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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41804 ***
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      http://archive.org/details/legendofreadinga00macf
+
+
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF READING ABBEY.
+
+by
+
+CHARLES MACFARLANE
+
+The Author of 'The Camp of Refuge.'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Charles Knight & Co., Ludgate Street.
+1845.
+
+
+
+
+A LEGEND OF READING ABBEY.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+It was in the year of Grace eleven hundred and thirty-seven (when the
+grace of God appeared to be entirely departing from the sinful and
+unhappy land of England), and Stephen of Blois, nephew of the deceased
+King Henry Beauclerc, sat upon the throne, lawfully and honestly, as
+some men said, but most unlawfully, according to others. And the woe I
+have to relate arose from this divergency of opinion, but still more
+from the change-ableness of men's minds, which led our bishops, lords,
+and optimates to side now with one party and now with the other, and now
+change sides again, to the great perplexing of the understanding of
+honest and simple men, to the undoing of their fortunes, and well nigh
+to the utter ruin of this realm, which that learned clerk and right
+politic King Henricus Primus had left in so flourishing and peaceful a
+condition.
+
+Our great religious house of Reading (may the hand of sacrilege and the
+flames of war never more reach it!), founded and endowed by the
+Beauclerc, had then been newly raised on that smiling, favoured spot of
+earth which lies on the bank of the Kennet, hard by the juncture of that
+clear and swift stream with our glorious river Thamesis; and in sooth
+our noble house was not wholly finished and furnished at this time; for
+albeit the first church, together with most of its chapels and shrines,
+was in a manner completed, and our great hall was roofed in, and floored
+and lined with oak, the lord abbat's apartment, and the lodging of the
+prior, and the dormitory for the brethren, and the granary and the
+stables for my lord abbat's horses, were yet unfinished; and, except on
+Sundays and the feast days of Mother Church, these parts of the abbey
+were filled by artisans and well-skilled workmen who had been collected
+from Windsor, Wallingford, Oxenford, Newbury, nay even from the right
+royal city of Winchester, which abounded with well-skilled masons and
+builders, and the capital city of London, where all the arts be most
+cultivated. Moreover, sundry artists we had from beyond the seas, as
+masons and hewers of stone, who had been sent unto us from Caen in
+Normandie by the defunct king, and some right skilful carvers in wood
+and in stone, who had been brought out of Italie by Father Michael
+Angelo Torpietro, a member of our house, who had quitted the glorious
+monastery of Mons Casinium, which had been raised and occupied by the
+founder of our order, the blessed Benedict himself, when he was in the
+flesh, in order to live among us and instruct us in humane letters and
+in all the rules and ordinances of our order, wherein we Anglo and
+Anglo-Norman monks, in verity, needed some instruction. And this Father
+Torpietro of happy memory had also been enabled by the liberality of
+our first lord abbat to bring from the city of Pisa in Italie a right
+good limner, who painted such saints and Virgins upon gilded panels as
+had not before been seen in England, and who was now painting the chapel
+of our Ladie with rare and inappreciable art, as men who have eyes and
+understanding may see at this day. All the learned and periti do affirm
+that for limning and gilding our chapel of the Ladie doth excel whatever
+is seen in the churches of Westminster and Winchester in the south, or
+in the churches of York and Durham in the north, or in the churches of
+Wells and Exeter in the west, or in Ely and Lincoln in the east. [I
+speak not of the miracles performed by our relics: they are known to the
+world, and be at least as great as those performed by our Ladie of
+Walsingham.] Albeit our walls of stone and flint were not all finished
+in the inner part, our house was girded and guarded by ramparts of royal
+charters and papal bulls. Two charters had we from our founder, and one
+from King Stephen, confirmatory of those two. And great were the
+immunities and privileges contained in these charters. No scutage had we
+to pay; no stallage, no tolls, no tribute; no customs in fair or market,
+no tithing penny or two-penny, no amercements or fines or forfeitures of
+any kind! Our mills were free, and our fisheries and our woods and
+parks. No officer of the king was to exercise any right in the woods and
+chases of the lord abbat, albeit they were within the limits of the
+forests royal; but the lord abbat and the monks and their servitors were
+to hold and for ever enjoy the same powers and liberties in their woods
+and chases as the king had in his. Hence was the House of Reading ever
+well stocked with the succulent meat of the buck. Too long were it to
+tell all that our founder Henricus did for us. At the beginning of his
+reign, he abolished the ancient power of abbats to make knights; yet, in
+order to distinguish our house, he did, by a particular clause in our
+charter of foundation, give unto the lord abbat of Reading and to his
+successors for ever, authority to make knights, whether clerks or
+laymen, provided only that the ceremony should be performed by the abbat
+in his clerical habit and capacity, and not as a layman, and that he
+should be careful to advance none but men of manly age and discreet
+judgment. Of all the royal and mitred abbeys in the land ours was
+chiefest after Glastonbury and St. Albans; and assuredly we have some
+honours and privileges which those two more ancient houses have not. I,
+who have taken up the pen in mine old age to record upon enduring
+parchment some of the passages I witnessed in my youth and ripe manhood,
+would not out of any unseemly vanity perpetuate my name and condition; I
+would lie, unnamed, among the humblest of this brotherhood who have
+lived or will live without praise, and have died or will die without
+blame; but as the world in after-time may wish to know who it was that
+told the story I have now in hand, and what were my opportunities of
+knowing the truth, it may be incumbent on me to say so much as
+this:--John Fitz-John of Sunning was my secular name and my designation
+in the world of pomps and vanities; my mother was of the Saxon, my
+father of the Norman race; my mother (I say a requiem for her daily)
+descended from a great Saxon earl, or, as some do say, prince; and my
+father's grandfather, who fought at the battle of Hastings, was
+cup-bearer to William the Conqueror, in sort that if I could be puffed
+up with mundane greatness I have the wherewithal: my name in religion is
+Felix, of the order of St. Benedict and of the Abbey of Reading; and as
+a servant of the servants of the Lord, I have filled without discredit,
+in the course of many years, the several high offices of sub-sacrist and
+sacrist, refectorarius, cellarer, chamberlain, and sub-prior; and mayhap
+when I shall be gone hence some among this community will say that there
+have been worse officials than Father Felix.
+
+In the year eleven hundred and thirty-seven I was but a youthful novice,
+still longing after the flesh-pots of Egypt, and mourning for the loss
+of the worldly liberty I had enjoyed or abused in my mother's house at
+Sunning, which was a goodly house near the bank of Thamesis, on a wooded
+hill hard by the wooden old Saxon bridge of Sunning. But I was old
+enough to comprehend most of the passing events; and being much favoured
+and indulged by the lord abbat and several of the brotherhood, I heard
+and saw more than the other novices, and was more frequently employed
+upon embassages beyond the precincts of the abbey lands. It was a common
+saying in the house that Felix the Sunningite, though but little given
+to his books within doors, was the best of boys for out-door work. By
+the favour of our Ladie, the love of in-door studies came upon me
+afterwards at that time when I was first assailed by podagra, and since
+that time have I not read all the forty and odd books that be in our
+library, and have I not made books with mine own hand, faithfully
+transcribing the Confessions of St. Augustin, and the whole of the Life
+of St. Benedict, and missals not a few? But not to me the praise and
+glory, _sed nomini tuo_!
+
+As I was born in the house at Sunning (may the sun ever shine upon that
+happy village, and upon the little church wherein rests the mortal part
+of my mother) on the eve of St. John the Evangelist, in the year of our
+Redemption eleven hundred and twenty, being the twentieth year of the
+Beauclerc's reign, I was, on the feast of St. Edbert, Bishop and
+Confessor, in the year eleven hundred and thirty-seven, close upon the
+eighteenth year of mine age.
+
+St. Edbert's festival, falling in the flowering month of May, is one
+which my heart hath always much affected. The house had kept it right
+merrily; and notwithstanding the unfinished state of portions of the
+abbey, I do opine that our ceremonies in church and choir were that day
+very magnificent, and fit to be a pattern to some other houses. All
+labours were suspended; for he is a niggard of the worst sort that
+begrudgeth even his serfs and bondmen rest at such a tide; and eager as
+was our lord abbat Edward for the completion of our stately edifice, and
+_speciliater_ for the finishing of our dormitory, he would not allow a
+man to chip a stone, or put one flint upon another, or hew or shape wood
+upon St. Edbert's day; and he was almost angered at the Italian limner
+for finishing part of a glory which he had begun in our Ladie's chapel.
+It was a memorable day, and, _inter alia_, for this: it was the first
+night that the good lord abbat slept within the walls of the abbey; for
+hitherto, on account of the cold and dampness of the new walls, he had
+betaken himself for his nightly rest either to a house close by in the
+town of Reading, or to the house of a God-fearing relation, who dwelt on
+the other side of Thamesis at Caversham.
+
+After the completorium and supper (we had both meat and wine of the best
+at that coena), the weather being warm, and the evening altogether
+beautiful, the abbat and reverend fathers, as well as the younger
+members of the house, gathered together in my lord abbat's garden at the
+back of the abbey, and sat there for a season on the green bank of the
+Kennet, looking at the bright river as it glided by, and at the young
+moon and twinkling stars that were reflected in the water, or
+discoursing with one another upon sundry cheerful topics. Good cheer had
+made me cheerful, and it remembers me that I made little coronals and
+chains of the violets that grew by the river bank, and of the
+bright-eyed daisies that covered all the sward, and threw them upon the
+gliding and ever-changing surface of the Kennet, and said, as I had done
+in my still happier childhood, "Get ye down to Sunning bridge, and stop
+not at this bank or on that, but go ye right down to Sunning, and tell
+my mother that I am happy with my shaven crown."
+
+The lord abbat, looking back upon the tall tower of our church, and the
+broad massive walls of our Aula Magna, said--
+
+"In veritate, this is a goodly and substantial house, and one fitted to
+beautify holiness."
+
+"In truth is it," said that good and learned Italian father who had
+brought the limner from Pisa.
+
+"Torpietro," said the abbat, "this soil grows no marble; we have not
+hereabout the nitent blocks of Carrara, or the soberer marble of Lucca;
+we have neither granite nor freestone; but rounded chalk-hills have we,
+and flints love the chalk-pit, and the pits of Caversham are
+inexhaustible; and with our mortar, rubble, and flints, we have built
+walls three fathoms thick, and have made an abbey which will stand
+longer than your Italian temples, built of stone and marble; for time,
+that corrodes and consumes other substances, makes our cement the harder
+and stronger. Somewhat rough are they on the outside, like the character
+of our nation; but they are compact and sound within, and not to be
+moved or shaken--no, scarcely by an earthquake."
+
+"'Tis a substantial pile," quoth Torpietro. "Balestra, nor catapult, nor
+manginall, nor the mightiest battering-ram, will ever breach these
+walls; and therefore is the house safe against any attack of war, and
+therefore will it stand, entire as it now is, when a thousand years are
+gone."
+
+"Nay," said the abbat, "name not war: a sacred place like this is not to
+be assaulted; and our good and brave King Stephen is now firmly and
+rightfully seated, and we shall have no intestine trouble. We have no
+fig-trees, or I would quote to thee, Brother Torpietro, that passage
+which saith.... Felix, my son, leave off throwing flowers in the stream;
+run unto the gate, and see what is toward, for there be some who smite
+upon the gate with unwonted violence, and it is now past the curfew."
+
+When the abbat first spoke to me, I heard a mighty rapping, which I had
+not heard before, or had not heeded, being lost in a reverie as I
+watched my coronals on their voyage towards Sunning bridge; but when his
+lordship spake to me, I hurried across the narrow garden, and into the
+house, and up to the outer gate, where I found Humphrey, the old
+janitor, and none but he. Humphrey had opened the wicket, and had closed
+it again, before I came to the gate. "Felix, thou good boy of Sunning,"
+said he unto me, "thou art as nimble as the buck of the forest, and art
+ever willing to make thy young limbs save the limbs of an old man, so
+prithee take this corbel, and bear it to my lord abbat's presence
+forthwith, and bear it gently and with speed, for those who left it said
+there was delicate stuff within, which must not be shaken, but which
+must be opened by the lord abbat right soon. So take it, good Felix, for
+there is no lay-brother at hand, and the weight is nought."
+
+I took up the corbel gently under my left arm, and began to stride with
+it to the abbat, down at the Kennet banks. I was presently there, for
+albeit the corbel was of some size, the weight thereof was indeed as
+nothing.
+
+"So, so," said my lord abbat, as he espied me and my burthen, "What have
+we here?"
+
+"Doubtless," said the then refectorarius, "some little donation from the
+faithful. Venison is not as yet; but lamb is in high perfection at this
+season."
+
+"Nay," quoth the coquinarius, "from the shape of the wicker, I think it
+is rather some sizeable pike, sent down by our friends and brothers at
+Pangbourne."
+
+"Bethinks me rather," said the lord abbat, waving his right hand over
+the corbel (the jewels and bright gold of his finger-rings glittering in
+the young moon as he did it), "bethinks me rather that it is a collation
+of simnels from our chaste sisters the nuns of Wargrave, who ever and
+anon do give a sign of life and love to us the Benedictines of Reading
+Abbey. But open, Felix! cut the withies, and undo the basket-lid, and
+let us see with our own eyes."
+
+As my curiosity was now at the least as great as that of any of my
+superiors in age and dignity, I cut the slight bindings, and undid the
+corbel; and then there lay, uncovered and revealed to sight--the most
+beautiful babe mine eyes ever beheld withal!
+
+"Benedicamus!" said the lord abbat, gazing and crossing himself.
+
+"Miserere! The Lord have mercy upon us! But what thing have we here?"
+quoth the prior.
+
+"'Tis a marvellous pretty infant," said the limner from Pisa, "and would
+do to paint for one of the cherubim in the chapel of our Ladie."
+
+"A marvellously pretty devil," said our then sub-prior, a sourish man,
+and somewhat overmuch given to suspicious and evil thoughts of his
+brothers and neighbours: "What have we celibatarians and Benedictines to
+do with little babies? I smell mischief here--mischief and irregularity.
+Felix, what knowest thou of this corbel? I hope thou knowest not all too
+much! But know all or know nothing, why, oh boy, didst bring this
+arcanum into this reverend company?"
+
+"Father," said I, "'twas Humphrey bade me bring it, and for all the rest
+I know nothing;" and this being perfectly true, yet did I hold down my
+head, for that I felt the blood all glowing in my face, not knowing how
+or why it should be so.
+
+"Bid the janitor to our presence," said the lord abbat.
+
+Humphrey, who had nothing doubted that the basket contained some
+creature comforts, such as the faithful not unfrequently sent to our
+house, soon appeared, and was not a little amazed to see the amazement
+of the monks, and the high displeasure of the abbat; for as age had
+somewhat dimmed his sight, and as the last gleams of twilight were now
+dying away, the good janitor did not perceive the sleeping babe.
+
+"Humphrey," said the abbat, "what is this thou hast sent us? Tell me, in
+the name of the saints, who gave thee this basket?"
+
+As the abbat spoke the infant awoke from its slumber, and began to cry
+out, and lay its arms about, as if feeling for its nurse; and hereat our
+old janitor's wonderment being manifoldly increased, he started back,
+and crossed himself, and said, "Jesu Maria! Jesu Maria!"
+
+"Say what thou hast to say," cried our sacrist; "my lord abbat would
+know who left this corbel at the gate, and why thou didst take it in?"
+
+"But," said the old janitor, making that reverence to his superiors
+which he was bounden to do, "may I ask what it is that the corbel
+holds?"
+
+"A babe," said the prior.
+
+"And of the feminine gender--to make the matter worse," said the teacher
+of the Novices.
+
+"'Tis witchcraft," said Humphrey--"'tis nought but witchcraft! What
+Christian man, or woman either, could ever think of sending a babe to
+the monks of Reading!"
+
+"But who sent the basket?" said the abbat.
+
+"That know I not," said old Humphrey, still crossing himself.
+
+"Then who left it with thee?" asked the sacrist.
+
+"Two serfs that I have seen at this house aforetime," said
+Humphrey--"two honest-visaged churls, who were out of breath when they
+came to the wicket, and who went away to the westward so soon as they
+had put the basket in my hands, and told me to handle it gently, and
+carry it to my lord abbat forthwith."
+
+"And said they nothing more?" quoth the prior.
+
+"Yea, they did say there was delicate stuff within."
+
+"And what stuff didst thou think it was?" said the coquinarius.
+
+"Verily something to eat or drink."
+
+"Thou art stolid," said the sour sub-prior; "thou art stolid, oh
+Humphrey, to take a corbel from strange men. Wouldst know the serfs
+again?"
+
+"I should know them again if I could but see them again. Seen them I
+have aforetime. Whose men they be I know not; but I thought I had seen
+them before bring gifts and offerings to our house; and it is not in my
+office to open anything that is shut, except the convent-door; and ill
+would it have beseemed me to have been prying into a basket left for my
+lord abbat."
+
+"But said the churls nothing else?" asked the abbat. "Bethink thee, oh
+Humphrey! said the churls nought else?"
+
+"Methinks that when I asked them whose men they were, and who had sent
+this present, one of them did make reply that my lord abbat would know
+right well."
+
+Here all our eyes were bent upon the good abbat, who, to tell the truth,
+did look somewhat conturbated. But when the head of our house had
+recovered from this sudden emotion, he said to the janitor, "Were those
+the very words the man did speak?"
+
+"The matter of the words was that," said Humphrey; "yet I do think the
+slaves subjoined that if your lordship knew not who sent the gift, your
+lordship would soon know right well. But as the churl was walking away
+while he was speaking, I cannot say that these were his _ipsissima
+verba_."
+
+"Janitor," quoth the abbat, "knowest thou what festival of mother church
+it is we have celebrated this day?"
+
+"The feast of the blessed Saint Edbert," responded Humphrey, with a
+genuflexion and an _ora pro nobis_.
+
+"Then from this day forward," quoth the lord abbat, "take not and admit
+not within these gates any donation or thing whatsoever from men that
+thou knowest not, and that run from our door instead of tarrying to
+refresh themselves in the hospitium."
+
+"That last unwonted and unnatural fact," quoth the cellarer, "ought to
+have warned thee, oh Humphrey, that there was mischief in the corbel."
+
+"But," replied the janitor, "it was past the time of even' prayer, nay,
+after supper-time; and they did place the basket in my hands, and vanish
+away all in a minute, and I could not throw the corbel after them, nor
+could I leave it outside the gate. But mischief did I suspect none."
+
+Humphrey being dismissed, the elders of our house debated what had best
+be done with the child, which had not ceased crying all this while, and
+which moved my heart to pity, for it was a beautiful babe to look upon,
+and it seemed right hungry, and witchcraft could there be none about it;
+for our sub-prior, who had adventured to take it up in his arms, had
+espied a little golden cross round its neck, and an Agnus Dei sewed to
+its clothes. The lord abbat, whose heart was always kind to man, woman,
+and child, nay, even unto the beasts in the stable and field, and the
+hounds of the chase, said that albeit it had been cast into a wrong
+place, it was assuredly a sweet innocent and most Christian-looking
+child, and that as the hour was waxing very late, it would be well to
+keep it in the house until the morrow morn. But the sub-prior bade his
+lordship bethink himself of the sex of the child, and of the rigid rule
+of our order, which, in its strictest interpretation, would seem to
+imply that nothing of the sex feminine should ever abide by night within
+our cloisters. "In spite of its cross and agnus," subjoined the sour
+suspicious man, "I must opine that this piping baby hath been sent
+hither by some secret enemy, in order to bring down discredit and
+aspersions upon our community."
+
+"But what, in the name of the Virgin, wouldst have us do with the little
+innocent?" said the abbat.
+
+"Peradventure," quoth the sub-prior, "it were not badly done to set the
+brat afloat in its basket down the Kennet into Thamesis. It may ground
+among the rushes, and be found by the country people, or it may----"
+
+"Brother," said the abbat, "thy heart is waxing as hard as the flint of
+our walls! I would not do that thing, or see it done, to escape all the
+calumnies which all the evil tongues of England could heap upon me."
+
+"No, assuredly, nor would I," said the sub-prior; "for upon
+after-thought it doth appear that the babe perchance might drown. Still,
+my lord abbat, it is not well that it should stay where it is, or that
+the townfolk of Reading should know that it hath been brought to our
+door; for they have too many bad stories already, and some of them do
+remember the wicked marrying priests of the days of the Red King."
+
+"True, oh sub-prior," quoth the lord abbat; "true and well-bethought. We
+must not, therefore, send the child into Reading town; but I will have
+it conveyed unto my good nephew at Caversham, and his wife will have
+care of it until we shall learn whose babe it is, and why so
+mysteriously sent hither. There is gentle blood in those veins; this is
+no churl's child. I never saw a more beautiful babe, and in my time I
+have baptized many an earl's daughter, ay, and more than one little
+princess. It must be a strange tale that which shall explain how the
+mother could ever part with such an infant. But it grows dark; so,
+Philip, take up the basket, and bear it straightway and with all care
+and gentleness to Caversham; and Felix, do thou go with Philip, and
+salute my kinsman in my name, and relate unto him the strange and
+marvellous manner in which the basket hath been brought into our house,
+and tell him I will see him in the morning after service."
+
+Philip was an honest lay-brother of the house, and between him and me
+there had always been much friendship; for on my first coming to the
+abbey, to be trained to religion and learning, he had procured many
+little indulgences for me, and had ofttimes taken me behind him on his
+horse when he rode towards Sunning to look after a farm which my lord
+abbat had near to that place. He was a mirthful man, and so fond of
+talk, that when he had not me riding behind him he usually discoursed
+all the way with his horse. Now he took up the corbel with as much
+gentleness as a lady's nurse, and we began to go on our way, the dear
+child still piping and bewailing. The sub-prior followed us to the gate
+to give Humphrey the needful order to open, for at that hour the janitor
+would not have allowed egress to any lay-brother or novice. "Beshrew
+me," said old Humphrey as the sub-prior withdrew, "but this foundling
+hath brought trouble upon me and sharp words; yet let me see its face,
+good Philip, for I hear 'tis a Christian child, and a lovely ..."
+
+Hereupon we took the basket into Humphrey's cell by the gate, where a
+light was burning; and the janitor having peered in its face, vowed, as
+others had done, that he had not seen so fair a babe. "'Tis nine months
+old, at the very least," said he; "and ye may tell by its shrill piping
+that 'tis a strong and healthy child. Mayhap it cries for hunger;" and
+at this timeous thought the old janitor brought forth a little milk and
+honey and gave it to the babe, who partook thereof, and then smiled and
+dropped fast asleep.
+
+We took the shortest path across the King's Mead to Caversham bridge. As
+we walked along Philip ceased not from talking about the child and the
+unprecedented way in which it had been left at the abbey. Being a man
+much given to speculation and the putting of this thing and that
+together, he made sundry surmises which I will not repeat, for they
+touched the good lord abbat, and the next morning proved that though
+very ingenious they had no foundation in truth. When we came to the long
+wooden bridge, we found, as we had expected, that part of it was raised,
+and that the old man that levied the toll for the baron was fast asleep.
+But our shouting soon roused the toll-man, and he soon challenged us and
+lowered the draw-bridge, though not without sundry expressions of
+astonishment that two monks should be abroad at so late an hour. When we
+told him whither we were going, he bade us make haste, for the lights
+were disappearing in the mansion, and the family would soon be buried in
+sleep. He then lowered the draw-bridge at the other end, and we went on
+towards the hill side with hasty steps, the only light visible in the
+mansion being one that shone brightly through the casement of the
+southern turret.
+
+"Ralpho, the toll-man," said I, "must have been more than half asleep,
+or assuredly he would have asked what we were carrying in the basket at
+this time o'night."
+
+"May the babe have an extra blessing," quoth Philip, "for that it sleeps
+on and did not wake on the bridge! A pretty tale would gossip Ralpho
+have had to tell about us Benedictines if the babe had set up its piping
+on the bridge!"
+
+The castellum or baronial mansion stood on the top of Caversham hill at
+the point where that hill is steepest; the village lay at its feet, and
+the church then stood midway between the castle and the village. We
+were soon at the edge of the dry moat; but the draw-bridge was up, and
+we had to shout and blow the cow-horn for some time before we could make
+ourselves heard by any one within; and when the warder awoke and looked
+forth he was in no good humour. But as we made ourselves known, and told
+him that we came from the lord abbat upon an occasion that brooked no
+delay, he altered his tone; and after telling us that though bedward, he
+believed his lord and ladie were not yet in bed, as he could see a light
+in their bower above, he lowered the draw-bridge and unbarred the
+wicket. That which Ralpho had omitted to do on the bridge, the warder
+did under the gateway of the castle; for, pointing to the basket, he
+said, "What have we here, brother Philip? Cates and sweetmeats for my
+lord and ladie? Ay, Reading Abbey is famed for its confections!"
+
+He had scarcely said the words when a noise came from the basket which
+made him start back and cross himself; for the dear child began to pipe
+and scream, and much more loudly methought that I had heard it do
+before. We, however, stayed not to talk with the astonished warder; for
+a waiting-woman had come down from the southern turret to inquire what
+was toward, and we followed this good woman, who was still more
+astonished than the warder, to the chamber where the lord and ladie
+were. Sir Alain de Bohun was a bountiful lord, ever kind of heart and
+gentle in speech; and the Ladie Alfgiva, his wife, descended from the
+Saxon thanes who had once owned and held all the country from Caversham
+to Maple-Durham, was the gentlest, truest ladie, and at this season one
+of the fairest that lived anywhere in Berkshire or Oxfordshire. Before
+hearing the short tale we had to tell, Sir Alain vowed that the little
+stranger was welcome, and that so sweet a foundling should never want
+home or nurture while he had a roof-tree to sit under; and the ladie
+took the child in her arms, and kissed it, and pacified it; and before I
+had gotten half through my narration, and the message from my lord
+abbat, the babe went to sleep on the ladie's bosom. Our limner from Pisa
+ought to have seen that sight; for the Madonna and Child he did
+afterwards paint for the chapel of our Ladie was not so beautiful and
+tender a picture as that presented to mine eye by the wife of Sir Alain
+de Bohun and our little foundling. Much marvelled the gentle ladie at
+the tale; but her other feelings were stronger than her curiosity and
+astonishment; and she soon withdrew to place the child with her own dear
+children--a little boy some four or five years old, and a little girl
+not many months older than the stranger. Sir Alain gave to the
+lay-brother Philip a piece of money, and to me a beaker of wine, and so
+dismissed us with a right courteous message to our abbat and his good
+and right reverend uncle.
+
+The warder would have stayed us to explain how it was that monks went
+about in the hours of night with a babe in a basket; but as he had a
+sharp wit and a ribald tongue, we forbore to answer his questions, and
+recommending him to the saints that keep watch by night, and telling him
+it was too late for talk, we began to return rapidly by the way we had
+come. As Ralpho let us across Caversham bridge he bemoaned the hardness
+of his life, and complained that Sir Alain put him to much unnecessary
+trouble in a time of peace and tranquillity, when the bridge might very
+well be left open by night and by day without fear of the passage of
+foes. Alack! before the next morning dawned Ralpho was made to know that
+Sir Alain's caution was very needful. Scarcely had Philip and I gotten a
+rood from the bridge-end when that honest lay-brother shouted "Fire!
+Fire! a fire!" and looking to the west, the sky behind the town and
+hills of Reading seemed all in a blaze. The young moon had set; but as
+we came to the King's Mead our path was lighted by a glaring red light,
+which seemed every instant to become stronger and redder. "Eheu!" said
+Philip, who knew every township better than I then knew my Litany;
+"Eheu! there is mischief afoot! The flames mount in the direction of
+Tilehurst and Sulham and Charlton! More than one township is a-burning!"
+
+I looked down the river, and joyed to see that there was no sign of
+conflagration at Sunning, and returned thanks therefore to my patron
+saint.
+
+We were now running across the mead as fast as we could run; but before
+we came to the abbey-gate the alarm-bell rung out from the tower, and a
+loud shouting and crying came from the town of Reading, and the sounds
+of another alarm-bell from Sir Alain's castellum at Caversham.
+
+"What can this mean?" said Philip. "The two serfs that brought the babe
+to our house came from the westward, or did go back in that direction,
+or so said old Humphrey. After twenty years and more of a happy peace,
+is this land to be wasted again by factions and civil war?"
+
+Alas! Philip had said it! This night witnessed the beginning of those
+troubles which carried woe into every part of England, and which ended
+not until sixteen long years had passed over our heads, sending some of
+our brotherhood with sorrow to the grave, and making others old men
+before their time; for, to say nothing of our personal sufferings and
+hazards, there was not one among us but had a brother or a sister and
+friends near and dear to him tortured or butchered in these the worst
+wars that were ever waged in England.
+
+When we returned into the abbey we found that the lord abbat had called
+up his men-at-arms, and the three good knights who did military service
+for the abbey in return for the lands they held; that one of these
+knights and divers of the men-at-arms were mounting and about to go
+forth; and that the better conditioned of the town people of Reading
+were already bringing their goods and chattels to our house for
+protection; for the walls of the town had been allowed to fall into ruin
+during the long and happy peace which Henricus Primus had kept in the
+land, and our burghers had almost wholly lost the art military. Some of
+these men, who had been to the hills, said that the whole country was on
+fire from Inglesfield to Tilehurst, and from Tilehurst to Purley, which
+news destroyed the hope our good abbat had been entertaining that the
+fire might be accidental and confined to the thatch-covered houses of
+one village or township. And, in very deed, by this time the whole west
+seemed to be burning, and the welkin to be overcast by smoke and flame,
+and a reflected lurid and horrible light. The swift stream of the Kennet
+looked as though its waters had been transmuted into red wine, and the
+broad Thamesis shined like a path of fire. No eye closed for sleep in
+the abbey that night; and it was not until a full hour after the
+scarcely perceptible dawn of day that certain intelligence was brought
+us as to the causes and parties which had thus begun to turn our
+pleasant and fruitful land into a wilderness.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+We had sung matins in the choir, and had nearly finished chanting lauds,
+when three knights of good fame, to wit, Sir Hugh de Basildon, Sir Hugh
+Fitzhugh, of Purley, and Sir Walter de Courcy, from Inglesfield, arrived
+at the abbey, and demanded speech of our superiors. So soon as the
+service permitted, the lord abbat, the prior, and the other
+obedientiarii of our house retired into the abbat's garden with these
+worthy knights, who were in great haste, insomuch that they would
+neither stay to partake of my lord's collation, which was now nigh upon
+being ready, nor allow the saddles to be taken from their wearied
+horses. They stayed but a short while in the garden, and then remounting
+their steeds, they spurred away for Caversham, bidding the burghers of
+Reading and a number of serfs, who had collected outside our gates, to
+look after their bows and arrows, and to get such other weapons as they
+could, and to stand upon their defence, as traitors to King Stephen were
+abroad and might be soon upon them. These good people made loud
+lamentation, for they were ill prepared and provided, and they could not
+divine who these enemies and night burners could be. We, the humbler
+members of the house, were alike ignorant; but after he had refreshed
+his inward man, the good abbat came forth and addressed us all, and the
+people without the gate, in this wise:--
+
+"My brothers and children, and ye good men of Reading, who be also my
+children, lift up your voices and say with me, God save King Stephen,
+the rightful king of this realm, and down with the traitors who would
+shake his throne!"
+
+Having all of us shouted as we were bidden to do, and with right good
+will, for King Stephen at this time was much loved in the land, my lord
+abbat continued his oration.
+
+"The case," said he, "stands thus. That ungodly restless woman, the
+undutiful daughter of our late pious King Henry, whose body rests within
+these walls--that presumptuous Matilda, once Empress, but now nought but
+Countess of Anjou, hath sent over her bastard half-brother Robert, Earl
+of Gloucester, to claim the throne of England as her right; as if the
+martial nobility and bold people of this land could ever be governed by
+a woman, and as if Stephen, our good king and the well-beloved nephew of
+our late King Henry, who appointed him to be his successor, had not been
+elected with the consent of the baronage, clergy, and people of England,
+and confirmed in his lawful seat by our lord the Pope! Now this
+traitorous Earl of Gloucester, after taking the oaths of fealty and
+homage to King Stephen, and obtaining by the act possession of his great
+estates in this realm, hath suddenly lifted up the mask and thrown down
+the gauntlet, and sundry false barons like himself have followed his
+pernicious example, and are now raging through the country, seizing upon
+the king's towns and castles, treacherously surprising the castles of
+honest lords and good knights, and burning the homes and destroying the
+lives of all such as will not join them, or of all such as hold the
+manors and lands these traitors desire to be possessed of. In the east
+Hugh Bigod, steward of the late king's household, and the very man who
+made oath before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other great lords
+of the realm, as well lay as ecclesiastic, that King Henry on his
+death-bed did adopt and choose his nephew Stephen to be his successor,
+because this Matilda, Countess of Anjou, had been an undutiful child
+unto him, and had given him many and grievous offences, and was by her
+sex disqualified for the succession; this Hugh Bigod, I say, hath in the
+east seized Norwich Castle and hoisted thereupon the banner of this
+Angevin Countess. In the west the Earl of Gloucester hath armed all his
+vassals, and is calling upon all such friends as hope to better their
+worldly fortunes by deluging the country with blood and wasting it with
+fire. Some of these evil men have raised the banner of war in our quiet
+neighbourhood, and have fallen with merciless fury upon some of our
+noblest and best neighbours, taking them by foul treachery and
+surprisal, and waging war upon women and children, and unarmed serfs, in
+the absence of their lords. Yesterday a great band of these traitors
+marched from the vicinage of Windsore, and, last night, after a foul
+plunder and butchery of the people, the townships of Basildon,
+Whitechurch, Purley, Tidmersh, Tilehurst, Sulham, Theal, and Speen were
+given to the flames. Sir Ingelric, of Huntercombe, who hath ever been
+held as a loyal and fearless knight, and whose noble mate could trace
+her Saxon ancestry beyond the days of King Alfred, was not at his home,
+but his fair young wife being forewarned of their coming, made fast the
+gates and defended the manor-house for divers hours: but, woe is me! the
+evil men set fire to the house, and--_combusta est_, it is burned, with
+the gentle dame and all that were in it! The brave Sir Ingelric of
+Huntercombe was not there, or mayhap----"
+
+"Ingelric of Huntercombe is here," cried that dark and sad-looking
+knight, who had just arrived on a panting steed; "Ingelric of
+Huntercombe is here, with a soul athirst for vengeance! But, my child!
