced captain thatshall have authority over all the fighting men of our league, and thatshall be able to measure swords with these vaunted leaders from foreignparts. Our brave Saxon chiefs in the camp, or in this house, and nowpresent among us, are weary of their jealousies of one another, andhave wisely agreed to obey, one and all, one single leader ofexperience and fame and good fortune, if such a leader can anywhere befound, having a true Saxon heart within him, and being one that hathnever submitted to or negociated with the invader. Let us then castabout and try and find such a chief. Let every one speak his mindfreely, and then we can compare and choose."

  Some named one chief, and some another: many brave and expert men werenamed successively and with much applause, and with many expressions ofhope and confidence; but when Father Adhelm, the expelled prior of thesuccursal cell at Spalding, stood up in his turn, and with the briefestpreamble named Hereward the son of Leofric, the late Lord of Brunn,Hereward the truest of Saxons, the other chiefs seemed to be allforgotten, even by those who had severally proposed them, and theassembly listened in silence, or with a silence interrupted only byshouts of triumph, while this good prior and whilom neighbour ofHereward related the chief events of that warrior's life, and pointedout the hereditary and the personal claims he had to the considerationof his countrymen. Ever since the earliest days in which the Saxonsgained a footing on the land, the Lords of Brunn, the ancestors ofHereward, had been famed for their valour in the field, famed for theirprudence in the Witan and in all other councils, had been famed aboveall their neighbours for their hospitality! And when the Saxonsembraced the Gospel as preached by Saint Augustine and his disciples,who had been so devout as the Lords of Brunn? who so bountiful to theshrines of saints and religious houses? who so ready to fight untodeath in defence of the church? Notable it was, and known unto all thatdwelt in the land of fens, that the house of Crowland, and the house ofEly, and the shrine of Saint Etheldreda, had been served in the hour ofneed by many of Hereward's forefathers. When the unconverted,heathenish Danes were ravaging the country, and burning all themonasteries, and tethering their horses in the chapels of royalpalaces, one Lord of Brunn fought in the ranks by the side of FriarTolli,[91] from sunrise to sunset, for the defence of the Abbey ofCrowland, nor ceased fighting until three of the Danish sea-kings hadbeen slain, and the monks had had time
to remove their relics, andtheir books, and their sacred vases, into the impenetrable marshes ofthat vicinity. Another Lord of Brunn,[92] who at the call of the monkshad marched across the fens with all his people, and with all of hisfamily that could wield a sword, had perished close under the walls ofEly Abbey, after defeating the Pagans, and driving them back towardstheir ships. The blood of each of these Lords of Brunn ran in the veinsof Hereward, and his deeds had proved him worthy of the blood. In hisyouth--in the days of Edward[93] the Confessor--when the cunningNormans were beginning to beset the court of the childless king, and toact as if the inheritance was already their own, and the people ofEngland already their slaves, it chanced that our Hereward, who hadbeen on a pilgrimage to Canterbury,[94] came back to the sea by Dover,and found Count Eustace of Boulogne, and his French men-at-arms engagedin a fierce quarrel with the men of Dover, and galloping through thestreets with their naked swords in their hands, striking men and women,and crushing divers children under their horses' hoofs. Hereward,though but a stripling, drew