Book: Hereward, The Last of the English

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Gwenoch stepped to Hereward's side.

"None shall go!" shouted a dozen voices. "With Hereward we will live and
die. Let him lead us to Lincoln, to Stafford, where he will. We can save
England for ourselves without the help of Danes."

"It is well for one at least of you, gentlemen, that you are in this
pleasant mind," quoth Ranald the monk.

"Well for all of us, thou valiant purveyor of beef and beer."

"Well for one. For the first man that had turned to go, I would have
brained him with this axe."

"And now, gallant gentlemen," said Hereward, "we must take new counsel, as
our old has failed. Whither shall we go? For stay here, eating up the
country, we must not do."

"They say that Waltheof is in Lindsay, raising the landsfolk. Let us go
and join him."

"We can, at least, find what he means to do. There can be no better
counsel. Let us march. Only we must keep clear of Lincoln as yet. I hear
that Gilbert has a strong garrison there, and we are not strong enough yet
to force it."

So they rode north, and up the Roman road toward Lincoln, sending out
spies as they went; and soon they had news of Waltheof,--news, too, that
he was between them and Lincoln.

"Then the sooner we are with him, the better, for he will find himself in
trouble ere long, if old Gilbert gets news of him. So run your best,
footmen, for forward we must get."

And as they came up the Roman road, they were aware of a great press of
men in front of them, and hard fighting toward.

Some of the English would have spurred forward at once. But Hereward held
them back with loud reproaches.

"Will you forget all I have told you in the first skirmish, like so many
dogs when they see a bull? Keep together for five minutes more, the pot
will not be cool before we get our sup of it. I verily believe that it is
Waltheof, and that Gilbert has caught him already."

As he spoke, one part of the combatants broke up, and fled right and left;
and a knight in full armor galloped furiously down the road right at them,
followed by two or three more.

"Here comes some one very valiant, or very much afeared," said Hereward,
as the horseman rode right upon him, shouting,--

"I am the King!"

"The King?" roared Hereward, and dropping his lance, spurred his horse
forward, kicking his feet clear of the stirrups. He caught the knight
round the neck, dragged him over his horse's tail, and fell with him to
the ground.

The armor clashed; the sparks flew from the old gray Roman flints; and
Hereward, rolling over once, rose, and knelt upon his prisoner.

"William of Normandy, yield or die!"

The knight lay still and stark.

"Ride on!" roared Hereward from the ground. "Ride at them, and strike
hard! You will soon find out which is which. This booty I must pick for
myself. What are you at?" roared he, after his knights. "Spread off the
road, and keep your line, as I told you, and don't override each other!
Curse the hot-headed fools! The Normans will scatter them like sparrows.
Run on, men-at-arms, to stop the French if we are broken. And don't forget
Guisnes field and the horses' legs. Now, King, are you come to life yet?"

"You have killed him," quoth Leofric the deacon, whom Hereward had
beckoned to stop with him.

"I hope not. Lend me a knife. He is a much slighter man than I fancied,"
said Hereward, as they got his helmet off.

And when it was off, both started and stared. For they had uncovered, not
the beetling brow, Roman nose, and firm curved lip of the Ulysses of the
middle age, but the face of a fair lad, with long straw-colored hair, and
soft blue eyes staring into vacancy.

"Who are you?" shouted Hereward, saying very bad words, "who come here
aping the name of king?"

"Mother! Christina! Margaret! Waltheof Earl!" moaned the lad, raising his
head and letting it fall again.

"It is the Atheling!" cried Leofric.

Hereward rose, and stood over the boy.

"Ah! what was I doing to handle him so tenderly? I took him for the
Mamzer, and thought of a king's ransom."

"Do you call that tenderly? You have nigh pulled the boy's head off."

"Would that I had! Ah," went on Hereward, apostrophizing the unconscious
Atheling,--"ah, that I had broken that white neck once and for all! To
have sent thee feet foremost to Winchester, to lie by thy grandfathers and
great-grandfathers, and then to tell Norman William that he must fight it
out henceforth, not with a straw malkin like thee, which the very crows
are not afraid to perch on, but with a cock of a very different
hackle,--Sweyn Ulfsson, King of Denmark."

And Hereward drew Brain-biter.

"For mercy's sake! you will not harm the lad?"

"If I were a wise man now, and hard-hearted as wise men should be, I
should--I should--" and he played the point of the sword backwards and
forwards, nearer and nearer to the lad's throat.

"Master! master!" cried Leofric, clinging to his knees; "by all the
saints! What would the Blessed Virgin say to such a deed!"

