Historic Girls Part 8

The king's savage humor broke out again.

"Face him with your own page, Sir Ordgar," he said, with a grim laugh.

"Boy against boy would be a fitting wager for a young maid's life." But the Saxon knight was in no mood for sport.

"Nay, beausire; this is no child's play," he said. "I care naught for this girl. I stand as champion for the king against yon traitor Atheling, and if the maiden's cause is his, why then against her too.

This is a man's quarrel."

Young Robert would have spoken yet again as his face flushed hot with anger at the knight's contemptuous words. But a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a strong voice said:

"Then is it mine, Sir Ordgar. If between man and man, then will I, with the gracious permission of our lord the king, stand as champion for this maiden here and for my good lord, the n.o.ble Atheling, whose liegeman and whose man am I, next to you, lord king." And, taking the mate to the glove which the Princess Edith had flung down in defiance, he thrust it into the guard of his cappe. line, or iron skull-cap, in token that he, G.o.dwine of Winchester, the father of the boy Robert, was the young girl's champion.

Three days after, in the tilt-yard of Gloucester Castle, the wager of battle was fought. It was no gay tournament show with streaming banners, gorgeous lists, gayly dressed ladies, flower-bedecked balconies, and all the splendid display of a tourney of the knights, of which you read in the stories of romance and chivalry. It was a solemn and sombre gathering in which all the arrangements suggested only death and gloom, while the accused waited in suspense, knowing that halter and f.a.got were prepared for them should their champion fall. In quaint and crabbed Latin the old chronicler, John of Fordun, tells the story of the fight, for which there is neither need nor s.p.a.ce here. The glove of each contestant was flung into the lists by the judge, and the dispute committed for settlement to the power of G.o.d and their own good swords.

It is a stirring picture of those days of daring and of might, when force took the place of justice, and the deadliest blows were the only convincing arguments. But, though supported by the favor of the king and the display of splendid armor, Ordgar's treachery had its just reward.

Virtue triumphed, and vice was punished. Even while treacherously endeavoring (after being once disarmed) to stab the brave G.o.dwine with a knife which he had concealed in his boot, the false Sir Ordgar was overcome, confessed the falsehood of his charge against Edgar the Atheling and Edith his niece, and, as the quaint old record has it, "The strength of his grief and the mult.i.tude of his wounds drove out his impious soul."

So young Edith was saved; and, as is usually the case with men of his character, the Red King's humor changed completely. The victorious G.o.dwine received the arms and lands of the dead Ordgar; Edgar the Atheling was raised high in trust and honor; the throne of Scotland, wrested from the Red Donald, was placed once more in the family of King Malcolm, and King William Rufus himself became the guardian and protector of the Princess Edith.

And when, one fatal August day, the Red King was found pierced by an arrow under the trees of the New Forest, his younger brother, Duke Henry, whom men called Beauclerc, "the good scholar," for his love of learning and of books, ascended the throne of England as King Henry I.

And the very year of his accession, on the 11th of November, 1100, he married, in the Abbey of Westminster, the Princess Edith of Scotland, then a fair young lady of scarce twenty-one. At the request of her husband she took, upon her coronation day, the Norman name of Matilda, or Maud, and by this name she is known in history and among the queens of England.

So scarce four and thirty years after the Norman conquest, a Saxon princess sat upon the throne of Norman England, the loving wife of the son of the very man by whom Saxon England was conquered.

"Never, since the battle of Hastings," says Sir Francis Palgrave, the historian, "had there been such a joyous day as when Queen Maud was crowned." Victors and vanquished, Normans and Saxons, were united at last, and the name of "Good Queen Maud" was long an honored memory among the people of England.

And she was a good queen. In a time of bitter tyranny, when the common people were but the serfs and slaves of the haughty and cruel barons, this young queen labored to bring in kindlier manners and more gentle ways. Beautiful in face, she was still more lovely in heart and life.

Her influence upon her husband, Henry the scholar, was seen in the wise laws he made, and the "Charter of King Henry" is said to have been gained by her intercession. This important paper was the first step toward popular liberty. It led the way to Magna Charta, and finally to our own Declaration of Independence. The boys and girls of America, therefore, in common with those of England, can look back with interest and affection upon the romantic story of "Good Queen Maud," the brave-hearted girl who showed herself wise and fearless both in the perilous mist at Edinburgh, and, later still, in the yet greater dangers of "the black lists of Gloucester."

JACQUELINE OF HOLLAND: THE GIRL OF THE LAND OF FOGS, A.D. 1414.

Count William of Hainault, of Zealand and Friesland, Duke of Bavaria and Sovereign Lord of Holland, held his court in the great, straggling castle which he called his "hunting lodge," near to the German Ocean, and since known by the name of "The Hague."(1)

(1) "The Hague" is a contraction of the Dutch's Gravenhage--the haag, or "hunting lodge," of the Graf, or count.

Count William was a gallant and courtly knight, learned in all the ways of chivalry, the model of the younger cavaliers, handsome in person, n.o.ble in bearing, the surest lance in the tilting-yard, and the stoutest arm in the foray.

Like "Jephtha, Judge of Israel," of whom the mock-mad Hamlet sang to Polonius, Count William had

"One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved pa.s.sing well;"

and, truth to tell, this fair young Jacqueline, the little "Lady of Holland," as men called her,--but whom Count William, because of her fearless antics and boyish ways, called "Dame Jacob,"(1)--loved her knightly father with equal fervor.

