Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

CHAPTER XVIII
THE DAY OF RUNNYMEDE

IT was Friday, the 15th of June, 1215, a week before Midsummer Eve, or the vigil of John the Baptist, and the sun shone fair on Runnymede – a large green meadow on the margin of the Thames, midway between Windsor and Staines – when thither came King John and the Anglo-Norman barons (the King from Windsor, and the barons from Staines) to bring their fierce dispute to a close, and give peace and security to England, by putting their signatures and the great seal of the realm to that important document since known as Magna Charta, and regarded with veneration as the foundation of England’s laws and liberties.

Runnymede was not unworthy of being the scene of a ceremony so memorable in the annals of a nation which clung tenaciously to its old history and traditions, and which forced even the iron-handed, iron-clad, and strong-willed heirs of the Norman conquerors – the grandsons of the men who had fought under the banner of Duke William at Hastings – to treat the history and traditions with respect, and demand a restoration of the laws of Edward the Confessor, the last of the old royal line. In earlier days, when the Saxon kings had a palace at Old Windsor, Runnymede had been celebrated as a place where the people assembled to discuss public questions of great moment; and where now cattle graze and wild flowers spring, grew a gigantic oak, under the shade of which Alfred or Athelstane, perhaps, had occupied a throne of stone, and sat in royal state, when rallying their subjects to their standard to resist the inroads of the Danes.

It was around this oak, which the English regarded with a superstitious veneration, the origin of which might have been traced back to the time when the Druids performed their mysterious rites, and sacrificed and feasted under the shelter of its spreading branches, that the king and the barons met – John, who was attired in a gorgeous style, being attended by the Earl of Pembroke, Hugh Neville, Keeper of the Great Seal, the papal legate and eight bishops, and seventy knights – Fitzwalter and his confederates, who were in chain-mail, with long swords at their sides, having an array of fighting men which fully proved the mighty feudal power they possessed, and one sight of which must have convinced their sovereign that, on that day at least, they were masters, and that he was there simply to do their bidding.

Nor, to judge from John’s countenance and demeanour, would it have been possible for a spectator, however acute or intelligent, to entertain any doubt that he was a willing actor in the solemn scene that was being enacted in presence of the legate and the bishops. When the charter, of which he well knew and understood the contents, was handed to him, he received it with alacrity, and signed it without a murmur expressive of reluctance, and looked on calmly, almost cheerfully, while the barons – each in his turn – set their signatures to it, and Hugh Neville, in his official capacity, appended the great seal of the realm. But now a circumstance occurred which brought the blood to John’s cheek. In fact, it appeared that, after all this signing and sealing, the ceremony was not yet at an end, but that the barons had more demands to make.

“Now,” said they, “we require security for the charter being faithfully observed.

“It is necessary, in the first place, that you should engage to send all foreign knights and fighting men out of the kingdom.

“It is necessary, in the second place, that we should be allowed to remain undisturbed for two months in possession of London, and the archbishop in possession of the Tower.

“It is necessary, in the third place, that a committee of twenty-five barons should be appointed as conservators of this charter of liberties, and to decide all claims in conformity with its provisions.”

On hearing so many fresh demands John flushed and started with surprise, and his brow darkened. But he cast a glance over the formidable body of knights, and squires, and men-at-arms whom the barons had brought to overawe him, and, feeling the necessity of being calm, he checked his rising indignation, and answered calmly,

“My lords, I do not deny that I am taken by surprise; as, in truth, I well may be when I think of your demands. Nevertheless, I object not to accede so far as consists with my honour. I will send the foreign knights and soldiers out of the kingdom; I will leave the city of London in your hands, and the Tower in the hands of the archbishop, for the space of two months; and I consent to the appointment of a committee of twenty-five barons as conservators of the charter.”