"Well, I suppose you are right. And I fear what my lady at home might say;
and we must not do anything to vex her, you know. Well, let us do it
handsomely, if we must do it. Get water somewhere, in his helmet. No, you
need not linger. I will not cut his throat before you come back."

Leofric went off in search of water, and Hereward knelt with the
Atheling's head on his knee, and on his lip a sneer at all things in
heaven and earth. To have that lad stand between him and all his projects,
and to be forced, for honor's sake, to let him stand!

But soon his men returned, seemingly in high glee, and other knights with
them.

"Hey, lads!" said he, "I aimed at the falcon and shot the goose. Here is
Edgar Atheling prisoner. Shall we put him to ransom?"

"He has no money, and Malcolm of Scotland is much too wise to lend him
any," said some one. And some more rough jokes passed.

"Do you know, sirs, that he who lies there is your king?" asked a very
tall and noble-looking knight.

"That do we not," said Hereward, sharply. "There is no king in England
this day, as far as I know. And there will be none north of the Watling
Street, till he be chosen in full husting, and anointed at York, as well
as Winchester or London. We have had one king made for us in the last
forty years, and we intend to make the next ourselves."

"And who art thou, who talkest so bold, of king-making?"

"And who art thou, who askest so bold who I am?"

"I am Waltheof Siwardsson, the Earl, and yon is my army behind me."

"And I am Hereward Leofricsson, the outlaw, and yon is my army behind me."

If the two champions had flown at each other's throats, and their armies
had followed their example, simply as dogs fly at each other, they know
not why, no one would have been astonished in those unhappy times.

But it fell not out upon that wise; for Waltheof, leaping from his horse,
pulled off his helmet, and seizing Hereward by both hands, cried,--

"Blessed is the day which sees again in England Hereward, who has upheld
throughout all lands and seas the honor of English chivalry!"

"And blessed is the day in which Hereward meets the head of the house of
Siward where he should be, at the head of his own men, in his own earldom.
When I saw my friend, thy brother Osbiorn, brought into the camp at
Dunsinane with all his wounds in front, I wept a young man's tears, and
said, 'There ends the glory of the White-Bear's house!' But this day I
say, the White-Bear's blood is risen from the grave in Waltheof
Siwardsson, who with his single axe kept the gate of York against all the
army of the French; and who shall keep against them all England, if he
will be as wise as he is brave."

Was Hereward honest in his words? Hardly so. He wished to be honest. As he
looked upon that magnificent young man, he hoped and trusted that his
words were true. But he gave a second look at the face, and whispered to
himself: "Weak, weak. He will be led by priests; perhaps by William
himself. I must be courteous; but confide I must not."

The men stood round, and looked with admiration on the two most splendid
Englishmen then alive. Hereward had taken off his helmet likewise, and the
contrast between the two was as striking as the completeness of each of
them in his own style of beauty. It was the contrast between the
slow-hound and the deer-hound; each alike high bred; but the former,
short, sturdy, cheerful, and sagacious; the latter tall, stately,
melancholy, and not over-wise withal.

Waltheof was a full head and shoulders taller than Hereward,--one of the
tallest men of his generation, and of a strength which would have been
gigantic, but for the too great length of neck and limb, which made him
loose and slow in body, as he was somewhat loose and slow in mind. An old
man's child, although that old man was as one of the old giants, there was
a vein of weakness in him, which showed in the arched eyebrow, the sleepy
pale blue eye, the small soft mouth, the lazy voice, the narrow and lofty
brain over a shallow brow. His face was not that of a warrior, but of a
saint in a painted window; and to his own place he went, and became a
saint, in his due time. But that he could outgeneral William, that he
could even manage Gospatrick and his intrigues Hereward expected as little
as that his own nephews Edwin and Morcar could do it.

"I have to thank you, noble sir," said Waltheof, languidly, "for sending
your knights to our rescue when we were really hard bestead,--I fear much
by our own fault. Had they told me whose men they were, I should not have
spoken to you so roughly as I fear I did."

"There is no offence. Let Englishmen speak their minds, as long as English
land is above sea. But how did you get into trouble, and with whom?"

Waltheof told him how he was going round the country, raising forces in
the name of the Atheling, when, as they were straggling along the Roman
road, Gilbert of Ghent had dashed out on them from a wood, cut their line
in two, driven Waltheof one way, and the Atheling another, and that the
Atheling had only escaped by riding, as they saw, for his life.

