Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II Part 14

Sybilla's dowry enabled Robert to raise a considerable army, and he had likewise the support of most of the barons whose estates lay both in Normandy and England, and who therefore preferred that the two states should be united; whereas those who had only domains in England held with Henry, wishing to be free from the elder and more powerful n.o.bility of Normandy. The Anglo-Saxons were for Henry, who had relieved them from some of their sufferings, and had won their favor by his marriage, which connected him with the Etheling. Edith, the eldest daughter of the good Queen Margaret, had remained with her aunt Christina in the Abbey of Wilton, after her brother had been made King of Scotland. She was like her mother in many respects; and her aunt wished to devote her to the cloister, and secure her from the cruel sorrows her mother had endured, under the black veil that she already wore, like the professed nuns, to shield her from the insults of the Norman knights, or their attempts to secure a princess as a bride. But Edith remembered that her father had once said that he destined her to be a queen, and not a nun. She recollected how her mother had moulded her court, and been loved and honored there, and her temper rebelled against the secluded life in the convent, so much that, in a girlish fit of impatience, she would, when her aunt was out of sight, tear off her veil and trample upon it.

At length the tidings came that Henry, the new King of England, wooed the Princess of Scotland for his bride.

A marriage of policy it evidently was; for, unlike the generous love that had caused Malcolm to espouse the friendless exile Margaret, Henry was a perjured usurper, and dark stories were told of his conduct in Normandy. Christina strongly and vehemently opposed the marriage, as the greatest calamity that could befall her niece: she predicted that, if Edith persisted in it, only misery could arise from it; and when she found her determined, tried to prove her to be already bound by the promises of a nun.

Here Christina went too far: a court was held by Archbishop Anselm, and it was fully proved that the Lady Edith was under no vows. She was declared free to marry, and in a short time became the wife of Henry, changing her own Saxon name to the Norman Matilda, or Maude. In the first year of her marriage, when Henry was anxious to win the favor of the English, he conformed so much to their ways that the scornful Normans used to call him and his young wife by the Saxon names of G.o.dric and G.o.diva. The Saxons thus were willing to stand by King Henry, all excepting the sailors, who were won by Robert's spirit of enterprise, and deserting, with their whole fleet, went to Normandy, and brought Robert and his army safe to Portsmouth.

This happened just as Edith Maude had given birth to her first child, at Winchester. Robert was urged to a.s.sault the city; but he refrained, declaring such would be an unknightly action toward his sister-in-law and her babe. Henry soon came up with his forces, the brothers held a conference, and, as usual, Robert was persuaded to give up his rights, and to make peace.

For the next four years Robert continued in Normandy, leading a gay and careless life at first with his beautiful Sybilla; but she soon died, leaving an infant son, and thenceforward his affairs grew worse and worse, as he followed only the impulse of the moment. From riot and drunkenness he fell into fits of devotion, fasting, weeping, and praying; his poverty so great that he was at one time obliged to lie in bed for want of garments to wear; and his dukedom entirely uncared for, fields left uncultivated, and castles which were dens of robbers.

The Normans begged that some measures might be taken for their relief, and King Henry came, and, with Robert's consent, set things on a better footing; but meanwhile he was secretly making arrangements with the barons for the overthrow of his brother. In two years' time he had tempted over almost every baron to desert the cause of their master, and in 1106 prepared to wrest the dukedom from him. The unfortunate Robert came to him at Northampton, almost alone, forced himself into his presence, and told him he would submit everything to him, if he would only leave him the state and honor due to his birth. Henry turned his back on him, muttering some answer which Robert could not hear, and which he would not repeat. In a pa.s.sion, Robert reproached him with his ill faith and cruel, grasping temper, left him hastily, and returned to Rouen, to make a last sad struggle for his inheritance.