It was clear – so thought the confederates – that the king would yield anything; and the names of the twenty-five conservators were read. They were Robert Fitzwalter, Robert de Roos, William Albini, Eustace de Vesci, Humphrey Bohun, Roger and Hugh Bigod, William de Fortibus, Richard and Gilbert de Clare, Gilbert Delaval, John Fitzrobert, Geoffrey Mandeville, William de Huntingfield, John de Lacy, William de Lumvallei or Lanvally, Richard de Montpellier, William Malet, Roger and William de Moubray, William Marshal the younger, Richard Percy, Sayer de Guency, Geoffrey de Say, and Robert de Vere – all either earls or barons of great power, and maintaining great feudal state, but not by any means men who had ever had a generous thought for the welfare of the English race, till they found themselves at issue with the king as to the scutages, and found also that they could not make head against him without getting the nation on their side.

But for the time being they were playing the part of patriots and having it all their own way. So they deemed it not unsafe to go a step farther and make another demand.

“It is, moreover, necessary,” said they, addressing the king, “that you should give a promise in writing never to apply to the Pope for a dispensation to relieve you from the engagements into which you have now entered.”

“My lords,” said John, with undisguised astonishment in his face, “I have consented to your keeping the city and Tower of London, and to the committee of conservators, and I will send without delay all foreign knights out of the kingdom; but,” added he, resolutely, “I will pledge myself no further, be the consequences what they may. Nay,” added he, interrupting Langton, who was beginning to speak, “I cannot and will not listen further;” and, rising from his seat, John walked deliberately to where his knights were stationed, mounted his horse, and rode slowly away to Windsor.

But his departure was by no means triumphant. Not more than seventy knights accompanied him – a mere handful of armed men compared to the host of enemies whom he left behind; and even of the seventy knights very few were zealous in his cause. Dismal as had frequently been his prospects, they had never before been at so low an ebb. But he did not yet despair. Time and patience might still enable him to prevail over all the difficulties that beset him; and he rode up the steep that leads to Windsor revolving plans for emancipating himself and his crown from the feudal and ecclesiastical trammels in which both were bound.

Arrived at Windsor, John dismounted and entered the castle, and gave way to the wrath he had been hoarding up. Neither food nor drink did he take. He beat his breast, tore his hoary hair, rolled on the floor, rose up all the more violent for the exertion, cursed the day he was born, swore like a trooper and raved like a maniac, and all day stamped so furiously about that his attendants feared that his reason was going. As evening fell, however, he recovered his equanimity, and instantly took measures for disconcerting the plans of his enemies. As night deepened he summoned two of his knights and despatched them to the Continent. One was commissioned to repair to Rome for the purpose of invoking the aid of the Pope; the other to Guienne and Flanders to secure the swords of as many mercenaries as could be tempted to England by the promise of pay and the prospect of plunder. This done, John at length sat down to supper, and made up for lost time by eating ravenously and drinking copiously, and as the red wine sparkled in his golden cup his imagination conjured up visions of beheaded barons and burned castles.

“By God’s teeth!” said he to William de Hartarad, his cup-bearer, “it shall be done.”

“Sire,” replied the cup-bearer, soothingly, “be calm and chafe not over much. It were best to sleep over your project; a man’s pillow is often his safest counsellor in times of difficulty. May you find it such!”

Having supped, John sought his chamber, which was fragrant with the Eastern spices then burned in the sleeping apartments of kings and princes, and threw himself on his bed of red velvet, richly embroidered with gold and silver. But such was the excitement through which he had passed during the day that he invoked sleep in vain. Restless and feverish, he rose about midnight and looked out on the park which reposed peacefully under the light of the moon. Suddenly a new idea took possession of his mind, and for awhile he pondered deeply.

“I seem,” said he to himself, “to see a hand beckoning me away, and to hear in mine ear a voice saying, ‘Arise, king, and go hence; it is not good for you to be here.’ By the light of Our Lady’s brow! I will be gone. Rather let me herd with the beasts of the forest than be further humbled by these barons, on whose trunkless heads the sun shall ere long shine.”

He then awoke the squire who slept at the door of his chamber, and ordered horses to be saddled and men to be mounted; and, just as morning began to dawn and the song of the nightingale ceased, and the antlers of the deer stirred above the fern, and the red in the east heralded the rise of the sun, the king, having mounted, left the castle and rode away through the park of Windsor, to which he was never to return.

