THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE s- 1^ cuiif^ J) a»U(mt THE C/VMP OF EEFUGE, Isle of Ely AND Camp of Refuge. Settle of MtLes BURWELL FEN U-^'i -l)f-8- " THE CAMP OF REFUGE % iaie OF THE CONQUEST OF THE ISLE OF ELY, EDITED, WITH NOTES AND APPENDIX, BY SAMUEL H. .MILLER, F.Il.A.S Jaint Author «;' " Tlte Fcn'uiml, Past niul Present. ' SECOirnD ^^IsTITOT-^^TErD EIDITIOl-T ILLUSTRATJW WITH 31 A PS. WISDECH: LEACH A. HON. LONDON: SIMPKIN. MARSHALL cV CO. i . 8 7 WISBKCH LKACH AND BON, PRINTKKS. THE EDITOirS PREFACE. A GENEKATioN has passecl away since " The Camp of Refuge " first issued from the press. Although pub- lished anonymously, it shows that its author had a very extensive knowledge of the history and topo- graphy of the Fen district. The l)oolc, however, while it embodied much real history, was put forth with no higher pretension than that of a tale, whose characters were historic personages, and whose incidents occurred, in the main, during the Norman Conquest. Kiiowing that this interesting l)ook had lieeome very scarce, and thinking that it would prove as acceptable to this, juid perliaps to the next, genera- tion as it (lid to the ])iist— the present publishers determined to offer a n(,'W edition to the public ; trusting at the same time that its contents will help to fnstci' a loyalty and a love for our English nation. But with a new editioii some few comments ap- peared necessary ; therefore Notes to the text, a Yl PTiEFACK, short Appendix, and two Maps liave been added, not with a. view merely to erabellisli the original work, nor to convert 'it into a real history, hnt to assist, in some measure, the youthful reader, or mayhap those, too, who have liut limittjd means oi" consulting the many sources of information upon which the ground-work of the tale rests. 8. H. M. Jnnc, 1880. SECOND ANNOTATED EDITION Ix preparing this edition, care has been taken to correct whatever defects, typographical or otherwise, may have been found in the former one ; several fresh foot-notes have been introduced, the A])pendix has l)een re-arranged and enlarged, and a Map (adapted from Diif/dalr's ^[oll(lftt'lrn7l), representing the ground plan of the Spalding Monastery, or " Succursal Cell," has also been added. These emendations and additions, it is confidently lioped, will ensure for the book a more extended appreciation than it has hitherto enjoyed. S. H. M. Mai/, 1887. THE CONTENTS, CHAl'. PAGE I. The Messenger 1 II. The Succukhal Cell at Spalding ... 18 III. The Gkeat House at Ely 40 lY. The Monks of Ely Feast ..... i")(i V. The Monks of Ely take counsel . . . .76 VI. Ivo Taille-Bois and the Ladie Lucia . . 96 VII. Hereward's Return 106 VIII. Lord Herewakd goes to get his own . . 120 IX. Elfkic 'jhe ex-novice, and Girolajio of Salerno, PREPARE TO PLAY AT DEVILS .... 145 X. The House at Crowland 153 XI. The Linden Grove and Ladie Alftrude . . 172 XII. The Marriage and the Ambuscade . . . 185 XIII. How Lord He reward and his Ladie lived at Ey 203 XIV. Hekeward is JiADE Knight 215 XV. The Castle at Cam-Bridge and a Battle . 232 XVI. The Traitorous Monks of Peterborough . . 245 XVII. Herkwaiu) goes to Bkunn, and is disturbed there 260 XVni. The Danes and their King's son .... 281 XIX. The Norman Witch 308 XX. The Norman Duke tries .vuin .... 320 XXI. The Monks of Ely complain and plot . . 335 XXII. Hekewap.d iiuiNGs Corn and Wine to Ely . . 360 XXIII. A Chapter and a Great Treason . . . 389 XXIV. The Dungeon 413 XXV. The Normans in the Cami' . . . 428 CONTENTS. riiAr. PAGF. XXVI. A FiKE AND A Kescue 416 XXVII. IIeuewaiu) still Fights -irjS XXVIII. The Hai-py End -106 Appendix — Note A. Foundation of Ely Adbey . . 180 B. Tue Legend of S. Lucy . . . -180 C. Ovin's Ckoss at Ely . . . 481 D. Spalding PpvIoey .... 481 E. Archbishop Pahkek's Salt Vat . 481 F. Abbey of S. Alban .... 482 G. Ceowland Abbey .... 482 H. Eamsey Abbey 483 I. Thoeney Abbey .... 483 J. King's Lynn in the 18th Centuey . 484 K. Camp of Kefuge Sureendeeed . 485 L. Peteeboeough Abbey. . . . 48(5 M. The Gift of Brand .... 487 N. Knot's Visit to P^ly .... 487 Fenland Bibliogeaphy 487 Maps — The Isle of Ely (Frontispiece.) The Fen District. Ground Plan of the Spalding Monastery AND Boundaries, frovi Dugdale's Slonas- ticon (to face page 481.) UBRARY '"'^^S'n Of CAUfORWA mV£/?SID£ THE FEN DISTRiCT, UvrarrE.Miatr.dBl MAPfc."CAMP OF refuge: .v THE CAMP OF REFUGE CHAPTEE I. '* THE MESSENGER. It was long ago ; it was in the year of grace one thousand and seventy, or four years after the battle of Hastings, which decided the right of power be- tween the English and Norman nations, and left the old Saxon race exposed to the goadings of the sharp Norman lance, that a novice went on his way from the grand abl}ey of Crowland to the dependent house or succursal cell of Spalding,^ in the midst of the Lincolnshire fens. The young man carried a long staif or pole in his hand, with which he aided himself in leaping across the numerous ditches and rivulets that* intersected his path, and in trying the boggy ground before he ventured to set his feet upon it. The upper end of his staff was fashioned like unto the staff of a pilgrim, but the lower end was armed with a heavy iron ferrule, from which projected sundry long steel nails or spikes. Tt was a fen- iPor Notes on Crowiand Abbey, Spalding cell, and other religious houses, see Appendix. B "L THE CAMP OF REFUGE. polc,^ such, I wist, as our femiers yet use in Holland, Lindsey, and Kesteven. In a strong and bold lunul this staff might be a good war-weapon ; and as the young man raised the skirts of his black garment it might have been seen that he had a short broad hunting-knife fastened to his girdle. He was a fair- haired, blue-eyed, and full-lipped 3'outh, with an open countenance and a ruddy complexion : the face seemed made to express none but joyous feelings, so that the grief and anxiety which now clouded it appeared to be quite out of place. Nor was that cloud always there, for whensoever the autumn sun shone out brightly, and some opening in the monotonous forest of willows and alders gave him a pleasant or a varied prospect, or when the bright king-fisher flitted across his path, or the wild duck rose from the fen and flew heaven-ward," or the heron raised itself on its long legs to look at him from the [sludge, or the timid cj^gnet went sailing away in quest of the parent swan, his countenance lighted up like that of a happy thoughtless boy. Ever and anon too some inward emotion made him chuckle or laugh outright. Thus between sadness and gladness the novice went on his way — a rough and miry way proper to give a permanent fit of ill- 1 Fen-poles like that described in the text are not in use now, in this fourth quarter of the 19th century. Sportsmen use poles, as they do in most meadowy districts intersected by ditches ; but the fen ditches are often dry in summer and early autumn and the boggy grounds are rare in these days. From Crowland to Spalding is eight miles in a straight line, but on such a route the Welland must be twice crossed. Now-a-days the traveller finds a good road from Crowland by Cowbit to Spalding, — the Saxon novice liowever had a devious course through Deeping Fen. 2 For a description and list of Birds of the Fens, see " The Fenland, Past and Present." THE MESSENGER. 3 humour to a less buoyant spirit, for he had quitted the road or causewa}'' which traversed the fens and was pursuing a devious path, which was for the greater part miry in summer, but a complete morass at the present season of the year. Notwithstanding all his well-practised agility, and in spite of the good aid of his long staff, he more than once was soused head over ears in a broad water-course. With a good road within view, it may be thought that he had some strong motive for choosing this very bad one ; and every time that his path approached to the road, or that the screen of alders and willows failed him, he crouched low under the tall reeds and bulrushes of the fen, and stole along very cautiously, peeping occasionally through the rushes towards the road, and turning his ear every time that the breeze pro- duced a loud or unusual sound. As thus he went on, the day declined fast, and the slanting sun shone on the walls of a tall stone mansion, battlemented and moated-^a dwelling-house, but a house proper to stand a siege :^ and in these years of trouble none could dwell at peace in any house if unprovided with the means of holding out against a blockade, and of repelling siege and assault. All round this manor- house, to a wide space, the trees had been cut down and the country drained ; part of the w^ater being carried off to a neighbouring mere, and part being collected and gathered, by means of various cuts, to till the deep moat round the house. ' This manor house was then held by a Norman, Ivo Taille-Bois, a nephew of William tlie Con(jueror, one who figures greatly in this tale and in " Hereward the Wake;" the manor had belonged to Earl Leofric. According to Domesday book (350-351 «.) Ivo had large estates in Holland (South Lincolnshire.) b2 4 THE CAMP OF REFUOE. Here the young man, in fear of being discovered by those who occupied that warhke yet faii--looldng dwelling, almost crawled on the ground. Neverthe- less he quitted his track to get nearer to the house ; and then, cowering among some reeds and bulrushes, he put his open hand above his eyebrows, and gazed sharply at the moat, the drawbridge, the low gateway with its round-headed arch, the battlements, and the black Norman flag that floated over them. The while he gazed, the blast of a trumpet sounded on the walls, and sounded again, and once again ; and, after the third blast, a noise as of many horses treading the high road or causeway was heard among the fen reeds. The novice muttered, and almost swore blas- phemously, (albeit by the rules of the order he was bound to use no stronger terms than crede mild, or l)lane, or certe, or henedicami(s Domina ;)^ but he con- tinued to gaze under his palm until the sounds on the road came nearer and trumpet replied to trumpet. Then, muttering " This is not a tarrying ^^lace for the feet of a true Saxon!" he crawled back to the scarcely perceptible track he had left, and kept on, in a stooping posture but at a rapid pace, until he came to a thick clump of alders, the commencement of a wood which stretched, with scarcely any inter- ruption, to the banks of the river Welland. Here, screened from sight, he struck the warlike end of his 1 Trust me ! truly ! surely ! may we jDraise the Lord ! are mild asseverations, but it is implied that in those days restraints on jjro- fanity were necessary. It has been asserted that profane swearing is coeval with Christianity, rather, perhaps with canonization — men called upon their patron saints to witness, and went beyond them. In Demosthenes' oath — " By earth, by all her fountains, streams and floods ! " there was no profanity. THE MESSENG-ER. 5 staff against the trunk of a tree, and said aloud, " Forty Norman men-at-arms ! by Saint Etheldreda^ and by the good eye-sight that Saint Lucia" hath vouchsafed unto me ! Forty Norman cut-throats, and we in our succursal cell only five friars, two novices, two lay-brothers, and five hinds ! and our poor upper buildings all made of wood, old and ready to burn like tow ! and not ten bows in the place or live men knowing how to use them ! By Saint Ovin'' and his cross ! were our walls Ijut as strong as those of the monks of Ely, and our war-gear better, and none of us cowards, I would say, "Up drawbridge! defy this Norman woodcutter, who felled trees in the forest for his bread until brought by the bastard to cut Saxon throats and fatten upon the lands of our thanes a)id our churches and monasteries ! I would spit at the beard of this Ivo Taille-Bois, and call upon Thurstan my Lord Abbat of Ely, and upon the true Saxon hearts in the Camp of Eefuge, for suc- cour!"- And the passionate young man struck the trunk of the poor unoffending tree until the bark cracked, and the long thin leaves, loosened by autumn, fell all about him. He then continued his journey through the low, thick, and monotonous wood, and after sundry more leaps, and not a few soushigs in the water and slips in the mud, he reached the bank of the Welland at a point just opposite to the succursal cell of Spalding. 1 St. Etheldrecla (or yEthclthryth) was the foundresH and Jirst abbess of Ely monastery (a.jj. CiTii). See Appendix, Note A. 2 This is not the Lucia of Mercian fame ; but St. Lucia, whose day in the old calendars was l:5th December. See Appendix, Note L. ■' St. Ovin was steward to St. Etheldreda. His cross, erected by himself or to his memory, is still seen in Ely Cathedral. See pp. 15 and 57, and Note C. 6 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. A ferry-boat was moored under the walls of the house. He drew forth a blast horii ; but before putting it to his lips to summon the ferrjaiian across, he bethought him that he could not be wetter than he was, that he had got his last fall in a muddy place, and that the readiest way to cleanse himself before coming into the presence of his superior would be to swim across the river instead of waiting to be ferried over. This also suited the impatient mood he was in, and he knew that the serf who managed the boat was always slow in his movements, and at times hable to sudden and unseasonable fits of deafness. So, throwing his heavy staff before him, hke a javelin, and with so much vigour that it reached and stuck deep into the opposite bank, he leaped into the river and swam across after it. Before he came to the Welland the sun had gone down; but it was a clear autumnal evening, and if he was not seen in the twilight by a lay-brother stationed on the top of the house to watch for his return and to keep a look-out along the river, it must have been because the said lay-brother was either drowsy and had gone to sleep, or was hungry and had gone down to see what was toward in the kitchen. The succursal cell of Spalding was but a narrow and humble place compared with its great mother- house at Crowland : it seemed to stand upon piles' driven deep into the marshy ground ; the lower part 1 This reference to standing upon piles appears indefinite — the idea seems to have been suggested by Ingulph's assertion that the first abbey of Crowland was iDuilt on piles, which is not at all probable seeing that all traces of the abbey buildings are found on gravel — and the probabilities are that the site for the ancient monastery was there selected for that very reason. The gravel ridge runs south- west towards Peakirk. (See map.) THE MESSENGER. 7 of the building was of stone, brick, and rubble, and very strong ; but all the upper part was of wood, even as the wayfaring novice had lamented. A few small round-headed arches, with short thick mullions, showed where was the chapel, and where the ball, which last served as refectory, chapter, and for many other uses. Detached from the chapel was a low thick campanile or bell-tower, constructed like the main building, partly of stone, brick, and rubble, and partly of timber, the upper part having open arches, through which might be seen the squat old bell and the ponderous mallet, which served instead of a clapper. The Welland almost washed the back of the house, ^ and a deep trench, tilled by the water of the river, went round the other sides. Without being hailed or seen by anyone, the young man walked I'ound from the river bank to the front of the house, where the walls were pierced l;)y a Ioav arched gate- way, iind one small grated window a little above the arch. "■ The brothers are all asleep, and before supper time!" said the novice, "but I must rouse old Huljert." He then blew his horn as loud as he could blow it. After a brief pause a loud but cracked voice cried from within the gates, " Who comes hither, after evening song "? ' ' "It is I, Elfric" the novice." "The voice is verily that of child Elfric ; Init 1 must see with my eyes as well as hear with mine 1 In Dugdale's Monasticon a plan shewinf^ the site of the l^iioiy is given ; it was south of the market place, west of the Welland, and not half-way between that river and Wostlode. The refectory still exists; it is divided into seven dwellings, called " Abbey Buildings." See Appendix, Note 1). -There was an abbot of Malmsbury, named Elfric, in 971. {Gesta. Pont. Aii'j.) 8 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. ears, for the Norman be prowling all about, and these be times when the wolf counterfeiteth the voice of the lamb." "Open, Hubert, open," cried the novice, "open, in the name of Saint Chad ! ^ for I am wet, tired, and a-hungred, and the evening wind is })eginning to blow coldly from the meres. Open thy gate, Hubert, and let fall the Ijridge ; I am so hungry that I could eat the planks ! Prithee, is supper ready?" To this earnest address no answer was returned ; Init after a minute or two the twilight showed a cowled head behind the grates of the window — a head that seemed nearly all eyes, so intensely did the door- porter look forth across the moat — and then the voice which before had been heard below, was heard above, saying, " The garb and figure be verily those of Elfric, and the water streams from him to the earth. Ho ! Elfric the novice — an thou be he — throw back thy hood, and give the sign ! " " Abbat Thurstan^ and Saint Etheldreda for the East Englanders !" shouted the young man. Here, another voice was heard from within the building calling out " Hubert, whom challengest? Is it Elfric returning from Crowland'?" " Yea," quoth the portarius, " it is Elfric the novice safe back from Crowiand, but dripping like a water- 1 St. Chad was first bishop of Lichfield (669-672). " Here perished, according to the tradition, in the 'fiery persecution of Diocletian, a thousand British Christians with Amphibalus at their head." i^Life and Legends of St. Chad.) But this Haint was more than Bishop of Lichfield — he was bishop of the Mercians ; (this diocese included about seventeen counties) hence the force of Elfric's a2:ipcal. St. Ovin had made a pilgrimage from the Fens into Yorkshire and joined St. Chad, at that time abbot of Lastingham. 2Thurstan was then abbot of Ely, but more of him hereafter. THE MESSENGER. 9 rat, and shivering in the wind. Come, help me lower the bridge, and let him in." The gate was soon opened, and the narrow draw- bridge lowered. The youth entered, and then helped to draw up the bridge and make fast the iron-studded door. Within the archway every member ol' the httle community, except those who were preparing the evening repast or spreading the tables in the refectory, and the superior who Avas prevented by his gout and his dignity from descending to the door-way to meet a novice (be his errand what it might), was standing on tip-toe, and open-mouthed for news ; but Elfric was a practised messenger, and knowing that the bringer of bad news is apt to meet with a cold welcome, and that the important tidings he brought ought to be communicated first to the head of the house, he hurried through the throng, and crossing a cloistered court, and ascending a flight of stairs, he went straight to the cell of Father Adhelm,^ the sub- prior of Crowland Abbey, who ruled the succursal cell of Spalding. The monks followed him into the room ; Ijut the novices and lay-brothers stopped short at the threshold, taking care to keep the door ajar so that they might hear whatsoever was said within. " I give thee my benison, oli, my child ! and may the saints bless thee, for thou art back sooner than I weened. But speak, oh Elfric ! quick ! tell me what glad tidings thou bringest from my Lord Al)bat and our faithful Ijrethren at Crowland, and what news of 1 The writer of the text does not profess to be strictly historical, and as there does not appear to be any record of the names of the early priors of Spalding, he borrows one in vogue at the time about which he writes. One Aldhelm or Aldelm was abbot of Malnisbury or bishop of Sherborne (715-71U). Spalding cell was founded in 1052, and the first recorded name of a prior was Herbertus, 1149. 10 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. that son of the everhisting tire, our evil neighbour IvoTaille-Bois?" After he had reverentially kissed the hand of his superior, Elfric the novice spake and said : — " Father, I bring no glad tidings ; my news be all bad news ! Ivo Taille-iiois is coming against us to complete his iniquities, by finishing our destruction ; and the Al)bat ^ and our faithful brethren at Crowland are harassed and oppressed themselves, and cannot help us !" The faces of the monks grew very long ; but they all said in one voice, " Elfric, thou dreamest. Elfric, thou speakest of things that cannot be ; for hath not my Lord Abbat obtained the king's peace, and security for the lives of all his flock and the peaceful posses- sion of all our houses, succursal cells, churches and chapels, farms and lands whatsoever, together with our mills, fisheries,^ stews, warrens, and all things appertaining to our great house and order ?"^ One of the primary duties imposed upon novices was to be silent when the elders spake. Elfric stood with his hands crossed upon his Ijreast and with his eyes bent upon the floor, until his superior said " Peace, brothers ! let there be silence until the youth hath reported what he hath heard and seen." And then turning to Elfric, Father Adhelm added, " Bring you no missive from our good Abbat '?" "Yea," said the novice, "I am the bearer of an epistle from my Lord Abbat to your reverence ; and 1 This was really Ulfcytel, not Ingulphus. "For "Old Fisheries," see " Fenland, Past and Present." ''According to Ingulph, tlic king coniirmcd to the monastery the charter of .Edred. THE MESSENGER. 11 lo ! it is here." And he drew forth from under his inner garment a roiuid case made of tin, and pre- sented it most respeetuously to the superior. " I am enduring the pains of the body as well as the agony of the spirit,"' said the superior, "and my swollen right hand refuses its otiice ; brother Cedric, undo the case."' Cedric took the case, opened it, took out a scroll of parchment, kissed it as if it had l)een a relic, unrolled it, and handed it to the superior. "Verily this is a long missive," said the superior, running his eyes over it, "and alack, and woe the while, it commencetli with words of ill omen ! Brethren my eyes are dim and cannot read by twilight •} the l)ody moreover is faint, I having fasted from every- thing but prayer and meditation since the mid-day refection ; and then, as ye can bear witness, 1 ate no meat, but only picked a stewed pike' of the smallest. Therefore, brethren, I opine that we had better read my Lord Abbat's epistle'' after supper (when will they strike upon that refectory bell"?), and only hear beforehand what Elfric hath to say." The cloister-monks gladly assented, for they were as hungry as their chief, and, not being very quick at reading, were glad that the superior had not called for lights in the cell, and called upon them to read the letter. " Now speak, Elfric, and to the point ; tell the talc shortly, and after the evening meal the lamp shall be trimmed and we will draw our stools round the hearth ' We may assume there were no spectacles in those days. -The Pike has been n noted fish in tlie Fen-waters. ■'It is noteablc that the old monks experienced lluil mental worry retarded digestion. 