He placed his child in the Castle of Falaise, obtaining a promise from the garrison that they would give up their trust to no summons but his own, or that of a trusty knight called William de Ferrieres. Hardly a va.s.sal would rally round him in his dire distress; his only supporters were two outlawed barons, whom Henry had driven out of England for their violence, and besides these there were two faithful friends of his youth, whose swords had always been ready in his cause, except in the unhappy war against his father. One was Helie de St. Saen, the other was Edgar Etheling, who quitted his peaceful home, and all the favor he enjoyed in England as uncle to the Queen, to bear arms for his despoiled and injured friend.

Henry invaded Normandy, and all the n.o.bles came over to his side. Robert met him before the Castle of Tenchebray, and the two armies prepared for battle the next day. In the evening a hermit came to the English camp; his head strewn with ashes, and a cord about his waist. He conjured Henry to cease from his unnatural war with a brother who had been a soldier of the Cross, "his brow still shining with traces of the crown of Jerusalem," and prevailed so far as to gain permission to go and propose terms of peace to the Duke of Normandy. On coming into his presence, the hermit begged to kiss the feet which had trodden the pavement of the Holy Sepulchre, and then exhorted Robert to be contented with the kingdom reserved for him in heaven. He declared Henry's terms very hard ones; but the Duke would have accepted them, but that he was required to own himself vanquished; and against this his haughty spirit revolted. He cast aside all offers of accommodation, and prepared for battle.

The fight of Tenchebray took place on St. Michael's Eve, 1106, the day forty years since the Battle of Hastings; and when the Saxons in Henry's army turned Robert's Normans to flight, they rejoiced as if they were wiping out the memory of the defeat of Harold. Yet in the vanquished army was their own Etheling, the darling of England, who was made prisoner together with the unfortunate Robert, and led before Henry. It was the last battle in which the two friends fought side by side; the disinherited prince had fought for the son of the despoiler for the last time, and soon they were to part, to spend the many remaining years of their lives in a far different manner.

Robert was made to summon the surrender of Rouen, and Ferrieres was sent to receive Falaise, and the little William, heir of Normandy; but the faithful garrison would not yield till Henry had conducted thither the Duke himself, who called on them to surrender, lest the castle should be taken by the wicked outlaw De Belesme. Little William was brought to the King, and his tears and caresses for a moment touched Henry's heart so far that he gave the child into the charge of Helie de St. Saen, Robert's faithful friend, and husband of his illegitimate daughter.

It was the last time Robert of Normandy saw the face of his only child.

The boy went to Arques with the faithful Helie, while Robert was sent to England, and imprisoned in Cardiff Castle. At first he was honorably treated, and allowed to indulge in hunting and other amus.e.m.e.nts; but he made an attempt to escape, and was only recaptured in consequence of his horse having plunged into a bog, whence he could not extricate himself.

After this he was more closely guarded, and it is said that his eyes were put out; but there is reason to hope that this may not be true. He was under the charge of Robert, an illegitimate son of Henry, who had married Amabel Fitzaymon, heiress of Gloucester, and who was a n.o.ble, high-minded, chivalrous person, likely to do all in his power to cheer his uncle's captivity.

Here Robert from time to time heard of his son: first, how Henry had sent messengers to seize him when St. Saen was absent from Arques; but happily they came on a Sunday morning, when the child was at church, and the servants, warned in time, carried him off to meet their brave master. Then Helie chose to forfeit lands and castle rather than give up his trust, and conducted his little brother-in-law from court to court, wherever he could hope for security, till young William was grown up, and raised an army, with the aid of Louis of France and Foulques of Anjou, to recover his inheritance and rescue his father. But Foulques was detached from the alliance by the betrothal of his daughter to Henry's son William, and the battle of Brenville ruined the hopes of William of Normandy. Next, Robert learnt that the male line of the Counts of Flanders had failed, and his son, as the representative of Matilda, the Conqueror's wife, had been owned as the heir of that rich country. Shortly after, the captive Duke was one morning found weeping.

