A Legend of Reading Abbey Part 3

The empress had taken no heed of our lord abbat, or of any of us; but when she had done welcoming the knights that came to do her service, and, imprimis, to escort her on her way to Oxenford, she turned unto the abbat and said, "Monk, thou art too weak to cope with a queen, the daughter of a king, the widow of an emperor, and one from whom many kings will spring. But by thy perversity, which we think amounts to treason, thou hast incurred the penalty of deprivation; and when we have time for such matters, or at the very next meeting of a synod of bishops and abbats, I will see that thou art both deprived and imprisoned."

"That synod," said our abbat very mildly, "will not sit so soon, and from any synod I can appeal to his holiness the Pope."

"Fool!" quoth Matilda, with the ugliest curl of the lip I ever beheld; "obstinate fool! the Pope's legate is our well-beloved subject and friend the Bishop of Winchester."

"See that you keep his allegiance! He hath put you upon a throne, and can pull you down therefrom!" So spake our prior, who could not stomach the irreverent treatment the Countess of Anjou put upon his superior, and who knew that Matilda had in various ways broken her compact with him, and done deeds highly displeasing to King Stephen's brother, the tough-hearted Bishop of Winchester.

"Beshrew me!" quoth Matilda; "but these Reading monks be proud of stomach and rebellious! Sir Walleren of Mantes, drive them into their church, and see that they quit it not while we tarry here."

"I will," said the foreign knight; "and also will I see that they do sing the _Salve, Regina_."

And this Sir Walleren and other unknightly knights drew their swords and called up their retainers; and before this unG.o.dly host the abbat and prior and the monks were all compelled to retreat into the church, leaving the whole range of the abbey to those who had so unrighteously invaded it. But as soon as we were in the choir, instead of singing a _Salve, Regina_, we did chant _In te, Domine, speravi_.

A strong guard was put at the church-door and in the cloisters; but it was not needed, as we could oppose no resistance to those who were now robbing our house; and as it had been determined therefore that all who had come into the church should remain, with psalmody and prayer, until these men of violence should take their departure from the abbey, or complete their wickedness by driving us from it. As they ransacked our house, as though it had been a castle taken by storm, and as they shouted and made such loud noises as soldiers use when a castle or a town hath been successfully stormed, we only chanted the louder in the choir. For full two hours did these partisans of Matilda ransack the abbey, with none to say them nay. At the end of that time, when they had gotten all that they considered worth taking, that ill-visaged knight Sir Walleren of Mantes came to the church-door, and called forth the abbat and prior, saying that the queen would speak with them before she went, and give them a lesson which they might remember. Though thrice summoned in the name of the queen, the heads of our house did not move, nor would they have gone forth at all if the fierce Sir Walleren aforesaid had not sent in a score of pikes to drive them, or p.r.i.c.k them from their seats. Nay, even then, the prior would have run not unto the door, but unto the altar; but the good abbat, fearing that G.o.d's house might be desecrated by blood, took the prior by the sleeve, and whispered a few soothing words to him, and so led him out into the cloisters; and then all we who had been driven into the church followed the abbat and the prior, and went to the quadrangle, where was the queen on horseback, mounted on the lord abbat's own grey palfrey, which had been stolen from the stable, together with every horse and mule that our community possessed. It was a sad sight; and the lord abbat's master of the horse and his palfrey-keeper were wringing their hands at it. Our good cattle, save and except the lord abbat's palfrey and a fine war-horse which had appertained to one of our knights, but which was now mounted by that silent knight in the black mail, who never raised his visor, were loaded with the spoils of our own house, to wit, the coined money taken out of our mint, provisions, corn, wine, raiment, and goodly furnishings. The masked knight had a plain shield, carried by his page, and no cognizance whereby he might be known: he held in his hand one of the queen's reins, and by his gestures, and his constant looking to the great gate of our house, which was now thrown wide open, he seemed very eager to be gone. As our lord abbat, with his hand still upon the prior's sleeve, came through the crowd and nigh to the s.p.a.ce where Matilda sat upon his own palfrey, she first frowned upon him and then laughed at him, and between laughing and frowning said--"Oh abbat that shalt not be abbat long, thou hast comported thyself like a traitor and a very churl in stinting thy queen of that which she needed, in begrudging hospitality to these fair damsels, and in barring thy doors against these my gallant knights and faithful people. For this have we, for the present, relieved thy house of some of its superfluous stuff. It is not well that disloyal monks be so well supplied and furnished, when a queen, and n.o.ble ladies, and high-born knights be unprovided and bare, and forced by treasons foul to flee from place to place as if they were accursed Israelites. Light meals are followed by light digestion, and abstinence is favourable to prayer and devotion. Yet have we taken nothing from ye, O monks, but what is rightfully ours, or was given ye by my father of thrice glorious memory."