+My lord abbat, tell me of my babe!"
+
+The fearful conflagration, which had made us all think of the day of
+judgment, had caused my lord abbat, as well as the rest of us, to forget
+the little stranger that had come in the basket, not without bringing
+some trouble to him and to some of us; but his lordship soon collected
+his thoughts, and seeing how the matter stood, he clasped in his arms
+the knight, who had dismounted from his horse, and said to him in his
+kind fatherly voice, "Sir Ingelric, may the saints vouchsafe thee
+strength to bear the woe that hath befallen thee; but thy child is
+safe."
+
+"Let me see her," said the knight; "let me hold her in mine arms; her
+mother shall I never see more! Her sweet body hath been consumed in the
+fire that hath left me without a home! I can see my wife no more--no,
+not even in death! But let me have sight of my child!"
+
+The abbat then explained in a few words where the child was, and in what
+good and tender keeping; and while he was doing this, Humphrey, our old
+janitor, looking steadfastly at a churl who had dismounted to hold Sir
+Ingelric's horse, and at another serf, who remained mounted, he said
+aloud, "These be the two knaves that gave me the basket!" and then
+entering into short converse with the men, Humphrey brought out these
+facts:--At the near approach of the danger, of which she had been
+forewarned, their mistress had given her child to them, with charge to
+hasten with it to Reading Abbey, and then to make all possible speed
+back to Tilehurst, whither, as she had fondly hoped, her lord would be
+returned before his enemies could do her harm, for Sir Ingelric had gone
+to no greater distance than to Wallingford, and a messenger had been
+despatched after him on the only fleet horse he had left in the stable,
+and well did she know that the love her husband bore her would bring him
+rapidly to her rescue. This was all we learned now, but we afterwards
+learned that the messenger on the fleet horse had been intercepted and
+slain; that the manor-house had been stormed and set on fire before the
+two serfs who had brought the child to Reading could get back; and that,
+at this sad sight, the said two bondmen, full of devotion for their
+lord, had thrown themselves into the woods, and had gone a wearisome
+journey on foot in search of him, and had met their master between night
+and morning near North Stoke Ford, for the conflagration had been seen
+at Wallingford, and had filled the heart of Sir Ingelric with awful
+presentiments, albeit he and no other man could at first conceive the
+cause and nature of the mischief which had so suddenly broken out in a
+time of the most perfect tranquillity. When Sir Ingelric had understood
+that which had befallen, he had well nigh died of sudden horror; but,
+rousing himself to vengeance, he had collected a few honest men and some
+horses, and had ridden with all speed to our abbey, being but too surely
+confirmed on his way, by a few of his serfs who had escaped, of the fate
+his fair young wife had met in the manor-house. Never did I see a face
+fuller of woe than was that of Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe when our good
+abbat, taking him by the hand, led him within the house, to give him
+ghostly consolation, and to commune with him upon the measures which
+ought to be adopted for the defence of the country. But I should tell
+how that, before our lord abbat quitted the outer gate, he gave
+commandment that the draw-bridge, which had not been raised for many a
+day, should be hauled up, and that the serfs of our abbey lands should
+be set to work to deepen the ditch, and to dig a new trench right down
+to the Kennet. Albeit no enemy was visible, the townfolk of Reading and
+all the simple hinds that had assembled were seized with a mighty
+consternation when we began to take measures for heaving up the bridge
+and closing our strong iron-bound gate. By order of the prior many of
+the better sort were admitted into our outer court, with their wives and
+children, as well as their property. Those who remained without wrung
+their hands, but departed not, for they felt that the very shadow of our
+holy walls would be a better protection unto them than any other they
+could find; and certes we would have brought them within those walls in
+case of extremity; for was not our house the asylum of the unhappy as
+well as the _refugium peccatorum_?
+
+When Sir Ingelric had communed until the beginning of tierce with our
+lord abbat, and had been somewhat restored by prayer and exhortation,
+and by meat and wine, he came out and called for his horse. But the
+abbat noted that the knight's horse needed rest, and so he ordered a
+fresh steed to be brought from his own stable, together with his own
+quiet grey palfrey, telling the brethren that he was minded to ride over
+to Caversham with Sir Ingelric to deliberate with his well-beloved
+nephew, who was too good a man of war to have omitted making some
+preparations against the threatening storm. "You will put up a prayer or
+twain for my safety," said the abbat to the prior, "and cause a
+_Miserere, Domine_, to be sung in the church. And thou wilt hold thyself
+ready, oh prior, to hurl an anathema at the head of the rebels, if they
+should come near unto this godly house; and moreover thou wilt see to
+such war-harness and weapons as we do possess, and station the
+strongest-armed of our monks and lay-brothers, and the stoutest-hearted
+of our serfs, with our men-at-arms, in the tower and turrets, with bows
+and cross-bows; for it may chance that those who respect not the Lord's
+anointed will have no respect for holy church that hath anointed him;
+and when the children of Ishmael fall on, the children of Jacob may
+defend themselves with the arms of the flesh."
+
+Now our prior was a man of a very martial and fearless temperament, and
+one that well remembered how, in the times that were passed, bishops and
+abbats had put chain armour over their rockets and albs, and had ridden
+forth with lay-lords and men of war, and had ofttimes done battle for
+the cause which they held to be the just one, or the cause of the
+church. It is not for a humble servant of mother church like me to
+decide whether such actions be altogether conformable to the councils of
+the church and the canons therein propounded; but this I do know, that
+the sword and battle-axe have wrought their effects upon stubborn and
+impenitent minds when our spiritual arms had failed, ay, when the wicked
+had laughed to scorn our interdicts and our very excommunications. But
+not to press further this _casus conscientiæ_, I will only record that
+our prior responded with a firm voice and willing heart to the warlike
+portions of our lord abbat's instructions, and that he, with marvellous
+alacrity, did arm the house and prepare to do battle.
+
+As the gate was unbarred and the draw-bridge again lowered to allow the
+abbat and Sir Ingelric to go forth for Caversham, those of our knights
+and men-at-arms who had ridden at an earlier hour to make
+reconnaissance, came back with loose bridle to report that a great
+battalia of the rebels was advancing upon the town of Reading by the
+western road.
+
+"Then," quoth our abbat, "is there no time to lose;" and putting his
+foot in the bright silver stirrup, he got into his saddle without the
+least assistance, albeit he was a corpulent man, and had had podagra.
+Two of our knights and half of our men-at-arms rode after the lord abbat
+and Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, but the rest tarried with us.
+
+"Remember," said the abbat, turning the head of his palfrey, and
+addressing the townfolk and the serfs, "remember well that ye be all
+true men unto King Stephen!"
+
+The poor people made a very feeble essay to shout "Long live King
+Stephen!" and then prayed that we would admit them in at the
+postern-gate if the rebels came nearer; which thing we did now promise
+them to do.
+
+The lord abbat and his party, riding away at a hard gallop, were soon
+seen crossing at Caversham bridge; and very soon after they had crossed,
+a goodly band of armed men was seen to take post on the opposite bank of
+the river, a little below the bridge. Except these armed men, not a man,
+woman, or child could be discovered anywhere; for the shepherds and
+cowherds had driven their flocks and herds to the other side of
+Thamesis, and all the serfs and labouring people had fled either to our
+abbey walls or unto Caversham Castle. Only yesterday morning our green
+meadows and fruitful corn-fields had been full of life and joy and
+thoughtless song, but now they were solitary, and as sad and still as
+the grave. The wind, which blew freshly from the westward, still brought
+with it hideous drifts of smoke, which dirtied the bright blue sky, and
+a coarse pungent smell, which overcame the sweet odours that were
+emitted by our flowering hedge-rows and by the myriads of flowers which
+grew in the bright green meads and along the moist banks by the river
+side. It was all a Tartarus now; but on that sunny, happy May morning of
+yesterday it was like being in paradise to stand on our outer turret and
+scent the breeze, and feast the eye on plain and hill, meadow, river,
+and woodland, and to hear the lark singing in the clear sky over our
+head, and the blackbird whistling in the brake at our feet. Not a bird
+of all that choir was left now: the foul smoke and the pungent smell
+had scared them all away, as Ætna and Vesuve are said to do when they
+vomit their sulphureous fires.
+
+I was roused from some meditations of this sort by the scream of a
+trumpet, and by a chorus of rude voices that shouted, "The Empress for
+England! Down with the usurper Stephen! Long life to the Queen, and
+death to all who gainsay it!"
+
+And presently after hearing these sounds I saw the head of a great
+column wind round the castle-mound (whereon there was not now any castle
+deserving of the name), and take the high road which runs from Reading
+town to Caversham bridge. Saint John the Evangelist to my aid, but it
+seemed a formidable host! And there were many men-at-arms in the midst,
+and a company of well-mounted and fully appointed knights rode at the
+head of it. But our prior, after waxing very red and wrathful at the
+first sight, did say, upon better observance, that the mass of that host
+were but rascaille people, serfs that had slipped their collars, knaves
+that had no arms but staves and bludgeons, and that would not stand for
+a moment against a charge of horse, nay, nor even against a good flight
+of quarrels or long-bow arrows.
+
+"They will not win across the bridge," said the prior, "for the chains
+be up, and pass the river they cannot, for the skiffs be all on the
+other side, and there is no ford hereabout. But see, they halt! And now
+they wheel round for the King's Mead! Will the caitiffs hitherward? Let
+them come--our walls be of flint. By the founder of our house, it is
+this way they come!"
+
+And in little more time than it takes to say the credo and
+pater-noster, the rebels crossed a brook which runs into Thamesis, and
+came midway into the King's Mead, with the head of their column pointing
+straight for our main gate. But who be those that follow them on the
+grey palfrey and dapple jennet? By Saint John and Saint James, the
+patrons of our house, it is our good lord abbat, and it is that
+right-hearted man the mass-priest of Caversham, and the latter hath a
+white flag fastened to his saddle, and he upholds a golden banner
+whereon is depicted the effigies of Him who died for our sins, and
+taught that there was to be peace upon earth and good will among all
+men! And see, the rebels halt, and our abbat and the mass-priest
+fearlessly ride up to their leaders, and discourse with them. Word can
+we hear not at this distance, but plainly do we discern, by the abbat's
+gestures, and by the frequent up-lifting of the holy standard, that the
+head of our house is earnestly recommending peace and repentance, the
+truce of God for the present, and agreement and reconciliation
+hereafter. Gentle are our lord abbat's actions, and no doubt his speech,
+albeit the rebels have set their impious feet upon the lands of our
+abbey; but rude and outrageous are the gestures of those mailed knights
+that do confer with him.... And can their ungodly rage amount to
+this?... Yea, verily, so it is! One of them rides his big war-horse
+against the grey palfrey, and the lord abbat of Reading is jostled out
+of his seat, and lies prostrate on the grass--may it be soft beneath
+him!
+
+Judge ye of the choler of our prior, and of the grief and anger of all
+of us that saw this shameful and sacrilegious sight. We shouted from
+our tower and turrets, "_O turpissime!_" and the prior, standing upon
+the loftiest battlement, stretched out his hands towards the traitors in
+the King's Mead, even as Pope Leo did from the walls of Rome, when
+Attila and his pagans came on for the assault of the holy city. But the
+prior's first anathema was not said before our good abbat, assisted by
+the mass-priest of Caversham, was on his feet, and to all seeming not
+much the worse for his fall. He now spoke so loudly to the knights that
+we could hear the sound of his voice and distinguish some of his words,
+_specialiter_ when he conjured them to depart quietly thence, and avoid
+the shedding of blood. It was plain that the savage crew would not
+listen to him; and we saw him remount his palfrey, and turn his head
+back towards the bridge. We much feared that the rebels would lay
+violent hands upon him, and keep him as their prisoner; but, _nemo
+repente_, this was but the beginning of the great wickedness; and albeit
+impious factions did afterwards load the servants of the church with
+chains, and throw even bishops into noisome dungeons, and keep them
+there for ransom among toads and snakes, Jews and thieves, and other
+unclean men, this present band did offer no let or hindrance to our lord
+abbat or to the mass-priest, who went back at a good pace to Caversham
+bridge.
+
+"And now," quoth our prior, with a brightening eye, "we shall surely see
+some feat of war if Sir Alain be alive! The foul rebels have refused to
+parley, and have atrociously wronged the would-be peace-maker. Ay, by
+the bones of King Henry, 'tis as I thought! The trumpets sound! Sir
+Alain's lances are on the bridge! May the saints give them the victory!"
+
+I, Felix the novice, being at the topmost part of all the abbey with
+Philip, the lay brother, who had been teaching me how to use the long
+bow, did now see a battalia rushing across the bridge, a mixed force of
+horse and foot, and did further perceive a good company of cross-bowmen
+descend the left bank of Thamesis as if their intent was to march below
+our abbey to Sunning. The battalia which crossed the bridge divided
+itself into two parts, of the which one marched hastily along the road
+that leads right to the Castle-hill and town of Reading, while the other
+and major part struck across the meadows for the King's Mead, never
+halting or pausing until it was right in front of the rebels. With the
+party in the mead were seen the pennon and cognizances of Sir Alain de
+Bohun: it seemed but a small force compared with that which was opposed
+to it, but of horse Sir Alain seemed to have rather more than the
+adverse party. There was a short parley, the words of which we could not
+hear, but it was very short, and then we heard right well, from the one
+side the shout of "God for King Stephen!" and from the other "God for
+the Empress-queen!" and when they had thus shouted for a space, they
+joined battle. At first their superiority in number seemed to give the
+rebels the advantage; and our prior was so transported at this, that he
+clapped a coat of mail over his black gown, took a lance in his hand,
+and called for his horse, and would fain have gone forth with our
+knights and men-at-arms to charge the enemy in the rear. But, lo! the
+cross-bows, of whom we had lost sight, appeared on the river in skiffs,
+and in less than an Ave they landed on the right bank; and then they
+formed in good order, and came on with quick steps to the right wing of
+the foe, and shooting close and all together, smote it sorely with their
+quarrels. And hereupon the rascaille people fell off from their leaders,
+and ran in much disorder across the meadows. Now that part of Sir
+Alain's battalion which had marched towards the Castle-hill set up a
+triumphant shout, and drove the fugards back again, and moved upon the
+other flank of the disordered rebel host. The serfs of the abbey-lands
+and the townfolk and others who had been cowering under our walls and
+even in our ditches, became full of heart at sight of the great success
+of Sir Alain's cross-bows and the easy victory the good knight of
+Caversham was now completing; and this encouraged the prior to
+distribute bows and bills among them, and to throw open the abbey-gate
+and form a third line or battalia round the discomfited foe. Divers of
+our brotherhood did go forth with the prior, and even take a post in
+advance upon the Falbury-hill; but I, Felix, having no commandment to
+the contrary, stayed where I was, in a very safe place, whence I could
+see all that chanced below. After making sundry desperate attempts to
+stop the flight of their pedones and bring them to a head again, the
+Empress's knights, not without holes in their chain jerkins, began to
+fly themselves and to knock down and ride pitilessly over their own
+people. They could go no other gait than close by our abbey and across
+the Falbury; and when they came near unto our force on the hillock, a
+stiffish flight of arrows and quarrels made them swerve and draw rein.
+At this juncture, Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, whose lance was red with
+blood, and whose casque had been knocked from his head by some terrible
+blow, and whose face was covered with blood in a manner fearful to look
+upon, came thundering among the rebel knights calling upon his mortal
+foe, that caitiff knight Sir Jocelyn de Brienne, to tarry and receive
+his inevitable doom as a felon traitor, coward, and foul murtherer. At
+these hard words Sir Jocelyn, who was aforetime a man of a very evil
+reputation, wheeled round his horse, and with his lance in rest charged
+Sir Ingelric, who was charging him. Sir Jocelyn, the prime leader of
+this first rebellion, and main actor in the horrible deeds of the
+over-night, was wounded and unhorsed, and lay on the hard ground of the
+Falbury (not on a soft mead like that on which he made fall our lord
+abbat) crying "Rescue! rescue! Help me or I perish!"
+
+Ay! there lay the proud strong man, struck down in his pride and
+strength, looking towards our abbey-gate, and upon the hospital for
+lepers, called the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, which Aucherius, the
+second abbat of our house, did build near to the great gate, and I ween
+that Sir Jocelyn would have changed his present estate even for that of
+a leper! and still he cried "Rescue! rescue! Will no true man stop and
+save me?" But the knights and men-at-arms that had ridden with him could
+not stay to lift him up or give him any aid, for that Sir Alain de Bohun
+and his horsemen were now again close upon them, and therefore did they
+spur their steeds and gallop madly past some of the townfolk our prior
+had armed. Rings still in my ear the horrible voice with which the
+fallen and disabled Sir Jocelyn cried "Quarter! quarter!" and called
+upon his foe to show mercy, and name what ransom he would; and still my
+blood runs cold as I recall the manner in which Sir Ingelric of
+Huntercombe, dismounting, lifted up his enemy's coat of mail and drove
+under it into Sir Jocelyn's heart his long thick dagger, screaming,
+"Where was thy mercy last night! Die unconfessed!" And Sir Jocelyn
+perished, and another knight and ten men-at-arms perished unshrieved
+upon our abbey lands, yea, and close unto our church and sacristy. Many
+that escaped were sorely wounded, and well upon two score of the
+commoner sort were made prisoners, either in the King's Mead or in the
+Falbury. Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, mad with revenge, would have
+butchered all these captives on the Falbury-hill as a sacrifice to the
+manes of his beloved wife, but Sir Alain de Bohun stood between the
+wretched serfs and this great fury, and when our good and merciful lord
+abbat rode up on his grey palfrey, Sir Ingelric was somewhat pacified at
+his discourse. By the foundation charter which the Beauclerc had given
+us, it appertained to the lord abbat, and to none but him, to judge of
+offences committed upon the lands of the abbey; yea, our lord abbat had
+the privileges of the hundred courts, and all manner of pleas, with soc
+and sac, infangtheof, and hamsockna; that is to say, he could try all
+causes, impose forfeitures, judge bondmen and villeins, with their
+children, goods and chattels, and try and punish any thief or
+housebreaker, or other evil-doer taken within our jurisdiction. All
+these rights and privileges were granted to the abbat of Reading Abbey
+in their fullest extent, with judicial power in all cases of assault,
+murder, breach of the peace, and the like; in short, in as full extent
+as belonged to the royal authority. Lord Edward might have hanged every
+one of those prisoners by the neck to the trees on the Falbury, and none
+could have said him nay; or he could have chopped off their hands and
+feet. But being of a merciful nature, he only made cut off the ears and
+slit the noses of a few of the churls, and then dismissed them all, as
+to keep them in prison would be troublesome and costly. And when this
+last thing was done, all the victorious party came into our church,
+where we the monks and novices did chant the _Te Deum laudamus_, after
+which our abbat delivered a learned discourse upon the rights of King
+Stephen, and put up a prayer for his preservation on the throne.
+
+Much bloodshedding and many horribly vindictive acts did the lord abbat
+prevent on this unhappy day: nevertheless much blood was shed, and a new
+score of vengeance was commenced. The kin and friends of Sir Jocelyn
+could no more forgive and forget his death than Sir Ingelric of
+Huntercombe could forgive the burning of his house and the murther of
+his wife; every man that had fallen in the field left some behind him
+who were sure to call for vengeance.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe and the other knights whose houses had been
+destroyed by the so sudden onset of their enemies, regained possession
+of their lands; and, in other parts of the kingdom, Stephen, by force of
+arms, or by treaty, recovered nearly all the castles which had been
+taken from him. Merciful was the soul of King Stephen, even as that of
+our lord abbat; for, although he lopped off the hands of some few of the
+mean sort, he took not the life of one lord or knight, but, upon
+submission made, did pardon them all their late rebellion. The empress's
+illegitimate half-brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, fled beyond sea;
+and when he was safe in Anjou, he sent his defiance to Stephen, wherein
+he renounced his homage, and called the king usurper. But before he fled
+out of England, Earl Robert had made a great league with many of our
+barons, and had induced the Scottish king to engage to invade our land
+with all the forces he could collect. King Stephen was again triumphant
+over his many foes; he took castle after castle from the English barons,
+and rarely began a siege which did not end prosperously. When the Scots,
+and Gallowegians, and Highlanders, and men of the Isles, burst into
+Northumberland and advanced into Yorkshire, Stephen was not there; but
+the army that was collected for him by Thurstan, my lord archbishop of
+York, and that was commanded for him in the field by Ranulph, my lord
+bishop of Durham, and by William Peveril and Walter Espee of
+Nottinghamshire, and Gilbert de Lacy and his brother Walter de Lacy of
+Yorkshire, gained a glorious and most complete victory over the Scottish
+barbarians at Northallerton in the great battle of the Standard, slaying
+twelve thousand of them. The country, and the poor people of it,
+suffered much during these sieges, and intestine wars, and foreign
+invasions; but they came not near to Reading Abbey, and King Stephen was
+everywhere successful, until, in an evil hour for him and for all of us,
+he did violence to the church in order to satisfy the rapacity of his
+ungodly men of war. For ye must know that King Stephen, in order to gain
+the affections of the lay baronage, had given away so many lands and so
+much money, that he had now nought left to give, and still those barons
+cried "Give! give! or we will declare for the empress." "I see a flaw in
+your title, therefore give me two more castles," said one great lord. "I
+see two flaws, therefore give me four more castles that I may support
+your right," said another great lord. "I fought for thee at
+Northallerton, and therefore must have some domain for my guerdon," said
+another. But castles, domains, all had been given away already; there
+remained not of the crown lands enough to keep the king and his
+household, and as for the treasury, it had long been empty. Seeing that
+Stephen was like a spunge that had been squeezed, and that nothing was
+to be gotten except by war and change of government, sundry of these
+great lords withdrew to the strongest of their castles, and renewed
+their correspondence with the Earl of Gloucester. In these great
+straits, and while Stephen was holding his court in Oxenford, threatened
+by foreign invasion, and not knowing how to distinguish his friends from
+his foes, he was advised by the worst of his enemies to lay his hands
+upon the property of churchmen. The most potent and wealthy churchman of
+that day was old Roger, bishop of Sarum, who had been justiciary and
+treasurer to Henry Beauclerc, and who had for a season filled the same
+offices under Stephen; and next to the Bishop of Winchester, Stephen's
+own brother, no man had done more than this Bishop Roger to bar the
+claim of the empress, and secure the crown for the king. Moreover, this
+great Bishop of Sarum had two episcopal nephews almost as great as
+himself; the first of them being Alexander, bishop of Lincoln; the
+second, Nigel, bishop of Ely. All three had been great builders of
+castles, and men of a bold and martial humour. I find not in the canons
+or in the fathers that bishops ought to make their houses places of
+arms; but it is to be remembered King Stephen, to please the baronage,
+had, at the commencement of his reign, given every baron permission to
+fortify his old castle or castles, and to build new ones; nor is it to
+be forgotten that in the midst of so many places of arms, the simple
+unfortified manor-house of a bishop could never have been a safe abiding
+place, or have afforded any protection to the serfs who cultivated the
+soil, and the rest of my lord bishop's people. If Bishop Roger and his
+nephews did build some castles for the defence of their manors and the
+people upon them, and did expend much money in temporalities, they did
+also raise splendid edifices to the glory of God. Witness the great
+church at Sarum, which Bishop Roger rebuilt after it had been injured by
+fire and by tempest--witness the beautiful works done at Lincoln by
+Bishop Alexander, who nearly rebuilt the whole of that cathedral; and at
+Ely, by Bishop Nigel. And these three great prelates did make noble use
+of their wealth, in bringing over from foreign parts good builders and
+artisans, and men of letters and doctrine, to improve and teach in their
+several ways the people of this island; and if Bishop Nigel was somewhat
+overmuch given to hunting and hawking, and spent much time, as well as
+much money, upon his falcons and falconers, doubtlessly it was because
+the climate of Ely is cold and damp, and requireth much exercise of the
+body for the conservation of health, and because the circumjacent fen
+country doth incredibly and most temptingly abound with wild-fowl proper
+for the hawk to fly at. But to the propositus. King Stephen, being
+minded to plunder these three great prelates, did summon them all three
+to his court at Oxenford, where many ravenous lay lords and some foreign
+lords had previously assembled. The two nephews, apprehending no
+mischief, and being young men and active, went willingly enough; but it
+was otherwise with the uncle, who was now a very old man. Bishop Roger
+had lost his relish for courts, and seemingly had some presentiment;
+for, as he started on his journey, he was heard to say, "By my Ladie St.
+Mary, I know not wherefore, but my heart is heavy; but this I do know
+for a surety, that I shall be of much the same service at court as a
+fool in battle." At Oxenford the three bishops were received with a
+great show of courtesy, as men who had done notable service to the king,
+and as men whom the king delighted to honour; but they had not been long
+in the town when a fierce quarrel arose about quarters and purveyance
+between the retainers of Bishop Roger and the followers of that
+outlandish man the Earl of Brittany. The aged prelate would have stilled
+this tumult, but the Bretons, who had been purposely set on by those
+about the king, would not desist, and swords being drawn on both sides,
+the affray did not end until many men of the commoner sort were wounded,
+and one knight was slain. And hereupon it was wickedly given out that
+the bishops' people had begun the affray, and that the three bishops had
+set them on to break the king's peace, and murther his guests within the
+precincts of his royal court. Bishop Roger, the uncle, was seized in the
+king's own hall, and Alexander, the bishop of Lincoln, at his lodgings
+in the town; but Bishop Nigel, who had taken up his quarters in a house
+outside the town, getting to horse, galloped across the country, and
+threw himself into the castle of Devizes, the strongest of all his
+uncle's strongholds. And it was thought that the Bishop of Ely would not
+have been able to do this, and to distance his pursuers by leaping hedge
+and ditch, if he had not providentially practised hunting and hawking in
+his easy days. Bishop Roger, and his less fortunate nephew Alexander,
+bishop of Lincoln, were confined in separate dungeons at Oxenford. They
+were severally told that the king held them as traitors, and that the
+price of their liberation would be surrender unto Stephen of all their
+castles and manors, with whatsoever treasure they contained; and those
+who delivered the message chuckled at it, seeing that they hoped to have
+a share in the great spoil. At first Bishop Roger and Bishop Alexander
+did manfully refuse to give up anything, but bishops in dungeons and in
+chains are weak, and kings be sometimes very strong; and after they had
+been menaced with torture and death, the two prelates put their names
+and seals to an act of surrender and renunciation, and the castles which
+Roger had built at Malmsbury and Sherborne, and that which he had
+enlarged and strengthened at Sarum, and the magnificent castle which
+Bishop Alexander had built at Newark, together with other places of
+strength, were taken possession of by the king's people, in virtue of
+the orders of the two bishops to their own people. But the alert,
+hard-riding, and warlike Bishop of Ely would not give up the castle of
+Devizes, into which he had thrown himself on his escape from Oxenford;
+and, counting on the strength of his uncle's best fortress, and on the
+affection the garrison and the people of the neighbouring country bore
+to his family, Nigel did defy the power of King Stephen. Our unhappy
+ill-advised king, whom I have so often seen, and with whom I have so
+often spoken in this our house at Reading, had not the head to conceive,
+nor the heart to execute, the foul trick which followed. No! it was all
+the contriving and the doing of some of his ill-advisers, of the Earl of
+Brittany, or Sir Alberic de Vere, or some other or others of those
+children of perdition. Fasting is commendable at some seasons, but
+starvation is horrible at all. If a man starve himself, he is guilty of
+the worst and most unnatural species of suicide; and if a man starve
+another, certes he is guilty of the cruellest of murthers. That which
+impresses on my mind the belief that the aforesaid Sir Alberic de Vere
+was deep in this guilt, are the facts of which I have had assurance; to
+wit, that Sir Alberic never afterwards gave a feast in his own castle,
+without seeing the apparitions of two ghastly, pale, starving bishops
+take their stand opposite to him, and knit their brows, and wave their
+right hands, as if they were pronouncing a curse each time his plate was
+laid before him or his wine-cup filled; and that the said Sir Alberic
+did die at the last of angina, which closed up his throat and allowed no
+food to pass. Bethink ye whether the knight did not then think of Bishop
+Roger and his episcopal nephew! But the procedure to force the Bishop of
+Ely to give up the strong castle of Devizes was this:--Bishop Roger and
+his nephew, the Bishop of Lincoln, were loaded in their dungeons with
+more chains, and orders were given that they should be kept without food
+until the castle was delivered up to King Stephen. When Bishop Nigel was
+told of this intent he could not believe it, nor was it easy, even in
+those wicked days, for any man to conceive the world wicked enough to
+starve two prelates. "I will keep mine uncle's castle for him," said
+Bishop Nigel, "for they dare not do the thing they speak of." But,
+alack! his lordship was soon convinced to the contrary; for Bishop Roger
+himself, already pale and emaciated, was carried to Devizes, and made to
+state his own case in front of his own castle. And the old man implored
+his nephew to surrender, and so save the life of his uncle and that of
+his brother: and then Bishop Nigel gave up that great fortress, and
+thereupon Bishop Roger and Bishop Alexander were allowed to have food,
+after they had been three days and three nights in a fearful fast.
+Before long all three of the bishops were set at liberty, but they had
+been plundered of nearly all they possessed. The evil advisers of King
+Stephen got most of the spoil. The robbery did not even a momentary good
+to the king, and terrible was the penalty he was made to pay for it. The
+whole body of the dignified clergy turned against him; and even his own
+brother, Henry, bishop of Winchester, who was now the Pope's legatus for
+all England, did join the other bishops in charging Stephen with
+sacrilege. It was his own brother, the legatus, who summoned the king to
+appear before a synod of bishops at Winchester; and what is brotherly
+love when weighed in the balance with the duty of every churchman to the
+church? King Stephen would not attend _personaliter_, but he sent unto
+Winchester that Sir Alberic de Vere of whom I have spoken; and Sir
+Alberic went into the hall of synod with a great company of armed
+knights, and did there much misuse the prelates of the land, and did
+refuse, in Stephen's name, to make restitution to Bishop Roger and his
+two nephews of that of which they had been despoiled; and when he had
+done these things, Sir Alberic made appeal to the pope and dissolved the
+council, the wicked knights with him drawing their swords to enforce
+obedience. The bishops separated for that present, but every one of them
+saw that madness and much wickedness had prepared the downfall of King
+Stephen. Bishop Roger died of old age, and grief and indignation, and of
+the fatal effects of that dread fast; and while he was dying, the plate
+and money which he had saved from the king's rapacity, which he had
+devoted to the completion of his glorious church at Sarum, and which he
+had layed for safety upon the high altar, were seized and carried off by
+some who cared not for the guilt of sacrilege, and who were so blind
+that they could not see in what such crimes must end. Forty thousand
+marks, by our Ladie, was the value of that which was stolen from the
+shadow of the Holy of Holies!
+
+Now some of the baronage and clergy did send messengers into Anjou to
+invite the Empress Matilda into England, and to give her assurance good
+that they would place her upon the throne of her late father. And the
+ex-empress, being a woman of a high spirit, did presently come over with
+her half-brother the Earl of Gloucester, and one hundred and forty
+knights; and the two nephews of the late Bishop Roger and many of the
+optimates did renounce their allegiance to King Stephen and join her
+standard. Bishop Nigel, who would have continued to hold the castle of
+Devizes if it had not been for that fearful fast, went into the Isle of
+Ely, his own diocese, and there amidst the bogs and fens, and on the
+very spot where Hereward the Lord of Brunn had withstood William the
+Conqueror, he raised a great rampart and collected a great force against
+Stephen. In other parts our bishops were seen mounted on war-horses,
+clad in armour, and directing in the battle or the siege: and many and
+bloody were the battles which were fought during two years, and until
+King Stephen was surprised and defeated in the great battle of Lincoln,
+and taken prisoner by the Earl of Gloucester, the half-brother of the
+empress. Stephen was now thrown into a dungeon in Bristowe Castle, and
+his brother the Bishop of Winchester and legatus acknowledged the right
+and title of the empress, and led her in triumph to his cathedral church
+at Winchester, and there blessed all who should be obedient to her, and
+cursed all who should refuse to submit to her authority. And this being
+done, Stephen's brother, the bishop and legate aforesaid, did convene an
+assembly of churchmen to ratify her accession. At this synod the said
+legate bore testimony against his brother, and said that God had
+pronounced judgment against him; and the great churchmen, to whom it
+chiefly belongs to elect kings and ordain them, did elect Matilda to
+fill the place which Stephen's demerits had vacated. Yet some of the
+clergy there were who did not think that they could be so easily
+discharged of the oaths they had taken unto Stephen, or move so far in
+this matter without a direct command from our lord the pope, and many
+lords there were, as well of the laity as of the clergy, who did not
+like Matilda the better for knowing more of her. But not one felt more
+unhappy at these changes than our good lord abbat, who came back from
+the last meeting of the clergy at Winchester well nigh broken-hearted;
+for, albeit he lamented his errors, he had much affection for King
+Stephen and great reverence to the obligations of an oath, and very
+earnestly desired peace and happiness to the country.
