King Eric and the Outlaws Volume Iii Part 4

"On account of opinions, I have never banished any living soul," said the king: "for ought I care, every man may think and believe what he will, provided he obeys but the laws of the land, and seduces not the people to insurrection and unG.o.dliness. One description of madmen I once banished, however--it is true," he added, recollecting himself: "what they called themselves I have now forgot; but the madness I remember well enough--they were self-appointed priests, without a consecrated church or true doctrine. They scoured the country round, and preached both to high and low, and would, in short, have made us all heathens. They denied both our Lord and our blessed Lady, and all the saints and martyrs besides; they would have nought to do either with church or pope; and in fact, just as little with kings and princes, or any temporal government; they zealously affirmed that we should obey our Lord only--but when it came to the point, their Lord was but their own ignorant and perverted will. From such mad doctrine we may well pray our Lord to preserve us and all Christian lands."

"But that is exactly, as far as I know, the creed of the Leccar brethren," observed Count Henrik. "We have chased the sect from Mecklenborg also, and the pope hath doomed them to fire and f.a.ggot."

"You are right, they are called Leccarii in Latin," answered the king: "the holy father's caring for their _souls_, by burning their _bodies_, suits me just as little as his excommunicating, and giving us over to the devil. That mistakes may be made in Rome we are all agreed. If the learned Icelander belongs to yon sect, he must doubtless decamp," he added, "and that I should be sorry for; but I must hear it from himself, ere I will believe it; it is inconceivable to me how madness and learning can dwell together in one brain."

"Look once again, my liege!" said Count Henrik, handing the optic tube to the king. "Yonder comes a boat up the ca.n.a.l towards St. George's hospital; if I am not mistaken it is steered by a couple of clerks; perhaps the bishop would now vouchsafe us tidings, and put up with your protection."

From St. George's lake flowed a broad rivulet, which bounded the pasture ground of Sorretslov and divided it from the meadows of the village of Solbierg. This rivulet, which widened into a ca.n.a.l, flowed down under the west gate of the town, and ended its course in the Catsound. Between the stream and the town of Sorretslov lay St.

George's Hospital. A large boat came slowly up the river, in which the forms of two men, attired in black, were discernible. They rowed with unsteady strokes of the oar, and with great exertion, against the stream. The boat put ash.o.r.e at the pasture ground opposite St. George's hospital. The sable-clad personages sprang out of the boat and drew it on land. The king and Count Henrik thought they recognised the archbishop's confidential friends, Hans Rodis and the canon Nicolaus, and paid close attention to their proceedings. A large loose sail was taken from the boat, from under which four ecclesiastics rose up, one after another, and stepped on sh.o.r.e. They looked around on all sides with caution, and proceeded along a by-path, with slow and uncertain steps towards the royal castle. They were all four soon recognised. It was the domineering little Bishop Johan, with the haughty abbot from the forest monastery, accompanied by the provincial prior, and the inspector of the Copenhagen chapter. They seemed to have secretly taken flight from Axelhuus in the morning fog, to place themselves under the king's protection, and perhaps to demand the help of arms against the mutinous town.

When the king recognised them he became grave, and fell into a reverie.

He reached the optic tube to Count Henrik, and seated himself in silence on a bench on the southern side of the tower, whence he had a view of the town and the north gate. Count Henrik remarked that the two suspicious-looking canons had yet another person in the boat, whom they carried on sh.o.r.e; he appeared to be either sick or dead, and was closely shrouded in a mantle. The canons looked around on all sides, and bore, seemingly with doubtful and anxious steps, the sick or dead man up to St. George's Hospital, where they were instantly admitted.

Count Henrik considered their conduct most suspicious; he determined, however, not to name it to the king; and resolved to examine himself into the affair, and to inspect the hospital that very day.

The town was by no means so tranquil as was supposed. The nocturnal a.s.semblage in the churchyard of St. Nicholas had not dispersed until near daybreak. The bishop's men had heard wild threats of fire and murder, and taunting speeches against their master. A new and b.l.o.o.d.y outbreak of the insurrection was feared whereupon the bishop had not deemed it advisable to await the dawn of day at Axelhuus, although it was probable that he most unwillingly took refuge with the king, who he knew was incensed at the enforcement of the interdict.

