Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

It was August, 1216, when Alexander, for the third time, crossed the border, leaving behind the Highlanders who had brought such disgrace on his former expedition. However, he had a considerable army, and succeeded in making himself master of Carlisle, without being able to reduce the castle. From Carlisle he advanced southward; and, after being joined by his brother-in-law, Eustace de Vesci, he, while passing through Durham, came before Bernard Castle, which belonged to Hugh de Baliol. But here Alexander experienced the loss of a valuable ally. Eustace de Vesci, while riding round the fortress, was mortally wounded by a bolt shot from a cross-bow on the walls; and on De Vesci’s death the Northern men were so discouraged that they abandoned the siege, and dispersed.

Alexander, however, pursued his career of carnage and plunder. Sparing the friends of the barons, but treating cruelly those of the king, he marched right through England, reached Dover without interruption, and, going down on his knees, placed his hand in the hand of Louis, and, as a vassal of the English crown, did formal homage to the French prince as his feudal superior. At the same time, Louis and the Anglo-Norman barons swore not to make any peace with John without including the King of Scots in the treaty; and Alexander, having thus been secured, as he supposed, against the consequences of his imprudence, sojourned fifteen days with Louis, and then turning his face towards Scotland, pressed northward, proving as he went his respect for the laws and liberties of England by taking the lives and seizing the property of Englishmen.

For a time Alexander and the Scots met with no enemy, and encountered no opposition; and northward they went, slaughtering, plundering, and burning to their hearts’ content. On reaching the Trent, however, they found themselves in the presence of foes as cruel and unscrupulous as themselves, in the shape of John’s army of mercenaries. Alexander might well have stood aghast, for he knew to his cost that the hireling soldiers of Falco and of Soltim had more of the characteristics of the wolf than of the lamb; and, with the fate of Malcolm Canmore and his own father, William the Lion, in his memory, he might well despair of crossing the Trent alive and at liberty.

It seemed probable, indeed, that, not for the first time, the banner on which the ruddy lion ramped in gold had waved defiantly in southern gales was to be trampled ignominiously in the dust, when an event occurred which averted the danger, and gave Alexander an opportunity of indulging in fresh carnage, and gathering fresh spoil. King John was dead, and a new scene opened.

CHAPTER XXXVI

END OF KING JOHN

IT was not without good reason that John, on hearing that Louis had landed at Sandwich, left Dover and shrank from a conflict with the prince who, on the invitation of the Anglo-Norman barons, had crossed the sea to dethrone him. His army, in truth, was chiefly composed of Flemings and other vassals of the French crown, who all recognised Philip Augustus as their sovereign, and had no idea of fighting against Philip’s heir. Many of them immediately deserted to the French prince, captains as well as men; and Falco plainly informed the king that, in case of coming to close quarters with the enemy, not one could be relied on, save the natives of Guienne and Poictou, who considered themselves the natural subjects of the Plantagenets, and still cherished a romantic veneration for the memory of John’s mother, Eleanor of Guienne, as the heiress of the old princes who had led their sires to battle, shouting, “St. George for the puissant duke.”

With the object of guarding against the worst, John kept moving from place to place, till he found himself at Stamford, and then moving from that town, he proceeded to Lincoln, which, under Nichola de Camville – that courageous dame – had hitherto held out for the king.

At Lincoln, however, John did not long remain. In autumn he marched to Peterborough, and entering Croyland about October, burned the farmhouses belonging to the abbey, the monks of which sided with his foes; and then to the town of Lynn. Owing to the rumours that had created so much jealousy in the French camp, John’s prospects began to brighten; and having rallied many fighting men to his standard, he determined to turn his face northwards, probably to arrest the progress of the King of Scots, who had just led an army all through England, to Dover, and with this view left Lynn and marched to Wisbeach, and from Wisbeach to the Cross Keys on the south side of the Wash, which he was resolved on crossing by the sands.