"Well done, old Gilbert!" laughed Hereward. "You must beware, my Lord
Earl, how you venture within reach of that old bear's paw!"

"Bear? By the by, Sir Hereward," asked Waltheof, whose thoughts ran
loosely right and left, "why is it that you carry the white bear on your
banner?"

"Do you not know? Your house ought to have a blood-feud against me. I slew
your great-uncle, or cousin, or some other kinsman, at Gilbert's house in
Scotland long ago; and since then I sleep on his skin every night, and
carry his picture in my banner all day."

"Blood-feuds are solemn things," said Waltheof, frowning. "Karl killed my
grandfather Aldred at the battle of Settrington, and his four sons are
with the army at York now--"

"For the love of all saints and of England, do not think of avenging that!
Every man must now put away old grudges, and remember that he has but one
foe,--William and his Frenchmen."

"Very nobly spoken. But those sons of Karl--and I think you said you had
killed a kinsman of mine?"

"It was a bear, Lord Earl, a great white bear. Cannot you understand a
jest? Or are you going to take up the quarrels of all white bears that are
slain between here and Iceland? You will end by burning Crowland minster
then, for there are twelve of your kinsmen's skins there, which Canute
gave forty years ago."

"Burn Crowland minster? St. Guthlac and all saints forbid!" said Waltheof,
crossing himself devoutly.

"Are you a monk-monger into the bargain, as well as a dolt? A bad prospect
for us, if you are," said Hereward to himself.

"Ah, my dear Lord King!" said Waltheof, "and you are recovering?"

"Somewhat," said the lad, sitting up, "under the care of this kind
knight."

"He is a monk, Sir Atheling, and not a knight," said Hereward. "Our fenmen
can wear a mail-shirt as easily as a frock, and handle a twybill as neatly
as a breviary."

Waltheof shook his head. "It is contrary to the canons of Holy Church."

"So are many things that are done in England just now. Need has no master.
Now, Sir Earl and Sir Atheling, what are you going to do?"

Neither of them, it seemed, very well knew. They would go to York if they
could get there, and join Gospatrick and Marlesweyn. And certainly it was
the most reasonable thing to be done.

"But if you mean to get to York, you must march after another fashion than
this," said Hereward. "See, Sir Earl, why you were broken by Gilbert; and
why you will be broken again, if this order holds. If you march your men
along one of these old Roman streets--By St. Mary! these Romans had more
wits than we; for we have spoilt the roads they left us, and never made a
new one of our own--"

"They were heathens and enchanters,"--and Waltheof crossed himself.

"And conquered the world. Well,--if you march along one of these streets,
you must ride as I rode, when I came up to you. You must not let your
knights go first, and your men-at-arms straggle after in a tail a mile
long, like a scratch pack of hounds, all sizes but except each others'.
You must keep your footmen on the high street, and make your knights ride
in two bodies, right and left, upon the wold, to protect their flanks and
baggage."

"But the knights won't. As gentlemen, they have a right to the best
ground."

"Then they may go to--whither they will go, if the French come upon them.
If they are on the flanks, and you are attacked then they can charge in
right and left on the enemy's flank, while the footmen make a stand to
cover the wagons."

"Yes,--that is very good; I believe that is your French fashion?"

"It is the fashion of common-sense, like all things which succeed."

"But, you see, the knights would not submit to ride in the mire."

"Then you must make them. What else have they horses for, while honester
men than they trudge on foot?"

"Make them?" said Waltheof, with a shrug and a smile. "They are all free
gentlemen, like ourselves."

"And, like ourselves, will come to utter ruin, because every one of them
must needs go his own way."

"I am glad," said Waltheof, as they rode along, "that you called this my
earldom. I hold it to be mine of course, in right of my father; but the
landsfolks, you know, gave it to your nephew Morcar."

"I care not to whom it is given. I care for the man who is on it, to raise
these landsfolk and make them fight. You are here: therefore you are
earl."

"Yes, the powers that be are ordained by God."

"You must not strain that text too far, Lord Earl; for the only power that
is, whom I see in England--worse luck for it!--is William the Mamzer."

"So I have often thought."

"You have? As I feared!" (To himself:) "The pike will have you next,
gudgeon!"

"He has with him the Holy Father at Rome, and therefore the blessed
Apostle St. Peter of course. And is a man right, in the sight of Heaven,
who resists them? I only say it. But where a man looks to the salvation of
his own soul, he must needs think thereof seriously, at least."

"O, are you at that?" thought Hereward. "_Tout est perdu_. The
question is, Earl," said he aloud, "simply this: How many men can you
raise off this shire?"