He had had a dream, he said, in which he had seen his son dying of a wound in the hand. The tidings came in due time that William had been accidentally pierced by the point of a lance in the hand, the wound had mortified, and he expired at the end of a week. The prisoner still lived on, till, in the twenty-eighth year of his captivity, death at length released him. There is a story of his having starved himself to death in a fit of anger, because Henry had sent him a robe after wearing it once; but this is very improbable. Robert had reached a great age, and his was a character which was likely to be much improved when absent from temptation and with time for thought. He lies buried in Gloucester Cathedral, under an effigy carved in bog oak, with the legs crossed, in memory of his crusade, but unfortunately painted in such a manner as to entirely to spoil its effect.

Edgar Etheling was soon allowed to ransom himself, and retiring to his own estates, lived there in peace. His niece, the good Queen Maude, lived on in the English Court, trying to imitate her mother in her charities, and being, like her, much beloved by the poor, to whose wants she ministered with her own hands; while her youngest brother David, then a gay-tempered youth, used to laugh at her for such mean toils, as he called them. No help, such as her father had given St. Margaret, did Maude receive from her husband; she had only the pain of watching his harshness, cruelty, and hypocrisy, during the eighteen years of her marriage. She died in 1118, leaving three children--Maude, already married to the Emperor of Germany, and William and Richard. William Etheling is reported to have been as proud as his sister Maude, and to have talked of using the churl Saxons as beasts of burden. But there are stories more in his favor. He seemed generously disposed toward his cousin, the son of Robert; and he met his death in an attempt to save life, so that it may be hoped that he was not entirely unworthy of the good old name of Etheling, which he bore as heir to the throne.

Our Etheling Edgar lived on in peace through all the troublous times of Stephen, without again appearing in history, till his death is noted in 1159, ninety-three years after the Norman Conquest.

It has been the fashion to call him a fool and a coward; and no doubt the ambitious men who broke oath after oath, and scrupled at no violence, so esteemed one whose right was the inheritance over which they quarrelled. Whether he was a fool, may be answered by showing that, after he was fourteen, his name was never once brought forward by factious men for their own purposes; that he conducted a treaty with Scotland, and restored his nephew to the throne: and whether he was a coward, no one can ask who has heard of him hastening to attack the Saracens of Apulia, invading warlike Scotland, leading the English to scale the walls of Jerusalem, and, lastly, fighting in a cause that could only be desperate, in a battle that _must_ be lost, where he had no personal interest, and only came to aid a distressed and injured friend. No one can inquire into the history of the last of the race of Alfred without acknowledging in him one of the most perfect examples of true chivalry, in inviolate adherence to his word, and in redressing of grievances, for which his good sword was ever ready, though for his own rights it was never drawn, nor was one drop of English blood shed that Edgar Etheling might reign.

CAMEO XV. THE COUNTS OF ANJOU. (888-1142.)

Having traced the ancestry of our Norman kings from the rocks of Norway and the plains of Neustria, let us, before entering on the new race which succeeded them, turn back to the woodland birthplace of the house of Plantagenet, on the banks of the Loire.

The first ancestor to whom this branch of our royal line can be traced is Torquatus, a native of Rennes in Brittany, and keeper of the forest of Nid de Merle in Anjou, for the Emperor Charles the Bald. Of Roman Gallic blood, and of honest, faithful temper, he was more trusted by his sovereign than the fierce Frank warriors, who scarcely owned their prince to be their superior; and in after times the counts and kings his descendants were proud of deriving their lineage from the stout Woodman of the Blackbird's Nest.

His son Tertullus distinguished himself in battle, and died early, leaving an only son, named Ingelger, who was G.o.dson to the Countess de Gastinois, and was brought up in her castle, the school of chivalry and "courtoisie" to the young va.s.sals of the county.

