Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

Resting himself on the lowest bough, and settling himself securely with his feet on the grass and the faithful hound by his side, Oliver Icingla endeavoured to snatch a brief sleep in the twilight. But sleep would not come, and, as twilight faded into darkness and evening deepened into night, and the moon rose and shone through the trees on the grass, he thought of Beatrix de Moreville and of Oakmede and Dame Isabel, and from his home and his mother Oliver’s thoughts wandered to the Icinglas and the days when they had been great in England and marched to battle under a gonfalon as stately as a king’s.

But no matter what subject presented itself, all his reflections were tinged with gloom, and several times he rose to his feet and walked about with the uneasy feeling of one who has, he knows not why, a presentiment of coming woe. At length, worn out with bodily fatigue and melancholy musing, he fell into a feverish sleep, and dreamt dreams which made his breath come by gasps, and caused his brow to darken, and his teeth to clench, and his frame to quiver.

It seemed to him at first that a sweet voice was singing the popular ballad, “I go to the verdure, for love invites me;” that he was, in fact, in the woodlands around Oakmede, walking hand in hand with De Moreville’s daughter, and that suddenly as they moved through the greenwood and reached a spot familiar to him from childhood, they came upon his mother stretched lifeless and rigid under a leafless tree growing on a hillock where there still remained a circle of rough stones, which seemed to indicate that the place had in ancient days been dedicated to the rites of the Druids. Oliver started in great horror, and rapidly his imagination associated the death of his mother with the enmity which had been shown towards himself by Hugh de Moreville. But he did not awake. Suddenly, as if by magic, other figures appeared on the scene, and before him, as he imagined, were all the departed chiefs of the house of Icingla urging him to execute a terrible vengeance, while one of them, arrayed in the long cloak and wearing the long beard in vogue among the Anglo-Saxons up to the time of the Conquest, raised his hand and exclaimed —

“Dally not with the Norman’s daughter, O heir of the Icinglas! nor deem that aught but evil can come of her love. Beware of her wiles, and avoid her presence, and wed her not, for harder thou wouldst find the couch of the foreign woman than the bare ground on which thou sleepest while keeping faith with thy country and thy race.”

And then Oliver dreamt that, as he uttered something like a defiance of this warning, which, awake or asleep, could be little to his liking, the scene changed, and the Anglo-Saxon chiefs, after frowning menacingly on their heir, suddenly became horned cattle, and they rushed upon him bellowing furiously, as if bent on his instant destruction. Fortunately awaking at that moment, in great terror Oliver sprang to his feet, agitated and trembling, and as he did so the sight which met his eyes was not such as to allay his trepidation. Before him, close upon him, bellowing savagely, he beheld a herd of forest bulls tearing up the ground at the spot where he had observed the traces of slaughter, their milk-white skins, and curling manes, and black muzzles, horns, and hoofs distinct in the pale moonlight. Attracted by the barking of the bloodhound, several were advancing furiously on Oliver, nothing, indeed, intervening between him and their black, sharp horns but the faithful dog, which, with a sullen growl, was springing desperately on the foremost of the herd in a brave endeavour to save its master from the terrible peril with which he was threatened. Oliver Icingla, with his hair standing on end, gazed in consternation on the spectacle before him, and involuntarily uttering an exclamation of horror, grasped his battle axe with some vague intention of defending himself against the ferocious herd by which he was assailed.

CHAPTER XLII

BURNING OF OAKMEDE

WHILE Oliver Icingla was exerting himself so strenuously against the French who garrisoned the castles of Sussex, and while ballads in his praise were sung in the streets of London, and in the very hearing of the invaders, Dame Isabel was passing her time sadly in the old halls of Oakmede.