“Now,” soliloquised he, “let mine enemies tremble, for I will oppose guile to guile and force to force. Revenge is sweet, and revenge, at least, I may enjoy; and even if Fate do her worst I am prepared. Rather than be their slave I will commit my soul to God and my body to St. Wulstan.”

CHAPTER XIX
CHAS-CHATEIL

ON the summit of a hill looking over the vale of the Kennet stood the castle of Chas-Chateil, surrounded by a park well wooded, and stocked with deer and beasts of game. It had been built in the reign of Stephen by Henry de Moreville, a great baron who flourished in the twelfth century and bore an eagle on his shield, after his return from the Holy Land; and as the Morevilles were favourites with the second Henry, it escaped destruction during the time when the politic king razed so many feudal fortresses to the ground. Originally it was an ordinary Norman castle, consisting of a basecourt, the sides of the walls being fortified with angles, towers, buttresses, battlements, and hornworks. But it was now a far prouder and more magnificent edifice – a place which, if well garrisoned and provisioned, might, before the invention of cannon, have held out long against a besieging army.

In fact, few men in England had a more thorough perception of the utter insecurity of national affairs at that time than Hugh de Moreville. Having long foreseen the crisis, he had not neglected to set his house in order; and Chas-Chateil had, consequently, been much enlarged and strengthened, and much improved both as regarded the appearance which it presented in its exterior and as regarded the comfort which it afforded to the inmates. At morning, indeed, when seen at sunrise it had quite a gay and laughing aspect; and in the interior everything was arranged with a view of rendering feudal life as tolerable and pleasant as possible. The outer galleries glittered with the armour of the sentinels, and the towers were all bright with their new gratings, and the roofs bordered with machicolations, parapets, guard-walks, and sentry-boxes; and on passing the chapel, dedicated to St. Moden – the patron saint of the Morevilles – and entering the court, with its fountain and its cisterns, you found the kitchens, with their mighty fireplaces on one side, and stables and hen-houses and pigeons on the other side, and in the middle, strongly defended, the donjon, where were kept the archives and the treasure of the house. Below were the cellars, the vaults, and, what were sometimes as well filled as either, the prisons, in which unhappy captives pined and groaned; and above, and only to be reached by one spacious stone stair, the apartments occupied by the family and dependants of the lord of the castle – the great hall, the lady’s bower, the guest-room, the bed-chambers, and the numerous cribs necessary for the accommodation of the multitudinous domestics, who, arrayed in the picturesque costume and speaking the quaint language of the period, and wearing the Moreville eagle, under the names of demoiselles, waiting-women, squires, pages, grooms, yeomen, henchmen, minstrels, and jesters, formed the household of a feudal magnate.

But when Oliver Icingla entered the castle of his maternal ancestors, the hour was so late that everything was quiet, most of the household having betaken themselves to repose. Nor, in truth, had he any opportunity of making observations. With very little ceremony he was told to dismount from his horse; and having, not without a sigh, parted from Ayoub, he was conducted, manacled as he was, up the great stone stair, and into the interior of the castle, and that with such haste that he had scarcely time to take breath, far less to collect his thoughts, till, after passing through several galleries, he found himself in a somewhat dimly lighted room. There, covered with a mantle of minever, Hugh de Moreville was stretched on a couch, his favourite hound by his side.

The Norman baron was occupied with his last meal for the day – that cold collation, generally taken at nine o’clock, and known as “liverie.” But it was evident he was merely going through a form, and that he could not taste the viands. In fact, De Moreville was suffering severely from gout – the result of indulgence in good cheer during his brief stay in the capital – and his temper, never celestial, was so severely tried by pain and twitches, that, at times, he was inclined to mutter imprecations the reverse of complimentary on king, barons, citizens, the laws of Edward the Confessor, even the Great Charter itself.

“What ho, young kinsman!” said he, recovering himself after a moment, and speaking in a bantering tone; “I hardly deemed myself such a favourite of Fortune as that she should send you under the roof of Chas-Chateil; but I rejoice to see you. Our last meeting was unlucky in this, that we parted without your fully understanding me. By St. Moden, you shall now comprehend my meaning!”