"Oh Empress, or Countess of Anjou, or Queen of England, if so must be, the deeds which have been done in this holy house, built and endowed by thy father for the expiation of his sins, will make the bones of thy father turn in his grave, and will bring down a curse upon the heads of thee and thy party. Bethink thee, and repent while it is yet time! Thy father, the father of his people and the peace of his country, _Pax patriae, gentisque suae Pater_, did for the good of his own soul found this abbey, and endow it with the town and manor of Reading, and with all the lands which had aforetime belonged to the nunnery of Reading and the monasteries of Cholsey and Leominster (which houses had been destroyed in our old wars), and he did make it one of the royal mitred abbeys, and did give the lord abbat privilege to coin his own money, by having a mint and mintmaster. Other donations did he make, and other privileges and honours did he confer upon our community. And hath not our lord the pope by a special bull confirmed and sanctified this kingly grant, and taken our house, with all its possessions and appurtenances, to wit, lands cultivated and uncultivated, its manors, meadows, woods, pastures, mills, fisheries, and all other, under the protection of the holy Roman see? And hath not his holiness decreed that none are to disturb our house, or to lay an impious hand on our possessions, or to keep, or diminish the same, or in any other way give us trouble; but that all that we have and hold is to be kept under the government of the monks, and for the pious uses for which it was given? And in the same bull hath not the pope blessed those who keep this commandment, and cursed those who in any way break it? Unless thou makest rest.i.tution thou wilt be denied the viatic.u.m on thy death-bed--_et a sacratissimo corpore et sanguine Dei et Domini nostri aliena fiat_."

At these words spoken, the countess did somewhat tremble on the palfrey, and turn pale; but one of her wicked advisers from beyond sea said that she did but borrow, and would make rest.i.tution at the fitting time, and that we, being so rich, could well spare some of our substance.

Our treasurer, who would not deign to speak to this foreign marauder, said to the countess, "Oh, ill-advised ladie, we be none so rich, and much is expected from us. By thy father's endowment full two hundred monks are to be kept for aye in this his royal abbey, and we be as yet scantly more than one hundred and two score. Also do the good people that we have drawn to this township of Reading look to us for present employment and support; and herein have we much laboured, for the good of the realm, and the happiness of the commoner sort. In the days of thy grandfather, the dread Conqueror of this kingdom, when the Domesday-book was made, Reading had only twenty-nine houses; but now look abroad, and see how new houses have risen, and men have increased under the shadow of our peaceful walls."

"There will be woe and want among that industrious people," said abbat Edward, "if thou carriest away from us this great spoil, and all the money that we have minted! The curse of the poor, which is the next terriblest thing to the curse of G.o.d and holy church, will cling to thee, oh countess, or queen! Look to it, oh Matilda! I see the crown already dropping from thy head."

"This is treason!" said the silent knight with his visor down, in a voice which made all of us start, for it sounded like that of one who had lately been our fast friend.

Matilda, rising in her saddle, with glaring eyes and reddened cheek, said, "And I, rebel monk, do see the mitre falling from thy head. Thou wilt not be abbot of Reading this time next month."

"_Fiat voluntas_, let the will of G.o.d be done," replied our lord abbat.

"And now," quoth the violent daughter of the Beauclerc, "let us ride on our way for Oxenford. Methinks we be now strong enough to defy all traitors on the road." And she struck with her riding-wand the grey palfrey, which it much grieved our abbat to lose, and followed by her knights and her leering and laughing foreign damsels, she rode out at our gate, and with a great host departed from Reading.