his blade, rallied the dull townsfolk, whobefore had no leader, (and so were fighting loosely and without order,and without any science of war,) and renewing the battle at a vantage,he slew with his own hand a French knight; and then the men of Doverslew nineteen of the strangers, wounded many more, and drove CountEustace and the rest out of the town to fly in dismay back to kingEdward. Later, when Harold,[95] as earl of the eastern counties, andchief of king Edward's armies, marched into Wales to curb the insolentrage of King Griffith, Hereward attended him, and fought with him amongthe mountains and glens, and lakes and morasses of Wales, until thatcountry was reduced by many victories, and Harold took shipping toreturn to King Edward with the head of Griffith stuck upon the rostrumor beak of his galley. Later still, when Hereward was of manly age, andKing Edward the Confessor was dead, having bequeathed his crown toHarold, and Harold as our true king raised his banner of war to marchagainst his own unnatural brother Earl Tostig,[96] who had brought theKing of Norway and a great army of Norwegians into the country of Yorkto deprive him of his throne or dismember his kingdom, Hereward marchedwith him with many of his father's stout men of Brunn, and fought underHarold's eye in the great battle at Stamford Bridge--that battle whichceased not until Earl Tostig and the king of Norway were both slain,and the river was choked up with the Norwegian dead. From StamfordBridge the march of bold Harold was to Hastings, for the Normans hadlanded while he had been vanquishing the Norwegians. On that long andrapid march,[97] when hundreds of tried soldiers lagged behind,Hereward kept pace with his royal master; and when the battle wasarrayed he was seen riding by Harold's side; and when the battlejoined, his battle-axe was seen close by the battle-axes of Harold andthe king's two loyal and brave brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dealingterrible blows, and cutting the steel caps and the coats of mail of theNormans like chaff. Saxons, remember that he fought at Hastings throughnine long hours, and did not yield until ye saw that ye were betrayed!Separated from his king in the fury of the last _melee_, Herewardattempted to rally the East Angles and the men of Kent; and failing inthat, and hearing a mighty rumour that Harold the king was slain, hegalloped to the port of Winchelsey with a few of his father's trustypeople, and there embarked for foreign parts, vowing that he wouldnever bow his head to the conqueror. The father[98] of Hereward, beingold and infirm, and infected by the unmanly fears which made so manySaxons throw aside the sword before the conquest of England was wellbegun, had made haste to tender his allegiance to the son of theharlot, had obtained his peace, and had been allowed to retain hislordship of Brunn, after paying sundry fines for his son's patriotism.But latterly the old Lord of Brunn had been gathered to his fathers,and a Norman chief had seized his manor-house and all his lands, andwas now keeping them as his patrimony. Such, being told briefly, wasthe story which Father Adhelm told to my Lord Abbat of Ely and hisguests and officials; and when he had done, he asked, where could abetter chief be found for the Camp of Refuge than Hereward the trueSaxon, and legitimate Lord of Brunn? And, hereupon, there was aclapping of hands and shouting of voices in all that noble and devoutassembly--a shouting so loud that it echoed through all the abbey, andwas heard as far off as Saint Ovin's Cross; and the indwellers of thetown of Ely, albeit they knew not what it meant, took up the cry, andshouted, "Hereward to the Camp of Refuge! Hereward for England!"