12 THE CAMP OF llEFUGE. ill the hall, and road the abbat's epistle and deliberate thereupon." Upon this injunction of Father Adhelm, the youth began to relate with very commendable brevity, that the abbey of Crowland was surrounded and in good part occupied by Norman knights and men-at-arms, who were eating the brotherhood out of house and home, and committing every kind of riot and excess ; that the abbat had in vain pleaded the king's peace, and shown the letters of protection granted him by Lanfranc,^ the new foreign primate of the kingdom ; that the Normans had seized upon all the horses and mules and boats of the community ; and that the abbat (having received disastrous intelligence from the north^ and from other parts of England where the Saxon patriots had endeavoured to resist the conqueror), had fallen sick, and had scarcely strength to dictate and sign the letter he brought. " These are evil tidings indeed," said the sui)erior, "but the storm is yet distant, and may blow over without reaching us. It is many a rood from Crowland to Spalding, and there is many a bog- between us. Those accursed knights and men-at- 1 Archbishop Stigand suffered deprivation in April, 1070, through the intiuence of the Conqueror, and Lanfranc, Abbot of Caen, became Metropolitan in August of the same year. " Lanfranc yielded to the combined prayers and commands of all Normandy. With a heavy heart, as he himself tells us, he forsook the monastic life which he loved above all other lives." (Norm. Conq., vol. iv., p. 346.) We wo7\der which of the two felt the greater " deprivation ? " - William had conquered the north of England before the elevation of Lanfranc, but the news may not have reached the Fen country for some months. Chester had fallen — the counties south of that stroug- hold were devastated, and many thousands of refugees found their way as far south as Evesham Abbey, where they received succour at the hands of Abbot .Ethelwig. There, too, was one bearing the name of the novice (Elfric, in the text) — Prior /Elfric who cared for the dying fugitives. THE MESSENGER. 13 arms will not readily risk their horses and their own lives in our fens ; and now that Ivo Taille-Bois hath so often emptied cm- granaries, and hath crippled or carried off all our cattle, we have the protecting shield of poverty. There is little to be got here l)ut bare walls, and Ivo, having the grant of the neigh- bouring lands from the man they call King William, is not willing that any robber but himself should come hitherward. His mansion guards the causeway, and none can pass thereon without his bene placet. But, oh Elfric ! what of the demon-possessed Ivo ? Rests he not satisfied with the last spoils he made on our poor house '? Alndes he not true to his compact that he would come no more, but leave us to enjoy his king's peace and the peace of the Lord '? Heeds he not the admonition addressed to him by Lanfranc '? Speak, Elfric, and be quick, for methinks I hear the step of the cellarer by the refectory door." " The strong keep no compact with the weak," responded the novice, " and these lawless marauders care little for William their king, less for their arch- bishop, and nothing for the Lord ! While I was hid in Crowland Abbey waiting for my Lord Abbat's letter, I heard from one of the friars who can interpret their speech, that some of these Normans were saying that Ivo Taille-]3ois wanted the snug nest at Spalding to put cleaner birds into it : that Ivo had made his preparations to dispossess us. And lo ! as I came homeward tln-ough thi; fens, and passed as near as I might to the manor-house whicli Taille-Bois made his own by forcil>ly marryiiig the good Saxon^ owner of it, I heard the ilourish of trumpets, and anon 1 See notr; on Lady Lucia, chapter IL, p. 22, 14 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. I saw, tramping along the causeway towards the well-garrisoned manor-house, forty Norman men-at- arms!" " Not so, surely not so, Elfric," said the superior in a quake, " danger cannot be so near us as that ! " "His eyes must have deceived him," cried all tlie l»r others. "Nay," said the youth, "1 saw, as plainly as I now see the faces of this good company, their lances glinting in the setting sun, and their bright steel caps and their grey mail, and . . . . " "Fen-grass and willows,''^ cried the superior, who seemed determined not to give credit to the evil tidings, " v.iiat thou tookest for spears were bulrushes waving in the l)reeze, and thy steel-caps and grey mails were but the silver}^ sides of the willow-leaves turned upwards by the wind ! Bo}^ fasting weakens the sight and makes it dim ! " " Would it were so," quoth Elfric ; " but so was it not ! I heard the trumpet give challenge from the battlements — I heard the other trumpet give response — I heard the tramping of many hoofs along the hard solid causeway ; and, creeping nearer to the road, 1 saw lances and horses and men — and they were even forty ! " " It cannot l)e," said one of the monks, " for, when he made his last paction with us, Ivo Taille-Bois swore, not only l)y three Saxon saints but eke by six saints of Normandie, that he would do us and our house no further wrong." 1 The Fen people of old often eluded their enemies by taking to the reeds and rushes which grew luxuriantly in the fens, towering above a man's head : and willows grew abundantly by the water-courses as they do now in some j^arts of the Fens. THE MESSENGEE. 15 " The senses are deceptions," said anothor of ihv brotherhood. " The foul fiend, who often kn-ks in these ^Yihl('r- nesses and plays fiery pranks in our fens, may have put it into this youth's head to mar our peace with false alarms ; " quoth another monk. " Say uuo'ning, and not false alarm," rejoined Elfric rather petulantly. " If you will not be warned, you will l)e surprised in your sleep or at your meals. These forty men-at-arms cannot come hither for other purpose than that of finishing our ruin and driving us hence. As sure as the sun riseth they will Ijc here to-morrow morning." " The boy chafes, and loses respect for his elders," said the monk who had last spoken. "Let him sup with the cats ! " cried the superior. At this moment a bell was struck below ; and at the signal the novices and la,y-brothers ran from the door at which they had been listening, and the superior, followed by the monks, and at a respectful distance by the reproved and vexed novice, hobbled down stairs to the refectory. The aspect of that hall, with its blazing wood fire, abundant tapers and torches, and well-spread tables, intimated that the superior's account of the poverty and destitution to which Ivo the Norman had reduced the house was only figurative or comparative. That good father took his place at the head of the table ; the monks took their seats according to their degree of anti([nity ; the novices and the lay-ljrothers sat below the salt ;^ and poor Elfric, submissive to his 1 It was customary, in olden times, to place a " Salt Vat" in the centre of the dinner table. This vessel was often hi^::hly ornamented 16 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. penance, sat down cross-legged on the rushes in the middle of the floor, and in the midst of all the cats of the establishment, who, I wist, knew as well as the monks the meaning of the dinner and supper bell, and always trooped into the refectory to share the fragments of the feast. One of the novices ascended a little pulpit raised high in one of the angles of the hall, and the superior having blessed the good things placed before him, this young novice read from the book of Psalms while the rest of the company ate their meal. After all had been served, even to the meanest of the lay-brothers, Elfric's bread and meat and his stoup of wine were handed to him on the floor — and then was seen what it signified to sup with the cats, for tabbies, gre_ys, blacks, and whites all whisked their tails, and purred and mewed, and scratched round about him, greedy to partake with him, and some of the most daring even dipped their whiskers into his porringer, or scratched the meat from his spoon l)efore it could reach his mouth. Nevertheless the young man made a hearty meal, and so, in spite of their fears and anxieties, did all the rest of that devout community. As grace Avas said, and as the reader was descending from the pulpit to do as the others had done, the superior, after swal- like Archbishop's Parker's Salt Vat, still preserved in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Appendix, Note E. Persons of rank sat betweeir the Salt Vat and the head of tlie table — while dependents or inferior persons sat below it. An old English Ballad says — " Thou art a carle of mean degree, The salt it doth stand between me and thee." x\nd in Bishop Hall's Satires — . . . " That he do, on no default. Even presume to sit above the salt." THE MESSENGER. 17 lowing a cup of wine, said rather blithely, " Now trim the good lamp and feed the fire, close the door, and place seats and the reading-desk romid the hearth." As the novices and lay-brothers hastened to do these biddings. Father Cedric whispered to the superior, " Would it not be fitting to shut out the young and the unordained, and deliberate by ourselves, matur'i fratres?"^ '"No," replied the superior, "we be all alike concerned ; let novices and lay-brothers stay where they are and hear the words of our Lord Abbat. If danger be so nigh, all must prepare to meet it, and some may be wanted to run into Spalding town to call upon all good Christians and true Saxons there to come to the rescue." Then turning to the youth on the rushes he said, " Elfric the messenger, thou mayest rise and take thy seat in thy proper place : I cannot yet l)elieve all thy news, and thou spokest when thou oughtest not to have spoken ; but these are days of tribulation, and mischief may be nearer than we thought it. Yet, blessed be God ! that provides food and drink for his creatures, and that makes the bounteous meal and the red wine revive the heart and courage of man, I feel very dift'erently now from what I felt before supper, and can better bear the weight of evil news, and more boldly face the perils that may lie in my path." By words or by looks all the brother- hood re-echoed this last sentiment. ^ Venerable brothers. CHAPTEE 11. THE SUCCUKSAL CELL. The Abbat of Crowland's letter, read aloud and slowly by the cheerful fire, had no note of gladness in it. It began " Woe to the Church ! woe to the servants of God ! woe to all of the Saxon race ! " and it ended with, "Woe! woe! woe!" It related how all the prelates of English birth were being expelled by foreign priests, some from France and some from Italy ; how nearly every Saxon abbat had been deprived, and nearly every religious house seized by men-at-arms and given over to strange shavelings from Normandie, from Anjou, from Picardie, from Maine, from Gasconie, and numberless other parts,^ and how these alien monks, who could not speak the tongue which Englishmen spoke, were occupying every pulpit and confessional, and consigning the people to perdition because they spoke no French, and preferred their old masters and teachers to their new ones, put over them by violence and the sword ! Jealousies and factions continued to rage among the Saxon lords and among those that claimed kindred with the national dynasties ; sloth and gluttony, and the dullness of the brain they produce, rendered of no avail the 1 There was a general ejection of the Saxon Abbots and Priors- save some few like the Abbot of Evesham wlio made submission. THE SUCCURSAL CELL. 19 might of the Saxon arm, and the corn-age of the Saxon heart. Hence a dies irre, a day of God's wrath. Aldred,^ the archbishop of York, had died of very grief and anguish of mind : Stigand," the EngHsh and the true archbishop of Canterbury, after wandering in the Danelagh and in Scotland, and flying for his life from many places, had gone in helpless condition to the Camp of Refuge in the Isle of Ely: Edgar Etheling, that royal boy, had been deserted by the Danes, who had crossed the seas in many ships to aid him ; and he had fled once more in a denuded state to the court of Malcolm Caenmore, the Scottish king. In all the north of England there had been a dismal slaughter : from York to Durham not an inhabited village remained — fire and the sword had made a wilderness there — and from Durham north to Hexham, from the Wear to the Tyne, the remorseless conqueror, Herodes, Herode ferocior, a crueller Herod than the Herod of old, had laid waste the land and slaughtered the people. York Minster had been destroyed by fire, and every church, chapel, and religious house had been either destroyed or plundered by the Nor- mans. Everywhere the Saxon patriots, after brief glimpses of success, had met with defeat and exter- mination, save and except only in the Camp of Eefugc and the Isle of Ely ; and there too misfortune had 1 Aldred had placed the crown on the head of William (as he had done on that of Harold) and was faithful to 'William's cause. The tales of Aldred rebuking the conqueror for wrong doing arc well told in Freeman's Norm. Conquest, vol. IV., p. 2G0. Aldred succumbed to the stress of sorrow and died 11th Sept., 1069. 2 The accounts of Stigand fleeing to the Camp of Kefuge rest upon no good authority. Mi-. Freeman thinks that from authentic narratives it is conclusive that Stigand was imprisoned at Winclicster from the time of his deposition till his death. c2 20 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. happened. Edwin and Morcar,^ the sons of Alfgar, brothers-in-law to King Harold, and the best and the bravest of the Saxon nobles, had quitted the Camp of Eefuge, that last asylum of Anglo-Saxon indepen- dence, and had both perished. All men of name and fame were perishing. The Saxon commonalty were stupified with amazement and terror, — Pavefactus est Pojmliis.'^ The Normans were making war even upon the dead or upon the tombs of those who had done honour to their country as patriots, warriors, si)iritual teachers and saints. Frithric,'^ the right-hearted Abbat of St. Albans, had been driven from his abbey with all his brethren : and Paul, a young man from Normandie and a reputed son of the intrusive Arch- bishop Lanfranc, had been thrust in his place. And this Paul, as his first act in office, had demolished the 1 Morcar (or Morkere) appears to have gone to the camp after the death of his brother Edwin, who on making his way to Scotland was slain by traitors. The idea of Edwin's having taken refuge there probably arose from the fact that the boss of a shield bearing a name similar to his was found in the Isle. (See the figure of this in " The Fenland Past and Present; " also a reference to it in the note on St. Godric, p. 436.) 2 The people were terrified. 8 The history of Abbot Frithric (Fredericus) appears to be largely mythical. He became Abbot of St. Albans in 1064 and was a favorite with Edward the Confessor. The tale of blocking the road with trees is told by Thierry. Frithric may have sought refuge at Ely — but Mr. Freeman remarks " all that certain history has to say about Frithric is that he was Abbot of St. Albans, and that he died or was deposed some time between 1075 and 1077." Paul, a Norman monk, then became Abbot. Paul, aided by Lanfranc reared the great church of St. Albans, and the ruins of Verulam, the Eoman city, were used in the construction of this wondrous pile — 54H feet long — in the transept of which may still be seen Eoman bricks in the arches. The restoration of this Abbey church is now complete ; but the reader must visit it in order to realize the solemn grandeur of the pile. He will see that there was artistic beauty in the work but will regret that "Goths" as well as time made i-avages upon it. (See Appendix, Note F.) THE SUCCURSAL CELL. 21 tombs of all his predecessors, whom he called rude and idiotic men, because they were of the English race ! And next, this Paul had sent over into Nor- mandie for all his poor relations and friends — men ignorant of letters and of depraved morals — and he was dividing among this foul rapacious crew the woods and the farms, all the possessions and all the' oftices of the church and abbey of St. Albans. Crowland was threatened with the same fate, and he, the abbat, was sick and brokenhearted, and could oppose the Normans only with pra3^ers — with praj^ers to which, on account of the sins of the nation, the blessed Virgin and the saints were deaf. The brethren in the succursal cell at Spalding must look to themselves, for he, the abbat, could give them no succour ; and he knew of a certainty that Ivo Taille-Bois had promised the cell to some of his kith and kin in foreign parts. The reading of this sad letter was interrupted by many ejaculations and expressions of anger and horror, grief and astonishment ; and when it was over, the spirits of the community were so depressed that the superior thought himself absolutely compelled to call upon the cellarer and bid him till the stoups again, to the end that there might be another short Bibcres. When the monks had drunk in silence, and had crossed themselves after the draught, they began to ask each other what was to be done '? for they no longer doubted that Elfric had seen the forty men-at- arms in the neighbourhood, or that Ivo Taille-Bois would be thundering at their gate in the morning. Some proposed sending a messenger into Spalding town, which was scarcely more than two good bow- 22 THE CAMP OF RBPUOB. shots distant from the cell, hghtin,^ the beacon on the tower, and sounding all the blast-horns on the house- top to summon the whole neighbourhood to their aid ; but the superior bade them reflect that this would attract the notice of Ivo Taille-Bois, and be considered as an hostile defiance ; that the neighbourhood was very thinly peopled by inexpert and timid serfs, and that most of the good men of Spalding town who possessed arms and the art of wielding them had already taken their departure for the Camp of Eefuge. At last the superior said, " We cannot attempt a resis- tance, for by means of a few lighted arrows the children of Satan would set fire to our upper works, and so burn our house over our heads. ^Ye must submit to the will of Heaven, and endeavour to turn aside the wrath of our arch-persecutor. Lucia,^ the wife of Ivo Taille-Bois, was a high-born Saxon maiden when he seized upon her (after slaying her friends), and made her his wife in order to have the show of a title to the estates. As a maiden Lucia was ever good and Saxon-hearted, especially devout to our patron saint,^ and a passing good friend and benefactress to this our humble cell. She was fair among the daughters of men, fairest in a land where the strangers themselves vouchsafe to say that beauty and comeli- ^ Lady Lucia was daughter of Algar ; Leofric, Earl of Mercia (who died in 1057), and Lady Godiva were the parents of Algar, and Hereward is tliought to have been the second son of the same parents, and, therefore, uncle of Lucia. Kiugsley (Hereward the Wake, p. 42G) assumes that Ivo Taille-Bois wedded this Lucia, and says he " rode forth through Spalding and Bourne having announced to Lucia, his bride, that he was going to slay her remaining relative ; and when she wept, cursed and kicked her, as he did once a week." That Ivo married the sister of Edwin and Morcar is not veritable history — but " he really had a wife, who on Norman lips was spoken of as Lucy." ' The Priory was dedicated to St. Mary. THE SUCCURSAL CELL. 23 ness abound ;^ she may have gotten some sway over the fierce mind of her husband, and at her suppHca- tions Ivo may be made to forego his wicked purposes. Let us send a missive to the fair Lucia." Here Brother Cedric reminded Father Adhehii that a letter would be of little use, inasmuch as the fair Lucia could not read, and had nobody about her in the manor-house that could help her in this particu- lar. " Well then," said the superior, " let us send that trusty and nimble messenger Elfric to the manor- house, and let him do his best to get access to the lady and acquaint her with our woes and fears. What sayest thou, good Elfric?" Albeit the novice thought that he had been Ijut badly rewarded for his last service, he crossed his arms on his breast, bowed his head, and said, "Obedience is my duty. I will adventure to the manor-house, I will try to see the Lady Lucia, I will go into the jaws of the monster, if it pleaseth your reverence to com- mand me so to do. But, if these walls were all of stone and lirick, I would rather stay and fight behind them : for 1 trow that the fair Lucia hath no more 1 " In tliese islands, at the time of the Norman conquest, the average of man was doubtless superior, both in body and mind, to the average of man now, simply because the weaklings could not have lived at all ; and the ricli and delicate beauty, in which the women of the Eastern Counties still surpass all other races in these isles, was doubtless far more common in proportion to the numbers of the population." — Kingsley. Is it a fact that the English of eight centuries ago were both mentally superior and more robust than ourselves '.' If the Spartans gained in physique by the destruction of tlieir weaklings, many a genius in embryo may have perished on Mount Taygelus. " The survival of the fittest" is a physical principle only. Of old — as even now — the weak died of indigence. Sir D. Brewster says of Newton, " That frail tenement which seemed scarcely able to im- prison its immortal mind, was destined to enjoy a vigorous maturity, and to survive even the average term of human existence." 24 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. power over Ivo Taille-Bois than the lamb hath over the wolf, or the sparrow over the sparrow-hawk." "But," said the superior, "unless Heaven vouch- safe a miracle, we have no other hope or chance than this. Good Elfric, go to thy cell and refresh thyself with sleep, for thou hast been a wayfarer through long and miry roads, and needest rest. We too are weary men, for we have read a very long letter and deliberated long on weighty trying business, and the hour is growing very late. Let us then all to bed, and at earliest morning dawn, after complines, thou wilt gird up thy loins and take thy staff in thine hand, and I will tell thee how to bespeak the Lady Lucia, an thou canst get to her presence. 1 will take counsel of my pillow, and call upon the saints to inspire me with a moving message that I shall send." Elfric humbly saluted the superior and all his elders by name, wished them a holy night, and with- drew from the refectory and hall to seek the rest which he really needed : but before entering his cell he went to the house-top to look out at the broad moon, and the wood, and the river, and the open country, intersected by deep cuts and ditches, which lay in front of the succursal cell. The night had become frosty, and the moon and the stars were shining their brightest in a transparent atmosphere. As the novice looked up the course of the Welland he thought he distinguished something afar off floating on the stream. He looked again, and felt certain that a large boat was descending the river towards the house. He remained silent and almost breathless until the vessel came so near that he was enabled to see that the boat was filled with men-at-arms, all THE SUCCURSAL CELL. 25 clad in mail, who held their lances in their hands, and whose shields were fastened to the sides of the boat, glittering in the moonlight. "I comit forty and one lances and forty and one shields," said the youth to himself, " but these good friars will tell me that I have seen bulrushes and willow-leaves." He closed his eyes for a time and then rubbed them and looked out again. There was the boat, and there were the lances and the shields and the men-at-arms, only nearer and more distinct, for the current of the river was rapid, and some ]ioiseless oars or paddles were at work to increase the speed without giving the alarm. " I see what is in the wind," thought Elfric ; "the Normans would surprise us and expel us by night, without rousing the good people of Spalding town." He ran down the spiral staircase ; but, short as was the time that he had been on the housetop, every light had been extinguished in the hall during the interval, every cell-door had been closed ; and a chorus of loud snores that echoed along the corridor told him that, inaugre their troubles and alarms, all the monks, novices, and lay-brothers were already fast asleep. " I will do what I can do," said the youth, " for if 1 wake the superior he will do nothing. If the men of Spalding town cannot rescue us, they shall at least be witnesses to the wrongs put upon us. Nay, Gurth the smith, and Wybert the wheelwright, and Nat the weaver, and Leolf the woodsman, be brave-hearted knaves, and have the trick of archery. From the yon side of those ditches and trenches, which these heavy-armed Normans cannot pass, per- chance a hole or two may be driven into their chain jerkins!" 