When the evil-doers were all gone we made fast our doors, and proceeded to examine the condition of our house and its community. They had completely emptied the b.u.t.tery, the store-house, the granary, the wine-cellar; they had so stripped the lord abbat's house and the lodging of the prior that there was nothing left in them save the tables and chairs, the mats and rushes; they had broken open both treasury and sacristy, and had stolen thence all our most precious relics, and all our gold and silver vessels, and all our portable pictures and crucifixes; they had not left us so much as a patera, a chalice, or an encensoire; they had even laid their impious thievish hands upon the silver lamp which had been used to burn day and night at the head of the Beauclerc's tomb, and they had carried off with them the Agnus Dei and the jewelled cross which Henricus Primus had worn for many years of his life, and which, at his order, had been laid upon his tomb. That silver lamp had been sent to the abbey by Queen Adelise, the Beauclerc's second and surviving wife, who, on the first anniversary of the Beauclerc's death, gave us the manor of Aston in Hertfordshire, offering a pall upon the altar in confirmation of the grant; and who likewise gave us the land of Reginald, the Forester, at Stanton-Harcourt, nigh unto Oxenford, and afterwards the patronage and revenues of the church of Stanton-Harcourt, to supply the cost of the silver lamp, which she herself did order should burn continually before the pix and the tomb of her late husband. Yet Matilda and her plundering band had carried off this precious cresset--and long did they prevent us getting any rent or revenues from the lands which Queen Adelise had granted us. Not the most recondite and secret part of our house had escaped their search. Much did we marvel at this, until, calling over the roll, we found that three members of our community did not answer to their names. The three missing were, two novices, to wit, young Urswick, the whiteheaded, from Pangbourne, and John Blount from Maple-Durham, and one full monk, to wit, Father Anselm, of Norman birth, who had but lately taken the vows, but who had been much employed by our treasurer in offices of trust. The two novices (may their souls be a.s.soiled!) had been wiled away by those young Jezebels, and had put on warlike harness, and had gone with Matilda to serve her as men-at-arms: Father Anselm, being a well-favoured man, had found favour in the sight of the Countess of Anjou, and had gone with her to be her ma.s.s-priest, and to aim at some vacant bishopric or abbey. Well had it been for us if he had never come back to Reading. Heavy suspicions had fallen upon our sub-prior Hildebrand, touching the postern gate; but it was ascertained upon inquiry, that Urswick, the whiteheaded, who had been wont to wait upon the sub-prior, did, at the bidding of Matilda, or of one of her damsels, steal the keys and undo the door.

Besides the three deserters from our own body, we found that divers of our armed retainers had taken service with the errant countess, and had gone away with her with their arms and horses; and that even one of our knights, who did service for the lands of the abbey he held, had forgotten his bounden duty and his honour in a sudden fantastic affection for a pair of black eyes.

We were bemoaning our losses, and our exceeding great calamity and disgrace, and wondering where we should get a dinner, when, some three hours after the departure of Matilda, and the host that followed her standard, another great body of horse and foot, bearing the banner of King Stephen, marched towards our gates, demanding meat and drink, and vowing, with many soldier-like profane oaths, that they would burn and destroy all such as were not for Stephen. The new alarm thus created was, however, but short, for some n.o.ble barons and knights, who had been riding in the rear, came spurring up to the van, which was now halting in the Falbury, and among these we saw, with his vizor down, that right n.o.ble lord Sir Alain de Bohun, Lord of Caversham and the well-beloved nephew of our lord abbat, whose sad heart was much rejoiced at his so sudden appearance.

"Be it King Stephen or Queen Matilda," said the abbat, "let us throw open our gates to our well-beloved nephew, for he will not see harm done to us, and now, verily, we have nothing to lose but lives not worth the taking." And the gates were thrown open, and Sir Alain was welcomed and affectionately greeted by his uncle; and after many expressions of astonishment and indignation at the wrongs which had been done us, Sir Alain and divers of the lords and knights with him retired for a s.p.a.ce to the lord abbat's despoiled and naked apartment, with the lord abbat and our prior, and some other fathers. I was not of that council, being but a novice, nor can I say it that I ever learned in after times _all_ that was said in it; but I do know that when it was finished (and it lasted not long) the prior came forth with a very confident countenance, and told us all that the Bishop of Winchester, the pope's Legatus a latere, had changed sides, that Stephen of Blois was still King Stephen, and that we must sing a _Te Deum laudamus_ for that same. And we all went forthwith into our church, and the barons and knights went in after us, and we admitted as many as the church would hold of those men-at-arms, and bill-men and bow-men, that had halted in the Falbury with King Stephen's banner, and albeit we were hungry and faint, we sang the _Te Deum_ for Stephen with sonorous voices.

