Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II Part 13

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

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

_Kings of England_.

Knute and his sons.

Edward.

Harold.

William I.

William II.

Henry I.

_Kings of France_.

Henry I.

Philippe I.

Louis VI.

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

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

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

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

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

After two years, both the Stranger and his wife Agatha died, leaving three young children, Christina, Margaret, and Edgar, of whom the boy was the youngest. His only inheritance, poor child, was his t.i.tle of Etheling, declaring a claim which was likely to be his greatest peril.

Edward the Confessor pa.s.sed him entirely over in disposing of his kingdom; and as he was but six, or, as some say, ten years old, Harold seems to have feared no danger from him, but left him at liberty within the city of London.

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

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

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

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

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

There is some confusion in both the English and Scottish histories respecting Malcom's exertions in Edgar's cause; indeed, the Border warfare was always going on, and now and then the King took part in it. At length William and Malcolm, each at the head of an army, met in Galloway, and after standing at bay for some days, entered into a treaty. Malcolm paid homage to the English King for the two Lothians and c.u.mberland, and at the same time secured the safety of Edgar Etheling.

The boy solemnly renounced all claim to the English crown, engaging never to molest the Conqueror or his children in their possession of it; while, on the other hand, he was endowed with estates in England, and a pension of a mark of silver a day was settled upon him. He could not at this time have been more than fourteen--there is more reason to think he was but ten years old--but the oath that he then took he kept with the most unshaken fidelity, in the midst of temptations, and of examples of successful perjury.

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

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

But Margaret was a true daughter of Alfred, and the traditions of the Alfred of Hungary were fresh upon her, and, instead of sitting down to cower alarmed amid the turmoils round her, she set herself to conquer the evils in her own feminine way, by her performance of her queenly duties. She was happy in her husband: Malcolm revered her saintly purity even more than he loved her sweet, sunny, cheerful manner, or admired her surpa.s.sing loveliness of person. He looked on her as something too precious and tender for his wild, rugged court, and attended to her slightest bidding with reverence, kissing her holy books which he could not read, and interpreting her Saxon-spoken advice to his rude Celts.

She even made him help her to wash the feet of the poor, and aid her in disgusting offices to the diseased, and his royal treasury was open to her to take all that she desired for alms. Sometimes she would pretend to take it by stealth, and Malcolm would catch her by the wrists and carry her to her confessor, to ask if she was not a little thief who deserved to be well punished. In his turn he would steal away her books, and bring them back after a time, gilt and adorned with beautiful illuminations.

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

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

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

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

He returned through Constantinople, where many of the English fugitives were serving in the Varangian guard. The Emperor Alexius Comnenus was much pleased with him, and offered him high preferment if he would remain with him; but Edgar loved his own country too well, and proceeded homeward.

He found a changed state of affairs on his arrival in Normandy. William the Conqueror was dead, and Robert, with the aid of Henry Beauclerc, just preparing to a.s.sert his right to the English crown against Red William. Edgar Etheling offered his sword to a.s.sist his friend; but he was shamefully treated. William came to Normandy, sought a conference with Robert, cajoled or outwitted him into a treaty in which one of the conditions was that he should withdraw his protection from both Edgar and Henry, and deprive the former of all the lands in Normandy which their father had given him.

Edgar retired to Scotland to his sister Margaret, whom he found the mother of nine children, continuing the same peaceful, active life in which he had left her, and her holy influence telling more and more upon her court. Many Saxons had come to live in the lowlands of Scotland, and the habits and manners of the court of Dumfermline were being fast modelled on those of Westminster in the time of Edward and Edith.

Malcolm and William Rufus were at war, and Edgar accompanied his brother-in-law to the banks of the Tyne, where they were met by William and Robert. No battle took place; but Edgar and Robert, meeting on behalf of the two kings, arranged a treaty of peace. In return for this service, William permitted Edgar to return to England, being perhaps persuaded by Robert and Malcolm that the English prince was a man of his word, though to his own hindrance.

The peace, thus effected did not last long, most unhappily for Scotland.

Malcolm, with his two eldest sons, Edward and Edmund, invaded England, and laid siege to Alnwick Castle, leaving the Queen at Edinburgh, seriously ill. At Alnwick the Scottish army was routed, and Malcolm and Edward were slain. The tradition is, that one of the garrison pretended to surrender the castle, by giving the keys, through a window, on the point of a lance; [Footnote: Curiously in accordance with this story we find, in the Bayeux tapestry, the surrender of Dinan represented by the delivery of the keys in this manner to William the Conqueror.] but that he treacherously thrust the weapon into the eye of Malcolm, and thus killed him. The story adds that thus the soldier acquired the name of Pierce-eye, or Percy; which is evidently incorrect, since the Percys of Alnwick trace their origin to William de Albini, who married Henry Beauclerc's second queen, Alice of Louvain.