Now at low water this estuary is passable, but it is exposed to sudden rises of the tide, as John found to his bitter experience. At first everything looked secure, and the royal forces had nearly reached the opposite bank, called Fossdyke, when the returning tide began to roar. It seemed that the king and his army were doomed. By making haste, however, they escaped; but the baggage and sumpter-mules were swallowed up in a whirlpool, caused by the impetuosity of the tide and the descending currents of the river Welland; and John beheld with dismay and despair bordering on distraction the loss of men, horses, sumpter-mules, and baggage, without which he felt it would be almost impossible to pursue his expedition. It was felt by the unhappy monarch as the severest blow that fortune could have struck at him in his perplexity; and brooding sullenly over his misfortune, he made for Swinehead, a Cistercian abbey in Lincolnshire.

It was night when John reached Swinehead, and the abbot and the monks bent their hooded heads, and, perhaps wishing him elsewhere, welcomed him to their religious house, and had supper served to him in the refectory. Already the king was feverish from the excitement he had undergone while escaping from the tide and witnessing the loss of his men and baggage, and he greatly heightened the fever by eating immoderately of peaches, and drinking new cider, and by violent denunciations of the personages to whom he attributed the evils that had befallen him. No sleep nor rest did he take that night, but walked muttering about the chamber in which he was lodged, the fever gaining on him. Early next morning, however, he caused his trumpets to sound, and mounted his steed; but the effort to pursue his journey on horseback proved vain, and he was forced to dismount and submit to be conveyed in a litter to the castle of Sleaford. But still he was impatient to proceed, and from Sleaford he was carried to Newark, where he was destined to end all his journeyings on earth. Already it had become quite evident that he was about to make a journey to another world, and that he would soon be beyond the reach of the enemies who had vowed his destruction.

Nor did John deceive himself at that dread hour, when his soul and body were about to part. Feeling that his end was rapidly approaching, he sent for the Abbot of Croxton, dictated a letter to the Holy See, in which he implored the papal protection for his helpless children, and then confessed his sins.

It was the night of the 19th of October, 1216, the day after the Feast of St. Luke, when John felt that death had come to claim its prey. He moved his head, and raised his hand.

“I commit my soul to God, and my body to St. Wulstan,” said he, suddenly, and, throwing up his arms, he instantly expired.

From the circumstance of John having committed his body to St. Wulstan, his corpse was conveyed to the cathedral of Worcester, of which St. Wulstan was patron, and, his head having been wrapped in a monk’s cowl, which in that age was deemed a protection against evil spirits, he was laid at rest before the high altar.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE GREAT EARL OF PEMBROKE

IT really seemed, after the death of John, as if the Plantagenets had ceased to reign in England, and that all hope of a great national royalty had vanished. It was difficult, indeed, to believe that the monarchy could be preserved, surrounded as it was by foreign and domestic foes leagued for its destruction, and who held most of the chief castles and cities in the kingdom, the capital included. One man of high rank, destined to save all by his moderation and energy – moderation in the midst of violence, and energy in spite of old age – remained faithful and firm. This was William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, a man whose hair was white, and who had seen many years; but whose frame time had not bent, and whose spirit trouble had not broken.

The name of the great earl – albeit of European renown in his own day – does not occupy a very large space in English history, considering the service he rendered England. But the effects of his prudent conduct and disinterested patriotism are visible in the England in which we live. Indeed, the influence which he exercised was immense; and it is necessary, in order to comprehend the events which rendered the year 1217 so memorable, to know something of the career and character of the warrior-statesman on whom devolved the responsibility of redeeming the errors – so numerous, and glaring, and gross – that had been committed both by his friends and by their foes. Personal foes he appears to have had none; and what was said by Lord Clarendon of the great Duke of Ormond might with justice be said of Pembroke, “that he either had no enemies, or only such as were ashamed to profess that they were so.”

The family of which Pembroke was the chief derived the surname of Marshal from an office held by them from the time of Henry Beauclerc, and of that family he became the head on the death of his elder brother in the reign of Cœur-de-Lion. At that time, however, he was no longer a stripling, but had been for many years mixed up with public affairs, and had taken part in important transactions.