The lady was heiress of Gastinois in her own right, and as the monarch had the power of disposing of his wards in marriage, she had been obliged to give her hand to the seneschal of Charles the Bald, a person whom she much disliked. One morning her husband was found dead in his bed; and his nearest relation, whose name was Gontran, accusing her of having murdered him, laid claim to her whole inheritance.

The cause was brought before Charles the Bald, at Chateau Landon; and Gontran offered to prove his words by the ordeal of battle, taking off his gauntlet and throwing it down before the Emperor. Unless the countess could find a champion to maintain her innocence, or unless Gontran was overthrown in single combat, she would be completely ruined, adjudged a murderess, and forced to hide her disgrace in a convent. None of the knights present would undertake her cause; and after gazing round at them in despair, she fainted away.

Her G.o.dson Ingelger, who attended her as a page, could not bear the sight of her distress, and, as a last hope, threw himself on his knees before the Emperor, entreating that, though he was only sixteen, and in the last grade of chivalry, he might be allowed to take up the gauntlet, and a.s.sert the innocence of his G.o.dmother.

Permission was granted; and Ingelger, trusting to the goodness of his cause, spent the night in prayer, went in early morning with the countess to hear ma.s.s, and afterward joined her in giving alms to the poor; then she hung a reliquary round his neck, and sent him to arm for the decisive combat.

The whole court were spectators; the Emperor Charles on his throne, and the accused widow in a litter curtained with black. Prayers were offered that G.o.d would show the right; the trumpets sounded, and the champions rode in full career against each other. At the first onset Gontran's lance pierced his adversary's shield, so that he could not disengage it, and Ingelger was thus enabled to close with him, hurl him to the ground, and dispatch turn with a dagger. Then, while the lists rung with applause, the brave boy rushed up to his G.o.dmother, and threw himself into her arms in a transport of joy.

The countess, thus cleared, only desired to retire from the world, and besought the Emperor's consent to her bestowing all her lands on her young defender. It was readily granted; and shortly after Charles gave him, in addition, the government of the city of Angers, and the adjoining county of Anjou, whence he derives his t.i.tle. [Footnote: Many similar tales of championship will occur to every one, in romance and ballad. The Ginevra of Ariosto, our own beautiful English ballad of Sir Aldingar, where it is an angel in the form of a "tinye boy," who appears to vindicate the good fame of the slandered and desolate queen, the "Sir Hugh le Blond of Arbuthnot, in Scotland." Perhaps this story may be the root of all the rest. It is recorded in the "Gesta Andegavorum," in the compilation of which a descendant of Ingelger had a considerable share.]

Little more is known of the first Count of Anjou, except that he bravely resisted the Northern pirates; and for his defence of the clergy of St. Martin of Tours was rewarded by a canonry, and the charge of the treasure of the chapter. He died in 888, and was succeeded by his son Count Foulques le Roux, or the Red. From this time the house of Anjou began to acquire that character of violence, ambition, and turbulence, which distinguished the whole family, till, six hundred years after, the last of the race shed her blood on the scaffold of the Tower of London.

It therefore seems appropriate here to give the strange, wild story to which they were wont to attribute their family temper, though it is generally told of one who came later in the line. It was said that the count observed that his wife seldom went to church, and never at the celebration of ma.s.s; and believing that she had some unholy dealings to cause this reluctance, he put her to the proof, by causing her to be forcibly held throughout the service by four knights. At the moment of consecration, however, the knights found the mantle alone in their hands; the lady had flown through the window, leaving nothing behind her but the robe, and a fearful smell of brimstone!

From the witch-countess, as she was called, her sons were thought to derive the wild energy and fierce mutual hatred which raged for so many centuries, and at last caused the extinction of the line. Foulques le Roux was certainly not exempt, for he was believed to be the murderer of his own brother. His eldest son, Geoffrey, called the Beloved of Ladies, died before him; and Foulques, who succeeded him, though termed "_le bon_," had little claim to such a t.i.tle, unless it was derived from his love of learning and his friendship with the monks of Tours.