Sir Alain de Bohun, one of the very few lords of England that never changed sides during these nineteen years of revolutions and wars, had fought bravely for King Stephen in the great battle at Lincoln, where other barons and knights had deserted with all their forces to Matilda's illegitimate brother and commander the Earl of Gloucester; and after Stephen had been taken prisoner (not until both his sword and battle-axe had been broken), Sir Alain had escaped from the field and had joined one of the many leagues of n.o.bles who vowed never to submit to the distaff, or allow the Countess of Anjou to be Queen of England. In the five months which had pa.s.sed since the battle of Lincoln, Sir Alain had fought in sundry other battles, and had given heart to many a knight, who, after the synod of Winchester, had despaired of the cause of King Stephen. He had appeared with a good body of horse, and the standard of Stephen, on the southern side of Thamesis, opposite the city of London, and his appearance had encouraged the citizens to rise and drive out Matilda. And the day before, appearing in the suburb of London, Sir Alain de Bohun had been at Guildford, and had there conferred with Stephen's queen, the good Maud, and also with Stephen's brother, the Bishop of Winchester, who did already repent him of that which he had done in synod. But that the bishop had met either Queen Maud or Sir Alain was for the present kept secret.

The Lord of Caversham and his friends had crossed the river, and entered London city within an hour of Matilda's flight. Having toiled far that same day, the horses of the king's party were weary, and could not give pursuit; but after short rest they followed the flying queen along the great road which leads to the westernmost parts of our island. Jesu Maria! had they come unto Reading a few hours sooner, before the arrival of that battalia which the two knights Matilda had sent forth from our abbey had collected, the violent woman might have been made prisoner, and our house have been saved from plunder. But now the horses of King Stephen's friends were again aweary, and though Sir Alain and the n.o.ble barons with him were stronger in foot soldiers, they were much weaker in horse than the host which had left Reading with the countess, who, upon these sundry considerations, and for that she had been gone more than two hours, was let go on her road to Oxenford without pursuit.

The burghers of Reading who had endeavoured to save themselves from plunder and violence by throwing up their caps and shouting for the errant queen, but who had been plundered and beaten all the same (nay, divers of them were wounded by sword and lance, and cruelly maimed), now came to our abbey-gates, making their throats hoa.r.s.e with shouting for King Stephen and the good and gracious Lord of Caversham; and some of the richer franklins of the township and neighbourhood, who had escaped being plundered by Matilda's party, upon learning the sad case in which we, the monks, had been left, hastened to bring us meat and drink.

Sir Alain de Bohun, who had not seen his wife or his home for many a sad day, was about to ride across the fields homeward, when his ladie's page was seen running across the King's Mead towards our abbey.

"Yonder comes one from Caversham," said Sir Alain; "and I read by his looks and his hurry that he bringeth no good news!"

"Fear not," said the abbat, who saw that his nephew's cheek was growing pale, "for the saints have ever defended thy roof-tree, and as I told thee before, the Ladie Alfgiva and the children were as well as well could be at the hour of noon of yesterday, when I did see them."

Nevertheless, the little page did bring bad news, or tidings which much afflicted Sir Alain and our lord abbat. There had been treachery at Caversham, and a fast friend had played loose. That sweet babe, the daughter of Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, who had caused our household so much dismay four years agone, and had sent me and Philip the lay-brother on the night-journey to Sir Alain de Bohun's castle, had dwelt in that castle ever since, and had been nurtured with all delicacy and honour, like a child of the house. For a long season Sir Ingelric, her father, had no safe home unto which he could take her; for since the beginning of these unhappy wars, no house in England could be called safe that was not moated and battlemented, and strongly garrisoned; and if Sir Ingelric had possessed a castellum, he had no gentle dame unto whom he could confide his infant female child. But the Ladie Alfgiva was as tender as a mother to this babe, and this tenderness became the greater when death deprived her of her own little daughter. Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, who had taken vengeance on the destroyer of his wife and home, Sir Jocelyn de Brienne, in the Falbury almost at our abbey gates, seemed engaged for life in a blood-feud with Sir Jocelyn's family and friends, and to be for ever wedded to the party of King Stephen by the strong ties of necessity and revenge. Many were the combats he had fought between that time his house and wife were burned, and the time when King Stephen prepared for that campaign which had ended so disastrously at Lincoln. During this long and busy interval he went not often to Caversham, so that his child grew up with little knowledge of him. The little Alice was wont to call Sir Alain de Bohun her father, even as she called the Ladie Alfgiva mother. Once or twice within the last twelve months Sir Ingelric had said, that since his house was well nigh rebuilt, he should have a safe bower for his daughter, and that Alice must soon home with him; and each time he had said the words the child had run from him to the Ladie Alfgiva, and had clung round her neck, weeping and saying that she would not leave her mother; and her playmate and champion, that right gallant boy Arthur de Bohun, the only son, and now the only child, of Sir Alain, who was some four years older than Alice, said that she must not leave him. It was noticed upon these occasions, that although Sir Ingelric began as in a jest, his countenance soon grew dark and his voice harsh, and that he almost shook his child when he took her on his knee and told her that she must love her father, and must not always be a burthen unto other people. Nay, the last time that he said these words he pressed the little Alice's arm so violently that he left the blackening marks of his fingers upon it.

