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

by Charles MacFarlane

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  THE HAPPY END.

  There chanced to be one very hard winter, and the rivers and streamswere frozen over, as well as the bogs and swamps. It was such a winteras one of those in which King Canute went to visit the monks ofEly.[257] Then the nobles of Canute's court said, "We cannot pass; theking must not pass on the slippery, unsafe ice, which may break andcause us all to be drowned in the fen-waters." But Canute, like thepious and stout king that he was, up and said, "Hold ice or break ice,I will keep the feast of the Purification with the good monks of Ely!An there be but one bold fenner that will go before over the ice bySoham mere and show the way, I will be the next to follow!" Now therechanced to be standing amidst the crowd one Brithmer, a fenner of theIsle of Ely, that was called, from his exceeding fatness, Budde, orPudding; and this heavy man stood forward and said that he would gobefore the king and show him a way on the ice across Soham mere. QuothCanute, who, albeit so great a king, was but a small, light man: "Ifthe ice can bear thy weight, it can well bear mine! So go on, and Ifollow!" So Brithmer went his way across the bending and cracking ice,and the king followed him at a convenient distance; and one by one thecourtiers followed the king, and after a few falls on the ice they allgot safe to Ely. And, for the good deed which he had done, King Canutemade fat Brithmer, who was but a serf before, a free man, and gave untohim some free lands, which Brithmer's posterity hold and enjoy untothis day by virtue of the grant made by King Canute. But there was nota fenner of Lord Hereward's party, fat or lean, that would show theNorman a way across the ice; and the Duke was in no case to undertakeany such adventurous journey, and hardly one of his chiefs would haveexposed himself and his people to such a march, and to the risks of asudden thaw; and the Saxons passed the season of frosts without anyalarm, albeit every part of the fens was passable for divers weeks.

  Duke William was now waxing old and growing exceedingly fat, in sortthat he could not bestir himself as he had been used to do. At the sametime his sons, who had grown into man's estate, had become veryundutiful, and even rebellious. Robert, his first-born, who was shortin his legs, but very lofty in spirit, claimed as his own the duchy ofNormandie and the county of Maine, alleging that the dominion of thosecountries had been promised to him by his father, and that his fatherought to rest satisfied with the great kingdom of England. And althoughWilliam had told Robert that he would not throw off his clothes untilhe went to bed--meaning thereby to say that he would give up none ofhis principalities and powers until he went to his grave--thatimpatient, furious young man showed that he would not wait and bepatient. The family of the Conqueror was a brotherhood of Cains.Robert, less favoured by nature than they, thought that his fatheralways gave preference to his younger brothers William and Henry: andbeing in France, in the little town of Aigle, William and Henry, afterplaying at dice, as was the fashion with milites, made a great noiseand uproar, to the great disturbance of their elder brother; and whenRobert remonstrated with them from a courtyard beneath, they called himShorthose, and emptied a pitcher of water upon his head. ThereuponRobert drew his sword and would have slain both his brothers; but beingprevented in that, he raised the standard of revolt against his ownfather, and endeavoured to surprise the city and strong castle atRouen. Here, too, Robert failed of success, but he fled into Brittanie;and he was now visibly supported not only by many Breton chiefs and bythe great Count of Anjou, but also by Philip the French king, who nevercould stomach the power and greatness to which the son of the harlot ofFalaise had attained. Now, while all this mischief was brewing, DukeWilliam felt that there were many of the barons in Normandie in whom hecould put no manner of trust, and he well knew that too many of thegreat Normans settled in England were unsteady in their allegiance tohim. In this state of things it behoved him more than ever to insuretranquillity in England before he should again cross the seas, and toendeavour to secure the goodwill of the Saxon people, who weregradually becoming accustomed to his rule, and who had but so recentlyshown how valorously they could fight for him when he put his trust inthem. And therefore had he somewhat relaxed the rigour of hisgovernment towards the English people, and had made promise to manynative nobles that he would govern the country according to the goodlaws of Edward the Confessor. Now some of these English nobles wereclosely allied by blood with the Ladie Lucia, and consequently with theLadie Alftrude; and was not the Ladie Lucia the wife of Duke William'sown nephew, Ivo Taille-Bois? And was not the Ladie Alftrude wife untoHereward the Lord of Brunn, who held that nephew in duresse, and whohad for so many years prevented Ivo from enjoying the wide domains ofhis spouse? Perhaps Ivo had not been an altogether unkind husband, orit may be that the two children which she had borne unto him carried agreat weight in his favour in the mind and heart of Lucia, who, certes,had long been very anxious for the liberation and return of her Frenchhusband. Some good Saxons at the time thought that this wasun-Saxonlike and mean and wicked in the fair heiress of Spalding; butthere were many young dames, and not a few Saxon dames that couldhardly be called young, who felt much as the Ladie Lucia felt abouttheir Norman husbands. But go and read the story of old Rome and theSabine women! Nay, go read the Evangil, which tells us how the wifewill give up everything for her husband. And, _crede mihi_, thesewomanly affections and instincts helped more than anything else to makedisappear the distinction between the conquering and the conquered race.