+
+Also was he and all of us of the house at Reading and all devout and
+considerate men in the land, much consternated by great signs in the
+heavens: for on the twenty-first of the kalends of March in the year of
+our redemption eleven hundred and forty, while we were sitting at
+dinner, there was so great an eclipse of the sun that we could not see
+to eat our meat, and were forced to light candles, and when lights were
+brought in our appetites were gone because of our great fear; and when
+we went out to gaze at the obscured sun and blackened heavens we did
+plainly see divers stars twinkling near the sun. And these sad sights
+were seen all over the land, making men believe, while they lasted, that
+chaos was come again, and that this day was to be the day of judgment.
+Abbat Edward did interpret these things as omens of our future woe.
+
+"I do foresee," said he, "that infinite woe will arise out of these our
+distractions, and I can plainly see with only half of an eye that too
+many of our magnates be looking to nothing but their own worldly
+advantage. With this classis of men 'twill be down with Stephen and up
+with Matilda to-day, and down with Matilda and up with Stephen
+to-morrow; just as they hope to gain by the change. They will all find
+in the end that they have miscalculated, but that will not heal the
+wounds that will have been inflicted on the country through their
+selfish unsteadiness, and lack of principle, and oath-breaking. The
+ex-empress hath brought a pestilent set of hungry foreigners over with
+her; and every one of them is looking for some great estate or bishopric
+or abbey; others will follow, and they will have no bowels of compassion
+for the people of this land. 'Tis true King Stephen hath done much amiss
+or hath allowed evil things to be done in his name, but Matilda will do
+worse, and will have less power than he to prevent the rapacity and
+bloodthirstiness of others! Steel-clad barons and knights will not yield
+obedience to the distaff. Even the church will be divided. St. John and
+St. James to our aid! but my heart trembles for this house, and for the
+poor townfolk of Reading, and the freemen and the serfs who have so long
+lived in peace upon our manors; I am an old man--this journey to
+Winchester hath added the weight of ten more years--I shall not live to
+see an end to these troubles which have already lasted four years. Death
+will relieve me from witnessing the worst; but when I am gone hence, oh
+my brethren and children, put your faith in heaven, and remember that
+the honestest policy is aye the best, and meditate night and day, and
+labour hard, in order to lessen the sufferings of our poor vassals and
+dependants."
+
+Grieves me to say that some of our house who made many solemn
+protestations now, did not in after-time do that which they ought to
+have done.
+
+Affairs were in this state, and the flames of civil war were raging all
+round us, and the health of our good lord abbat was daily breaking more
+and more, when the Empress Matilda passed through Reading without
+stopping at our abbey to say an orison at her father's grave, being on
+her way to Westminster, there to be crowned and anointed by those who
+had crowned King Stephen only six years ago. But the citizens of London,
+who were very bold and powerful, loved Stephen more than Matilda, and
+before the coronation dresses could be got ready they rose upon her and
+drove her from the city, flying on horseback and at first almost alone,
+as she did. This time the daughter of the Beauclerc found it opportune
+to come to our abbey, for she wanted food, lodging, and raiment, and
+knew not where else to procure them. A messenger on a foundered horse
+announced that she was coming, and by the time the man had put his beast
+into our lord abbat's stable, a great cloud of dust was seen rolling on
+the road beyond the Kennet from the eastward. "_Medea fert tristes
+succos_--she is coming, and will bring poisons with her! She cometh in a
+whirlwind," said our good lord abbat, "and albeit she is her father's
+daughter--the lawfully begotten daughter of the founder of this house,
+(though some men do say the contrary,) it grieves me that she cometh at
+all. Last year, and at this same season of the year, we did lodge and
+entertain King Stephen, and prayed God to bless him; and now must I
+feast this wandering woman and cry God save Queen Matilda? The
+unlettered and rustical people be slow of comprehension, yet will they
+not have their hearts turned from us by seeing these rapid shiftings and
+changings? And so soon as the commoner sort lose their faith or belief
+in the principles of their betters, crime and havoc will have it all
+their own way. This people--this already mixed people of Saxons and
+Normans--will go backwards into blood, and there will be war between
+cottage and cottage as well as between castle and castle!"
+
+The empress-queen arrived at our gates, and with a numerous attendance;
+for some had followed by getting stealthily out of London, and some had
+joined her on the road. Sooth to say she was an imperious, and
+despotical, and loud-voiced, manlike woman, and of a very imposing
+presence. Maugre her hasty flight she had a coronet of gold on her head,
+and a jewel like a star on her breast, and her garments were of purple
+and gold. A foreign lord, with a truculent countenance, bore a naked
+sword before her, and another knight, with a visage no less stern,
+carried a jewelled sceptre.
+
+"'Tis mine own father's house," said she as she came within our gates,
+"'tis the gift and doing of mine own father, of blessed memory, and
+much, oh monks! did you wrong him and me by entertaining within these
+walls the foul usurper Stephen. The usurper is rotting in the nethermost
+dungeon of Bristowe Castle, and there let him die; but, oh abbat, lead
+me to my dear father's tomb, that I may say a prayer for the good of his
+soul; and see in the coining place what money thou hast in hand, for
+much do I lack money and must for the nonce be a borrower! Bid thy
+people make ready a banquet in the hall, for we be all fasting and right
+hungry; and send into the township and call forth each man that hath a
+horse and a sword, in order that he may follow us to Oxenford, and help
+to be our guard upon the way. Do these few things, oh abbat, and I will
+yet hold thee in good esteem. The land rings with thy great wealth and
+power. By Notre Dame of Anjou! 'tis a goodly house, and the walls be
+strong, and the ditch round about broad and deep,--by the holy visage of
+St. Luke! I will not hence to-night though all the rebel citizens of
+London, that do swarm like bees from their hives, should follow me so
+far."
+
+Our good lord abbat could do little more than bow and cross himself, and
+our prior of the bellicose humour, who partook in our abbat's affection
+for King Stephen, reddened in the face and turned aside his face and
+grinded his teeth, and muttered down his own throat, "Beshrew the
+distaff! The Beauclerc, her sire, was more courteous unto clerks!"
+
+Our sub-prior, being of a more supple nature, and being, moreover, not
+without his hopes of being nominated to the abbatial dignity so soon as
+our lord abbat should be laid under the chancel of the abbey church,
+kneeled before the empress-queen, and then formed some of the monks _in
+processionale_, and began lead the way to the sepulchre of Henricus
+Primus. But this roused the abbat and threw the thoughts of our prior
+into another channel, and the lord abbat said in a grim and loud whisper
+unto the sub-prior, "I am chief here, and none must move without my
+bidding;" and the prior said without any essay at a whisper, "Oh, sub,
+seek not to climb above _me_!"
+
+The proud woman reddened and said, "If ye would honour me, oh monks, as
+your queen, make haste to do it! An ye will not, I can get me in without
+your ceremonies. No time have I to lose, and money and aid must be
+forthcoming!"
+
+Then up spake the lord abbat Edward, and said in a loud voice, "Oh dread
+ladie, when that king of peace and lion of justice, _Rex pacis et leo
+justitiæ_, did found this house, he did give us his royal charter,
+wherein it is said, 'Let no person, great or small, whether by violence
+or as a due custom, exact anything or take anything from the persons,
+lands, or possessions whatsoever belonging unto the monastery of
+Reading; nor levy any money, nor ask any tax for the building of bridges
+or castles, for carriages or for horses for carrying; nor lay any custom
+or subsidy, whether for ship-money or tribute-money or for presents;
+nor....'"
+
+"Oh abbat of the close fist," said Matilda, "I only want to borrow."
+
+"But we may not lend without full consent of all our chapter monks in
+chapter assembled," quoth the prior.
+
+"And the foundation charter of Henricus Primus," said our abbat,
+"recommends all the successors of the said royal founder to observe the
+charter as they wish for the divine favour and preservation, and
+pronounces a malediction upon any one that shall infringe or diminish
+his donations. Dread ladie, thou art the Beauclerc's daughter: the curse
+of a father is hard to bear!"
+
+There was some whispering and sign-making among her followers; but the
+imperious woman said not a word: she only stretched out her right hand
+and pointed forward, into the interior of our abbey.
+
+We now formed in more proper order and went through the church to the
+Beauclerc's grave, on the broad slab of which there burned unceasing
+lamps, and sweet incense renewed every hour, and at the edge of which
+there was ever some brother of the house telling his beads and praying
+for the defunct king, the founder of the house. Dim was the spot, for
+death is darkness, and too much light suits ill with the decaying flesh
+and bones of mortal man, be he king or plough-hind; yet, as the
+empress-queen entered, our acolytes touched the tips of three hundred
+and sixty-five tapers--sweet smelling tapers made of the wax brought
+from Gascony and Spain and Italie--and in an instant that dim sepulchral
+place was flooded with light, the converging rays meeting and shining
+brightest upon the black slab and the graven epitaph which began with
+the proud titles of the Beauclerc king, and which ended with that
+passage from holy writ which saith that all is vanity here below.
+
+Matilda knelt and put her lips to that black slab (which she safely
+might do, for it was kept clear of all dirt and dust, it being the sole
+occupation of one of the lay brothers of our house to rub it every day
+and keep it clean), and she said an orison, of the shortest, and made
+some show of shedding tears; but then she quickly rose, and would have
+gone forth from the vault or cappella. But the lord abbat was not minded
+that the first visit paid by his daughter to the tomb of her father
+should pass off with so little ceremony and devotion; and, he himself
+taking the lead with his deep solemn voice, the Officium de Functorum,
+or Service for the Dead, was recited and chanted. The empress-queen was
+somewhat awed and moved, and there seemed to be penitential tears in her
+eyes as we chaunted "Beati Mortui qui in Domino moriuntur;" but at the
+last requiem "Æternam" she flung away from the place and began to talk
+with a loud shrill voice of worldly affairs and of battles and
+sieges--for the royal-born woman had the heart of a man and warrior, and
+her grandfather the great Conqueror was not more ambitious or avid of
+dominion than she.
+
+When we had well feasted Matilda and those who followed her in the
+abbat's apartment, we hoped she would be gone, for it was a long and
+fine day of June, well nigh upon the feast of St. John, and she well
+might have ridden half way to Oxenford before nightfall; but she soon
+gave the abbat to understand that she had no intention of going so soon.
+Without blushing she did ask how and where we monks could lodge her and
+her women for the night, telling us that she could not think of
+sleeping in the town, seeing that it was but poorly defended by walls
+and bulwarks. The abbat looked at the prior, and all the fathers looked
+at one another with astonishment, but the ungodly waiting-women, who
+came all from Anjou and other foreign parts, only smiled and simpered as
+they gazed at one another and observed our exceeding great confusion.
+
+"In truth, royal dame," said our lord abbat, "it is against the rule of
+our order to lodge females within our walls."
+
+"But I am your queen, oh abbat," said Matilda, "and this is a royal
+abbey, and my sire founded it and endowed it! Have I not, as my father's
+daughter and lawful sovereign of this realm, the right to an exemption
+from the severity of your ordinances?"
+
+"Ladie," quoth the abbat, "I wit not that you have such right, or that
+the rule of St. Benedict is in any case to be set aside."
+
+"But it hath been set aside," said Matilda, "and queens and their
+honourable damsels have slept in royal abbeys before now."
+
+"That," quoth the abbat, "was before the Norman conquest, when, through
+the indolence, carelessness, and gluttony of the Saxon monks, the
+statutes of our order were generally ill-observed."
+
+"But I tell thee, oh stubborn monk, that I, the empress-queen, that I,
+thy liege ladie Matilda, have slept and sojourned in half the abbeys and
+priories of England!"
+
+"'Tis because of these civil wars which have so long raged to the
+destruction of all discipline and order, and to the utter undoing of
+this poor people of England! I, by the grace of God, abbat of Reading,
+would not shape my conduct after the pattern of some abbats and priors
+that be in this land, or willingly allow that which they perchance may
+have permitted without protest, and to the spiritual dishonour of their
+houses."
+
+Here the eyes of the empress-queen flashed fire, and wrathful and
+scornful was the voice with which she said unto our good lord abbat, in
+presence of most of the community, "Shaveling, I am here, and will here
+tarry so long as it suits my occasions! I believe thy traitorous
+affection for my false cousin Stephen hath more to do with thine
+obstinacy than any reverence thou bearest to the rules of thine order.
+But, monk, 'tis too late! thou shouldest have kept thy gates closed! I
+and my maidens are within thy house, and these my faithful knights will
+see thee and thy brethren slain between the horns of the altar rather
+than see the Queen of England thrust out like a vagrant beggar from the
+abbey her own father founded!"
+
+As the empress-queen said these words the knights knit their brows and
+made a rattling with their swords. This did much terrify the major part
+of our community, and I, Felix, being then of a timorous nature, and a
+great lover of peace, as became my profession, did creep towards the
+door of the hall. But our prior spoke out with a right manful voice
+against the insults put upon our good abbat, telling the empress-queen
+to her face that respect and reverence were due to the church even from
+the greatest of princes; that her father, of renowned and happy memory,
+would not so have treated the humblest servant of the church; and that
+if this unseemly business should be put to the issue of arms--if swords
+should be drawn over her royal father's grave--it might peradventure
+happen that the armed retainers of the abbey would prove as good men as
+these outlandish knights, and that the fathers and brothers of the house
+would fight for their lives, as other servants of the church had
+ofttimes been constrained to do in these turbulent, lawless, ungodly
+days.
+
+At this discourse of our bellicose prior the empress-queen turned pale
+and her lip quivered, though more through wrath than fear, as it seemed
+to me; but her knights left off noising with their swords; and one of
+them, a native knight, spoke words of gentleness and accommodation, and
+put it as an entreaty rather than as a command, that the queen should be
+allowed to infringe our rules for only one night.
+
+"My conscience doth forbid it," said our lord abbat, "for it may be made
+a precedent, to the great injury and decay of our discipline. Therefore
+do I solemnly enter my protest against it. But as I would not see this
+holy house defiled by strife and blood, nor attempt a forcible
+expulsion, I will quit mine apartments." And so saying, the lord abbat
+withdrew, and was followed by all of us. The queen slept in the abbat's
+bed; her maidens on the rushes, which were carried into that chamber
+from the abbat's hall; and the knights and men-at-arms slept in the Aula
+Magna. And, as our good abbat had foreseen, this evil practice was taken
+as a precedent, in such sort that empresses and queens, and other great
+princesses, have in these later times been often lodged in Benedictine
+and in other houses; yet, wherever the abbats and monks entertain a
+proper sense of their duty, they lodge these visitors in the lord
+abbat's house, apart from the religious community.
+
+But before sleeping, the empress-queen did many things, for it still
+wanted some hours of the Ave Maria, and many were the stormy thoughts
+that were working in her brain. Two of her knights we allowed to go out
+of the house by the postern-gate, but farther ingress we granted to
+none; and not only did our armed retainers keep watch for us, but our
+monks, under the vigilant eye of the prior, did also keep watch and ward
+all through that evening and night, for we feared some extreme mischief;
+and it would not have failed to happen if Matilda had been enabled to
+get her partisans in greater force within the house. In truth, not many
+of our community knew that night what sleep was. The materials for an
+abundant supper were furnished to the empress-queen and her people; and
+some of these last were singing ungodly songs in the abbat's great hall
+when our church-bell told the midnight hour; yea, there was a noise of
+singing, and a running to and fro, and a squealing of womanly voices
+long after that, to the great sorrow and shame of the fathers of our
+house. I, Felix, albeit only a novice, was of those who slept not. And I
+saw a great sight. Watching in the eastern turret, I did see a fiery
+meteor, hirsute like a comet, but not so big, shoot up from the marshes
+on the other side of the Kennet, not far from the back of our abbey; and
+this meteor, as it passed over our house, did divide itself into three
+several parts, and these did rush away to the westward as quick as
+lightning, and there drop and disappear. Before the night came again I
+was made to understand what these things meant.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+From all ungodly guests _libera nos_! Although they had feasted so late
+at night, the people of the empress did make an early call for a
+matutinal refection; and our good chamberlain and coquinarius and
+cellarius were made to bestir themselves by times, and sundry of our lay
+brothers and servitors, to the great endangering of their souls, were
+made to run with viands and drink into our lord abbat's hall, and there
+wait upon the daughter of the Beauclerc and her foreign black-eyed
+damsels, who did shoot love-looks at them and discompose their monastic
+sobriety and gravity by laying their hands upon their sleeves and
+twitching their hoods for this thing and that (for the young Jezebels
+spoke no English), and by singing snatches of love songs at them, even
+as the false syrens of old did unto the wise Ulysses. Certes, the
+founder of our order, the blessed Benedict, did know what he was a-doing
+when he condemned and prohibited the resort of women to our houses and
+their in-dwelling with monks. Monks are mortal, and mortal flesh is
+weak: _et ne nos inducas in tentationem_.
+
+It was still an early hour, not much more than half way between prima
+and tertia, when more troubles came upon us. The two knights who had
+been sent forth by the daughter of the Beauclerc to make an espial into
+the condition of the country, and to summon her friends unto her,
+returned to our gate with a large company of knights and men-at-arms,
+and demanded to be readmitted. Our good abbat, calling together the
+fathers of the house, held counsel with them; and it was agreed that to
+admit so great a company of men of war would be perilous to our
+community; and even our bellicose prior did opine that our people would
+be too few to protect the abbey if these men without should be joined to
+those the empress had within. It was our prior who addressed that great
+company from the porter's window over the gateway, telling them that the
+two knights who had come from London with the empress might be
+readmitted, but that our doors would not be unbarred even unto them
+unless the rest of that armed host went to a distance into the King's
+Mead. Hereat there arose a loud clamour from those knights and
+men-at-arms, with great reproaches and threats. Yea, one of those
+knights, Sir Richard à Chambre, who was in after time known for a most
+faithless man, and a variable, changing sides as often as the moon doth
+change her face, did call our lord abbat apostate monk and traitor, and
+did threaten our good house with storm and spoliation. The major part of
+us had gathered in front of the house to see and hear what was passing;
+but, alack! we were soon made to run towards the back of the abbey, for
+while Sir Richard à Chambre was discoursing in this unseemly strain, and
+shaking his mailed fist at the iron bars through which he could scantly
+see the tip of our prior's nose, a knight on foot, who wore black mail
+and a black plume in his casque, and who never raised his visor and
+scarce spoke word after these few, came running round the eastern angle
+of the abbey walls, shouting "'Tis open! 'tis ours! Win in, in the name
+of Matilda!" The voice that said these few words seemed to not a few of
+us to have been heard before, but we had no time to think of that. The
+armed host set up a shout, and ran round for our postern gate, which
+openeth upon the Kennet, and we all began to run for the same, our lord
+abbat wringing his hands, and saying "The postern! the postern! some
+traitor hath betrayed us!"
+
+Now our postern was secured by two great locks of rare strength and
+ingenuity of workmanship, and the keys thereof were not intrusted to the
+portarius, but were always kept by the sub-prior, and without these keys
+there was no undoing the door either from within or from without. As he
+ran from the great gateway, I heard our prior say in an angry voice unto
+the sub-prior, "Brother Hildebrand, how is this? Where be the keys?" And
+I heard the sub-prior make response, "On my soul, I know not how it is,
+but verily the keys I did leave under the pallet in my cell."
+
+When we came into the paved quadrangle, we found some of our retainers
+hastily putting on their armour; but when we came into the garden, we
+found it thronged with men already armed, and we saw the postern wide
+open and many more warriors rushing in through it: the evil men who had
+stayed with the queen, and who had so much abused our hospitality, had
+already joined the new comers, and the united and still increasing force
+was so great that we could not hope to expel them and save our house
+from robbery and profanation. Our very prior smote his breast in
+despair. But our good abbat, though of a less bellicose humour, had no
+fear of the profane intruders, for he stood up in the midst of them and
+upbraided them roundly, and threatened to lay an interdict upon them all
+for the thing that they were doing. But anon the empress herself came
+forth with one that waved a flag over her head, and at sight hereof the
+sinful men set up a shouting and fell to a kissing, some the flag, which
+was but a small and soiled thing, and some--on their knees--the hand of
+the Beauclerc's daughter; and while this was passing, those foreign
+damsels came salting and skipping, and clapping their hands and talking
+Anjou French, into the garden. There was one of them attired in a short
+green kirtle that had the smallest and prettiest feet, and the largest
+and blackest eyes, and the longest and blackest eyelashes, and the
+laughingest face, that ever man did behold in these parts of the world;
+and she danced near to me on those tiny pretty feet, and glanced at me
+such glances from those black eyes, that my heart thumped against my
+ribs; but the saints gave me strength and protection, and I pulled my
+hood over my eyes and fell to telling my beads, and thus, when others
+were backsliders, I, Felix the novice, was enabled to stand steadfast in
+my faith.
+
+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 ungodly 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 prick 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 God'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 space 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 noble 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
+patriæ, gentisque suæ 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 restitution
+thou wilt be denied the viaticum 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 restitution 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 God 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 God 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 buttery, 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 assoiled!) 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 mass-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 noble 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
+noble 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 space
+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 à
+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 nobles 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 passed 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 noble
+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 hoarse 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 appetite 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 entitled 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 God 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 ingratitude 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 ingratitude 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 breasts 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 bloody thievings--_magna et sanguineolentia latrocinia_:
+and the fields could not be cultivated because of the continual passing
+and repassing, 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 pass 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 butter 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 God 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 pass through Berkshire into Hampshire
+and unto Winchester, she took her course by Cumnor, 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 nobler 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 assuredly 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 passing 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! God 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 masses 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 assent 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 passage 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.
+
+This discourse of the sub-prior much chafed our fearless and honest
+prior, Reginald, who well knew the man and his ungodly designs; but
+before the prior's wrath allowed him to speak, our sacrist brought forth
+the book and opened the rules of our order, and read the same with an
+audible yet gentle voice, and with the same gentleness did show that
+much time must be allowed for mature deliberation; that a Chapter could
+not be assembled while the house was full of strangers and armed men,
+for that elections must be free and unbiassed by fear or by any other
+worldly consideration; and then he did fall to quoting the charters of
+the Beauclerc, which direct that on the death of a lord abbat possession
+of the monastery, with all its rights and privileges, shall remain in
+the prior, and at the disposal of the prior and the monks of the
+Chapter, and that none shall in any ways meddle in the election of the
+new abbat: and when the sacrist had thus spoken, the cellarer or bursar,
+the second father of the convent, who had charge of everything relating
+to the food of the monks, and who always knew best, by the eating, who
+were present and who absent, did beg it might be observed that three
+cloister monks were absent, one disobediently and contumaciously
+(meaning hereby Father Anselm, who had absconded with the countess on
+her previous visit); but two, to wit, the chamberlain and the almoner,
+on the business of the abbey--and without the votes of these two named
+fathers no election could be legal or canonical.
+
+"But my good cellarius," said the sub-prior, in a very dulcet and
+persuasive tone of voice, "it yet behoves us to think of the dangers of
+the times, and to provide for the security of this royal abbey and
+God-fearing community, even though we should depart from the rigid
+letter of some of our minor rules. Remember, oh cellarius, that these be
+days of trouble, and that we be living in the midst of discord and
+anarchy, and treachery, and----"
+
+"Treachery, quotha! I wis there was no treachery in this community until
+thou didst bring it amongst us," cried our prior; "nor did we know
+discord or anarchy in our abbey, or in any part of the manors and
+hundreds appertaining unto this house until thou, oh Matilda, didst come
+to our gates! Troubles there were around us, and for those troubles the
+good men of our house grieved--not without labouring to alleviate them;
+but we were a quiet community when thou didst come thundering at our
+gates, bringing with thee thy subtle maidens and thy violent men of war!
+and hadst thou never come we had still been at peace. If thou wouldst
+listen to me now, I would say Get thee gone and cease from troubling us!
+But _orgeuil mesprise bon conseil_, pride despiseth good counsel, and
+pride and hardness of heart will lead to thy undoing."
+
+Tradition reporteth that the wrath of William the Conqueror was a thing
+fearful to behold; that the rage of the Red King was a consuming fire;
+and that the slower and stiller but deeper hate of Henry the Beauclerc
+was like unto the grim visage of death; yet do I doubt whether the wrath
+of all these three preceding kings, if put all together, could be so
+dreadful as that which the choleric daughter of the Beauclerc did now
+display: and certes the extreme passion of rage in a woman, even when
+she hath not a regal and tyrannical power, is fearful to behold. From
+the redness of the fire she became pale as ashes; but then she reddened
+again as she shouted "Ho! my men-at-arms, gag me that old traitor!"
+
+"Tyrannous woman, that the sins of the land have brought into England,
+the truth will endure and be the same though I speak it not. Thou hast
+violated the sanctuary--thou hast dishonoured and plundered the very
+grave of thy father! See that he rise not from the grave to rebuke
+thee."
+
+"Drag the traitor hence; put chains upon him; cast him into the
+dungeon," cried the unfaithful wife of the Angevin count; and the
+men-at-arms who had laid their rude hands upon the prior to gag him, did
+drag the prior out of the Aula Magna. And when he was gone, Matilda
+swore oaths too terrible to be repeated, that, seeing she must herself
+away on the morrow, she would leave a garrison of her fiercest fighting
+men in the abbey, and devastate all the abbey lands that lay on her
+march, if our fathers did not forthwith elect and appoint a lord abbat
+true to her party and obedient to her will. Most of the officials and
+cloister monks held down their heads and were sore afeard. Not so the
+sacrist and cellarer, who cried "Charter! Charter!" and repeated that
+such election could not be, and who were thereupon dragged forth and put
+in duresse with the bold prior. And now the sub-prior, who never doubted
+that the choice was to fall upon him, did entreat those who had the
+right of voting to submit to the will of God and the commandment of the
+queen, and so save the house from ruin: and some he did terrify, and
+some cajole, talking apart with them, and telling them that he would be
+good lord and indulgent abbat unto them all. At last the timid gave way,
+and the monks of delicate conscience would resist no longer; and the
+sub-prior, with a smile upon his countenance, said to Matilda, in his
+blandest voice, that the community was ready to elect whomsoever her
+grace might be pleased to name.
+
+"'Tis prudent and wise in the community," said Matilda; and then she
+clapped her hands thrice, as great lords or ladies use to do when they
+would summon a menial or call in their fool to make them sport; and as
+she clapped her hands she said, "Come in, my Lord Abbat elect!"
+
+And then, from an inner apartment, where he had been listening all the
+while, there glided into the great hall, and stood before us, with an
+unblushing and complacent countenance, that rule-breaker and
+deserter--Father Anselm.
+
+I did think that our sub-prior would have fallen to the ground in a
+swoon, for his legs trembled beneath him, and his face became as ashy
+with grief and disappointment as that of the countess had lately been
+with rage: his eye, fixed immoveably on Father Anselm, became glazed and
+dull, like the eye of a dead fish, and instead of a cry of wonderment, I
+heard a rattling in his throat. But in a while the sub-prior recovered,
+and ventured to say that the Chapter could by no means elect one who had
+broken his vow of obedience, and who was thereby under censure and
+interdict.
+
+"In absenting myself from the house, I did but obey the command laid on
+me by the queen's grace," said Father Anselm.
+
+"Not the sovereign ladie, nay, nor the sovereign lord of the land, can
+give such command without the foreknowledge and consent of the Lord
+Abbat, or of the prior in the abbat's absence," said the sub-prior,
+whose voice was growing bolder; "and dread ladie, I tell thee again,
+that the chapter cannot elect this monk--I tell thee that I myself will
+protest against such choice, and defeat such election."
+
+"Ha!" cried Matilda, "sayest thou so? Then shalt thou join the other
+rebel monks. Men-at-arms, away with him! He but wanted the mitre for his
+own ugly head; but my dear mass-priest, thou shalt have it, and none but
+thee, for I can rely on thy faith and love, and thou art the handsomest
+monk that ever shaved a crown or wore a hood." And as she spake the last
+words, she looked so lovingly at him that it was a shame to see.
+
+Well! our false and double-dealing sub-prior was whirled away to the
+dungeon, and the remaining officials and cloister monks were commanded
+by Matilda to begin the election of Father Anselm and finish it off
+hand, the countess vowing by the visage of St. Luke that she would not
+take food again until the thing was done.
+
+The terrible threats of the countess and the subtle arguments which
+Father Hildebrand, the sub-prior, had made use of, in the belief that he
+was to be our abbat, had such weight with the fathers that they kissed
+the jewelled hand of Matilda, and went into the chapter-house; and
+there, in less time than had been wont to be spent in deliberation on
+the slightest business of the house (mailed knights and fierce
+men-at-arms standing by the chapter-door the while), they did name and
+elect the runagate Anselm to be our lord abbat, the monks of tender
+conscience merely holding up their hands in assent, and saying no word,
+but uttering in their secret souls that they acted under fear and
+violence, and that all this was uncanonical work and foul, and against
+the rule of St. Benedict. And then they all came forth from the
+chapter-house, singing _Benedictus Dominus_; and the countess and her
+painted damsels looked out from the windows of the abbat's house and
+laughed, and the armed and ungodly multitude set up a shout, as though
+they had gained a great victory. I will not tell how, in Father Anselm's
+inauguration in the church, the rules of our order, the canons, the
+decretals of councils, and the bulls of the pope, were all transgressed,
+or turned into a jest and mockery: these things are not to be forgotten,
+but I will not relate them. Instead of a godly bishop, it was the
+countess herself that placed the mitre on the head, and the ring on the
+finger of Father Anselm, and that gave him the first kiss and
+accolade--_Osculum Pacis_, while _Te Deum laudamus_ was being sung in
+the choir; but verily was it sung in so faint and plaintive a manner,
+that it sounded more like a _Miserere Domine_. But when it was over, the
+intrusive abbat was kissed by all the convent, according to rule; and
+_Benedicite_ having been said, Father Anselm gave thanks to the monks
+for that they had chosen him, the least of them all, to be their lord
+and shepherd, not on account of his own merits, but solely by the will
+of God. O! sinful and sacrilegious Anselm, better had it been for thee
+that thou hadst never been born!
+
+The will of the wicked woman was thus accomplished, but it brought her
+neither future worldly success nor present peace. That same night as I,
+Felix the Novice, lay in my cell unable to sleep, mourning for the loss
+of our good lord abbat, and ruminating on all which had since befallen
+us, I heard a cry, a piercing shriek, which rang through our cloisters
+and corridors, and through every part of our great abbey. Yea, as I
+afterwards learned, it was heard by the prior and by those that were
+with him in the prison underground. Cardiff castle did not ring and echo
+with so shrill a shriek of agony when the red-hot copper basin was held
+over the face of the Beauclerc's unhappy brother Duke Robert to sear his
+eyes and destroy his sight, as did now the abbey of Reading, which was
+mainly built in expiation of that great crime of Henricus. It was
+followed by a loud call for lights--lights in the queen's sleeping
+chamber. And lights were carried thither, and Matilda slept no more that
+night; and before the dawn of day preparations were made for her
+departure. The shriek was from her, the vision was hers. _O beate
+virgine!_ save us from ill deeds and an ill conscience, and the dreams
+they do bring. The vision of the Beauclerc's daughter, as it afterwards
+came to my knowledge, was this:--her father appeared before her, holding
+in his right hand his heart, which had not been brought to our abbey
+with his body, but which had been deposited in the church of St. Mary at
+Rouen, which his mother had founded; and this heart did distil great
+gouts of blood, as if in agony for the wrong which had been done our
+abbey, and the insults which had been heaped upon his grave; and the
+face of the spectrum was menacing and awful, and the visionary voice
+full of dread--the words so terrible that the countess would never
+repeat them save to her confessor.
+
+In the same watches of the night there were moans and groans in the
+prison underground. Nor was it only the upbraiding of an evil conscience
+that caused Hildebrand, our sub-prior, so to lament and cry out. For our
+bellicose and choleric prior Reginald did beat him, and tweak him by the
+nose, reviling him as a Judas Iscariot; and, peradventure, he would have
+slain him outright, or have done him some great bodily harm, if the
+gentler and more circumspect sacrist and cellarer had not been there to
+intercede and intervene. Our prior was the strongest man that then lived
+in all these parts. A terrible man in his wrath was our prior! But his
+wrath was never kindled except against evil-doers, and the swinkers and
+oppressors of the poor. With all others he was as gentle as a lamb, and
+he was ever indulgent to error and all minor offences, as I, who lived
+long under his rule, can well testify--REQUIEM ÆTERNAM.