The bishop's stern protest against the demi-ecclesiastical a.s.semblies of the guild-brethren of St. Canute, had rendered that fraternity his bitterest and most dangerous foes. During the shutting of the churches, the devotion of the guild-brethren, which was almost always blended with fanaticism and intemperance, had a.s.sumed a wild and desperate character. They were charged with the most licentious impiety, it was believed there were atheists and Leccar brethren among them, who sought to sever them from the church and from Christendom, as well as from burgher-rule and obedience. A secret dread of the extravagancies and gloomy deportment of these persons prevailed among the best-informed and better cla.s.s of burghers, who, however, had themselves, on account of the shutting of the churches, made common cause with the guild-brethren, and deemed a general revolt against prelatic tyranny to be necessary.

Ere the sun had dispersed the thick morning mist which lay over the town, the burghers of Copenhagen thronged in crowds to the council-house, where they a.s.sembled a council, though it was not the usual day of meeting.

Meanwhile, mattins were performed in all the churches in the town, and no priest dared any longer to observe the interdict. All the churches were unusually crowded, but no disturbances took place. It was only from the stone-built houses, where St. Canute's and St. Eric's guild-brethren had rung their bells ere daylight, and were now performing their morning's devotions, before full goblets and with locked doors, that wild cries and sounds of tumult proceeded. As soon as early ma.s.s was ended, a great procession pa.s.sed through North Street and through the north gate. It was the deputies of the town and council, who had drawn up at the council-house a long list of complaints against the bishop, and as long a justification of the recently-suppressed insurrection. This doc.u.ment they now intended to present to the king, as they were willing to enter into any treaty with the spiritual Lord of the town, which their sovereign might consider just and reasonable. A continually increasing crowd accompanied this procession. None of the guild-brethren were to be seen among the deputies of the town; but a number of these gloomy agitators soon joined themselves to the train, and sought to excite suspicion in the populace respecting this negotiation of peace. The guild-brethren, meanwhile, seemed at variance among themselves; the king's presence had struck terror into many, and their wild plans of overthrowing all spiritual and temporal rule lacked concert and counsel. Hardly had they quitted their guild houses ere the provost's men and the bishop's retainers, a.s.sisted even by the burghers, took possession of these buildings, and stationed guards before them. The dispersion of this degenerate and dangerous fraternity was now become one of the most earnest wishes of the council and burghers.

The king had not left the tower of Sorretslov when the throng hastened forward towards the village and his unfortified castle, in the direction of the southern gate; while the bishop and the three prelates, with their slow and dubious pace, had not as yet reached the approach from the by-path to the western castle gate. Count Henrik's attention had been wholly engrossed in watching the tardy and undecided movements of the ecclesiastics, and the king had been so lost in thought that he did not observe the crowd until the distant murmur of many thousand voices reached his ear. He rose hastily, with a quick glance on both sides, and appeared wroth, but undecided only for a moment. "The gate shall be barred. Count! the black snails shall be brought up here!" he exclaimed impetuously in a loud voice to Count Henrik, pointing to the ecclesiastics below, who again paused on the by-path, and seemed to hesitate. "Let them be brought to my private chamber instantly, even though it should be by force. They are my prisoners."

Count Henrik started.

"Look!" continued the king, pointing towards the village and the road.

"They flock out hither by thousands; but, by all the holy men! whoever disturbs the peace of the royal castle shall be chastised as he deserves. Ride to meet the throng. Count! announce my will to them--say their bishop is in my power. Every fitting proposition I will listen to; but every agitator shall instantly be banished; whoever obeys not shall be punished as a rebel."

"Now I understand you, my liege," said Count Henrik, and instantly departed.

The king's command was immediately put into execution. With great fear and dismay, the bishop and his three ecclesiastical companions beheld a troop of hors.e.m.e.n gallop out of the castle towards them, while a willow hedge hid the main road and the concourse of people from their sight, and they still stood close to the meadow gate, debating whether they had not acted with precipitation, and were not about to encounter a still greater danger here than that from which they had fled.

"Treachery!" cried the bishop, drawing back. "I feared it would be so.

Fools that we are to trust to the generosity of an excommunicated tyrant! Now we may all fare as did Grand, and may come to rot alive in his dungeons."

"I will answer for the king's justice, even should he imprison us,"

said the general superior of the chapter.

"Ha! you betray me! you side with the tyrant! _you_ counselled me to this step."

