Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  It was on a glowing morning of June, 1098, that the Crusading host, Tancred first of all, came in sight of the object of all their toils-the City set upon a Hill.

  There it stood, four-square, on the steep, solid, fortification-like rocks, rising from the rugged ravines, Kedron, Siloam, Jehoshaphat, Gehenna, that form, as it were, a deep moat round the walls, and natural defences, bulwarks planted by the Lord's own hand around His own City, while He was still her Tower of Salvation, and had not left her to the spoiler. There stood the double walls, the low-built, flat-roofed, windowless houses, like so many great square blocks, here and there interspersed with a few cypresses and aloes, the mighty Tower of David, the Cross of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and far above it, alas! the dome of the Mosque of Omar, with its marble gates and porphyry pillars, on the flat space on Mount Moriah, where the Temple had once flashed back the sunlight from its golden roof.

  Jerusalem, enslaved and profaned, but Jerusalem still; the Holy City, the mountain whither all nations should turn to worship, the sacred name that had been spoken with reverence in every holiest lesson, the term of all the toils they had undergone. "Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" cried the foremost ranks. Down fell on their knees-nay, even prostrate on their faces-each cross-bearing warrior, prince and knight, page and soldier. Some shouted for joy, some kissed the very ground as a sacred thing, some wept aloud at the thought of the sins they had brought with them, and the sight of the tokens of Zion's captivity-the Dome and the Crescent. Then once more their war-cry rose as with one voice, and Mount Zion and Mount Olivet echoed it back to them, "_Deus vult! Deus vult!_" as to answer that the time was come.

  But Jerusalem was only in sight-not yet won; and the Crusaders had much to suffer, encamped on the soil of iron, beneath the sky of brass, which is part of the doom of Judea. The vineyards, cornfields, and olive-trees of ancient times had given place to aridity and desolation; and the Christian host endured much from heat, thirst, and hunger, while their assaults on the walls were again and again repelled. They pressed forward their attacks as much as possible, since they could not long exist where they were.

  Three great wooden towers were erected, consisting of different stages or stories, where the warriors stood, while they were wheeled up to the walls. Godfrey, Raymond, and Tancred each had the direction of one of these towers, and on the fourteenth of July the general assault began. The Turks, on their side, showered on them arrows, heavy stones, and Greek fire-an invention consisting of naphtha and other inflammable materials, which, when once ignited, could not be quenched by water, but only by vinegar. It was cast from hollow tubes, and penetrating the armor of the Christians, caused frightful agonies.

  Raymond's tower was broken down or burnt; Godfrey and Tancred fought on, almost overpowered, their warriors falling round them, the enemy shouting with joy and deriding them. At the moment when the Crusaders were all but giving way, a horseman was seen on the Mount of Olives, his radiant armor glittering in the sun, and raising on high a white shield marked with the red Cross. "St. George! St. George!" cried Godfrey's soldiers; "the Saints fight for us! _Deus vult! Deus vult!_" and on they rushed again in an ecstasy of enthusiasm that nothing could resist. Some broke through a half-opened breach, some dashed from the wooden towers, some scaled the fortifications by their ladders, the crowd came over the walls like a flood, and swept all before them with the fury of that impulse.

  There was a frightful slaughter; the Crusaders, brought up in a pitiless age, looked on the Saracens as devoted to the sword, like the Canaanite nations, and spared not woman or child. The streets streamed with blood, and the more merciful chieftains had not power to restrain the carnage. Raymond did indeed save those who had taken refuge in the Tower of David, and Tancred sent three hundred in the Mosque of Omar his own good pennon to protect them, but in vain; some of the other Crusaders massacred them, to his extreme indignation, as he declared his knightly word was compromised.

  Godfrey had fought on as long as resistance lasted, then he threw himself from his horse, laid aside his helmet and gauntlets, bared his feet, and ascended the hill of Calvary. It was Friday, and the ninth hour of the day, when the Christian chief entered the circular-vaulted church, and descended, weeping at once for joy and for sorrow, into the subterranean crypt, lighted with silver lamps-the Holy Sepulchre itself, where his Lord had lain, and which he had delivered. Far from the sound of tumult and carnage, there he knelt in humility and thankfulness, and in time the rest of the chieftains gathered thither also-Tancred guided by the chant of the Greek Christians who had taken refuge in the church. Peter the Hermit sang mass at the altar, and thus night sunk down on Jerusalem and the victorious Christians.

