Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter Page 3
CHAPTER I
A SQUIRE AND A CITIZEN
It was the eve of Christmas in the year 1214, when John was King ofEngland; and, albeit England was on the verge of a sanguinary civil war,which was to shake the kingdom to its centre, and cause infinitesuffering to families and individuals, London--then a little city,containing some forty thousand inhabitants, and surrounded by an oldRoman wall, said to have been built by the Emperor Constantine--worequite a holiday aspect, when, as the shades of evening were closing overthe banks of the Thames, a stripling of eighteen, or thereabouts, walkedup one of the long, narrow streets--some of which, indeed, were sonarrow that the inmates, when they ascended to the house-tops, couldconverse and even shake hands with their opposite neighbours--andknocked loudly at the gate of a high house. It had the appearance ofbeing the abode either of some great noble in attendance on the court,or one of those mediæval merchants who called themselves “barons,” andboasted of such wealth as few of the feudal nobles could call their own.In fact, it was the residence of the Fitzarnulphs, the proudest,richest, and most influential of the citizens of London.
The stripling was of gallant bearing and fair to look upon. He was tall,though not so tall as to be in any way remarkable; and his person, wellproportioned and compactly formed, indicated much strength, and promisedmuch endurance. His countenance, which was set off with a profusion offair hair and a growing moustache, was frank and open--so frank andopen, indeed, that it seemed as if you might have read in his clear blueeye every working of the mind; and he had neither the aquiline featuresnor air of authority which distinguished the Norman warriors, young andold. His dress, however, was similar to that which a Norman squire--a DeVesci or a De Roos--would have worn; and he had the air, the manner, andthe style of one who had been early apprenticed to arms, and trained infeudal castles to perform the feats of chivalry on which the age set sohigh a value. Nor was it clear that he had not been engaged in otherthan the mimic warfare of the tiltyard. More than one scar--none ofthem, fortunately, such as to mar his beauty--told of fields on whichwarriors had fought desperately for victory and for life.
Admitted after some delay into the courtyard, and, after passing throughit, into the interior of the high house at the gate of which he hadknocked, the squire was ceremoniously conducted through what might becalled the great hall of the mansion, and received in a smallcomfortably matted and heated chamber by a person somewhat his senior,who wore the gabardine of a citizen, and on his dark countenance a lookof abstraction and gloom, which contrasted remarkably with the lightnessand gaiety of his visitor. Wholly unaffected by this difference,however, the squire held out his hand, grasped that of the youngLondoner, and said in a voice, not musical indeed, but joyous andhearty--
“Constantine Fitzarnulph, I greet thee in the name of God and of goodSt. Edward.”
“Oliver Icingla!” exclaimed the citizen, taken by surprise. “Do I, intruth, see you, and in the body? Ere this I deemed you were food forworms.”
“By the Holy Cross, Constantine,” replied the squire, “you do see me inthe body. I have, it is true, passed through many adventures and perils,seeing I am but a youth; but as for being food for worms, I have as yetno ambition to serve that purpose, being, as is well known to you, thelast of my line, and in no haste, credit me, to sing ‘_Nunc Dimittis_’till I have done something to employ the tongues of minstrels.”
“Of what adventures and perils speak you?” asked the citizen somewhatjealously; for he himself had passed through neither, save in hisvisions by day and his dreams by night.
“I would fain not appear vainglorious,” answered the squire, smiling,“and, therefore, I care not to recount my own exploits. But you knowthat, when I was withdrawn from your companionship, and from the lessonsin grammar and letters, to which, be it confessed, I never took verykindly, I entered the castle of my mother’s remote kinsman, WilliamLongsword, Earl of Salisbury, and there, not without profit, served myapprenticeship to chivalry. But no sooner did I attain the rank ofsquire than I began to sigh for real war, and such fields of fight as,for years, I had been dreaming of. And it chanced that about that timeDon Diego Perez, a knight from Spain, reached the castle of Salisburywith tidings that Alphonso of Castille was hard pressed by the Moors,and like to lose his kingdom if not aided by the warriors ofChristendom. On hearing Don Diego’s report I and others in my Lord ofSalisbury’s household, with the noble earl’s sanction, accompanied theknight to Castille; and I fought at Muradel on that day when theChristian chivalry swept the Moorish host before them as the wind doesleaves at Yule.”
“In good faith?”
“In good faith, Constantine,” continued the squire. “But it speedilyappeared that we had done our work too well, and routed the Moors sothoroughly that there was no likelihood of reaping more honour or moreprofit under King Alphonso’s banners; and I was even thinking of goingto the Holy Land to fight for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, whennews reached the court of Castille that King John had allied himselfwith the Emperor of Germany and the Count of Flanders to oppose the Kingof France, and that my Lord of Salisbury was leading an English force tojoin them; and I and others resolved thereupon to hasten where blowswere like to be going; and we made our way, through countless perils, tothe great earl’s side on the very day when the two armies--one headed bythe Emperor Otho, the other by King Philip--drew up in battle arraybetween Lille and Tournay.”
“By St. Thomas!” exclaimed the citizen with a sneer, “you soon learnedto your cost that you had better have gone elsewhere.”