It seems that early in life William Marshal was attached to young Henry Plantagenet, that son of Henry II. and Eleanor of Guienne, who, after being crowned in his father’s lifetime, died of fever on the Continent, under somewhat melancholy circumstances. Being very penitent for the part he had acted, the prince on his deathbed expressed strong contrition for arming against his sire, and in token thereof delivered to William Marshal, “as his most familiar friend, his cross to carry to Jerusalem,” which was done in accordance with the ill-starred prince’s request.

Returning to England on the accession of Richard, William Marshal, being in favour with the young king, bore the royal sceptre of gold at Cœur-de-Lion’s coronation, and soon after received in marriage Isabel, daughter and heiress of Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke (surnamed Strongbow), by Eva, daughter of an Irish king, at whose instance Strongbow embarked for the conquest of Ireland. With Isabel he got the earldom of Pembroke, and immense possessions in England, Ireland, and Normandy. So he was already one of the wealthiest of English magnates, when, on the death of his brother, he succeeded to the office of King’s Marshal.

After the return of King Richard from his crusade and his captivity, Pembroke fought with him and for him in France, Normandy, and in Ireland; and on John’s accession he had made his name known to fame as one of the noblest men and foremost warriors in Christendom. Naturally enough, he was generally recognised as the most honourable and most sagacious person of rank in England at the time when the quarrel between the barons and the king reached a crisis.

Pembroke, as a man of pure patriotism and clear intelligence, could not, of course, sympathise strongly with either party. Probably he was equally shocked by the gross selfishness and hypocrisy of Fitzwalter’s confederates and the unworthy treachery of John. But, whatever his disgust, he did not desert his country in her hour of need; nor did he spare any effort to avert the horrors of civil war. Indeed, he did all he could to accommodate matters; but he spoke to men on whom moderate counsels were wasted, and who, reason or none, were bent on violent courses. It was in vain, therefore, that the great earl, having the good of his country sincerely at heart, played the part of mediator. He might as well have talked to the wild winds as either to the barons or the king.

Approving neither of the conduct of the barons nor the conduct of the king, the position of William Marshal was trying. But, believing that, whatever John’s faults and failings, the interests of the English people were bound up with the interests of the Plantagenet monarchy, nothing could allure him from his fidelity to the crown; and in the midst of John’s distresses, when he was deserted by all whom he had most delighted to honour, Pembroke continued faithful and true, because he deemed that it was his duty so to do.

Nor when John departed this life, and there was every prospect of Prince Louis and the Anglo-Norman barons completing the work they had so vigorously begun, did the great earl despair. Even then he saw the possibility of saving the crown from the grasp of a foreign conqueror, and, exposing himself to terrible hazard in case of failure, instantly took steps to secure the succession of Henry of Winchester, the eldest of John’s two sons by Isabel of Angoulême.

But the aspect of affairs was most forbidding. Only one circumstance occurred about this time to encourage Pembroke in the patriotic course he pursued. Many of the barons who had originally invited Louis to England, or subsequently done homage to him as their sovereign, were deeply disgusted with the French prince’s hauteur and with the airs and insolence of his followers. Some of them had even sent messengers to John at Newark, offering, on certain conditions, to return to their allegiance. The king was too near the gates of death either to see the messengers or hear the conditions. But Pembroke perceived that such a fact as their having sent at all in the circumstances favoured his policy, and no sooner did he receive intelligence of John’s death than he summoned several prelates, and nobles, and knights to Gloucester, and when Peter, bishop of Winchester, and Sylvester, Bishop of Worcester, and Ralph, Earl of Chester, and William, Earl Ferrars, came thither, as also Philip de Albini, a knight of fame, and John Marshal, Pembroke’s cousin, the earl at once proposed to crown the boy Henry, and to proclaim him king.

It was, however, a perilous step to take, and the prelates, nobles, and knights gasped and stared at the idea of a boy of ten occupying a throne that was menaced by royal and feudal warriors who had hosts of fighting men at their backs, nearly every English county at their feet, and the King of Scots and the Prince of Wales as their humble servants.

