Hereward, the Last of the English Part 50

Aldred seems to have been a man like too many more,--pious and virtuous and harmless enough, and not without worldly prudence; but his prudence was of that sort which will surely swim with the stream, and "honor the powers that be," if they be but prosperous enough. For after all, if success be not G.o.d, it is like enough to Him in some men's eyes to do instead. So Archbishop Aldred had crowned Harold G.o.dwinsson, when Harold's star was in the ascendant. And who but Archbishop Aldred should crown William, when his star had cast Harold's down from heaven? He would have crowned Satanas himself, had he only proved himself king _de facto_--as he a.s.serts himself to be _de jure_--of this wicked world.

So Aldred, who had not only crowned William, but supported his power north of Humber by all means lawful, sat in York Keep, and looked at William Malet, wondering what he would do.

Malet would hold it to the last. As for the new keep, it was surely impregnable. The old walls--the Roman walls on which had floated the flag of Constantine the Great--were surely strong enough to keep out men without battering-rams, balistas, or artillery of any kind. What mattered Osbiorn's two hundred and forty s.h.i.+ps, and their crews of some ten or fifteen thousand men? What mattered the tens of thousands of Northern men, with Gospatrick at their head? Let them rage and rob round the walls. A messenger had galloped in from William in the Forest of Dean, to tell Malet to hold out to the last. He had galloped out again, bearing for answer, that the Normans could hold York for a year.

But the Archbishop's heart misgave him, as from north and south at once came up the dark ma.s.ses of two mighty armies, broke up into columns, and surged against every gate of the city at the same time. They had no battering-train to breach the ancient walls; but they had--and none knew it better than Aldred--hundreds of friends inside, who would throw open to them the gates.

One gate he could command from the Castle tower. His face turned pale as he saw a mob of armed townsmen rus.h.i.+ng down the street towards it; a furious scuffle with the French guards; and then, through the gateway, the open champaign beyond, and a gleaming wave of axes, helms, and spears, pouring in, and up the street.

"The traitors!" he almost shrieked, as he turned and ran down the ladder to tell Malet below.

Malet was firm, but pale as Aldred.

"We must fight to the last," said he, as he hurried down, commanding his men to sally at once _en ma.s.se_ and clear the city.

The mistake was fatal. The French were entangled in the narrow streets.

The houses, shut to them, were opened to the English and Danes; and, overwhelmed from above, as well as in front, the greater part of the Norman garrison perished in the first fight. The remnant were shut up in the Castle. The Danes and English seized the houses round, and shot from the windows at every loophole and embrasure where a Norman showed himself.

"Shoot fire upon the houses!" said Malet.

"You will not burn York? O G.o.d! is it come to this?"

"And why not York town, or York minster, or Rome itself, with the Pope inside it, rather than yield to barbarians?"

Archbishop Aldred went into his room, and lay down on his bed. Outside was the roar of the battle; and soon, louder and louder, the roar of flame.

This was the end of his time-serving and king-making. And he said many prayers, and beat his breast; and then called to his chaplain for blankets, for he was very cold. "I have slain my own sheep!" he moaned, "slain my own sheep!"

His chaplain hapt him up in bed, and looked out of the window at the fight. There was no lull, neither was there any great advantage on either side. Only from the southward he could see fresh bodies of Danes coming across the plain.

"The carca.s.s is here, and the eagles are gathered together. Fetch me the holy sacrament, Chaplain, and G.o.d be merciful to an unfaithful shepherd."

The chaplain went.

"I have slain my own sheep!" moaned the archbishop. "I have given them up to the wolves,--given my own minster, and all the treasures of the saints; and--and--I am very cold."

When the chaplain came back with the blessed sacrament, Archbishop Aldred was more than cold; for he was already dead and stiff.

But William Malet would not yield. He and his Normans fought, day after day, with the energy of despair. They asked leave to put forth the body of the archbishop; and young Waltheof, who was a pious man, insisted that leave should be given.

So the archbishop's coffin was thrust forth of the castle-gate, and the monks from the abbey came and bore it away, and buried it in the Cathedral church.

And then the fight went on, day after day, and more and more houses burned, till York was all aflame. On the eighth day the minster was in a light low over Archbishop Aldred's new-made grave. All was burnt,--minster, churches, old Roman palaces, and all the glories of Constantine the Great and the mythic past.

The besiegers, hewing and hammering gate after gate, had now won all but the Keep itself. Then Malet's heart failed him. A wife he had, and children; and for their sake he turned coward and fled by night, with a few men-at-arms, across the burning ruins.

Then into what once was York the confederate Earls and Thanes marched in triumph, and proclaimed Edgar king,--a king of dust and ashes.

And where were Edwin and Morcar the meanwhile? It is not told. Were they struggling against William at Stafford, or helping Edric the Wild and his Welshmen to besiege Chester? Probably they were aiding the insurrection,--if not at these two points, still at some other of their great earldoms of Mercia and Chester. They seemed to triumph for a while: during the autumn of 1069 the greater part of England seemed lost to William. Many Normans packed up their plunder and went back to France; and those whose hearts were too stout to return showed no mercy to the English, even as William showed none. To crush the heart of the people by ma.s.sacres and mutilations and devastations was the only hope of the invader; and thoroughly he did his work whenever he had a chance.

