Comic History of England Part 6

At this time, under the reign of William, a year previous to his death, an inventory was taken of the real estate and personal property contained in the several counties of England; and this "Domesday-book,"

as it was called, formed the basis for subsequent taxation, etc. There were then three hundred thousand families in England. The book had a limited circulation, owing to the fact that it was made by hand; but in 1783 it was printed.

William II., surnamed "Rufus the Red," the auburn-haired son of the king, took possession of everything--especially the treasure--before his father was fully deceased, and by fair promises solidified the left wing of the royal party, compelling the disaffected Norman barons to fly to France.

William II. and Robert his brother came to blows over a small rebellion organized by the latter, but Robert yielded at last, and joined William with a view to making it hot for Henry, who, being a younger brother, objected to wearing the king's cast-off reigning clothes. He was at last forced to submit, however, and the three brothers gayly attacked Malcolm, the Scotch malecontent, who was compelled to yield, and thus c.u.mberland became English ground. This was in 1091.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM II. TAKES POSSESSION OF THE ROYAL TRUNK AND SECURES THE CROWN.]

In 1096 the Crusade was creating much talk, and Robert, who had expressed a desire to lead a totally different life, determined to go if money could be raised. Therefore William proceeded to levy on everything that could be realized upon, such as gold and silver communion services and other bric-a-brac, and free coinage was then first inaugurated. The king became so greedy that on the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury he made himself _ex-officio_ archbishop, so that he might handle the offerings and coin the plate. When William was ill he sent for Father Anselm, but when he got well he took back all his sweet promises, in every way reminding one of the justly celebrated policy pursued by His Sulphureous Highness the Devil.

The capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders very naturally attracted the attention of other ambitious princes who wished also to capture it, and William, Prince of Guienne, mortgaged his princ.i.p.ality to England that he might raise money to do this; but when about to embark for the purpose of taking possession of this property, William II., the royal note-shaver, while hunting, was shot accidentally by a companion, or a.s.sa.s.sinated, it is not yet known which, and when found by a pa.s.sing charcoal-burner was in a dead state. He was buried in 1100, at Winchester.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUFUS FOUND DEAD IN THE FOREST BY A POOR CHARCOAL-BURNER.]

Rufus had no trouble in securing the public approval of his death. He was the third of his race to perish in the New Forest, the scene of the Conqueror's cruelty to his people. He was a thick-set man with a red face, a debauchee of the deepest dye, mean in money matters, and as full of rum and mendacity as Sitting Bull, the former Regent of the Sioux Nation. He died at the age of forty-three years, having reigned and cut up in a shameful manner for thirteen years.

Robert having gone to the Holy Land, Henry I. was crowned at Westminster. He was educated to a higher degree than William, and knew the multiplication table up to seven times seven, but he was highly immoral, and an armed chaperon stood between him and common decency.

He also made rapid strides as a liar, and even his own grocer would not trust him. He successfully fainted when he heard of his son's death, 1120 A.D.

His reign closed in 1135, when Stephen, a grandson of the Conqueror, with the aid of a shoe-horn a.s.sumed the crown of England, and, placing a large damp towel in it, proceeded to reign. He began at once to swap patronage for kind words, and every n.o.ble was as ign.o.ble as a phenomenal thirst and unbridled l.u.s.t could make him. Every farm had a stone jail on it, in charge of a n.o.ble jailer. Feudal castles, full of malaria and surrounded by insanitary moats and poor plumbing, echoed the cry of the captive and the baccha.n.a.lian song of the n.o.ble. The country was made desolate by duly authorized robbers, who, under the Crusaders'

standard, prevented the maturity of the spring chicken and hushed the still, small voice of the roast pig in death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY FAINTED WHEN HE HEARD THE SAD NEWS.]

William the Conqueror was not only remembered bitterly in the broken hearts of his people, but in history his name will stand out forever because of his strange and grotesque designs on posterity.