"I have raised--not so many as I could wish. Harold and Edith's men have
joined me fairly well; but your nephew, Morcar's--"

"I can command them. I have half of them here already."

"Then,--then we may raise the rest?"

"That depends, my Lord Earl, for whom we fight!"

"For whom?--I do not understand."

"Whether we fight for that lad, Child Edgar, or for Sweyn of Denmark, the
rightful king of England."

"Sweyn of Denmark! Who should be the rightful king but the heir of the
blessed St. Edward?"

"Blessed old fool! He has done harm to us enough on earth, without leaving
his second-cousins' aunts' malkins to harm us after he is in Heaven."

"Sir Hereward, Sir Hereward, I fear thou art not as good a Christian as so
good a knight should be."

"Christian or not, I am as good a one as my neighbors. I am Leofric's son.
Leofric put Harthacanute on the throne, and your father, who was a man,
helped him. You know what has befallen England since we Danes left the
Danish stock at Godwin's bidding, and put our necks under the yoke of
Wessex monks and monk-mongers. You may follow your father's track or not,
as you like. I shall follow my father's, and fight for Sweyn Ulfsson, and
no man else."

"And I," said Waltheof, "shall follow the anointed of the Lord."

"The anointed of Gospatrick and two or three boys!" said Hereward.
"Knights! Turn your horses' heads. Right about face, all! We are going
back to the Bruneswold, to live and die free Danes."

And to Waltheof's astonishment, who had never before seen discipline, the
knights wheeled round; the men-at-arms followed them; and Waltheof and the
Atheling were left to themselves on Lincoln Heath.




CHAPTER XXIV.

HOW ARCHBISHOP ALDRED DIED OF SORROW.


In the tragedies of the next few months Hereward took no part; but they
must be looked at near, in order to understand somewhat of the men who
were afterwards mixed up with him for weal or woe.

When William went back to the South, the confederates, Child Edgar the
Atheling, Gospatrick, and their friends, had come south again from Durham.
It was undignified; a confession of weakness. If a Norman had likened them
to mice coming out when the cat went away, none could blame him. But so
they did; and Osbiorn and his Danes, landing in Humber-mouth, "were met"
(says the Anglo-Saxon chronicle) "by Child Edgar and Earl Waltheof and
Marlesweyn, and Earl Gospatrick with the men of Northumberland, riding and
marching joyfully with an immense army"; not having the spirit of
prophecy, or foreseeing those things which were coming on the earth.

To them repaired Edwin and Morcar, the two young Earls, Arkill and Karl,
"the great Thanes," or at least the four sons of Karl,--for accounts
differ,--and what few else of the northern nobility Tosti had left
unmurdered.

The men of Northumberland received the Danes with open arms. They would
besiege York. They would storm the new Norman Keep. They would proclaim
Edgar king at York.

In that Keep sat two men, one of whom knew his own mind, the other did
not. One was William Malet, knight, one of the heroes of Hastings, a noble
Norman, and chatelain of York Castle. The other was Archbishop Aldred.

Aldred seems to have been a man like too many more,--pious and virtuous
and harmless enough, and not without worldly prudence; but his prudence
was of that sort which will surely swim with the stream, and "honor the
powers that be," if they be but prosperous enough. For after all, if
success be not God, it is like enough to Him in some men's eyes to do
instead. So Archbishop Aldred had crowned Harold Godwinsson, when Harold's
star was in the ascendant. And who but Archbishop Aldred should crown
William, when his star had cast Harold's down from heaven? He would have
crowned Satanas himself, had he only proved himself king _de facto_--as he
asserts himself to be _de jure_--of this wicked world.

So Aldred, who had not only crowned William, but supported his power north
of Humber by all means lawful, sat in York Keep, and looked at William
Malet, wondering what he would do.

Malet would hold it to the last. As for the new keep, it was surely
impregnable. The old walls--the Roman walls on which had floated the flag
of Constantine the Great--were surely strong enough to keep out men
without battering-rams, balistas, or artillery of any kind. What mattered
Osbiorn's two hundred and forty ships, and their crews of some ten or
fifteen thousand men? What mattered the tens of thousands of Northern men,
with Gospatrick at their head? Let them rage and rob round the walls. A
messenger had galloped in from William in the Forest of Dean, to tell
Malet to hold out to the last. He had galloped out again, bearing for
answer, that the Normans could hold York for a year.