  Now after that many of her kindred and friends had supplicated DukeWilliam to offer to the Lord of Brunn such terms as might procure therelease of her husband and the pacification of the fen country, theLadie Lucia herself found her way to the court, and at the mostopportune moment she knelt before the Conqueror with her two fairchildren. The hard heart of the Norman ruler was touched; but politicprinces are governed by the head and not by the heart, and it was onlyupon calculation that William determined to set at nought the opinionsand the opposition of many of his advisers, and grant unto Hereward themost liberal terms of composition. In the presence of Lanfranc andother learned priests he caused to be written upon parchment, that hewould give and grant friendship and the protection of the good old lawsnot only unto Hereward, but also unto all his friends, partisans, andfollowers whatsoever, of whatsoever degree; that the life, eyes, limbs,and goods of the poorest fenner should be as sacred as those of LordHereward himself; that Lord Hereward should have and hold all thetitles of honour and all the lands which he had inherited from hisancestors or obtained by his marriage with the Ladie Alftrude; that heshould be allowed to administer the Saxon laws among his people, aswell at Ey as at Brunn; and that, in return for all these and sundryother advantages, nothing would be required from him further than thathe should liberate, together with all other his Norman prisoners, IvoTaille-Bois, viscomte of Spalding, and give the hand of friendship toIvo, and restore to him the house and all the lands at Spalding, whichwere his by right of his marriage with the Ladie Lucia, and live ingood cousinship with Ivo as became men so nearly connected throughtheir wives, living at the same time in peace and friendship with allNormans, and pledging himself by his honour as a knight and by his vowpronounced with his right hand laid upon the relics of the Saxon saintshe most esteemed, to be henceforward and alway true liegeman to KingWilliam and to his lawful successors.

  When a Saxon monk, known for his good English heart, and for the piouslife he had led in Waltham Abbey,[258] got into the fen country, andinto the presence of the Lord of Brunn with this scroll, the gentleLadie Alftrude, who had borne many toils and troubles without a murmur,was lying sick of a marsh fever, which she had caught in Hoiland. Thisafflicting event was calculated to have some influence over her lord'sdecision; but many other events and circumstances, too numerous toname, all led to the same conclusion. No hope of the return of KingHarold could be maintained any longer; the good old Saxon monk fromWaltham vowed that his body was really buried in Waltham Abbey, thatthe river Lea, flowing fast by that Abbey gate, ever murmured hisrequiem, by night as by
day, and that he himself, for years past, hadsaid a daily mass for the peace of his soul. All the great Saxon chiefshad submitted long ago; Earl Waltheof, the last that had made a stir inarms, had been captured and beheaded outside Winchester town, and wasnow lying (though not without a strong odour of sanctity) in a deepgrave at Crowland Abbey; Edgar Etheling, the last representative of theline of King Alfred, was living contentedly, and growing fat in aNorman palace at Rouen, with a pound of silver a day for hismaintenance; for he had long since given himself up, and sworn himselfliege-man to William. Every rising had been put down in England, andall conditions of men seemed determined to rise no more, but to live inpeace and good fellowship with the Normans; there was nothing butmarrying and giving in marriage between the two races, and Saxon lordsand other men of note were taking unto themselves Norman or Frenchwives; and the great father of the whole Christian church, the Pope atRome, Gregory, the seventh of that name, had given plenary powers toArchbishop Lanfranc to reorganize the Saxon church, and toexcommunicate all such Saxons as submitted not to his primacy and tothe government established. William, on the other hand, promised totake vengeance on none of Lord Hereward's followers, and to injure nofen-man for that which was past.

  "Elfric," said the Lord of Brunn, "I think we must accept these terms,and cease this roving life among woods and meres. We have done whatbrave men can do: we have shown the Normans that England was notconquered in one fatal battle. We might yet hold out here, but for therest of England we can do nothing; and our being here costs someEnglishmen in the vicinage very dearly! What sayest thou, myever-trusty sword-bearer? Wilt follow thy old master to London city,and make peace with Duke William and his Normans, who have never beenable to overcome us?"