“My lord,” replied Oliver, speaking calmly, though his blood boiled with indignation at the tone in which he was addressed, “I thank you for welcoming me to the castle which is the inheritance of my mother; albeit I cannot help confessing that it would have been more pleasing to come under different circumstances. However, of that anon. Meantime, vouchsafe to inform me for what reason I have been hunted like a robber by your men-at-arms, and dragged here forcibly against my will. I demand to know.”

De Moreville laughed mockingly, and raised his eyes to the roof of the chamber, whereupon were carved some grotesque figures, each of which might be intended to represent that important bird the Moreville eagle.

“On my faith!” answered he at length, “I marvel much that any youth with the Moreville blood in his veins can be such a dullard as to ask such a question. But an answer you shall have. You were seized and brought hither because you were engaged in attempts at variance with the laws of the land and the authority of the barons, the conservators of the charter signed at Runnymede.”

“Answer me two questions,” said Oliver, sternly. “Am I a prisoner? and if so, is my life aimed at?”

“Everything depends on yourself. Meanwhile, you have letters from Queen Isabel to King John. Hand them to me.”

“You do me great injustice,” said Oliver, “in supposing it possible that, if intrusted with letters, I should render them to any but the person for whose hand they were intended.”

“Is that your answer?” fiercely demanded De Moreville.

“It is my answer,” retorted Oliver, with equal heat; “and it is an answer more courteous than you deserve.”

“By the bones of St. Moden!” exclaimed De Moreville, with a frowning brow, “I can no longer brook such obstinacy! May I become an Englishman if I bend or break not your proud spirit ere the year is much nearer midsummer!” and he blew a silver whistle that lay at his side, the sound of which instantly brought Ralph Hornmouth and another man-at-arms into the chamber.

“Ho, there! Ralph Hornmouth,” said De Moreville, fiercely, “give me the letters which this varlet has about him. Methinks, from the direction his eye took when I mentioned them, he has them in his boots.”

Hornmouth and his comrade obeyed; and Oliver, notwithstanding a brave struggle, had the bitter mortification, while prostrated on his back and held down, of seeing the queen’s letter taken from his boot and handed to the Norman baron; but no second letter could be found, for the very excellent reason that no such letter had ever been in existence.

Meanwhile, De Moreville perused the epistle slowly, and as he read, his countenance evinced disappointment. It seemed, indeed, that the letter did not contain the kind of information he expected; and he turned to Oliver, who was again on his feet, almost weeping from rage, and regarding his kinsman with angry glances.

“You will now inform me,” said he, like a man determined on having an answer by fair or foul means, “whither William de Collingham has gone, and with what intent.”

“Dog of a Norman!” exclaimed Oliver, giving way to his fury, “I would not answer such a question to save my body from the bernicles. Villain and oppressor, do your worst; I defy you and your myrmidons.”

“I can waste no more time in bandying words,” said De Moreville, significantly. “Conduct this varlet to the blind chamber of the prison-house,” continued he, addressing Hornmouth, “and give him a taste of the brake. The blind chamber has, in its day, brought still worse madmen than he is to their senses, and the brake has proved too much for the endurance of hardier limbs.”

Oliver Icingla shuddered. He rapidly recalled to memory the stories he had often heard from men of English race of the atrocious cruelties perpetrated by Norman barons in earlier reigns on their unfortunate prisoners; how one victim was starved to death; how a second was flung into a cellar full of reptiles; how a third was hung up by the thumbs; how a fourth was crippled in a frame which was so constructed that he could not move an inch in any direction; and how a fifth was suspended from a sharp collar round his neck, with his toes just resting on the ground. It was natural enough that Oliver should shudder as the recollection of such things flashed through his brain; and as they did so his blood ran cold, and his heart beat fast and loud. But he was game to the backbone; and De Moreville, who watched him narrowly, could not but marvel that there was not, even for a moment, any appearance of the slightest inclination to show the white feather.

“I am in your power,” said he, in a firm voice, as he threw back his head proudly. “You can do with me as you please; but bear in mind that whatever you do will be at your peril.”

“Away with him!” cried De Moreville, with an impatient gesture; and Oliver was led from the chamber.