26 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. Taking the largest horn in the house he again ascended to the roof, and turning towards the Httle town he biew^ with all his strength and skill, and kept blowing until he was answered by three or four horns in the town. By this time the 1)oat was almost under the walls of the monastery, and an arrow from it came whistling close over the yontli's head. " There are neither battlements nor parapets here," said he, " and it is now time to rouse the brethren." In a moment he was in the corridor rapping at the doors of the several cells, wherein the monks slept on, not hearing the blowing of the horns ; but before half the inmates were roused from their deep slumber the Normans had landed from the boat, and had come round to the front of the house shouting, " Taille- Bois ! Taille-Bois ! Notre Dame to our aid ! and Taille-Bois to his own ! Get up, ye Saxon churls that be ever sleeping or eating, and make way for better men !" The superior forgot his gout and ran to the hall. They all ran to the hall, friars, novices, lay-brothers, and hinds,^ and lights were brought in and hurried deliberations commenced, in which every one took part. Although there was overmuch sloth, there was little cowardice among these recluses. If there had been any chance of making good the defence of the house, well I ween the major part of them would have voted for resistance ; but chance there was none, and therefore, with the exception of Elfric, whose courage, at this time of his life, bordered on rash- ness, they all linally agreed with the superior that the wisest things to do would be to bid Hubert the ' Lay-brothers and underlings. THE SUCCURSAL CELL. 27 portarins throw open the gate and lower the bridge ; to assemble the whole community in the chapel, light up all tapers on the high altar and shrines, and chant the Libera Nos Domine — Good Lord deliver us ! "It is not psalmody that will save us from expul- sion," thought Ell'ric. Now Hubert the porter was too old and too much disturbed in spirit to do all that he had to do with- out help ; and Father Cedric bade the sturdy novice go and assist him. " Ma}^ I die the death of a dog — may I. be hanged on a Norman gibbet," said Elfric to himself, "if I help to open the gates to these midnight robbers!" And instead of following Hubert down to the gate, he went again (sine Abbatis Uccnfui, without license or knowledge of his superior) to the house-top, to see whether any of the folk of Spalding town had ventured to come nigh. As he got to the corner of the roof from which he had blown the horn, he heard loud and angry voices below, and curses and threats in English and in Norman French. And he saw about a score of Spalding-men in their sheepskin jackets and with bows and knives in their hands, menacing and reviling the mail-clad men-at-arms. The Saxons soon got themselves well covered from the foe by a broad deep ditch, and by a bank ; but some of the Normans had brought their bows with them, and a shaft let fly at the right moment when one of the Saxons was exposing his head and shoulders above the bank, took effect, and was instantly followed by a wild scream or yell — " Wybert is down ! Wybert is slain !" " Then this to avenge him, for Wybert was a good man and true ;" and Elfric, who had brought a bow 28 THE CAMP OF BBFUGB. with him from the corridor, drew the string to his ear and let fly an arrow which killed the Norman that had killed Wybert the wright. It was the men-at- arms who now yelled ; and, even as their comrade was in the act of falling, a dozen more arrows came whistling among them from l)ehind the bank and made them skip. Ivo Taille-Bois lifted up his voice and shouted, " Saxon churls, ye mean to befriend your faineant^ monks ; but if ye draw another bow I will set fire to the cell and grill them all ! " This was a terrible threat, and the poor men of Spalding knew too well that Ivo could easily do that which he threatened. The noise had reached the chapel, where the superior was robing himself, and Father Cedric came to the house-top to conjure the Saxons to retire and leave the servants of the saints to the protection of the saints. At the top of the spiral staircase he found the novice with the bow in his hand ; and he said unto him, " What dost thou here, et sine licentia " ?^ " I am killing Normans," said Elfric ; " but Wybert the wright is slain, and the men of Spalding are losing heart." " Mad boy, get thee down, or we shall all be burned alive. Go help Hubert unbar the gate and drop the bridge." " That will I never, though I break my monastic vow of obedience," said the youth. " But hark ! the chain rattles ! — the bridge is down — the hinge creaks — by heaven ! the gate is open — Ivo Taille-Bois and his devils are in the house ! Then is this no place for 1 Faineant — idling. ^ ^j^ j without permission. THE SUCCURSAL CELL. 29 me !" And before the monk could check him, or say another word to hmi, the novice rushed to the opposite side and leaped from the roof into the deep moat. Forgetting his mission — which was to conjure the Saxons in the name of Father Adhelm the superior of the house not to try the arms of the flesh, — old Cedric followed to the spot whence the bold youth had taken his spring, but before he got there Elfric had Bwum the moat and was making fast for the Welland, in the apparent intention of getting into the fens beyond the river, where Norman pursuit after him could be of no avail. The monk then went towards the front of the building and addressed the Saxons who still lingered behind the ditch and the bank, bemoaning the fate of Wybert, and not knowing what to do. Eaising his voice so that they might hear him, Cedric beseeched them to go back to their homes in the town ; and he was talking words of peace unto them when he was struck from l)ehind by a heavy Norman sword which cleft his cowl and his skull in twain : and he fell over the edge of the wall into the moat. Some of the men-at-arms had seen Elfric bending his bow on the house-top, and the Norman who had been slain had pointed, while dying, in that direction. After gaining access they had slain old Hubert and the lay-brother who had assisted him in lowering the drawbridge; and then, wbilo the rest I'ushed towards the chapel, two of the men-at-arms found their way to the roof, and there seeing Cedric they despatched him as the fatal archer and as the daring monk who bad blown the horn to call out the men of Spalding. As Fatlier Cedric fell into the moat, and tbe Normans were se(!n in poss(.'ssion of the 30 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. cell, the men of Spalding withdrew, and carried with them the body of Wybert. But if they withdrew to their homes, it was but for a brief season and in order to carry off their moveable goods and their families ; for they all knew that Ivo Taille-Bois would visit the town with fire and sword. Some fled across the Welland and the fens to go in search of the Camp of.Eefuge, and others took their way towards the wild and lonesome shores of the Wash. But how fared the brotherhood i]i the chapel below ? As Ivo Taille-Bois at the head of his men-at-arms burst into the holy place — made holy by the relics of more than one Saxon saint, and by the tomb and imperishable body of a Saxon who had died a saint and martyr at the hand of the Danish Pagans in the old time, before the name of Normans was ever heard of — the superior and friars, dressed in their stoles, as if for high mass, and the novices and the lay-brothers, were all chanting the Libera Nos ; and they seemed not to be intimidated or disturbed by the flashing of swords and lances, or by the sinful imprecations of the invaders ; for still they stood where they were, in the midst of tapers and flam bards, as motionless as the stone effigies of the saints in the niches of the chapel ; and their eyes moved not from the books of prayer, and their hands trembled not, and still the,y chanted in the glorious strain of the Gregorian chant^ (which Time had not mended), Libera No>i Domine / "Good Lord deliver us!" and when they had finished the supplication, they struck up in a 2 The Gregoiian Music is coming into more general favour at the present day. The Gregorian Chants are Clioral Music arranged according to the celebrated Church modes by Pope Gregory I. THE SUCCURSAL CELL. SI more cheerful note, DeuH Noster Refwjium, God is our Refuge. Fierce and unrighteous man as he was, Ivo Taille- Bois stood for a season on the threshold of the chapel with his mailed elbow leaning on the font that held the holy water ; and, as the monks chanted, some of his men-at-arms crossed themselves and looked as if they were conscious of doing unholy things which ought not to be done. But when the superior glanced at him a look of defiance, and the choir began to sing Quid Glovlaris ! "Why boasteth thou thyself, thou tyrant, that thou canst do mischief?" Ivo bit his lips, raised up his voice — raised it higher than the voices of the chanting monks, and said, " Sir Priest, or prior, come forth and account to the servant of thy lawful King William of Normandie for thy unlawful doings, for thy gluttonies, backshdings, and rebellions, for thy uncleanliness of life and thy disloyalty of heart ! " But Father Adlielm moved not, and still the monks sang on : and they came to the versets — " Thou hast loved to speak all w^ords that may do hurt ; oh ! thou false tongue — therefore shall God destroy thee for ever : He shall take thee and pluck thee out of thy dweUing." "False monk, 1 will first pluck thee out of thine," cried Ivo, who knew enough church Latin to know what the Latin meant that the moiiks were chanting ; and he strode across the chapel towards the superior, and some of his men-at-arms strode hastily after him, making the stone floor of th(! chapel ring with the heavy tread of their iron-bound shoon ; and some of the men-at-arms stood fast by the chapel door, playing with the fingers of their gloves of mail and looking in 32 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. one another's eyes or down to the ground, as if they liked not the work that Ivo had in hand. The monks, the novices, the lay-brothers, all gathered closely round their superior and linked their arms together so as to prevent Ivo from reaching him ; and the superior, taking his crucifix of gold from his girdle, and raising it high above his head and above the heads of those who girded him in, and addressing the Norman chief as an evil spirit, or as Sathanas the father of all evil spirits, he bade him avaunt ! Ivo had drawn his sword, but at sight of the cross he hesitated to strike, and even retired a few steps in arrear. The monks renewed their chant ; nor stopped, nor were interrupted by any of the Normans until they had finished this Psalm. But when it was done Ivo Taille-Bois roared out, " Friars, this is psalmody enough ! Men-at-arms, your trumpets ! Sound the charge." And three Normans put each a trumpet to his lips and sounded the charge ; which brought all the men-at-arms careering against the monks and the novices and the lay-brothers ; so that the living fence was broken and some of the brethren were knocked down and trampled under foot, and a path was opened for Ivo, who first took the golden crucifix from the uplifted hand of Father Adhelm and put it round his own neck, and then took the good father by the throat and bade him come forth from the chapel into the hall, where worldly business might be done without offering insult or violence to the high altar. ''I will first pour out the curses of the church on thy sacrilegious head," said the superior, throwing oft' the Norman count, and with so much strength that Ivo reeled and would have fallen to the ground among THE SUCCURSAL CELL. 38 the prostrate monks, if lie had not first fallen against some of his men-at-arms. Father Adhelm broke away from another Norman who clutched him, hut in so doing he left nearly all his upper garment in the soldier's hand, and he was rent and ragged and with- out his cruciiix when he reached the steps of the altar and began his malediction. " Stop the shavelings tongue, but shed no blood here," cried Ivo ; "seize him, seize them all, and bring them into the refectory!" — and so saying the chief rushed out of the chapel into the hall. It w^as an unequal match — thirty-nine men-at-arms against a few monks and l)oys and waiting men ; yet before the superior could be dragged from the high altar, and conveyed with all his community into the hall, several of the Normans w^ere made to measure their length on the chapel floor (they could not wrestle like our true Saxons), and some of them were so squeezed within their mail sleeves and gorgets^ by the grip of Saxon hands, that they bore away the marks and smarts that lasted them many a day. It was for this that one of them cut the weazen" of the sturdy old cook as soon as he got him outside the chapel door, and that another of them cut off the ears of the equally stout cellarer. At last they were all conveyed, bound with their cords oi- girdles, into the hall. The Taille-Bois, with his naked sword in his hand, and with a man-at-arms on either side of Inm, sat at the top of the hall in the superior's chair of state ; and the superior and the rest of the brotherhood were brought before him like crimiiuils. ' Pieces of armour that protect the throat, (Fr. gorge, the gullet.) * Properly weasand, from Saxon wa'xeiid, tho windpipe. D 34 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. " Brother to the devil," said Ivo, " what was meant by thj'' collecting of armed men — rebel and traitor serfs that shall rue the deed ! — thy soundinj:^ of horns on the house-top ; thy fighting monks that have killed one of my best men-at-arms ; thy long delay in opening thy doors to those who knocked at them in the name of King \Yilliam ; thy outrages in the chapel, and all thy other iniquities which I have so oft-times pardoned at the prayer of the Lady Lucia ? Speak, friar, and tell me why I should not hang thee over thine own gateway as a terror and an example to all the other Saxon monks in this country, who are all in their hearts enemies and traitors to the good king that God and victory have put over this land ! " Had it not been that Father Adhelm was out of breath, from his wrestling in the Chapel, I wist he never would have allowed Ivo Taille-Bois to speak so long without interruption. But by the time the Nor- man paused, the superior had partly recovered his breath ; and he did not keep the Norman waiting for his answer. " Son of the fire everlasting," cried Adhelm, " it is for me to ask what meanest thou by thy transgres- sions, past and present '? Why hast thou from thy first coming among us never ceased from troubling me and these other servants of the saints, the brothers of this poor cell ? '^Vlly hast thou seized upon and emp- tied our granaries and our cellars (more the possessions of the saints and of the poor than our possessions) "? Why hast thou carried off the best of our cattle "? Why hast thou and thy people lamed our horses and our oxen, and killed our sheep and poultry '? Why hast thou caused to be assailed on the roads, and ~f THE SUCCUKSAL CELL. 35 beaten with staves and s^YO^ds, the la.y-brothers and servants of this house '? Why didst thou come at the ^ dead of night like a chief of robbers with thy men-at- arms and cut-throats to break in upon us and to wound and sUiy the servants of the Lord, ^Yho have gotten thy king's peace, and letters of protection from the Archbishop Lanfranc?' Oh, Ivo Taille-Bois ! tell me why thou shouldst not be overtaken by the ven- geance of man's law in this world, and by eternal perdition in the next "? " Ivo was not naturally a man of many words ; and thinking it best to cut the discussion short, he grinned a grim grin, and said in a calm and business-like tone of voice, " Saxon ! we did not conquer thy country to leave Saxons possessed of its best fruits. This house and these wide domains are much too good for thee and thine : I want them, and long have wanted them, to bestow upon others. Wot ye not that I have be- yond the sea one brother and three cousins that have shaved their crowns and taken to thy calling — that in Normandie, Anjou, and Maine there are many of my kindred and friends who Avear hoods and look to me for provision and establishment in this land of ignorance and heresy, where none of your home-dwel- ling Saxon monks know how to make the tonsure^ in the right shape ? " 1 Int^'ulphus was intTOcluced to court at tlie time of the interview ol Edward the Confessor and William Duke of Normandy, 1051, and went with the latter to Normandy. He is said to have been conse- crated by Lanfranc, and installed at Crowland in 1070. This is the general ieadinf; of the Monasticon, but we shall be more accurate by regarding Wulketul (or Ulfcytel) as Abbot of Crowland at the time of the expulsion of the monks of Spalding. '■^The crown formed on the head of the Koman Catholic; clergy by clipping the hair (from Fr. tonsurer.) p2 36 THE CAMP or r.EFUGE. "Woe to the land, and woe to the good Christian people of it ! " said the superior and several of his monks ; " it is then to be with lis as with the brother- hood of the great and hol}^ abbey of St. Albans ! We are to be driven forth empty-handed and broken- hearted, and om- places are to be supplied by rapa- cious foreigners who speak not and understand not the tongue of the English people ! Ah woe ! w^as it for this that Saxon saints and martyrs died and be- queathed their bones to our keeping and their miracles to our superintendence ; that Saxon kings and queens descended from their thrones to live among us, and die among us, and enrich us, so that we might give a beauty to holiness, a pomp and glory to the v/orship of heaven, and ample alms, and still more ample em- ployment to the poor '? Was it for this the great and good men of our race, our thanes and our earls, be- queathed lands and money to us ? Was it to fatten herds of alien monks, who follow in the bloody track of conquest and devastation, and come among us with swords and staves, and clad in mail oven like your men-at-arms, that we and our predecessors in this cell have laboured without intermission to drain these liogs and fens, to make roads for the foot of man through this miry wilderness, to cut broad chan- nels to carry of the waste waters to the great deep, to turn quagmires into bounteous corn fields, and meres into g]-cen pastures ? "^ While the Saxon monks thus delivered themselves, Ivo and his Normans (or such of them as could under- stand what was said) ofttimes interrupted them, and 1 The most effectual drainage belongs to a very recent iierioJ. At the present day a stranger could not realize, while passing through the Fen district, that it once was what is described in the text. THE SUCCURSAL CELL. 37 spoke in this wise — " King William hath the sanction of his lioliness the Pope for all that he hath clone or doth. Lanfranc loveth not Saxon priests and monks, and Raxon priests and monks love not the king nor any of the Normans, but are ever privately preaching and prating about Harold a]id Edgar Etheling, and putting evil designs into the heads of the people. The Saxon saints are no saints : who ever heard their names beyond sea ? Their half-pagan kings and no) lies have heaped wealth here and elsewhere that generous Norman knights and better bred Norman monks^ might have the enjoyment of it. The nest is too good for these foul birds : we have better birds to put into it. Let us then turn these Englishers out of doors." T]ie last evil deed was speedily done, and superior, monks, novices, lay-brothers, were all thrust out of the gateway, and driven across the bridge. If the well-directed arrow of Elfric had slain one man-at- arms and the folk of Spalding town had slightly wounded two or three others, the Normans had killed Father Cedric, Hubert the porter, and the man that assisted him, had killed the cook, and cut off the ears of the cellarer. The conquerors therefore sought to shed no more blood, and the Taille-Bois was satisfied when he saw the brotherhood dispossessed and turned out upon the wide world with nothing they could call 1 The abandoned cell was given by Ivo to the abbey of St. Nicholas of Angiers in Normandy. " The charter of licence for this purpose will be found in the Appendix of instruments, togetlier with the substance of a charter from Ivo Taille-Bois, dated in 1085." This last date was really the time of the deposition of Ulfcytel of Crow- land. A second charter of Ivo's, granted to the Abbot of Angiers the tithes of toll, salt, sea-fish and the fishery of Westlode for the monks' auppoii. 38 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. their own, except the sandals on their feet, and the torn clothes on their backs, and two or three church books. When a little beyond the moat they all shook the dust from their feet against the sons of the ever- lasting lire ; and the superior, leisurely and in a low tone of voice, finished the malediction which he had begun in the chapel against Ivo Taille-Bois. This being over, Father Adhelm counted his httle flock and said, "But oh, my children, where is the good Cedric ? " "Cedric was killed on the house-top, and lies dead in the moat," said one of the lay-brothers who had learned his fate when the rest of the community were ignorant of it. " Peace to his soul, and woe to him that slew him ! " said the superior ; " but where is Elfric "? I see not the brave boy Elfric." "I saw Elfric outside the walls of our house 'and running for the Welland, just as the Normans were admitted," said the lay-brother who had before spoken, " and it must have been he that sent the arrow through the brain of the man-at-arms that lies there on the green sward." "He will send his arrows through the brains of many more of them," said the superior. "My chil- dren, I feel the spirit of prophecy speaking within me, and I tell ye all that Elfric, our whilome novice, will live to do or cause to be done more mischief to the opj)ressors of his country than all the chiefs that have taken up arms against them. He hath a head to plan, and a heart to dare, and a strong hand to execute. I know the course he will take. He will return to the Isle of Ely, the place of his birth, in the midst of the many waters, and throw himself into the Camp of THE SUCCURSAL CELL. 39 Kefuge, where the Saxon motto is ' Death or Indepen- dence.' " Before moving to the near bank of the Welland, or to the spot to which the Normans had sent down the ferry-boat, Father Adhehn again counted his little Hock, and said, "Cedric lies dead in the moat, Hubert and Bracho lie cold under the archway, Elfric the novice is Hed to be a thorn in the sides of these Nor- mans, but, oh tell me ! where is good Osw'ald the cook'? " "After they had dragged your reverence into the hall, a man-at-arms cut his throat, even as Oswald used to cut the throats of swine ; and he lies dead by the chapel-door."' " Miscricordiaf (0 mercy on us !) Go where we will, we shall never find so good a cook again ! " Although it seemed but doubtful where or when they should find material for another meal the afflicted community repeated the superior's alacks and miseri- cordias ! mourning the loss of old Oswald as a man and as a Saxon, but still more as the best of cooks.^ 1 The writer seems to liave held the sentiment — that human attach- ment, even among devout men, has a vein of selfishness in it. Love devoid of selfishness is pure indeed ! CHAPTER III. THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY. Islands made by the sea, and yet more islands, inland, by rivers, lakes, and meres, have in many places ceased to be islands in everything save only in name.^ The changes are brought about by time and the fluctua- tions of nature, or by the industry and perseverance of man. We, the monks of Ely that now live {Henrico Se.cun- clo, regnante),^ have witnessed sundry great changes in the Fen Country, and more changes be now contem- plated ; in sort that in some future age, men may find it hard to conceive, from that which they see in their day, the manner of country the Fen country^ was when the Normans first came among us. Then, I wist, the Isle of Ely was to all intents an inland 1 Names ending in ea as Manea, and some moditied into ey as Thorney. 