  "Bethinks me," said the cautelous Abbat of Crowland, when the noise hadceased, "that perchance Hereward will not come to us at our summons. Hemust know how false our country has proved to herself, and how greatthe progress the conqueror hath made in it: his lands and all hisinheritance are gone, a price is set upon his head in England, and hisvalour and experience in war, and his other good qualities, have madefor him a prosperous and honorable home in a foreign land.[99] Whileyet in my poor house at Crowland, a shipman from the Wash, who tradesto the opposite coast, told me that he had lately seen at Ypres my LordHereward, living in great affluence and fame; and the mariner furthertold me that Hereward had said to him that he would never wend back toa land of cowards and traitors; that he had carved himself out newestates in the fattest lands of the Netherlands, and that England hadnothing to give him except dishonour or a grave."[100]

  These representations damped the hopes of some of the company; but asHereward's mind could not be known without a trial, it was determinedto send some trusty messenger across the seas, who might gain access tothe presence of the chief, and at the same time purchase and bring backwith him a supply of arms and warlike harness, with other things muchneeded in the Camp of Refuge. The difficulties of this embassage struckall that were present: "And who," said the Lord Abbat, "shall be thistrusty and expert messenger?"

  "Were it not for the greenness of his years and the lowliness of hiscondition," said the Prior of Spalding, "I would even venture torecommend for the mission my bold-hearted, clear-headed, andnimble-footed novice, Elfric."

  "Brother, thou hast said it," responded Thurstan; "thy novice shall go!Let the youth be summoned hither."

  The novice was soon kneeling at my Lord Abbat's feet, and was soon madeacquainted as well with the difficult task he was expected to perform,as with the uncomfortable doubts which had been propounded by the Abbatof Crowland. When asked by his own immediate superior, Father Adhelm,whether he would undertake the task, he answered, "Marry, and that Iwill right gladly. When I first went to Spalding, I knew well Hereward,the son of the Lord of Brunn, and some of those that were nearest tohim. If England is to be saved, he is the man that will save it. Iwould go to the world's end to find him and bring him hither. I love mycountry, and I love travelling better than my meat and drink. I haveoft-times prayed to Saint Ovin that he would vouchsafe me the grace ofgoing into foreign parts! Moreover, my prime duty is obedience to mysuperiors. Let me depart instantly, and I will the sooner bring youback Lord Hereward!"

  "Thou art very confident," said the Abbat of Crowland: "how knowestthou that Hereward will come with thee?"

  "My lord and master," said the novice, "I ween I can take over with mea word of command, or a prayer more potential than a command, and onewhich Hereward could not withstand even if he were king of all theNetherlands' country, and sure death stood upon the English beach toseize him on return!"

  "What does this young man mean?" said the Abbat of Crowland.

  Elfric blushed, stammered, and could not go on.

  "What dost thou mean?" said his Prior of Spalding.

  Elfric stammered more than before, which angered his superior, andbrought down some harsh words upon his head.

  "Nay," said the good old Bishop of Lindisfarn,[101] "chide not theyoung man, but give him to collect his thought and frame his speech. Hemay know more of Lord Hereward than any one here knoweth. But ... but Ihope that this novice of a goodly house doth not think of employing anywitchcraft or unlawful spell! _De maleficio libera nos!_ Fromwitchcraft and sacrilege, and all the arts of the devil, good Lorddeliver us!"

  The bishop crossed himself; they all crossed themselves; and Elfric no
tonly crossed himself, but likewise said "_Libera nos!_" and "_Amen!_"But when he had so done and so said, his merry eye twinkled, and therewas as much of a smile about his mouth as the reverence due to thecompany allowed of in a novice.

  "If there be magic," said he, "it is all white magic; if there be aspell, it is not an unholy spell." And as Elfric said these words helooked into the good-natured, right hearty, and right English face ofmy Lord Abbat Thurstan.

  "Speak on, boy," said the abbat; "speak out, my brave boy, and fearnought!"

  Being thus heartened, Elfric said: "Then, to speak with reverencebefore this noble and reverend company, I wot well there were, when Iwas first at Spalding, and when my Lord Hereward was at Brunn, certainlove-passages...."

  "Certain _what_?" said the expelled Abbat of Cockermouth, who wassomewhat deaf.

  "Love-passages," said Elfric, looking very archly, and with a laugh inhis eyes, if not on his lips; "certain love-passages between the son ofthe Lord of Brunn and the noble maiden Alftrude, the young daughter andheiress to the lord of the neighbouring town, that old Saxon lord,Albert of Ey."[102]

  "Truth, the two houses stood not very far apart," said the Abbat ofCrowland; "but Albert of Ey was no friend to the old Lord of Brunn."

