Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

CHAPTER LII
DEFIANT TILL DEATH

THE Count de Perche found himself in a woeful plight. He was on foot, for his charger had been killed under him, and he was almost alone in the midst of the foes whom he had ever treated with such contempt. His friends and allies had fled or yielded, but he neither thought of flying nor yielding. At that moment, life, as life, had no charms for him; but, unfortunately, the prospect of death was bitter and horrible; for being, like his lord, an excommunicated man, he knew that he was not even entitled to Christian burial.

De Perche’s proud soul was wrung with bitter agony, and as his enemies slowly advanced he groaned aloud and uttered a sharp cry, the groan and cry of a superlatively proud warrior in extreme mental anguish. Scarcely knowing what he did in his perplexity, the count retreated slowly to the churchyard of the cathedral, and, setting his back against a wall, he shouted defiance at his assailants as they came resolutely on.

De Perche’s foes formed themselves in front of him in a semi-circle, and the Earl of Pembroke, who could not but admire the count’s dauntless bearing in the hour of defeat and despair, invited him to surrender.

“Yield, sir count,” said the earl in accents which he meant to be persuasive. “You have done all that a brave man could. Therefore yield and live. Life has its sweets.”

“No; not with glory gone,” replied De Perche with energy. “Never shall it be told in Christendom, to my dispraise, that sweet France fell into contempt through me. Let those yield who love life better than honour. Never by me shall such evil example be set. But before I die I will sell myself dear.”

“Yield, yield!” cried Pembroke, and Salisbury, and others of the English, impatiently. “Yield, sir count.”

“Never!” exclaimed De Perche, irritated by the impatience of their tone. “By the bones of St. John the Baptist, never shall any but liars have it in their power to tell that I yielded to a pack of tailed English, who are traitors to their lawful sovereign, Lord Louis.”

The victors, who stood before De Perche in a semi-circle, still hesitated; for, in spite of the count’s insulting language, the courage he displayed in the presence of such manifest peril excited their admiration. But one English knight lost temper and sprang forward.

“By the mass,” exclaimed he, setting his teeth on edge, “such pride and petulance merit sharp punishment: and if this scornful Frank will not yield to Englishmen, he must die by an Englishman’s hand.”

A keen combat ensued, but it was brief as keen. The knight aimed a blow at De Perche; the count warded off the blow, and returned it with such force that sparks of fire flew from the knight’s helmet, and he was almost beaten to his knee. But quick as thought the English knight recovered himself, and making a fierce thrust at De Perche’s eye, pierced him to the brain. Without uttering a word, the count rolled lifeless on the ground.

A brief silence succeeded De Perche’s fall; and as the victors stood in a circle, gazing on the lifeless body of their foe, who while living had been so scornful, the silence was rudely interrupted by a shout of vengeance. Breaking through the crowd, a young warrior burst wildly into the circle, in a guise which made nobles and knights stare – his steel cap battered, his shield bruised with blows, his axe reeking with gore, his white jacket spotted red with that day’s carnage, his eyes flashing fire, his teeth grinding with rage, and the word “Revenge!” on his tongue.

It was Oliver Icingla; and he came to execute the vengeance he had, weeks earlier, sworn to take on the head of the Count de Perche, whenever and wherever he might meet the man whom he regarded as his mother’s murderer.

“You are too late, Master Icingla,” said the Earl of Salisbury to his former squire and fellow-captive. “De Perche has fallen by the hand of another.”

“I grieve to hear it,” said Oliver.

“The noble count, pierced through brain and eye, has already gone to his account.”

“So perish all England’s enemies!” exclaimed Oliver, glancing at the fallen Frenchman.

“But we war not with the dead,” said Salisbury, solemnly; “and in the hour of victory it grieves me to call to mind that the body of a warrior who died so bravely cannot be laid in a Christian grave. But,” added the earl in a whisper, “may his soul be admitted within the gates of Paradise, and may it repose in holy flowers!”

“Amen,” added Oliver earnestly, as he crossed himself. “My lord, I doubt not you are right. Death clears all scores; so they say, at least. And I trust that his soul will be pardoned, and find repose in the regions whither it has winged its flight.”

CHAPTER LIII
AFTER THE BATTLE

NO sooner did intelligence that the day was going against the Count de Perche and the Anglo-Norman barons spread through Lincoln than consternation prevailed among the women whose kinsmen were connected with the army doomed to defeat. Many of them, indeed, left their houses to avoid insult, and, embarking on the Witham in boats, endeavoured to escape with their children and servants, and such valuable property as they could carry. Events proved that their fears were not unfounded.