2 This appears to be a reference to " Gesta Eegis Henrici Secundi" — the chronicle of the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I. (1169 — 92), by Benedict of Peterborough. The student will find this in the series of chronicles published under the authority of the Master of the Rolls. (Longmans.) ■''The only piece of real old Fen, at the present day, is found near Burwell, south of Ely and east of the Cam. A stranger i-iding through the Fen district would merely consider himself a traveller in a fertile plain — he would not realize that it was once Fen. THE GKEAT HOUSE AT ELY. 41 island, being surrounded on every side by lakes, meres and broad rivers, which became still broader in the season of rain, there being few artihcial embankments to confine them, and few or no droves or cuts to carry off the increase of water towards the Wash and the sea. The isle had its name from Helig or Elig,' a British name for the Willow, wliieli grew in great abundance in every part of it, and whicli formed in many parts low but almost impenetral)le forests, with marshes and quagmires under them, or within tliem. Within the compass of the waters, which marlced the limits of the country, and isolated it from the neigh- bouring countries — which also from south to north, for the length of well nigh one hundred miles, and from east to west, for the breath of well nigh forty miles, were a succession of inland islands, formed like Ely itself — there were numerous meres, marshes, rivers, and brooks. The wliole isle was almost a dead flat, with here and there an inconsiderable emmence standing up from it. These heights were often surrounded l)y water ; and when the autumnal or the spring rains swelled the meres and streams, and covered the fiats, they formed so many detached islets. Though surrounded and isolated, they were never covered by water ; therefore it was upon these heights and knolls that men in all times had built their towns, and their churches and temples. Com- munications were kept up by means of boats, carricks, and skerries, and of flat-bottonied boats M'hieh could float in shallow water ; and, save in the beds of the rivers, and in some of the meres, the waters were but 1 This etymology is no< correct. Ely means ccl-island; al, Saxon for eel; ii), Saxon for island; and Elig became modified into Ely. See " The book ol' Ely {Liber Eliensis), also "The Eenland." 42 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. shallow even in the season of rains. But if it was a miry, it was not altogether a hung-ry land. When the waters subsided, the greenest and richest pasture sprung up in many parts of the plain, and ga^•(,' sustenance to innumerable herds. The alluvial soil was almost everywhere rich and productive ; and the patches which had been drained and secured, re- warded the industry and ingenuity of the inhabitants with abundant crops. The Koman conquerors, with amazing difficulty, had driven one of their military roads^ through the heart of the country ; but this noble causeway was an undeviating straight line, without any branches or cross roads springing from it; and it was so flanked in nearly its whole extent by meres, pools, rivers, rivulets, swamps, and willow forests, that a movement to the one side or the other was almost impracticable, unless the Eomans, or those who succeeded the conquerors in the use of the cause- way, embarked in boats and travelled like the natives of the country. In all times it had been a land of refuge against invaders. In the days of Eome the ancient Britons rallied here, and made a good stand after all the rest of England had been subdued. Again, when Eome was falling fast to ruin, and the legions of the empire had left the Britons to take care of them- selves, that people assembled here in great numbers to resist the fierce Saxon invaders. Again, when the Saxons were assailed by the Danes and Norwegians, and the whole host of Scandinavian rovers and pirates, the indwellers of the Isle of Ely, after enjoying a long exemption from the havoc of war and invasion, defied 1 This refers to Akeman Street, which ran from Cambridge to Ely, Littleport, across the Little Ouse near Brandon and on to Lynn — ■ most likely a British road originally. (See map.) THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY. 48 the bloody Dane, and maintained a long contest with him ; and now, as at earlier periods, and as at a later date, the isle of Eh- became a place of refuge to many of the people of the upland country, and of other and more open parts of England, where it had not been found possible to resist the Danish battle-axes. The traditions of the ancient Britons had passed away with that unhappy and extinct race ; but the whole fenn}^ country was full of Saxon traditions, and stories of the days of trouble when war raged over the isle, and the fierce Danes found their way up the rivers, which opened upon the sea, into the very heart of the country. The saints and martyrs of the district were chiefly brave Saxons who had fought the Danes in many battles, and who had fallen at last under the swords of the unconverted heathen. The miracles that were wrought in the land of many waters were for the most part wrought at the toml)S of these Saxon wai'riors. The legends of patriotism were Idended with the legends and rites of religion. Every church had its patriot saint and mart^a- ; in every religious house the monks related the prowess, and chanted daily requiems, and said frequent masses to the soul of some great Saxon warrior who had fallen in battle ; or to some fair Saxon maid or matron, who had pre- ferred torture and death to a union with a pagan ; or to some Saxon queen or princess, who, long before the coming of the Danes, and at the first preaching of the Gospel among the Saxons by Saint Augustine and his blessed followers, had renounced a throne and all the grandeurs and pleasures of tlie world, and all her riches, (reltctis fortunis omtdhus !) to devote herself to the service of heaven, to found a monastery, and 44 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. to be herself the first hidv abbess of the monastery she founded. The foremost and most conspicions of all the heights in this fen comitry was crowned by the abbey and conventual house of Ely, around which a large town, entirely governed by the Lord Abbat, (or, in the Lord Abbat's name, by the Cellarius of the abbey), had grown. The Mrst conventual church was founded in the time of the Heptarchy, about the year of our Lord six hundred and seventy, by Saint Etheldreda, a ({ueen, wife, virgin, and saint. Etheldreda^ was wife to King Egfrid,^ the greatest of the Saxon kings, and daughter of Anna, king of the East x\ngles, whose dominions included the isle of Ely, and extended over the whole of Suffolk and Norfolk. This the lirst abbey church was built by Saint Wilfrid, bishop of York, who, with his sainted companion, Benedict, bishop of Northum- berland, had travelled in far countries to learn their arts, and had brought from Home into England paint- ed glass, and glaziers, and masons, and all manner of artificers.. When the Church was finished, a mon- astery was built and attached to it by the same royal devotee. Neither the love of her husband nor any other consideration could make Etheldreda forego her fixed purpose of immuring herself in the cloisters. Many of her attached servants of lioth sexes, whom she had converted, followed her to Ely, and were pro- vided with separate and appropriate lodgings. Ethel- 1 Etheldreda was first married to Tonbert, a in-ince of the South Gyrwians, in G5'2, and it was through him she gained her title to the Isle of Ely, which retained the privilege of a principality after a bishopric was erected there. 2 Ecgfrith was son of Oswin (Oswy) king of Northunibria ; at his death the supremacy of Northumbria declined. THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY. 45 dreda was the first abbess of Ely ; and after many years spent in the exercise of devotion, in fasting, penitence,, and prayer, she died with so strong an odour of sanctity that it could not be mistaken ; and she was canonised forthwith by the pope at Eome. Some of her servants were beatified : one, the best and oldest of them all, Ovin,^ who was said to descend from the ancient Britons,^ and who had been minister to her husband the king, or to herself as queen, was canonised soon after his death. Huna, her chaplain, after assisting at her interment, retired to a small island in the Feus near Ely, where he spent the rest of his days as an anchorite, and died with the repu- tation of a saint. Many sick resorted to Huna's grave and recovered health. Her sister Sexburga was the second abbess of Ely, and second only to herself in sanctity. She too was canonised ; and so also were her successors the abbesses Ermenilda andWithburga.^ The bodies of all the four lay in the choir of the chui-ch. ' In Liber Eliensis he in thus spoken of — " Venerant cum ex nonnulli laobiles (? fideles) viri ac femina; de provincia Orientaliura Angloriuni, inter tpios pi.Tcipum auetortaiis vir magniticns erat Oswinus nomine. - Stukely writing to Bentliam says, " Ovin is a Welsh name .... the Isle of Ely was possessed by the Britons long after the Saxons had taken hold of England." •'■ Withburga founded a nunnery at East Dereham. On the west side of East Dereham Church may still be seen the ruins of a tomb (there is a well near) — the whole being inclosed. A stone bears this mscription — •' The Iluins of a tomb wliich contained the remains of WrrnnFiidA, Youngest daughter of Annas, King of the East-Angles, Who died a.d. (y'yi. The Abbot and Monks of Ely stole tliis precious Eelique and translated it to Ely Cathedral where it was interred near her three Roval sisters. a.». 974." 46 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. The house had had many good penmen, and yet, it was said that they had failed to record all the miracles that had been wrought at these tom])s. But the holi- ness of the place had not always secured it. In or about the year 870 the unbelieving Danes, by ascend- ing the Ouse, got unto Ely, slew all the monks and nuns, and plundered and destroyed the ab])e_y. And after this, Saxon kings, no better than heathens, an- nexed all the lands and revenues of the house to the crown, to spend among courtiers and warriors the sub- stance which Saint Ermenilda and the other ])enefac- tors of the abbey had destined to the support of peace-preaching monks, and to the sustenance of the poor. And thus fared it with the abl^ey of Ely, until the reign of the great and bountiful King Edgar, who in course of his reign founded or restored no fewer than fifty monasteries. In the year 970 this ever-to- be-revered king {Rex Venerandus) granted the whole of the island of Ely, with all its appurtenances, privileges, and immunities, to Ethelwald, Ijishop of Winchester, who rebuilt the church and the monas- tery, and provided them well with monks of the Benedictine order. The charter of Edgar, as was recorded by that king's scribe in the preamble to it, was granted " not privately and in a corner, but in the most public manner, and under the canopy of heaven." The charter was confirmed by other kings, and subse- quently by the pope. The great and converted Danish King Canute, who loved to glide along the waters of the river and listen to the monks of Ely singing in their choir, and who ofttimes visited the Lord Abbat, and feasted with him at the seasons of the great fes- tivals of the church, confirmed the charter ; and the THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY. 47 cartularies of the house contained Kkewise the con- firmation of King Edward the Confessor, now a saint and king in heaven, (in cado sanctns ct re.r.) Theoretical and fabulous are the tales of those who say that the Saxons had no majestic architecture ; that their churches and abbeys and monasteries were built almost entirely of wood, without arches or columns, without aisles or cloisters ; and that there was no grandeur or beauty in the edifices of England until after the Norman conquest. The abbey l)uilt at Ely in the tenth century by the Saxon bishop Ethelwald was a stately stone edifice, vast in its dimensions, and richly ornamented in its details. Piound-headed arches rested upon rows of massive columns ; the roof of the church and the roof of the great hall of the abbey were arched and towering ; and, high above all, a tower and steeple shot into the air, to serve as a landmark throughout the flat fenny country, and a guide to such as might lose themselves among the meres and the lal)yrinths of the Avillow forests. If the monks of Ely were lords of all the country and of all the people dwelling in it, those people and all honest wayfarers ever found the hospi- table gates of the abbey open to receive them : and all comers were feasted, according to their several degrees, ])y the Lord Abl)at, the p]'ior, the cellarer, the hospitaller, the pietancer, or some other ofticer of the house. Twenty knights, with their twenty squires to carry arms and shield, (a una ac scuta), did service to the Loi'd Abljat as his military retainers; and in his great stables room was left for many more horses. The house had had many noble, hospitable, Saxon- hearted heads, but nevei- one more iiiuiiilicent luid 48 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. magnificent than the Abbat Thurstan.^ He had been appointed to the dignity in the peaceful days of Edward the Confessor; but King Harold, on ascend- ing the throne, had shown him many favours, and had given hira the means of being still more generous. This last of our Saxon kings had begun his reign with great popularity, being accessible, affable, and cour- teous to all men, and displaying a great regard for piety and justice. In the Confessor's time, under the title of earl, he had ruled as a sovereign^ in Norfolk and Suffolk and part of Cambridge, and he was a native of East Angiia. He had been open-handed and open-hearted. From all these reasons the people of this part of England were singularly devoted to his cause, and so thoroughly devoted to his person that they would not for a very long time believe that he had perished in the battle of Hastings ; their hope and belief being that he had only been wounded, and would soon re-appear among them to lead them against the Norman. When Duke William had been crowned in West- minster Abbey, and when his constantly reinforced and increasing armies had spread over the country, many of the great Saxon heads of religious houses, even like the Abbat of Crowland, had sent in their submission, and had obtained the king's peace, in the vain hope that thus they would be allowed to retain 1 This Tliurstan was a Saxon Abbot but it may be well to note there were two other "superiors"' of religious houses, bearing that name — one Tliurstan a Norman of G-lastonbury appointed in 1082 ; this Abbot got into contlici with his monks as he wished to abandon the Gregorian duets — foul deeds followed. Another Norman Thurstan (or Toustain) was Abbot of Pershore in 1085. -Harold was Earl of East-Anglia from 1045 till his temporary banishment 1051-52. .^Ifgar ruled during that time. THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY. 49 their places and dignities, and preserve their brethren from persecution, and the foundations over which they presided from the hands of foreign spoilers and intru- ders. Not so Thurstan, my Lord Abbat of Ely. He would not forget the many obligations he owed, and the friendship and fealty he had sworn to the generous, lion-hearted Harold; and while the lands of other prelates and abbats lay open everywhere to the fierce Norman cavalry, and their hinds and serfs, their armed retainers and tenants, and all the people dwelling near them, were without heart or hope, and impressed with the belief that the Normans were invincible, Thurstan, from the window of the hall, or from the top of the abbey tower, looked across a wide expanse of country which nature had made defensible ; and he knew that he was backed by a stout-hearted and devoted people, who would choke up the rivers with the dead bodies of the Normans, and with their own corpses, ere they would allow the invaders to reach the abbey of Ely and the shrine of Saint Etheldreda. Hence Thurs- tan had been emboldened to give shelter to such English lords, and such persecuted Saxons of what- soever degree, as fled from the oppression of the conquerors to the isle of Ely. Thanes dispossessed of their lands, bishops deimved of their mitres, aljbots driven from theii' monasteries to make room for foreigners, all flocked hither ; and whether they Ijrought much money or rich jewels with them, or whether they l)rought nothing at all, they all met with a hospitable reception : so large and English was the heart of Abbat Thurstan. When it was seen that William was breaking all the old and free Saxon 50 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. institutions, and the mild and (equitable laws of Edward the Confessor, which he had most solemnly sworn to preserve and maintain ; that the promptest submission to the conqueror ensured no lasting safety to life or property ; and that the Normans, one and all, laity and clergy, knights and bishops, were pro- claiming that all men of Saxon blood ought to be disseised of their property, and ought to be reduced to servitude and bondage, and were acting as if this system could soon be established, more and more fugitives came flying into the fen countr}'. The town of Ely was roomy, but it was crowded ; vast were the monastery, and hospitium, and dependencies, but they were crowded also : and far and near, on the dry hillocks, and in the green plains fenced from the waters, were seen huts and rude tents, and the blue smoke of many fires rising above the grey willows and alders. It were long to tell how many chiefs and nobles of fame, and how many churchmen of the highest dignity, assembled at dinner-time, and at supper- time, in my Lord Abbat's great hall, where each had his seat according to his rank, and where the arms of every great chief were hung behind him on the wall, and where the banner of every chief and noble floated over his head, pendant from the groined roof. All the bravest and most faithful of the Saxon warriors who bad survived the carnage of Hastings, and of the many battles which had been fought since that of Hastings, were here ; and in the bodies of these men, scarred with the wounds inflicted by the Nor- man lances, flowed the most ancient and noble blood of England. They had been thanes and earls, and THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY. 51 owners of vast estates, Init now they nearly all de- pended for their bread on the Lord Abbat of Ely. Stigand/ the dispossessed Saxon Primate of all Eng- land, was here ; Egelwin, the dispossessed Saxon Bishop of Durham, was here ; Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, was here ; and on one side of Alexander sat the good Bishop of Lindisfarn, while on the other side of him the pious Bishop of Winchester ate the bread of dependence and sorrow. Among the chiefs of great religious houses were Eghelnoth the Al)bat of Glas- tonbury, and Frithric the most steadfast and most Saxon-hearted of all Lord Abbats. A very hard man, an unlettered, newly-emancipated serf, from one of the hungriest parts of Normandie or Maine, had taken possession of the great house at Glastonbury ,- and had caused the bodies of his predecessors, the abbats of English race, to be disinterred ; and, gather- ing their bones together, he had cast them in one heap without the gates, as if, instead of being the bones of holy and beatified monks, they had been the l)ones of sheep, or oxen, or of some unclean animals. Frithric of Saint Albans, who had been spiritual and temporal lord of one of the fairest parts of England, of nearly all the woodland and meadow- land and corn-fields that lay between Saint Albans and Barnet on the one side, and between Luton and Saint Albans on the other side — Frithric, who had maintained one score and ten loaf-eaters or serving men in his glorious abbey, had wandered alone and unattended thi-ougli the wilds and the fens, begging 1 Stigand appears rather to have continued a prisonci' at Winches- ter—Note p. 19. ^ This may refer to Thurstan named in note on page 48. e2 52 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. his way and concealmp; himself from Norman pursuit in the huts of the poorest men ; and he had brought nothing with him to Ely save two holy books which had comforted him on his long wayfaring, and which he carried under his arm. Every great house was wanted liy the conquerors for their unecclesiastical kindred ; but Saint All)ans was one of the greatest of them all, and Frithric had done that which the Nor- mans and their duke would never forgive. When, months after that great assize of God's judgment in battle, the battle of Hastings, (and after that the traitorous Saxon Witan, assembled in London, had sent a submissive deputation to William the Bastard at Berkhamstead to swear allegiance to him, and to put hostages into his hand,) the Normans were slaying the people, and plundering and burning the towns and villages, upon drawing nigh unto Saint Albans, they found their passage stopped by a multitude of great trees^ which had been felled and laid across the road, and behind which — if there had not been traitors in London and false Saxons everywhere — there would have been posted expert archers, and valorous knights and hardy yeomen, and nathless every monk, novice, lay-brother, and hind of the abbey, in such sort that the invaders and their war-horses would never have gotten over those barricades of forest trees, nor have ever ascended the hill where the great saint and martyr Albanus^ suffered his martyrdom in the days of the Dioclesian persecution, and where Offa the 1 See note page 20. - The Shrine of Albanus has recently been disentombed at St. Alban's Cathedral — and reconstructed as far as the materials allowed on the spot where it stood originally. The martyrdom of St. Alban is figured on it. THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY. 53 true Saxon king of Mercia erected the first church and the tirst great monastery for one hundred monks, that they might keep ahve the memory of the juwt, and pray over his tomb seven times a-day. Wrathful was Duke Wilham ; for, albeit none stood behind those ramparts of timber to smite him and his host, he could not win forward, nor enter the town, nor approach the abbey, until his men-at-arms and the followers of his camp should with long toil clear the road, and remove one after the other those stout barriers of forest trees. Eed was he in the face as a Inu-ning coal when he summoned to his presence Frithric the Lord Abbat, and demanded whose work it was, and why these oaken barriers were raised in the jurisdiction of the monastery. Abbat Frithric, whose heart was stouter than his own oaks, looked, as became the free descendant of Saxon thanes and Danish princes, right into the eyes of the conqueror, and said unto him in a loud voice, " I have done the duty appertaining to my birth and calling; and if others of my rank and profession had performed the like, as they well could and ought, it had not been in thy power to penetrate into the land thus far !" We have said his voice was loud when he spoke to the concjueror : it was so loud that the hills re-echoed it, and that men heard it that were liid in the woods to watch what the Normans would tlo, and avoid their fury ; and when the echoes of that true Saxon voice died away, the thick growing oaks seemed to speak, for there came voices from the woods on either side the road, shouting, "Hail! all hail! Lord Frithric, our true Lord Al)bat ! If evei-y Saxon lord had been true as he, Harold would now be king !" 