He composed several Latin hymns for the use of the Cathedral, and always took part in the service on high festivals in his canonical dress, as hereditary treasurer.

Once, when King Louis IV. was present, he and his courtiers irreverently amused themselves during the service by making jests on the clerical count. A few days after, Louis received the following letter:

"The Count of Anjou to the King of France. Hail. Learn, my liege Lord, that an unlettered King is no better than a donkey with a crown on."

In spite of his devotion, to St. Martin, Foulques sacrilegiously robbed the treasury of two golden vessels, and did not restore them till a severe illness brought him to the point of death. The Bretons accuse him of a horrible crime. He married the widow of Duke Alan _barbe torte_, who brought with her to Angers her infant son, the little Duke Drogo.

The child died, and the Bretons believed that, for the sake of retaining the treasure brought by his subjects, his stepfather had murdered him, by pouring boiling water on his head while his body was in a cold bath, so that, the two streams mingling, it might appear that he had been only placed in tepid water.

However this might be, a war broke out between the Angevins and Bretons, and there was bitter hatred between the two races, which is scarcely yet at an end. Indeed, an Angevin Count could hardly in these days be a peaceable man, bordering on such neighbors as Brittany, Normandy, and Poitou. The Angevins were much more French than any of these neighbors; and their domain being smaller, they generally held by the King. They were his hereditary grand seneschals, carving before him on great occasions; and Geoffrey Grise gonnelle, who succeeded Foulques le Bon in 958, was on the side of the crown in all the war with Richard the Fearless of Normandy. His ogre-like surname of Grise gonnelle simply means gray gown, and is ascribed by the chronicle of Anjou to the following chivalrous adventure:

In the course of the war with Normandy, when Harald Bluetooth's Norwegians were ravaging France, and were encamped before the walls of Paris, a gigantic Berserk daily advanced to the gate of the city, challenging the French knights to single combat. Several who accepted it fell by his hand; and King Lothaire forbade any further attempts to attack him. Count Geoffrey was at this time collecting his va.s.sals to come to the King's a.s.sistance; and no sooner did he hear of the defiance of the Northman, than, carried away by the spirit of knight-errantry, he bade his forces wait for him at Chateau Landon; and, without divulging his purpose, rode off, with only three attendants, to seek the encounter. He came to the bank of the Seine in early morning, caused a miller to ferry him and his horse across the river, leaving his squires on the other side, and reached the open s.p.a.ce before the walls in time to hear and answer the Northman's daily challenge. The duel ended in the death of the giant, and was witnessed by the French on the walls; but they did not recognize their champion, and before they could come down to open the gates, and thank him, he was gone. He had cut off the enemy's head, and, bidding the miller carry it to the King, crossed the Seine again, met his squires at the mill, and rejoined his va.s.sals at Landon, without letting any one know what had happened.

Lothaire was very anxious to know who the champion was; but all the miller could tell him was, that it had been a man of short stature, and slight, active figure, a capital horseman, whom he was sure he should know again anywhere. In due time the n.o.bles collected with their troops, and Geoffrey among them. When they were in full a.s.sembly, Lothaire introduced the miller, bidding him say whether the knight-errant was present. The man fixed his eyes on the Count of Anjou, who wore a ca.s.sock of coa.r.s.e gray wool over his armor. "Yes," he said, "'tis he--_a la grise gonnelle_."

It is also said that Geoffrey took his name from his frequent pilgrimages to Rome, in which he wore the gray "palmer's amice." He was a favorable specimen of the Angevin character, the knight-errant element predominating over its other points, and rendering him honorable and devout, and not more turbulent than could be helped by a feudal chief of the tenth century. He died near Saumur, while besieging the castle of a refractory va.s.sal, in the year 987.

His son Foulques was surnamed Nerra, an old form of Le Noir, or The Black. The name was derived from his complexion; but he merited it by his disposition, for he was the most wicked of all the counts of Anjou.