In fact, notwithstanding the discipline maintained by Pembroke, and the desire which he naturally felt to save the country from violence and spoliation, he could not, in the hour of triumph, save Lincoln from the horrors of war. Flushed with victory and eager for spoil, the royalists, after having assured themselves that their foes were utterly beaten, assumed all the airs of conquerors, and acted as if they had a right to everything in the shape of plunder on which they could lay hands.

At first the victors contented themselves with rifling the waggons and sumpter-mules containing the baggage of the French and the barons, and found much booty in the shape of silver vessels and rich furniture of various kinds. But this merely whetted their appetites for booty, and, spreading rapidly over the city, they began to pillage the houses, rushing from place to place with axes and hammers, and breaking open store-rooms and chests, and seizing upon gold and silver goblets, and jewels, and gold rings, and women’s ornaments, and rich garments.

Nothing, in fact, seems to have come amiss to them that was not too hot or too heavy, and the churches were not respected any more than the houses. Even the cathedral was not spared. In fact, the clergy of Lincoln, being, like the bishop, stanch partisans of Prince Louis, and under sentence of excommunication, were not only odious to the king’s friends, but looked on by the English soldiers as persons whom they, as faithful sons of the Church, were justified in plundering.

Meantime the women who had embarked on the Witham with their children and domestics had not been fortunate in their efforts to escape. Much too eager to leave the scene of carnage to be cautious in the mode of doing so, they overloaded the boats to a dangerous degree, and when fairly afloat they neither knew how to row nor steer. As a consequence, serious evil befel them through the boats getting foul of one another, and by various causes, and many of the fair fugitives went to the bottom of the river with the property which they had been anxious to save, “so that,” says the chronicler, “there were afterwards found in the river by searchers goblets of silver and many other articles of value, for the boats had been overloaded, and the women, not knowing how to manage them, all perished.”

At length the riot and pillage came to an end, and the king’s peace having been proclaimed through the city, the conquerors ate and drank merrily in celebrating the victory they had so easily gained against great odds. Ere this, however, everything having been settled, Pembroke prepared to carry to the king tidings of the great triumph which had crowned the efforts of his adherents. Having, therefore, instructed the barons and knights to return to the fortresses of which they were castellans, and to carry their prisoners with them, and to keep them safely in custody till the king’s pleasure was known, the protector, without even dining or taking food, rode off to Stowe to inform young Henry of the great victory, which made him in reality sovereign of England.

Even next day the consequences began to appear. Early on Sunday morning couriers reached Stowe with intelligence that Henry de Braybroke and his garrison had abandoned Mount Sorrel, and the king sent orders to the Sheriff of Nottingham to raze the castle to the ground.

Of all the men of rank who fought in the battle few fell. Indeed, only two are mentioned by name – Richard, surnamed Crocus, and the Count de Perche – one on the winning, the other on the losing side. Richard, who was Falco’s brave knight, was carried by his companions to Croxton and laid with all honour in the abbey. The Count de Perche, whose comrades-in-arms were slain, or taken, or fled, and who, as an excommunicated man, could not, of course, be laid in consecrated ground, was interred in the orchard of the hospital of St. Giles, founded by Bishop Remigius outside the walls of Lincoln as a house of refuge for decayed priests.

And so ended the battle of Lincoln in a victory of which Pembroke might well and justly be proud. It not only overthrew the army on which Louis relied for success in his enterprise, but it utterly undid all the work which he had been doing in England since that June day when he rode into London amidst the cheers of an unreasoning multitude.

As for the feudal magnates who had offered him a crown which was not theirs to give, and who had done him homage as their sovereign, they were no longer in a position to aid him, even if they had been so inclined, but captives at the mercy of a king whose father they had hunted to death, and whose inheritance they had attempted to give to a stranger. Besides Robert Fitzwalter and the Anglo-Norman earls and barons, three hundred knights and a multitude of men holding inferior rank were prisoners.

Moreover, the spoil was regarded as something marvellous, and the English, remembering the multitudinous articles of value that fell into their hands that day as booty, and the ease with which they had obtained it, though so much the weaker party, were long in the habit of talking jocularly of that very memorable Saturday in the Whitsuntide of the year 1217, and with grim humour describing the battle as “Lincoln Fair.”

