Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

CHAPTER LVIII
WRESTLING FOR THE RAM

ON Lammas day the Londoners flocked towards Westminster to witness the great wrestling match which was to decide the comparative superiority of the athletes of the city and the suburbs. Long ere noon the level turf which had been railed off for the encounter was surrounded by a crowd impatient for the commencement of the combat – so impatient, indeed, that they would not deign to be diverted by the gleemen, and jongleurs, and mountebanks, and merry-andrews, and tymberteres, who nevertheless made every effort to attract attention. Curiosity as to the champion who was to encounter Martin Girder had reached a high pitch, and was all the keener that even his name had not transpired.

At length, just before noon, Constantine Fitzarnulph, coming from London, and the abbot’s steward, coming from Westminster, reached the ground, where tents had been erected for the champions; and while the men of Westminster loudly cheered the steward, the Londoners raised their voices not less loudly in praise of Fitzarnulph, some of them adding, “Hail, Constantine, King of the People!”

At the appointed hour, and while yet this storm of cheers was raging, a signal was given for the champions to come into the arena, and forthwith Martin Girder presented himself, looking so big and strong and in such excellent order that the Londoners signified their enthusiasm by cheering him to the skies. Ere the din had subsided, Martin’s adversary, a young man of twenty-one, came from his tent, and his appearance so much disappointed the spectators who wished him well as the steward’s champion, that hardly a voice was raised in his encouragement, and the Londoners laughed loudly in scorn of his audacity. Only one person – the landlord of the Walnut-tree, out of which William de Collingham and Oliver Icingla had been hunted by Sir Anthony Waledger on the day when Prince Louis entered London – expressed confidence in the champion, and spoke favourably of his chance.

“Cog’s wounds!” exclaimed mine host, “I know the younker well. It is Wolf, the son of Styr, my wife’s kinsman; and, albeit he does not inherit the height or bulk of his father, yet he has enough of old Styr’s pluck and devilry to make the London loons laugh on the wrong side of their mouths ere he is done with their champion. As the Scots say, ‘muckleness is no’ manliness, or a cow could catch a hare.’”

“Right, mine host,” said a tall archer who stood by, and who was one of the heroes of the camp of refuge; “the son of Styr is game to the backbone like his father before him, and the Icingla spoiled a stout soldier when he made Wolf the forester he is.”

In truth, Wolf, though now a man and a handsome one, was neither tall nor largely proportioned, and in both respects his adversary had an overwhelming advantage. Nevertheless he was a model of manly strength and beauty – his body compactly formed, his limbs well knit and hardened by constant exercise, and his sunburnt face comely and calm in its expression of fearless courage and resolute will.

And now, all preliminaries having been settled, the combatants advanced upon each other and closed in stern encounter. Nor had anything witnessed on St. James’s Day equalled its ferocity. They seized each other by the arms, drew backwards, pushed forwards, locked their limbs into each other, seized and pressed furiously, dashed their heads against each other like rams, and did all they could to lift each other from the ground. At length, however, the struggle ended. Wolf was on the ground, and Martin Girder, who stood over him, was loudly applauded for a victory which it had cost him all his heart and all his energy to obtain.

After a brief interval the champions came forth for the second encounter, and this time the struggle was not prolonged. Scarcely had they closed when Wolf made himself master of his adversary’s legs, and a fall was the immediate consequence. The Londoners this time had not a word to say. Fitzarnulph looked very black, and the archer remarked with a knowing glance —

“All right, mine host; the son of Styr is too much accustomed to brutes not to understand the nature of the animal he has to deal with. St. Hubert! but it was well and resolutely done.”