He was very able, and, though little in stature, and lame, usually made his wars turn out much to his advantage. In personal prowess he by no means equalled his father; indeed, there was a Danish warrior, who guarded the town of Saumur for the Count de Blois, that he dreaded so much as always to gallop at full speed through the neighborhood, whenever he was obliged to pa.s.s that way. However, he was not backward to risk his person on occasion, and in a battle with the Count de Blois at Amboise was severely wounded, his standard taken, and his troops forced to retreat, when his va.s.sal, the alert Herbert _Eveille chiens_, of Mans, came up with fresh troops, fell on the men of Blois as they were bathing and resting after the battle, cried the Angevin war-cry, "Rallie! rallie!" [Footnote: "Go at then again!" evidently the origin of "to rally."] and taking them by surprise, turned the fortune of the day.

This victory extended Foulques' domain to the bank of the Loire, and enabled him to lay siege to Saumur. The citizens were too few to defend both gates, and, by the advice of the monks of St. Florent, resolved to commit the defence of one to the relics of St. Doucelin, which had the reputation of working miracles. The reliquary was placed full before the eastern gate, in the hope that either the Augevins would be afraid to break through, or that some evil consequence might ensue on their attempting it, and the Saumurois went to protect their western gate.

However, Foulques Nerra seldom let scruples interfere, and marched in without regard to the saint. He was very cruel to his prisoners, and with his own hand thrust out the eye of one who reproached him with his unworthy treatment. He built new walls round Saumur, for which he was obliged to destroy some buildings belonging to the monastery of St.

Florent, and as he set fire to them with his own hand, he called out to the saint to beg his pardon, swearing to build him a much finer house.

It was the practice of Foulques Nerra to commit frightful crimes, and then to expect to atone for them by vehemence in penance and devotion.

He was recklessly barbarous in his wars, and a cruel tyrant to his people, filling his castle with miserable prisoners. He married a lady named Hildegarde, a pious and gentle dame, whose influence had some effect in calming his fierce pa.s.sions and lessening his cruelty; but their son Geoffrey Martel was as wild and violent as himself, though with more generosity. A quarrel broke out, Geoffrey rebelled, was conquered, and his father obliged him to come and ask pardon, crawling on all fours, with a saddle on his back.

"So, sir, you're tamed!" said the count, putting his foot on his neck.

"True! but by no one but my father," the proud youth made answer. And Foulques was so pleased, that he took him into favor again.

Foulques Nerra was a great founder of churches and convents, and made no less than four pilgrimages to the Holy Land, in the third of which he travelled part of the way with another ancestor of our kings, Robert the Magnificent of Normandy. In the last, his penance exceeded all that had yet been seen at Jerusalem. He stripped himself to his waist, and went barefoot to the Holy Sepulchre, followed by two servants, whom he obliged to beat him with rods, while at each step he exclaimed, "O Lord, have pity on the wretched, perjured traitor Foulques!"

Such violent penances are repugnant to all our ideas, and if these rude warriors believed that by them their crimes could be atoned, they were grievously mistaken: but at the same time it must be remembered that they were intended as tokens of repentance; and that, as we have seen in the humiliation of the rebellious son of the count himself, it was the fashion to punish the body, because the mind was too little cultivated to be alone addressed.

Foulques III. died at Metz, in the course of his return from this pilgrimage, in the year 1039. His son Geoffrey, called Martel, or the Hammer, was a great warrior. William the Conqueror was his chief enemy, and the curious challenge that once pa.s.sed between them has been related. Indeed, Henry I. of France, who was in dread of both, promoted their quarrels by making a grant to William of all that he might be able to win from Anjou; and the Angevins had given bitter offence to the Duke of Normandy when he was besieging the town of Hambrieres, by hanging up hides over the walls, and shouting, "_A la pel! a la pel!_" (The hide!