In 1141 Stephen was made prisoner, and for five years he was not restored to his kingdom. In the mean time, Matilda, the widow of Henry I., encouraged by the prelates, landed in England to lay claim to the throne, and after a great deal of ill feeling and much needed a.s.sa.s.sination, her son Henry, who had become quite a large property-owner in France, invaded England, and finally succeeded in obtaining recognition as the rightful successor of Stephen. Stephen died in 1153, and Henry became king.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MATILDA LANDING IN ENGLAND.]

The Feudal System, which obtained in England for four hundred years, was a good one for military purposes, for the king on short notice might raise an army by calling on the barons, who levied on their va.s.sals, and they in turn levied on their dependants.

A feudal castle was generally built in the Norman style of architecture.

It had a "donjon," or keep, which was generally occupied by the baron as a bar-room, feed-trough, and cooler between fights. It was built of stone, and was lighted by means of crevices through the wall by day, and by means of a saucer of tallow and a string or rush which burned during the night and served mainly to show how dark it was. There was a front yard or fighting-place around this, surrounded by a high wall, and this again by a moat. There was an inner court back of the castle, into which the baron could go for thinking. A chapel was connected with the inst.i.tution, and this was the place to which he retired for the purpose of putting arnica on his conscience.

Underneath the castle was a large dungeon, where people who differed with the baron had a studio. Sometimes they did not get out at all, but died there in their sins, while the baron had all the light of gospel and chapel privileges up-stairs.

The historian says that at that time the most numerous cla.s.s in England were the "villains." This need not surprise us, when we remember that it was as much as a man's life was worth to be anything else.

There were also twenty-five thousand serfs. A serf was required to be at hand night or day when the baron needed some one to kick. He was generally attached to the realty, like a hornet's nest, but not necessary to it.

In the following chapter knighthood and the early hardware trade will be touched upon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IN HOC SIGNO VINCES."]

CHAPTER X.

THE AGE OF CHIVALRY: LIGHT DISSERTATION ON THE KNIGHTS-ERRANT, MAIDS, FOOLS, PRELATES, AND OTHER NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS OF THAT PERIOD.

The age of chivalry, which yielded such good material to the poet and romancer, was no doubt essential to the growth of civilization, but it must have been an unhappy period for legitimate business. How could trade, commerce, or even the professions, arts, or sciences, flourish while the entire population spread itself over the bleaching-boards, day after day, to watch the process of "jousting," while the corn was "in the gra.s.s," and everybody's notes went to protest?

Then came the days of knight-errantry, when parties in malleable-iron clothing and shirts of mail--which were worn without change--rode up and down the country seeking for maids in distress. A pretty maid in those days who lived on the main road could put on her riding-habit, go to the window up-stairs, shed a tear, wave her kerchief in the air, and in half an hour have the front lawn full of knights-errant tramping over the peony beds and castor-oil plants.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PRETTY MAID IN THOSE DAYS.]

In this way a new rescuer from day to day during the "errant" season might be expected. Scarcely would the fair maid reach her destination and get her wraps hung up, when a rattle of gravel on the window would attract her attention, and outside she would see, with swelling heart, another knight-errant, who crooked his Russia-iron elbow and murmured, "Miss, may I have the pleasure of this escape with you?"

"But I do not recognize you, sir," she would straightway make reply; and well she might, for, with his steel-shod countenance and corrugated-iron clothes, he was generally so thoroughly _incog._ that his crest, on a new shield freshly painted and grained and bearing a motto, was his only introduction. Imagine a sweet girl, who for years had been under the eagle eye of a middle-weight chaperon, suddenly espying in the moonlight a disguised man under the window on horseback, in the act of asking her to join him for a few weeks at his shooting-box in the swamp. Then, if you please, imagine her asking for his card, whereupon he exposes the side of his new tin shield, on which is painted in large Old English letters a Latin motto meaning, "It is the early bird that catches the worm," with bird rampant, worm couchant on a field uncultivated.