54 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. Quoth Duke William, in an angered voice, " Is the spirituality of England of such power? If I may live and enjoy that which I have gotten, I will make their power loss ; and especially I mind to begin with thee, proud Abbat of Saint Albans !" And how behaved Abbat Frithric when his domains were seized, and ill-shaven foreign monks thrust into his house, and savage foreign soldiers? — when, after that the conqueror had sworn upon all the relics of the church of Saint Albans, and by the Holy Gospels, to respect the abbey and all churches, and to preserve inviolate the good and ancient laws which had been established by the pious kings of England, and more especially by King Edward the Confessor, he allowed his Normans to kill the Saxon people without hot or compensation, plundered every church in the land, oppressed and despoiled all the abbeys, ploughed with ploughshares of red hot iron over the faces of all Saxons, and yet demanded from Frithric and his compeers a new oath of allegiance, and fuller securi- ties for his obedience — what then did the Lord Abbat of Saint Albans? He assembled all his monks and novices in the hall of the chapter, and taking a tender farewell of them, he said, " My brothers, my children, the time is come when, according to Scrip- ture, I must flee from city to city before the face of our persecutors — Fugienduni est a facie •perseqiientmiri a civitate in clvitatem." And rather than be forsworn, or desert the good <3ause, or witness without the power of remedying them the sufferings and humiliations and forcible expulsions of his monks, he went forth and became a wanderer as aforesaid, until he crossed the land of willows and many waters, and came unto THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY. 55 Ely, a lone man, with nought but his missal and his breviary under his arm. Now the Abbat Frithric was old when these years of trouble began ; and constant grief and toil, and the discomforts of his long journey on foot from the dry sunny hill of Saint Albans to the fens and morasses of Ely, had given many a rude shake to the hour-glass of his life. Since his arrival at Ely he had wasted away daily : every time that he appeared in the hall or refectory he seemed more and more haggard and worn : most men saw that he was dying, but none saw it so clearly as himself. "When the young and hopeful would say to him, " Lord Frithric, these evil days will pass away, the Saxons will get their own agahi, and thou wilt get back as a true Saxon to thine own abbey," he would reply, "Young men, England will be England again, but not in my day ; my next move is to the grave : Saint Albans is a heavenly place, but it is still upon earth, and, save the one hope that my country may revive, and that the laws and man- ners and the tongue of the Saxons may not utterly perish, my hopes are all in heaven ! " Some of the best and wisest of those who liad sought for refuge in the isle; of Ely, feared that when this bright guiding light should be put out, and other old patriots, like the Abljat Frithric, should iake tlieii' departure, the spirit wliicli animated this Saxon league would depait also, oi' gradually cool and decline. CHAPTER IV. THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST. It was on a wet evening in Autumn, as the rain was descending in torrents upon swamps that seemed to have collected all the rains that had been falling since the departure of summer, and just as the monks of Ely were singing the Ave Maria fDulce cantaverunt Monachi in Ely ! J'^ that Elfric, the whilom novice of Spalding, surrounded by some of the Lord Abbat's people, and many of the town folk, who were all laughing and twitching at his cloak, arrived at the gate of the hospitium." Our Lord Abbat Frithric had brought with him two holy books. Elfric, our novice, had brought with him two grim Norman heads, for he had not been idle on the road, but had surprised and killed on the borders of the fen country, first one man-at-arms, and then another ; and the good folk of Ely were twitching at his mantle in order that they might see again the trophies which he carried under his broad sleeve. At his first coming to the well-guarded ford across the Ouse, the youth had made himself known. Was he not 1 " Sweetly sang the monks in Ely," As king Canute was rowed hard by. ■2 The novice must have travelled some iO to 50 miles, and by a difficult route. THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST. 57 the yoimgest son of Goodman Hugh, who dwelt aforetime by Samt Ovm's Cross, hard by the village of Haddenham, and only a few bow-shot from the good town of Ely.^ And when the Saxons had seen the two savage Norman heads, and had looked in the youth's face, the elders declared that he was the very effigies of the Goodman Hugh ; and some of the younkers said that, albeit his crown was shorn, and his eye not so merry as it was, they recalled his face well, and eke the d^ys when Elfric the son of Goodman Hugh played at l)Owls with them in the bowling-alley of Ely, and l^obbed for eels"-^ with them in the river, and went out with them to snare wild water-fowl in the fens. Judge, therefore, if he met not with an hospitable reception from town and gown, from the good folk of Ely, and from all the monks ! So soon as Eh'ric had refreshed himself in the hospitium, he was called to the presence of Abbat Thurstan, and in truth to the presence of all the abbat's noble and reverend guests, for Thurstan was 1 Haddenham is o miles south-west of Ely, as the crow Hies, Grunty fen lies between the two. The distance by rail is about (1 miles. St. Ovin's Cross was removed from Haddenham to Ely, by Bentham, in 1770. Here is the inscription — ^ LVCeM • TVAM • OVINO DA • DCVS • er ■ R6QW\e • AMfN • The translation is — Thy light to Ovin give, Lord, and rest. Amen. See, also, Apix-ndix, Note C. '■^ The frequent reference to " eels," strengthens the view taken as to the origin of the word Ely. In these parts, rent was often taken in a supply of eels. Abbot lirithnoth endowed Ely with two fisheries. It had a grant of 10, 000 eels annually from Well. No wonder that the monks grew fat in Lent. Generally, the monks of Ely were " good living folks," as will be seen presently. 58 TPIE CAMP OF REFUGE. seated in his great hall, where the servitors were preparing for the supper. Elfric would have taken his trophies with him, but the loaf-man who brought the message doubted whether the abbat would relish the sight of dead men's heads close afore suppertime, and told him that his prowess was already known ; and so Elfric proceeded without his trophies to the great hall, where he was welcomed by the noble com- pany like another David that had slain two Goliaths.^ When he had told the story of Ivo Taille-Bois' long persecution and night attack, and his own Hight and journey, and had answered numerous questions put to him by the grave asseml^ly, Abbat Thurstan asked him whether he knew what had happened at Spalding since his departure, and what had become of Father Adhelm and his monks, and what fate had befallen the good Abbat of Crowland. " After my flight from the succursal cell," said the youth, '' I dwelt for a short season at Crowland, hidden in the township, or in Deeping-fen, whither also came unto the abbey Father Adhelm and the rest of that brotherhood of Spalding ; and there we learned how Ivo Taille-Bois had sent over to his own country to tell his kinsmen that he had to offer them a good house, convenient for a prior and five friars, ready built, ready furnished and well provided with 1 Elfric is represented as a valiant youth, although he was in training for a sacred vow, and a saintly life, — and not for " carnal warfare." The conflict in which he was engaged, was not even one where Christian resisted Pagan: it was the struggle of "a house divided against itself" — among Saxons and Normans, men professing a common faith. The novice however was of a spirit lifted for those boisterous times ; and in the sequel we shall find that he may never have intended to pass beyond the novitiate. .Elfric was a favourite name. In the tenth century au Archbishop of Canterbury (^Elfric) wi-ote homilies still in use by learners of the Anglo-Saxon language. (See quotation on p. 278.) THE JMONKS OF ELY FEAST. 59 lands and tenements ; and how these heretical and imsound Norman monks^ were hastening to cross the Channel and take possession of the succui'sal cell at Spalding. My Lord Abbat of Crowland, having what they call the king's peace, and holding the letters of protection granted by Lanfranc" .... "They will protect no man of Saxon blood, and the priest or monk that accepts them deserves excommnnication," said Frithric, the Al^bat of Saint Albans. " Amen ! " said Elfric ; " but our Abbat of Crow- land, relying upon these hollow and rotten reeds, laid his complaints before the king's council at that time assembled near unto Peterborough, and sought re- dress and restitution.- But the Normans sitting in council not only refused redress and absolved Taille- Bois, but also praised him for what he had done in the way of extortion, pillage, sacrilege, and murder ; and " . . . . " My once wise brother thy Abbat of Crowland ought to have known all this beforehand," said the Abbat of Saint Albans ; ' ' for do not these foreigners all support and cover one another, and form a close league, ])earing one upon another, even as on the body of the old dragon scale is laid over scale?" 1 See note on page 37. '^ This seems to refer to the generally received opinion that Ingulphus was Abbot ; he is supposed to have gone to London, and carried with him the charters granted to Crowland by the Saxon kings. " They were read, he states, before the king and council ; and although the earlier grants, which were written in the vSaxon hand, down to the last Mercian king, were treated with contempt, yet the charters of Edred, Edgar and the succeeding kings, lieing written wholly or in part in the Galilean hand, they were allowed : the king confirming to the monastery the charier of Edred. The same success, however, did not attend his solicitation to have Spalding restored; the interest of Ivo Taille-Bois prevailed against him." — Monaslicoiu See Appendix Note G. 60 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. "Sic est, my Lord Abbat," said the youth, bowin.!^ reverentially to the dignitary of the church and the best of Saxon patriots, "so is it my, lord! and dragons and devils are these Normans all ! Scarcely had the decision of the king's council reached our house at Crowland, ere it was surrounded Ijy armed men, and Ijurst open at the dead of night, as our poor cell at Spalding had been, and Father Adhelm and all those who had lived under his rule at Spalding, were driven out as disturbers of the king's peace ! I should have come hither sooner, l)ut those to whom my obedience was due begged me to tarry awhile. Now I am only the forerunner of Father Adhelm and his brethren, and of my Lord x\bbat of Crowland himself ; for the abbat can no longer bear the wrongs that are put upon him, and can see no hope upon earth, and no resting-place in broad England, except in the Camp of Refuge. " Another abbat an outcast and a wanderer! This spacious house will be all too full of Saxon abbats and bishops : but I shall make room for this new comer," said Frithric of Saint Albans to Egelwin, Bishop of Durham.^ Divers of the monks of Ely, and specialitcr the chamberlain, who kept the accounts of the house, and the cellarer, who knew the daily drain made on the winebutts, looked blank at this announcement of lEdgelwin, alias .Ethehvine, bishop of Durham, fell under the displeasure of William I. Some Norman Soldiers had committed sacrilege at Durham. William commanded the Bishop and Chapter to excommunicate them. .Ethelwine failed to do so ; the Conqueror outlawed him, and he tied. He set sail for the Continent, but was driven back to Scotland ; thence he tied to Ely ; after the surrender of the Isle, 1071, .Ethehvine was imprisoned at Abingdon and died there in 1072. THE MONKS OP ELY FEAST. 61 more guests : but the bounteous and big-hearted Abbat of Ely said, " Our ])rother of Crowland, and Father Adhehn of Spalding, shall be welcome here — yea, and all they may bring with them ; but tell me, oh youth, are they near at hand, or afar off in the wilderness?" " The feet of age travel not so fast as the feet of youth," said Elfric, " age thinks, youth runs. I wot I was at Eamsey^ mere before they got to the Isle of Thorney, and crossed the Ouse before they came to the Nene, but as, by the blessing of the saints," and the youth might have said, in consequence of exercise and low living, " Father Adhelm's podagra hath left him, they can hardly fail of being here on the day of Saint Edmund,^ our blessed king and martyr, and that saint's day is the next day after to-morrow." " It shall be a feast-da_y," said Thurstan ; " for albeit Saint Edmund be not so great a saint as our own saint, Etheldreda, the founder of this house, and the monks of Saint Edmund-Bury (the loons have submitted to the Norman !) have more to do with his worship than we have. King Edmund is yet a great saint — a true Saxon saint, whose worship is old in the land ; and it hath been the custom of this house to exercise hospitality on his festival. Therefore will we hold that day as we have been wont to hold it ; and oui- brothers from Crowland and Spalding, who ^Ramsey mere is 10 miles N.W. of Ely, and Thorney is '.) miles N. of that mei'e. Ramsey Abbey, Appendix Note H. Thorney Abbey, Appendix Note I. - Eadmund, the last kinf,' of East-anglia, was tied to an oak tree, and shot by the arrows of the Northmen, on '20th Nov., 870. Ely appears to have been included in that kin^jdoni ; but Crowland and Spalding in Mercia. 62 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. must be faring but badly in the fens, shall be wel- comed with a feast." So bounteous and open-handed was the true Saxon Abbat of Ely. But the chamberlain set his worldly head to calculate the expense, and the cellarer mut- tered to himself, "By Saint Withburga^ and her holy well, our cellars will soon be dry !" On Saint Edmund's eve, after evening service in the choir and after saying his prayers apart in the chapel of Saint Marie, Frithric, the Abbat of Saint Albans departed this life. His last words were, that England would be England still f and all those who heard the words and had English hearts, believed that he was inspired, and that the spirit of prophecy spoke in his dying voice. The Abbat of Crowland was so near, that he heard the passing-bell, as its sad sounds floated over the fens, telling all the faithful that might be there of their duty to put up a prayer for the dead. On Saint Edmund's day the way-farers from Crowland arrived, and that abbat took possession of the cell, and of the seat in the refectory which had 1 Witliburga or Werburga was the forth abbesp of Ely. >She was the last whose name was recorded, though the monastery was under abbesses for nearly 200 years, that is, till the Danish havoc in 870. The " holy well " is in East Dereham Church Yard — see note p. 45. 2 From what has been said already, the reader will be led to regard the story of Frithric as largely mythical, but he will view the words here put into the saint's dying utterance, as prophetic of the ulti- mate supremacy of the Saxon race. The narrative is finely solemn, for as this " swan-song," was being sung, the Crowland fugitives were wading through the deep fens on a November night, just near enough to hear the distant i^assing knell. We are still ruled by the laws of King Eadward the Confessor — laws which owe something to Godwine and Harold. The Norman Conquest, however, had the effect, when the scathing had passed over, of developing the old principles of the Saxons — and thus " England was a gainer by the conquest." This subject is ably discussed in Vol. V. of Freeman's Norman Concjuest. THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST. 63 been occupied by Frithric. Fitting place was also found for Father Adhelm, who had grown so thin upon the journey that even Elfric scarcely knew him again. The feast in the hall was as magnificent as any that had been given there to King Canute, or even to an}^ that had been given in the happy days of King Edward the Confessor ; and the appetities of the compan}' assembled were worthy of the best times. Fish, flesh, and fowl, and pasties of venison — nothing was wanting. The patrimony of Saint Etheldreda, the lands and waters appertaining unto the abbey, and administered by the bountiful abbat, furnished the best portions of the feast. Were there in the world such eels and eel-pouts as were taken in the Ouse and Cam close under the walls of the abbey ? Three thousand eels, by ancient compaict, do the monks of Eamsey pay every Lent unto the monks of Peterborough, for leave to quarry stone in a quarry appertaining to Peterborough A1)bey ; but the house of Ely might have paid ten times three thousand eels, and not have missed them, so plenty were there, and eke so good !^ The fame of these eels was known in far countries ; be sure they were not wanting on this Saint Edmund's day. The streams, too, abounded with pike, large and fit for roasting, with puddings in tlu^ir bellies ; and the meres and stagnating waters swarmed with tench and carp, prop(!r for stewing. Ten expert hinds attended to these fresh-water fisheries, and kept the abbat's stews and the stews of the house constantly iilled with fish. It is said by an ancient historian that here in the 1 The Abbey of St. Edmund's-bury too had the ri^ht of a fishery in a fen more, just west of Upwell, granted by King Canute. 64 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. fenny country is such vast store of fish as astonishes strangers ; for which the inhabitants laugh at them : nor is there less plenty of water-fowl ;^ and for a single halfpenny five men may have enough of either, not only to stay their stomachs, l)ut for a full meal ! Judge, then, if my Lord Ahbat was well provided. It was allowed on all sides that, for the Lenten season, and for all those fast-days of the Church when meat was not to be eaten, no community in the land was so well furnished as the monks of Ely ; and that their fish-fasts were feasts. While the brethren of other houses grew thin in Quaragesima, the monks of Ely grew fat. Other communities might do well in roast meats and baked meats; but for a fish dinner — for a banquet in Lent — there was not in the land anything to compare with the dinners at Ely ! Nor was there lack of the fish^ that swim the salt sea, or of the shell-fish that are taken on the sea-coast, or of the finny tribes that come up the river to spawn ; the fishermen of Lynn were very devout to Saint Ethel- dreda, and made a good penny by supplying the monks ; they ascended the Ouse with the best of their sea-fish in their boats, and with every fish that was in season, or that they knew how to take. And so, at this late November festival there were skates and plaice, sturgeon and porpoises, oysters and cockles spread upon my Lord Abbat's table. Of the sheep and beeves we speak not ; all men know the richness of the pasture that springs up from the annually 1 As to abundance of water-fowl in the Fens, and the method of taking them, see " Decoy" in " Fenland, Past and Present." - The same source of information may be consulted respecting the fish in the Fen rivers and in the Wash. THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST. 65 mimdated meadows,^ and the bounty of the nibbling crop that grows on the upland slopes with the wild thyme and the other savoury herbs that turn mutton into venison. Of the wild boars of the forest and fen only the hure or head was served up in this Aula Magna, the inferior parts being kept below for the use of the la_y-brothers and hinds, or to be distril)uted by the hospitaller to the humbler degrees of pilgrims and strangers, or to be doled out to the poor of the town of Ely — for wot ye, when the Lord Abbat Thurstan feasted in Ely none fasted there : no ! not the poorest palmer that ever put cockle-shell in his cap or took the pilgrim's staff in his hand to visit the blessed shrine of Saint Etheldreda ! Of the wild buck, though less abundant in this fenny country than the boar, nought was served up for my Lord Abbat and his own particular guests except the tender succulent haunch ; the lay-brothers and the loaf- eaters of the house, and the poor pilgrims and the poor of the town, got all the rest. The fat fowls of Norfolk, the capons of Caen in Normandie, and the pavoni or peacocks that first came from Italie a present from the Lrnatus a latere of his holiness the 1 In the neighbourhood ot the Fen rivers there are " Wash-lands," (the word must not be confounded with The Wash which is a bay), that is, lands liable to be overflowed in winter or in wet seasons. They relieve the river banks from undue pressure of the water which must necessarily pass slowly lo sea. The largest "Wash-land" in the fens is between the Old and New Bedford rivers, some 20 miles long and | wide in some parts, containing nearly (iOOO acres ; this " Wash " is generally oveiflowed in winter ; the water does not over- flow the banks, but is let into the Wash through a sluice near Earith. This shallow water is frozen over during hard winters, like that of 1B78-9, and forms a Arm skating ground for the " Welney skaters," unsurpassed in speed. If the spring is dry the waters retire, and in early summer the grass is abundant, and upon it )nay be seen vast numbers of cattle grazing. 66 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. Pope, were kept and fattened in my Lord Al)bat's farm-yard ; and well did his coquinarius know how to cook them ! To the wild- fowl there was no end, and Elfric, our l)old novice, the son of Goodman Hugh, who dwelt l)y Saint Ovin's Cross, hard by the village of Haddenham, and who had been a fen-fowler from his youth, could have told you how facile it was to ensnare the crane^ and the heron, the wild duck and teal, and the eccentric and most savoury snipe. Well, we ween, before men cut down the covering woods, and drained the marshes, and brought too many people into the fens and too many great ships up the rivers, the whole land of Saint Etheldreda was like one great larder ; and my Lord Abbat had only to say, "Go forth and take for me so many fowl, or fish, or boars," and it was done. It is an antique and venerable proverb, that which sayeth good eating demands good drinking. The country of the fens was not productive of apple-trees, and the ale and beer that were drunk in the house, and the mead and idromel likewise, were brought from Norfolk and other neighbouring countries ; but the abbat, and the officials, and the cloister monks drank better wine than apple-wine, better drink than mead or than pigment, for they drank of the juice of the generous vine, which Noah planted on the first dry hill-side he found. The monks of Glastonliury and Waltham, and of man}' other houses of the first reputation, cultivated the grape on their own soil, where it seldom would ripen, and drank English grape-wine much too 1 On the wash-lands of the rivers great numbers of wild birds have been taken. For two centuries previous to the thorough drainage of the Fens, decoying was a means of capturing many thousands of birds annually, and in the " Washes" netting was practised. THE MONKS OF ELY FEART. 67 sour and poor. Not so our lordly monks of Ely ! They sent the shipmen of Lynn to the Ell)e, and to the Rhine, and to the Mosel, to bring them more generous drink ; and they sent them to the south even so far as Gasconie and E spaing for the ruby wine expressed from the grapes ^^•hich grow in the sunniest clime. In the good times four keels, two from! the German Ocean and two from the Gulf of Biseaye, steered every year through the sand-banks of the Wash to Lynn,^ and from Lynn up the Ouse even unto Ely, where the tuns were landed and deposited in the cellars of the abbey, under the charge of the sub-cellarer, a Jay-brother from foreign parts, who had been a vintner in his youth. And in this wise it came to be a passant saying with men who would describe anything that was super-excellent — "It is as good as the wine of the monks of Ely ! " Maugre the cellarer's calculation of quantities, the best wine my Lord Abbat had in hand was liberalh' circulated at the feast in silver cups and in gold- mounted horns. Thus were the drinks equal to the viands, as well in quantity as in quality ; and if great was the skill of the vintner, great also was the skill of the cook. In other houses of religion, and in houses, too, of no mean fame, the monks hatl often to lament that their coquinarius fed them over long on the same sort of dishes ; l)ut it was not so with our monks of El}^ who possessed a cook that had the art of giving variety to the selfsame viands, and who also possessed lands, woods, and waters that furnished the most varied materials for th(; cook to try his skill 1 King's Lynn had a considerable trade in wine, a century ago, and in the first year of the I'.ilh century, 1280 tuns were imported, but since that time its wine trade lias declined. See Appendix, Note .T. f2 68 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. upon. As Father Adholra finisliecl his last shce of porpoise/ curiously condimented Avith Eastern spices, as fragrant to the nose as they were savoury to the- palate, he lifted up his eyes towards the painted ceiling, and said, " I did not hope, after the death of Oswald our cook at Spalding, to eat of so perfect a dish on this side the grave ! " Flowers'" there were none to strew upon the floor ; but the tloor of the hall was thickly strewed with sweet-smelling hay, and with the rushes that grow in the fens ; and the feet of the loaf-men of the ahl^at and of the other servitors that waited on the lordl}' company made no noise as they hurried to and fro with the dishes and the wine-cups and drinking-horns. While dinner lasted, nought was heard l)ut the voice of the aljbat's chaplain, who read the Psalms in a corner of the hall, the rattle of trenchers and knives, and, timeously,''' such ejaculations as these! "Hov*' good this fish ! how good this flesh ! how good this fowl ! how fine this pasty ! how rich this wine ! " But when the tables were cleared, and grace after meat had been said, and my Lord Abbat's cupbearer had filled the cup of every guest with bright old Khenish, Thurstan stood up at the head of the table, and said, "Now drink we round to the health of England's true king, and this house's best friend, the 1 Porpoises are still common in the Wash. - It must not be supposed that flowers did not grow in the Fens — the Flora was abundant and beautiful, but at the season of which the writer speaks, wild flowers would be scarce. (For ancient Flora, see " Fenland" p. 295.) Eight hundred years ago the monks may not have taken to floriculture. 