  The following days confirmed the conquest, and councils began to be held on the means of securing it. A King was to be elected, and it is said that the crown was offered to Robert of Normandy, and declined by him. Afterward, by universal consent, Godfrey de Bouillon was chosen to be King of Jerusalem.

  He accepted the office, with all its toils and perils, but he would neither bear the title nor crown. He chose to leave the title of King of Jerusalem to Him to whom alone it belonged; he would not wear a crown of gold where that King had Worn a crown of thorns, and he kept only his knightly helmet, with the title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre.

  Well did he fulfil his trust, ever active, and meeting the infidels with increasing energy wherever they attacked him; but it was only for one year. The climate undermined his health; he fell sick of a fever, and died in July, 1100, just one year from the taking of Jerusalem. He lies buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, beneath a stone bearing these words: "Here lieth the victorious Duke Godfrey de Bouillon, who won all this land to the Christian faith. May whose soul reign with Christ." His good sword is also still kept in the same church, and was long used to dub the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.

  CAMEO XIV. THE ETHELING FAMILY. (1010-1159.)

  _Kings of England_.

  Knute and his sons.

  Edward.

  Harold.

  William I.

  William II.

  Henry I.

  _Kings of France_.

  Henry I.

  Philippe I.

  Louis VI.

  When, in 1016, the stout-hearted Edmund Ironside was murdered by Edric Streona, he left two infant sons, Edmund and Edward, who fell into the power of Knute.

  These children were placed, soon after, under the care of Olaf Scotkonung, King of Sweden, who had been an ally of their grandfather's, and had sent to England to request that teachers of the Gospel might come to him. By these English clergy he had been baptized, and his country converted, so that they probably induced him to intercede with Knute for the orphan princes. Shortly after, a war broke out between Denmark and Sweden, and Olaf, believing, perhaps, that the boys were unsafe in the North, where Knute's power was so great, transferred them to Buda, to the care of Stephen, King of Hungary.

  It was a happy home for them. Stephen, the first king of Hungary, was a most noble character, a conqueror and founder of a kingdom, humble, devout, pious, and so charitable that he would go about in disguise, seeking for distressed persons. He was a great lawgiver, and drew up an admirable code, in which he was assisted by his equally excellent son Emeric, and was the first person who in any degree civilized the Magyar race. His son Emeric died before him, leaving no children; and, after three years of illness, Stephen himself expired in 1038. His name has ever since been held in high honor, and his arched crown, half-Roman, half-Byzantine, was to the Hungarians what St. Edward's crown is to us. After Hungary was joined to the German Empire, there was still a separate coronation for it, and it was preserved in the castle of Buda, under a guard of sixty-four soldiers, until the rebellion of 1848, when it was stolen by the insurgents, and has never since been recovered.

  After Stephen's death, there was a civil war between the heathen Magyars and the Christians, ending in the victory of the latter, and the establishment of Andrew i
n the kingdom. This was in 1051, and it was probably the sister-in-law of this Andrew whom the Saxon prince Edward married. All we are told about her is, that her name was Agatha, and that she was learned and virtuous.

  In 1058, Edward, the only survivor of the brothers, was invited by his cousin, the childless Confessor, to return to England, and there be owned as Etheling, or heir to the crown. He came, but after his forty years' absence from his native country, his language, habits, and manners were so unlike those of the English, that he was always known by the name of Edward the Stranger.

  After two years, both the Stranger and his wife Agatha died, leaving three young children, Christina, Margaret, and Edgar, of whom the boy was the youngest. His only inheritance, poor child, was his title of Etheling, declaring a claim which was likely to be his greatest peril. Edward the Confessor passed him entirely over in disposing of his kingdom; and as he was but six, or, as some say, ten years old, Harold seems to have feared no danger from him, but left him at liberty within the city of London.