The life of a Norman dame of the thirteenth century was, no doubt, somewhat monotonous; but it was not solitary, and generally could not be very dull. In fact, the castle of almost every Norman baron was a school of chivalry, where young men of noble birth, first as pages, and afterwards as squires, served an apprenticeship to arms, and were taught “to serve God and the ladies,” as Oliver had been in the household of the Earl of Salisbury and Hela Devereux, his pious countess. Moreover, the spouse of every powerful noble had a number of damsels in attendance, whom she instructed in the art of needlework and embroidery, as also how to make salve, and bind up wounds, in the event of a siege, and in some very homely domestic duties connected with the larder and the dairy, the dame working in their company, setting them their tasks, and at times reading to them from some holy book or romance of chivalry.

Dame Isabel Icingla’s position, of course, was very different in many respects from that of the wife or widow of a Norman baron, and her household much more limited. Moreover, she could not seclude herself as they could do – in fact, as her husband had been known among the Saxons as Hlaford, which signified the bread-giver, so she as his wife was known as Hleafdian, which signified the server of bread; and she was fain to avoid the charge of being denounced as “niddering” by conforming to the system of lavish hospitality and free intercourse with humble neighbours which the Icinglas, as Saxon thanes, had ever practised – their door having always stood open, from morning to evening, to all comers, and their cheer, such as it was, having been dispensed with open hand.

All this, of course, was very homely and primitive, and perhaps Dame Isabel did not relish it. But while enacting her part as a Hleafdian, she never for a moment forgot that she was a Moreville, and never really descended from what she deemed the dignity of a noble lady. Born a Norman, and heiress to vast possessions, her pride was naturally high; and though she was perhaps unconscious of the fact, her original pride as Moreville and Norman had been much increased by her marriage with an Icingla, and all that she heard of their vague and indefinite pretensions; for, having little of their old grandeur left, save their pride, the Icinglas made the most of it in season, or out of season, and regarded their own strength in battle and wisdom in council as nothing compared with the lustre which they borrowed from ancestors who had held princely rank, and headed great armies in England, before the Danish kings turned England upside down.

For various reasons, therefore, Dame Isabel Icingla entertained a very high opinion of her own importance; and even in going through the duties of hospitality which devolved upon her as Hleafdian, she was grave and stately almost to affectation. In the evening, however, she was in the habit of unbending so far as either to converse with her three maidens on domestic affairs, or – being a woman of notable piety – to read to them some passage from the lives of the saints, albeit she may have been aware that these damsels would have much preferred a little lighter literature. But however that might have been, Dame Isabel, dressed in her russet gown, and wearing the wimple which concealed her grey hairs and gave a conventual appearance to her face, was seated in her chair of state, and thus occupied, with her three maidens around her, when a strange murmur ran through the house, and a spaniel which lay at her feet started up and uttered a low growl, and then barked, and, as the dog barked, Wolf, the son of Styr, rushed in with terror on his countenance.

“Oh, noble lady,” cried he, so agitated that he could scarcely articulate, “fly! They are coming; they are here!”

“Who are coming?” asked the dame, bending her brows somewhat sternly on the intruder. “Who are here?”

“The outlandish men,” answered Wolf, excitedly, “who spare neither sex nor age; for, as my father Styr says, the French soldiers are the refuse and scum of the kingdom.”

A few words will suffice to explain how the son of Styr, knowing that Dame Isabel was such a stickler for ceremony, deemed himself justified in rushing unbidden to his lady’s presence.

It was a gusty Monday evening, about the beginning of March, and Wolf, having paid his last visit for the day to Ayoub and Muradel, was loitering about the stable-yard, and, boy-like, watching eagerly the movements of two young game cocks which he expected would win applause in the Barnet cock-pit and do honour to the training of Oakmede on the morrow, which happened to be Shrove-Tuesday, when his ear was arrested by the “steady whisper on the breeze and horsemen’s heavy tread” which intimates the approach of cavalry.

Rumour had recently brought to Oakmede some terrible reports of the havoc wrought by the invaders, and the inmates had often instinctively felt alarmed and drawn closer together as tales of ravaging and pillage were told by pilgrims and pedlars around the winter fire of wood. But somehow or other, from the home of the Icinglas having stood through so many civil turmoils without being scathed or attacked, they never realised the idea of armed foemen appearing at the gate.