3 Seasonably. THE MONKS OP ELY FEAST. 69 Saxon-hearted Harold,^ be lie where he will ! And maj' he soon come back again ! Cups off at a draught, while we drink Health to King Harold !" " We drink his health, and he is dead — wo wish him back, and he is lying in his coffin in the church of the abbey of Waltham, safe in the keeping of the monks of Waltham ! The wine is good, but the toast is foolish." Thus spake the envious prior to the small-hearted cellarer. But the rest of the goodly company drank the wassail with joy and exultation, and seemingly without any doubt that Harold was living and would return. In their minds^ it was the foul invention of the enemy — to divide and discourage the English people — which made King Harold die at Hastings. Who had seen him fall ? Who had counted and examined that nol)le throng of warriors that retreated towards the sea-coast when the battle was lost by foul treachery, and that found boats and ships, and sailed away for some foreign land ? Was not Harold in that throng, wounded, but with no deadly wound •? Was it not known throughout the land that the Normans, when they counted the slain, not being able to find the body of Harold, sent some of our Saxon slaves and traitors .to seek for it — to seek but not to find it ? W^as it not a moulderhig and a muti- lated corpse that the Normans caused to be conveyed to Waltham, and to be there entombed, at the east end of the choir, as the Ijody of King Harold '? And did not the monks of AValtham close up the grave with brick-work, and inscribe the slab, Hic jacet 1 Harold was Earl of Easlanglc and Essex about 1015, and was deservedly 2)opular. - The Monks of Ely still clung to the idea that Harold was alive and that the report of his death was merely a ruse. 70 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. Harold infelix/ without ever seeing who or what was in the coffin ? So reasoned all of this good company, who loved the liherties of England, and who had need of the sustaining hope that the hravc Harold was alive, and would come back again. Other wassails followed fast one upon the other. They were all to the healths of those who had stood out manfully against the invader, or had preferred exile in the fens, and poverty in the Camp of Eefuge to submission to the conqueror. " Not less than a brimming cup can we drink to the last arrived of our guests, our brother the Lord Abbat of Crowland, and our brother the prior of Spalding," said Thurstan, filling his own silver cup with his own hand until the Rhenish ran over upon tlie thirsty rushes at his feet. "Might I be allowed," said Father Adhelm at a later part of the feast, " might my Lord Abbat vouch- safe me leave to call a wassail for an humble and unconsecrated member of the Saxon church — who is nevertheless a child of Saint Etheldreda, and a vassal of my Lord Abbat, being native to this place — I would just drink one quarter of a cup, or it might be one half, to Elfric the Novice, for he travelled for our poor succursal cell when we were in the greatest perils ; he carried my missives and my messages through fire and water ; he forewarned us of our last danger and extremity ; and, albeit he had not our order for the deed, and is thereby liable to a penance for disobedi- ence — he slew with his arrow Ivo Taille-Bois' man- at-arms that had savagely slain good Wybert our wheel- Wright." 1 Here lies Harold the uuhappy- THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST. 71 "Aye," said Thurstaii, '' and ho came hither across the fens as merry as David dancing before the ark ; and he brought with him the heads of two Norman thieves who, with their fellows, had been murdering our serfs, and trying to find an opening that should lead them to the Camp of Eefuge ! Father Adhelm, I would have named thy youth in time ; but as thou hast named him, let us drink his name and health even now ! And let the draught be one half cup at least ; — ' Elfric the novice of Spalding ! ' " " This is unbecoming our dignity and the dignity of our house : next we shall waste our wine in drinking wassail to our loaf-eaters and swineherds," muttered the cellarer to the prior. But while the cellarer muttered and looked askance, his heart not being Saxon or put in the right place, the noblest English lords that were there, and the highest dignitaries of the church, the archbishop and the bishops, the Lord Abbats, and the priors of houses, that were so high that even the priors were styled Lords, Domini,^ and wore mitres, stood on their feet, and with their wine-cups raised high in their hands, shouted as in one voice, '' Elfric the novice ;" and all the obedientiarii or officials of the abbey of Ely that were of rank enow to be bidden to my Lord Abbat's taljle, stood up in like manner and shouted, "Elfric the novice!" and, when the loud cheering was over, off went the wine, and down to the ringing board the empty silver cups and the golden-bound horns. He who had looked into those cups and horns might have smiled at Father Adhelm's ' The first prior of Ely .vas Vincentius ; his succcsbors were mitrctl priors, they held the title Doniinus, and in some reigna were sum- moned to parliament. 72 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. halves and quarters : they were nearly all filled to the brim : yet when they had quitted the lip and were put down upon the table, there was scarcely a heel-tap to be found except in the cup of the cellarer and in that of the envious prior of Ely, So strong were the heads and stomachs of our Saxon ancestors before the Normans came among us and brought with them all manner of people from the south with all manner of effeminacies. Judge ye if Elfric was a proud man that day ! At wassail-time the wide doors of the Aula Magna were thrown wide open ; and harpers, and meni-singers, and men that played upon the trumpet, the horn, the liute, the pipe and tabor, the cymbal and the drum, or that touched the strings of the viola, as- sembled outside, making good music with instrument and voice ; and all that dwelt within the precincts of the abbey, or that were lodged for the nonce in the guest-house, came, an they chose, to the threshold of the hall, and saw and heard what was doing and saying inside and what outside. Now Elfric was there, with palmers and novices trooping all around him, and repeating (albeit dry-mouthed and without cups or horns to flourish) the wassail of the lords and prelates, "Elfric the novice!" If at that moment my Lord Abbat Thurstan or Father Adhelm had bidden the youth go and drive the Normans from the strong stone keep of their doubly-moated and trebly- walled castle by Cam-Bridge, Elfric would have gone and have tried to do it. He no longer trod upon base earth, his head struck the stars, as the poets say. The abbat's feast, which began at one hour before THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST. 73 noon, did not end until the hour of Ave Maria ; nay, even then it was not finished, hut only suspended for a short season hy the evening service in the choir ; for, after one hour of the night, the refectoriarius, or controller of the refectory, re-appeared in the hall with waxen torches and bright lanterns, and his servitors spread the table for supper. As Abbat Thurstan returned to the refectory, lead- ing by the hand his guest the Abbat of Crowland, that dispossessed prelate said to his host, " To- night for finishing the feast ; to-morrow morning for counsel." "Aye," responded Thurstan, "to-morrow we will hold a chapter, — our Imsiness can brook no further delay — our scouts and intelligencers bring us bad news, — King Harold comes not, nor sends — the Camp of Eefuge needs a head — our warriors want a leader of fame and experience, and one that will be true to the Saxon cause, and fearless. Woe the vvhile ! where so many Saxons of fame have proved traitors, and have touched the mailed hand of the son of the harlot of Falaise in friendship and submission, and have accepted as the gift of the butcher of Hastings the lands and honours which they held from their ances- tors and the best of Saxon kings — where, I say, may we look for such a Saxon patriot and liberator '? Oh, Harold ! my lord and king, why tarriest thou \> Holy Etheldreda, l)ring him back to thy shrine, and to the Camp of Refuge, which will cease to be a refuge for thy servants if Harold conieth not soon ! But, courage my Lord of Crowland ! The Phihstines are Jiot upon 'us; our rivers and ditches and marshes and meres are not yet drained, and no Saxon in these parts will 74 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. prove so accursed a traitor^ as to give the Normans the clue to our labyrintlis. The saint hath provided another joyous meal for us. Let us l>e grateful and gay to-night ; let us sup well and strongly, that we may he invigorated and nuide fit to take strong and wise counsel in the morning." And heartily did the monks of Ely and their guests renew and finish tlunr feast, and hopefully and boldly did they speak of wars and victories over the Normans, until the drowsiness of much wine overcame them, and the sub-chamherlain of the house l^egan to extin- guish the lights, and collect together the torches and the lanterns, while the cellarer collected all the spoons, taking care to carry the Lord Abbat's spoon in his right hand, and the spoons of the monks in his left hand, according to the statutes of the Order. It was the last time that the feast of Saint Edmund the Martyr was kept in the true Saxon maimer in the great house at Ely. The next year, and the year following that, the monks had little wine and but little ale to drink ; and after the long years of trouble although the cellars were getting filled again, the true old Saxon brotherhood was broken up and mixed, a foreigner was seated in the place of Abbat Thurstan,^ and monks with mis-shaven tonsures and mis-shaped hoods and gowns filled all the superior offices of the abbey, purloining and sending beyond sea what my Lord Thurstan had spent in a generous hospitality, 1 The Abbot and some of his monks are said eventually to have made submission to the Conqueror, and to have actually betrayed the defenders of the Camp. The Book of Ely {Liber Ellensis) is quoted, on this point, in the Appendix. Note K. 2 The successor of Thurstan was Theoawin, a Norman monk of Jumieges. THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST. 75 among true-born and generous-hearted Englishmen. But in this nether world even the gifts of saints and the chartered donation of many kings are to be kept only by the brave and the united : conquest recognises no right except as a mockery : the conquered must not expect to be allowed to call their life and limbs their own, or the air they breathe their own, or their wives and children their own, or their souls their own: they have no property but in the grave, no right but to die at the hour appointed for them. Therefore let men perish in battle rather than outlive subjuga- tion, and look for mercy from conquerors ! and, therefore, let all the nations of the earth be warned by the fate of the Anglo Saxons to be always one- hearted for their country. This patriotic and elo(|uent appeal may be very appropriately reiterated at the present day. The sentiment which it inculcates is as essential now as it was when the Saxons were defending the " Camp of Refuge." Is it not consolidation rather than extension which is needed for the well being of our country ? Will not the future greatness of our nation hinge upon the development of the highest principles of humanity — the unity, loyalty and virtue of its peoples? CHAPTER V. THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL. At as earl}' an hour as the church services and devotional exercises would allow, Thurstan opened a chapter in the chapter-house, which stood on the north side, hard by the chief gate of the church. As his lordship entered, he said — the words that were appointed to he said on such occasions — " May the souls of all the deceased brethren of this house, and the souls of all true believers, rest in peace!" And the convent replied, " Amen ! " Then the Lord Abbat spoke again, and said, " Benedicite," and the convent bowed their heads. And next he said, " Oh Lord ! in thy name !"' and then, " Let us speak of the order." And hereupon all present crossed themselves, and bent their heads on their breasts, and the business of the chapter commenced. Only the prior, the sub- prior, the cellarer or bursar, the sacrist, and sub- sacrist, the chamberlain or treasurer, and the other chief officials or obedientiarii, and the other cloistered monks, inaturl fratres, whose noviciate had been long passed, and whose monastic vows had been all com- pleted, had the right of being present in chapter, and of deliberating and voting upon the business of the house and order. All that passed in chapter was, in THE JIONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 77 a manner, sub sigillo coufesslonls, and not to be dis- closed by an,y deliberating member to the rest of the convent, or to any of them, and much less was it to 1)6 revealed to any lajaiian, or to any man beyond the precincts of the abbe3\ In these consultations, on the day next after the festival of Saint Edmund's, the monks of Ely sat long with closed doors. When they came forth of the chapter-house it was noticed that the face of the Lord Abbat was very red, and that the faces of the prior and cellarer were very pale. A- lay-brother, who had been working on the top of the chapter-house out-side, repairing some chinks in the roof, whispered to his familiars that he had heard very high words passing below, and that he had distinctly heard my Lord Abbat say, " Since the day of my election and investiture no brother of this house has been loaded with chains, and thrown into the underground dungeon ; ])ut, by the shrine of Saint Etheldreda, were I to find one traitor among us, I would bind him and chain him, and leave him to rot ! And were there two of our l)rotherliood un- faithful to the good cause, and to King Harold, and plotting to betray the last hopes of England and this goodly house, and its toml)s and shrines and blessed relics, to the Norman, I would do what hatli l)een done aforetime in this ab))ey — i would Ijury them alive, or build them up in the niches left in our dee]) foundation walls !"^ 1 The religious, (like the Eoman vestals) who broke their vows, were immured in a niche, — hence we have in Marmion (Canto II, " The Convent ") this verse — " And now that blind old Abbot rose, To speak the Chapter's doom, On tho;;c the wall was to inclose, Alive, within the tomb." 78 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. Now the gossips of the house, making much out of Httle, ^Yent about the cloisters whispering to one another that some sudden danger was at hand, and that my Lord Abbat suspected the prior and the cellarer of some secret correspondence with the Nor- man knights that garrisoned Duke William's castle near unto Cam-Bridge. " If it l)e so," said Elfric, the novice from Spalding, " I would advise every true Saxon monk, novice, and lay-brother, to keep their eyes upon the cellarer and the prior !" " That shall be done," said an old lay-brother. "Aye, we will all watch their outgoings and their comings in," said several of the gossips; "for the prior is a hard-dealing, peremptory man, and cunning and crafty at the same time, never looking one in the face ; and ever since last pasque the cellarer hath shown an evil habit of stinting us underlings and loaf-eaters in our meat and drink." "He hath ever been given too little to drink him- self to be a true Saxon," said another ; " we will watch him well !" And they all said that they would watch the cellarer and eke the prior ; that they would for ever love, honour, and obey Thurstan their good and bountiful Lord Abbat ; and that they would all die with swords or spears in their hands rather than see the Normans enter the Camp of Eefuge. So one-hearted was the community at this time. Shortly after finishing the chapter in the usual manner, and coming out with his chaplains, singing Verba Mea, Lord Thurstan went into his own hall, and there assembled all the high and noble guests of THE MONKS OF KLV TAKE COUNSEL. 79 the house, whether laics, or priests, or monks, and all the obedientiarii and cloistered l)rothers of the abbey, except the prior and the cellarer, who had gone to their several cells with faces yet paler than they were when they came forth from the chapter-house. In my Lord Abbat's hall no business was discussed that appertained exclusively to the house or order : the deliberations all turned upon the general interests of the country, or upon the means of prolonging the struggle for national independence. Thurstan, after reminding the assembly that the Saxon heroes of the Camp of Eefuge had foiled the Normans in two attempts they had made to penetrate into the Isle of Ely — the one in the summer of the present year, and the other in the summer of the preceding year, one thousand and sixtj^-nine — and that it was four good years since the battle of Hastings, which William the Norman had bruited on the continent as a victory which had given him possession of all England, franlcly made it known to all present that he had certain intelligence that the Normans were making vast preparations at Cam-Bridge, at Bury, at Stam- ford, at Huntingdon, and even at Brunn, in order to invade the whole fenny country, and to pi-ess upon the Isle of Ely and the Camp of Eefuge Irom many opposite quarters. My Lord Abbat further made it known that the duk(! had called to this service all his bi'avcst and most expert captains, and a body of troops that had been trai)i('d to war in Brittanie and in oth(>f })arts wherein there were fens and rivei's and meres, and thick-gi'owing forests of willow and alder, even as in the country of East Anglia. lie also told thciu how Duke William had swoni by the splciidoui' of HO THE CAMP OF BEFUOE. God's face that another j^ar should not pass without seemg the Abhey of Ely in flames, the Camp of Eefuge broken into and scattered, the rule -of the Normans established over the whole land, and the refractory Saxons exterminated. " Now," said my Lord Abbat, " it behoves us to devise how we shall withstand this storm, and to select some fitting and experienced captain that shall have authority over all the lighting men of our league, and that shall be able to measure swords with these vaunted leaders from foreign parts. Our brave Saxon chiefs in the camp, or in this house, and now present among us, are weary of their jealousies of one another, and have wisely agreed to obey, one and all, one single leader of experience and fame and good fortune, if such a leader can anywhere be found, having a true Saxon heart within him, and being one that hath never submitted to or negociated with the invader. Let us then cast about and try and find such a chief. Let every one speak his mind freely, and then we can compare and choose." Some named one chief, and some another : many l)rave and expert men were named successively and with much applause, and with many expressions of hope and confidence ; but when Father Adhelm, the expelled prior of the succursal cell at Spalding, stood up in his turn, and with the briefest preamble named Hereward the son of Leofric, the late Lord of Brunn, Hereward the truest of Saxons, the other chiefs seemed to be all forgotten, even by those who had severally proposed them , and the assembly listened in silence, or with a silence interrupted only by shouts of triumph, while this good prior and whilom neigh- bour of Hereward related the chief events of that THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL. 81 warrior's life, and pointed out the hereditary and the personal claims he had to the consideration of his countrymen. Ever since the earliest days in which the Saxons gained a footing on the land, the Lords of Brunn, the ancestors of Hereward, had been famed for their valour in the field, famed for their prudence in the Witan and in all other councils, had been famed al)ove all their neighbours for their hospi- tality ! And when the Saxons embraced the Gospel as preached by Saint Augustine and his disciples, who had been so devout as the Lords of Brunn ? who so bountiful to the shrines of saints and religious houses ? who so ready to fight unto death in defence of the church '? Notable it was, and known unto all that dwelt in the land of fens, that the house of Crowland, and the house of Ely, and the shrine of Saint Etheldreda, had been served in the hour of need by many of Hereward's forefathers. When the unconverted, heathenish Danes were ravaging the country, and burning all the monasteries, and tether- ing their horses in the chapels of royal palaces, one Lord of Brunn fought in the ranks by the side of Friar Tolli,^ from sunrise to sunset, for the defence of the Abbey of Crowland, nor ceased fighting until three of the Danish sea-kings had been slain, and the monks had had time to remove their relics, and their books, and their sacred vases, into the impenetrable marshes of that vicinity. Another Lord of Brunn,''^ iThis Lord of Brunn (Bourn) was Morciird who, willi ToUi and Algar, Earl of Holland, (S. Lincolnshire) fought agamst the Danes; these invaders, under Hubba, had entered Kestevcn (the central division of Lincolnshire) in the Autunui of H70. There is a Hubba's or Hubbard Bridge 4 mile:; south of Boston. 2 We have no record of a Lord of Brunn lighting at Ely ; in the G 82 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. who at the call of the monks had marched across the fens with all his people, and with all of his family that could wield a sword, had perished close under the walls of Ely Abbey, after defeating the Pagans, and driving them back towards their ships. The blood of each of these Lords of Brunn ran in the veins of Hereward, and his deeds had proved him worthy of the blood. In his youth — in the days of Edward^ the Confessor — when the cunning Normans were beginning to beset the court of the childless king, and to act as if the inheritance was already their own, and the people of England already their slaves, it chanced that our Hereward, who had been on a prilgrimage to Canterbury,'-^ came back to the sea by Dover, and found Count Eustace of Boulogne, and his French men-at-arms engaged in a fierce quarrel with the men of Dover, and galloping through repulse of the Danes at Ely several English noblemen were en- gaged. (For account of the invasion under Hubba, the Danish attack of the Isle and the burning of Ely monastery, see Lib. EUen., lib. I., pp. 78—82.) 