+
+I, Felix, having in the bye-gone times had much familiarity and
+friendship with our two backsliding novices, Urswick the Whiteheaded
+from Pangbourne, and John-à-Blount from Maple-Durham, did much marvel
+how it fared with them since their apostacy, and did diligently seek
+them out in the great press which came with the countess, to the end
+that I might talk gently with them upon their transgressions, and obtain
+from them some knowledge of what had become of the little Alice and my
+prime friend young Arthur de Bohun, hoping hereby to gain tidings
+grateful and cheerful to the ear of the good and bountiful Ladie
+Alfgiva. But neither in the evening nor in the morning could I see
+Urswick or John among the people of the countess. Yet in the morning,
+just before the departure, I gave a bowman my only piece of money, and
+learned from him that a part of Matilda's host with sundry wains and
+horse-litters had not come with her unto Reading, but had taken a
+shorter road for Winchester; and so I did conclude that my two quondam
+comrades had gone with that company, and I did comfort myself with
+thinking that they had yet so much grace left in them as to have been
+averse to come back and witness our exceeding great misery. Yet did the
+archer spoil this my comfort by telling me that two black-eyed damsels
+had gone with that division, riding like men upon big war-horses. Of
+children the man knew nought; nor he nor any man of the meaner sort had
+been allowed to look into the wains or to approach the litters. There
+might be children, he said, among this moveable and vagrant host, but he
+had seen none. Here again did I grieve, for I loved Alice and Arthur
+right well, and would have laid down an untold treasure in gold to have
+it in my power to speak comfortably unto the Ladie Alfgiva.
+
+At the command of Father Anselm the monks of the house, and we the
+novices likewise, did form in processional order, and accompany Matilda
+from our gates even unto the Hallowed Brook, that branch of the swift
+and clear Kennet which floweth by the township; and halting on the bank
+of that holy and peaceful water, which ought not to have heard such
+notes, Father Anselm made us chaunt _Hosanna_ and _Jubilate_, and
+promised to the Angevin countess a bloody and complete victory over all
+her enemies. And hence, upon _famam vulgi_, the trifling and ungrounded
+talk of the common people, who, in parts remote from Reading, knew not
+the violence which had been used, it was proclaimed to the world that
+the abbat and monks of Reading, in this unhappy year eleven hundred and
+forty-one, had received the empress-queen with the highest honours, and
+had made themselves her servants and beadsmen. _Pater de Coelis, Deus,
+miserere nobis!_
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+While she was yet at Oxenford, Matilda had rudely summoned the Bishop of
+Winchester, legate to the pope and brother to King Stephen, to appear in
+her presence and give an account of his actions and intentions. The
+bishop had replied that he was getting ready for her; and this was true
+enough, for he was manning and victualling the castles which he had
+built within his diocese as at Waltham, Farnham, and divers other
+places. Upon quitting our house at Reading, Matilda hoped, by a rapid
+march, to surprise the bishop within Winchester, and to make him
+captive, and to send him loaded with chains to join the king his brother
+in Bristowe Castle, in despite of his legatine and episcopal character
+and the authority of the holy see. But the lord bishop was ever wary and
+well advised, and before the countess could reach Winchester he withdrew
+from that most royal city, having first fortified his episcopal
+residence therein, and set up his brother's standard on the roof.
+Matilda was treacherously admitted into the royal castle at Winchester,
+whither she summoned her half-brother the great Earl of Gloucester, and
+her uncle David, king of Scots, who had been for some time in England
+vainly endeavouring to make her follow mild and wise counsels. The Scots
+king and Gloucester, and the Earls of Hereford and Chester, went
+straight to Winchester and abided with the queen and her court in the
+castle. But the bishop had made his palace as strong as the castle, and
+when the party of Matilda laid siege to it, the bishop's garrison, being
+resolved not to yield, did many valorous and some very sinful deeds.
+They sallied more than once against the people of Matilda, and put them
+to the rout; and they hurled combustibles from the palace, and set fire
+to the houses of the town that stood nearest to the palace in order to
+drive thence the enemy's archers; but by their thus doing, the abbey of
+nuns within the town, and the monastery called the Hide without the town
+walls were consumed, to their great sin and shame. Here was a crucifix
+made of gold and silver and precious stones, the gift of King Canute,
+the Dane; and it was seized by the ravenous flames, and was thrown from
+the rood-loft to the ground, and was afterwards stripped of its
+ornaments by order of the bishop-legate himself, and more than five
+hundred marks of silver and thirty marks of gold were found in it, and
+given as largesse to the soldiers; for, whether they stood for Stephen
+or for Matilda, or whether they did battle with the sanction of the
+church or warred against its authority, these fighting men did mainly
+look to pay and plunder. And at a later season the abbey of nuns at
+Warewell was also burned by William de Ypres, an abandoned man, who
+feared neither God nor men, and who did change sides as often as any
+one; but at this season he was for King Stephen, and he set fire to the
+religious house for that some of Matilda's people had secured themselves
+within it.
+
+Having made a ruin all round the episcopal palace, the bishop's
+garrison, being confident of succour, waited the event. The legate did
+not make them wait long. Being reinforced by Queen Maud and the stout
+citizens of London, who to the number of two thousand took the field for
+King Stephen, clad in coats of mail, and wearing steel casques on their
+heads, like noble men of war (more money, I wis, had they in their
+pouches than most of our noble knights or pseudo proceres), he turned
+rapidly back upon Winchester, and besieged the besiegers there. By the
+first day of the Kalends of August, or nigh upon the festival of Saint
+Afra, saint and martyr, the bishop did gird with a close siege the royal
+castle of Winchester. Herein were Matilda, the King of Scots, the Earls
+of Gloucester, Hereford, and Chester, and many others of note; and of
+all these not one would have escaped if it had not been for the respect
+paid by the bishop and the party of King Stephen for the festivals of
+the church, which verily ought to be held by all parties as Truces of
+God, neither party doing anything while such truce lasts. But when the
+siege had endured the space of forty and two days, and when those within
+the royal castle had eaten up all their victual, the 14th day of
+September arrived, which blessed day was the festival of the Holy
+Rood, and a sabbath-day besides; and lo! at a very early hour in the
+morning of that day--_Festa duplex_, while my lord bishop's host were
+hearing mass, or confessing their sins--which alas! were but too
+numerous--Matilda mounted a swift horse, and, attended by a strong and
+well-mounted escort, crept secretly and quietly out of the castle. Her
+half-brother the Earl of Gloucester followed her at a short distance of
+time, with a number of knights, English, Angevins and Brabançons, who
+had all engaged to keep between the countess and her pursuers, and to
+risk their own liberty for the sake of securing hers. They all got a
+good way upon the Devizes road before the beleaguerers knew that they
+were gone. But so soon as it was known that they had broken the Truce of
+God, the bishop's people were to horse, and began a hot pursuit; and at
+Stourbridge the Earl of Gloucester and his band of knights were
+overtaken, and, after a fierce battle, were for the most part made
+prisoners. But while the long fight lasted, the countess, still pressing
+on her swift steed, reached Devizes, the work of, and the cause of so
+much woe unto, the magnificent castle-building Roger, late bishop of
+Sarum. But the strong castle of Devizes was not furnished with victual,
+so that the countess could not tarry there; and being in a great fear as
+to what might befal her on the road, she put herself upon a feretrum or
+death-bier, as if she were dead, and caused herself to be drawn in a
+hearse from Devizes unto Gloucester, whereat she arrived in that guise,
+not without the wonderment of men and the anger of the saints. Of all
+who had formed her strong rearward guard on her flight from Winchester
+castle, the Earl of Hereford alone reached Gloucester castle, and he
+arrived in a wretched state, being wounded and almost naked. The other
+barons and knights who escaped from the fight of Stourbridge threw away
+their arms and essayed to escape in the disguise of peasants; but some
+of them, betrayed by their foreign speech, were seized by the English
+serfs, who bound them with cords and drove them before them with whips
+to deliver them up to their enemies. Yea some of the churls did cruelly
+maltreat and maim these proud knights from beyond sea, thereby taking
+vengeance for the great wrongs and cruelties which by them had been
+committed. Nay men of prelatical dignity were not respected, for they
+had had no bowels for the people, who now stripped them naked and
+scourged them. The King of Scots, Matilda's uncle, got safe back to his
+own kingdom; but her half-brother, the most important prisoner that
+could be taken, was conveyed to Stephen's queen Maud, who laid him fast
+in Rochester castle, but without loading him with chains as Matilda had
+done unto Stephen, for Queen Maud was merciful and generous of heart.
+
+Sir Alain de Bohun, who had joined the legate with a good force before
+the siege of Winchester Castle was begun, made haste to enter into that
+castle when it was abandoned by Matilda and given up by the few soldiers
+that remained in it. It was no thirst for blood and no appetite for
+plunder that made our good Caversham lord enter into the fortalice; but
+it was his fatherly love for his only boy, and his tenderness for the
+little Alice, who had grown up as his daughter. He thought that in so
+hurried and rough a departure the children whom he had traced to
+Winchester Castle must have been left therein; but although he searched
+every part of the castle, as well below ground as above, he could not
+find the children, or any trace of them, nor could he from the prisoners
+taken learn more than that a fine young boy and a beautiful little girl,
+together with sundry foreign damsels, had been sent from Winchester a
+day or twain before the legate commenced the siege of the castle. Sir
+Alain, albeit sorely disappointed, thanked Heaven that the children had
+not been separated. A little later in this year's terrible war, when Sir
+Alain de Bohun had discomfited a force commanded by Sir Ingelric of
+Huntercombe, his once cherished friend, but now his deadliest foe, and
+had well nigh taken Sir Ingelric prisoner, a writing was in secret
+delivered unto the good lord of Caversham by one who wore pilgrim's
+weeds, but who was a wolf in sheep's clothing, and, in verity, a fautor
+and spy of the countess. Sir Alain being competently learned, and well
+able to read without the assistance of his mass-priest, who was not
+there to aid him, did peruse the secret missive, which did tell him in
+the name of Matilda that she had his son in sure-keeping, and would
+never deliver him up or permit the eye of father or mother to be blessed
+with the sight of him until Sir Alain should have abandoned the traitor
+Stephen and have joined the rightful queen of England; and that if he
+long failed so to do, the boy would be sent beyond sea and immured in an
+Angevin castle, where all traces of him would be for ever lost, and
+where, doubtlessly, he would soon perish. "But if," said the letter,
+"Sir Alain de Bohun will follow the loyal and wise example of his once
+friend Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe and come join the queen, her grace
+will receive him with honour, and Sir Ingelric will forget that which is
+passed, and the boy shall be restored, and the little maiden likewise,
+and they shall be contracted in marriage, and the queen will give a rich
+dower to Alice out of her own royal domains, and Sir Ingelric and Sir
+Alain may live neighbourly and happily together as aforetime."
+
+Sir Alain, who could write as well as read, replied in few words that
+his conscience forbade his breaking oaths to King Stephen; that he could
+not change sides either through fear or through interest; that he could
+not subject his lance to the distaff, or believe that the warlike
+baronage of England would ever live quietly under the rule of a woman;
+that he must trust to God and his saints for the protection of his only
+child, as also for the well-being of his not less than daughter; and
+that if it were the will of Heaven that the children, who had been
+brought up so lovingly together, should be conjoined at some future day
+in holy matrimony (of which in happier days there had been some talk
+between him and the little maiden's father), it would not be in the
+power of empress or queen to prevent it. "If," said Sir Alain de Bohun
+in terminating his epistle, "if, oh Matilda! thou shouldest so far
+forget the tender feelings of a woman and mother as to do harm to mine
+only son, and thereby bring my wife with sorrow to the grave, God will
+so strengthen mine arm in battle as to enable me to take a fearful
+vengeance upon thy party and upon some that are nearest to thee. But
+thou wilt not do that which thou sayest. So let me have no more secret,
+tampering missives. When Thamesis flows backward from Caversham to
+Oxenford instead of pursuing its course to the everlasting sea, then,
+but not until then, will Sir Alain de Bohun prove false to his oath and
+traitor to King Stephen."
+
+_Circa id tempus_, or nigh upon the time that Sir Alain sent this
+response unto Matilda, Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, having composed his
+feud with that family and kindred, espoused the rich widow of that Sir
+Jocelyn who had burned his wife, the mother of the little Alice, in his
+house, and who had been by him slain in the Falbury of Reading, almost
+at our gates. The ladie of Sir Jocelyn had acquired an ill-fame during
+her widowhood, for she was greedy of other people's goods and avaricious
+of her own, faithless unto her friends, merciless to her foes, and to
+her vassals and serfs haughty and cruel. It was as much from the
+darkness of her deeds as from her foreign and dark complexion, that she
+had gotten all through the country the name of The Dark Ladie. But she
+was rich, passing rich, and aspiring, and allied with some of our
+greatest men, and Sir Ingelric had given up his whole soul to ambition
+and gold. This unseemly matrimony was mainly brought about by the
+countess, and there were others of the like sort, which all terminated
+in misery and woe, and in visible manifestations of God's wrath and
+vengeance.
+
+The Dark Ladie, who had done much mischief in the land in her widowed
+condition, became still more terrible as the wife of Sir Ingelric, and
+that lost knight became all the worse for his union with her. They
+crammed their castle at Speen with a most ungodly garrison, and with
+prisoners they kept and tortured for ransom.
+
+King Stephen being a close prisoner in the castle of Bristowe, and the
+Earl of Gloucester being well guarded in Rochester Castle, each of the
+contending parties was, in a manner, without a head, for Stephen's
+brother, the bishop-legate, was, after all, but a priest, and the woman
+Matilda was nothing without her half-brother. A negociation was
+therefore set on foot for a mutual release of prisoners. This was
+several times interrupted, and at each interruption the party of King
+Stephen threatened to send the Earl of Gloucester out of the land unto
+Boulogne, there to be buried in a castle-prison deep under the ground,
+and the party of Matilda threatened to send King Stephen over to Ireland
+and consign him to the wild Irishry; but at last, on the first of the
+kalends of November, it was agreed between them that the great Earl of
+Gloucester should be exchanged for King Stephen; and the earl and the
+king being both liberated, each betook himself to the head-quarters of
+his friends and partisans. Both factions now stood much as they did
+previously to the battle of Lincoln; but fearfully had the people of
+England suffered in the interim. And yet, after all these sufferings,
+neither faction did turn its thoughts _ad regnum tranquillandum_; but
+both did prepare for more battles and sieges, sending forth their bands
+of foreigners and leaving the cruel castle-holders to seize, torture,
+plunder and kill. While the land was thus weeping tears of blood, the
+king and his brother, the bishop, made repair unto London, where the
+king had his best friends, and where the legate did summon a great
+ecclesiastical council to meet at Westminster on the 7th of the kalends
+of December, _ad pacem componendam_, for the composing of peace unto the
+church and kingdom. When this council met on the appointed day, which
+was in the octaves of Saint Andrew, King Stephen addressed the prelates:
+he mildly and briefly complained of the wrongs and hardships he had
+suffered from his vassals, unto whom he had never denied justice when
+asked for it; he said that if it would please the nobles and bishops of
+the realm to aid him with men and money, he trusted so to work as to
+relieve them from the fear of a shameful submission to the yoke of a
+woman, and so to succeed in his enterprises as to put an end to
+intestine war and havoc, and establish his throne in peace. When the
+king had done speaking, the legate his brother, who only nine months
+before had in the synod held at Winchester declared for Matilda, rose
+and proclaimed that the pope had ordered him to release and restore his
+brother, that Matilda had observed nothing of what she had sworn to him;
+that the great barons of England had performed their engagements towards
+her, and that she, not knowing how to use her prosperity with
+moderation, had violated all her engagements and oaths; that she had
+even made attempts against his, the legate's, liberty and life; and that
+this freed him from the obligations of the oaths he had taken to the
+Countess of Anjou, for he would not longer call her queen. The legate
+further said that the judgment of Heaven was visible in the prompt
+punishment of her perfidy, and that God himself now restored his brother
+the rightful King Stephen to the throne. Albeit there were some among
+them who had but lately quitted the party of Matilda, the prelates and
+great men at Westminster assembled did agree that all loyal men ought
+forthwith to arm for King Stephen, and that the adherents of the
+countess should be everywhere stripped of their usurped authority,
+whether in church or civil government; that forced elections should be
+all annulled, and that sentence of excommunication should go forth
+against all the obstinate and irreclaimable partisans of the countess.
+And the Bishop of Winchester, as legatus à latere, did stand up with a
+new bull of the pope in his right hand, and pronounced the dread
+sentence against all such as should disturb the peace in favour of the
+Countess of Anjou, or should build new castles in the land, or invade
+the rights and privileges of the church, or wrong the poor and
+defenceless.
+
+Judge ye if the news of these high proceedings at Westminster did not
+bring with them joy and comfort unto the friends of the late Lord Abbot
+Edward and all the honest monks of Reading abbey! Besides the sin and
+shame of his forced election, we had suffered many things at the hands
+of Anselm during the few months that he had held rule over us. In all
+that time he had kept the stout-hearted prior Reginald in the prison
+underground, and had maliciously devised penances and punishments for
+all such members of the community as had pitied the prisoner. He had
+alienated and sold some of the abbey lands to furnish out men-at-arms
+for his countess. He had half-starved the brotherhood, and no
+hospitality had he exercised unto strangers except to some Angevin
+marauders; and when he went away to see the countess, which more than
+once he did, he left in the abbey some of these outlandish men to keep
+us in submission and dread. But now his evil reign was over, for so soon
+as they had learned what had passed at Westminster, and had gotten a
+rescript from the legate, the elders of our house took counsel together
+and resolved to liberate Reginald the prior, and offer him the mitre,
+and to throw Father Anselm into the prison instead of the prior. And the
+thing was easy to do, for by this time Anselm had given offence to every
+cloister monk, novice, and lay-brother, and the warier sort did all
+opine that now that King Stephen was liberated, and his enemies
+excommunicated by the legate, the cause of the countess must be
+altogether desperate. And so with one voice and one will Anselm was
+seized and thrown into the underground cell, and the prior was brought
+forth, and conducted in triumph to the abbat's house, and there told
+that he must be our lord abbat. Most true it was that he had never
+wished for this post of eminence, and now prayed the brotherhood to
+elect the chamberlain or the sacrist or any experienced cloister-monk
+rather than him; but the universal will and voice of the community would
+not be gainsayed, and in the course of a few days the prior was
+unanimously elected, by those who had the right of voting in the
+Chapter, to be our abbat; and then we all carried him into the church in
+procession, sang _Te Deum laudamus_, with loud and jubilant voices, rang
+the bells until they well nigh cracked, and set him on the abbat's
+throne, and did him all the homage that is due unto the mitred abbat of
+a royal abbey; and then brought up Father Anselm, and drove him out of
+our gates with many kicks behind, for our new lord abbat would not have
+him linger and pine in that cold dark cell underground, saying that he
+knew to his cost how sad a thing it was, and that to hold any captive
+therein would be to make the wholesome air of the house infaust and
+insalubrious.
+
+As he was crossing the Holy Brook the townfolk of Reading, who no more
+loved Anselm than did we the monks, caught him by the girdle and threw
+him into the stream, so that he was nearly drowned at the place where he
+had forced us against our conscience to psalmodize for Matilda. He took
+these things so much to heart that he got him back into Normandie. It
+was said by some that he falsified his history and his very name, and
+so gained admission into the abbey of Bec, but from the volatile nature
+of the man, I did rather give my belief to another report--to wit, that
+he turned himself into a jongleur or trouvere, and went about France
+with women and menestrels and other lewd people.
+
+Sundry times he promised, and did in his heart intend, to visit our
+house, and force the restitution of the lands which the usurping Anselm
+had alienated to ungodly men; yet King Stephen came not to Reading for
+many a year, and when he came he could not tarry with us. But the king
+sent Sir Alain de Bohun to build up and restore the ruinous castle of
+Reading; and when this had been done, and when, by the vassals and serfs
+of the abbey, the walls of the township had been strengthened, we
+entered upon the enjoyment of such peace and tranquillity as we had not
+known during five long years; for the Philistines could not come
+suddenly upon us, or easily break through our defences. At Reading,
+indeed, we did live as in a little Goshen, while war was raging all
+round about; and albeit we could not always defend our outlying manors
+and houses from fire and sword, but suffered many and grievous losses in
+serfs, cattle, corn, hay, farm-houses, and granges; we yet suffered less
+than other communities, and nothing at all in comparison with the abbat
+and monks of Abingdon, our neighbours, but not always friends. Driven
+from their once quiet seat at Oxenford, or too sorely troubled in their
+residence there by the people of the countess, and the constant coming
+and going of warlike and plundering bands, many of the professors and
+pupils, _doctores et alumni_, did come unto Reading, and under the
+shadow of our secure and peaceful walls, pursue those studies which
+were destined to give to England a learned priesthood and a universal
+increase of civility. Our brotherhood too did attend to that learning
+and to the making of many good books which had done honour to the
+Benedictines ever since their first foundation and in whatsoever country
+their order was established. Our scribes and copyists once more worked
+amain in their quiet cells, multiplying with a slow but correct pen the
+precious works of antiquity, and the holy books, and the lives of
+saints; and need there was for this labour, since other religious houses
+had no peace or leisure, and great and fearful was the destruction of
+books and codices in the conflagrations and stormings of this long
+intestine war. But for the labours of the Benedictines and some few
+learned monks of other orders in England, and but for the blessed
+saints, who kept alive their love of letters and books, and gave them
+heart and strength to work even in a season of horror and despair, the
+land would have been plunged back into utter barbarism, and would have
+been void of learning and of books as when the great Alfred came to the
+throne. In the tranquil easy days in which I now write, for the solace
+of my lonely hours and for the preservation of the fading memory of the
+times of trouble, and for no fame or vain glory, the sense of these
+things hath already become faint in men's minds, and mayhap, in after
+ages, when the world shall have made great strides in learning and all
+civility, these labours of the Benedictines will be altogether
+forgotten, or be treated as nought. Yet was it they that did mainly save
+the land from a great retrograde step; and I, Felix, _servus servorum_,
+the humblest or least worthy member of the order (who have so often
+seen shining in our western turret the midnight lamp which lighted our
+copyists and makers of books at their solitary labours, and who have
+seen those labours steadily pursued when the country was ringing with
+the din of arms, and was blazing with midnight fires, and when no
+earthly honour or reward whatsoever seemed to attend their toil), would
+fain put upon record some faint notice of that which was done in the
+evil times by our house and order: but not unto us the praise, but unto
+thee, oh Lord! They, themselves, sought for no applause--_Celata
+virtus_--their virtue is all hidden: not so much as the name is
+preserved of these good and laborious monks who did so much for learning
+and religion.
+
+It was about the time in which Sir Alain de Bohun did re-edify Reading
+Castle, that I, Felix, recovering from my early podagra, under the
+instruction and guidance of old father Ambrosius (he hath now been many
+years at rest in the chancel of our church, and I in gratitude do say a
+daily prayer over his grave), did first addict myself to the use of the
+pen, beginning with a missal, which our Pisan limner did richly
+illuminate; and when this my first essay was finished, I did present it
+unto the Ladie Alfgiva in her house at Caversham, and that bountiful and
+right noble ladie did acknowledge the gift by sending unto the abbey
+five milch cows and a goodly stock of Caen fowls, which our community at
+that time much needed, for there had been a murrain among cattle, and
+the spoilers had again swept bare our best farms.
+
+Many were the tears shed by me, and many the masses and prayers said by
+our house for the said Ladie Alfgiva and the two missing children. Grief
+and anxiety for her son and foster daughter did at times almost bow that
+noble dame to the earth, and her grief was the greater because of her
+frequent loneliness and the hazards her lord was running in the many
+sieges and battles of the times; but although her health declined and
+her cheek became wan, hope and trust in heaven's goodness did not
+forsake her. A pious dame was Ladie Alfgiva, and of a nature high and
+noble in all things. Though thinking day and night of her only son and
+her only living child, she never once implored Sir Alain to purchase the
+boy's release and his restoration to her arms by proving false to his
+oath and untrue to the king, and every time that her lord came to his
+home she dried her tears and did all that she could to conceal her great
+grief so long as he tarried with her. The virtuous woman is a crown unto
+her husband, and verily there be wives as well as virgins that merit the
+crown the church awards to saints and martyrs. Saint Catherine on the
+wheel, or Saint Agatha at the fiery stake, suffered not pangs so acute
+as those of this bereaved mother; and their torture was soon over, and
+while they suffered they saw from the wheel and stake the heavens
+opening to the eye, and they heard heavenly music in the air which made
+them deaf to the shouts of the infidel rabble that were slaying them. So
+much bliss and so great a foretaste of celestial joy was not vouchsafed
+unto the secular Ladie Alfgiva, and could not be expected by her:
+nevertheless had she her happy visions and sweet soothing sounds during
+her long bereavement. More than once, in her great loneliness, when her
+lord was away fighting for King Stephen, as she stood on the battlements
+of her castle at eventide, she saw her boy and his playmate Alice
+sitting on the flowery bank which slopes down to the river, as they used
+often to sit before Sir Ingelric did steal them away; and she heard
+their merry little voices on the breeze, and their frolicsome laugh.
+Some would say that she but took two stray lambs for the lost children,
+and that the sounds she heard were only made by the evening breeze among
+the tall growing grass and the leafy coppices; but I, Felix, could never
+so interpret it unto her. But constantly did I strive to give her
+comfort, and to conceal from her the cruelties that were daily committed
+in the land, and to stop the thoughtless indiscreet tongue of her people
+who would have filled her ears with horrible tales of murdered children
+and babes, for not the massacre of the Innocents in Judea was so fierce
+as the slaughter that raged in England.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+When our good lord abbat Edward had been dead well nigh a year, to wit,
+in the summer season of eleven hundred and forty-two, King Stephen, from
+great fatigue of body and uneasiness of mind, fell sore sick, and lay
+for a long while like one that was dying. While this lasted the barons
+of his party did many evil deeds, there being no authority strong enough
+to check their lawlessness; and, at the same troublous season, the
+partisans of Matilda and the foreign mercenaries in her pay did ravage
+all the western parts; and more robbers came over from Anjou, Normandie,
+and Picardie, asking no pay, but only free quarters, and the right of
+plundering the poor English. It was a Benedictine from Rome that had
+studied medicine in the school of Salerno, that brought a healing potion
+to the king, and snatched him back to life from the jaws of the grave.
+
+So soon as Stephen could mount his war-horse he marched with a great
+force unto Oxenford, where the countess had fixed her court; and he
+invested that unhappy city with a firm resolution never to move thence
+until he had gotten his troublesome rival into his hands. After some
+fighting, in which many lives were lost by both parties, Stephen burst
+into the town, and having set fire to a large part thereof, he laid
+siege unto the castle into which Matilda and her people had retired. Now
+the castle of Oxenford, standing in the midst of waters, was very
+strong. From St. Michael's mass well nigh unto Christ's mass, _à festo
+Michæelis usque ad natali Domini_, did King Stephen persevere in the
+siege, telling all men that complained of the hard service that he must
+have the castle, and in it the countess, and that then there would be
+peace in England.
+
+In the mid siege, our new lord abbat, who had had much correspondence
+with the lord abbat of Abingdon, with the prior and monks at Hurley, and
+with other Benedictine houses, for the good purpose of saving the
+remnant of the Christian people in those parts, and putting an end to
+the cruelties and many deadly sins which were daily committed, received
+from the Abingdon cell at Cumnor, nigh unto Oxenford, a missive from the
+abbat of that community, who entreated him, now that the country was
+clear of Matilda's people, to repair unto Cumnor that they might take
+council together, and together confer with King Stephen, who seemed at
+that moment to be in a heavenly disposition, and to have an exceeding
+great desire to tranquillize the land, and to consult with the loyal
+abbat of Reading. Now albeit Stephen had, by means of Sir Alain de
+Bohun, expressed his great contentment at the expulsion of Father
+Anselm, and at all that had been done by our community since the great
+meeting of the synod at Westminster, the election of the prior to be our
+lord abbat had not yet been formally confirmed by the king; and
+therefore Dominus Reginaldus did make haste to accept the invitation of
+the abbat of Abingdon, and to get him unto Cumnor. Not for any merit of
+mine own, but through the kind favour he was ever pleased to show me, I
+was chosen to be of the travelling party. Philip the lay-brother went
+likewise; but Philip was a brave and ready man, quick-witted, and
+well-trained aforetime in the use of arms, and in the riding of the
+great horse. Although the nerve of the Angevin faction was shut up in
+Oxenford Castle, my Lord Reginald was too wise a man to put himself on
+the road with a weak escort; for he well knew that there were many
+barons and knights, calling themselves King Stephen's friends and the
+friends of mother church, that would not scruple to plunder an abbat, or
+to keep him in their donjons for the sake of a great ransom; and well
+nigh every castle between Reading and Oxenford, and between Oxenford and
+Bristowe, was a den of thieves, and worse; and Lord Reginald had not
+lost his bellicose humour by being promoted to the highest dignity. "By
+the head of Saint John the Baptist," said he, as we were about to take
+our departure, "not a robber of them all shall lay me in his crucet
+house without having a hard fight for it! Before I bear the weight of
+their sachenteges, I will make them taste the sharpness of my lance, and
+the weight of my mace." And so was it that we went forth from Reading
+forty and one strong, and every man of us armed cap-à-pie, and most of
+us well mounted. The lord abbat wore a steel cap under his hood, and a
+coat of mail and steel hose under his robes; and he had a two-edged
+sword at his side and a heavy mace at the pommel of his saddle, and a
+good lance resting on stirrup-iron; yea, and I, Felix the novice, wore
+ringed armour and a steel casque, and had my sword and lance: Englehard
+de Cicomaco, that famed and well-judging knight, who was one of the
+retainers of our abbey, doing military service for the abbey lands he
+held near Hurley Common, did say that I looked a very proper
+man-at-arms, and did bestride my steed like a knight--but these are
+vanities, and I by my vows did renounce all vanity. Yet can I but mark
+that when we came to Cumnor a great baron asked who was that gallant
+well-favored young soldier that rode in the van, near to the lord abbat
+of Reading.
+
+On our way we tarried for a night at Berecourt by Pangbourne, where we
+had a goodly house among the hills which had wont to be a summer
+residence of our abbats. But this goodly house had been robbed and
+spoiled, and our vassals and serfs had not yet been enabled to restore
+it. We were therefore roughly lodged and not over well fed; but that
+which affected me more grievously than this was the sad condition of the
+poor people of Pangbourne, who had been so prosperous and happy before
+these accursed wars began. Sad were the tales they told, and not the
+least sad of them all was this: my quondam friend and brother novice,
+Urswick the Whiteheaded, had been in the spring season of this year at
+Pangbourne with a great band of English and foreign robbers, ransacking
+the place of his birth and maltreating the friends among whom he had
+been born and bred; and his aged father had to his face pronounced a
+curse upon him; and in a quarrel with some savage men from Anjou
+touching the division of spoil, Urswick had been slain on the bank of
+Thamesis, before he could recross the river or get out of sight of his
+native village: and, since that black morning, or so our serfs did say,
+his well-known voice had been heard at midnight, and he had been seen by
+the light of the moon, now habited as a monk, and wringing his hands by
+the river side where he fell, looking piteously towards the abbey of
+Reading, from which he had fled, and now equipped as a man-at-arms, and
+galloping on a great black horse, across the country and up the steep
+hills and down the precipices--fire flashing from the eyes and nostrils
+of the infernal steed, and from the burning heart of the lost novice.
+
+On our march from Pangbourne we shunned the townships and castles as
+much as we could, and took especial heed not to get near unto
+Wallingford; for the strong castle there was held by Brian Fitzcount,
+the most terrible of all Matilda's partisans, and the greatest robber of
+them all; and the castle at this very time was known to be full of
+unfortunate prisoners whom he kept and daily tortured in order to make
+them disclose their supposed hidden treasures, or to pay a heavier
+ransom than any they had the means of paying. Christian burghers and
+franklins, noble knights who had warred against the heathen in
+Palestine, nay churchmen, the highest in the hierarchy, were known to be
+in his foul prison, pent up with Jewish traffickers and money-dealers;
+the noblest and the purest with the vilest and foulest of the earth: and
+the gaolers and torturers of Brian Fitzcount treated the Christians no
+whit better than the Israelites that were chained at their sides,
+contaminating them with their touch and poisoning the air they breathed.
+Night after night, such of the poor townfolk as had contrived to live in
+the midst of these horrors without deserting Wallingford, were startled
+in their sleep by the cries and shrieks which came from the grim castle;
+and when in the morning they adventured to ask what had been toward in
+the night watches, the Count's people would tell them jestingly from the
+battlements that it was nothing, or that Brian Fitzcount had only been
+coining a little more money, or that a Jew had had his teeth drawn, or
+that a traitor to the empress-queen had been questioned about his
+treason and treasure.
+
+The great prison in this castle of Wallingford was called Brian's Hell,
+and it was deserving of the name. But the fiends were abroad, as well as
+within those abominable walls--the spirit of the arch-fiend was
+everywhere. The village churches and the chapels and hospitia in
+solitary places had been destroyed or turned into fortalices; deep
+trenches were cut in the churchyards among the consecrated abodes of the
+dead; the sweet sounding church bells had been thrown down, and engines
+of war had been set up on the church towers. Yea! the resting places
+which the church and the piety of the faithful had built and stocked for
+the poor and hungry wayfarers in the desert had been plundered and
+destroyed--the last holy resting-places had been profaned! The temple of
+peace and mercy had been turned into a place of arms!