Then, seating herself behind the knight, she must escape for days, and even weeks,--one escape seeming to call for another, as it were. Thus, however, the expense of a wedding was saved, and the knight with the biggest chest measurement generally got the heiress with the copper-colored hair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CREST OF A POPULAR KNIGHT.]

He wore a crest on his helmet adorned with German favors given him by lady admirers, so that the crest of a popular young knight often looked like a slump at the _Bon Marche_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "VIGIL OF ARMS."]

The most peculiar condition required for entry into knighthood was the "vigil of arms," which consisted in keeping a long silent watch in some gloomy spot--a haunted one preferred--over the arms he was about to a.s.sume. The ill.u.s.tration representing this subject is without doubt one of the best of the kind extant, and even in the present age of the gold-cure is suggestive of a night-errant of to-day.

A tournament was a sort of refined equestrian prize-fight with one-hundred-ounce jabbers. Each knight, clad in tin-foil and armed cap-a-pie, riding in each other's direction just as fast as possible with an uncontrollable desire to push one's adversary off his horse, which meant defeat, because no man could ever climb a horse in full armor without a feudal derrick to a.s.sist him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A JUDICIAL COMBAT.]

The victor was ent.i.tled to the horse and armor of the vanquished, which made the castle paddock of a successful knight resemble the convalescent ward of the Old Horses' Home.

This tourney also const.i.tuted the prevailing court of those times, and the plaintiff, calling upon G.o.d to defend the right, charged upon the defendant with a charge which took away the breath of his adversary.

This, of course, was only applicable to certain cases, and could not be used in trials for divorce, breach of promise, etc.

The tournament was practically the forerunner of the duel. In each case the parties in effect turned the matter over to Omnipotence; but still the man who had his back to the sun, and knew how to handle firearms and cutlery, generally felt most comfortable.

Gentlemen who were not engaged in combat, but who attended to the grocery business during the Norman period, wore a short velvet cloak trimmed with fur over a doublet and hose. The shoes were pointed,--as were the remarks made by the irate parent,--and generally the shoes and remarks accompanied each other when a young tradesman sought the hand of the daughter, whilst she had looked forward to a two-hundred-mile ride on the crupper of a knight-errant without stopping for feed or water.

In those days also, the fool made no effort to disguise his folly by going to Congress or fussing with the currency, but wore a uniform which designated his calling and saved time in estimating his value.

The clergy in those days possessed the bulk of knowledge, and had matters so continued the vacant pew would have less of a hold on people than it has to-day; but in some way knowledge escaped from the cloister and percolated through the other professions, so that to-day in England, out of a good-sized family, the pulpit generally has to take what is left after the army, navy, politics, law, and golf have had the pick. It was a fatal error to permit the escape of knowledge in that way; and when southern Europe, now priest-ridden and pauperized, learns to read and write, the sleek blood-suckers will eat plainer food and the poor will not go entirely dest.i.tute.

The Normans ate two meals a day, and introduced better cooking among the Saxons, who had been accustomed to eat very little except while under the influence of stimulants, and who therefore did not realize what they ate. The Normans went in more for meat victuals, and thus the names of meat, such as veal, beef, pork, and mutton, are of Norman origin, while the names of the animals in a live state are calf, ox, pig, and sheep, all Saxon names.

The Authors' Club of England at this time consisted of Geoffrey of Monmouth and another man. They wrote their books with quill pens, and if the authorities did not like what was said, the author could be made to suppress the entire edition for a week's board, or for a b.u.mper of Rhenish wine with a touch of pepper-sauce in it he would change the objectionable part by means of an eraser.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE AUTHORS' CLUB AT THIS TIME.]

It was under these circ.u.mstances that the Plantagenets became leaders in society, and added their valuable real estate in France to the English dominions. In 1154, Henry Plantagenet was thus the most powerful monarch in Europe, and by wedding his son Geoffrey to the daughter of the Duke of Brittany, soon scooped in that valuable property also.