  There he remained while the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings were fought, and there, when the tidings came that the Normans had conquered, the little child was led forth, while a proclamation was made before him that Edgar was King of England. But it was only a few faithful citizens that thus upheld the young descendant of Alfred. Some were faint-hearted, others were ambitious; Edwin and Morkar said they would support him if the bishops would; the bishops declared that the Pope favored the Normans. The Conqueror was advancing, and from the walls of London the glare of flame might be seen, as he burnt the villages of Hertfordshire and Surrey, and soon the camp was set up without the walls, and the Conqueror lodging in King Edward's own palace of Westminster. The lame Alderman Ansgard was carried in his litter to hold secret conference with him, and returned with promises of security for lives and liberties, if the citizens would admit and acknowledge King William. They dreaded the dangers of a seige, and gladly accepted his proposal, threw open their gates, and came forth in procession to Westminster to present him with the keys, basely carrying with them the helpless boy whom they had a few weeks before owned as their king.

  Edgar was a fair child, of the old Saxon stamp of beauty, with flaxen hair and blue eyes; and the Duke of Normandy, harsh as he usually was, received him affectionately. Perhaps he thought of his own orphanhood at the same age, and the many perils through which he had been preserved, and pitied the boy deprived of his kingdom, without one faithful hand raised to protect him, and betrayed to his enemies. He took him in his arms, kissed him, promised him favors and kindness, and never broke the promise.

  For the next two years Edgar remained at the court of William, until the general spirit of hatred of the Normans began to incite the Saxons to rise against them. Cospatric, Earl of Durham, thought it best to secure the safety of the royal children, and, secretly withdrawing Edgar and his two sisters from the court, he embarked with them for the Continent, intending to take them to their mother's home in Hungary.

  Contrary winds drove the ship to Scotland, and there the orphans were brought to King Malcolm III. Never had an apparent misfortune been in truth a greater blessing. Malcolm had but seven years before been himself a wandering exile, sheltered in the court of Edward the Confessor, after his father, the gracious Duncan, was murdered, and the usurper Macbeth on the throne. He had venerated the saintly Confessor, and remembered the untimely death of the Stranger, which had left these children friendless in what was to them a foreign land; and he owed his restoration to his throne to the Saxon army under old Siward Bjorn. Glad to repay his obligations, he conducted the poor wanderers to his castle of Dumfermline, treated them according to their rank, and promised to assert Edgar's claim to the crown.

  He accordingly advanced into England, where, in many places, partial risings were being made on behalf of "England's darling," as the Saxon ballads called young Edgar, after his ancestor Alfred. It was, however, all in vain: Malcolm did not arrive till the English had been defeated on the banks of the Tyne, and the Normans avenging their insurrection by such cruel devastation, that nine years after the commissioners of Domesday Book found no inhabitants nor cultivation to record between York and Durham.

  There is some confusion in both the English and Scottish histories respecting Malcom's exertions in Edgar's cause; indeed, the Border warfare was always going on, and now and then the King took part in it. At length William and Malcolm, each at the head of an army, met in Galloway, and after standing at bay for some days, entered into a treaty. Malcolm paid homage to the English King for the two Lothians and Cumberland, and at the same time secured the safety of Edgar Etheling. The boy solemnly renounced all claim to the English crown, engaging never to molest the Conqueror or his children in their possession of it; while, on the other hand, he was endowed with estates in England, and a pension of a mark of silver a day was settled upon him. He could not at this time have been more than fourteen-there is more reason to think he was but ten years old-but the oath that he then took he kept with the most unshaken fidelity, in the midst of temptations, and of examples of successful perjury.

  He returned with his friend to Scotland, where, the next year, his beautiful sister Margaret consented to become the wife of their host, the King Malcolm; but Christina, the other sister, preferred a conventual life, though she seems for the present to have continued with Margaret at Dumfermline.