+
+As we came near to Hanney mead and the river Ock--that pleasant little
+river that wells from the ground near Uffington and drops into Thamesis
+by Abingdon, and that has the most savoury pike that be fished in these
+parts--we came suddenly upon a castellum which we could by no means
+avoid; for it had been lately built, and we knew not of it, and it lay
+so low among marshes that we saw it not until we were close upon it. It
+lay close to the only road that led to the ford across the river. To a
+trumpet which sounded a challenge from the walls our party replied with
+sound of trumpet, and then at the abbat's commandment proceeded
+deliberately onward. As we came nearer, the warder of the castle shouted
+"For whom be ye?"
+
+"What if I say for King Stephen?" quoth our lord abbat, rising in his
+stirrups and waving his lance over his head.
+
+"Long live King Stephen! an thou wilt," said the warder, "but thou must
+pay toll ere thou mayest pass the river."
+
+"The lord abbat of Reading pays not even bridge toll, and here there is
+no bridge," said our lord abbat, "and fords be ever free. Go read our
+charter: _In terris et aquis, in transitibus pontium_, by land and by
+water, and in the passing of bridges, we be free from all tolls or
+consuetudinary payments. If thou wilt have toll from me, i'faith, thou
+must come forth and take it."
+
+"Thou art but a traitor," cried the warder. "Long live the
+empress-queen!" shouted divers armed men who ran to the battlement, and
+as they did shout did also bend their cross-bows. But by this time we
+had all put spurs to our horses, and we dashed past the ugly castellum
+and across the ford without receiving any hurt, albeit a quarrel did hit
+the lord abbat's steed near unto the tail and make him caper. Had our
+party been less numerous and warlike, doubtless we had been lodged that
+night among Brian Fitzcount's prisoners.
+
+The town and abbey of Abingdon we did also avoid, keeping a little to
+the westward thereof; for another tyrant and man destroyer had built
+himself a great castle in that vicinage, and there had been many feuds
+and factions and changing of sides among the monks of Abingdon, while
+the best and most trusty of that community were known to be at the house
+at Cumnor with their abbat. The roads were deep and miry, the way was
+long, the days were short, and the weather of the saddest; but on the
+third evening after our departure from Reading we arrived at the Cell of
+Cumnor, where our lord abbat was hospitably received by the abbat of
+Abingdon, and where we of less note found good lodging and
+entertainment, to wit, a blazing wood fire whereat to dry our clothes,
+clean straw to sleep upon, and salted meats and manchets to eat, and
+good Oxenford ale to drink.
+
+On the morrow, when it wanted but two days of the feast of St. Thomas
+the Apostle, King Stephen with a few lords and knights rode from the
+beleaguer of Oxenford Castle to Cumnor, and did there confer with the
+two abbats and other ecclesiastics. What passed in the council chamber I
+cannot tell; but it was seen by all of us that the king wore a cheerful
+aspect, and it was told unto us all that the castle was reduced to
+extremity, and that, there being no escape thence, the countess must
+soon surrender or die of starvation. When the conference was over, and
+when the king had been entertained as royally as the abbat of Abingdon
+could do it in that place and at that time--and when Stephen had laid
+his offering upon the altar in the church, he rode back to the siege,
+and our lord abbat of Reading, and all of us who had come with him,
+attended the king to Oxenford, intending there to tarry until the
+surrender of Matilda.
+
+"With the saints to my aid," said our abbat, "I may prevail upon this
+perverse daughter of the Beauclerc to deliver herself quietly up, and
+upon King Stephen to be merciful unto her in her captivity. If the
+Angevin countess should still persevere in the wickedness of her ways,
+and attempt to escape again on a bier instead of putting an end to the
+woes of the land by a surrender, forty good swords the more may do
+service for the king. My children, my friends, ye will all be vigilant
+in this matter, and do duty like good soldiers, if it should be required
+of ye!" And as the good lord Reginald went into Oxenford town and saw
+the palace which the Beauclerc king had there builded, and saw the
+engines of war, and heard the horrid noise of war all about, he heaved a
+sigh and said, "_Eheu! quantum mutatur!_ How be all things changed! Here
+in the days of Henricus Primus, that peace-loving king, _Rex pacis_,
+have I seen nothing but quiet scholars and learned men, and the court of
+a king that was an academe and a sanctuary of letters. Wot ye, my boy
+Felix, why it was that Henricus did build him a palace here?" And I
+having confessed my ignorance as became me, our abbat went on to say,
+"Felix, my son, the Beauclerc had collected in his most royal park at
+Woodstock many wild beasts from foreign parts, such as lions and bears,
+leopards and lynxes, and porcupines, and of these he had a wonderful
+great liking, and here at Oxenford learned men were collecting every
+year in greater numbers, and in the company of these scholars his grace
+did take marvellous delight: in truth it were not easy to say whether he
+liked the beasts better than the bookish men, or the bookish men better
+than the beasts; but, to have the enjoyment of both, he ofttimes fixed
+his residence between them; and therefore was it, my son, that Henricus
+Primus raised this royal dwelling, and preferred it above his other
+houses." That very night, albeit I knew it not then, there came to King
+Stephen the very unfavourable news that the countess's half-brother, the
+great Earl of Gloucester, who for some months had been absent, had
+returned into England with a great body of Angevin and Norman troops,
+and had brought with him Henry Fitz-empress, Matilda's young son and
+heir, had stormed and taken the castle of Wareham, had been joined by
+many traitorous barons who had but lately given fresh oaths of fidelity
+to Stephen, and was marching through the land to relieve his sister in
+Oxenford Castle and fall upon her besiegers. Maugre the pains that were
+taken to conceal this intelligence, it got abroad, and was by some
+double-dealer conveyed to Matilda within the castle.
+
+That night there fell a great fall of snow, and after the snow a sharp
+and most sudden frost did set in, which in less than twenty-four hours
+did cover the river Isis and the moat of the castle and the circumjacent
+marshes with thick ice. The beleaguerers made themselves great fires,
+and seemed not to remit in their watchfulness. I, Felix, with Philip the
+lay-brother, and Sir Englehard de Cicomaco, did mount guard and stand
+wakeful all that bitter night, opposite to a postern gate of the castle.
+From time to time some great officer of King Stephen went from watch to
+watch, and all round the lines to see that the people did their duty and
+slept not. Joy came to my heart, and the deadening cold seemed to quit
+my body, when I saw Sir Alain de Bohun come to the place where I stood.
+
+"Watch well to-night, oh Felix," said that brave and always courteous
+lord; "watch well to-night, and to-morrow will we have our enemy in our
+hands--and dear friends, too. Felix! I have had assurance that my son
+and thy little friend is within those walls! To-morrow Matilda must
+yield; so watch well that postern."
+
+I kissed Sir Alain's hand, and vowed that not so much as a famished cat
+or rat should come forth of that gate, nor did there while my watch
+lasted.
+
+On the next day, the vigil of St. Thomas, as soon as it was light, a
+white flag was raised in the camp in token of peace or truce, and our
+lord abbat, with a goodly train of ecclesiastics, bearing church banners
+and elevated crucifixes, came down to the very edge of the castle moat,
+and demanded speech of the countess; and Matilda ascended to the
+battlements, but rather to rebuke them than to hear them. I, Felix,
+being relieved from my night watch, did see that stern woman of many
+adventures and indomitable pride stand on the castle top in that cold,
+grey, leaden air. Thin was she, and gaunt and pale, like one that had
+suffered long fasting and sickness; but she had the same flashing eye
+and resolute look as at the time when she dictated her will to our house
+at Reading; and if her voice was more hollow, it was not less imperious
+and awe-commanding now than it was then. The lord abbat entreated her to
+give up the castle, promising, in the name of King Stephen, that no harm
+should be done to her or to any that were with her; that she should be
+honorably escorted to the coast, and there embarked for Anjou; that
+lands and money should be given to her and her adherents with a liberal
+hand; and that the king would take all her partisans into his peace, if
+they would but be true to treaty, and give up a war which had already
+lasted so many years to the reproach of Christendom, and to the utter
+undoing of the people of England. The abbat told her that her famishing
+state was known, and that hope of escape there was none.
+
+"And who told thee, oh meddling monk, that I ever thought of escape?
+Dost not know that the Earl of Gloucester is at hand, to do the thing
+which he did aforetime at Lincoln? We have meat and meal yet, and will
+abide the earl's coming. I will not throw open these gates, or quit
+these walls, until I see the false recreant Stephen in chains at my
+feet, praying again for that life which I ought to have rid him of long
+since."
+
+As the proud woman said these words, I could see that many of our
+bystanders looked at one another with perplexity and alarm, and that
+divers even of the churchmen put on very thoughtful countenances, and
+did nothing and said nothing to aid our lord abbat, or to rebuke the
+countess, who in a great passion of wrath threatened to have him hanged
+for a felon under the archway of his own abbey.
+
+Some there were that would have counselled an immediate assault upon the
+fortress; for albeit no breach had been made in those formidable walls,
+the moat was so frozen that it would bear any weight, and scaling
+ladders and other needful materials were not wanting. But the more
+cautious sort said that the famishing garrison were very numerous and
+very desperate; that it would be better to wait a day or two, and have
+the castle upon composition; that the Earl of Gloucester had yet sundry
+days of march to perform; and that if he came with ever so great a host,
+he would find it no easy work to break through our barricades and
+defences, and get into the town. Some of the churchmen, moreover, did
+say that no enterprise of war would prosper during the festivals of the
+church; and, certes, the major part of King Stephen's soldiers did seem
+fully determined to keep this the vigil, and to-morrow the festival of
+St. Thomas the Apostle, according to the rubric, whether the king would
+have it so or not. Hence there was a very visible relaxation of
+vigilance. Refreshed by a short sleep in the day, I did watch again that
+night with the beleaguerers; but my post was not where it had been the
+night before, and in the morning, before I could be relieved, I learned
+that the countess had escaped through the postern which I had watched so
+well. Marvellous, truly, was the skill and fortune of the Beauclerc's
+daughter! She had escaped from Devizes by putting on the semblance and
+trappings of the dead, and now she had escaped from Oxenford like a
+sheeted ghost! A little after the midnight hour she had dressed herself
+all in white, and had thrown white sheets over Sir Ingelric of
+Huntercombe, and three others of her knights; and she and these four
+sheeted warriors had stolen out of the castle by the postern gate, and
+had crossed the moat on the ice and traversed the ice-bound Isis, and
+creeping on their hands and knees over the deep white snow, they had
+escaped detection, and got safely through our lines and all our
+outposts. On foot, in the deep snow, Matilda with her attendant spectres
+travelled to Abingdon; but there they found friends and horses, for the
+news of the coming of the Earl of Gloucester had reached the place, and
+had been very fatal to men's loyalty unto Stephen. From Abingdon,
+without resting there, the countess rode through that cold night to
+Wallingford Castle, where Brian Fitzcount received her very joyfully.
+But these things came to my knowledge afterwards; and when it was first
+heard that the countess was gone, none could tell how she was gone, or
+whither she had betaken herself. The notice was not given until more
+than seven hours after her departure, when, as the day began to dawn, a
+starving man-at-arms cried out from the battlements that the garnison
+were ready to throw open the gates unto King Stephen, and so save
+themselves from death by hunger, as the queen had fled thence, and was
+no longer in any danger. At first the news was not credited by any of
+the king's people; but soon the governor of the castle sounded trumpets
+for a parley, and held out a flag of truce, and offered to deliver up
+the castle upon condition that his life and the lives of his people
+should be spared. King Stephen himself came rushing to the post opposite
+the castle gate to learn the truth, and settle the conditions of
+surrender; and with him came Sir Alain de Bohun, mortified yet rejoiced,
+a much perplexed yet a happy man; for though it should be found that the
+scourge of England had escaped, he had a confident hope that she could
+not have carried away his son with her.
+
+King Stephen spoke aloud to the castellan, and said, "This is but a
+fabulous rumour! The countess of Anjou is where she hath been these last
+three months! Unsay what hath been said! Tell me that she is within
+those walls, and, starving as thou art, I will give thee more than the
+conditions thou askest--I will give thee wealth and honours! Only say
+that she hath not escaped."
+
+"Earl of Moriton and Boulogne!" shouted the proud castellan, "if the
+empress queen were within these walls I would starve and die, but never
+open these gates unto thee! Let mine offer to surrender be a proof that
+she is gone hence. I swear, by the holy rood, that she hath been gone
+ever since midnight."
+
+"Whither hath she gone?" cried Stephen.
+
+"I know not, and would not tell thee if I did know; but 'tis likely she
+will soon tell thee where she is."
+
+While the castellan was talking in this guise on the outer walls, many
+of our lords and knights, with their men-at-arms, got them to horse,
+and, dividing into different parties, went scouring over the country in
+all directions, some along the road that leads to Woodstock, some on the
+Abingdon road, some down the river towards Newnham, some towards Forest
+Hill, and some across the hills towards Islip and Weston-on-Green.
+
+Many slips and falls had they on the frozen ice and slippery roads; yet
+was it all but a bootless chace. The party that went along the Abingdon
+road, and that came back even faster than they went, as Sir Brian
+Fitzcount had advanced a body of horse to the township of Abingdon, had
+met on their advance an aged shepherd who had been out in the night in
+search of some sheep that had been lost in the snow drifts; and this
+aged man had told them that about the midnight hour he had seen gliding
+along the road between Oxenford and Abingdon five ghosts or revenants
+all in white, which he took to be the uneasy spirits of some who had
+perished in our diurnal slaughters; and this was all that was learned by
+our too late pursuing companies.
+
+In the first heat of his wrath and bitterness of his disappointment the
+king refused to admit the garnison to capitulation, and threatened to
+hang them all, together with many of his own watch; but our lord abbat
+moderated his wrath. Sir Alain de Bohun, eager for sight of his boy, and
+always averse to bloodshed, did recommend mercy and moderation; and so,
+about mid-day, terms were granted, and the castle was given up to
+Stephen. I was among the first that entered with our good Lord of
+Caversham. Sir Alain found many friends among those who had been kept as
+prisoners by the Countess; but for some time he could not find his son,
+or hear anything concerning him, save that the boy had been seen in the
+castle a few days agone. Fearful thoughts agitated the loving father,
+and made him turn ghastly pale. Had the Countess in her rough nocturnal
+flight carried the boy with her? No, there was a knight who opened the
+postern-gate for her, and who swore upon his cross that none had gone
+forth but the empress-queen, Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, and the three
+other knights. Had the desperate woman in her fury against one of the
+most constant of her enemies taken the life of the dear boy? None would
+confess to the atrocious deed, yet none seemed to know what had befallen
+Sir Alain's son. In truth they were all ravenous and stupified with
+their excess of hunger, and were only eager to get out into the town,
+and at the meat and drink which had been mercifully promised them; and
+for many a day few of them had taken any note of what was doing within
+the castle or in the lodging of Matilda. But the Lord of Caversham and
+the best of his own people, and I, Felix, and Philip, the lay-brother,
+did rush into the apartment of the Countess and ransack it well; and
+while we were in an inner room in the tower that looks upon Isis, we
+heard a feeble voice as of one lamenting, and pulling aside some
+hangings on the wall, we discovered a small low door under an arch, and
+thereupon Sir Alain, all of a tremble, cried out in a voice that went
+unto the hearts of all of us, "Who lieth within? Is it thou, mine only
+son?" and the faint voice said "My father," and said no more. The
+iron-bound door was locked, and the key was gone; but spite of its
+thickness and strength, we soon burst the door open with a mighty crash.
+I did enter that foul hole in the wall with Sir Alain, and did see and
+hear that which passed when he raised his boy from the dirty straw upon
+which he had fainted; but I have not the power to narrate that which I
+saw and heard. Nay, to speak more soothly, I did see but faintly, for
+the light that came into the cell through a narrow loophole was but
+scant, and my gushing tears did almost blind me. But we soon carried the
+boy out into wholesome air, and put wine to his lips; and he recovered
+and knew his father. And when he had eaten and gained strength, he told
+his sire, who had never before been seen so wrathful, that he had not
+tasted meat or drink for two whole days and nights. Verily it did seem
+that the Countess had destined him to die of starvation, and that she
+had herself secreted him in that hideous hole in the castle-wall, for
+none of her attendants would confess any knowledge of the thing. But Sir
+Alain would not give credit to these protestations of ignorance, saying
+that some of the Countess's people must have known what was done in her
+own apartment, and sorely did he beat with the flat of his sword an old
+foreign hag that had been the Countess's chamber-woman, and two Angevins
+that had been in constant attendance upon her; and he swore more oaths
+than had ever come from his lips, that were it not for the love of the
+king his master, and for the king's honour, and for his own religious
+respect for compacts and treaties and capitulations of war, he would
+hang them all three on the top of that accursed tower.
+
+So soon as I saw that the hope of the house of Caversham was restored to
+some of his strength (and he gave me a proof thereof by saluting me and
+taking me by the hand as an old friend), I went forth to try if I could
+gain some intelligence of the little Alice, who was not born to live
+separated from Arthur, and likewise of my whilom friend and companion
+John-à-Blount from Maple-Durham, who had fled from our house at Reading
+with the novice Urswick, of unhappy memory. I soon learned from some
+retainers of Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe that the little maiden, before
+the coming of King Stephen to Oxenford, had been bestowed with her
+step-mother in the strong castle at Old Speen, which Sir Ingelric had
+rebuilded; but the fellows knew not, or pretended not to know, anything
+touching our fugitive novice John-à-Blount. Therefore did I put my soul
+and body in peril by going into the very midst of the Countess Matilda's
+black-eyed damsels; for I thought in the nature of things that he
+should be among those young Jezebels who had first led him astray.
+Albeit the merciful terms of capitulation were faithfully observed, and
+knights of good repute were stationed in the castle to see that no harm
+was done to those that had surrendered; the interior of the fortress was
+still a scene of unspeakable confusion and alarm. Fierce knights that
+had not prayed for many a day, and rough outlandish soldiers who knew
+not how to say a credo or an ave, were muttering orisons and telling
+their beads, or holding their crucifixes in their hands, crying ever and
+anon to the more truculent visaged of the king's people, "We have all
+rendered upon paction--We be all in the king's mercy and honour--Touch
+not our lives or limbs, or eyes, but give us to eat, or we perish!"
+
+The women of the countess, whose eyes were much less bright and
+dangerous than when I last saw them in their pride and insolency at our
+abbey, lay all huddled and crouching together in a corner of the
+castle-yard, where divers clerks of Oxenford, with the marshal of King
+Stephen's camp, were making lists of the names and qualities of the
+prisoners. Many men, as well English as foreign, were standing near
+these affrighted and more than half-famished women; and a few young
+knights and esquires seemed to be speaking words of comfort to divers of
+them; but among these men I could not see John-à-Blount, from
+Maple-Durham, nor any young man that resembled him; and when I asked of
+many, they all told me that they knew nothing of the said John: which
+was grievous unto my soul, for I had hoped to find him there, and to
+reclaim him, and thereby save him from the fate of the unhappy Urswick.
+As I was about to turn from that company of women, I was brought to a
+pause by a pair of eyes, swimming in tears, that did bind me to the
+spot, like one spell-bound. They were the large black eyes of that
+damsel in the short green kirtle, and of the incomparably small feet and
+ankles that had come salting and dancing up to me in the garden of our
+house at Reading; but alack, she danced not now, and seemed scarcely
+able to stand, and instead of the laughingest she had the saddest face;
+and she was all thin and haggard as the poorest of the wandering
+houseless beggars we had met on our march from Reading to Oxenford. I
+had the remnant of a manchet in the sleeve of my monastic gown, and
+though many eyes were upon me, and others might be as hungry as she was,
+I took forth the blessed piece of bread, and thrust it into her skinny
+hands, and then hurried away to Sir Alain de Bohun, who did forthwith
+order some meat and drink to be given to those poor outlandish
+starvelings.
+
+On the day next after the surrender of the castle, the foreign
+women--praise and thanks to the Lord for that same!--were all sent away
+under a strong and reliable escort for the city of London, there to be
+kept by Stephen's good queen Maud until they should be ransomed or
+exchanged for other prisoners. And in the current of that same day we
+did hear but too surely what the escaped countess was a-doing. She had
+gone forth from Wallingford Castle with Brian Fitzcount and a great host
+of foreign mercenaries, and was marching to the westward to meet the
+Earl of Gloucester, who was not so near to Oxenford as had been
+reported, and she was again marking her evil path with blood and
+flames. King Stephen resolved to follow her and bring the great earl to
+battle; but the countess and her half-brother having met in Wiltshire,
+retreated rapidly to the west, where lay their great strength in
+partisans and castles, and they threw themselves into the castle of
+Bristowe, which was their strongest hold all through the war. The king
+would have turned back to lay siege to Wallingford Castle, in the
+absence of its terrible lord the merciless Brian Fitzcount; but a plot
+broke out in the vicinage of London, and sundry barons raised the banner
+of Matilda in Essex, thereby obliging Stephen to march with all speed to
+the eastward. So Wallingford Castle remained in the hands of the
+robbers, to be a curse to the country and a den of torture: but we, the
+monks of Reading, with little aid but what the saints sent us, and with
+no loss of life to our party, did prevail over another band of thieves
+and destroy their den, to the inestimable relief and comfort of that
+country side.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+The day before King Stephen marched from Oxenford to pursue the
+countess, our lord abbat, who grieved to see that his brother of
+Abingdon was influenced by the changes of the times and by the rumour of
+the great force which the Earl of Gloucester had brought with him, took
+his departure for his own abbey, and with us went Sir Alain de Bohun,
+who needs must restore his beloved son to his ladie and home ere he
+tried again the fortune of war or entered upon any new emprise. The lord
+of Caversham took with him a score of retainers, so that we were now
+sixty-two well-armed men. The young Lord Arthur sometimes rode before
+his father, and sometimes a manèged horse by himself, for the boy was
+now in his tenth year, and had been taught by times to do that which
+befits a knight. A proud and happy man I wis was Sir Alain as he looked
+upon his only son and thought of the great joy their return would give
+to the Ladie Alfgiva. Much also did I converse with the young Lord
+Arthur on the road, and he did tell me how much he had grieved when Sir
+Ingelric had carried away from him his little playmate who had travelled
+with him so many days in horse litters, and who had abided with him in
+so many castles that he could not tell the names of half of them. A
+shrewd brave boy was the young Lord Arthur, and for his age marvellously
+advanced in letters; and I, Felix, had at times given him instruction
+before that Sir Ingelric did steal him away from his home so
+feloniously. Again, though through no fear, since our party was so
+strong and warlike, we shunned the townships and castles that lay near
+our road. Also did we choose another ford whereby to cross the river Ock
+without passing near the walls of that uncivil castellum that lay in the
+swamps; for we were all anxious to be home and had no tools for trying a
+siege; nay, had we not among us so much as a single scaling ladder. Yet
+when we came to our poor house at Pangbourne we heard that which did put
+us in heart to undertake the storming of a castle. It was dark night
+when we arrived there, and the day had been a day of heavy snow with
+rain, and I was sitting with a few others by the kitchen fire in the
+chimney nook drying myself, when a little boy of the village came in and
+tugged me by the sleeve, and said that there was one without who would
+speak with me. Such message liked me not, nor did the time of night, for
+I thought of Urswick and his hell-horse; nevertheless I soon followed
+the boy to the house porch, and thereby I found a lonely man, sitting on
+a cold wet stone, with his face muffled, and his body bent to the earth
+like one sore afflicted. Started I not back with the thought that the
+form that I saw was but the spectrum of Urswick! It spake not, nor did
+it move. I turned me round to grasp my conductor by the arm, but the boy
+was gone; and I stood alone with that lone and dolorous figure which I
+could but faintly see, for there was no moon, and the stars were
+overcast with black clouds, and verily my fears or my exceeding great
+awe did not aid my eyesight. But at last the figure rose from the cold
+stone and said, "Is it thou, oh Felix? Is it thou, my once friend?"
+
+The voice was that of John-à-Blount from Maple-Durham; and before I
+could say "It is even I," that erring novice clasped me by the hand and
+peered into my face, and turned me towards the faint uncertain light,
+and then fell upon my neck, and wept aloud. I led him farther from the
+house-door, and when he grew calmer I communed with him where none might
+overhear his words; but I took not this step until he vowed to me that
+his soul was penitent, and that he had come unto Pangbourne only to do a
+good deed. He confessed unto me that the love of woman had been his
+undoing, that one of the countess's foreign damsels had practised upon
+him and bewitched him, and that he had done many deadly sins on her
+account in battles and nightly surprisals, and the burning and storming
+of towns. But after a season the young cockatrice had scorned his love,
+and had told him that she must mate with a great lord, and not with a
+runagate shaveling, who had neither house nor lands: and at her own
+prayer her mistress, the Countess Matilda, had sent poor John-à-Blount
+away to serve with Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, and Sir Ingelric had for
+a long time left him in his castle with a gang of robbers and
+cut-throats.
+
+"Oh, John-à-Blount!" said I, "these foreign women be worse than painted
+sepulchres. I doubt not that Urswick was entreated in like manner by his
+leman."
+
+"He was, and worse," quoth John; "and it did drive him into a boiling
+madness, and into the doing of the most savage deeds."
+
+"Urswick had ever a wild heart and volage thoughts; Urswick perished in
+his guilt," said I: "but thou are more fortunate in that thou livest to
+repent."
+
+"I know his fate," said John, "and may the saints now spare us the sight
+of him on his infernal steed! By all the saints that preside over our
+house at Reading, I was penitent before; but the tale of these nightly
+visitings of my comrade Urswick did complete my guerison, and make me
+resolve to do that which I have now come hither to propose."
+
+"What good and expiatory deed is that?"
+
+"The delivering up of Sir Ingelric's detestable castle," replied
+John-à-Blount.
+
+"That were a good deed if thou couldest do it."
+
+"I can," said John, "if a few will march thitherward with me; for there
+be those within that will help me, captives that I can release from
+their chains, and unwilling vassals of Sir Ingelric. Dost comprehend me,
+Felix?"
+
+I then asked whether the little Alice were safe within the castle, and
+whether Sir Ingelric's second wife were a mate worthy of such a husband,
+for fame reported her to be so, and it was hard to think well of one who
+had married the slayer of the husband of her youth. John gave me
+assurance that Alice was there, and harshly used by her step-mother, and
+that the said dame was well nigh as merciless and rapacious as her
+present lord, keeping prisoners in the donjon and putting them to the
+torture for their money.
+
+"But we lose time," said John; "the deed in hand must be done to-night,
+or some within the hellish cavern will be racked to-morrow morning. So
+lead me to the prior--to the new lord abbat I would say--that I may
+propound my plan unto him or unto Sir Alain de Bohun. When the deed
+shall be done they will throw me into the abbey prison; but I am past
+caring for that, and have not long to live."
+
+I told him that our new abbat, the Lord Reginald, was the most indulgent
+of men, and Sir Alain the most generous, but he would not be comforted.
+While walking back to the porch of the Pangbourne house I did inquire of
+him how he so well knew about our coming and our party; and to this he
+made answer that Sir Ingelric's castellan, who had gotten by his
+stealthy movements and savage assaults the name of the Wolf, did
+constantly keep in his pay some wretched serfs who acted as scouts and
+spies, and ofttimes lured heedless men to their destruction. "Ye were
+watched," said John, "at your going unto Oxenford, and would have been
+attacked if you had not been so well provided; and ye have been tracked
+and watched on the return, and I, upon the report of those espials, and
+upon a feigned show of great zeal, have been sent hither by Sir
+Ingelric's fit mate to see whether an attack might not be made during
+the darkness of the night upon my lord abbat's horses and baggage."
+
+"May the foul fiend reward that same unwomanly ladie for the impious
+intention," said I.
+
+"He will," quoth John, "if the good lords will but take counsel of so
+lowly and miserable a man as I am."
+
+When we came near unto the porch, the heart of my sad companion failed
+him, and he said that he could not face the lord abbat so suddenly, and
+that it were better I went in to prepare the way for him. I had no
+suspicion of his penitence or his present good faith, but my short
+experience in war had made me wary, and I called to some men-at-arms
+that were tending their horses in the stable, and bade them look to the
+stranger. My lord abbat and Sir Alain were already at their supper, and
+savoury was the smell of the fried fish of Thamesis and the roasted
+meats that were spread on the table before them; but before he heard
+half of that which I had to say, the abbat thrust aside his platter and
+gave thanks to Heaven as for the return of a prodigal son, and thanked
+the patron saints of our abbey for so good a prospect of destroying a
+nest of robbers; and Sir Alain gave thanks for the same, and for so fair
+a hope of recovering the gentle little Alice; and the young Lord Arthur,
+who was eating at a side table placed near the fire, started to his feet
+and said that he would go with sword and pike to break open the wicked
+castle and recover his playmate; and they all three bade me hasten to
+the porch and bring in John-à-Blount. Many a hardened sinner would have
+been brought to repentance if he could but have seen in how kindly a
+manner the lord abbat received the penitent stray sheep of his flock. He
+raised John from the earth, he told him that his sins would be forgiven
+him, he bade him be of good cheer, and to put some little present cheer
+into the haggard trembling young man he gave him a cup of wine in his
+own silver cup. Although he had been straitened by no siege and had
+undergone no compulsory fast, the face of that black-eyed damsel that
+wore a green kirtle was not more changed than that of John-à-Blount: and
+I almost shuddered as I looked upon it in the bright light of that room.
+The abbat and Sir Alain listened with eager attention to the unhappy
+youth; and when they had heard him out his plan was speedily agreed. He
+would hasten back to the foul den he had left, and tell Sir Ingelric's
+people that the weary travellers were buried in sleep, and that there
+was the fittest opportunity in the world for seizing their cattle and
+baggage, and bringing off a rich booty. The entire garrison of the
+castle was barely two-score men. One half of these would sally to make
+the booty, and these might all be seized on their march by an ambuscade
+of my lord abbat's followers. Of those that would remain within the
+castle sundry were ready to revolt, and John-à-Blount would release the
+many prisoners, and slay the castellan, that ravenous wolf, in the den.
+
+"My son," said the abbat, as John was taking his hasty departure, "do
+what thou wilt with the Wolf, but spare Sir Ingelric's wife."
+
+"And," said Sir Alain, "as thou valuest thine own life, or the future
+health of thy repentant soul, have a care of the little Alice in the
+affray."
+
+John laid his right hand upon his breast, and bowed lowly. Following him
+almost to the door of the room our kind-hearted lord abbat said, "Still
+there is one thought that doth spoil my present hope and joy: thou
+mayest fail in thine enterprise, and if thou art but suspected thou wilt
+be murthered by that bloody Wolf. Bethink thee, my son! Peradventure it
+may be better that thou stayest in safety where thou art, and that we
+leave this vile castellum to be reduced by regular siege at some future
+day."
+
+"My lord and father," said John, dropping on his knee, and kissing the
+abbat's hand, "should I die in the attempt to perform a good deed, thou
+wilt have prayers and masses said for me. But I shall not die to-night,
+and I see no chance of miscarriage. I could wish that for me the danger
+were greater, that it might the better stand as an atonement for my many
+transgressions."
+
+"Go then, my son, and God speed thee! And then will we ourselves shrieve
+thee, and absolve thee after some due penitence, and make thee sound in
+conscience, and heart-whole and happy again."
+
+John-à-Blount kissed the abbat's hand once more, and prayed the saints
+to bless him: but as he rushed out at the door we saw big tears in his
+eyes, and heard him mutter that he should never be happy again in this
+world.
+
+"That poor boy," quoth Sir Alain, "hath not yet forgotten the young
+syren that led him astray."
+
+"'Tis witchcraft and sortilege, _maleficium et sortilegium_," said the
+abbat. "But by the help of our prayers and relics we will disenchant
+him."
+
+Sir Alain shook his head, but said no word.