Other things were noted as well by Sir Alain de Bohun as by the Ladie Alfgiva. It is not every man that is chastened by calamity. Sir Ingelric's great misfortune had made him fierce, proud, and rebellious to the will of Heaven; and, in losing his fair young wife, he had lost his best guide and monitor. He became hard of heart, and grasping, and covetous; and as for more than three years the party of King Stephen had been almost everywhere victorious, he had abundant opportunities of satisfying his appet.i.te for havoc and booty. But the more he gained the more he wished to get, and by degrees he gave up his whole soul to avarice and ambition. Sir Alain de Bohun, who looked for no advantage unto himself, who adhered to King Stephen out of loyalty and affection, and who kept out of the horrible and unnatural warfare as much as he thought his duty would allow him, entertained apprehensions that his friend Sir Ingelric loved the war for what he gained by it, and would not be very steady to any losing party. Sir Ingelric, however, had fought bravely for King Stephen at Lincoln, and had there been taken prisoner. But he had paid a ransom to his captor, and had been some time at large, busied in putting the finishing hand to the strong castle which he had raised on his lands at Speen. Though the distance was so short to Caversham, he had not gone once thither until the evening of the unhappy day on which the Countess of Anjou had come to our abbey--that is, the evening of yesterday--but then he had told the Ladie Alfgiva that as the weather was so fine and the country so tranquil (alack! the good people at Caversham had not seen the arrival of Matilda and her young Jezebels at our abbey), he would take the two children forth for a walk in the meadows by the river side; and the false knight had gone forth with the children, and neither he nor the children had since been seen or heard of. As the little page came to this point in his dismal story, not only our prior, but several of us less ent.i.tled to speak in such a presence, cried out, "That knight in the black mail who kept his vizor down, and that went away with the countess, was none other than Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe;" and our abbot said, "Verily, the voice was that of Sir Ingelric!"

"Woe for these changes!" said Sir Alain de Bohun, "woe and shame upon them. If men have no faith even with old friends--if men do shift from side to side like the inconstant wind, this war will never know an end, and truth, and honour, and mercy will depart the land! Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe! I aided thee in thy wretchedness, and King Stephen did afterwards hand thee on the road to riches and greatness. I first gave thee money and the labour of my serfs that thou mightest re-edify thy house, but now thou hast built to thyself a strong castle, wherein thou thinkest thou canst defy me, now thou believest the cause of Stephen to be desperate, and therefore dost thou raise thy hand against me, and steal away, like a thief, not only the child that was thine own, but also mine only son, that the woman of Anjou may have my dearest hostage in her power. May G.o.d of his mercy protect my dear boy! But, oh Sir Ingelric, thy treachery is ill-laid and ill-timed, thy cunning is foolishness. Great things have happened since thou hast been castle-building, and thou wilt find that thou hast quitted the stronger for the weaker party. Hereafter will I make thee pay, if not for thy black ingrat.i.tude to me, for thy disloyalty to thy too bountiful king, and for the tears my ladie wife will shed for her double loss!"

Here moisture very like a tear stood in the eyes of the Lord of Caversham: but grief gave way to wrath as he said that the felon knight might have taken his own child, which would long since have been in its grave but for the Ladie Alfgiva, without robbing him of his son.

Our good abbat, who had his prophetic seasons, said, "Grieve not, my well-beloved nephew. The two children will do well together, and thou wilt soon have them restored to thy house: they were born to be together and love one another, and so will not be separated. Alice will repay thee hereafter for the ingrat.i.tude and treasons and other evil doings of her father."

Here I, Felix the novice, and Philip the lay-brother, who had carried little Alice from the abbey unto Caversham, and who had loved the child ever since, did say "Amen! amen! So be it."

"The children," said an honest franklin who had stood by all the time of these discourses, "be surely gone with the Countess of Anjou for Oxenford; as on the road beyond the town I saw a blue-eyed boy riding before a man-at-arms, and a little girl in the arms of a waiting-woman who rode close to the countess on a piebald horse, and both the children were crying piteously."

"Then will we recover them at Oxenford," said one of the knights.

Sir Alain de Bohun, with a part of the company who had come with him, mounted for Caversham; and when Sir Alain began to ride, I could see that he rode hotly and impatiently. The rest of the knightly company we entertained in the abbey as best we could, and lodged them for that night, the good franklins having brought us in some clean straw and rushes for that purpose. The commoner sort slept in the open air on the Falbury, with their weapons by their sides.