"Look, my brother!" cried the abbot of the forest monastery, pointing in dismay to the right, where but a single-fenced meadow separated them from the road and the concourse of people which now came in view. "The whole town is flocking hither. They have spied us--hear how they howl and bl.u.s.ter! They are springing over hedge and ditch towards us. Let us thank G.o.d and our guardian saint for the king's hors.e.m.e.n; it is better after all to fall into the hands of one tyrant than into those of a thousand."

At this moment the king's hors.e.m.e.n surrounded them, and saluted them with courtesy. "Follow us, venerable sirs," said their leader, a brisk young halberdier. "We have orders to bring you to the king's castle."

"In the name of the Lord and all the saints we accept the king's convoy!" said the bishop, looking around with uneasiness, while his cheeks glowed, and he seemed but half to trust to this unexpected safe conduct.

"The bishop! the bishop! Seize him! stone him!" shouted a whole crowd of the excited rabble, who, headed by some guild-brethren, had quitted the burgher procession, and ran, with weapons and stones in their hands, over the meadow towards the ecclesiastics.

"Back, countrymen!" shouted the leader of the hors.e.m.e.n, brandishing his sword. "We lead him captive to the king."

"Captive! the bishop captive!" exclaimed the insurgents with joyous shouts. "That's right!--long live the king!--to the dungeon with Grand's friends and all king-priests!"

"Captive!" repeated the bishop, clasping his hands; "ha, the presumptuous traitors!"

"Compose yourselves, venerable sirs," said the young halberdier, in a lowered tone. "I obey the commands of my sovereign; if you refuse to comply I shall be compelled to use force; but whether you are the king's guests or his prisoners you will a.s.suredly be treated as beseems your rank and condition."

The ecclesiastics were soon within the gates of the king's castle, and looked doubtfully at each other, as one door after another was with much deference shut behind them, and they stood at last in anxious expectation in a vaulted chamber, which, with its high windows and the little iron-cased door, which was also secured behind them, bore a greater resemblance to a prison than an apartment destined for the reception of guests. There was no want, however, of furniture or comfort; there were writing materials as well as both edifying and entertaining books. It was the king's private chamber.

The deputies of the burghers and counsel started almost in as great dismay as the bishop and his clerical companions, when they beheld themselves surrounded on a sudden by royal halberdiers and hors.e.m.e.n before the castle gate. The captain of halberdiers dismissed the half-armed mob, who had followed the procession with shouts and threats against the bishop, and with frequent acclamations for the king, on occasion of his having (according to report) thrown the bishop into prison.

"In the name of my liege and sovereign!" called Count Henrik, on horseback, as he waved his hat, "the castle is open to the deputies of the loyal burghers; but every one who bears arms here, or combines to cause riot and uproar disturbs the peace of the king's castle, and is guilty of treason. Your lord bishop is at this moment in the king's power, but he is also his guest and under his protection. Every insult to the bishop here is an insult to the ruler of the land. The king will judge justly, and negociate a peace between you and your lord. Ere the sun goes down the result of his mediation shall be made known. Now, back! all here who would not pa.s.s for rebels!"

The restless crowd returned silent and downcast to the town. The arrogant bravado of the insurgents that they had the king on their side, had been suddenly put down. Their confidence in his presumed wrath against the bishop, and his partiality to the burghers of Copenhagen, appeared to have given way to a reasonable apprehension of his justice and known severity. It even seemed to them no good sign that the bishop, in his distress, had sought shelter at the royal castle--and the guild-brethren muttered that when it came to the push, the powerful and the great ever sided together after all; even though they were deadly foes at heart, and that every thing was visited upon those of low degree whether they were guilty or not.

CHAP. VI.

During the whole day an anxious stillness prevailed in the town. The crowds indeed still continued to pour like a tide through the streets, but with order, and in silent expectation. The sun was about to set, and, as yet, no tidings had been received of the issue of the royal negociation. Meanwhile, an unusual procession attracted the attention of the restless and fickle populace. A funeral train proceeded past St.

Clement's church down to the old Strand, but without chaunting and ringing of bells, and without being accompanied by any choristers or ecclesiastics. This procession consisted of a great number of foreign merchants and skippers, and all the pepper 'prentices, who (several hundreds in number, and clad in precise and rich mourning attire) followed two large coffins covered with costly palls of black velvet.

The coffins were borne by Hanseatic seamen; over them waved the Rostock and Visbye flags. The train halted at the church of St. Nicholas. They would have pursued their way across the church-yard, and requested to have a ma.s.s chaunted over the dead in the church; but this was denied.