An instant disturbance prevailed on the King's death. His army fled in dismay; his corpse was left on the ground, till a peasant carried it to Tynemouth; his men were dispersed, slain, or drowned in their flight; his young son Edmund, a stripling of eighteen or nineteen, just contrived to escape to Edinburgh Castle. The first tidings that met him there were, that his mother was dying; that she lay on her bed in great anxiety for her husband and sons, and finding no solace except in holding a fragment of the true Cross pressed to her lips, and repeating the fifty-first Psalm.

The poor youth, escaped from a lost battle, and bearing such dreadful tidings, was led to her presence at once.

"How fares it with your father and brother?" said she.

He feared to tell her all, and tried to answer, "Well;" but she perceived how it was too plainly, and holding out the Holy Cross, commanded him to speak the truth. "They are slain, mother--both slain!"

Margaret's thoughts must have rushed back to the twenty-three years of uninterrupted affection she had enjoyed with her lord, to her gallant son, slain in his first battle, and onward to the unprotected state of the seven orphans she left in the wild kingdom. Agony indeed it was; but she blessed Him who sent it. "All praise be to Thee, everlasting G.o.d, who hast made me to suffer such anguish in my death."

She lingered on a few hours longer, while storms raged around. The wild Celts hated Malcolm's improvements and Saxon arts of peace, and his brother Donald was placing himself at their head to deprive his lawful brothers of their heritage. A troop of Highlanders were on their way to besiege Edinburgh Castle, even when the holy Queen drew her last breath; and her friends had barely time to admire the sweet peacefulness that had spread over her wasted features, before they were forced to carry her remains away in haste and secrecy, attended by her weeping, trembling children, to Dumfermline Abbey, where she was buried.

Her children, seven in number (for Ethelred, the eldest, had died in infancy), were left unprotected. Edmund was only eighteen, and timid and gentle. Donald seized the crown; and the orphans remained in great danger, till their brave uncle, Edgar Etheling, learnt the fatal tidings, and, coming from England, fetched them all home with him, giving the two girls, Edith and Mary, into the care of their aunt Christina, who was now Abbess of Wilton. It was at some danger to himself that he took the desolate children under his protection. A man named Orgar accused him to William Rufus of intending to raise his nephews to the English crown. A knight, named Goodwin, no doubt of Saxon blood, no sooner heard the aspersion, than he answered by avowing the honor and faithfulness of his Etheling, threw down his glove, and defied Orgar to single combat--"G.o.d show the right." It was shown; Orgar fell, and Saxons and Normans both rejoiced, for the Etheling had made himself much beloved.

The Crusade was preached, and Robert invited Edgar to join in it; but he could not forsake the charge of his sister's children, and was forced to remain at home. Revolutions, however, continued in Scotland. Donald was overthrown by Duncan, a son of Malcolm, born long before his marriage; and the Lowland Scots were impatient of the return to barbarism. Duncan was killed, and Donald restored. Edgar hoped that his nephews might be restored. Edmund had chosen to renounce the throne and embrace a religious life; but the next in age, Edgar and Alexander, were spirited princes, and eager to a.s.sert their right.

The Etheling had never shed blood to regain his own lost kingdom; but he was a true knight-errant and redresser of wrongs. He asked leave from William to raise a Saxon army to restore his nephew to the Scottish throne; and such was the reliance that even the scoffer William had learnt to place on his word, that it was granted. The English flocked with joy round their "darling," wishing, without doubt, that it was for the restoration of the Saxon, instead of the Scottish Edgar, that they took up arms.

At Durham the monks of St. Cuthbert intrusted to the Etheling their sacred standard--a curious two-winged ensign, with a cross, that was carried on a car. It was believed always to bring victory, and at the first sight of it Donald's men abandoned him, and went over to Edgar.

Donald was made prisoner, and soon after died. Young Edgar a.s.sumed the crown, sent for the rest of his family, and had a happy and prosperous reign.

Had Edgar Etheling been selfish and ambitious, he might now, at the head of his victorious Saxons, have had a fair chance of dethroning the tyrant William; but instead of this, his thoughts were fixed on the Holy Land; and embarking with his willing army, he came up with the Crusaders just in time for the siege of Jerusalem, where the English, under "Edgar Adeling," fought gallantly in the a.s.sault in the portion of the army a.s.signed to Robert of Normandy.

Edgar and Robert returned together, and visited the Normans of Apulia, where Edgar had been some years before. Robert here fell in love with Sybilla, the beautiful daughter of the Count of Conversana, and soon after married her. It was in the midst of the wedding festivities that Ralph Flambard, lately the wicked minister of William Rufus, arrived from England, having escaped from prison, bringing the news that his master, the Red King, was slain, and Henry Beauclerc wore the crown. The hasty wrath of Duke Robert was quickly fanned by Ralph Flambard, and he set off at once to attack his brother, and gain the kingdom which Henry had sworn should be his.

However, on his arrival, he at first only amused himself with conducting his bride through his dukedom, and being feasted at every castle. When two knights of Maine came to tell him that Helie de la Fleche was besieging their castles, he carelessly thanked them for their fidelity, but told them he had rather gain a kingdom, than a county, and so that they should make the best terms they could.