  Quoth Elfric, "Where my lord goes there go I, be it to London city orto London tower. I think we have shown the Normans that England was notwon by the battle of Hastings. An the Duke keep but his faith, we maylive freely and happily in the good old house at Brunn, and among ourhonest fen folk."

  Of the monks who had fled from Ely with Elfric some were dead, but thegentle and good Father Elsin and the fiery and old Father Kenulph, andseveral of the lay-brothers were yet alive; and therefore Hereward toldthe Duke's emissary, the good monk from Waltham, that their must be anespecial agreement to relieve these monks of Ely from the rules oftheir order, and allow them to abide at Brunn or at Ey. The emissarywas further told that, before Lord Hereward would submit, Duke Williammust swear upon the relics of his saints to observe the paction, to betrue to every article of the agreement: and to give an earnest of hisown sincerity and truth, the Lord of Brunn swore in the solemnestmanner that he was ready to accept the conditions offered to him; andthat, having once accepted them, nothing but treachery and violence onthe other side would ever make him swerve from them so much as thebreadth of a hair.

  The monk of Waltham went his way unto London; and in as short a time asmight be he came back again as far as the succursal cell at Spalding,attended by a goodly company of Norman and Saxon nobles, who came tobear witness that Lanfranc and the chancellor of the kingdom had puttheir signatures to the scroll as well as the king, and that Williamhad sworn in their presence to be faithful to the deed. Now the Lord ofBrunn went to Spalding with a goodly retinue of armed men, but not morenumerous than the party which had come thither with the monk ofWaltham; and having heard all that the monk and the lords had to tellhim, and having carefully perused the deed (for Hereward had tastedbooks, and could read well in Latin), he wrote his name to the deed,and some of the principal men with him wrote their names; and then heswore upon the relics to be liege-man to _King_ William. And nowWilliam the Norman might in truth be called a king, and king of allEngland. It was in the Kalends of October, in the year of grace onethousand and seventy-six, and ten years after the great assize of God'sjudgment at Hastings, that this thing was done and an end put to theresistance of the Saxons.

  He had sworn upon the relics of saints before now, and had broken hisoath; but this time King William was true to the vow he made, for greatand manifold were the advantages he reaped from the submission of theLord of Brunn. It needs not to say that the great Saxon warrior who hadever been true to his saints and a scrupulous observer of his word, wasmore than faithful to every part of his engagement. After he had beento London city to pay homage to the king which it was the will ofHeaven to place over the country, he returned to his good house atBrunn, and hung his sword and battle-axe upon the wall, never to takethem down again unless England should be invaded by the Scots or Danes.King William, who went over into France to force his undutiful sonRobert to forego his plots and rebellions, and to take vengeance on theFrench king (in both of which things he in the end succeeded), wouldwith a glad heart have carried Hereward, the cunning captain, the greatsoldier, with him; and to tempt him into that service he made offer oflofty titles and commands, and of many hides of land in the uplandcountry; but Hereward loved not to fight except for his own country andcountrymen, and against those who had wronged him and oppressed them;and instead of clutching greedily at the king's offers, as many Englishlords had done, he preferred keeping his own in his own native parts,and ever remained plain Lord of Brunn.

  Ivo Taille-Bois returned to the manor-house at Spalding with his wifeand children; and albeit his brow was sometimes darkened by therecollections of the wedding at Ey, and the defeat and surrender in themarsh, and the hard life he had led as a prisoner in the fens, he livedon the whole, in very good fellowship with his neighbour and cousin ofBrunn. Ivo never more harrowed the good Saxon monks of Spalding, whowere left for a long time to their own peaceful and happy government.As for the traitorous monks of Crowland Abbey, who had brought back theNormans, they fared after the same manner as the false monks at Ely andthe ungrateful monks at Peterborough; they were condemned by theSaxons, harassed and plundered by the Normans they had served, andfustigated by a sharp iracund abbat from France; and thus they didpenance for many years, and until most of them were dead, when theircells were occupied by truer men, and the abbey of Crowland began againto be the revered place it had been in former times.

  As Lord Hereward had ever been averse to cruelty, and constant in hisendeavours to prevent his people being cruel to the prisoners they tookin battle, the Normans had no scores of vengeance against him; and whenthey found that they were not to be gratified by dividing his broadlands among them, as they had long expected to do, they lived in aneighbourly manner with him, and even sought his friendship. Not one ofthem but allowed that he had been a great warrior; and when the monksof their nation, who had seen much of the war in England with their owneyes, began to chronicle the war and to relate the high emprises ofWilliam the Conqueror, maugre their Norman prejudices they paid atribute of praise and admiration to the military skill, and theindomitable courage, and perseverance of Hereward, the son of Leofric,Lord of Brunn.