But the Archbishop's heart misgave him, as from north and south at once
came up the dark masses of two mighty armies, broke up into columns, and
surged against every gate of the city at the same time. They had no
battering-train to breach the ancient walls; but they had--and none knew
it better than Aldred--hundreds of friends inside, who would throw open to
them the gates.

One gate he could command from the Castle tower. His face turned pale as
he saw a mob of armed townsmen rushing down the street towards it; a
furious scuffle with the French guards; and then, through the gateway, the
open champaign beyond, and a gleaming wave of axes, helms, and spears,
pouring in, and up the street.

"The traitors!" he almost shrieked, as he turned and ran down the ladder
to tell Malet below.

Malet was firm, but pale as Aldred.

"We must fight to the last," said he, as he hurried down, commanding his
men to sally at once _en masse_ and clear the city.

The mistake was fatal. The French were entangled in the narrow streets.
The houses, shut to them, were opened to the English and Danes; and,
overwhelmed from above, as well as in front, the greater part of the
Norman garrison perished in the first fight. The remnant were shut up in
the Castle. The Danes and English seized the houses round, and shot from
the windows at every loophole and embrasure where a Norman showed himself.

"Shoot fire upon the houses!" said Malet.

"You will not burn York? O God! is it come to this?"

"And why not York town, or York minster, or Rome itself, with the Pope
inside it, rather than yield to barbarians?"

Archbishop Aldred went into his room, and lay down on his bed. Outside was
the roar of the battle; and soon, louder and louder, the roar of flame.
This was the end of his time-serving and king-making. And he said many
prayers, and beat his breast; and then called to his chaplain for
blankets, for he was very cold. "I have slain my own sheep!" he moaned,
"slain my own sheep!"

His chaplain hapt him up in bed, and looked out of the window at the
fight. There was no lull, neither was there any great advantage on either
side. Only from the southward he could see fresh bodies of Danes coming
across the plain.

"The carcass is here, and the eagles are gathered together. Fetch me the
holy sacrament, Chaplain, and God be merciful to an unfaithful shepherd."

The chaplain went.

"I have slain my own sheep!" moaned the archbishop. "I have given them up
to the wolves,--given my own minster, and all the treasures of the saints;
and--and--I am very cold."

When the chaplain came back with the blessed sacrament, Archbishop Aldred
was more than cold; for he was already dead and stiff.

But William Malet would not yield. He and his Normans fought, day after
day, with the energy of despair. They asked leave to put forth the body of
the archbishop; and young Waltheof, who was a pious man, insisted that
leave should be given.

So the archbishop's coffin was thrust forth of the castle-gate, and the
monks from the abbey came and bore it away, and buried it in the Cathedral
church.

And then the fight went on, day after day, and more and more houses
burned, till York was all aflame. On the eighth day the minster was in a
light low over Archbishop Aldred's new-made grave. All was
burnt,--minster, churches, old Roman palaces, and all the glories of
Constantine the Great and the mythic past.

The besiegers, hewing and hammering gate after gate, had now won all but
the Keep itself. Then Malet's heart failed him. A wife he had, and
children; and for their sake he turned coward and fled by night, with a
few men-at-arms, across the burning ruins.

Then into what once was York the confederate Earls and Thanes marched in
triumph, and proclaimed Edgar king,--a king of dust and ashes.

And where were Edwin and Morcar the meanwhile? It is not told. Were they
struggling against William at Stafford, or helping Edric the Wild and his
Welshmen to besiege Chester? Probably they were aiding the
insurrection,--if not at these two points, still at some other of their
great earldoms of Mercia and Chester. They seemed to triumph for a while:
during the autumn of 1069 the greater part of England seemed lost to
William. Many Normans packed up their plunder and went back to France; and
those whose hearts were too stout to return showed no mercy to the
English, even as William showed none. To crush the heart of the people by
massacres and mutilations and devastations was the only hope of the
invader; and thoroughly he did his work whenever he had a chance.




CHAPTER XXV.

HOW HEREWARD FOUND A WISER MAN IN ENGLAND THAN HIMSELF.


There have been certain men so great, that he who describes them in words,
much more pretends to analyze their inmost feelings, must be a very great
man himself, or incur the accusation of presumption. And such a great man
was William of Normandy,--one of those unfathomable master-personages who
must not be rashly dragged on any stage. The genius of a Bulwer, in
attempting to draw him, took care, with a wise modesty, not to draw him in
too much detail,--to confess always that there was much beneath and behind
in William's character which none, even of his contemporaries, could
guess. And still more modest than Bulwer is this chronicler bound to be.

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