1 Ralph, the Timid, (a son of Drogo, Count of Mantes and of Ead- ward's sister), was Earl of Worcestershire and also of Herefordshire in about 1050-1055. Ralph's mother (Goda) after the death of her first husband, was married to Count Eustace ; he visited the English Court in Sept., 1051. Eustace came to enrich himself out of English wealth and he was not disappointed — neither were his followers. ■i It is not at all probable that Hereward was ever devout enough to make such a pilgrimage to Canterbury, but the hero of a tale must come to the front in all the great valourous acts of his time. The man who first resisted the outrage of Eustace and his fol- lowers, was a burgher of Dover — whose name is unknown — a general conflict ensued, twenty of the people of Dover were killed, and nine- teen of the Normans, (others wounded no doubt), but Eustace appears to have found it necessary to retire, — he returned to Ead- ward, then at Gloucester, and told the tale to his own advantage ; this affair caused a rupture between the king and Earl Godwine and led to the fall of the latter. THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST. t>0 the streets' with their naked swords in their hands, striking men and women, and crushing divers children under their horses' hoofs. Hereward, though Imt a stripHng, drew his blade, rallied the dull townsfolk, who before had no leader, (and so were fighting loosely and without order, and without any science of war,) and renewing the battle at a vantage, he slew with his own hand a French knight ; and then the men of Dover slew nineteen of the strangers, wounded many more, and drove Count Eustace and the rest out of the town to iiy in dismay back to king Edward. Later, when Harold,^ as earl of the eastern counties, and chief of king Edward's armies, marched into Wales to curb the insolent rage of King Griffith, Hereward attended him, and fought with him among the mountains and glens, and lakes and morasses of Wales, until that country was reduced by many victories, and Harold took shipping to return to King Edward with the head of Griffith stuck upon the rostrum or beak of his galley. Later still, when Hereward was of manly age, and King Edward the Confessor was dead, having bequeathed his crown to Harold, and Harold as our true king raised his 1 Harold was Earl of East AiiKlia in about 1045, and was trans- lated to the Earldom of Wessex, in 1053, when /Elfgar son of Leofric, became Earl of East-Anglia. Leofric died in 1057, then ^Ifgar took the Earldom of Mercia, and Gurth the fourth son of Godwine, was made Earl of East-Anglia. Now Harold's fhial campaign against the Welsh took place in 1003, when Harold's brother — not himself — was ruler of East-Anglia. The Griffith mentioned in the text was King of North Wales. (This Gruffvdd was a son of Llywelyn — he had slain, in 1055, another Gruflydd, King of S. Wales.) There was terrible slaughter before the Welsli were subdued, but it is thought that Grillith was slain by his own people. It was the beak of (iriflith's ship, and also Grillith'a head that were brought as trophies to Eadward. g2 84 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. banner of war to march against his own unnatural brother Earl Tostig,^ who had brought the King of Norway and a great army of Norwegians into the country of York to deprive him of his throne or dis- member his kingdom, Hereward marched with him with many of his father's stout men of Brunn, and fought under Harold's eye in the grea.t battle at Stamford Bridge — that battle which ceased not until Earl Tostig and the king of Norway were both slain, and the river was choked up with the Norwegian dead. From Stamford Bridge the march of bold Harold was to Hastings, for the Normans had landed while he had been vanquishing the Norwegians. On that long and rapid march ,^ when hundreds of tried soldiers lagged behind, Hereward kept pace with his royal master ; and when the battle was arrayed he was seen riding by Harold's side ; and when the battle joined, his battle-axe was seen close by the battle-axes of Harold and the king's two loyal and brave brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dealing terrible blows, and cutting the steel caps and the coats of 1 The Northumbrians deposed Tostig in Oct., 1065, and elected Mor- kere, the younger son of iElfgar as their Earh (Eadwine was Earl of Mercia.) Tostig took refuge in Flanders late in the same year, and he became one of the first of William of Normandy's allies. Before the middle of 1066, he was in possession of such forces as enabled him to make a raid ; he landed on the Isle of Wight, ravaged part of Sussex, he then attacked the N. of Lincolnshire, but was repulsed by Eadwine and Morkere and found refuge with Malcolm in Scotland. Tostig obtained the help of Harold Hardrada, the King of Norway named in the text, with him invaded Yorkshire and encamped at Stamford-bridge, some 8 miles east of York — the battle in which they both fell, was fought 2oth Sept., 1066. History knows nothing of Hereward' s being either at the battle of Stamford-bridge nor at Hastings. 2 The march to London occupied little more than a week-it was early in October, and Harold collected forces on his way. THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL. 85 mail of the Normans like chaff. Saxons, remember that he fought at Hastings through nine long hours, and did not yield until ye saw that ye were betrayed ! Separated from his king in the fury of the last melee, Hereward attempted to rally the East Angles and the men of Kent ; and failing in that, and hearing a mighty rumour that Harold the king was slain, he galloped to the port of Winchelsey with a few of his father's trusty people, and there embarked for foreign parts, vowing that he would never bow his head to the conqueror. The father^ of Hereward, being old and infirm, and infected by the unmanly fears which made so many Saxons throw aside the sword before the conquest of England was well begun, had made haste to tender his allegiance to the son of the harlot, had obtained his peace, and had been allowed to retain his lordship of Brunn, after paying sundry fines for his son's patriotism. But latterly the old Lord of Brunn had been gathered to his fathers, and a Norman chief had seized his manor-house and all his lands, and was now keeping them as his patri- mony. Such, being told briefly, was the story which Father Adhelm told to my Lord Abbat of Ely and his guests and officials ; and when he had done, he asked, where could a better chief be found for the Camp of Refuge than Hereward the true Saxon, and legitimate Lord of Brunn ? And, hereupon, there was a clapping of hands and shouting of voices in all that noble and 'If Hereward's lather was then living, he was not Leofric of Meicia, — (ho died in 1057). There may have been a Leofric lord of Brunn, father of Hereward, at whose instigation he was outlawed by Eadward the Confessor ; in that case Hereward was in Flanders at the beginning of the conquest. Hereward was no doubt banished but the evidence as to its cause is as doubtful as that respecting his liarentage. (8ee note p. 22). 8G THE CAMP OF REFUGE. devout assembly — a shouting so loud that it echoed through all the abbey, and was heard as far off as Saint Ovin's Cross; and the indwellers of the town of Ely, albeit they knew not what it meant, took up the cry, and shouted, "Hereward to the Camp of Refuge ! Hereward for England ! " "Bethinks me," said the cautelous Abbat of Crow- land, when the noise had ceased, " that perchance Hereward will not come to us at our summons. He must know how false our country has proved to herself, and how great the progress the conqueror hath made in it : his lands and all his inheritance are gone, a price is set upon his head in England, and his valour and experience in war, and his other good qualities, have made for him a prosperous and honorable home in a foreign land.^ While yet in my poor house at Crowland, a shipman from the Wash, who trades to the opposite coast, told me that he had lately seen at Ypres my Lord Hereward, living in great affluence and fame ; and the mariner further told me that Hereward had said to him that he would never wend back to a land of cowards and traitors ; that he had carved himself out new estates in the fattest lands of the Netherlands, and that England had nothing to give him except dishonour or a grave. "^ These representations damped the hopes of some of the company ; but as Hereward' s mind could not be 1 Tlie reader may find in Kingsley's Hereward the Wake, a glowing account of Hereward's deeds in Flanders — deeds worthy of a Hero, but yet mjihical. 2 There is not even a hint here that Hereward was married in the Netherlands, nor is anything said on this point when, further on in the council, the name of Alftrude is introduced — so the writer of the text looks upon her as Hereward's first and only love. THE MONKS OF ELY TAIiE COUNSEL. 87 known without a trial, it was determined to send some trusty messenger across the seas, who might gain access to the presence of the chief, and at the same time purchase and bring back with him a supply of arms and warlike harness, with other things much needed in the Camp of Refuge. The difficulties of this embassage struck all that were present: "And who," said the Lord Abbat, " shall be this trusty and expert messenger ? " " Were it not for the greenness of his years and the lowliness of his condition," said the Prior of Spalding, " I would even venture to recommend for the mission my bold -hearted, clear-headed, and nimble - footed novice, Elfric." " Brother, thou hast said it," responded Thurstan ; "thy novice shall go! Let the youth be summoned hither." The novice was soon kneeling at my Lord Abbat's feet, and was soon made acquainted as well with the difficult task he was expected to perform, as with the uncomfortable doubts which had been propounded l)y the Abbat of Crowland. When asked by his own immediate superior. Father Adhelm, whether he would undertake the task, he answered, " Marry, and that I will right gladly. When I first went to Spalding, I knew well Hereward, the son of the Lord of Brunn, and some of those that were nearest to him. If England is to be saved, he is the man that will save it. I would go to the world's end to find him and bring him hither. I love my country, and I love travelling better than my meat and drink. I have oft-times prayed to Saint Ovin that he would vouch- safe me the grace of going into foreign parts ! More- 88 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. over, my prime duty is obedience to my superiors. Let me depart instantly, and I will the sooner bring you back Lord Hereward ! " "Thou art very confident," said the Abbat of Crow- land : " how knowest thou that Hereward will come with thee ? " " My lord and master," said the novice, " I ween I can take over with me a word of command, or a prayer more potential than a command, and one which Hereward could not withstand even if he were king of all the Netherlands' country, and sure death stood upon the English beach to seize him on return !" "What does this young man mean?" said the Abbat of Crowland. Elfric blushed, stammered, and could not go on. " What dost thou mean? " said his Prior of Spald- ing. Elfric stammered more than before, which angered his superior, and brought down some harsh words upon his head. " Nay," said the good old Bishop of Lindisfarn,i "chide not the young man, but give him to collect his thought and frame his speech. He may know more of Lord Hereward than any one here knoweth. But .... but I hope that this novice of a goodly house doth not think of employing any witchcraft or unlaw- ful spell ! De maleficio libera nos ! From witchcraft and sacrilege, and all the arts of the devil, good Lord deliver us ! " 1 This evidently refers to iEthelwine, Bishop of Durham — A bishop- ric originated on the Isle of Lindisfarne by the action of Scotch Missionaries, early in the 7th century, — it was rendered famous by St. Cuthbert and was permanently fixed at Durham by Ealdhun in 995 ; hence the writer of the text adopted the original name. THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL. 89 The bishop crossed hmiself ; they all crossed them- selves ; and Elfric not only crossed himself, but likewise said "Libera nos.'" and "Amen!" But when he had so done and so said, his merry eye twinkled, and there was as much of a smile about his mouth as the reverence due to the company allowed of in a novice. " If there be magic," said he, "it is all white magic ; if there be a spell, it is not an unholy spell." And as Elfric said these words he looked into the good-natured, right hearty, and right English face of my Lord Abbat Thuretan. " Speak on, boy," said the abbat ; " speak out, my brave boy, and fear nought ! " Being thus heartened, Elfric said: "Then, to speak with reverence before this noble and reverend com- pany, I wot well there were, when I was first at Spalding, and when my Lord Hereward was at Brunn, certain love-passages " "Certain what?'' said the expelled Abbat of Cocker- mouth, who was somewhat deaf. " Love-passages," said Elfric, looking very archly, and with a laugh in his eyes, if not on his lips ; " certain love-passages between the son of the Lord of Brunn and the noble maiden Alftrude, the young daughter and heiress to the lord of the neighl)ouring town, that old Saxon lord, Albert of Ey."^ " Truth, the two houses stood not very far apart," said the Abbat of Crowland ; " but Albert of Ey was no friend to the old Lord of Brunn." " Most true, my lord ; but Albert died before his ^ Ey or Eye (the name for island — being modified from Sax. ea) is situated about 3 miles N.E. of Peterborough. It is now " Eye Green " in railway tables, to distinguish it from Eye in Suffolk. 90 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. neighbour, and left his \Yide estates to his fair daughter Alftrude, having first given her in ward to this Lan- franc, who is by some called Archbishop of Canterbury, and whose will and power few can gainsay. Moreovei-, the Ladie Alftrude is cousin to the Ladie Lucia, whom Ivo Taille-Bois hath made his wife ; and as that arch- enemy of our house extends his protection to his wife's cousin, not wishing that her lands should l)e seized by any hungry Norman other than a relation of his own, the heiress of Ey hath been allowed to live in the old manor-house, and to enjoy such pro- portion of her father's wealth as Lanfranc chooseth to allow her. Many Norman knights have sought her hand, as the best means of obtaining her land, but the Saxon maiden had ever said Nay ! And Lan- franc, who hath done violence to the very church for his own interest, and Ivo Taille-Bois, who got his own Saxon wife by violence, have hitherto had power enough to prevent any great wrong or violence being done to Ladie Alftrude, the heiress of Ey. Now the Ladie Alftrude remembers the times that are past, and sighs and weeps for the return of Hereward, vowing that she will wed none but him, and that " " Thou seemeth well informed in these matters," said one of the monks ; " but prithee, how didst thou obtain thine information'?" Elfric stammered a little, and blushed a good deal as he said, "The young Ladie Alftrude hath long had for her handmaiden one Mildred of Hadenham, a daughter of my late father's friend, a maiden well behaved and well favoured, and pious withal ; and when I was sent to the manor-house of Ey upon the business of our own house at Spalding, and when I THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL. 91 met Mildred at the church, or wake, or fair, we were ever wont to talk about my Lord Hereward and my Ladie Alftrude, as well as of other matters." "Father Adhelm," said my Lord Abbat of Crow- land in a whisper, " sm-ely thou hast allowed too much liberty to thy convent." " My lord," rephed the Prior of Spalding, "It is but a novice that speaks ; Elfric is not a cloister monk." "No, and never will be," said the Abbat of Crow- land, in another whisper. "I now see thy spell," said Thurstan, addressing Elfric, who was standing silent, and still blushed; " I now see the witchcraft that thou wouldest use. And dost thou believe that the Ladie Alftrude so loves Hereward that she will jeopardise her estates for him, and call home and marry him, though an outlaw ? And dost thou believe that Lord Hereward so loveth the Ladie Alftrude as to quit his new-found fortunes for her, and to come at her l)idding into England ? " "I believe in loving hearts," replied Elfric; "I believe in all that Mildred ever told me about Ladie Alftrude ; and I can guess l)etter than your shipman and trader of the Wash what it was that made Lord Hereward talk so high about his greatness in foreign parts, and vilipend' his own country, and made de- clarations that he would never return to a land of cowardice, and treachery, and falsehood. The exile hath heard that the Ladie Lucia hath become the wife of Ivo-Taille-Bois, probably without hearing the violence and the craft which brought about tbat uuJioly marriage; ;ind probably without knowing how 'Defamed. 92 THE CAMP OF KEFUGE. much the Ladie Lucia grieves, and how very a prisoner she is in her own manor-house, and in the midst of her own lands and serfs. My Lord Hereward may also have heard some unlucky rumours about a mar- riage between the Lady Alftrude and some brother or cousin of Taille-Bois, which idle gossips said was to take place with the sanction of Lanfranc ; and judge ye, my lords and holy fathers, whether this would not be enough to drive Hereward mad ! But a little wit and skill, and a little good luck, and all these cross and crooked things may be made straight. If I can win to see the Ladie Alftrude, and get from her some love-token and some comfortable messages to the exiled Lord of Brunn, and if I can declare and vow, of mine own knowledge, that the heart of the fair Saxon is aye the same, write me down a traitor or a driveller, my lords, an I bring not Hereward back with me." " Of a surety he will do it," said Abbat Thurstan, rubbing his hands joyously. *' I understand not much of this love logic, but I think he will do it," said the Abbat of Crowland. "He will do anything," said the Prior of Spalding; " but once let loose on this wild flight, we shall never again get the young hawk back to hand." The rest of the business was soon arranged, and precisely and in every part as the novice himself suggested. No one thought of exacting oaths of fidelity from Elfric. His faith, his discretion, and his valour had been well tried already, and his honest countenance gave a better assurance than oaths and bonds. As Saxon monks were the least acceptable of all visitors to the Normans, and as the dress of monk THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL. 93 or palmer no longer gave protection to any man of English birth, and as the late novice of Spalding might chance to be but too well known in Ivo Taillc- Bois' vicinity, Elfric disguised himself as one of the poorest of the wandering menestrels — half musician, half beggar and idiot ; and in this guise and garb, he, on the second day after the feast of Saint Ed- mund, set out alone to find his way across the fens, through the posts and watches of the Normans, and so on to the manor-house and the jealously guarded bower of the Ladie Alftrude. He was to return to Ely, if good fortune attended him, within seven days ; and then ho would be ready to proceed to the country of the Netherlanders, to seek for Lord Hereward^ and to purchase the warlike harness that was wanted. As soon as he had taken his departure from the abbey, a quick boat was sent down the Ouse with orders to the steadiest and oftenest-tried shipman of Lynn to get his good bark in readiness for a sea- voyage, and to bring it up to Ely, in order to take on board an important passenger bound on an embassage for my Lord Abbat. Although the love of the Lady Alftrude might per- chance bring back Lord Hereward, it was not likely that it should buy from the trading men of Ypres, or Ghent, or Bruges, the bows and the cross-bows, the swords and the lanceheads, the coats of mail, and the other gear that were so much wanted ; and therefore Abbat Thurstan, after collecting what little he could from his guests and in the Camp of Kefuge, and after taking his own signet-ring from his finger, and his own prelatical cross of gold and' chain of gold from his neck, called upon the chamberlain and the cellarer 94 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. and the sacrist for all the coin that had been put by the pilgrims into the shrine-box. This time the livid-faced cellarer was silent and obedient ; but the chamberlain, demurring to the order of my Lord Abbat, said, " Surely these contributions of the faith- ful were at all times devoted to the repairing and beautifying of our church ! " " Thou sayeth it," quoth my Lord Abbat; "but if we get not weapons and harness wherewith to with- stand the invaders, we shall soon have no church left us to repair or beautify. By the holy face and incor- ruptible body of Saint Etheldreda, I will strip her very shrine of the gold plates which adorn it, and of the silver lamps which burn before it, and melt the gold and the silver, and barter the ingots for arms, rather than see the last refuge of my countrymen broken in upon, and the accursed Normans in 'my house of Ely ! " "But doth not this savour of sacrilege?" said the sacrist. "Not so much as of patriotism and of real devotion to our saint and foundress. Saint Etheldreda, a true Saxon and East Anglian saint, will approve oi the deed, if it should become necessary to strip her shrine. Her honour and sanctity depend not on lamps of silver and plates of gold, however rich and rare : the faithful flocked to her tomb, and said their orisons over it when it was but a plain stone block, with no shrine near it ; and well I ween more miracles were wrought there, in the simple old times, than we see wrought now. Should the Normans get into our church, they will strip the shrine, an we do not ; and they will rifle the tombs of Saint Sexburga, Saint THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL. 95 Ermenilda, and Saint Withburga^ and cast forth the bodies of our saints upon the dung-heap ! Oh, sacrist ! know 3^e not how these excommunicated foreigners are everywhere treating the saints of Saxon birth, and are everywhere setting up strange saints, whose names were never before heard by EngHshmen, and cannot be pronounced by them ! The reason of all this is clear : our Saxon hagiology is filled with the names of those that were patriots as well as saints, and we cannot honour them in one capacity without thinking of them in the other," "This is most true," said the chamberlain; "and the Normans be likewise setting up new shrines to the Blessed Virgin, and bringing in Notre Dames, and our Ladie of Walsingham, and other Ladies that were never heard of before ; and they are enforcing pilgrimages in wholly new directions ! If these things endure, alack and woe the while for our house of Ely, and for the monks of Saint Edmund's-Bury, and for all Saxon houses ! Our shrine boxes will be empty ; we shall be neglected and forgotten in the land, even if the Normans do not dispossess us." 1 The Sisters of /Etheldrecia. CHAPTER VI. IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA. Within the moated and battlemented manor-house near to the banks of the Welland, which Elfric had stopped to gaze upon as he was travelHng from Crow- land to Spalding, there was held a feast on the fourth day after the feast of Saint Edmund, for the said fourth day from the great Saxon festival was the feast-day of some saint of Normandie or of Anjou, and the Ladie Lucia, maugre her sorrow and affliction, had given birth to a male child a moon agone, and the child was to be baptized on this day with much rejoicing. Ivo Taille-Bois and his Norman retainers were glad, inasmuch as the birth of a son by a Saxon wife went to secure them in their possession of the estates ; and the Ladie Lucia was glad of heart, as a mother cannot but rejoice at the birth of her first- born ; and her Saxon servants, and all the old retainers of her father's house, and all the Saxon serfs, were glad, because their future lord would be more than one half Saxon, being native to the country, a child of the good Ladie Lucia, the daugh- ter of their last Saxon lord. So merry were all, that grievances seemed to be forgotten : the Normans ceased to oppress and insult ; the Saxons ceased, for IVO TAILLE-r.OIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA. 97 the time being, to complain. The feast was very bountiful, for the Ladie Lucia had been allowed the ordering of it ; and the company was very numerous and much mixed, for many Saxons of name had been bidden to the feast, and pledges had been given on both sides that there should be a truce to all hosti- lities and animosities ; that there should be what the Normans called the Truce