But before the troublous day was finished, other dismal tidings and sights of woe were brought to our house. John Appold and Ralph Wain, two franklins whilome of good substance, who farmed some of our outstanding abbey lands beyond Pangbourne, came to tell us that their houses had been burned, their granaries emptied, and the plough-hinds and shepherds and all the serfs driven away by Matilda's people, who had chained them together by their iron neck-collars, and had goaded them before them like cattle with the points of their lances. And before these sad tales were well ended, Will Shakeshaft, a faithful steward who dwelt in a house our lord abbat had at Purley, arrived on a maimed horse, and with a ghastly cut across his face, to let us know that violence had been done to his wife, and that that fair house had been burned also. A little later there came three of our poor serfs howling so that it was dreadful to hear, and holding in the air their red and still bleeding stumps. They had been amputated and then liberated, in order that they might go forth and show all the people what they had to expect if they opposed or so much as forbore to aid and join the empress-queen. As the night became dark, we could trace the march of the countess by a line of fire and smoke. Such were the things which drove the poor people of England into impiety and blasphemy, making them say that Christ and the saints had fallen asleep! And these things lasted in the land for fifteen more years.

V.

When baptized Christian men did steal the children of other Christian men, yea, and torture and slay them, no marvel was it that the unconverted Israelites, who had been allowed to come into the land in great numbers since the Norman conquest, should do deeds of the like sort. So it was, that in King Stephen's reign the rich Jews of Norwich did buy a Christian child from its poor parents a little before Easter, and on the Long Friday, when the church was mourning for the crucifixion of our Lord, they tortured him after the same manner as our Lord was tortured, and did nail him on a rood in mockery of our Saviour; and afterwards buried him. These sacrilegious and cruel Jews thought that their horrible crime would be concealed, but it was revealed from above, and the people of Norwich smote the Jews and tortured them as they merited; and the Lord showed that the Christian child was a holy martyr: and the monks took him and buried him with all honour and reverence in Norwich Minster; and he is called Saint William, and through our Lord wonderful miracles are wrought at his tomb even in our own day, and his festival is kept with becoming solemnity on the twenty-fifth of the kalends of March.

Sad and sinful was it for Christian parents to sell their children to Jew, or even to Gentile. The evil practice had once been common in England, and in the port of Bristowe children were once sold in great numbers to be carried into Ireland and elsewhere; but the church had put down the unnatural traffic, and when King Stephen came to the throne no freeman would have sold his child. But want and hunger now severed the natural tie, and starving parents sold their starving children rather than see them die before their eyes and they unable to help them. Yea, frantic mothers would give their infants from their dried-up b.r.e.a.s.t.s to any strangers that would promise to nourish them. _Horresco repetens!_ I do shudder in the telling of it, but so it was. Fair English children were again sold to traffickers on the western coast, who carried them into Ireland, and in such numbers that the slave-market of the Irishry was all over-stocked with them. In the happy and plentiful days which now be in the land such things are hard to believe; but I, as a novice, did often see them with mine own eyes, and the causes that led thereunto. Yea, have I seen the poor people of England roaming by the wayside and eating garbage which scarcely the fox or the foul birds of the air would touch, rambling in the woods and fields in search of roots and berries, ay, grazing on the bank-side like cattle, or that great sinner Nebuchadnezzar; for flocks and herds were swept away, and slaughtered, and wasted by the armed bands that ever ranged the country, or were kept penned up within the castles of the strong men--those pestilent barons and knights that were now for Matilda and now for Stephen, and always for plunder and all crime, living and fattening upon great and b.l.o.o.d.y thievings--_magna et sanguineolentia latrocinia_: and the fields could not be cultivated because of the continual pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing, and burning, and fighting, and slaying of these armed hosts and bands of robbers, who did worse than the heathen had ever done; for after a time they spared neither church nor churchyard, neither a bishop's land nor an abbat's land, and not more the lands of a priest than the fields of a franklin, but plundered both monks and clerks! And so it came to pa.s.s that nearly every man that could, robbed another, and carried away his wife or daughter, and did with her what he list. If two men or three came riding to a town, all the township fled, concluding them to be robbers. Some of our bishops and learned men continually did excommunicate them and curse them; but the effect thereof was nought, for they were one and all accursed, and forsworn, and abandoned; and grieves me to say that too many bishops and churchmen were men of violent and unsteady councils and castle-builders themselves, waging war like the lay lords, and being as void as they of steadiness and loyalty, and mercy for the people. Verily I myself have seen prelates clad in armour and mounted on war-horses, even as at the time of the Conquest, and in that guise directing the siege or the attack, or drawing lots with the rest for the booty. The strong men constantly laid gilds on the towns, and called it by a Norman name which signifyeth _torture_; and when the poor townfolk had no more to give, then they plundered and burned the towns; so that thou mightest go a whole day's journey and never behold a man sitting in a town or see a field that was tilled. To till the ground was as useless as to plough the sea, for no man could hope to reap that which he sowed. Thus the earth bare little or no corn; and bread became of a fearful dear price; and flesh, and cheese, and b.u.t.ter were there none for the poor. Ay, franklins who had been rich men, and who had kept good house and been bountiful to the poor and to mother church, were seen begging alms on the road. Many of the poorest died of hunger on a soil which G.o.d had blessed with fertility, but which sinful men had turned into a wilderness; and many, going distraught, threw themselves into the rivers, or hanged themselves in the woods. This was greater woe than England had witnessed during the long wars of the Norman conquest; and it was in this abyss of misery that fathers and mothers sold their children.