Between the second and the third trial of strength and skill there was a considerable interval, that the champions might rest and refresh themselves ere engaging in the struggle which was to decide the victory; and the interest of the crowd in the result being as intense as ever was felt when two knights rode into the lists to combat with lance and battle-axe for life and death, they awaited their reappearance with impatience, and shouted repeatedly for them to come forth. A loud murmur ere long announced that the combat was about to be renewed, and all eyes were fixed on the wrestlers, each party praying for the triumph of their favourite. And fierce indeed was the struggle which ensued, as, after facing each other for a few moments, Wolf and Martin Girder sprang forward and closed to prove decisively which was the better man. For a time neither seemed to gain any advantage over his adversary, and the crowd looked on in breathless silence. At length Wolf, by a skilful effort, threw his antagonist to the ground. But Martin Girder, remembering even at that moment that his own fame and the credit of the city were at stake, drew down his adversary with him, and the contest was continued on the ground, the combatants tumbling and twining with each other in a hundred different ways. But who can resist his fate? Martin’s breath was gone, his hopes of success with it; and the Anglo-Saxon, getting uppermost, forced the Londoner to confess himself vanquished, and rose to his feet a conqueror.

So far, matters had been conducted decently and in order. But at the moment when Wolf’s victory was secured, the scene suddenly changed, and all was uproar and confusion. Blows were exchanged, swords were drawn, blood was shed – in fact, a fierce fray was going on between the Londoners and the men of Westminster. It soon appeared that the Londoners were getting the worst of the encounter, and they were fain to fly eastward, fighting as they fled, not, however, without threatening vengeance on their pursuers.

Fitzarnulph was among the fugitives, and, having rallied them within Ludgate, and led them up to St. Paul’s Churchyard, he did all he could to exasperate them to fury by his violent speeches; and the commotion was such that the mayor and several influential citizens came hastily to prevent mischief, and commanded them to go to their homes. The crowd slowly and sullenly dispersed, only, however, to meet again, and Fitzarnulph did not conceal his determination to have a speedy revenge.

“Master Fitzarnulph,” said the mayor, solemnly, “I grieve to see a citizen such as you egging on the commonalty to do what is not lawful and right, and I warn you that you will rue it. Remember William Fitzosbert, who, in Richard’s time, was called King of the Poor, and for leading the commonalty into lawless courses was hanged at the Nine Elms. Think of him, I say, and let his fate be your warning.”

But the mayor might as well have talked to the waves of the sea. Fitzarnulph treated his admonition with lofty scorn.

“Gramercy for your warning, Mr. Mayor,” said he; “but let me tell you that your neck is not safer than mine own. Hang a Fitzarnulph! Did ever Londoner dream of such a thing before? By St. Thomas! hang me on the morrow at sunrise, and ere sunset you would look round England in vain for a throne.”

CHAPTER LIX
A STARTLING SPECTACLE

A FEW minutes before sunset on the evening of the day on which the wrestling match had taken place at Westminster, a body of horsemen, about a dozen in number, were seen passing through the little town of Barnet, and riding in the direction of London. Both men and horses looked as if their journey had been long, and as if they were weary of the road.

At the head of this small cavalcade rode two horsemen. One was a young knight, so juvenile-looking, indeed, that but for the gold spurs unworn by squires, he would have been thought too lately out of his teens to be girded with the belt of knighthood. The other was a squire, tall and strong, over whose head many a winter had passed, and on whose face and rough-hewn features the conflicts in which he had taken part had left their marks in the form of scars. One was Oliver Icingla, the other Ralph Hornmouth; and as Oliver now and then made remarks to Hornmouth, and now talked caressingly to a tall greyhound that trotted by his horse’s side, he did so with the tone of one who held no vague pretensions, but possessed very substantial realities in the way of rank and wealth, and whose presence even in the palace which was his ultimate destination that night could not be treated as a matter of indifference. In fact, his position had very much changed in a worldly point of view. Now the heir of the Icinglas was not only a belted knight, who had rendered important services to England during the great Pembroke’s Protectorate, but Lord of Chas-Chateil and Mount Moreville, with ample manors, and the power, in the event of any civil war, of bringing into the field a formidable band of feudal warriors. At this time especially his importance was fully recognised, for both the Bishop of Winchester and Hubert de Burgh were naturally eager to secure him as an ally, and all the more so that the young king was understood to listen with a ready ear to the Icingla’s counsels.