CHAPTER LIV
AN AWKWARD PREDICAMENT

WHEN the army of the Count de Perche had been routed at Lincoln during Whitsuntide, and the armament of Eustace the Monk destroyed at the mouth of the Thames, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, the position of Prince Louis became desperate, and he felt infinitely more eager to get out of England without dishonour than he had felt to invade it a year earlier. But this proved no easy business; and the prince had to pass several months of such intense anxiety as he was little prepared to experience.

On hearing of the catastrophe of Lincoln, Louis immediately abandoned the siege of Dover, and made for London, perhaps still hoping against hope. But even in the capital, which had been his stronghold, he soon discovered that he was the reverse of secure. Plots and conspiracies to drive out the French were almost every week brought to light, and countenanced by many who had once shouted most loudly, “All hail, Lord Louis!” Constantine Fitzarnulph, indeed, continued true to the end; but, as a body, the rich citizens were most anxious to get out of the scrape into which they had been beguiled by the confederate barons who at Lincoln had surrendered like so many sheep.

Such being the state of affairs, Louis never knew what a day might bring forth; and he became somewhat apprehensive of consequences, as he informed Philip Augustus by letter, saying, at the same time, “Our losses are brought on by God more than by man.”

The King of France, somewhat alarmed, summoned the messengers of Louis to his presence.

“Does William Marshal still live?” asked he.

“Yes, sire,” answered they.

“Then,” said Philip, much relieved, “I have no fears for my son.”

The French king was so far right that the adversaries of Prince Louis had now much more compassion for him than his friends, who blamed him for all their misfortunes; and Pembroke was as moderate in the day of triumph as he had been inflexible in the day of adversity. But he did not, therefore, fail in his duty to the young king or to the country, the affairs of which, as protector, he had undertaken to administer. He was a man who understood not only how to conquer but how to conciliate; and in order to begin the work of conciliation he felt strongly the necessity of ridding England of the invaders without any unnecessary delay. Therefore he marched his army on London, while the mariners of the Cinque Ports sailed into the Thames, and, beleaguering the city both by land and water, so that no provisions could enter it, he reduced the French prince to such extreme distress that he shouted out very earnestly for peace. Accordingly a conference was appointed with a view of settling the terms on which peace was to be concluded.

The 11th of September was appointed for this important conference; and on that day, Henry, attended by the protector, and Louis by such of his nobles as had survived the war, met near Kingston, on an islet of the Thames. Everything went smoothly, for Louis was all eagerness to shake himself clear of his perplexities; and Pembroke, so far from being inclined to bear hard on vanquished foes, was sincerely anxious to convert them into friends. Accordingly, such terms were agreed to as enabled the French prince to leave England without dishonour, and gave the captive barons an opportunity of recovering their liberty and returning to their allegiance.

“It was concluded,” says the chronicler, “that Prince Louis should have fifteen thousand marks for the charges he had been at, and abjure his claim to any interest in the kingdom; and withal to work his father for restitution of such provinces in France as appertained to the English crown, and that when he himself should be king he should resign them in a peaceable manner. On the other hand, King Henry takes his oath, and after him the legate and the protector, to restore unto the barons of the realm, and others his subjects, all their rights and privileges, for which the discord began between the late king and his people. After this, Prince Louis is honourably attended to Dover, and departs out of England about Michaelmas.”

Almost ere the ships which carried the French prince and his surviving comrades from the land which they had hoped to make their own had reached France, affairs in England assumed their wonted aspect, and Englishmen most devoutly thanked Heaven that peace was restored to the suffering country. Nor did Pembroke leave his work half done. The Great Charter having been carefully revised, and so modified as not to interfere with “the king’s government being carried on,” was solemnly confirmed, to the satisfaction of all parties; and young Henry, when he entered London, on the occasion of going to be crowned with the golden crown of the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, “was received with great joy by the people.”