The bishop's servants shut the gates of the church-yard and forbade the corpse-bearers to approach the church, or tread on consecrated ground, as one of the coffins they carried contained the body of a man who had been slain in the ale-house at the draught board. Amid wrathful muttering against the hard-hearted prelatical government, the procession proceeded past the outside of the church-yard wall to the quay on Bremen Island, where a number of boats with rowers, clad in white, received the coffins and the whole troop of mourners. They landed on the island, and here, where the Hanseatic merchants alone governed, the train burst forth into a solemn German funeral hymn, while the bodies of Berner Kopmand and Henrik Gullandsfar were carried on board two Hanseatic vessels, which were to convey them to Christian burial in Rostock and Visbye. As soon as the ships were under weigh the funeral train was received in a large warehouse, where three ale-barrels and two keys over a cross were carved in stone over the door. Here the whole party of seamen and trading agents were served out of huge barrels of the famous Embden ale, the intoxicating properties of which soon changed the funeral feast into a wild and mirthful carouse. There was no lack either of wine or mead, and the large dish of salted meat, which was constantly replenished, increased the thirst of the funeral guests. The rabble who had followed the train through the streets, long remained standing on the beach and the quay to hear and watch the intoxicated pepper 'prentices, who here, with none but countrymen and boon companions beside them, seemed determined to indemnify themselves for the restraint to which they were subjected in the foreign town. Some wept, while they reeled, and held moving discourses on the mournful fate of the rich Berner Kopmand and Henrik Gullandsfar, and on the mutability of all power and wealth in this world; while others sung drinking songs and piping love-ditties by way of accompaniment to the pathetic funeral speeches.

At last, attention was withdrawn from these riotous revels by the cry of "The herald! The herald!" and the people thronged in dense crowds down towards the north gate. A herald with a large sheet of parchment and a white staff in his hand, rode, accompanied by a halberdier and a numerous troop of hors.e.m.e.n, through the gate. The train halted at the corners of all the streets, and at all the public squares; two trumpeters on white horses made a signal for silence, whereupon the herald read aloud a treaty between the lord of the town, Bishop Johan, and the council and congregation of Copenhagen. The burghers admitted in this treaty that they had, as well in deed as in word, grossly misbehaved towards their spiritual and temporal lord the bishop, and that they had been implicated in an unlawful and criminal insurrection, the circ.u.mstances of which were enumerated. Meanwhile the bishop pardoned them these trespa.s.ses at the king's intercession, in return for which the deputies of the council and congregation promised, on the part of the town and of the burghers, that each burgher should instantly return to his duty, and obey all the laws and regulations which the bishop, "_with consent of the chapter_," had given or hereafter might give them, which they would publicly and solemnly swear to do at the council-house, with laying on of hands on the holy Gospels. No one dared to protest against the validity of this treaty; as the herald displayed the round seal of the town with the three towers, which was suspended to the doc.u.ment by a green silken string, together with the seal of the Copenhagen chapter.

As soon as the inhabitants of the town were informed of this treaty, and it was understood what had thereby been tacitly conceded to them, and with how much leniency this untoward affair had been adjusted, alarm and anxiety were succeeded by still greater and more general satisfaction; but the guild-brethren were displeased and murmured.

At the market-place without the east gate, where the herald had read the treaty for the last time, the numbers of the mob which had followed the procession through the town were considerably augmented, chiefly by day-labourers and ale-house frequenters, who felt that the treaty was an obstacle to the disorder and licentious liberty for which the revolt had given them opportunity. Here discontent was openly manifested; and it was muttered aloud that the bishop after all had got justice in everything, and that the burghers had suffered injustice. But a man now stepped forward who was held in high esteem among these people; he was a remarkably fat and st.u.r.dy ale-house keeper, with a large red nose and a pair of hands like bears paws; he was known as the greatest toper and brawler in the town, and his tavern was the resort of the wildest and most turbulent revellers. He mounted upon the great ale barrel which stood before his door, and which served the house for a sign.

"It is altogether right and reasonable, my excellent friends and customers!--my honest and highly esteemed fellow burghers!" he shouted, with his powerful well-known voice, and a round oath. "The bishop hath but got justice for appearance sake; he is, besides, the lord of our good town, and hath a right to require that one should drink one's ale in peace, and pay every man that which is his. When he will grant us what we need both for soul and body, we have surely nought to complain of. When he lets priests sing ma.s.s for you, and me tap good ale for you from morn till even, and somewhat past at times--then he is, by my soul! as excellent a bishop and lord as we can ask for, and I will pay without grumbling my yearly tax. For soul and salvation ye need not hereafter to fear, comrades! That matter the king hath taken upon himself, like an honest man. Heard ye not what he promised us yesterday, and what there stood in the treaty? _Without consent of the chapter the bishop_ can command us nothing, and praised be the chapter!