of God until the son of Ivo Taille-Bois and Lucia, the presumptive heir to all the lands of the old lord, should be christened, and his christening celebrated in a proper manner. No less a man than the prelate Lanfranc had interfered in making this salutary arrangement. And for the first time since the death of her father, Lanfranc's fair ward, the Ladie Alftrude, had come forth from her own manor-house to attend at the earnest invitation of her cousin the Ladie Lucia. The Saxon heiress had come attended by sundry armed men and by two aged English priests who stood high in the considera- tion and favour of the potent Lanfranc. When, landing from her boat (the country was now nearly everywhere under water), she walked up to the gate of the house, and entering, drew aside her wimple and showed her sweet young face and bright blue eyes, there rose a murmur of admiration from all that were assembled there : the Saxons vowed in good old English that the Ladie Alftrude was the fairest and nol)lest maiden in all England ; and the Normans swore in Norman-French and witli many a Vive Dieu that they had never beheld anything equal to her either on tlie othei- side of the seas or on this ! Nay, some of the Norman knights, and more than one whose Ijcard was growing grey while he was yet in H 98 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. poverty or wholly unprovided with any English estate, forgot the broad lands that Alftrude inherited, to think only of her beautiful face. Yet when Alftrude kissed her fair cousin and her cousin's child, and sat down by the side of the Lady Lucia at the top of the hall, it was hard to say which was the more lovely, the young matron, or the scarcely younger maiden. " Benedicite," said a young monk of Evreux who had come over for promotion in some English abbey, "but the daughters of this land be fair to look upon ! " " They be," said a starch man in mail, " and they will conquer the conquerors of England, and soon cause the name and distinction of Norman to be swallowed up and forgotten in the country." "Had I come hither before taking my vows at Evreux, the devil might have been a monk for me, but I would have been none of it ! " Peaceably, ay, and merrily, passed off the day. The fair Ladie Alftrude stood at the font, and was one of the sponsors for her cousin's first-born. The banquet succeeded to the baptism, and dancing and music in the hall followed on the banquet. The old times seemed to be coming back again, those peaceful days of good King Edward, Coeli delic'uc,^ when every free-born Englishman enjoyed his own, and every noble thane or earl held hospitality to be one of his primary duties. But Ivo Taille-Bois, though he boasted of being cousin to Duke William, was a greedy low-born churl, and therefore he needs must mar the happiness of his young wife (who ever since the birth of her son had 1 The delights of heaven. IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA. 99 been striving to forget how she had been made his Avife), by talking of his unprovided brother, who had arrived in England, and was now tarrying about the Conqueror's court in the hope of obtaining from Lan- franc the hand of his rich Saxon ward. The Ladie Lucia, knowing full well how her cousin's heart lay toward Hereward, tried often to change the strain, but her Norman lord, forgetful even of courtesy to his guests, would still keep vexing her ear with his brother's suit, and instead of continuing to be thank- ful to his saints for his own good fortune in getting so vast an heritage, and so fair a wife, and then so promising a child, he spoke as though he should feel himself a beggar until all the domains of the Ladie Alftrude were in the hands of his family. An anger that would not be concealed flashed in his eye when- ever he saw any well-fa'red knight or gallant youth discoursing with Alftrude, and whether it were a Norman or a Saxon his wrath seemed equal. Des- perate thoughts and dark designs flitted through his mind. At one time he thought that now that he had got the young heiress into his house he would forcibly keep her where she was until his brother should arrive and press his own suit in the ungodly manner of the first Norman conquerors ; but he cowered under the dread of Lanfranc and a Norman sentence of excom- munication, and he saw that the thing was not to be done without great peril and much bloodshed under liis own roof, for the Saxon guests were numerous far above the Normans, and tliough, mayhap, several of his Norman guests would not have scrupled about the deed if it had been for their own profit, they could not be expected to coiicu)" in it, or even to allow it, II 2 100 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. when it was only for the profit of him and his l)rotlicr. Vanity, thy name was Norman ! There was young Guiscard^ of Avranches, there was tall Etienne^ of Eouen (and verily a tall and well-proportioned yonng man was he, and one that could talk glibly both in English and in French), there was Baldwin of the Mount, a most nimble dancer, and with a fine gilded cloak over his shoulders and not a crown in his purse (even like all the rest of them) ; there was old Mainfroy of La Perche, who had followed Eobert Guiscard into Italie and Grecia, and had lost an eye and half of a nose in those wars before Ladie Alftrude was born ; and there was old Drogo^ from Chinon, who looked as though he had added to his own nose that half of a nose Mainfroy had lost (so hugeous and misshapen was Drogo's nose !) ; and not one of these gay knights but thought that the Lady Alftrude having once seen and heard him must prefer him to all the world. In their own conceit they were, one and all of them, already Lords of Ey and husbands of Alftrude. -Judge ye then whether Ivo Taille-Bois could have safely ventured to stay his fair guest against her will, or shut up his wife's cousin 1 The writer brings the noted characters of the time into his own tale, and here we find interwoven several names of persons who had no direct connexion with the fen district or its heroes. The Guiscard of the text was the Eobert Guiscard (or Wiscard) who acquired the Dukedom of Apulia — crossed over into Epeiros (1081), threatening the Eastern Empire; a great battle was fought at Durazzo, in which banished or adventurous English distinguished themselves. It is notable that Englishmen, then as now, defended Constantinople. 2 Stephen. ^ We know of no other Drogo than the one already named (note page 82) — he had gone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem with Duke Robert, the Conqueror's father, and both died on their journey home- ward in 1035. IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA. 101 in close bower for his as yet unknown and unseen brother ! But there was now in the hall a merrier eye, and one more roguish withal, than ever shone under the brows of a Norman. The drawbridge being down, and the gate of the house wide open, that all who list might enter and partake according to his degree of some of the good things that were provided, a young Saxon glee-man or menestrel came over the bridge unchallenged, and only paused under the low- archway of the gate. His dress was tattered and torn, and not free from the mud and slime of the fens, Ijut sweet and clear was his voice, and merry and right old English his song; and so all the Saxons that heard him gave him welcome, and bade him enter the hall and sing a lay in honour of the Ladie Lucia and of her first-born son, who would be good lord to all Saxon folk as his grandfather had been before him. But before going into the hall, where the feast was just over, and all the tables cleared, the glee-man went aside into the buttery to renew his strength with a good meal, and refresh his voice with a cup of good wine. When he entered the hall the old Saxon seneschal cried, " A glee-man ! another glee-man come to sing an English song!" The Norman menestrels looked scornfully at him and his tattered cloak ; and the Saxon menestrels asked of one another who he might be ; for none of them knew him, albeit the menestrels, like the beggars and other happy vagabonds of old England, were united in league and brotherhood, in sort that every menes- trel of East Anglia was thought to know every other menestrel or glee-man of that countrie. But when 102 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. the new and unknown comer had played his prehidium on his Saxon lyre of four strings, and had sung his downright Saxon song with a voice that was clear as a bell, and at times loud as a trumpet, the English part of the company, from the highest degree to the lowest, shouted and clapped their hands ; and all the English menestrels vowed that he was worthy of their guild ; while even the Norman glee-men confessed that, although the w^ords were barbarous and not to be understood l)y civil men, the air was good, and the voice of the best. Whether the words were ancient as the music, or whether they were made in part or wholly for the occasion by the singer, they went deep into the hearts both of the Ladie Alftrude and the Ladie Lucia ; and while the young matron of the house put a little ring into a cup, and bade her little Saxon page fill the cup with the best wine, and hand it to the Saxon menestrel, the maiden Alftrude went straight to the spot where that menestrel was stand- ing, and asked him to sing his song again. And when the glee-man had knelt on his knee to the mistress of the house, and had drained her cup of wine until not so much as the ghost of a drop was left in it, and when he had sung his song over again, and more deftly and joyously than he had sung it before, the Lady Alftrude still kept near him, and, discoursing with him, took three or more turns across the lower part of the hall. Saxon lords and Saxon dames and maidens of high degree were ever courteous to the poor and lowly, and ever honoured those who had skill in minstrelsy. At first the Ladie Alftrude smiled and laughed as if at some witty conceit let fall by the menestrel : Init then those who watched her well, IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA. 103 and were near enough to see, saw a cloud on her brow and a bhish on her cheek, and then a paleness, and a short gasping as if for breath. But all this passed away, and the maiden continued to discourse calmly with the menestrel, and whenever the menes- trel raised his voice it was only to give utterance to some pleasant gibe. Ivo Taille-Bois, albeit he had seen him often under another hood, might not know him, and all the English glee-men might continue to wonder who he was ; but we know full well that the menestrel was none other than Elfric the novice. He had found his way unscathed to Ey, and not finding the Ladie Alftrude there, he had followed her to the manor- house of her fair cousin, well pleased that such a celebration and feast would make easy his entrance into the house. A maiden of Alftrude's degree could not travel and visit without a featy handmaiden attendant upon her. Eough men that bend bows and wield swords and spears, and make themselves horny fists, are not fit to dress a ladle's hair or tie her sandals ; and well we ween it becometh not priests with shaven crowns to be lacing a maiden's bodice ; and so, besides the armed men and the two churchmen, the Ladie Alftrude had brought with her Mildred of Hadenham, that maiden well-behaved and well-favoured and i)ious withal, whom Elfric was wont to entertain ^^•ith talk aljout my Lord Hereward, as well as of other matters. Now Mildred of Haden- ham was there at the lower end of the hall, seated among other handmaidens ; and as soon as Elfric entered, or, at tlie latest, as soon as he finished the first verse of his song, she knew who the menestrel 104 THE CAMP OF EEFUGE. was as well as we do. While the Ladie Alftrude was before their eyes, few of the noble company cared to look that way or upon any other than her ; but if a sharp eye had watched it would have seen that Mildred several times blushed a much deeper red than her mistress, and that the young glee-man's eyes were rather frequently seeking her out. And at last, when the Ladie Alftrude returned to her cousin at the head of tlie hall, and the floor of the hall was cleared for an exhibition of dancers, the glee-man, after some gyrations, found his way to the side of Mildred of Hadenham, and kept whispering to her, and making her blush even redder than before, all the other handmaidens wondering the while, and much envying Mildred, for, albeit his cloak was tattered and his hose soiled, the young menestrel, besides having the sweetest voice, was surpassingly well-favoured in form and face, and had the happiest- looking eye that ever was seen. The Ladie Alftrude talked long in a corner with her cousin the Ladie Lucia, and then there was a calling and consulting with Mildred of Hadenham, as though her mistress's head-gear needed some re- arrangement. And after this the two cousins and the waiting-woman quitted the hall, and went into an upper and inner chamber, and tarried there for a short while, or for about the time it takes to say a score of Aves. Then they come back to the hall, and the Ladie Lucia and the Ladie Alftrude sit down together where the company is most thronged. But where is the curiously delicate little ring that was glittering on Ladie Alftrude's finger "? . . . Ha ! Ha ! we wot well that Elfric hath got it, and other love- IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA. 105 tokens besides, that he may carry them beyond seas, and bring back Hereward to his ladie-love and to England that cannot do without him. But where is that merriest of glee-men ? Many in the hall were asking the question, for they wanted to hear him again. But Elfric was gone, and none seemed to know how or when he went. Mayliap, maid Mildred knew something about it, for when the English part of the company began to call for the glee-man with the tattered cloak, that he might sing another merry song, she turned her face to the wall and wept. Well, I ween, had our simple dull Saxons out- witted the nimble-witted Normans ! Well had the menestrel and the ladies and the waiting-maid played their several parts ! Could Ivo Taille-Bois but have known his errand, or have guessed at the mischief that he was brewing for him, either Elfric would never have entered those walls, or he would never have left them alive. CHAPTER VII. iiekewaed's return. There may be between Thamesis and the Tyne worse seas and more perilous rocks ; but when the north- east wmd blows right into that gulf, and the waves of the German Ocean are driven on by the storms of winter, the practised mariner will tell ye that the navigation of the Wash, the Boston Deeps, and the Lynn Deeps, is a fearful thing to those who know the shoals and coasts, and a leap into the jaws of death to those that know them not. Besides the shallows near shore, there be sandbanks and trea- cherous shoals in the middle of the bay, and these were ofttimes shifting their places or changing their shapes. Moreover, so many rivers and broad streams and inundations, that looked like regular rivers in the wet seasons of the year, poured their waters into the Wash, that it required all the skill of the mariner and pilot to find a way into the proper bed of any one particular river, as the Ouse, the Nene, or the Welland,^ Here are many quick-sands, fatal to barks, when concealed under the water ; and even in sum- 1 If the reader will consult a Chart of the Wash — such as Capt. E. K. Calver's, published by the Admiralty in 1873. — he will see how strictly accurate is the description in the text. The channels are tortuous, intricate, and variable. hereward's return. 107 mer-tide, when the waters are dried, the shepherds and then- flocks/ are often taught by a woeful experi- ence that these quick-sands have a wonderful force in sucking in and holding fast whatsoever cometh upon them. In this sort the perils of shipmen are not over even when they reach the shore, and are advan- cing to tread upon what seemeth like term Jlrma. The Wash and its sand-banks and the quick- sands had made more East-Anglian widows and orphans than were made by any other calamity besides, save always the fierce Norman conquest. It was under one of the fiercest and loudest tem- pests that ever blew from the sky of winter, and upon one of the roughest seas that ever rolled into the Wash, that five barks, which seemed all to be deeply laden and crowded with men, drove past the shoal called the Dreadful,'-^ and made for that other shoal called the Inner Dousing. The sun, which had not been visible the whole day, now showed itself like a ball of fire as it sank in the west behind the flats and fens of Lincolnshire ; and when the sun 1 The waters of the Wash spread for miles over the flat shores and leave a dejoosit thereon ; this accretion is assisted by " jetties " made of stakes, thrown out from the permanent shore ; the flats are thus raised above ordinary tides and on them a coarse herbage grows ; sheep are fed on this and as the tide-time approaches these animals may be seen retiring to ground beyond the reacli of the waters — numerous are the streamlets or runlets which intersect these flats of the Wash. -The sand bank here called "Dreadful" is we presume the "Dudgeon" (a name allied to Welsh Di/ficii, malice, ill-will), some lo miles east of the "Inner Dousing"; the latter lies 10 miles to the east of Sutton-le-Marsh, and runs parallel to the Lincolnshire coast. From the Inner Dousing to Boston Deeps is a south-westerly course. (See Map showing distances and direction of these sands from Gibraltar Point.) 108 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. was clown the fury of the tempest seemed to increase. When they had neared the Inner Dousing, four of the barks took in all their sail and lay-to as best they could in the trough of the sea ; but the fifth bark stood gallantly in for the Wash, with nearly all her sails up. Swift as it bounded over the waves, it was dark night before the foremost bark reached the little cape where stands the chapel of our Ladie.^ Here the bark showed three lights at her mast-head, and then three lights over her prow, and then three over her stern. Quickly as might be, these lights from on board the fifth and foremost bark were answered by three times three of lights on the belfry of Our Ladle's chapel ; and had it not been for the roaring of the winds and the loud dashing of the sea on the resounding shore, those on land by Our Ladle's chapel might have heard a three times three of hearty cheers from those on shipboard, and those on the ship might have heard every cheer given back with interest and increase by the crowd of true Saxons that stood by the chapel. The bark next showed at her masthead a broad blue light, such as had never been seen before in these parts ; and presently from the lee side of the Inner Dousing four other bright blue lights gleamed across the black sky; and having in this wise an- swered signal, the four barks followed in the track of the fifth and came up with it ofi" Our Ladle's chapel. Still keeping a little in advance, like the pilot and admiral of the little fieet, the bark that had first reached the coast glided into Lynn Deeps ; and as it advanced towards the mouth of the Ouse, signal- lights or piloting lights rose at every homestead and 1 Probably means Chapel ou Lincolnshire coast. (See Map.) hereward's return. 109 liamlet, from Kitcham^ to Stone's-end, from Stone's- eiul to Castle Eising, and from Castle Rising to the good town of Lynn. And l)esides these stationary lights, there were other torches running along the shore close above the line of sea foam. And much was all this friendly care needed, the deeps being narrow and winding and the shoals and sand-banks showing themselves on every side, and the wind still blowing a hurricane, and the masts of the barks bending and cracking even under the little sail that they now carried. On this eastern side of the Wash few could have slept, or have tarried in their homes this night ; for when — near upon midnight, and as the monks of Lynn were preparing to say matins in the chapel of Saint Nicholas — the five barks swirled safely into the deep and easy bed of the Ouse, and came up to the prior's wharf, and let go their anchors, and threw their stoutest cordage ashore, to the end that the mariners there might make them fast, and so give a doul)le security against wind and tide, the wharf and all the river bank was covered with men, women, and children, and the houses in the town behind the river bank were nearly all lighted uj), as if it had been Midsummer's eve, instead of being the penultimate night- of the Novena of Christmas. It was not diffi- cult to make out that the foremost of the barks and one other belonged to Lymi, inasmuch as the Lynn folk leaped on board of them as soon as they were 1 Perliaps Heacham in Norfolk is intended (see Map) ; there is no place called Stone's end between Heacham and Castle Eising — per- haps the name is borrowed iVom " 8tone-ends " the name given to the embankments at th(.' outfall of the river Nene. In other respects the imragraph is geographically correct. 2 On '2;Jrd December, lOO'.i. 110 THE CAMP OF REFUGE. made fast at the wharf, calling upon their town fellows, their brothers or sons, and hugging them more Saxnnico^ when they found them out on the crowded decks. The other harks were of foreign struc- ture, and the mariners seemed to be all foreigners ; but the many passengers in each of them were all Englishmen, and landsmen besides ; for they had all been very sea-sick, and were now very impatient to get their feet upon dry land. The first that landed from the foremost bark was a tall, robust, and handsome man, dressed as Saxon noblemen and warriors were wont to dress before the incoming of the ill fashions of Normandie. He carried in his right hand a long straight and broad sword, the blade of which was curiously sheathed, and the hilt of which formed a cross. When he had crossed the plankings of the wharf, and reached the solid ground, he knelt on one knee and kissed the cross of his sword ; and then throwing himself prone upon the earth, and casting wide his arms as though he would embrace it and hug it, he kissed the insensate soil, and thanked his God and every saint in the Saxon calendar for that he had been restored to the land which gave him birth, and which held the dust and bones of his fathers. Some who had seen him in former days on the Spalding side of the Wash, and some who had been apprised of his coming, began instantly to shout, " It is he ! — it is Lord Hereward of Brunn ! It is Hereward the Saxon ! It is the Lord of Brunn, come to get back his own and to help us to drive out the Normans." The shouts were taken up on every side, mariners 1 In the Saxon fashion. hbreward's return. Ill and landsmen, foreigners and home-born fensmen, and women and children, crying, "It is Hereward the Saxon ! Long live the young Lord of Brmm, who will never shut his hall-door in the face of a poor Englishman, nor turn his back on a French- man ! " Some hemmed him in, and kissed his hands, and the sheath of his long straight sword, and the skirts of his mantle, and the very sandals on his feet ; while others held their glaring torches close over his head, that they might see him and show him to their mates. It was one Nan of Lynn, and a well-famed and well-spoken woman, that said, as she looked upon the Lord Hereward, "We Englishwomen of the fens will beat the men-at-arms from Nor- mandie, an we be but led by such a captain as this ; With that steel cap on his head, and that scarlet cloak over his shoulders, he looks every inch as stal- wart and as handsome a warrior as the archangel Michael, whose portraiture we see in our church ! " The person nearest in attendance on Lord Here- ward was that lucky wight Elfric, who had been to seek him in foreign parts ; but it was Elfric no longer attired either as a tattered menestrel or as a shave- ling novice, but as something betwixt a blithesome page and an armed retainer. He too had more than one tear of joy in his eye as ho trod upon the shore ; l)ut this tender emotion soon gave way to a heai'ty if not boisterous mirth, and so he kept shouting, " Make way for Hereward the Lord of Brunn ! " and kept squeezing the hands of all the men and women and children he knew in Lynn, as they walked towards the convent where Hereward was to rest until day- li