  There were troubles in the land after the year of grace one thousandand seventy-six, but they came not near to Brunn. Twenty-four yearsafter the submission of Hereward, when the Conqueror was in his grave,and his son Rufus had been slain by the arrow of a Norman knight, hisother son, Henry the Clerk, ascended the throne, and in so doing hepassed the good Charter called the Charter of Liberties, whereby herestored the laws of King Edward the Confessor, and engaged to redressall the grievances of the two preceding reigns. And shortly after hisaccession to the throne, King Henry still further conciliated hisAnglo-Saxon subjects by espousing a Saxon wife, the fair Maud, daughterof Malcolm, King of Scots, and of Margaret the good queen, the relationof King Edward the Confessor, and of the right kingly kin of England.Maud had been sent from Scotland at a very early age and committed tothe care of her English aunt Christina, the pious Abbess of Wilton.Many great Norman lords, as Alain the Lord of Richmond, and William deGarenne, Earl of Surrey, had asked her in marriage, but she had refusedthem all; and even when Henry Beauclerc, a crowned and anointed king,made suit for her hand, and offered to place her by his side on thethrone which her ancestors had sa
t upon for ages, she testified apreference for the quiet religious life she was leading; and itrequired the representations and entreaties of many noble Saxon friendsto make her forego her purpose of entering into religion. "Oh mostnoble and fair among women," said these Saxons, "if thou wilt, thoucanst restore the ancient honour of England, and be a pledge ofreconciliation and friendship; but if thou art obstinate in thyrefusal, the enmity between the two races will endure, and the sheddingof human blood know no end!" To these representations she yielded; andthose Saxons who had advised her lived to see much good to Englandproceed from the marriage, which was a great step towards thatintermixture of the Saxon and Norman races which had been begun manyyears before, and which we have since seen proceed so rapidly. Theelevation of the fair Maud to the throne filled the hearts of theEnglish with joy, for not only was she their countrywoman and adescendant from the royal stock of Alfred the Great, but she was alsoat the time of her marriage beautiful in person, charitable unto thepoor, and distinguished above all the ladies of her time by a love forlearning and learned men. Elfric the sword-bearer, who was yet in theprime vigour of life, brought to mind the dying prediction of Frithricthe Abbat of St. Albans, and said joyously to his lord, that "Englandwould be England still, and that the Saxon tongue and laws were thingsthat could not be rooted out!"

  "Elfric," said Lord Hereward, "the great stream of our old Saxon bloodis fast absorbing the less stream of Norman blood, and so will itcontinue to do. The children of Normans, being born in England andsuckled by Saxon nurses, will cease to be Normans. All men love to keepthat which they have gotten; and as our old Saxon laws are far morefree than those of France, and give more security for life and goods,and oppose a stronger barrier to the tyranny of princes, the Normansthat now live among us, or their sons that shall succeed them, will,for their own sakes, cling to our old laws, and help the chiefs and thegreat body of the English people to make the spirit of them to beenduring in the land."

  Thus talked the Lord of Brunn and his faithful sword-bearer; and thusthey lived to teach their children's children.

  Hereward continued to live comfortably and peaceably with hisneighbours and with all men, and he died in peace after he had livedmany more years. Both he and the Ladie Alftrude reached a patriarchalage, and they left a patriarchal stock behind them. They were buriedwith all honour in Crowland Abbey, which, by this time, had become aholier and a better governed house than ever it had been before. Alearned monk of Crowland wrote good verses in Latin upon the tombstoneof the Lord of Brunn; but we find in our own home tongue lines whichmight have been a still better epitaph:--

  Him loved young, him loved old, Earl and baron, dreng and kayn, Knight, bondeman, and swain, Widows, maidens, priests, and clerks, And all for his good werkes. He loved God with all his might, And holy kirk and soothe and right.

  And that there might be a lasting record of his prowess in battle andskill in war, his good and learned mass-priest Alefricus Diaconus, hadwritten before he died, and in the same old English tongue, a goodlybook of the deeds of Hereward, the great soldier; and albeit thisgoodly book, by some evil chance, hath disappeared, Hugo Candidus andRobert of Swaffham, two right learned monks of the abbey ofPeterborough, have put the substance of it, and such portions as couldbe found, into their treatise intituled, DE GESTIS HEREWARDI INCLYTIMILITIS.