On the morning after his going to Caversham Sir Alain de Bohun returned unto our house with the knights who had gone with him; and before it was time to begin the service of tertia in the church, he and all the company, as well foot as horse, marched away to the north-west. They intended for Oxenford, but did not take the direct road; for they had learned from scouts that Matilda's party had been strengthened by some bands from the eastward, and Sir Alain and his friends hoped to get an increase of strength in the westward before they turned round upon the countess. But while the partisans of King Stephen were marching to the westward and gaining great strength on the borders of Wiltshire, the Countess of Anjou suddenly decamped from Oxenford and began a march for Winchester, for she had at length conceived suspicion and alarm at the conduct of the Bishop of Winchester, the king's brother, and our lord the pope's legate. Intending to pa.s.s through Berkshire into Hampshire and unto Winchester, she took her course by c.u.mnor, Abingdon, and Wallingford. The news of her approach was a death-blow to our good abbat. He had been for some time past declining. He could not away with the thought of Matilda's evil doings unto our house. Being a man formerly addicted to hospitality, good company, cheerful conversation, music, and innocent mirth, he was observed to forsake all this with much melancholy and pensiveness, and so to droop and pine away; but yet was it the news of the countess's coming that gave the finishing stroke.

Eheu! and Miserrimus! A better monk or a n.o.bler lord abbat was never slain by princely violence and the wickedness of excommunicate men. He was at Sir Alain de Bohun's castle, and I and Philip the lay-brother were in attendance upon him when our scouts brought the intelligence that Matilda was at Abingdon with the heads of her columns pointing along the road towards Reading. The good, kind-hearted man had gone to Caversham in order to console the Ladie Alfgiva, whom he found, like Rachel, mourning for her children, yet not mourning like one that would not be comforted. But comfortless and sad was the face of our lord abbat when he gave his niece the parting blessing, and warned her to look well to her castle, and bade the warder to keep close the gates, and not admit so much as a strange dog within the walls. There had been a slow fever in his veins ever since the bad visit of the Angevin countess, and now his limbs shook and his eyes seemed to swim in his head, and he had much ado to mount the rough upland horse which had been procured for him in lieu of his gentle-paced palfrey. "Felix, my boy," said he unto me as we descended the slopes of Caversham towards the river, "ride close to my bridle-hand, for I am faint, and a heavy sickness is upon my heart." As he rode across the meads, the breeze, which blew freshly and coolly from the broad river, did somewhat revive him; but anon he complained of the rough motion of his steed, and gently lamented the loss of his ambling grey, which Matilda had stolen from him so foully.

When near to the great gate of the abbey he turned round and looked towards the river and the Caversham hills that were shining in the setting sun; and then, as he went under the archway, I saw tears drop from his eyes, and I heard him mutter to himself, "'Tis a right beauteous sight, but I shall see it no more." And that night, and before the middle watches thereof, praying for the community of Reading and all England besides, and imploring the saints to protect the house at Caversham and the two sweet children, he turned his face to the wall and died, to the unspeakable grief of every honest member of the house. He left this troubled world in such good repute as a virtuous and holy man, that a.s.suredly he merited beatification, if not the higher glories of canonization.--_In Domino moritur._