A few words will suffice to explain how this came to pass.

Hugh de Moreville had for years ceased to give Oliver the slightest uneasiness. The active career, indeed, of that Norman of Anglo-Normans had closed with his escape from Lincoln. For months after his arrival at Mount Moreville he had remained shut up in that stronghold, fretting and fuming, giving way to wild bursts of rage, and devising every kind of wild scheme for redeeming the disasters of the baronial party. But all his schemes ended in air, and meantime want of food, want of sleep, and constant worry did the wear and tear of years. His hair became grey, his countenance haggard, and his form, lately so erect and so strong, began to bend under the load of regret, of remorse, and mortification, and disappointed ambition. At forty-five he had the appearance of an old man, and he gave way to fancies which made the faithful Hornmouth apprehensive that his lord’s reason was departing.

De Moreville’s habits, indeed, became most eccentric; and when he sauntered broodingly from the castle from which in other days he had been wont to ride forth with the air of a man who claimed an immense superiority over his kind, he made a point of saluting any children whom he met, “to the end,” as he humbly expressed it, “that he might have a return of the benediction of the Innocents.” Gradually the inclination he had expressed to seek consolation in the cloister became stronger, and at length the world, in which he had played so conspicuous a part, learned that De Moreville, the haughty and iron-handed, was a monk in the abbey of Dryburgh. But it ought to be mentioned that in a feudal age, when life presented such violent contrasts, this created no surprise, for many warriors as haughty and stern as De Moreville took the cowl, and endeavoured to make their peace with Heaven by ending their days in penance and prayer.

When, therefore, Oliver Icingla reached years of legal discretion, he did homage for his mother’s inheritance, and took possession of Chas-Chateil without an obstacle being interposed; and he was even now returning from the court of the King of Scots, at the castle of Roxburgh, whither he had repaired to go through the feudal ceremony which was to constitute him lord of Mount Moreville.

Ralph Hornmouth stuck steadily to De Moreville till the Norman baron turned monk; and when De Moreville hid his head in a cowl, and his body in a cloister, Hornmouth made a complete transfer of his fidelity to Oliver Icingla, and pursued life as if unconscious that he had made a change of masters. Ever ready to ride at half an hour’s notice from Chas-Chateil to Mount Moreville, and from Mount Moreville to Oakmede, where the hall of the Icinglas had again risen in stately proportion from its ashes and ruins, he was worth his weight in gold during troublous times; and as for political creed, Hornmouth was content to leave that to the warrior whose banner he followed. He had ridden willingly with De Moreville to fight for Prince Louis and the Norman barons, and he was prepared to ride as cheerfully with the Icingla to fight for King Henry to the cry of “St. Edward!” It was, as he thought, for the Anglo-Norman baron or the Anglo-Saxon Hlaford to take the responsibility of choosing a side; it was his duty to fight his best on whatever side they drew their swords.

And De Moreville’s daughter no longer inhabited the great mansion in Ludgate, from the balcony of which she looked forth on the cavalcade that escorted the boy-king through the city of London, but a much humbler dwelling on the banks of the Thames, near Scotland-yard, where stood the palace with which, in an earlier age, Edgar had gifted Kenneth, and in which the King of Scots still resided when he came to Westminster to enact his part at a coronation. Dame Waledger was still her guardian and companion, an arrangement most convenient to both; for Beatrix had no kinswoman to whom she could cling for protection, and Sir Anthony, living at his manor in Berkshire, was in the habit of carousing so freely in the day and contending with so many imaginary antagonists at night, that the dame, not indifferent to her own safety in life and limb, dreaded nothing so much as living under the same roof with a husband who might any night slay her, under the delusion that he was engaged in mortal combat with the wild boar which he had encountered under the oak at Donnington.