+
+Forty men of us put on harness and followed in the track of
+John-à-Blount when he had been gone some short time. Sir Alain would
+have willed the lord abbat to tarry in the house with Arthur, but the
+abbat would on no account be left out of the adventure, saying, that his
+presence and exhortations might spare unnecessary bloodshed; yet while
+he was saying the words he was feeling the point of his lance, and he
+took with him his heavy battle mace. We all journeyed on foot, for war
+horses would be but an incumbrance at Sir Ingelric's castle, and by
+neighing or making other noise they might spoil our ambuscade on the
+road. That road was a very rough one, and the night continued rather
+dark; hence divers of us stumbled, and fell more than once: nevertheless
+we kept up a good pace, and in little more than an hour came to a wooded
+hollow, about midway between Pangbourne and Speen, through which the
+robbers must pass on the way from their castle to our manor-house. The
+trees were all leafless and bare; but the trunks of the ancient oaks
+were thick, and so every man of us got him behind an oak, twenty on this
+side the narrow road and twenty on that, and there we all stood
+concealed from view, and silent as grave stones. I, Felix, had a bad
+catarrh, yet did I neither cough nor sneeze all the while I was there,
+for I had prayed unto the saint that hath controul over coughs and
+colds. For a space that seemed to us very long we heard no sound, and in
+that wooded hollow and night-darkness we could see but a very little
+way. I began to think that the good strategem had miscarried, and to
+moan inwardly for John-à-Blount as a murthered man. But at last we
+heard, not voices, for the ungodly Philistines were as silent as we, but
+the heavy tread of footsteps on the broad heath, just above the hollow;
+and these sounds rapidly came nearer; and then, by peeping round the
+bole of my covering tree, I did faintly discern a score or more of dark
+figures descending in loose and careless array into the hollow. As we
+had been bidden, we all stood stock still until the robbers were at the
+bottom of the hollow, and between us; but so soon as they were there as
+in a trap, Sir Alain shouted "Now for the onslaught in the name of King
+Stephen!" and our abbat shouted "Down, traitors, down!" and the valorous
+Lord of Caversham and our not less valorous lord abbat, and every man of
+us, from this side of the pathway and from that, sprung from behind the
+trees and hemmed in the evil-doers; and in less time than I can say it
+the heavy mace of our lord abbat laid two of the robbers on the earth
+with bleeding pates, and Sir Alain's lance went through the body of one
+that seemed the leader, and pinned him to the very oak behind which I
+had been standing. The rest, after making vain effort to retreat the way
+they had come, laid down their arms and cried piteously for quarter and
+for that mercy which they had never shown to other men. There were a
+score of them besides the three that had gotten their death-warrants. We
+bound the score with the cords and thongs we had brought with us, and
+putting them in motion with the sharp heads of our lances, we proceeded
+rapidly to the foul donjon at Speen, our lord abbat saying that thus far
+was well, and some of our captives already beginning to say to Sir Alain
+that they would change banners and fight for King Stephen if his
+lordship would spare their lives and accept their services. The dark
+wintry clouds rolled away, and the stars shone out brightly as if in
+approbation of our enterprise, and in no long while we did see that
+equable little river the Lambourne, which neither overflows in winter
+nor shrinks in summer, but is at all seasons the same (its pike be pale
+in colour, and in taste not to compare with those of Ock), gliding to
+join our own swift, sweet Kennet at the township of Shaw; and we saw
+still clearer the swift Kennet gliding before us, on its way from Speen
+to our abbey walls at Reading and the broad Thamesis. And then, as we
+hurried on our way, and as the stars shone out with still more
+brightness, we discovered broken columns and fragments of walls,
+standing up from the ground like spectres on a heath; and anon we heard
+the owls hooting to one another among these ancient ruins. And ancient
+in sooth they were, for the Romans in the days of the Cæsars had built
+them a city at Spinæ which men do now call Speen, and these dark and
+fantastically shaped fragments and ruins were all that remained of it;
+for the men of Newbury, who have ever had a great envy to other
+townships and a great liking for the property of other men, had levelled
+most of the Roman walls and had carried away the stones and bricks
+thereof to enlarge their own town; and people of other townships had
+helped themselves at Spinæ as though it had been a common quarry. Such
+fate befalls towns in decay; but such will never befall our glorious
+abbey at Reading, for the saints and angels have custody thereof, even
+as we have meetly expressed, in large letters graven upon the left door
+of our gate-house under the abbey arms, ANGELI TUI CUSTODIANT MUROS
+EIUS. But I wis it was not on this night that I did think of the
+renowned Romans, or make these sanctifying reflections. True, I walked
+in the paths of pensive thought; but it was only to think of
+John-à-Blount and of the emprise we had in hand. And when we reached the
+lonely mill on the Kennet, a few bow-shots below Sir Ingelric's castle
+at Speen, we hid ourselves behind the mill and blew three blasts upon a
+trumpet, for this was the only signal which John-à-Blount had asked for.
+"And now," said our lord abbat, telling his beads, "may the saints
+befriend the brave boy from Maple-Durham. The token of his success will
+be three corresponding blasts. Let us be motionless and silent until we
+hear them." For a space the sound of our own brazen instrument floated
+along the waters, and was given back in echoes by the sleeping hills;
+and then for a longer space, during which an expeditious mass-priest
+might have said a camp-mass, nought was heard but the plash and ripple
+of the ever sweet and clear Kennet, and the faint moaning of some trees
+whose bare branches were shaken by the fresh gale which had blown away
+the clouds, and brought forth the lustrous and approving stars. But
+then, I wis, there came from the evil den the sounds of a mighty crash
+and clangour of arms that made us all start, and then sounds of woe and
+lamentation, shrieks and yells like those of the damned, which made us
+all shudder and cross ourselves. And, anon, upon these hellish sounds
+came three blasts from a trumpet, loud and shrill; and at the hearing
+thereof our lord abbat clasped his hands and said joyously, "The bold
+youth is safe, the deed is done; so now to the castle, which is ours!"
+
+And we all ran from behind the mill to the foul den, driving our
+captives with us at the spear point as before. Short was the distance,
+and great our speed; yet before we reached the castle moat the
+draw-bridge was down, the gate was open, and under the archway, in the
+midst of a company of men who had still chains and fetters on their
+legs, but who held flaming torches in their hands, stood John-à-Blount
+with the gashful, blood-dripping head of the Wolf fixed on his lance.
+John had released the army of prisoners at the opportune moment, and
+being joined by some of Sir Ingelric's people, he had made himself
+master of the castle without need of any aid from us: but the Wolf and
+some of his evil band who could expect no quarter had made a desperate
+resistance, and had been slain to a man. The warder who had raised the
+portcullis and the few others who had aided in the emprise were now
+shouting for King Stephen, and Sir Alain de Bohun and the lord abbat of
+Reading, and the terrified captives we had with us, joined in these
+cries with such voice as their fears and astonishment allowed them to
+raise. As we all marched in at the gate the abbat said, "John, my son, I
+fear thou hast been somewhat too hasty and violent! I would have put
+some questions to that wild beast before sending him hence; yet is the
+Wolf better dead than alive! But, my son, I trust thou hast not allowed
+harm to be done unto the dark ladie of this most dark and bloody lair?"
+
+"The evil woman is safe in her bower; I did lock her up before I
+unlocked the prisoners whose hearts were steeled against her," said
+John.
+
+"And where," asked Sir Alain, "is the gentle flower that was not made to
+bloom in this horrent place?"
+
+"There," quoth John, pointing to one of the female captives who came
+running across the quadrangle of the castle with the little Alice in her
+arms. "She is there, the true and worthy child of her gentle and
+martyred mother, and may she long live to make compensation to the world
+for the many cruelties and crimes of her unnatural father;" and as he
+spake John threw far from him into a dark corner the bleeding head of
+the Wolf, lest Alice should be scared by the sight thereof.
+
+The dear child was presently in the arms of the good Lord of Caversham;
+and though she had not seen his face for eighteen long months, and
+though she had not quite recovered from her great terror on being
+startled from her sleep by the clashing of arms and those shrieks and
+yells, she soon knew Sir Alain, and clung round his neck with many a
+fond kiss, and with many a fond inquiry after her own dear mother the
+Ladie Alfgiva and her companion and champion Arthur, whom she had left
+in sad case at Oxenford.
+
+The first thing we did within the castle was to secure our prisoners
+with the chains which Sir Ingelric's unhappy captives had been wearing,
+and to hurl them into that horrible and feculent prison where so many
+good and peaceful men had long been rotting. Next we gave food to some
+of the released captives who had been so tortured by fast that their
+bones were cutting through their skin. And then we did all assemble in
+the great hall with a great glare of torches and tapers, and the lord
+abbat and Sir Alain being seated on the dais at the head of the hall in
+the massy chairs in which Sir Ingelric and his dame had been wont to sit
+in the days of their pride and evil power, that dark ladie was summoned
+from her uneasy bower to that august presence. A dark dame was she, and
+fierce as an untamed she-wolf as she came into the hall, screaming that
+the empress-queen and her husband Sir Ingelric would know how to avenge
+the traitorous deeds of this night, and the foul surprisal of a loyal
+castle. These her words, and others that were more vituperative, chafed
+our good lord abbat, and with a solemn and severe countenance he said
+unto her, "Peace, woman! peace! these be not words to be heard by the
+company here assembled, who be all true men and faithful lieges to King
+Stephen. Most fit mate for a bloodthirsty and ungodly lord who hath
+changed his party as men change their coats, who hath never had in view
+ought else than his own interest, and who for these eighteen months last
+past hath stopped at no crime whereby he might enrich himself; dost call
+it loyalty to the queen or countess to turn thy castle into a den of
+robbers and torturers, to waste the country round about it until it
+looks like unto a Golgotha,--to seize, rob, imprison, and torment all
+manner of men, as well the secret partisans of Matilda as the open
+partisans of King Stephen, as well the poor and lowly as the rich and
+great, and as well the quiet franklins and toiling serfs, who be of no
+party and who only seek to live in peace, as the knights and trained men
+of war that go forth to battle? Call ye this loyalty and faithfulness to
+a party? Honourable men, alas! may have honestly differed in these
+unhappy disputes, but thy husband hath been but a robber, and it is for
+that there be so many like him in the land that these wars have lasted
+so long. Dost call the seizing of priests and monks upon the highway
+loyalty? Dost call it Christian duty and reverence to mother church to
+kidnap the servants of the altar and put them to the rack as thy people
+have done? Oh, woman, the holy water that baptised thee was thrown away!
+But thou shalt away hence to some sure keeping in a lonely cell, where
+thou mayest have time for repentance and prayer. We did only send for
+thee that we might remind thee of thy many sins, and get from thee the
+keys of thy ill-acquired treasures, and some list or knowledge of those
+who have been robbed by thee, to the end that we may make restitution."
+
+No ways humbled or abashed, the dark ladie of the castle called my lord
+abbat robber and housebreaker, and said that she had only levied tolls
+and baronial droits; that Sir Ingelric had taken away most of the money
+to give it to the misused and distressed queen; and that it was but a
+small matter that which remained in the house. And then, with great
+pride and insolency, she threw down upon the table one heavy key, saying
+that that was the key to the only treasure.
+
+"The foul dame lies in her throat," cried one of her own people, "she
+hath treasure in other places; she hath gold, and silver, and jewels,
+aye, and church-plate stolen from the very altar, hid in most secret
+hiding-places; and, my lords, ye will not get to the full knowledge
+thereof unless ye do put her in her own crucet-house!"
+
+Albeit, they were fully resolved to come at this great wealth, Sir Alain
+de Bohun shuddered at the mention of that terrible engine of torture,
+and the lord abbat said that such things were accursed by the church,
+and that verily he would never crucet a woman.
+
+"Then will ye never get at the silver and gold!" said the man who had
+before spoken.
+
+But at this juncture the repentant old warder of the castle stood up,
+and said that his daughter, who had been handmaiden to Sir Ingelric's
+wife, knew the whole secret, having watched her mistress with feminine
+curiosity, and could so point out every recess and hiding-place; and at
+the hearing of these words the dark woman uttered a shriek, and fell to
+the ground as if her heart had been cleft in twain; so fearfully had she
+and her lord sold themselves to Lucifer, and made a god of money. The
+sight of blood and of the foe standing triumphant on her own hearth had
+not made her quail, nor had the mention of the crucet-house caused her
+to tremble; but the thought of losing all her accursed spoil had gone
+through her like a knife. We could not leave her where she was, lest
+some of her lately released captives should lay violent hands upon her;
+so we carried her to a turret-chamber, and having bound her so that she
+should not lay violent hands upon herself in a maniacal mood, and having
+placed one of her women to watch by her, we made fast that door and went
+in search of the treasure, being guided by the warden and his daughter.
+It was, in truth, but a small matter that which we found under the lock
+to which the dark ladie had given us the key; but, in the hiding-places,
+within the thick walls, and under the stone floors of the dark ladie's
+bower (places so invisible and recondite that of ourselves we never
+could have found them), were piled silver and gold, and wrought-plate
+and jewels, that seemed to me enough to pay a king's ransom, and that
+made mine eyes twinkle as I looked upon them by that light from many
+torches. When he had gathered it all together in a mighty great heap, in
+the middle of the room, our abbat made fast that door also, and hung a
+crucifix to the door-post, and threatened with excommunication all such
+as should approach the door until ordered by him so to do. "Souls have
+been lost," said he, "in the getting together of that heap, and his soul
+will assuredly perish that touches it for his own use. It is all the
+property of the church, or the property of the poor, or the heavy ransom
+of tortured victims. The malison of heaven will go along with every part
+of it that is not restored to its rightful owners. So now, my children
+all, follow me down these flinty stairs to refresh yourselves with meat
+and drink; for the day is dawning in the east, and we shall have hard
+work at daylight. This infamous donjon must down: not a stone must be
+left upon another."
+
+"I did help to build it," said Sir Alain, "but will now be more happy in
+destroying it! Not a nook must be left to be repaired of my
+false-hearted ravenous friend, or of any other wolf of his choosing."
+
+"Humanity will bless the destruction! Tears of joy will be shed for
+leagues round about," said one of the released captives; "and when all
+dens of the like sort be a-level with the earth, England will be England
+again."
+
+It was a marvellous and a provoking thing to see how well the foul
+robbers had been victualled and provided; gaunt hunger ranged all round
+them, and filled the fertile but untilled valleys with its cries and
+screams; but their buttery was crammed with the best of meat, their
+stalls were filled with beeves and sheep, their cellars were full of
+ale, mead, and wine, their granaries with corn, their stables with the
+best of horses. Rarely have I seen so sumptuous a feast as that to which
+we did sit down in the castle hall, with our sharp winter-morning
+appetites.
+
+By the time this goodly collation was finished it was broad daylight.
+"So now," said the lord abbat, "will we think of carrying out these
+goods and chattels, and then of destroying tougher crusts than those of
+venison-pasties. Bring me forth the rascaille-people from the
+prison-house, that they may lend us their shoulders and aid us in
+destroying their own foul nest."
+
+Being boyishly and unwisely curious to see with mine own eyes the
+abominable pit of which I had heard so much, I went with those that
+repaired to the house of captivity and torture, and one who had been
+released over-night did follow me thither to explain its horrible
+mysteries, as one who had full experience of them all. Misericordia Dei,
+into what a bolge of hell did my staggering feet carry me! And what an
+atmosphere was that which made my head turn giddy and my stomach sick!
+Deep in the bowels of the earth, within the foundations of the keep of
+the castellum, was a great chamber paved with the sharpest flints, and,
+dimly lighted from above by a few chinks, so narrow that the bats could
+scarce have crept through them. The noisome air, never fanned by the
+sweet breath of heaven, was made more foul and poisonous by accumulated
+filth and stagnant pools of blood, and a fetid smell of smoke. The
+torches we brought in to give us light to discover all the mysteries of
+the place burned with a sickly and uncertain flame.
+
+"Can man live here?" said I.
+
+"I lay dying here the full length of nine moons," said my guide.
+
+"And what is this?" said I, looking into a short narrow chest not much
+unlike the coffin of a child, but half-filled within with sharp stones
+and spikes of iron.
+
+"Curses on it, that is the crucet-house," replied the man, "and therein
+they did thrust the body of a full-grown man, breaking his limbs and
+causing him exquisite torture. That was one of their processes for
+gratifying their cruelty or for extorting money. And this," continued
+the man, kicking a monstrous great beam which seemed loaded with iron,
+and to be heavy enough to bear down and crush two or three of the
+strongest men, "this is one of their sachenteges, which they would lay
+upon one poor man, and these iron collars with the sharp steel spikes
+are what they put round men's throats and necks, so that they could in
+no direction sit, or lie down, or sleep, for these collars be fastened
+by these strong iron chains to the stone walls. In my time I have seen
+two men and a woman perish with these hell-collars about their necks."
+
+"And what be these sharp knotted strings?" said I, growing more and more
+faint and sick.
+
+"These strings," replied the man, "they twisted round the head until the
+pain went to the brain. And see! these be the thumb-screws. And see
+above-head that pulley and foul rope! At times they pulled us up by the
+thumbs, and hung heavy coats of mail to our feet; at other times they
+hanged us up by the feet and smoked us with foul smoke until our blood
+and brain...."
+
+"By our Ladie of Mercy, say no more--show me no more;" and so saying, I
+rushed out of the infernal place with a cold sweat upon my brow and my
+limbs all quivering.
+
+"I am told," said the old captive, who followed me, "that there be still
+worse prison-houses than this, and that there be many scores of them in
+the land."
+
+"May they all down!" said I; "and may men in after days not believe that
+they ever stood! But, franklin, I do pray thee say no more, for I feel
+those collars on mine own neck, and the anguish at the brain!" And, in
+truth, I was in so bad case that I could do nothing until Philip the
+lay-brother did bathe my brow with some cold Kennet-water, and make me
+drink a cup of wine.
+
+The evil castle was soon cleared of whatsoever it contained (not even
+excepting a poor maimed Jew that had been so misused in the crucet-house
+that he could neither walk nor crawl), and so soon as everything was
+taken up we began to demolish the abominable walls. Many poor men who
+lived in that neighbourhood came to our assistance, and being first
+refreshed by meat and drink, they laboured with astonishing vigour,
+giving joyous shouts whenever a great piece of the building was brought
+down. By commandment of our lord abbat the instruments of torture were
+all heaped together in that foul cell under the keep, and a great supply
+of wood, brush-wood, and straw being placed therein, fire was set to the
+whole, and so mighty a combustion was made that the stones cracked, and
+the flints seemed to melt, and every beam or other piece of timber
+taking fire, the greater part of the tower fell in with a terrific
+noise, and a most hellish smoke. While the castle was burning it was
+terrible to see how the impenitent dark ladie did gnash her teeth and
+stamp her feet, as likewise to hear how she did curse Sir Alain de Bohun
+and our good abbat, and all of us that were there present. Surely in
+that horrid frenzy she would have died the death of Judas Iscariot if
+we had not bound her hands, and kept a strong guard over her. When the
+smoke cleared away, and we saw that the keep was nearly all down, our
+lord abbat distributed the victual and sheep and cattle among the
+famishing men who had come to help us, and who engaged not to leave the
+place until the moat should be filled up, and the walls all made level;
+and then we departed with our prisoners and all the treasure to
+Pangbourne, rejoicing as we went. Only no joy could be gotten into the
+sad heart of John-à-Blount; the commendations of that great man of war,
+the Lord of Caversham, did not cheer him, nor was he made the happier by
+our good abbat's telling him that he would provide well for him in some
+other manner of life than the monastic, for which he never could have
+had the due vocation. John thanked the lord abbat, but there was no joy
+in his gratitude. As I walked by his side I did try to comfort him by
+telling him that he had broken none of the greater vows of our order, as
+he was happily only in his noviciate; but he only shook his head at this
+my remark, and said, "Felix, it is not so much a wounded conscience and
+remorse, as something else that is leading me to the grave!" And then I
+saw that he was thinking of that foreign damsel that had led him into
+sin, and had then spurned his love, and I did thrice cross myself and
+fall to telling my beads, for verily phantasms of that other black-eyed
+maiden in the green kirtle came flashing through mine own weak brain,
+aye, lively effigies of her, both as I saw her first in her pride and
+beauty in our abbey garden, and as I saw her last, famine-wasted and
+crushed with fear in the castle-yard at Oxenford. But the saints gave
+me strength to expel the visions, and I never saw those living perilous
+eyes again.
+
+To me the most tender and beautiful thing in all this our great
+adventure and emprise was the meeting of little Arthur and Alice. Our
+good abbat was certainly of my mind, for he almost danced with joy at
+the sight thereof, and kept long repeating in his most joyous tones,
+"These children were made the one for the other! It is not man that can
+separate them, or keep them long asunder! My predecessor abbat Edward
+said the words, and the gift of prophecy was in him before he died."
+
+The day being far advanced before we got back from the evil castle, we
+tarried that night at our poor-house at Pangbourne, keeping good watch;
+for albeit we knew that our great enemies were afar off, yet were we and
+our poor serfs but as lambs among most ravenous wolves, bears, and
+lions--_in medio luporum rapicissimorum, ursorum, et leonum_. A trusty
+messenger had been sent to Reading Abbey and the castle of Caversham the
+night before, and now we despatched another to bid the stay-at-home
+monks prepare a Te Deum, and a feast for us on the morrow.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+By times in the morning, the treasure, which filled six coffers of the
+largest, was put into boats to be floated down Thamesis unto our abbey;
+and some of us going by water and some by land, we all proceeded
+thitherward, amidst the rejoicings and blessings of all the people.
+Right glad were they all for the destruction of Sir Ingelric's
+stronghold! Had it been the fitting season they would have carried
+palm-branches before us, as was used at that blessed entrance into
+Jerusalem; but it was dead winter, and the morning, though bright and
+clear, was nipping cold. The first time it was I did see our hardy lord
+abbat muffle his chin, in a skin or fur brought from foreign parts. A
+glorious reception, I ween, was that which awaited us! Our brotherhood,
+to the number of one hundred and fifty, formed in goodly order of
+procession with the banners of our church displayed, and with the prior
+at their head bearing our richest rood, met us at the edge of the
+Falbury, all singing--"Beati qui veniant,"--"Blessed are those that come
+in the name of the Lord; blessed are those that come from the doing of
+good." And our good vassals of the township, and the franklins of
+Reading and the vicinage, were all there in their holiday clothes, and
+our near-dwelling serfs in their cleanest sheep-skin jackets, shouting
+and throwing up their caps; our abbey bells ringing out lustily and
+merrily the while. Needs not to say that we sang our best in the choir
+at that Te Deum, or that the feast which was ready by the hour of noon
+was sumptuous and mirthful. Nor was the joy less that evening in the
+castle at Caversham, whither I and some few others went with Sir Alain
+and the abbat; for the lord of Caversham being ever of a pleasant humour
+and ofttimes jocose, did say that forasmuch as I, Felix the novice, and
+Philip the merry lay-brother, did first carry Alice by night in the
+little basket unto the castle, to the scandal of some and to the
+amazement of all, so ought we now to carry back and present to the ladie
+Alfgiva the restored damsel; and hereat the young Lord Arthur had
+clapped his hands, and said so it ought to be.
+
+And from this happy evening the bountiful ladie of Caversham grew well
+and strong, and the children grew up together in all love and
+loveliness. Somewhat squalid were they both when they were first brought
+home, but in a brief space of time they were plump and ruddy with
+health. The little maiden was then in her sixth year; the little lord,
+as hath been said, only in his tenth. Truly it is wondrous to think how
+soon they grew up into womanhood and manhood! And I the while was
+passing from blooming manhood to sober age; yet did I not grieve with
+Horatius--_Eheu! Fugaces._
+
+When at our leisure we did examine the great treasure brought from the
+evil castellum at Speen, we found much money that bore the impress of
+the mint of our house, and divers pieces of plate which had been stolen
+by the countess's people out of our church. These things, as of right,
+we did keep; but the rest of the plate we restored to the lawful owners
+thereof when we could discover them, which, sooth to say, did not happen
+on every occasion. Of the money which was not thought to be our own we
+did make two portions, and gave one to the poor and sent the other to
+King Stephen, who ever needed more money than he could get. But let men
+do ever so right and be ever so just and holy, they will still be
+exposed to evil constructions, and the sharp malice of evil tongues; and
+therefore no marvel was it that many did say we made a great profit unto
+ourselves out of the sacking of Sir Ingelric's castle.
+
+And now, touching Sir Ingelric's dark wife; she was shut up for a short
+season in Reading Castle, and was then carried away to the eastern
+parts, and was there confined in a solitary and very strong house of
+religion that stood on the sea-shore. Of the other prisoners, some,
+being foreigners, were shipped and sent beyond sea, and the rest of
+them, being native, were sent unto King Stephen's army.
+
+By the time we had returned unto our abbey, from Oxenford, it was hard
+upon the feast of the Epiphany, of the year of grace eleven hundred and
+forty-three. At the first coming of spring the king, who had been to
+London and the eastern parts to collect a great force, marched through
+Reading and tarried a few hours at our house, without doing any notable
+damage thereunto, excepting always that he did _borrow_ from us all the
+coined money in our mint, which he did intend to repay so soon as the
+country should be settled. But it grieved us much to learn that he, too,
+had hired and brought into England great tumultuary companies of
+Flemings and Bourguignons and other half-baptized, unholy, ungodly men,
+who had no bowels of compassion for the people of England, no respect
+for our holy places, but an insatiate appetite for plunder. And these
+black bands, on marching away to the westward, brake open divers
+nunneries and burned sundry towns and churches, maugre all that the
+legate bishop of Winchester, who was with his brother the king, could
+say or do to prevent them. This sacrilege brought down vengeance and
+discomfiture upon the king's cause, and did drive away from his banner
+for that time our good Lord of Caversham. Matilda and her princely boy
+Henry remained in Bristowe Castle, or about that fair western country by
+the shores of the broad Severn, or on the banks of the Avon; but some of
+her partisans had made themselves formidable at Sarum; and to check the
+incursions of these the king turned the nunnery at Wilton into a castle,
+driving out the chaste sisterhood and girding their once quiet abode
+with bulwarks and battlements. But while he was upon this ill-judged
+work the great Robert, Earl of Gloucester, on the first of the kalends
+of July, fell suddenly upon his encamped army, and by surprise and
+superiority of force did gain a great victory over King Stephen. The
+king with his brother the bishop fled with shame, and the earl's men
+took the king's people and his plate and money-chest, and other things.
+Among the men of name that were taken at Wilton was William Martell, the
+great favourite and sewer to the king, who was sent to Wallingford
+Castle, that terrible stronghold of Brian Fitzcount, which few men could
+mention without turning pale. Thus sundry more years passed with
+variable successes, and every year heaped on each side fresh
+calamities, to the great ruin of the whole land. And still both parties
+brought over their hungry bands of adventurers, and still many of our
+great men, caring neither for one party nor for the other, continued
+their castle-building and their plundering for their own account, and
+still the poor and despairing people of England said that Christ and his
+saints were asleep. Villages and hamlets were fast disappearing, and
+that our towns were not _all_ sacked and burned in these nineteen years
+of war, and that the substance of every man was not taken from him, was
+owing to the prayers of the church, and to the leagues and
+confederations which the franklins and free burghers did make among
+themselves, binding themselves by a solemn covenant each to assist the
+others. At first those who were men of war did laugh at these leagues,
+but after they had sustained many a check and defeat they were taught to
+respect the valour of our free men. I have known the weaver quit his
+shuttle and go forth to battle with sword and spear, and bring back
+captive from the field a knight and great lord; and when numerous deeds
+of the like sort had been done by the honest folk who took up arms only
+for the defence of their own houses and properties and lives, the great
+lords and powerful men did either avoid these townships, or treat them
+with more gentleness and justice.
+
+It was in this year, at the fall of the leaf, that John-à-Blount died at
+Maple-Durham, and was buried there. After that our indulgent abbat had
+confessed him and shrieved him (upon penances duly performed by the said
+John), and had quitted and fully released him from the cucullus, the
+poor youth again put on the steel cap, and went to Caversham to serve
+as one of the garnison of that good house. Good were the lord and the
+happy little lordling unto John, and I ween the Ladie Alfgiva had a
+great care taken of him when she saw how sad he was, and how fast
+wasting. But neither cook nor leach, neither generous wine nor
+comfortable words, could restore strength, or infuse hope, or induce a
+composure and tranquillity of mind, or keep poor John any long season
+among us. His heart seemed broken within him; and there was a flush on
+his wasted cheek, and then a terrible coughing. So at last my whilome
+companion being able to do nothing, quitted Caversham and went to
+Maple-Durham, that he might die there among some of his kindred, and be
+buried under the sward by the wattled hillock which marked the grave of
+his father. That young Angevin Herodias was as much John's murtheress as
+she could have been if she had put poison in his meat, or a dagger into
+his heart. May his soul find peace, and her great sin forgiveness! We
+did most of us weep as well as pray for poor John-à-Blount.
+
+In the year next after the battle at Wilton, King Stephen gained a great
+victory in the meadows which lie near to the abbey of Saint Albans, and
+our Lord Abbat Reginald did plant a goodly vineyard on the slopes by the
+side of our house at Reading, and did make an orchard a little beyond
+Kennet. Many other battles were there in this same year of woe; and that
+great partisan of the countess, Robert Marmion, was slain in a fierce
+fight at Coventry; and Geoffrey Mandeville, Earl of Essex, was slain at
+Burwell; and Ernulphus, Earl Mandeville's son, was taken after his
+father's death and banished the land. There seemed no end to these
+slayings and banishings and imprisonings in foul prisons. Verily those
+who made the mischief did not escape from its effects! The cup of woe
+they mixed for the nation was put to their own lips; turn and turn about
+they nearly all perished or suffered the extremities of evil fortune!
+None gained, all lost in the end, by this intestine and unnatural war.
+
+In the year of grace eleven hundred and forty-five King Stephen again
+passed by Reading, and went and laid close siege to Wallingford Castle;
+but he could not prevail against that mighty robber and spoiler Brian
+Fitzcount; and on the feast of St. Benedict, at the close of this same
+year, I, with the saints' aid, having completed my noviciate, took the
+great vows and became a cloister-monk, with much credit and applause
+from the whole community, the sweetmeats and all delicate cates being
+furnished for that feast by the bountiful Ladie Alfgiva, and both Sir
+Alain de Bohun and his son Arthur being present at the feast. That night
+there came from the plashy margent of Thamesis a meteor of rare size and
+brightness, and it stopped for the space of an Ave Maria over our house,
+and shined in all its brightness upon the tower; as was noted by all the
+brotherhood, who did please to say that it was a good omen, portending
+that I should rise high in office, and be an ornament and shining light
+to the house: and truly since then I have passed through offices of
+trust and honour, and my name hath been made known unto some of our
+order in foreign parts, and I am now by the grace of our ladie sub-prior
+of this royal abbey of Reading. Also is it to be noted that in this
+important year we, the monks of Reading, were enabled to keep our great
+fair in the Falbury, on the day of St. Lawrence and the three days next
+following, according to the particular charter of privilege granted by
+our founder Henricus Primus, who commanded in the aforesaid charter that
+no people should be hindered or troubled either in their coming to the
+fair or in their going from it, under heavy penalties to be paid in fine
+silver. And the wise Beauclerc had thus ordered, for that the men of
+Newbury having a fair of their own about the same season, for the sale
+of cattle and much cheese, were likely to waylay and stop such as were
+coming to our fair, as in verity they afterwards did, despite of our
+charter and to the peril of their own souls. But the castle-builders and
+the robbers that were liege-men unto them, had done the Fair-wending
+franklins much more harm than had been done them by the wicked men of
+Newbury; and in this sort our fair of St. Lawrence had been thinly
+attended for some years, and had not brought to our house in tolls,
+fees, and droits, one-half so much as the value of the alms we
+distributed upon that saint's day.
+
+In the year which followed upon my vows, the husband of Matilda, the
+Count of Anjou, much grieving for the long absence of his son Henry, and
+seeing that the presence of one so young did no good to his mother's
+cause in England, entreated that he might be sent back into Anjou, and
+young Henry was sent thither accordingly. It had been well for England
+if the count had gotten back his wife also, but he was too glad to leave
+Matilda where she was, for there had not been for many a year any love
+between them, and from the day of his marriage with her until Matilda's
+return to her own country to wage war in it, the count was said never to
+have known a day's peace. During his long abode in Bristowe Castle the
+boy Henry had been carefully nurtured and instructed by his uncle the
+Earl of Gloucester, and by some teachers gathered in England and in
+foreign parts; and, to speak the truth of all men, the said earl was
+well nigh as learned as his father the Beauclerc, and a great encourager
+of humanizing letters. That great earl was also much commended by his
+friends for his constancy to the cause of his half-sister Matilda, and
+for his perseverance in all manner of fortunes, and for the equanimity
+with which he bore defeat and calamity; but, certes, it had been better
+for us if his perseverance had been less, and if his equanimity had been
+disturbed by the woes and unutterable anguishes the people of England
+did suffer from his so long perseverance. But the hand of death was now
+upon him, and the great earl died soon after the departure of Henry
+Fitz-empress, and was buried at Bristowe in the choir of the church of
+St. James, which he had founded. And no long while after the departure
+of her son and the death of her valorous half-brother, the countess, to
+the great trouble of her husband, quitted England and went into Anjou;
+and King Stephen, surprising and vanquishing his enemy the Earl of
+Chester, who had gotten possession of Lincoln town, did triumphantly
+enter into that town and abide there, which no king durst do before him,
+for that certain wizards had prophesied evil luck to any king that went
+into Lincoln town. Being thus within Lincoln, and somewhat elated with
+the smiles of capricious fortune, King Stephen summoned the great
+barons and magnates of the land unto him, and at the solemnization of
+the Nativity of our Lord, he wore the regal crown upon his head, or, as
+others have it, he was re-crowned and consecrated anew in the mother
+church at Lincoln; and having the crown of England, to all seeming,
+firmly fixed on his brow, he caused the magnates all to swear allegiance
+to his son Prince Eustace as his lawful successor in the realm. No great
+man gainsayed the king, but all present made a great show of loyalty and
+affection as well to the son as to the father. Many there were of them
+who had no truth or steadiness in their hearts; but Sir Alain, our good
+Lord of Caversham, was there, and likewise the young Lord Arthur, and it
+was with a faith as pure and entire as that of a primitive Christian
+that the nobles twain placed their hands within the hands of Prince
+Eustace and vowed to be his true men for aye. And as it was now time
+that Arthur should enter upon a more active life, and put himself in
+training for the honours of knighthood, and as Prince Eustace conceived
+much affection for him, as did all who ever knew the hopeful youth,
+Arthur was left in the family of the prince to serve him as page and
+esquire. Yet was the young lord's absence from among us very short, for
+Prince Eustace came nigh unto Reading to prepare for the laying of
+another siege to Wallingford Castle, which still lay upon the fair bosom
+of the country like a hugeous and hideous nightmare, and whensoever it
+was not beleaguered the wicked garnison went forth to do that which for
+so many years they had been doing. Brian Fitzcount, the lord of
+Wallingford, Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, and others not a few, had
+gone beyond sea with the countess; but they meditated a speedy return
+with more bands of foreign marauders, and many of their similars and
+fautors shut themselves up in their home-castles, which were spread all
+over the country. These things prevented the entire blessing of peace;
+yet was England more tranquil than she had been since the Beauclerc's
+death, and by a succession of sieges Stephen would have gotten the men
+of anarchy within his power if other accidents had not happened.
