Part 4 (1/2)

This discourse of the sub-prior much chafed our fearless and honest prior, Reginald, who well knew the man and his unG.o.dly 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 a.s.sembled while the house was full of strangers and armed men, for that elections must be free and unbia.s.sed 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 G.o.d-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 pa.s.sion 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 G.o.d 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 unblus.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.s-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 a.s.sent, 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 unG.o.dly mult.i.tude 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 G.o.dly 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 G.o.d. 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 circ.u.mspect 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 aeTERNAM.

I, Felix, having in the bye-gone times had much familiarity and friends.h.i.+p with our two backsliding novices, Urswick the Whiteheaded from Pangbourne, and John-a-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 towns.h.i.+p; 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 n.o.bis!_

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 G.o.d 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 n.o.ble men of war (more money, I wis, had they in their pouches than most of our n.o.ble 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 G.o.d, neither party doing anything while such truce lasts. But when the siege had endured the s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.s, 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 Brabancons, 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 G.o.d, 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 hea.r.s.e 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.