They are a wise set: they will just as little deny you absolution every day, for your little bosom sins, as I would deny you what you may stand in need of and can pay for on opportunity! Let rascals and guild-brothers grumble as they may!" he continued, as he clenched his broad fist, "we will keep those fellows in check;--I will wager a drinking match to-day, with every honest man, to the king's and the bishop's prosperity; but those who would stir up strife and wrangling between us peaceable people shall feel our fists. Come in now, comrades! and get something to keep up your hearts! Long live the king!

and our lord the bishop besides!"

"Long live the king and the bishop!" cried a great number of the influential tavern-keeper's friends and customers; and the malcontents slunk off.

"They come! they come! The king and bishop are here!" was now echoed from mouth to mouth,--and the crowd again poured in through East Street, towards the quarter where all the butchers of the place had their dwellings, and where some murmurs against the treaty had also been heard. Every burst of dissatisfaction was meanwhile kept down by the opposite feeling which prevailed among the town's most influential burghers, and yet more by the spectacle of the king's entry, and of the crushed pride and dejected deportment of the little bishop Johan. With downcast eyes and manifest signs of fear, this prelate rode, with his ecclesiastical train, at the king's right hand, through his own town, guarded by Count Henrik of Mecklenborg, and the knight-halberdiers. The king met everywhere with a favourable reception; the bishop was received with no demonstrations of welcome, but there was order and peace;--no agitator dared to scoff at him by the king's side, and no voice of discontent was heard. The procession stopped at the council-house, where the treaty was solemnly ratified.

The public tranquillity was thus restored. The dignity of the prelatical government was upheld, and the arrogance of the insurgents subdued. The turbulent guild-brethren had dispersed, and there was no reason to apprehend a fresh outbreak of the revolt, as the burghers themselves, with the permission of the bishop, had agreed with the provost's men and the bishop's retainers to observe the treaty and prevent all disturbances. Despite this apparent victory, the bishop was notwithstanding extremely pensive and taciturn. The king's generous protection appeared to have confounded him, and he seemed to experience a feeling of painful humiliation, by the side of his temporal protector. The revolt, and the danger which had menaced his life, had taught him to know his own powerlessness. The king had indeed treated him, while at Sorretslov castle, as a distinguished guest, but with cold courtesy, without even giving vent to his displeasure by a single word; it was those words only in the treaty relating to the bishop's dependence on the a.s.sent of the chapter, which the king had ordered to be inserted, in an emphatic tone (with the approval of the general-superior there present), and in a voice of command, which admitted of no contradiction. The bishop of Roskild, lately so confident and haughty, who a few days since sat between a cardinal and an archbishop in his fortified castle, and had, for the first time, issued the exasperating church interdict in his own town, was now forced to acknowledge, in silent anger, that since, the cardinal's departure, the banishment of the archbishop, and his having himself been subjected to the scoffs of the lowest rabble, he would be able to maintain the authority of the church in Denmark only so far as the Danish clergy considered it expedient, and as the king himself would support ecclesiastical government.

During the whole of the transaction at the council-house, the bishop was quiet and dejected. The king treated him here also with cold courtesy. His looks were stern and grave; another important and serious matter seemed to have weighed on his heart since he heard the last words of the archbishop to Count Henrik.

From the council-house the whole procession rode to St. Mary's church, where, besides the customary Ave, a Te Deum was sung on occasion of the treaty. The king then immediately rode back to Sorretslov, from whence he purposed to set out on his journey the following morning. The bishop, with the abbot of the Forest Monastery, and the other ecclesiastics, accompanied him (in compliance with customary courtesy), besides the deputies of the town and the burghers.

The bishop desired not to return to Axelhuus ere every trace of hostile attack on the castle was effaced, and the humiliating insurrection forgotten. He purposed to accompany the king, the following day, to Roskild, where some disturbances had taken place on the occasion of their rulers' attempt to enforce the interdict.

The bishop was thus, in some sort, houseless on this evening, and accepted, as an attention which was his due, the king's invitation to him and his train to take up their quarters for the night at his castle, where all who had accompanied the king were also invited to a festive supper.