Before going to his bed, our good abbat held council with all the obedientiarii and sworn monks of the abbey, and I was of the number of those who thought that this exertion, and his long and anxious speaking, hastened his demise. His opinions were, that the monks ought to keep close their gates, and call in their retainers and some of the townfolk of Reading to help them to defend the house; that Matilda could not tarry long for a siege or any other object, as Sir Alain de Bohun and his party would soon retrace their steps; and that the monks, having made good their house by standing on the defensive, should remain neutral in the horrible war, taking no step and raising no voice either for King Stephen or Queen Matilda, until they saw what course was taken by the pope's legate or a synod of the church. All present at this council, whether cloister monks or monks holding office, agreed that this advice was the best that could be given, and protested that they would follow it; and Hildebrand, the sub-prior, was the loudest of any in his prayers that St. James and St. John the Evangelist, patrons of our house, would long preserve the life of our good old abbat, who had governed the abbey for many years with great wisdom and gentleness; and, sooth to say, in all that time he had ruled as a fond father rules his own children, and never did he sadden the heart of an honest man and faithful servant of the church, or cause a tear to flow until he died.

But, woe the while! the wickedness, the treachery, and malice of the times, had spread themselves on every side and to every community; and some members of our once quiet and loving brotherhood there were that hid Judas hearts under fawning countenances; and before the pa.s.sing bell ceased to toll for our abbat's death, these unhappy men took secret council with one another, and resolved to act in a manner altogether different from that which had been advised, and that which they had promised and vowed to follow. And, lo! on the second evening after the death of our good abbat, when the Angevin woman and her host came again unto our house, like a whirlwind, with lances in the air, and clouds of dust rolling before their path, the sub-prior and his fautors, including as well some of the franklins and retainers, as monks and novices, and lay brothers of the abbey, did drive away the other party, and lower our draw-bridge, and throw wide open our great gate, and sing hosannas, and cry, "Long live the empress-queen! G.o.d bless the sweet face of Queen Matilda, the lawful sovereign of this realm!" And again Matilda came within the cloisters, and took possession of our house with her lawless men of war and her gadabout damsels. This time they could not rob, for we had not the wherewithal, unless they took our gowns, hoods, and sandals, and our flesh and bones; but they did worse things than steal.

Matilda ordered that on the instant the fathers of the house should proceed to elect and appoint a new abbat.

"Dread ladie," said Reginald, our prior, now the highest in office, "This cannot be! It is against the rules of our order; it is against the canons of holy church; it is against the feelings of humanity; it is contrary to common decency! Our late lord abbat lies as yet unburied within our walls. He must be first interred honorably, and as becometh the dignity of the house; and before we, the fathers of the house, can open a Chapter, many ma.s.ses of requiem must be said, and the guidance of the Spirit must be invoked to help us in our election, and notice must be sent unto the head of our order, and alms must be given unto the poor. Albeit, I see not what alms we can give, since our house hath been so----"

"Rebel monk," cried Matilda, "reproach not thy queen! But I do perceive that thou art a fautor of Stephen, like the old rebel that hath departed. I told him that the mitre was falling from his head, and I now tell thee that it shall never drop upon thine."

"Would that it had pleased the saints to keep it on the head which wore it so long, and with so much honour," said our bold prior. "I never aimed at it, or had a wish for it. I would not stoop my body, or stretch out my hand, to pick it up, if it lay at my feet. I would never wear it except forced so to do by canonical election, and the free and strong will of my brothers. Matilda, thou that ransackest houses of religion, and the very tomb of thy father, and tramplest on the monks that live to pray for the soul of thy father, I would not accept the mitre and crozier from thee if thou wert to fall on thy knees and implore me to do it! I stand here as an humble but faithful servant of this community--as a lowly member of the great family of St. Benedict; and if I raise my voice, it is only for the sake of our religion and unchangeable rules.

Thy men-at-arms need not grind their teeth, and point their lances at me. I fear them not; and in this cause would face torture and death."

"By the splendour!" cried Matilda, "we do but waste time in speech with such as thou art. I tell thee, thou traitor and malignant, that the election shall be made forthwith; and that before I quit this house I will see an honest man put into the abbatial chair, and confirm him therein by our royal deed. Thou wilt not question, oh monk, that the election of a Chapter is nought without the a.s.sent and confirmation of the lawful sovereign; and as I have weighty matters in hand, and will soon be far away from Reading, there might be great delay in obtaining my confirmation if it were not given now."

At this pa.s.sage the sub-prior, bowing before Matilda more lowly than he was ever seen to bow before the effigies of our Ladie in the Ladie's chapel, said yea and verily, and that this last was a weighty consideration before which the rule of St. Benedict might, in some points, give way; and that in times of trouble and discord and anarchy like these we were living in, the royal abbey of Reading could not with safety be left for a single day without a head.