CHAPTER XX
OLIVER’S CAPTIVITY

WHEN Oliver Icingla was drawn away by Ralph Hornmouth from the presence of Hugh de Moreville, he felt conscious that, for the time being, he was endowed with more than the obstinacy of the mule – with an obstinacy which he felt to be invincible. A strange reaction had taken place after his display of rage and excitement; and he was as calm as contempt could make a human being. As for the blind chamber to which the Norman baron had ordered him to be consigned, he manned himself to face its horrors, be they what they might, without flinching; and he vowed internally, no matter what torments they made him endure, that he would tell them nothing, but that he defied their worst malignity – not even that he was quite unaware of the object of Collingham’s journey northward, which he might have stated with perfect truth, for he only knew that the knight was going, in the first place, to Lincoln.

Much surprised, however, was Oliver when, after being conducted through a long gallery, he found himself led into an apartment which, so far from being a chamber of horrors, neither appeared worse nor more uncomfortable than many it had been his lot to occupy; and still more surprised was he, while gazing round sullenly, that Ralph Hornmouth, after carefully closing the door and ordering his comrade to keep watch outside, undid the bands which fettered his hands, and left him free, as if, instead of being a captive, he was in the chamber as a guest.

“By the rood, young gentleman,” said Hornmouth, in a more kindly tone than he had yet used, “but that I know how loud young game-cocks can crow when they are roused to excitement, I should marvel at your courage. I was in dread that my lord would strike you dead where you stood; and, had you been any other living mortal than you are such must have been your fate. You little know him, or you would be less venturesome. When he swears by his faith, he is safe enough; when he swears by St. Moden, his wrath is only rising; but when he swears by the bones of St. Moden, his temper has reached such a pitch of heat, that it were safer to pull the Devil by the beard than to cross him further – even a hair’s breadth.”

“Sir squire, is this what the Lord Hugh de Moreville calls the blind chamber?” asked Oliver, without noticing the henchman’s observations.

“Nay, by rood and mass, and well for you that it is not,” answered Hornmouth, smiling grimly. “It is no place for birds of your feather, I ween, and so would you were you there till cock-crow. My lord spake in his wrath, but he will think better of it ere another sun shines; and were I simple enough to take a kinsman of his, with the blood of Moreville in his veins, thither to-night, my reward would be the dule tree on the morrow. I have more regard for my neck, Master Icingla, than you seem to have for your limbs. Cog’s wounds! but I cannot think enough of the courage with which you flouted and defied my lord, at whose frown I have seen so many tremble;” and the rude soldier eyed Oliver with the genuine admiration which a display of real courage seldom fails to inspire.

Having given warning that any attempt to escape would be certain destruction, and that any attempt to corrupt the gaolers would only lead to a close confinement, Hornmouth took the captive by the hand.

“Beware,” whispered he, “of doing aught to place thee in the power of the governor of the castle. Sir Anthony Waledger detests thy race and thy name, and is marvellous valiant when dealing with enemies who cannot injure him. Good night, and droop not; all will yet be well.”

Oliver was then left to solitude and his own reflections, which were none of the pleasantest. Of all men in England, Hugh de Moreville was the last into whose hands he could have wished to fall; and, though reassured in some measure by the words of the squire, he could not feel certain, after what had passed, that he might not, in some unlucky hour, be exposed to personal violence. However, after worrying himself with gloomy thoughts for hours, he gradually felt sleep stealing over him, and soon exchanged his torturing reflections for dreams of the palace of Savernake and the city of Gloucester. Nor did he awake till he was shaken by the arm; and, as he looked up, one sight of the bronzed face of Hornmouth brought all the events of yesterday to his memory.

“Young gentleman,” said De Moreville’s squire, respectfully, “it is as I foretold. My lord wishes you no harm; but I tell you frankly, that you have no more chance of leaving this castle till the war is over than of going to Fairyland, if such a place there be. Wherefore be ruled by my advice, and content yourself. Make the best of a bad bargain, and make good cheer. I will forthwith send the wherewithal, and give orders for all your wants being supplied, save thy liberty, which is not mine to give. I myself am on the point of undertaking an expedition to the castle of Mount Moreville, and may not return for many months. But fear not. Be quiet. Make no vain attempt to escape; and I swear to you, by mass and rood, that you are as safe in this chamber as if you sat in your mother’s hall.”