  "Most true, my lord; but Albert died before his neighbour, and left hiswide estates to his fair daughter Alftrude, having first given her inward to this Lanfranc, who is by some called Archbishop of Canterbury,and whose will and power few can gainsay. Moreover, the Ladie Alftrudeis cousin to the Ladie Lucia, whom Ivo Taille-Bois hath made his wife;and as that arch-enemy of our house extends his protection to hiswife's cousin, not wishing that her lands should be seized by anyhungry Norman other than a relation of his own, the heiress of Ey hathbeen allowed to live in the old manor-house, and to enjoy suchproportion of her father's wealth as Lanfranc chooseth to allow her.Many Norman knights have sought her hand, as the best means ofobtaining her land, but the Saxon maiden had ever said Nay! AndLanfranc, who hath done violence to the very church for his owninterest, and Ivo Taille-Bois, who got his own Saxon wife by violence,have hitherto had power enough to prevent any great wrong or violencebeing done to Ladie Alftrude, the heiress of Ey. Now the Ladie Alftruderemembers the times that are past, and sighs and weeps for the returnof Hereward, vowing that she will wed none but him, and that----"

  "Thou seemeth well informed in these matters," said one of the monks;"but prithee, how didst thou obtain thine information?"

  Elfric stammered a little, and blushed a good deal as he said, "Theyoung Ladie Alftrude hath long had for her handmaiden one Mildred ofHadenham, a daughter of my late father's friend, a maiden well behavedand well favoured, and pious withal; and when I was sent to themanor-house of Ey upon the business of our own house at Spalding, andwhen I met Mildred at the church, or wake, or fair, we were ever wontto talk about my Lord Hereward and my Ladie Alftrude, as well as ofother matters."

  "Father Adhelm," said my Lord Abbat of Crowland in a whisper, "surelythou hast allowed too much liberty to thy convent."

  "My lord," replied the Prior of Spalding, "It is but a novice thatspeaks; Elfric is not a cloister monk."

  "No, and never will be," said the Abbat of Crowland, in another whisper.

  "I now see thy spell," said Thurstan, addressing Elfric, who wasstanding silent, and still blushed; "I now see the witchcraft that thouwouldest use. And dost thou believe that the Ladie Alftrude so lovesHereward that she will jeopardise her estates for him, and call homeand marry him, though an outlaw? And dost thou believe that LordHereward so loveth the Ladie Alftrude as to quit his new-found fortunesfor her, and to come at her bidding into England?"

  "I believe in loving hearts," replied Elfric; "I believe in all thatMildred ever told me about Ladie Alftrude; and I can guess better thanyour shipman and trader of the Wash what it was that made Lord Herewardtalk so high about his greatness in foreign parts, and vilipend[103]his own country, and made declarations that he would never return to aland of cowardice, and treachery, and falsehood. The exile hath heardthat the Ladie Lucia hath become the wife of Ivo-Taille-Bois, probablywithout hearing the violence and the craft which brought about thatunholy marriage; and probably without knowing how much the Ladie Luciagrieves, and how very a prisoner she is in her own manor-house, and inthe midst of her own lands and serfs. My Lord Hereward may also haveheard some unlucky rumours about a marriage between the Lady Alftrudeand some brother or cousin of Taille-Bois, which idle gossips said wasto take place with the sanction of Lanfranc; and judge ye, my lords andholy fathers, whether this would not be enough to drive Hereward mad!But a little wit and skill, and a little good luck, and all these crossand crooked things may be made straight. If I can win to see the LadieAlftrude, and get from her some love-token and some comfortablemessages to the exiled Lord of Brunn, and if I can declare and vow, ofmine own knowledge, that the heart of the fair Saxon is aye the same,write me down a traitor or a driveller, my lords, an I bring notHereward back with me."

  "Of a surety he will do it," said Abbat Thurstan, rubbing his handsjoyously.

  "I understand not much of this love logic, but I think he will do it,"said the Abbat of Crowland.

  "He will do anything," said the Prior of Spalding; "but once let looseon this wild flight, we shall never again get the young hawk back tohand."