+
+As the king (who had long and grievously mourned for the license and
+castle-building he had permitted at the beginning of his reign, in the
+hopes of attaching the great lords to his interest) openly showed his
+resolution to curb the excessive power and fierce lawlessness of the
+feudal lords, a great outcry was raised against him, and divers of the
+lords of his own party began to plot and make league with the barons of
+Matilda's faction. Others fell from his side because he could give them
+no money or fiefs, unless he robbed other men or laid heavy tallages
+upon the poor people. As these selfish men deserted him. Stephen
+exclaimed, as he had done before, "False lords, why did ye make me king
+to betray me thus! But, by the glory of God, I will not live a
+discrowned king!" And so much was granted to him in the end, that
+Stephen did die with the crown upon his head. Peradventure might the
+king have had the better of his secular foes if in the midst of these
+troubles he had not quarrelled with the clergy and braved the wrath of
+the holy see. By the death of one pope and the election of another, the
+king's brother, the Bishop of Winchester, had ceased to be legatus à
+latere, and the legatine office had passed into the hands of Theobald,
+archbishop of Canterbury, who had ever leaned to the Angevin party. The
+said lord archbishop was no friend to our Lord Abbat Reginald, or to any
+of our community, but it becomes not me to rake up the ashes of the
+dead, or to disturb with a reproachful voice the grave of the primate of
+England; and it needs must be said that the king was over violent in his
+regard, and undutiful to our father the pope. For it must ever be
+acknowledged that the triple crown of Rome is more than the crown of
+England, and that the head of the holy Roman Apostolic and Catholic
+church hath a power supreme in spiritualities over all the kings of
+Christendom. Nevertheless did King Stephen in an ill hour give a doom of
+exile against the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, for that he had
+attended at the bidding of the pope, but without consent of the king, a
+great council of the church in the city of Rheims, in France. Instead of
+submitting to this sentence, the archbishop went and put himself under
+the protection of Hugh Bigod, the powerful Earl of Norfolk, who was of
+the Angevin faction, and then put forth a sentence of interdict against
+King Stephen, and all that part of the kingdom which obeyed the
+_usurper_. In the west country, and in some parts of the east and north,
+the priests shut up their churches and refused to perform any of the
+offices of religion. Good men went between the king and the primate, and
+after two years a reconciliation was brought about, Stephen agreeing to
+be the most bountiful king and the best friend of the church that the
+church had ever yet known in this land. Yet when Archbishop Theobald was
+called upon to recognise and anoint Prince Eustace as heir to the
+throne, he refused to do it, saying that he was forbidden by our lord
+the pope, and that Stephen, being a usurper, could not, like a
+legitimate sovereign, transmit his crown to his posterity. The king,
+unto whom the archbishop had taken the oath of allegiance, waxed wroth,
+and threatened the archbishop with a punishment sharper than banishment;
+but, when the first passion of anger was over, he did nothing. Men
+censured the archbishop at the time, but they afterwards thought he had
+taken the wisest course for putting an end to this long war. In the
+interim Henry Fitz-empress had been again in our island. In the year
+eleven hundred and forty-nine, having attained the military age of
+sixteen, Henry Plantagenet came over to Scotland with a splendid
+retinue, to be made a knight by his mother's uncle, King David. The
+ceremony was performed with much magnificence in the city of Carlisle,
+where the old Scottish king did then keep his court; and most of the
+nobles of Scotland and many of our great English barons were present at
+the celebration, and did then and there make note of the many high
+qualities of the truly great and ever to be remembered son of the
+Countess Matilda. All manner of honours and power alighted on the head
+of Henry Plantagenet soon after his being knighted at Carlisle. The
+death of his father Geoffrey left him in full possession of the dukedom
+of Normandie, which he had governed for him, and of the earldom of
+Anjou, which was his own birthright; and in that lucky year for the
+house of Plantagenet, the year of our redemption eleven hundred and
+fifty-two, by espousing Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry acquired that great
+dame's rights to the earldom of Poictou and the great duchy of
+Aquitaine. Henry was thus the greatest and richest prince in all the
+main land of Europe, and albeit he was only in his twentieth year, he
+already knew the arts of government and of war better than any of his
+neighbours. A great prince was he from his cradle: he was born to
+command.
+
+Et interim, Eustace, the son of Stephen, being nearly of the same age as
+the son of Matilda, had become a very worthy soldier, and our young Lord
+of Caversham had grown up with him, and improved under him. They had
+miscarried in the siege of Wallingford Castle, because that house of the
+devil was so exceeding strong, and because they were called off to
+another more urgent enterprise; but in other quarters they had been more
+successful, beating divers of the castle-builders in the field, or
+taking them in their dens. Every castle that they took was burned and
+destroyed, like Sir Ingelric's castellum at Speen. They brought many
+offerings to our shrines, for they were much in our part of the country,
+to keep in check the Angevin party to the westward; and whenever he was
+not engaged in these duties of war, the young Lord Arthur came to his
+home. The winter season allowed him the longest repose, and thus it
+befel that the Ladie Alfgiva and that little maiden which I and Philip,
+the lay-brother, did first convey to Caversham, became sad instead of
+gay at the advance of spring. But Alice was no longer the little maiden
+that could lie perdue in a basket, and there had already been many
+discourses and conjectures as to the day when she and the young Lord
+Arthur would be made one by holy church; for the great love that had
+been between them from the days of their childhood was known to all the
+country side. Strange it was, but still most true, that Sir Ingelric of
+Huntercombe never had made any attempt to recover his fair and good
+daughter. Great endeavours he made to get back that dark ladie of the
+castle, his wicked and impenitent second wife, and he had at last, by
+means, it was said, of the Archbishop of Canterbury, obtained her
+release from the nunnery on the eastern coast; but he had never set on
+foot any treaty, nor, as far as could be learned, had ever made any
+inquiry touching the gentle Alice, who in her heart could not think
+without trembling and turning pale of her dark, stern step-mother, and
+the days she had passed with her in that foul donjon at Speen.
+
+Though his hair had grown grey and scant under the cap of steel, and his
+soul panted for peace as the hunted hart doth for running waters, Sir
+Alain de Bohun kept the field almost as constantly as his son; and his
+constancy to King Stephen knew no abatement. So much virtue and
+steadiness could not be understood in those changeable and treacherous
+times; and as it was thought that he put a monstrously high price upon
+his services, and was true to one side because he had not been
+sufficiently tempted by the other, in the course of the year eleven
+hundred and fifty-two there came a secret emissary to offer him one of
+the greatest earldoms in England, and one of the richest and noblest
+damsels in Anjou as a bride for his son. Sir Alain bound the emissary
+with cords, like a felon spy, and sent him and his papers and credential
+signets unto King Stephen. No mind was ruffled in Caversham Castle upon
+this occurrence except the tender mind of Alice, who bethought her that
+she was but a poor portionless maiden, the daughter of a proscribed man
+whose estates had long been confiscated and held by the king; but Arthur
+saw and soon chased away these vain grievings. His father had manors and
+lands enow, and he wished never to be greater or richer than his father,
+and Alice was rich in herself, and she was his own Alice, and a greater
+treasure than any that dukes or kings or emperors could bestow. Let
+there be peace; let there only be peace in the land for the herdsman and
+the tiller of the soil, and the industrious vassals, and what earthly
+luxury or comfort would be wanting in the house at Caversham? Fools
+might contend for more, and barter their souls away to get it, but his
+father's son would never be this fool.
+
+I was myself at Caversham at the time of these occurrences, and it was
+not long after that I became sub-sacrist in our abbey, and did build at
+mine own cost a new rood-loft in the church.
+
+Also in this year deceased, to King Stephen's great grief, the good
+Queen Maud, and she was buried at Feversham in Kent.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+
+Before the swallows made their next return to our meads and river sides,
+the flames of war were again kindled in our near neighbourhood. When
+that I heard Sir Ingelric had stolen back into the island with an
+Angevin band, and that Brian Fitzcount, through the treachery of some of
+King Stephen's people, had been allowed to win his way into his
+inexpugnable castle at Wallingford with great supply of munitions of
+war, I did foresee that the year eleven hundred and fifty-three would be
+a year of storm and trouble to Reading Abbey, and to all the country
+besides. Sir Ingelric's return was soon notified to us by the burning of
+divers villages between Reading and Speen, and by the sudden plunder and
+devastation of some of our own outlying manors; and while we were
+grieving at these things, news was brought to us that Brian Fitzcount
+had called upon all the castle holders in the west to take up arms, not
+for the Countess Matilda, but for her son Henry; and that the said Sir
+Brian had ravaged well nigh all the country from Wallingford to
+Oxenford, making a great prey of men and cattle.
+
+Sir Alain de Bohun and our stout-hearted Abbat Reginald collected such
+force as they could, and marched in quest of Sir Ingelric; but that
+cruel knight fled at their approach, and then retreated into the far
+west. King Stephen made an appeal to the wealthy and warlike citizens of
+London, who were ever truer to him than were his great barons, and being
+well furnished with arms and men, and the great machines proper for the
+sieges of strong places, the king went straight to Wallingford with a
+determination not to remove thence until he had reduced that terrible
+castle. This time he came not unto our abbey, but the lord abbat sent
+some of our retainers to assist in the great siege; and as all the lords
+that were true to the king marched with the best of their vassals to
+Wallingford, a great army was collected there. Of the people of that
+vicinage, every free man that was at all able to work repaired to the
+king's camp, and offered his labour for the capture and destruction of
+Brian Fitzcount's den. A deep trench was speedily cut all round the
+castle, and such bulwarks and palisadoes were made that none could come
+out of the place or enter therein; and catapults were in readiness to
+batter the walls, and mines were digging that would have caused the keep
+to totter and fall. Certes, the emprise was close to a successful issue,
+when tidings were brought that Henry Plantagenet had landed in the
+south-west with one hundred and forty knights, and three thousand
+foreign foot soldiers, that all the great barons of the west were
+proclaiming him to be the lawful king of England, and were joining his
+standard, and that he was moving with a mighty force to lay siege to
+Malmesbury. King Stephen had found no more faith abroad than he had
+found at home. Ludovicus, the French king, having many weighty reasons
+to mislike and fear Henry Plantagenet, had made a treaty of alliance
+with Stephen, had affianced his daughter Constance to Prince Eustace
+the son of Stephen, and had engaged to keep the powerful Angevin at home
+by threatening Anjou and Normandie with the invasion of a great French
+army; but, instead of a great army, the French king sent but a few
+ill-governed bands; and when these had been discomfited in a few
+encounters, Ludovicus listened to proposals of peace, and abandoned the
+interests of Stephen. And that great English earl, Ranulph, earl of
+Chester, whom King Stephen had driven out of Lincoln, went over to Anjou
+to invite Henry into England, and to engage soul and body in his
+service; first taking care to obtain from that young prince a deed of
+charter conveying to him, the said Earl Ranulph, in _foede et
+heriditate_, the lands of William de Peveril, and many fiefs and broad
+manors in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, and elsewhere,
+together with sundry strong castles which the said earl hoped to
+keep--but did not. Forced was King Stephen to raise his siege of
+Wallingford Castle, and to evacuate and destroy the wooden castle of
+Cranmerse which he had raised close to Brian Fitzcount's gates. He had
+scarcely drawn off his people, and begun a march along the left bank of
+Thamesis above Wallingford, ere Henry Plantagenet, having gotten
+possession of Malmesbury and of many strong castles, which the
+castle-builders, not foreseeing that which was to happen, had given up
+to him, appeared on the right bank of the river with his great army of
+horse and foot. The Plantagenet was of an heroical temper; and Stephen,
+who had fought in so many battles, was yet as brave as his young rival,
+and was transported with wrath at seeing how many barons who had
+repeatedly sworn allegiance to him were in array against him; moreover,
+Prince Eustace was with his father, and, like a valorous and passionate
+youth, was eager for the fight; and of a certainty there would have been
+a terrible and bloody battle, if battle could have been joined at the
+first confronting of these two forces; but a heavy and long-continuing
+rain had swollen all the rivers and brooks, and had poured such a volume
+of water into Thamesis that there was no crossing it. Therefore lay the
+two mighty armies opposite to each other for the space of several days;
+and during that interval certain of our prelates bestirred themselves as
+peace-makers, and sundry great lords on either side said that verily it
+was time this unnatural war should have an end. But Henry Plantagenet
+did want for his immediate wearing the kingly crown of England, and
+Stephen had vowed by the glory of God to keep that crown on his head
+until his death, and none durst speak to him of a present surrender of
+it. When the waters somewhat abated the king marshalled his host, as if
+determined to come at his foe by crossing the river at a ford not far
+off; but upon mounting his war-horse, which had carried him in many
+battles, the steed stumbled and fell, not without peril to his rider.
+The king mounted again, laughing as at a trifling accident; but when the
+horse fell a second time under him, his countenance became troubled.
+Nevertheless he essayed a third time, and for a third time the steed
+fell flat to the earth as though he had been pierced through poitrail
+and heart by an arrow. Then did the king turn pale, and his nobles 'gan
+whisper that this was a fearful omen.
+
+"By our Ladie St. Mary," quoth Prince Eustace, "the steed hath grown
+old, and distemper hath seized him during his days of inactivity in
+this swampy and overflooded country! This is all the omen, and the death
+of the poor horse will be all our loss."
+
+And the resolute young prince would have mounted his father on another
+steed, and have marched on to the ford, and then straight to battle. But
+the Earl of Arundel, being much inclined to peace, and a bold and
+eloquent man, took advantage of the consternation which the omen or
+horse-sickness had created in the king's army, and going up to Stephen,
+he did advise him to make a present convention and truce with Henry
+Plantagenet, affirming that the title of Duke Henry to the crown of
+England was held to be just by a large part of the nation, and by some
+who had never been willing to admit his mother to the throne; that the
+country was all too weary of these wars, and that the king ought by
+experience to know the little trust that was to be put in many of his
+present followers. "But I will not die a discrowned king," said Stephen.
+"Nor shalt thou," replied the great Earl of Arundel.
+
+After many entreaties and prayers, the kingly mind of Stephen yielded so
+far as to allow a parley for a truce; and Henry Plantagenet, not being
+less politic than warlike, entered upon a convention, and then agreed to
+confer with Stephen.
+
+The place for conference was so appointed that the river Thamesis, where
+it narrows a little above Wallingford, parted the two princes and the
+great lords that were with them; so that from either bank King Stephen
+and Duke Henry saluted each other, and afterwards conversed together.
+The conference ended in a truce, during which neither party was to
+attempt any enterprise of war, but both were to discuss and amicably
+settle the question of Duke Henry's right to the crown upon the demise
+of Stephen.
+
+Prince Eustace had not been a prince if he had quietly submitted to an
+arrangement which went to deprive him of the succession to a great
+kingdom: he burst suddenly away from the king's camp, calling upon those
+who had taken the oaths to him to follow him to the east. Not many rode
+off with him; but our young Lord Arthur, feeling the obligations of his
+replicated vows and the ties of duty and friendship, would not quit his
+master; nor did his father Sir Alain, who had placed him in the prince's
+service, make any effort to restrain him. As for the good lord of
+Caversham himself, he returned to his home with the double determination
+of observing the truce, and of not giving up his allegiance to King
+Stephen, unless the king should voluntarily release him therefrom; for,
+much as he sighed for the return of peace, Sir Alain prized his honour,
+and did never think that a good settlement of the kingdom could be
+obtained through falsehood and perjury. But woful apprehensions and
+sadness did again fall upon the house at Caversham, for the course taken
+by Prince Eustace was full of danger to him and his few adherents, and
+it was reported that his great anger and desperation had driven him mad.
+But short was the career of that hapless young prince, who, though born
+to a kingdom, lived not to see anything but the calamities thereof. I
+wis those men who had most flattered him, and had taken oaths to him as
+to the lawful heir to this glorious crown of England, did speak most
+evil of him in the days of his adversity, and after his death. I, who
+knew him and conversed with him oft times, did ever find him a youth of
+a right noble nature, valorous and merciful like his father, and as
+devout and friendly unto the church as his mother Queen Maud. Yet may I
+not deny that in his last despair he did some wicked deeds which sorely
+grieved our young Lord Arthur, who could not prevent them, and who yet
+would not abandon him in this extremity of his fortune. Coming into the
+countries of the east, and finding few to join him, he burst into the
+liberties of St. Edmund, and into the very abbey of St. Edmund, king and
+martyr, and demanded from the Lord Abbat Ording, and the monks of that
+holy house, money and other means for the carrying on of his heady
+designs; and when that brotherhood, as in duty bound, and like men that
+were unwilling to be wagers of new wars, did refuse his request and
+point out the unreasonableness and ungodliness of them, he ordered his
+hungry and desperate soldiers to seize all the corn that was in the
+abbey, and carry it into a castle which he held hard by, and then to go
+forth and plunder and waste the lord abbat's manors. The corn was
+carried to the castle, but before further mischief could be done the
+soul of Prince Eustace was required of him; for that very day, as he sat
+at dinner in his castle, he dropped down in a deadly fit, and was dead
+before the kind Arthur could get a monk to shrive him. The Countess
+Matilda, I ween, had done worse deeds at Reading than Eustace did at St.
+Edmund's Bury, and, certes, the patrons and protectors of our house, our
+Ladie the Virgin, and St. James, and St. John the evangelist, were not
+less powerful to punish than St. Edmund the king and martyr;
+nevertheless Matilda was let live, and the young Eustace perished in his
+prime. But these things are not to be scanned by mortal eye, and the
+judgments of heaven are not always immediate, and it might not have been
+so much in vengeance for Eustace's great sin in robbing the monks of St.
+Edmund's Bury of their corn, as in mercy to the suffering people of
+England, that the son of King Stephen was so suddenly smitten and
+removed. The monks of St. Edmund did, however, give out that it was
+their saint who slew him for his sin, causing the first morsel of the
+stolen victual he put into his mouth to drive him into a frenzy, whereof
+he died. Others there were who accounted for his opportune death by
+alleging that some subtile poison had been administered to him; but of
+this was there never any proof. Our young Lord Arthur, without denying
+the great provocation he had given unto St. Edmund, did always think
+that his brain had been touched ever since his father held the
+conference above Wallingford with Duke Henry, and that a great gust of
+passion killed him. But whatever was the cause of his death, and however
+sad was that event in itself, he was surely dead, and it was just as
+sure that the kingdom would be the better for it. If few had followed
+him while he was alive, still fewer stayed to do honour to his remains;
+but Arthur, with a very sincere grief, and with all respect and piety,
+carried the body of his master to the sea-side, and thence by water into
+Kent, and saw it interred at Feversham by the side of Queen Maud, with
+all the rites and obsequies of holy church. Fidelity could not go beyond
+this; the great arbiter, Death, had freed him from his allegiance and
+vows to the prince, and so from the honoured grave in Feversham Abbey,
+Arthur de Bohun rode with all possible speed unto Caversham. So true was
+it, that nothing that man could do could keep Alice and him long
+asunder.
+
+Many of our wicked castle builders, who had not always respected the
+truce of God, would not now be bound by the truce concluded between two
+mortal princes; and when the term of that suspension had expired, some
+of the barons on either side would have renewed the war on a grand
+scale, and have carried it into all parts of the kingdom. Some few
+sieges were commenced, and some hostile movements made in the field, by
+King Stephen and Duke Henry; but since the unhappy death of Prince
+Eustace, the king cared not much about keeping the crown in his family,
+for he had but one other lawful son, and this son, the gentle-tempered
+William, was only a boy, and was without ambition; for his eyes had not
+been dazzled by any near prospect of the crown, and none of the baronage
+had ever sworn fealty to him. And thus, when the peace-makers renewed
+their blessed endeavours, King Stephen was easily induced to agree that
+Duke Henry should be his successor in this kingdom, provided that he
+left him a peaceable possession of the disputed throne for the term of
+his natural life, and bound himself to fulfil a few other engagements.
+The king's brother, the Bishop of Winchester, did now join with his old
+enemy, Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, in urging this accord, and on
+either side the great barons recommended the adjustment; for all were
+weary of the war except a few desperate robbers, whose crimes had been
+so numerous that they could not hope to escape punishment at the return
+of peace. Another great council of barons and prelates was, therefore,
+called together at Winchester; and in that royal and episcopal city, on
+the seventh of the Kalends of November, in this the last year of our
+woe, eleven hundred and fifty-three, the agreement was finished, and a
+charter naming Henry heir to the throne was granted by Stephen, and
+witnessed by Theobald the archbishop, the Bishop of Winchester, eleven
+other bishops, the prior of Bermondsey, the head of the knights
+Templars, and eighteen great lay lords. And a short season after this,
+the king and the duke travelled lovingly together to Oxenford, where the
+earls and barons, by the king's commandment, did swear fealty to the
+duke, saving the king's honour, so long as he lived; and the Plantagenet
+did pledge himself to behave to Stephen of Blois as a duteous and
+affectionate son, and to grant to him, all the days of his life, the
+name and seat of the kingly pre-eminence. In the presence of the best of
+our baronage, the king and duke did then confer about other state
+matters, and did fully agree and concur in this--that there must be an
+end of castle-building and castle-builders, that the donjons which
+remained must all down, and that the vengeance of the law must fall upon
+the robbers, whether they had been, or had pretended to be, followers of
+Matilda, or Stephen, or Duke Henry himself; for, being now acknowledged
+heir to the crown, Henry wished not to come into a wasted and
+impoverished land, and well he knew, at all times, that the prosperity
+of the people maketh the wealth, and power, and glory of the ruler.
+Those castles in the west, which had been given up to him by their
+builders, were presently levelled with the earth; and even Brian
+Fitzcount was warned that he must quit his strong house at Wallingford,
+or abide the most fearful consequences. Some of the cruel oppressors of
+their country came in of their own will, and submitted to King Stephen
+and the law; but others held out stiffly, denying all allegiance whether
+to the king regnant or to Duke Henry as his successor; and in this sort
+the poor people in divers parts continued to be harrowed, and plundered,
+and captured, and tortured, as in the foregone time. Nay, some of our
+wicked barons, making league with the rapinous princes and wild chiefs
+of the Welsh mountains, did continue to keep the open fields in the
+western parts, and to desolate the land from the river Severn even unto
+the river Mersey.
+
+Many were the private discourses which King Stephen held with the
+hopeful Plantagenet, for Stephen's heart was all for the commonalty of
+England, and he trusted that he could give such instruction and advice
+to Henry as would aid that prince in making his future government firm,
+and, at home, pacific, and in that sort a blessing to the people. But
+the Plantagenet had solemnly pledged his faith by treaty and by oath to
+leave unto Stephen, so long as he should live, the full exercise of the
+authority royal, and this could hardly have been if Henry had tarried in
+England; and, moreover, matters of high concernment called for the
+return of the duke to Anjou and Normandie. So, in the spring season of
+the year of grace eleven hundred and fifty-four, after some long
+consultations held at Dunstable to treat of the future state and peace
+of the kingdom, the king accompanied the duke to the sea-coast, and,
+with a loving leave-taking of Stephen, Henry embarked and sailed over
+to Normandie. Foul rumours there were, as that Stephen's young son with
+a party of Flemings would have waylaid the duke on Barham downs, and
+have there slaughtered him; but I wis all this was but a fable, for the
+boy William was too young for such matters, and being of a gentle and
+unambitious nature, and too well knowing that the crown of England had
+been a crown of thorns to his father, he was more than content with the
+lands and honours secured unto him by the Charta Conventionum.
+
+Also was it nigh upon the time that William, archbishop of York, a
+kinsman of King Stephen, who had been deprived by the pope in the year
+eleven hundred and forty-seven, and who had been reinstated after the
+truce concluded at Wallingford, suddenly departed this life at York, and
+was buried with great haste and little ceremony in that minster. And
+here too there were evil reports spread through the land as that
+Archbishop William had been poisoned. Having no light wherewith to
+penetrate the darkness of this mystery, I will not affirm that King
+Stephen's kinsman was so disposed of; but verily the malice of men's
+hearts was great, and there was much secret poisoning in these times!
+
+Stephen being thus left to govern by himself, sundry of our great men,
+having from that which they had seen and heard of Prince Henry come to
+the conclusion that if he should be king he would keep a bit in their
+mouths and keep a strong rein in his own hands, did repair to the king
+who had so often been betrayed by them, and did strongly urge him to
+break the treaty and trust to war and the valour and faith of his
+vassals for the continuance of his family on the throne. But Stephen
+having a respect for his oaths (which mayhap was the greater by reason
+of a sickness that was upon him), and knowing the trust that was to be
+put in the faith and steadiness of these men, said, "There hath been war
+enough, and too much woe!" and he would not give his ear unto them, but
+did command forces to be gathered for putting down the castle-builders
+and the robbers that had allied themselves with the Welsh.
+
+And of a surety in these his last days King Stephen betook himself
+wholly to repair the ruins of the state, and heal the great afflictions
+of the church. He made a progress into most parts of the kingdom to
+reform the monstrous irregularities which had arisen by long war, to
+curb the too great baronial power, to get back to our abbeys and
+churches the things whereof they had been despoiled, and to speak and
+deal comfortably with all manner of peace-loving men. Some castles he
+reduced by force, others he terrified into submission, and others were
+taken by a few good lords like Sir Alain de Bohun. In all these
+occurrents nothing was heard of our impenitent neighbour Sir Ingelric,
+save that his wife the dark ladie of the castle had died, and that he
+himself was thought to have gone into the west. Of that greater and far
+more terrible chief, Brian Fitzcount, we did hear enough and more than
+enough, for in despite of the joint commandment of King Stephen and Duke
+Henry, he kept possession of his castle at Wallingford and continued his
+evil courses in all things. Yea, at a season when we did apprehend no
+such doing, one of his excommunicated companies, stealing by night down
+the vale of Thamesis, did set fire to our granaries at Pangbourne, and
+maim our cattle, and so sweep our basse-court that we had not left so
+much as one goose wherewith to celebrate the feast of St. Michael. The
+better to put down these atrocious doings, King Stephen called together
+within the city of London a great and godly meeting of barons and
+prelates and head men of towns; and sooth to say the spirit of peace and
+love presided over that great council, and many proper methods were
+taken by it and good laws passed. I, who went unto London city with our
+lord abbat, did see with mine own eyes the respect which was now paid
+unto the eldermen of great towns and boroughs, and likewise to the
+franklins, whether mixed by the marriages of their fathers or
+grandfathers with Norman women, or whether of the old and unmixed Saxon
+stock, the number of these last being as a score to one; and then did I
+say to myself that if these things continued, the day might arrive when
+the burghers and free plebeians of England might be something in the
+state. Nay, I did even dream that in process of time the collar might be
+taken from the neck of our serf, and the cultivator of the soil be no
+longer a villein, but a free man. But I concealed this my bright vision,
+lest it should expose me to censure and mockery.
+
+When this great council at London was broken up King Stephen made repair
+unto Dover to meet and confer with his ancient ally and friend the Earl
+of Flanders. The king was well attended, and among the best lords of
+England that went with him was our neighbour Sir Alain de Bohun. We, the
+monks of Reading, or such of us as had gone to the great city, journeyed
+back to our abbey, in a great fall of autumnal rain; and when, at the
+end of three days, we in uncomfortable case did reach the abbey, we
+found that the swollen river had swept away good part of the mill which
+we had built on the Kennet, at a short space from our house, and had
+otherwise done us much mischief. Also was there seen a great falling
+star, and there were heard in the heavens, on one very dark and gusty
+night, some dolorous sounds, as of men wailing and lamenting. In a few
+days more some sad but uncertain rumours did begin to reach our house;
+but it was not until one stormy night in the early part of November,
+when Sir Alain de Bohun on his way homeward stopped at our gates, that
+we knew of a certainty that which had befallen. Ah, well-a-day, King
+Stephen was dead! He who for well nigh nineteen years had not known one
+day's perfect peace was now, inasmuch as the world and mortal man could
+affect him, at peace for ever! And may God have mercy on his soul in the
+world to come! After the politic conferences with the Earl of Flanders,
+and the departure of the said earl for his own dominions, the king was
+all of a sudden seized with the great pain of the Iliac passion, and
+with an old disease which had more than once brought him to the brink of
+the grave; and so, after short but acute suffering, he laid him down to
+die, and did die in the house of the monks of Canterbury, on the five
+and twentieth day of the kalends of October. _Sic mors rapit omne
+genus._ And our true-hearted lord of Caversham, who was true unto death,
+and who had tenderly nursed the dying king, conveyed the body to
+Feversham, and placed it in the same grave with his beloved wife Maud,
+and his son Stephen, in the goodly abbey which he and his queen had
+built and endowed in that Kentish township; and having in this guise
+done the last duty to his liege lord and king, and being by death
+liberated from the oaths of fealty and allegiance, which he had never
+broken by word or deed, Sir Alain, caring for none of the honours and
+advancements which other lords were ready to struggle for at the coming
+in of a new king, came quietly home, only hoping and praying that his
+country would be happy under Henry Plantagenet.
+
+King Stephen being gone, much evil was said of him on all sides and by
+all parties: yea, his own partisans, in the expectation that such words
+would be grateful to the ear of the new king, did affect to murmur and
+lament that he should so long have kept the great Henricus from the
+throne; and, generaliter, the great men did burthen the memory of
+Stephen with the past miseries of the people of England, of which they
+themselves had been the promoters. I have said it: the defunct king, in
+the straits and troubles into which he had been driven by the greed,
+ambition, and faithlessness of the baronage, had ofttimes done amiss,
+and, specialiter, had much travailed churchmen: yet be it remembered
+that he built more royal abbeys than any king that went before him; that
+he founded hospitals for the poor sick; and that during the whole of his
+troublous reign he laid no new tax or tallage upon the people; and that
+he was of a nature so mild and merciful that notwithstanding the many
+revolts and rebellions and treasons practised against him, he did never
+put any great man to death. I, Felix, who had seen how large he was of
+heart and how open of hand, and who had tasted of his bounty and
+condescension, could not forget these things when, in a few days, after
+saying a mass of Requiem for his soul, we chanted in our church a Te
+Deum laudamus for his successor.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+I have said that we heard all too much of our powerful and wicked
+neighbour Brian Fitzcount. But now that he knew Henry Plantagenet was
+coming, and was one that would have power to destroy him and to put an
+end to all plundering and castle-building, a sudden repentance seized
+his time-hardened conscience. Some did much praise him for this, and
+greatly admired the seeming severity of his penance; but it is to be
+feared that he, like many others among our castle-builders and
+depredators, did only repent when he found that he could sin no more. So
+great had been his crimes, and so noted was Duke Henry for his strict
+execution of justice, that, notwithstanding his long adherence to
+Henry's mother, Sir Brian could not hope to escape a severe punishment,
+with forfeiture of the broad lands which had become his by marriage, and
+with deprivation of the great riches he had accumulated by plundering
+the country. In this wise no secure asylum was open to him except in the
+cloisters or in taking the cross. And before the Plantagenet returned
+into England Sir Brian Fitzcount did take upon him the cross, and giving
+up his terrible castle at Wallingford with all his fiefs, and abandoning
+all his riches--_relictis fortunis omnibus_--he joined other crusaders
+and took his departure for Palestine. His wife Maud, the rich daughter
+of Sir Robert d'Oyley, had before this time retired into a convent in
+Normandie, and there, being awakened to a sense of the wickedness of her
+past life, she did soon take the veil. As they had no issue, and left no
+knight near of kin, King Henry, soon after his coronation, took
+possession of Wallingford Castle and of the honour of Wallingford; and
+from that happy moment the troubles of the country and of our good house
+ceased. Such was the fate of our worst enemy; but of the scarcely less
+wicked Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe we still could learn nothing of
+certain, and the rumours which reached us were very contradictory, some
+saying that he had been slain by Welsh thieves, some that he had fled
+beyond sea, some that he had entered into religion under a feigned name,
+and was preparing to take the monastic vows in the Welsh house at
+Bangor, and some asserting that he had gone with a desperate band into
+Scotland to take service with that king and aid him in subjugating the
+wild mountaineers of the north. Nay, there was still another report
+common among the poor country folk that dwelt upon Kennet near Speen,
+and it was to the effect that Satan had carried him away bodily. In
+short, none knew what had become of him, but all prayed that they might
+never see his face again.