But one circumstance had much changed the colour of Beatrix’s life: Oliver Icingla had not persisted in avoiding her company and praying to be delivered from the temptation of seeing her. On the contrary, as time wore off the impression that had been left by his frightful dream, the memory of the romantic interview at Chas-Chateil had returned upon him with an effect before which other considerations rapidly gave way. In short, while the Icingla was returning from the North, Beatrix had the prospect of being his bride ere Christmas; and as he passed the village of Charing, riding side by side with Hornmouth, and talking to the tall greyhound, De Moreville’s daughter was uppermost in his thoughts, and her hand seemed to beckon him on as his journey southward drew to an end.

It was ten o’clock, however, and the night had fallen, but the rising moon afforded a pale light, when Oliver, having skirted London, reached the village of Charing, from which then, and for centuries afterwards, cross roads branched out in various directions away to rural regions; and on reaching Charing he directed his course towards Westminster, at the palace of which King Henry was keeping his court and watching over architectural additions to the abbey. Oliver, however, was bound, in the first place, to visit the fair Beatrix, and with a lover’s ardour he spurred on Ayoub, to shorten by half a minute the time that must elapse ere he could be in her presence.

But at that instant a sight met the eye of Oliver Icingla which made him start with alarm and vague terror. Before him gleamed hundreds of torches in the moonlight, and enabled him dimly to descry a countless mob, swaying and surging in masses, and uttering shouts of triumph as they rushed on to havoc and spoliation. It was a terrible spectacle, and as Oliver checked his steed he uttered an exclamation of horror.

“By the Holy Cross!” exclaimed he, on finding breath to speak, “I would fain hope my eyes deceive me; but, certes, nothing less than the agency of the devil and a rising of the Londoners can have brought about such a tumult as this.”

“And, credit me, Fitzarnulph the citizen is at the bottom of it,” said Hornmouth, quickly, “and the Lady Beatrix may be in danger. By salt and bread!” added the rough squire, “we must look forthwith to the demoiselle’s safety.”

As Hornmouth spoke he turned round to call upon the armed men to follow apace; and, ere he did so, Oliver Icingla had drawn his sword, set spurs to his steed, and darted in the direction of Scotland-yard.

CHAPTER LX
A DEMAGOGUE AND HIS DESPERADOES

THE crowd driven so unceremoniously from Westminster did not separate before agreeing to assemble again at a given signal; and no sooner did Bow bell toll the hour of curfew, than, like bees swarming from their hives, all the desperadoes and riff-raff of London assembled from lanes, and alleys, and slums, and the purlieus of the Thames, and, joined by many hundreds who were neither desperadoes nor riff-raff, but honest men led away by the excitement of the hour, filled the narrow streets, and, jostling each other as they went, made for St. Paul’s Churchyard. Here Constantine Fitzarnulph, accompanied by two or three other persons whom he had allured into his enterprise, was ready to receive them and place himself at their head.

And then Fitzarnulph mounted a temporary platform, and harangued the mob in such inflammatory language, that their excitement was rapidly converted into frenzy, and they raved like maniacs. No longer condescending, as in former days, to treat the Anglo-Norman barons as friends, he denounced them as tyrants and oppressors who ground the faces of the poor, and lived in luxury by the sweat of their neighbours’ brows. Proceeding, he attacked the young king and his ministers, and traced suffering and sorrow to the misgovernment that prevailed, and asked whether there was not something radically wrong in a system under which such oppression could exist. He concluded with a fierce invective against the Abbot of Westminster and his steward, and called on the Londoners to wipe out the disgrace they had that day suffered in the person of their champion, Martin Girder, who, he asserted, had been foiled by foul means; finally, either by premeditated design, or led away by his own enthusiasm and the cheers with which he was greeted, he boldly stated that there was only one remedy for their woes, and that was to invite Prince Louis to return to England, and deliver them from the evils under which they were groaning. “Montjoie, St. Denis!” exclaimed he, in conclusion, as he waved his hat. “God help us and our good Lord Louis!”