“By the Holy Cross!” exclaimed Oliver, “you give me cold comfort. Deem you that it can be otherwise than irksome to an Icingla to lie here like a useless log, while others are pressing on in the race of life, and marking their valour on the crests of foemen? True, I am an Englishman, and I have none of the vague aspirings about conquering kingdoms and principalities with which so many Norman warriors delude their imaginations. Still I want to do my duty and to keep my sword from rusting, and to enjoy freedom and free air. But I see you mean me well, good squire, and I thank you with all my heart; albeit I can hardly in my heart forgive you for having come with such odds at your back, that I had not even a chance of avoiding what I loathe most – I mean captivity.”

Ralph Hornmouth laughed and withdrew; and Oliver, rising from his couch, resolved to his utmost to reconcile himself to his fate, and, moreover, began to indulge in vague hopes.

“Collingham may learn my fate, or the faithful Styr,” soliloquised he as he devoured his morning meal with the appetite of a Saxon thane in the days of King Ethelred; “and if they do, by the Holy Cross, Chas-Chateil, thick as may be its walls, and well guarded as may be its doors and gates, will not long hold me as a captive. Holy Edward be my aid meanwhile!”

But it cannot be very easy for a young warrior, in a fighting age, who has fleshed his maiden sword, and taken part in two fields of fame, especially at the age of eighteen, to force himself to be philosophical in captivity; and Oliver Icingla, being intended by nature for a man of action, soon grew weary of compelling himself to be patient. Indeed, as days and weeks passed, the dulness and monotony of his existence, and the thought of his home and his mother’s grief, depressed him to such a point that he experienced something like intolerable woe. Hugh de Moreville he never saw. Ralph Hornmouth did not reappear to bid him take comfort. The gaoler performed his functions in silence, and, when questioned, replied in monosyllables. During his brief captivity on the continent, Oliver had been in attendance on a great earl, and daily in contact with knights and squires, and he had borne it easily. But he feared that this solitary incarceration would, if prolonged, break his spirit.

One advantage, indeed, he had in his imprisonment; for the window of his chamber commanded a prospect of the vale of the Kennet, and barred as the window was, he could catch glances of the world from a distance, and sometimes even see not only peaceful travellers, but bands of armed men, passing and repassing. Still this only reminded him of his own sad plight, for everybody and everything seemed free but himself. The river flowed on; the trout leaped in the clear water; the heron perched on the stones by the grassy margin; the eagle soared over the castle; the squirrel climbed the trees; and the deer ran free in the chase. Even the serf who toiled in the fields around Chas-Chateil appeared to enjoy a happy lot, in comparison with the only son of the woman to whom Chas-Chateil rightfully belonged. But there was consolation at hand.

It happened that the chamber appropriated to Oliver was on a level with a battlement or outer gallery constructed to resemble a terrace, and known as “the ladies’ walk.” Nobody, however, seemed to frequent it; and Oliver, whose knowledge of feudal strongholds enabled him to comprehend its purpose, had concluded that Hugh de Moreville’s daughter was being educated in a convent, or under the roof of some noble matron; for, proud as they were, the feudal dames did not disdain to undertake the tuition of their sex; and he had concluded, moreover, that there were no ladies under the roof of Chas-Chateil, not, perhaps, without speculating whether or not there might be in the event of its becoming his own, when he was unexpectedly convinced that, on this point at least, he was mistaken.

It was the evening of a long, bright, merry summer day, about the close of July, and Oliver was standing at his window looking out on the landscape, now watching the men-at-arms engaged in athletic exercises, and now brooding dismally over his evil fortune, and cursing his cruel captivity, when his ear suddenly caught the sound of soft voices, and his eye was attracted by an apparition which instantly changed the whole current of his thoughts.

And what was this apparition?

A very lovely Norman demoiselle, dressed in a simple robe of white, and attended by two maidens almost as captivating as herself.