  The rest of the business was soon arranged, and precisely and in everypart as the novice himself suggested. No one thought of exacting oathsof fidelity from Elfric. His faith, his discretion, and his valour hadbeen well tried already, and his honest countenance gave a betterassurance than oaths and bonds. As Saxon monks were the leastacceptable of all visitors to the Normans, and as the dress of monk orpalmer no longer gave protection to any man of English birth, and asthe late novice of Spalding might chance to be but too well known inIvo Taille-Bois' vicinity, Elfric disguised himself as one of thepoorest of the wandering menestrels--half musician, half beggar andidiot; and in this guise and garb, he, on the second day after thefeast of Saint Edmund, set out alone to find his way across the fens,through the posts and watches of the Normans, and so on to themanor-house and the jealously guarded bower of the Ladie Alftrude. Hewas to return to Ely, if good fortune attended him, within seven days;and then he would be ready to proceed to the country of theNetherlanders, to seek for Lord Hereward, and to purchase the warlikeharness that was wanted. As soon as he had taken his departure from theabbey, a quick boat was sent down the Ouse with orders to the steadiestand oftenest-tried shipman of Lynn to get his good bark in readinessfor a sea-voyage, and to bring it up to Ely, in order to take on boardan important passenger bound on an embassage for my Lord Abbat.

  Although the love of the Lady Alftrude might perchance bring back LordHereward, it was not likely that it should buy from the trading men ofYpres, or Ghent, or Bruges, the bows and the cross-bows, the swords andthe lanceheads, the coats of mail, and the other gear that were so muchwanted; and therefore Abbat Thurstan, after collecting what little hecould from his guests and in the Camp of Refuge, and after taking hisown signet-ring from his finger, and his own prelatical cross of goldand chain of gold from his neck, called upon the chamberlain and thecellarer and the sacrist for all the coin that had been put by thepilgrims into the shrine-box. This time the livid-faced cellarer wassilent and obedient; but the chamberlain, demurring to the order of myLord Abbat, said, "Surely these contributions of the faithful were atall times devoted to the repairing and beautifying of our church!"

  "Thou sayeth it," quoth my Lord Abbat; "but if we get not weapons andharness wherewith to withstand the invaders, we shall soon have nochurch left us to repair or beautify. By the holy face andincorruptible body of Saint Etheldreda, I will strip her very shrine ofthe gold plates which adorn it, and of the silver lamps which burnbefore it, and melt the gold and the silver, and barter the ingots forarms, rather than see the last refuge of my countrymen broken in upon,and the accursed Normans in my house of Ely!"

  "But doth not this savour of sacrilege?" said the sa
crist.

  "Not so much as of patriotism and of real devotion to our saint andfoundress. Saint Etheldreda, a true Saxon and East Anglian saint, willapprove of the deed, if it should become necessary to strip her shrine.Her honour and sanctity depend not on lamps of silver and plates ofgold, however rich and rare: the faithful flocked to her tomb, and saidtheir orisons over it when it was but a plain stone block, with noshrine near it; and well I ween more miracles were wrought there, inthe simple old times, than we see wrought now. Should the Normans getinto our church, they will strip the shrine, an we do not; and theywill rifle the tombs of Saint Sexburga, Saint Ermenilda, and SaintWithburga[104] and cast forth the bodies of our saints upon thedung-heap! Oh, sacrist! know ye not how these excommunicated foreignersare everywhere treating the saints of Saxon birth, and are everywheresetting up strange saints, whose names were never before heard byEnglishmen, and cannot be pronounced by them! The reason of all this isclear: our Saxon hagiology is filled with the names of those that werepatriots as well as saints, and we cannot honour them in one capacitywithout thinking of them in the other."

  "This is most true," said the chamberlain; "and the Normans be likewisesetting up new shrines to the Blessed Virgin, and bringing in NotreDames, and our Ladie of Walsingham, and other Ladies that were neverheard of before; and they are enforcing pilgrimages in wholly newdirections! If these things endure, alack and woe the while for ourhouse of Ely, and for the monks of Saint Edmund's-Bury, and for allSaxon houses! Our shrine boxes will be empty; we shall be neglected andforgotten in the land, even if the Normans do not dispossess us."