The desperadoes loudly applauded the proposal to recall the French prince, just as they would have applauded if Fitzarnulph had proposed to invoke the aid of the prince of darkness. But some of the crowd murmured, and the oration, especially towards its close, seemed to give great offence to a young warrior who stood by Fitzarnulph’s side. Several times while the harangue was drawing to a close he started as if to interrupt, but on each occasion checked the impulse. But no sooner did Fitzarnulph, waving his hat, shout “Montjoie, St. Denis!” than he raised a very noble countenance towards the demagogue, and eyed him with a glance of fiery scorn. It was Walter Merley.

“Citizen,” said he, after forcing himself to be calm, “your speech to this multitude has belied all your professions to me, and I despise you as one whom the truth is not in. You have basely deceived me, and shame upon me that I have been fooled by such as you are! and, but that I deem you all unworthy of my steel, you should have three inches of my dagger to punish your presumptuous perfidy, and silence your lying tongue. Come, Rufus, let us begone!”

A shout of indignation arose from the mob on hearing their hero thus bearded, and several of the desperadoes moved as if to lay hands on the bold speaker, but he paid no attention to their cries and gestures. Calling one of his companions to follow, he strode right through the midst, and that with an air so fearless and fierce, that they opened their ranks and made way for him to pass, and carried their hostility no further than uttering a yell and indulging in a little banter as he disappeared.

“Now,” said he, as he took a boat and was rowed towards the Surrey side, “farewell to home and country; and, since fortune so wills, let my lot be among strangers and in a strange land. All over Europe and in Syria swords are flashing bravely, and it will go hard with me if I carve not out a principality with my sword, which has never failed me. Shame upon me that I allowed myself to be fooled by that citizen! and a malison on his presumption in fancying that, after deceiving me, he could use me for his purposes!”

Meanwhile, Fitzarnulph did not allow the excitement of the mob to evaporate. Finding that they were quite in the humour in which he wished them to be, he proposed to go forthwith to Westminster.

“Our first duty,” said he, “is to avenge ourselves on the abbot and his steward; and the best way to avenge ourselves on them is to pull down their houses, whereby they will be made sensible that the citizens of London are not to be affronted with impunity. So let us on. Montjoie, St. Denis! God for us and Lord Louis!”

“To Westminster!” shouted the desperadoes; and, led by Fitzarnulph, the mob descended Ludgate-hill, and pushed through the gates like so many furies.

It was already sunset when Fitzarnulph led the mob from St. Paul’s Churchyard, and darkness was descending ere they reached Westminster. Many of the desperadoes, however, had furnished themselves with torches, and what with the glare of the torches, and the fierce faces of the desperadoes, and the brandishing of weapons and bludgeons, and the shouts, the screeches, the bellowing, and the confusion, the inhabitants might, even had they been less superstitious than they were, have imagined that a host of fiends was upon them.

Great was the alarm, loud the shouts for aid, each man calling on his neighbour, as the startled indwellers suddenly found their houses and hearths exposed to such danger, and at the mercy of such a multitude. But it soon appeared that the mob were, in the first place, intent on vengeance, and went direct to destroy the houses of the abbot and his steward. Warned in time, the abbot fled, trembling for his life, and, getting into his barge, escaped to Lambeth. Determined to defend himself and his property, the steward drew bolt and bar, and armed his household. But a few minutes’ experience told him that resistance was vain, and, escaping with his household by the rear, he left his home to its fate. The riot and uproar then became more terrible every moment; house after house was torn down or given to the flames; and the mob, whooping, and yelling, and braying, as their appetite for destruction was whetted, rushed into outrage after outrage, and enacted such a scene as Westminster had seldom or never witnessed.