Gay indeed was the city of London on that day, and gladly the citizens, rejoicing in the restoration of peace – with the exception of Constantine Fitzarnulph, who muttered vague threats about “biding his time,” and shut himself up in his high, large dwelling – decked their houses, and rushed to window and housetop to witness the procession, which certainly contrasted marvellously with the procession which, twelve months earlier, had been witnessed, at a period so gloomy, by the citizens of Gloucester. Keen was the curiosity of the dames and damsels to see what they could of the pageant; and even Dame Waledger, albeit looking somewhat sullen, and Beatrix de Moreville, albeit looking somewhat sad, came forth to view the magnificent cavalcade from the balcony of the great mansion of the De Morevilles, in Ludgate. De Moreville himself was away in the far North, shut up within the strong walls of Mount Moreville, his mind alternating between vague hopes and desperate resolutions, never even mentioning his daughter to Ralph Hornmouth, but one day forming a project for placing Alexander, King of Scots, on the English throne, another day vowing by the bones of St. Moden to raise his own banner and make an effort to redeem the lost cause of Louis, and on a third declaring that his career was run, and that nothing remained but to take the cowl and become a monk in the great abbey which his ancestor had founded at Dryburgh, on the Tweed; but Sir Anthony Waledger, who, freed from his captivity and solaced by the wine-cup, bore defeat more easily, was, though carefully concealed, looking scornfully out on the triumph of those against whom he had fought, if not with chivalrous courage, at least with fiendish malevolence.

And grand and brilliant indeed – with its banners, and martial music, and heralds – looked the company of earls and barons and knights and squires who attended the boy-king in his procession, their plumes and mantles waving and their bridles ringing as they rode haughtily along, their steeds stepping proudly, as if they disdained the ground. But no one looked that day higher and braver than Oliver Icingla, who, side by side with William Longsword, Salisbury’s young heir, rode gallantly along on his black horse Ayoub, no longer wearing the white jacket in which he had made himself so terrible to the French, but arrayed, as beseemed his rank, in cap and white feather, and gay mantelet of scarlet, now and then, also, recognised by the crowd, and cheered as “The Icingla,” and as the boy-warrior whose axe had been wielded with such good effect against England’s foes.

And as the cavalcade reached Ludgate, on the way westward, the gate presented a slight impediment and there was a brief halt in the procession, and as Oliver raised his eyes to that balcony where De Moreville’s daughter was under the wing of Dame Waledger, they encountered that marvellously fair face, with eyes like the violet and hair like the raven’s wing, which had haunted him in all his adventures, and, as he gallantly raised his cap, his heart for a moment leaped with the emotion of a young lover suddenly face to face with her he adores. But it was only for a moment. Quick as the lightning’s flash his memory recalled that terrible dream, the recollection of which he had in vain endeavoured to banish, and so powerful was the impression which it had left, that he almost involuntarily breathed a prayer to be delivered from temptation. As he did so the procession resumed its course towards Westminster, and Oliver rode on, musing silently, and all that day and all that night his thoughts were gloomy, and he was still in melancholy mood next morning when, having been roused at sunrise, he mounted to accompany William de Collingham to take possession of Chas-Chateil in King Henry’s name.

And Beatrix de Moreville became more sad. Part of her sadness arose from the belief that Oliver Icingla had all but forgotten the fair kinswoman whose presence had cheered his heart in captivity as sunshine lights up the landscape in latest October, or only remembered to think of her with dislike as the daughter of a man by whom he had been deeply injured. But this was not all that preyed upon the mind of Beatrix de Moreville, and brought the tears to her eyes. She was aware that Constantine Fitzarnulph, known to her only as a person of strong will and violent ambition, had become madly enamoured of her; that he had vowed that the Norman maiden should be his bride. She was aware that he had secured the co-operation of the Waledgers, male and female, who, reflecting on De Moreville’s harshness in other days, and deeming him now ruined and powerless either to benefit or to injure, had neither scruples nor fears so far as the Norman baron was concerned; and she was aware, also, that Fitzarnulph had, in all the confidence of untold wealth and municipal influence, sworn by the blood of St. Thomas, citizen as he was, he should wed the proud demoiselle, even if it cost the country a revolution and ten thousand lives to fill up the social gap that separated them.

Such being her position, and being endowed with all the sensitive delicacy of a flower reared in a forest, De Moreville’s daughter, finding herself abandoned by her sire, shut up in that great house in Ludgate, worried daily by Dame Waledger, pestered by Sir Anthony, and with no one of her own age, and rank, and sex to sympathise with her woes, brooded pensively as she recalled the past, with all its romance, and sighed heavily as she thought of the future, with all its hazards.

It was, in truth, a woeful termination to the sweet and fanciful musings of which Oliver’s captivity at Chas-Chateil had been the origin. Why, O why, did the heir of the Icinglas dream that frightful dream in the Sussex forest?