“Nay, nay,” replied the squire sharply--for the sneer of the citizen hadnot been unobserved--“it is the fortune of warriors to know defeat aswell as victory, and we did all that brave men could do on that Augustday--now four months since--when we came face to face with the French atthe bridge of Bovines. It was a long and furious battle; but, from thefirst, fortune favoured the French, and, when all was lost, my Lord ofSalisbury yielded his sword to the Bishop of Beauvais, a terriblewarrior, who fought not with a sword, lest he should be accused ofshedding men’s blood, but with a mighty club, with which he smashed atonce head-piece and head. For my own part,” added the squire carelessly,as one who did not relish speaking of himself, “I fought till I was sorewounded in the face and beaten down; and I should have been troddenunder foot but for the earl, who, like a noble warrior as he is, lookedto my safety; so I accompanied him into captivity; and, when hecovenanted for his own ransom, he, at the same time, paid mine for mymother’s sake, and here I am in England safe and sound; but, I almostgrieve to add, hardly a free man.”
“Not a free man, Oliver Icingla? How cometh that?” asked the citizen.
“Even in this wise, Constantine,” answered the squire. “It seems thatthe king, in order to settle his disputes with the barons, has demandedsome of the sons or kindred of each as hostages, and my kinsman, Hugh deMoreville, who scandalously withholds from my mother the castle andmanors which she inherited, and which my father enjoyed in her right,albeit he has never before troubled himself much about my existence,suddenly bethinks him that I shall serve his purpose on this occasion,and has named me to the king.”
“And will you go, Oliver Icingla? Will you put yourself into the lion’sden?”
“Ay, man, as blithely as ever lover went to his lady’s bower.”
“And place yourself at the disposal of a tyrant--a cruel, remorseless,hateful tyrant, who murdered his own nephew, Arthur of Brittany, whohanged twenty-six Welsh boys, who poisoned the daughter of that nobleman, Robert Fitzwalter, and who allowed the wife and children of Williamde Braose to perish of hunger in the dungeons of Windsor?”
The squire changed colour, and his lip quivered nervously.
“Fables, Constantine!” exclaimed he, recovering his serenity with aneffort, and tossing his head disdainfully backwards--“fables devised byPhilip of France and the barons of England to justify their own selfishand ambitious schemes, and such as ought never to gain credit with aperson such as thou
. But let French kings and Norman barons make dupesand tools of whom they may, I swear by the Holy Cross that never shallOliver Icingla be either their dupe or their tool. So help me God andgood St. Edward!”
And, as he spoke these words with flashing eye, the squire drew hissword and reverently kissed the cross on its hilt.
“Oliver Icingla,” said the citizen, after a pause, during which he eyedhis visitor keenly, “if I comprehend thee aright, thou dreamest, as Ibelieve thy fathers ever did, of the restoration of the Anglo-Saxon raceto power in England?”
“And if I do, who has a better right?--I, an Icingla, with the blood ofCerdic in my veins?”
“Dreams, Oliver, vain dreams,” replied the citizen. “This is not the ageof Hereward, and every chance is gone; and, but for being blinded byhereditary prejudices, you would see, as plainly as you now see me, thatyour race is vanquished once and for ever.”
“Constantine,” said the squire sadly and thoughtfully, “the words youhave spoken, harsh as they may sound in the ear of an Icingla, arepartly words of truth and soberness, but only in part. This is not,indeed, the age of Hereward; nor did I, even in my most enthusiasticmoments, dream of raising the old cry, ‘Let every man that is not anothing, whether in the town or in the country, leave his house andcome!’ and attempting to make England what it was before Duke Williamprevailed at Hastings over the usurper Harold. But let me tell you, wiseas you deem yourself, that, when you speak of the ancient race asvanquished for ever, you therein greatly err. A great race, like a greatfamily, is never wholly done till it is extinct; and I tell you, foryour instruction, ill as you may like to hear the truth, that thisAnglo-Saxon race which you mention so contemptuously has been rising, isrising, and will continue to rise, and increase in influence, tillProvidence grants us a king under whose auspices will reappear, in morethan its ancient vigour, the England that disappeared after the death ofthe Confessor.”
“The past cannot be recalled, and the future is with God and Hissaints,” said the citizen gravely; “and, for the present, the king andthe barons are at daggers drawn, and may any day appeal to the sword;and, when the crisis comes--and I care not how soon--be it mine topersuade the citizens of London to take part against the king, who is afalse tyrant, and with the barons, who are true men. Oliver Icingla, Iwould to God you were of our determination; for I perceive that, under alight and gay demeanour, you hide an ambitious soul and an imaginationthat can conjure up a future--mayhap, the ingenuity that could fashion afuture in spite of fate.”
“Constantine,” interrupted the squire solemnly, “even now you remarkedthat the future was with God and His saints.”
“True,” replied the citizen; “but, be that as it may, ally yourself withme at this crisis, and give me your hand in token of good faith, and Iwill reveal projects which would make thee and me great, and bring bothking and barons to our feet.”
The squire smiled at the citizen’s somewhat wild enthusiasm, and shookhis head.
“Farewell, Constantine,” said he, stretching out his hand. “I know nothow all this may end; but one thing I feel strongly: that there can beno alliance between you and me. However, as the shadows are falling, andthe ways are somewhat perilous, I must mount and ride homeward, so as toreach our humble dwelling ere the night sets in; and so, Constantine,again I say farewell, and in whatever projects your ambition involvesyou, may God and the saints have you in their keeping!”
And thus closing an interview which neither of them regarded without afeeling of disappointment, the squire and the citizen parted, and soonafter Oliver Icingla was riding on a black horse of high mettle throughLudgate, while Constantine Fitzarnulph, surrounded by his household, satgloomily at his board, revolving schemes both dark and dangerous. Theirnext interview was to take place under circumstances infinitely moretragic.