Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

CHAPTER LXI
AN OFFERING TO THE WINDS

THE sudden appearance of Oliver Icingla changed the aspect of affairs so completely that Constantine Fitzarnulph could not but curse the folly which had placed him in a position so thoroughly perplexing as that in which he found himself. He would have felt relieved if Oliver had burst into one of the brief but violent rages in which, like most men of Anglo-Saxon race, the Icingla frequently indulged. But Oliver was perfectly calm, treated Fitzarnulph as a madman not responsible for his actions, and with cool contempt showed the citizen the door, and expressed a hope that his kinsfolk would take better care of him in future.

Fretting with mortification, boiling with rage, and uttering bitter threats, Fitzarnulph departed to join the mob; but he discovered that they were fast dispersing, owing to intelligence that Falco, having mustered his men, was mounting to put them to the sword; and, making for the Thames, he entered his barge, for which a fairer freight had been intended, and was rowed rapidly down the river to his house in the city. Fitzarnulph, wearied with the fatigues of the day, retired to rest, but for many hours sleep did not visit his pillow. He was of all men the most wretched. Not only were his reflections bitter, but he had a vague presentiment of coming danger which he in vain endeavoured to banish. At last, as day was breaking, he fell asleep; but his repose was disturbed by feverish dreams, in which the Abbot of Westminster, and the abbot’s steward, and Oliver Icingla, and Beatrix de Moreville figured prominently; and when he was roused by one of his domestics about ten o’clock, it was to inform him that the mayor had summoned him to the Tower on urgent business.

Fitzarnulph was brave, but could not feel otherwise than alarmed at this summons, and he even thought of flight as he recalled the mayor’s ominous warning as to the fate of William Fitzosbert. But, he rose, dressed hastily, and, confident in his powers of browbeating and in his influence with the commonalty and desperadoes of London, he manned himself with dauntless air, and was soon in the great hall of the Tower – that great hall in which Oliver Icingla was presented as a hostage to King John, at that monarch’s Christmas feast of 1214. Here Fitzarnulph found not only the mayor, and aldermen, and many of the chief citizens, but no less important a personage than Hubert de Burgh, Justiciary of England, with Falco in his company. Fitzarnulph had great difficulty in bearing himself with his wonted dignity, but when he observed that his fellow-citizens were inclined to shun him, his spirit of defiance rose, and he resolved to brave the business out and take the consequences, let them be what they might. It was a resolution of which he was to repent, but to repent when too late.

Hubert de Burgh gravely opened the business which had brought him to the city, that business being neither more nor less than to inquire into the origin of the riot that had taken place on the previous day, and to bring its authors to condign punishment. The mayor thereupon justified his own conduct as the highest municipal functionary, and added that “he had earnestly entreated the people to be quiet, but that Constantine Fitzarnulph had so inflamed their minds by his seditious speeches that there was no hope of appeasing them;” while the aldermen and citizens all disclaimed any connexion with the disturbance, and to a man charged the said Constantine as its author.

“Constantine Fitzarnulph,” said Hubert de Burgh, gravely, “you hear of what you are accused. What have you to say for yourself?”

By this time Fitzarnulph had thrown prudence to the winds and banished every thought of discretion, and reckless for the moment of the danger to which he was exposing himself, he first eyed his fellow-citizens with scorn, and then turned fiercely on the justiciary.

“Sir,” said he in a loud tone, as he knitted his dark brow and clinched his hand, “I do hear of what I am accused, and I am ready to answer on my own behalf. I avow myself the author of the disturbance that has taken place, and I glory in the thought of so being. Nay, more, I tell you to your beard, Lord Hubert de Burgh, that I therein did no more than I ought; and, by the blood of St. Thomas! I add, I did not do half as much as I intended.”

Having thus expressed himself, with a tone and manner before which every listener quailed, save Falco, who smiled a little grimly at the citizen’s vehemence, Fitzarnulph strode from the hall, and, wrapping his gabardine closely round him, was about to leave the Tower by the great gate. But he was wholly mistaken as to the degree of terror he had inspired. As he reached the gate, and was about to step forth, the hand of Falco was laid meaningly on his shoulder, and two of Falco’s men-at-arms arrested him in the king’s name. Fitzarnulph was amazed at this summary proceeding, but he knew that resistance would be vain. He was placed in a boat, rowed up the river to Westminster, and confined in the gate-house till the king’s pleasure was known. But it soon appeared that there was no hope of pardon, and ere sunrise next morning he was carried to the Nine Elms and handed over to the hangman, Falco and his armed men being present to witness the execution.

So far Fitzarnulph had shown no sign of shrinking from the fate he had defied. But at sight of the gibbet his heart failed him, and as the hangman put the halter round his neck he lost all his self-possession, wrung his hands and beat his breast, bewailed his sad plight, and offered Falco fifteen thousand merks to save his life. The sum sounded enormous, and the eyes of the foreign warrior sparkled with avarice. But it was too late, and he shook his head. The sentence had gone forth, the hangman did his office, and just as the bells of the neighbouring convent were ringing the hour of prime, and as the monks were rising to sing the morning hymn in Latin, Falco gave the signal, and in the twinkling of an eye Constantine Fitzarnulph was dangling between heaven and earth; or, in the language of his contemporaries, he was hung up “an offering to the winds.”

And so ended the last feeble effort to disturb King Henry’s government in the name of Prince Louis, and with Fitzarnulph expired the faction that had survived Pembroke’s wise and vigorous protectorate. From that time no man, save in ridicule of French claims, ventured to shout “Montjoie, St. Denis! God aid us and our Lord Louis!” Whatever the troubles of Henry’s long reign – and they were many – no faction devoted to the French interfered to rouse hostilities between the two antagonistic parties, one of which had been represented by the great barons who forced John to sign the Great Charter under the oak of Runnymede; and the other by the patriot warriors who, to save their country from thraldom to France, fought so valiantly on the memorable day of Lincoln Fair.

A few words will suffice to satisfy any curiosity the reader may feel as to the further career of the personages who have figured in the foregoing history. In due time Oliver Icingla led Beatrix de Moreville to the hymeneal altar, and in due time, also, goodly sons and daughters grew up around them to perpetuate the ancient lines of Icingla and De Moreville, both of which names, however, were soon veiled under the title of one of England’s proudest earldoms. Years afterwards, Icinglas were in the train of Prince Edward when he so rashly chased the London militia from the field of Lewes; and, later still, they followed him in the battle of Evesham, when the life and the faction of Simon de Montfort were both extinguished; when, again, that great prince went upon his crusade, there were scions of the old Anglo-Saxon lords of Oakmede by his side; and, indeed, throughout the whole of the long and wise reign of the first Edward, Moreville-Icinglas were his faithful and cherished friends. As for Oliver himself, he and his friend William de Collingham occupied a foremost place in the field and in the council under King Henry, who, had he paid more heed to their advice, and less to that of the foreign favourites by whom he surrounded himself, might have been saved many of those troubles which distracted his reign. To Ralph Hornmouth was committed the task of teaching the young Icinglas how to govern their steeds and to handle their weapons, and of this business he was as proud as if he had been made Lord High Marshal of England. Wolf, the son of Styr, succeeded to his post. Sir Anthony Waledger, in one of the paroxysms of madness brought on by his deep potations, leaped from the battlements of his castle while in fancied combat with a wild boar, and was dashed to pieces on the stones of the courtyard. Hugh de Moreville, as Abbot of Dryburgh, found a field in which to gratify his love of power and rule, which he exercised so sternly as to be called and be long remembered as “The Hard Abbot.” The other personages who have strutted their little hour upon our mimic stage need not be further noticed.