  Gentle Margaret, bred in some quiet English convent; taught by her mother to remember the Greek cultivation and holy learning of good King Stephen's court; perhaps blessed by the tender hand of pious Edward the Confessor, and trained by the sweet rose, Edith, sprung from the thorn, Godwin; she must have felt desolate and astray among the rude, savage Scots, wild chiefs of clans, owning no law, full of brawling crime and violence, too strong to be kept in order by force, and their wives almost as untamed and rude as themselves. Her husband was a rough, untutored warrior, ruling by the main force of a strong hand, and asking counsel of his own honest heart and ready wit, but perfectly ignorant, and probably uncouth in his appearance, as his appellation of Cean Mohr means Great-head.

  But Margaret was a true daughter of Alfred, and the traditions of the Alfred of Hungary were fresh upon her, and, instead of sitting down to cower alarmed amid the turmoils round her, she set herself to conquer the evils in her own feminine way, by her performance of her queenly duties. She was happy in her husband: Malcolm revered her saintly purity even more than he loved her sweet, sunny, cheerful manner, or admired her surpassing loveliness of person. He looked on her as something too precious and tender for his wild, rugged court, and attended to her slightest bidding with reverence, kissing her holy books which he could not read, and interpreting her Saxon-spoken advice to his rude Celts. She even made him help her to wash the feet of the poor, and aid her in disgusting offices to the diseased, and his royal treasury was open to her to take all that she desired for alms. Sometimes she would pretend to take it by stealth, and Malcolm would catch her by the wrists and carry her to her confessor, to ask if she was not a little thief who deserved to be well punished. In his turn he would steal away her books, and bring them back after a time, gilt and adorned with beautiful illuminations.

  The love and reverence with which so bold a warrior treated her, together with her own grace and dignity, had its effect on the unruly Scottish chieftains, and not one of them ventured to use a profane word, or make an unseemly jest before her. They had a rude, ungodly practice of starting away from table without waiting for grace, and this the gentle queen reformed by sending, as an especial gift from herself, a cup of wine to all who remained. In after times the last cup was called, after her, St. Margaret's cup, or the grace-cup.

  To improve the manners of the ladies, she gathered round her a number of young girls, whom she brought up under her own eye, and she used to sit in the midst of them, embroidering rich vestments for the service of the Church, and permitting cheerful talk with the nobles whom she admitted-all men of whose characte
r she had a good opinion. She endeavored to reform the Scottish Church which had become very sluggish, and did little to contend with Highland savagery. There were only three Bishops and those not with fixed sees. Margaret and her husband convened a synod, when Margaret herself explained her views, and Malcolm interpreted. It was not a usual order of things, but to themselves quite satisfactory, and thenceforth the Scottish Church became assimilated to the rest of the Western communion. It was a Saxon immigration: the Lowlands became more English than England then was, and Scotch is still more like Saxon than the tongue we speak. But the Celts bitterly hated the change; and thenceforth the land was divided.

  She was gay and playful; but her fasts and mortifications in secret were very great. She cut off unnecessary food and sleep, and spent half the night in prayer. She daily washed the feet of six poor people, and washed, clothed, and fed nine orphan babes, besides relieving all who came to ask her bounty, attending to the sick, and sending to ransom captives, especially her own countrymen the English, lodging her rescued prisoners in a hospital which she had founded, till they could be sent to their own homes.

  Leading this happy and holy life, Edgar left his sister about two years after her marriage, upon an invitation from Philippe I. of France; but he was shipwrecked on the coast of Normandy, and coming to Rouen, was kindly received by William, and remained with him. A close friendship sprung up between the disinherited Etheling and Robert the heir of Normandy, who was only a year or two older. Both were brave, open-hearted, and generous, and their love for each other endured, on Edgar's side, through many a trial and trouble. Happy would it have been for Robert had all his friends been like Edgar Adeling, as the Normans called him. A few years more made Edgar a fine young man, expert in the exercises of chivalry, and full of the spirit of enterprise: but he did not join his friend in rebellion against his father; and after Robert had quitted Rouen, never to return thither in his father's lifetime, he obtained permission from William to go on pilgrimage, gave his pension for a fine horse, and set off for Italy with two hundred knights, fought there, or in Sicily, against the Saracens, for some time, and then continued his pilgrimage.