But it was a step which Pembroke did not fear to take. His brave heart did not fail him in the day of trial, and he was ready to do all, dare all, and risk all, rather than witness the realisation of the vision which his patriot soul abhorred – the vision of a French prince enthroned at Westminster, and lording it over England with the insolence of a conqueror.

Well was it for England that there was one man at that terrible crisis who had the capacity to think and the courage to act.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CORONATION OF THE BOY HENRY

AMONG the provincial cities of England at the opening of the thirteenth century, Gloucester was accounted one of the strongest, fairest, and most stoutly loyal. It had long, indeed, been of importance, and boasted of historical associations which connected it with the ancient world. Occupied by the Romans, sacked by the sea-kings, and known to fame as the scene of the memorable single combat between Edmund Ironside and Canute the Great – the crown of England being the stake – and a favourite residence of Edward the Confessor, its importance as a barrier against the Welsh had been recognised by William the Conqueror, who selected its castle as his winter palace, and strongly fortified the city on the north and south with strong gates and stone walls, surmounted by frowning battlements. The town consisted of four streets forming a cross, and named Northgate and Southgate, Eastgate and Westgate, and boasted of a royal castle, with a chase or park, and a grand Gothic abbey, with lofty tower and oriel window, surrounded by its fish-ponds, or “vivaries,” and physic garden, and vineyards, and all “the means and appliances” for making monastic life comfortable and pleasant. The strength and wealth of the place were such that while England was ringing with arms and the shouts of “Montjoie St. Denis!” Queen Isabel and her son Henry had remained within its walls in thorough security; and while towns had been besieged and fortresses taken, Gloucester had neither been taken nor besieged up to the hour when King John died, in misery, at Newark-on-the-Trent.

It was Friday, the 28th of October, 1216, the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, and Gloucester presented a scene of considerable excitement, though the weather was the reverse of exhilarating. Not a glimpse was there of the “merry sunshine, which makes the heart so gay.” The sky was obscured with a drizzling mist; gloom hung over the whole city; the Severn, swollen with recent rain, threatened to overflow its sedgy banks; the orchards and woodlands around were soddened with wet; and the deer in the king’s park crouched together, sought shelter under the dripping branches of the trees, looking for all the world as if they had some instinctive dread of a return of the flood of Deucalion —

“Piscium cum summâ genus hæsit ulmo,Nota quæ sedes fuerat columbis,Et superjecto pavidæ nataruntÆquore damæ.”

Nevertheless Gloucester was excited. Men with white crosses on their breasts strode hither and thither, gossiping citizens ventured forth into the wet streets to hear the latest news, and laughing nymphs with fair faces gazed watchfully from basement and loophole, as if impatient for some spectacle to gratify their curiosity; for on that day, in spite of Louis of France and the Anglo-Norman barons who had brought him into England, Henry, the son of John, was to be crowned king, and the place appointed for the ceremony was the abbey of Gloucester – that abbey to which, more than a hundred years later, the remains of his murdered grandson were to be brought by Abbot Thokey from Berkeley Castle, under circumstances so melancholy.

At this time Henry of Winchester was in his tenth year. He was a strong, healthy boy, and good-looking, with the fair hair and fair complexion of the Plantagenets. But one unfortunate defect there was in his countenance. Part of one of his eyelids hung down in such a way as partly to cover the eyeball, and thus gave an unpleasant expression to a face which would otherwise have been handsome. Such as the boy was, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, took him by the hand, led him to the castle hall in which were assembled Neville, William Ferrars, Earl of Derby, and the few magnates who had come at his invitation to Gloucester, and, placing him in the midst of them, said —

“Behold your king!”

The nobles, who had been accustomed to the second Henry, and Richard, and John, and who had never pictured to themselves a monarch of ten, scarcely knew how to act. Never, indeed, save in the case of Edgar Atheling, had a child figured as King of England, and how he was to deal with the difficulties that beset the throne was more than they could imagine. For a time they remained silent. But Pembroke again spoke, pointed out the degradation of a foreign prince being in possession of the kingdom, and asked them earnestly to crown the rightful heir and drive out the foreigner and his myrmidons. Suddenly, as if by inspiration, they all threw off their reserve, and cried with one voice —

“So let it be: let the boy be king. Long live King Henry!”