+
+Henry Plantagenet was busied in reducing the castles of some of his
+turbulent barons in Normandie when he received the news of King
+Stephen's demise. Being well assured that none in England would dare
+question his right to the vacant throne, and being moreover a wise
+prince, who always finished that which he had in hand before beginning
+any new thing, he prosecuted his sieges, and ceased not until he had
+reduced all the castles. Thus it was good six weeks after the death of
+Stephen, and hard upon the most solemn festival of the Nativity, when
+Henry came into England with his wife Eleanor and a mighty company of
+great men. He was received as a deliverer, and there was joy and
+exultation in the heart of every true Englishman at his coming. A
+wondrously handsome and strong prince he was, albeit his hair inclined
+to that colour which got for his great-uncle the name of Rufus or Red
+King. His forehead was broad and lofty, as if it were the seat of great
+wisdom, and a sanctuary of high schemes of government. His eyes were
+round and large, and while he was in a quiet mood, they were calm, and
+soft, and dovelike; but when he was angered, those eyes flashed fire and
+were like unto lightning. His voice!--it made the heart of the boldest
+quake when he raised it in wrath, or in peremptory command; but it
+melted the soul like soft music when he was in the gentle mood that was
+more common to him, and it even won men's hearts through their ears: it
+was by turns a trumpet or a lute. Great, and for a prince miraculous,
+was his learning, his grandfather, the Beauclerc, not having been a
+finer scholar: wonderful was his eloquence, admirable his steadiness,
+straightforwardness and sagacity in the despatch of all business. He
+breathed a new life, and put a new soul into the much worn and
+distracted body of England. There shall be peace in this land, said he;
+and peace sprang up as quick as the gourd of the prophet: there shall be
+justice among men of all degrees; and there was justice. Having taken
+the oaths to be good king and lord--to respect mother church and the
+ancient liberties of the people, the great Plantagenet was solemnly
+crowned and anointed in the royal city of Winchester on the 19th of the
+kalends of December, by Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury; and Eleanor,
+his wife, was crowned with him. In the speech which he did then deliver,
+he boasted of the Saxon blood which he inherited from his grandmother,
+Queen Maud, of happy memory, who descended in right line from Alfredus
+Magnus; and these his royal words did much gratify the English people,
+without giving offence to the lords and knights of foreign origin, who,
+by frequent intermarriages, had themselves become more than half Saxons,
+and who had long since prided themselves in the name of Englishmen, and
+would, in truth, be called by none other name. And full soon did
+Henricus Secundus make it a name of terror to Normandie, to the whole of
+France, and all circumjacent nations; and now that I write, in his happy
+time, hath he not filled the highest offices in church and state with
+men of English birth, and with many of the unmixed Saxon race? From his
+first entrance into the government of this realm, he was principally
+directed in matters of law and justice by our great lord archbishop,
+Thomas à Becket, then only archdeacon of Canterbury, provost of
+Beverley, and prebendary of Lincoln, and St. Paul's, London; and our
+Lord Thomas, as all men do know, is the son of Gilbert à Becket,
+merchant of the city of London.
+
+King Henry kept his Christmas at Bermondsey; and it was from that place
+that he issued his royal mandate, that all the foreign mercenaries and
+companies of adventure that had done such terrible mischief in the wars
+between King Stephen and Matilda should depart the land within a given
+time, and without carrying with them the plunder they had made. Divers
+of these men had been created earls and barons, and still kept
+possession of fiefs and castles, but they nearly all yielded for the
+great dread they had of the new king, and so got them out of England by
+the appointed day, as naked and poor as they were when, for our sins,
+they first came among us; and many a Fleming and Brabanter, Angevin and
+Breton, from being a baron and castle-builder, returned to the
+plough-tail in his own country. As the spring season approached, our
+great king repaired unto Wallingford Castle, and there convened a great
+council of earls, bishops, abbats, and some few citizens of note and
+wealthy franklins. It was a pleasant and right joyous journey that which
+I had with our Lord Abbat Reginald, and Sir Alain de Bohun, and my young
+Lord Arthur. Already the hamlets which had been burned began to rear
+again their yellow-thatched roofs in the bright sun; the wasted and
+dispeopled towns were already under repair; the shepherd, with his snowy
+flock and skipping lambs, was again whistling on the hill sides like one
+that had nought to fear; the hind was singing at his labours in the
+fertile fields; the farmer and the trader were travelling with their
+wains and pack-horses, from grange to market and from town to town,
+without dread of being robbed, and seized, and castle-bound; skiffs and
+barks were ascending and descending the river with good cargaisons, and
+without having a single lance or sword among their crews; the trenches
+cut in the churchyards were filled up, the unseemly engines of war were
+taken down from the church towers, and the church bells, being
+replaced, again filled the air with their holy and sanctifying sounds.
+Even the wilderness and the solitary place partook of the spirit of this
+universal peace and gladness: there was sunshine in every man's face,
+whether bond or free. In summa, it seemed, in truth, a time when the
+wolf dwelt with the lamb, and the leopard lay down with the kid, and the
+lion with the fatted calf; when the iron of the great engines of war was
+turned into a ploughshare, the sword into a pruning-hook, and the lance
+into a pastoral crook. I, who did well remember the sad state of things
+only a few months agone, did much marvel that a country could so soon
+recover from the horrors of war, and the depth of a universal anarchy
+and havoc; and did, with a melting heart and moistened eye, offer up my
+thanks to the Giver of all good things that it should be so.
+
+It was at Wallingford that I did see, for the first time, our
+far-renowned Thomas à Becket. There was no seeing him without discerning
+the great heights to which he was destined to rise, even more by his
+natural gifts than by the king's favour. At this time he numbered some
+thirty-six or thirty-seven years; and from his childhood those years had
+been years of study or of active business, as well of a secular as of an
+ecclesiastical kind. A handsome man was he at that season, and blithe
+and debonnaire, and, mayhap, a trifle too much given to state affairs,
+and the pomps and vanities of this world, for a churchman: but, oh, John
+the Evangelist, what a mind was his! what readiness of wit and reach of
+thought! And what an eagerness was in him to raise his countrymen to
+honour, to make his country happy and full of glory, and to raise the
+church in power and dignity! "_Angli sumus_, we be Englishmen," said he
+to our lord abbat, "and we must see to raise the value of that name."
+Great and long experienced statesmen there were in this great council at
+Wallingford, men that had travailed in negotiation at home and abroad,
+and that had grown grey and bald in state offices; but verily they all
+seemed children compared with the son of our London merchant, and they
+one and all submitted their judgment to that of Thomas à Becket, who had
+barely passed the middle space of human life. Numerous were the wise and
+healing resolutions adopted in that great council, the most valuable of
+all being, that the crown lands which King Stephen had alienated, in
+order to satisfy his rapacious barons, should be resumed and re-annexed
+to the crown; and that not one of the eleven hundred and more castles,
+which the wicked castle-builders had made in Stephen's time, should be
+allowed to stand as a place of arms. Some few were to remain to curb the
+Welsh and Scots, or to guard the coast; but these were to be intrusted
+to the keeping of the king's own castellans: of the rest, not a stone
+was to be left upon another. This had been decreed before, but time had
+not been allowed King Stephen to do the work; and so easy and over
+indulgent was he, that it is possible the work would not have been done
+for many a year if he had continued to live and reign.
+
+Even in these sun-shining days there were some slight clouds raised by
+the jealousies and ambitions and craving appetites of certain of our
+great men, who sought to raise themselves at the cost of others.
+Certain magnates whose names shall not soil this pure parchment--certain
+self-seeking men who had been allied with Brian Fitzcount and Sir
+Ingelric of Huntercombe, and who, like Sir Ingelric, had shifted from
+side to side, tried hard to fill the ears of King Henry and his
+secretarius Thomas à Becket with tales unfavourable to Sir Alain de
+Bohun and his son Arthur; as that they had made war against the king's
+mother, and had oppressed and plundered the lords that were favourable
+to her cause, and had ever been the steadiest and most devoted of all
+the partisans of the usurper Stephen. But neither the king nor à-Becket
+was to be moved by these evil reports. "I do see," said the sharp and
+short-dealing secretarius, "that all the good and quiet people of his
+country bear testimony in favour of the Lord of Caversham and his brave
+son: I do further see (and here à-Becket, with a light and quick thumb,
+turned over great scrolls of parchment which had affixed to them the
+name and seal of King Stephen) that in the nineteen years he so
+faithfully served the late king, the said Sir Alain de Bohun hath not
+added a single manor, nay, nor a single rood of land, to the estates
+bequeathed unto him by his father or inherited through his wife; and
+also do I see that he hath aspired after no new rank, or title, or
+office, or honour whatsoever, but is now, save in the passage of time
+and the wear of nineteen years' faithful and at times very hard service,
+that which he was at the demise of Henricus Primus; and having all these
+things in consideration, I do opine that the Lord of Caversham hath ever
+followed the dictates of a pure conscience, and hath ever been and still
+is a man to be trusted and honoured by our Lord the King Henricus
+Secundus."
+
+"And I," quoth the right royal Plantagenet, "I who am come hither to
+make up differences, to reconcile factions, to heal the wounds which are
+yet bleeding, and to give peace to this good and patient and generous
+English people, will give heed to no tales told about the bygone times.
+The faith and affection which Sir Alain de Bohun did bear unto my
+unhappy predecessor, in bad fortune as well as in good, are proofs of
+the fidelity he will bear unto me when I have once his oath. My lords,
+there be some among ye that cannot show so clean a scutcheon! What with
+the turnings from this side to that and from that to this, and the
+castle-buildings and other doings of some of ye, I should have had a
+wilderness for a kingdom! But these things will I bury in oblivion, and
+this present mention of them is only provoked by ill-advised discourses,
+and the whisperings and murmurings of a few. But let that faction look
+to this--I am Henry Plantagenet, and not Stephen of Blois! With the laws
+to my aid I will be sole king in this land, and be obeyed as such! The
+reign of the eleven hundred kings is over! Let me hear no more of this.
+By all the saints in heaven and all their shrines on earth! I will hold
+that man mine enemy, and an enemy to the peace of this kingdom, that
+saith another word against Sir Alain de Bohun, or his son, or any lord
+or knight that hath done as they have done in the times that be past."
+
+And so it was that our good Lord of Caversham was received by the king,
+not as an old enemy but as an old friend, and was admitted to sit with
+the greatest of the lords in consultation in Wallingford Castle, and
+there to give his advice as to the best means of improving the condition
+of his country. And a few days after this, when Sir Alain and his son
+Arthur had taken the oaths of allegiance and fidelity unto King Henry
+and his infant son, the king with his own hands made our young Lord
+Arthur knight, giving him on that great occasion the sword which he had
+worn at his own side, and a splendid horse which had been brought for
+his own use from Apulia in Italie, out of the stables of the great Count
+of Conversano, who hath long bred the best horses in all Christendom, to
+his no small profit and glory.
+
+Upon the breaking up of the council of Wallingford our great Plantagenet
+prepared to march into the west with a well furnished army, in order to
+reduce by siege the castles of Hugh Mortimer and a few other arrogant
+barons who had the madness to defy him. Before quitting Brian
+Fitzcount's great house, the king said to Sir Alain de Bohun, "For forty
+days, and not longer, I may have my young knight Sir Arthur with me.
+Unto thee, in the meantime, I give commission to level every castle
+whatsoever that hath been left standing in this fair country of
+Berkshire."
+
+Seeing our lord abbat start a little at these words, the king said, in
+his sweetest voice, "Aye, my lord abbat, even Reading Castle must down
+with the rest; but ye will not feel the want of it, for with God's help
+none shall trouble thy house, or cause the least mischief to thy lands
+or vassals while I am king of England; and as a slight token of my trust
+and esteem, thy good and near neighbour Sir Alain shall keep his
+battlements standing. It were a task worthy of thee, good my lord, that
+thou shouldest even go with Sir Alain on his present mission, and
+sprinkle some holy water on the ground where these accursed castles have
+stood, and build here and there a chapel upon the spots."
+
+Our abbat, who ever much affected the society of Sir Alain, and who
+loved the good work in hand, said he would perform this task; and for
+this the king gave him thanks.
+
+"Before I go hence," said the king to the Lord of Caversham, "is there
+no grace or guerdon that thou wouldest ask of me?"
+
+Sir Alain responded that he and his son had had grace and guerdon enow.
+
+"By our Ladie of Fontevraud," quoth the king, "I have given thee
+nothing, and have only given thy son a horse and a sword and his
+knighthood. Bethink thee, good Sir Alain, is there no thing that thou
+canst ask, and that I ought to give?"
+
+Sir Alain smiled and shook his head, and said that there was nothing he
+could ask for.
+
+"By the bones of my grandfather," quoth the king, "thou art the first
+man I ever found in Anjou, Normandie, or England, of this temper of
+mind! But I have a wish to give if thou hast none to take; I charge thee
+with a service that is important to me and the people, and that must
+cost thee somewhat ere thou shalt have finished it; and, therefore,
+would I give thee beforehand some suitable reward.... What, still dumb
+and wantless?"
+
+Here our lord abbat, bethinking himself of sundry things, whispered to
+his neighbour, "Sir Alain, say a word for Sir Arthur's marriage with
+the gentle Alice, and ask the king's grace for a free gift of the
+forfeited lands which once appertained to Sir Ingelric."
+
+"Beshrew me," quoth the Lord of Caversham, "I never thought of the
+king's consent being necessary to my son's marriage. I thank thee, lord
+abbat, and will speak to that point." Yet when he spake, all that he
+told was the simple story of the nurture which had been given in his own
+house by his sweet wife to the fair daughter of Sir Ingelric, and of the
+long and constant love which had been between that maiden and his only
+son, and all that he asked was that the king, as natural guardian of all
+noble orphans, would allow the marriage.
+
+The eyebrows of the Plantagenet kept arching and rising in amazement,
+until Abbat Reginald thought that they would get to the top of his
+forehead, high as it was. When he spake again, which he did not do for a
+space, he said, "And is this formula, that costs me nothing, all that
+thou hast to ask from the King of England, Duke of Normandie, and Earl
+of Anjou, Poictou, and Aquitaine?"
+
+"Verily," replied Sir Alain, "'tis all that I can think of, and for that
+one favour I will ever be your bedesman."
+
+"Sir Alain," said our abbat, tugging him by the skirt, "thou hast said
+no one word touching the lands of Sir Ingelric."
+
+"We need them not," said the high-minded old knight, "we be rich enow
+without. If Sir Ingelric were alive and penitent, I might, in this happy
+time of reconciliation and oblivion of past wrongs, ask the fiefs for
+him; but as it is, let them go, or let the king keep them--he may need
+them more than I."
+
+"Well!" quoth the Plantagenet, "I see thou hast taken counsel. So now,
+my trusty Sir Alain, tell me what guerdon I shall give thee for the
+services with which thou art charged."
+
+"My liege lord," quoth the lord of Caversham, "I, who in the times that
+are past have so often done that which liked me not for no fee or
+reward, but only in discharge of the oaths I had sworn, would not now
+ask a guerdon for the performance of a task so grateful unto me. Let my
+son espouse the fair Alice, and I am more than content."
+
+But the king, who had been turning things over in his mind while our
+abbat had been counselling Sir Alain, now called in Sir Arthur de Bohun,
+and said to him thus:--"Sir Knight of mine own making, I, the king, do
+give unto thee the hand of that little ladie Alice thou wottest of; and
+I do confer as a dower upon the said ladie Alice all the manors,
+honours, and lands whatsoever that were by her mother conveyed to Sir
+Ingelric of Huntercombe. It were not well that so noble a damsel should
+go portionless to her husband. Ye may be people of that rare sort that
+would care not for the fiefs, but the noble maiden might feel it. The
+less we say of her unnatural sire Sir Ingelric the better for him and
+for us. Whether he be dead or alive, the lands which were his through
+his two marriages are confiscated. It were but a common act of justice
+to give back to the maiden that which was her mother's, and I would as
+my free gift add the lands of the second marriage. À-Becket shall see to
+it, and draw up the grant before we go hence. Sir Arthur, I hail thee
+lord of Speen, and wish thee joy with thy bride. These forty days of war
+will soon be over, and with thy ladie's prayers to help us, we may
+finish with this mad Hugh de Mortimer in much less time."
+
+Arthur knelt at the feet of the Plantagenet, and kissed his royal hand,
+and said it was too much grace and over much greatness; and both father
+and son joined in telling the king that the lands of the mother of Alice
+would be more than enough without the inheritance of the dark ladie.
+
+"Of a truth," said Sir Alain, "I should fear that that evil heritage
+would come to us burthened with a curse; for it was ill acquired by the
+father of the dark ladie, and was ever by her misused."
+
+"Well," quoth the king, "we will keep part of those lands in our own
+hands, and give a part to the abbat and monks of Reading, who will know
+how to remove the curse with masses and prayer, and almsgiving to the
+poor."
+
+It was now the turn of our lord abbat to give thanks, which he did like
+the noble and learned churchman that he was. And all these things being
+pre-arranged, Thomas-à-Becket penned the royal grant for the fair Alice,
+and a new charter for our house; and the king signed and sealed the
+twain. By the charter he confirmed all preceding charters and donations.
+And he gave to the abbey two good manors which had belonged to the dark
+ladie, together with permission to enclose a park, in the place called
+Cumba, for the use of the sick, whether monks or strangers. And very
+soon after, upon his returning out of the west country, the king, by a
+particular charter, gave the monks of Reading licence to hold a fair
+every year on the day of St. James and the three following days, and
+confirmed our old right to a Sunday market at Thatcham, commanding the
+inhabitants of the country to attend the said market, and the jealous
+men of Newbury not to hinder them or molest them. He also made us a
+grant of forty marks of silver, to be paid annually out of his exchequer
+until he should be enabled to secure unto us a revenue of the same value
+in lands. Verily, we the monks of Reading did no more suffer for that
+which we had done in the past time than did our noble neighbours of
+Caversham. When that the great men saw in what high esteem Sir Alain and
+Sir Arthur were held by the king, they spake to them cap in hand, and
+vexed their wit to make them fine flattering speeches; yea, the very
+lords who had essayed to work their ruin did now make them big
+professions of friendship.
+
+So the Plantagenet departed and went unto Gloucester and Bridgenorth
+with his great battalia and engines of war, and the lord abbat and I,
+Father Felix, went with Sir Alain de Bohun to perambulate and
+perlustrate the country of Barkshire, bearing with us the royal mandate
+to all heads of boroughs and townships and all good men to assist in
+rooting out the foul donjons which disfigured the fair country like
+blots of ink let fall upon a pure skin of parchment. Expeditive and very
+complete was the work we made; for even as at Speen the country people
+of their own free will came flocking to us with their pickaxes and
+mattocks on their shoulders; and so soon as a castle was levelled, our
+lord abbat, in pontificalibus, did sprinkle holy water upon the spot to
+drive away the evil spirits that had so long reigned there; and did, in
+the tongue of the people, as well as in Latin, put up a prayer that such
+wickednesses might not be again known in the land. Divers strange
+things and many recondite holes and corners, and most secret and
+undiscoverable chambers, were brought to light in the course of these
+demolishings; but it was not until we broke down and took to pieces a
+castle near Shrivenham, on the confines of Barks, an outlying and little
+known place, that we laid open to the light of day a very tragic
+spectacle, which was in itself a conclusion to a part of this my
+narration. Upon our coming to it, this castellum, like all the rest, was
+deserted, the draw-bridge being down, and the portcullis and all other
+gates removed by the serfs of the neighbouring manors, who had made
+themselves good winter fires of the wood thereof. Nay, some poor
+houseless men had for a season dwelt within the keep, and penned their
+swine in the courtyard; but they had been terrified thence by
+unaccountable and horrible noises at midnight; and these men and their
+neighbours declared that it was the most accursed place in all the
+country. It was a wonderful thing to see how fast those walls toppled
+down, and how soon the deep moat was filled up. When the thick southern
+wall of the square keep was all but levelled, Sir Alain de Bohun's
+people came suddenly upon a secret chamber which had been contrived with
+much art and cunning within the said wall. The men reached it by
+demolishing the masonry above, but the access to it had been through a
+crooked passage which mounted from a cell underground, and then through
+a low narrow doorway, the door of which contained more iron than oak,
+and closed inward with certain hidden springs, the secret whereof was
+not to be apprehended by any of us until the door was knocked down and
+taken to pieces. Within this dark and narrow chamber was revealed a
+great heap of gold and silver, being well nigh as much as we had found
+at Speen; and, prone upon this heap, with the face buried among the gold
+and silver pieces, and with the arms stretched out as though he had died
+in the act of clutching the heap, was seen the body of a knight in black
+mail. At the first glance Sir Alain's people and the serfs that were
+helping them cried out joyously, "Gold! gold!" but then they took the
+knight in his armour for some scaled dragon or demon that was guarding
+the treasure, and they ran away, crying "Diabolus! It is the devil!"
+
+As it especially concerned monks to deal with the great dragon, and lay
+evil spirits, Abbat Reginald and I, Father Felix, with an acolyte, who
+was but of tender age, and truth to say, sorely afeared, hastened with
+Sir Alain to that pit within the wall.
+
+"By the blessed rood!" said the Lord of Caversham, as he looked down
+into the hollow space--"That is no living devil, but the dead body of
+Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe! I know him by that black mail of Milan, and
+by the rare hilt of that sword, which I did give him when we were sworn
+friends and brothers."
+
+"This is wonderful, and I see the finger of Heaven in it," said our
+abbat, crossing himself: and we all crossed ourselves for the amazement
+and horror that was upon us. The meaner sort, who had fled from the dead
+knight, now bethought themselves of the glittering gold, and came back
+to the edge of that narrow pit; and when we, the monks, had thrown some
+holy water therein, and caused our acolyte to hold the cross over the
+gap, two of Sir Alain's men-at-arms descended, and re-ascending,
+brought forth the body and laid it at our feet upon its back, and with
+its face turned towards the heavens. Jesu Maria! but it was a ghostly
+sight! From the little air that had been in that narrow cell, and from
+the great siccity or dryness of the place, betwixt stones, flint, and
+mortar, the body had not wasted away, or undergone the rapid corruption
+of the damp grave; and albeit the face was all shrivelled and shrunk, it
+was not hard to trace some of the lineaments of the unhappy Sir
+Ingelric. Within the cavity of the mouth were pieces of coined gold, as
+tho' he had set his famishing teeth in them; and within his clenched
+hands, clenched by the last agony and convulsion of death, were pieces
+of gold and silver. On the brow was the well-known mark of a wound which
+that unhappy knight had gotten in his early days in fighting for King
+Stephen; the Agnus Dei, and the little cross at the breast, were those
+of Sir Ingelric, and were marked with his name; and the blade of the
+sword bore the conjoined names of Sir Ingelric and Sir Alain. Having
+noted and pointed out all these things, Abbat Reginald, after another
+and more copious aspersion of the blessed water, which is holier than
+the stream which now floweth in Jordan, raised his right hand and said,
+"My children, there is a dread lesson and example in that which lieth
+before us! Crooked courses ever lead to evil ends, albeit not always in
+this nether world. But here is one that hath reaped upon earth the fruit
+of his crimes, and that hath perished by the demon that first led him
+astray--aye, perished upon a heap of gold and silver, and of
+famine, the cruellest of deaths, and in a miser's hole--a robber's
+hiding-place--unpitied, unheeded, unconfessed, with the fiend mocking
+him, and bidding him eat his gold, and with the interdict of holy mother
+church and the curses of ruined men pressing upon his sinful soul. And
+was it for this, oh Sir Ingelric, that thou didst soil thy faith, and
+betray thy king and friends, and waste the fair land of thy birth, and
+rack and torture the poor? Take hence the excommunicate body and bury it
+deep in unconsecrated earth; but remember, oh my children, all that
+which ye have this day seen!"
+
+The gold and silver we removed and put into strong coffers, in order
+that we might use them with the same justice and regard to the poor that
+we had used with the treasure found in Sir Ingelric's own castle at
+Speen.
+
+When we came to make inquiries among the people of those parts, and to
+put their several reports together, we made a good key to the awful
+enigma and mystery of Sir Ingelric's death. That castle by Shrivenham
+had been made by one of the very worst of the castle-building robbers,
+who had never raised any standard but his own over his donjon keep. In
+the autumnal season of the year preceding that in which we came to
+destroy the place, and at the time when the joint orders of King Stephen
+and Henry Plantagenet were sent forth against the castle-holders, there
+suddenly appeared at Shrivenham a band that came from the westward, and
+that were headed by a knight in black mail, and with a black plume to
+his casque; and by some of those reaches of treachery which were common
+among these evil doers, the new-comers got possession of this castellum,
+and made a slaughter of the builder of it, and of the men that were true
+to him. But the new comers had not been a day in possession of the
+castle when intelligence was brought them by a scout that a force of
+King Stephen, which had tracked them from the westward, was approaching
+Shrivenham; and thereupon, and for that the castle was too unfurnished
+with victual to withstand any beleaguer, the strangers fled from it more
+suddenly than they had come to it. As the vicinage was almost deserted,
+and as the few people fled and hid themselves, the black band had no
+communications with them during their brief stay; but two poor serfs who
+had watched their departure had described it as being full of panic,
+terror, and of a dread of other things besides that of the close
+approach of the king's force (which force never came at all); for they
+had heard the band bewailing that they had no longer a leader, that
+their chief had disappeared in the castellum, and that the devil must
+have carried him off bodily: and the serfs did well mark that the knight
+in the black mail was not among them, nor at their head, as they had
+seen him at their first coming. And as Sir Alain's people, in finishing
+their good work at the castellum, threw open the subterrain winding
+passage, of which mention hath been made, they found the body of an old
+man with a bundle of great keys at his girdle, and a long dagger
+sticking in his left side; and his head lay close to the strong door of
+the treasure chamber, and between the body and the door were picked up a
+strong bag and part of a long extinguished torch.
+
+"By Saint Lucia, who presideth over man's blessed organ of sight and the
+glorious light of day," quoth our abbat; "by sweet Saint Lucia, I do see
+daylight through that dark passage. The bait of that gold drew Sir
+Ingelric hither, to be taken as in a trap. He was eager to have the
+first hanselling and most precious bits of the treasure, or mayhap to
+carry off the whole, or conceal it for his own use, counting upon more
+time than heaven allowed him. That old unshriven traitor was, doubtless,
+one of the men of the castle-builder, that betrayed their master, and
+him Sir Ingelric slew so soon as he had led him to the chamber and
+opened the door, with the intent that he should not divulge unto others
+the secret of the hiding place. Peradventure, the old man in his
+death-struggles dashed out the light and pulled to the open door; or Sir
+Ingelric, being left in darkness, and uninformed of the fastenings, did
+in his great haste kick the door and so cause it to fly to, and shut for
+ever upon him."
+
+We did all think that the riddle was well read by Abbat Reginald, and
+that this was a natural conclusion to the other and better known
+incidents of Sir Ingelric's dark story.
+
+By the time we had finished with the wicked castles of Barkshire, our
+great and ever victorious King Henry had finished with that perverse man
+Hugh de Mortimer; and as we came to our house at Pangbourne on our way
+back to Reading, we there met the young Lord of Caversham, Sir Arthur de
+Bohun, who had been dismissed to his home by the king, and not without
+some further proof of the royal friendship, for, as it was ever in his
+nature to do, Sir Arthur had done manfully in the king's sieges and
+other emprises. It was a happy meeting to all of us, and there was no
+longer any public calamity to cloud or reproach our private happiness.
+The donjons were all down, or in good keeping; and, from end to end and
+in all its breadth England was at peace, and none of the baronage were
+so daring as to resist the king and the law. _Dulce mihi nomen
+pacis!_--ever sweet unto me was the name of peace, and now we had both
+the name and the substance of it. It was therefore resolved at
+Pangbourne that the marriage of Sir Arthur and the Lady Alice should be
+celebrated on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, which was now near
+at hand.
+
+Upon coming to Caversham Sir Alain de Bohun hung his shield upon the
+wall, intending to go forth to no more wars. Then he put into the hands
+of the gentle Alice the king's charter which conferred upon her the
+domains of her mother, telling her, in his jocose way, that as she had
+now so goodly an inheritance she might be minded to quit the humble
+house and poor people at Caversham, and get her to court to match with
+some great earl. And at this that fairest of maidens placed the king's
+charter in the hands of Sir Arthur, and with a blushing cheek and
+without words spoken, went out of the hall. Sir Arthur did afterwards
+inform her, in the gentlest manner, of the sure death of Sir Ingelric
+many months agone; and, albeit he had been so unnatural a father, Alice
+shed many tears, and made a vow to give money to the church and poor,
+that his sinful soul might be prayed for. The dreadful manner of Sir
+Ingelric's death was carefully concealed from the young bride, and hath
+never been fully made known unto her. She was united to Sir Arthur in
+our abbey church, on the happiest festival of St. Michael that our house
+had ever known, for the season was mild and beautiful, the harvest had
+been abundant, we had gotten in all our crops without hindrance, our
+granaries were filled with corn and our hearts with joy; and as all of
+us, from the lord abbat down to the obscurest lay brother, had a
+surpassing affection as well for the gentle bride as for her noble mate,
+who had in a manner been our son and pupil, and an old reverence and
+love for Sir Alain and his ladie, we could not but rejoice at the great
+joy we saw in them. But all good people, gentle or simple, bond or free,
+did jubilate on this happy day; and when the bride and bridegroom
+returned homeward, the procession which followed them, shouting and
+singing, and calling down blessings upon their young heads, was so long
+as to run in an unbroken line from the midst of the King's mead to the
+end of Caversham-bridge; for our good vassals of Reading town had all
+put on their holiday clothes and shut up their houses, and all the
+people of Caversham were afoot, and Tilehurst, and Sulham, and Charlton,
+and Purley, and Sunning, and Speen, and Pangbourne, and every other
+township and village for miles round-about had poured out their
+inhabitants; and not a franklin or serf, not a man, woman, or child
+among them all, but was feasted either by Sir Alain or Sir Arthur, or by
+us the monks of Reading. Methinks the sun never rose and set upon so
+beautiful a day! The air and the earth rejoiced, and the flowing waters;
+the full Thamesis and our own quick and resonant Kennet made music and
+thanksgiving together; and seemed it to me that I had never so loved the
+country of my birth, and the fair scenes in which my life had been past
+from infancy to ripe manhood; and yet had I ever loved that fair country
+above all that mine eyes had seen in much travelling. _Natale solum
+dulcedine cunctos mulcet._ Oh native soil, thou softenest man's heart,
+and fillest it with love of thee!
+
+Now did the Ladie Alice more than verify the happy prediction which our
+good Abbat Edward put forth in the stormy time, to wit, that the little
+maiden which came to our house in the basket, and which I, Felix the
+novice, and Philip the lay-brother did convey by night unto Caversham,
+would make amends for the ingratitude and treasons and other wicked
+doings of her father. Betwixt that merry wedding-day and the day that
+now is, there have been nine long years, and they have all been years of
+peace and happiness to the good house at Caversham, with that increase
+and multiplication which God willed when the world was in its infancy
+and all unpeopled.
+
+Happy, too, hath been our house at Reading, and great the increase of
+the abbey in beauty and splendour. Some few griefs and trials we have
+had; for earth, at the happiest, was never meant to be heaven; and we
+all live to die, and must die to live again. The good and bountiful Lord
+Abbat Reginald deceased on the fourth of the kalends of February, in the
+year of grace eleven hundred and fifty-eight; but he died full of years
+and honour, and verily, the Lord Abbat Roger that now is, hath been
+approved his very worthy successor. As our wealth increased under the
+blessed peace, and the sage government of our great king, and the favour
+of our Lord Thomas à Becket, for some while chancellor of the kingdom,
+and now and for the two years last past, by the grace of God, Archbishop
+of Canterbury and Primate of England, we of the chapter did begin to
+think that our church was not sufficiently lofty and spacious, and that
+wondrous improvements might be made in it, if we devoted to the task
+some of our superfluous wealth. And six years agone, when our Lord
+Reginald was in the twelfth year of his government over us (may our
+Ladie the Virgin, and St. John and St. James ever have him in their holy
+keeping), we made a beginning; and the year last past, being the year of
+our redemption eleven hundred and sixty-four, we finished our great
+church, which hath been so much enlarged and altered that it may be
+called a new church; and Rex Henricus Secundus being present with ten
+suffragan bishops, and great lay barons too many to count, our Lord
+Archbishop Thomas did consecrate it with that solemnity and magnificence
+which he puts into all his doings: and on the very day on which the
+archbishop consecrated our church, the king, keeping his royal promise,
+granted us a land revenue of forty marks of silver out of the manor of
+Hoo in Kent, by assignment of Sir Robert Bardolph, the lord of that
+manor.
+
+And our mighty and ever victorious king, who is no less a friend to
+learning and learned men, nor less a patron of the church than was his
+grandfather the Beauclerc, hath ordered books to be bought for the
+enriching of our library, and hath given us another charter confirming
+our liberties and immunities, and enjoining all the kings that may come
+after him to observe the same, and calling upon the Lord to snatch them
+out of the land of the living, together with their posterity, if they or
+any one of them should seek to infringe our charter, or lessen our
+rights and properties. "_Quam qui infringere vel minuere presumpserit,
+extrahat eum dominus et evertat de terra viventium cum omni posteritate
+sua._" These be the king's very words in the second great charter he
+hath given us.
+
+Here I surcease from the pleasant labours which have amused the few
+lonely hours that my various duties left me. There cannot be a better
+time to stop and say _vale_! Henricus Secundus is king; Thomas à Becket
+is primate; Roger is lord abbat of Reading; and I, Felix the Sunningite,
+and novice that was, am poor sub-prior; and every monk of the house is a
+man of English birth. It hath been noted of late, that our prior
+declineth apace; and there hath been a talk among the cloister monks
+that I best merit that succession, which would place me next in dignity
+and greatness to the mitred lord abbat of this royal abbey. But, alas!
+what is increase of dignity but increase of care! I do hope that our
+good prior may live all through this winter; albeit, it is a very sharp
+one, and old men be falling fast around us.--_Vale et semper Vale!_
+
+
+THE END.
+
+LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
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+THE SUPPLEMENT
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+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41804 ***