CHAPTER XXV.

HOW HEREWARD FOUND A WISER MAN IN ENGLAND THAN HIMSELF.

There have been certain men so great, that he who describes them in words, much more pretends to a.n.a.lyze their inmost feelings, must be a very great man himself, or incur the accusation of presumption. And such a great man was William of Normandy,--one of those unfathomable master-personages who must not be rashly dragged on any stage. The genius of a Bulwer, in attempting to draw him, took care, with a wise modesty, not to draw him in too much detail,--to confess always that there was much beneath and behind in William's character which none, even of his contemporaries, could guess. And still more modest than Bulwer is this chronicler bound to be.

But one may fancy, for once in a way, what William's thoughts were, when they brought him the evil news of York. For we know what his acts were; and he acted up to his thoughts.

Hunting he was, they say, in the forest of Dean, when first he heard that all England, north of the Watling Street, had broken loose, and that he was king of only half the isle.

Did he--as when, hunting in the forest of Rouen, he got the news of Harold's coronation--play with his bow, stringing and unstringing it nervously, till he had made up his mighty mind? Then did he go home to his lodge, and there spread on the rough oak board a parchment map of England, which no child would deign to learn from now, but was then good enough to guide armies to victory, because the eyes of a great general looked upon it?

As he pored over the map, by the light of bog-deal torch or rush candle, what would he see upon it?

Three separate blazes of insurrection, from northwest to east, along the Watling Street.

At Chester, Edric, "the wild Thane," who, according to Domesday-book, had lost vast lands in Shrops.h.i.+re; Algitha, Harold's widow, and Blethwallon and all his Welsh,--"the white mantles," swarming along Chester streets, not as usually, to tear and ravage like the wild-cats of their own rocks, but fast friends by blood of Algitha, once their queen on Penmaenmawr.

[Footnote: See the admirable description of the tragedy of Penmaenmawr, in Bulwer's 'Harold.'] Edwin, the young Earl, Algitha's brother, Hereward's nephew,--he must be with them too, if he were a man.

Eastward, round Stafford, and the centre of Mercia, another blaze of furious English valor. Morcar, Edwin's brother, must be there, as their Earl, if he too was a man.

Then in the fens and Kesteven. What meant this news, that Hereward of St.

Omer was come again, and an army with him? That he was levying war on all Frenchmen, in the name of Sweyn, King of Denmark and of England? He is an outlaw, a desperado, a boastful swash-buckler, thought William, it may be, to himself. He found out, in after years, that he had mistaken his man.

And north, at York, in the rear of those three insurrections lay Gospatrick, Waltheof, and Marlesweyn, with the Northumbrian host. Durham was lost, and Comyn burnt therein. But York, so boasted William Malet, could hold out for a year. He should not need to hold out for so long.

And last, and worst of all, hung on the eastern coast the mighty fleet of Sweyn, who claimed England as his of right. The foe whom he had part feared ever since he set foot on English soil, a collision with whom had been inevitable all along, was come at last; but where would he strike his blow?

William knew, it may be, that the Danes had been defeated at Norwich; he knew, doubt it not (for his spies told him everything), that they had purposed entering the Wash. To prevent a junction between them and Hereward was impossible. He must prevent a junction between them and Edwin and Morcar's men.

He determined, it seems--for he did it--to cut the English line in two, and marched upon Stafford as its centre.

So it seems; for all records of these campaigns are fragmentary, confused, contradictory. The Normans fought, and had no time to write history. The English, beaten and crushed, died and left no sign. The only chroniclers of the time are monks. And little could Ordericus Vitalis, or Florence of Worcester, or he of Peterborough, faithful as he was, who filled up the sad pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,--little could they see or understand of the masterly strategy which was conquering all England for Norman monks, in order that they, following the army like black ravens, might feast themselves upon the prey which others won for them. To them, the death of an abbot, the squabbles of a monastery, the journey of a prelate to Rome, are more important than the manoeuvres which decided the life and freedom of tens of thousands.

So all we know is, that William fell upon Morcar's men at Stafford, and smote them with a great destruction; rolling the fugitives west and east, toward Edwin, perhaps, at Chester, certainly toward Hereward in the fens.

At Stafford met him the fugitives from York, Malet, his wife, and children, with the dreadful news that the Danes had joined Gospatrick, and that York was lost.

William burst into fiendish fury. He accused the wretched men of treason.

He cut off their hands, thrust out their eyes, threw Malet into prison, and stormed on north.

He lay at Pontefract for three weeks. The bridges over the Aire were broken down. But at last he crossed and marched on York.

No man opposed him. The Danes were gone down to the Humber. Gospatrick and Waltheof's hearts had failed them, and they had retired before the great captain.

Florence, of Worcester, says that William bought Earl Osbiorn off, giving him much money, and leave to forage for his fleet along the coast, and that Osbiorn was outlawed on his return to Denmark.