Pembroke having succeeded so far, lost no time in bringing the business to a conclusion. On Friday, the 28th of October, Henry was ceremoniously conducted by the barons and prelates to the abbey church, placed upon a throne, and consecrated; and the crown of St. Edward not being within reach, he was crowned with the golden collar which his mother was in the habit of wearing round her neck. In the absence of Langton, the bishop of Bath performed the ceremony, and the royal boy, having taken the oaths usually taken by the kings of England at their coronation, “to bear reverence and honour to God and to his Holy Church, and to do right and justice to all his people,” did homage besides to the Church of Rome, for his kingdom of England and Ireland.

But so utterly had the public mind been poisoned against King John and all related to him, that even in Gloucester, the stronghold of royalty, popular opinion was divided, and the partisans of the young king, who were known by the white cross of Guienne which they wore on their breasts, had frays in the streets with the adherents of Prince Louis.

“By my faith,” remarked the Earl of Derby to Pembroke as they returned from the abbey to the castle, riding on either hand of the royal boy, “I much marvel to see that even in this city of Gloucester many faces frown sullenly on King Henry’s state.”

“Even so,” replied Pembroke, thoughtfully, “and the sky is dull and dismal. A little while, and the clouds will clear away and the sun shine as of yore.”

“May God and the saints so order it!” said Derby.

A few days later, Henry, at the suggestion of the papal legate, took the cross, that his cause might appear the more sacred in the eyes of both friends and foes; and Pembroke, having been appointed Protector, with the title of “Rector regis et regia,” during Henry’s minority, appointed Henry de Marisco Keeper of the Great Seal, gave notice of the coronation to continental countries, and issued a proclamation of pardon to all offenders who should make their submission within a reasonable time. In consequence, Salisbury, Warren, Arundel, Roger Merley de Merley, and William Marshal, eldest son of the Protector, broke with Louis and swore allegiance to Henry. But still the aspect of affairs appeared most gloomy, for Louis was in possession of a large portion of England, and Robert Fitzwalter and the confederate barons were still, in spite of his coldness and affronts, bent on placing the heir of France on the English throne.

And what did Isabel of Angoulême do in this emergency? Not certainly what a woman with a fine sense of duty would have thought of doing, nor what she would have done if she could have foreseen the future. But at that time clouds and darkness rested on the house of Plantagenet, and if a magician could have shown Isabel her future and that of the royal race of England in one of those magic mirrors in which Catherine de Medici was in the habit of seeing the fortunes of her descendants, she would, doubtless, either have deemed the whole a delusion or shrunk from the fate that awaited her new venture in life.

However, she consulted no mirror except that in which she had been in the habit of surveying the fair oval face and the regular majestic features which had won her so much fame throughout Christendom as “the Helen of the Middle Ages,” and she had no difficulty in learning that she still retained the charms necessary to fascinate the hearts of men. In England, indeed, she could not cherish the hope of any great matrimonial success, but there were countries beyond the narrow seas where she might yet achieve conquests, so she thought of her native land, with its sparkling rivers and its beautiful climate, and a few months after John’s death, leaving the boy-king and his infant brother Richard and his three sisters to their fate, she embarked for the Continent and repaired to Angoulême.

Now it happened that Hugh, Count de la Marche, had not exactly been guilty of betraying “the noon of manhood to a laurel shade,” but he had refrained from taking a wife for better or for worse. He had, indeed, entered into a contract of marriage with one of Isabel’s daughters, but the princess was still an infant, and Count Hugh soon showed a decided preference for the mother. Accordingly, a marriage was speedily brought about, and Isabel, as wife of the Count de la Marche, lived many years, and wrought so much mischief that, when finally she fled to Fontrevaud and died penitent within that religious house, people said that she ought to be called Jezebel rather than Isabel for having sown the seeds of so many crimes; and she begged that she might not be laid in the choir with the second Henry and Eleanor of Guienne and Cœur-de-Lion, but buried in the common cemetery as a penance for her sins, which were many.