And what was Constantine Fitzarnulph doing all this time?

Fitzarnulph, in truth, had other game, as his movements speedily indicated, than the abbot and his steward, and, leaving the mob to destroy and plunder without restraint, he proceeded with a chosen band of twenty desperadoes towards Scotland-yard, and on to a house that stood in a garden on the margin of the river. At first he endeavoured to gain access by gentle means, and loudly knocked at the gate. No answer was returned, and he ordered the desperadoes to break it open. His command was immediately obeyed, and he passed into a courtyard, and knocked vehemently at the door; but, seeing that his knock at the door was as little regarded as his knock at the gate had been, the desperadoes broke it open, and Fitzarnulph, making a signal to the band to remain where they were till summoned by him, entered alone, found several domestics, who fled at his approach, ascended a stair, and, advancing along a corridor, opened a door and entered.

It was a large chamber, furnished after the fashion of the period, brilliantly lighted, and occupied by four women, who, alarmed at the riot and the uproar, and the breaking in of the gate and door, were giving themselves up for lost. One was Beatrix de Moreville, another Dame Waledger, and the other two were Beatrix’s waiting-women. As Fitzarnulph entered, a simultaneous cry of horror and despair burst from their lips, and three of them fell on their knees. De Moreville’s daughter, however, rose to her feet, and stood facing the intruder with an air of haughty defiance which showed that, gentle as was her usual manner she inherited some portion of her sire’s spirit.

“What seek you here, sir citizen?” asked she, with a gesture and in a tone before which most men, under the circumstances, would have quailed.

“Demoiselle,” answered Fitzarnulph with equal pride, “it is vain to assume such airs at the stage at which matters have arrived; vainer still to deem that I, Constantine Fitzarnulph, am likely to be daunted by a haughty tone and a frowning brow. I therefore answer frankly – it is you I seek. You have treated me with a scorn to which I am but little accustomed; however, of that anon. You are at length in my power, once and for ever, so prepare to go hence. My barge awaits you at the stairs to convey you to a place of safety. Nay, frown not; I say it is vain; for, come what may, by the blood of St. Thomas! ere to-morrow’s sun is high in the heavens, you shall stand at the altar as Fitzarnulph’s bride, and women neither less fair nor less exalted in rank than yourself will envy your lot. I have said.”

Scorn, amazement, terror, succeeded each other rapidly in the face of Beatrix de Moreville as Fitzarnulph spoke, and she was nerving herself to reply when he advanced and seized her arm, as if to bear her off as his prey; but she clung so tenaciously to Dame Waledger, who was literally speechless with affright, that he found all his efforts to separate them in vain. Suddenly he relaxed his grasp.

“Maiden,” said he, looking earnestly into her face, “you are fighting against fate, and against a destiny you can no more avoid than you can the death which comes to all flesh. You struggle in vain. It is not my wont to be baffled, as the world well knows, and will yet know better. Loath am I to use force, but, since you make it necessary, I needs must. Below are twenty men, who, if I said the word, would bring me the head of the pope or the caliph. One sound of this, and they come to my aid;” and he pointed to a silver whistle that hung at his belt.

De Moreville’s daughter, retreating behind Dame Waledger, gazed with alarm at the citizen, but did not venture to speak. It seemed that her stock of courage was exhausted. Fitzarnulph appeared to hesitate. After a moment’s pause, however, he took the whistle and sounded it loudly. As he did so, voices were heard as if in altercation below; steps as of persons ascending, and the ring of steel on the stone stairs, succeeded; and then there entered, not the twenty desperadoes, but Oliver Icingla, with his spurs of gold on his heels and his trusty sword in his hand, just as he had jumped from his good steed Ayoub.

De Moreville’s daughter uttered an exclamation of rapturous surprise, and darted forward to throw herself on the young knight’s protection. Fitzarnulph stood as much like an image of stone as if the heir of the Icinglas had brought the Gorgon’s head in his hand.