(1) Jaqueline is the French rendering of the Dutch Jakobine--the feminine of Jakob, or James.

As she sat, that day, in the great Hall of the Knights in the ma.s.sive castle at The Hague, she could see, among all the knights and n.o.bles who came from far and near to join in the festivities at Count William's court, not one that approached her father in n.o.bility of bearing or manly strength--not even her husband.

Her husband? Yes. For this little maid of thirteen had been for eight years the wife of the Dauphin of France, the young Prince John of Touraine, to whom she had been married when she was scarce five years old and he barely nine. Surrounded by all the pomp of an age of glitter and display, these royal children lived in their beautiful castle of Quesnoy, in Flanders,(1) when they were not, as at the time of our story, residents at the court of the powerful Count William of Holland.

(1) Now Northeastern France.

Other young people were there, too,--n.o.bles and pages and little ladies-in-waiting; and there was much of the stately ceremonial and flowery talk that in those days of knighthood clothed alike the fears of cowards and the desires of heroes. For there have always been heroes and cowards in the world.

And so, between all these young folk, there was much boastful talk and much harmless gossip how the little Lady of Courtrai had used the wrong corner of the towel yesterday; how the fat d.u.c.h.ess of Enkhuysen had violated the laws of all etiquette by placing the wrong number of finger-bowls upon her table on St. Jacob's Day; and how the stout young Hubert of Malsen had scattered the rascal merchants of Dort at their Shrovetide fair.

Then uprose the young Lord of Arkell.

"Hold, there!" he cried hotly. "This Hubert of Malsen is but a craven, sirs, if he doth say the merchants of Dort are rascal cowards. Had they been fairly mated, he had no more dared to put his nose within the gates of Dort than dare one of you here to go down yonder amid Count William's lions!"

"Have a care, friend Otto," said the little Lady of Holland, with warning finger; "there is one here, at least, who dareth to go amid the lions--my father, sir."

"I said nothing of him, madam," replied Count Otto. "I did mean these young red hats here, who do no more dare to bait your father's lions than to face the Cods of Dort in fair and equal fight."

At this bold speech there was instant commotion. For the n.o.bles and merchants of Holland, four centuries and a half ago, were at open strife with one another. The n.o.bles saw in the increasing prosperity of the merchants the end of their own feudal power and tyranny. The merchants recognized in the arrogant n.o.bles the only bar to the growth of Holland's commercial enterprise. So each faction had its leaders, its partisans, its badges, and its followers. Many and b.l.o.o.d.y were the feuds and fights that raged through all those low-lying lands of Holland, as the n.o.bles, or "Hooks," as they were called--distinguishable by their big red hats,--and the merchants, or "Cods," with their slouch hats of quiet gray, struggled for the lead in the state. And how they DID hate one another!

Certain of the younger n.o.bles, however, who were opposed to the reigning house of Holland, of which Count William, young Jacqueline's father, was the head, had espoused the cause of the merchants, seeing in their success greater prosperity and wealth for Holland. Among these had been the young Lord of Arkell, now a sort of half prisoner at Count William's court because of certain bold attempts to favor the Cods in his own castle of Arkell. His defiant words therefore raised a storm of protests.

"Nay, then, Lord of Arkell," said the Dauphin John, "you, who prate so loudly, would better prove your words by some sign of your own valor.

You may have dared fight your lady mother, who so roundly punished you therefor, but a lion hath not the tender ways of a woman. Face YOU the lions, lord count, and I will warrant me they will not prove as forbearing as did she."

It was common talk at Count William's court that the brave Lady of Arkell, mother of the Count Otto, had made her way, disguised, into we castle of her son, had herself lowered the drawbridge, admitted her armed retainers, overpowered and driven out her rebellious son; and that then, relenting, she had appealed to Count William to pardon the lad and to receive him at court as hostage for his own fealty. So this fling of the Dauphin's cut deep.

But before the young Otto could return an angry answer, Jacqueline had interfered.

"Nay, nay, my lord," she said to her husband, the Dauphin; "'t is not a knightly act thus to impeach the honor of a n.o.ble guest."

But now the Lord of Arkell had found his tongue.

"My lord prince," he said, bowing low with stately courtesy, "if, as my lady mother and good Count William would force me, I am to be loyal va.s.sal to you, my lieges here, I should but follow where you dare to lead. Go YOU into the lions' den, lord prince, and I will follow you, though it were into old Hercules' very teeth."

It was a shrewd reply, and covered as good a "double-dare" as ever one boy made to another. Some of the manlier of the young courtiers indeed even dared to applaud. But the Dauphin John was stronger in tongue than in heart.

"Peste!" he cried contemptuously. "'T is a fool's answer and a fool's will. And well shall we see now how you will sneak out of it all. See, Lord of Arkell, you who can prate so loudly of Cods and lions: here before all, I dare you to face Count William's lions yourself!"

The young Lord of Arkell was in his rich court suit--a tight-fitting, great-sleeved silk jacket, rich, violet chausses, or tights, and pointed shoes. But without a word, with scarce a look toward his challenger, he turned to his nearest neighbor, a brave Zealand lad, afterward noted in Dutch history--Francis von Borselen.

"Lend me your gabardine, friend Franz, will you not?" he said.

The young von Borselen took from the back of the settle, over which it was flung, his gabardine--the long, loose gray cloak that was a sort of overcoat in those days of queer costume.

"It is here, my Otto," he said.

The Lord of Arkell drew the loose gray cloak over his rich silk suit, and turned toward the door.