Wolf, however, as he listened, began to suspect that this confidence was to meet with a rude shock, and, as he rushed out of the stable-yard, and looked up the long glade that served for avenue, his worst suspicions were confirmed by the sight of a band of horsemen whose aspect would have left no doubt that they were foreigners and coming on no friendly errand, even if his keen eyes had not recognised in their guide his ancient enemy Clem the Bold Rider, mounted on one of Sir Anthony Waledger’s horses, and pointing out the way with vindictive intent. Not a moment did he then lose in performing what he deemed his two great duties under the circumstances. The first was to give the alarm to Dame Isabel; the second to fly back to free Ayoub and Muradel from their stalls, to lead them to the rear of the buildings, and to drive them through the orchard into the woodland, confident that they, at least – thanks to their aversion to strangers and their swiftness – would escape the hands of the marauders.

When this was done – and it was but the work of a minute – Wolf deemed it high time to think of his own safety, and pondered the propriety of escaping to his father’s cottage, to which foreign invaders were not likely to find their way. But his anxiety was so intense that he could not, for the life of him, muster resolution enough to leave the neighbourhood of the danger, and making such a circuit among the trees as kept him out of the way of the enemy, he drew as near to the front of the old house as he could without the risk of detection, and entering the hollow of an old pollard, peered cautiously out on the armed band.

Meanwhile, guided by Clem, the Count de Perche – for he it was – halted before the great wooden gate, sounded trumpet, and demanded admittance. No answer being returned to his summons, the count grew wroth, and ordered his men to shoot. His order was promptly obeyed; but the flight of arrows produced no effect, and the count became red with rage.

“Mort Dieu!” exclaimed he, turning round, “are we to be kept here all night by these stinking swineherds? Break open the gates.”

Several men sprang over the moat, and soon their hammers and axes were applied with such vigour and energy, that the time-worn gate gave way before the heavy blows aimed at it. At the same time the drawbridge was lowered.

“Now,” said the count with a significant gesture and in a decisive tone, “enter, and do your duty.”

As he spoke, such of his men as had dismounted passed the drawbridge, rushed through the courtyard, and with little difficulty forced their way into the house; but, to their surprise, nobody appeared either to yield or resist. The place was deserted, and they roamed from chamber to chamber without meeting with a human being. It seemed by their ejaculations, and by their searching and re-searching, that the French soldiers were disappointed at the absence of flesh and blood. However, they laid hold of everything as spoil that was not too heavy to bear away, and returned to the count to report the result of their adventure; and he, after muttering a few oaths, gave his final order.

“Set fire to this den without loss of time,” said he sharply, “and dally not, for we have far to ride. Mort Dieu! if this Icingla should think fit to visit his house this night, I will provide him with light sufficient to guide him on his way through the woods.”

The count’s order was speedily obeyed. His men, indeed, seemed to relish the duty. Having ransacked the barns and the cow-houses, and killed the old cowherd, who, unluckily for him, arrived at that moment from the neighbouring hamlet, the soldiers brought wood and straw, and proceeded, with business-like precision, to the work of destruction, and the house, being chiefly constructed of timber – and that timber old and dry – was soon in a blaze.

“Now mount, every man, and let us begone,” said the count triumphantly. “By the bones of John the Baptist! we have made an example of this Icingla, and done enough to deter others from setting themselves against our good Lord Louis. Ride on;” and as the count spoke he turned his horse’s head, and, followed by his band of ruffians, rode leisurely by the twilight, up the glade by which he had come on his errand of devastation.

Nor had the French in any degree failed in the work which they came to do. When Wolf, seeing that the coast was clear, emerged from his hiding-place, and came into the open space to gaze on the burning house, night had already fallen, and the sight was terrible to behold, and all the more so to him that he feared the inmates had fallen victims. The fire, indeed, was raging, and devouring its prey like a fiend, and coiling, as the serpent does, round its victim. In some places it had reached the roof, and was leaping towards the sky, on which the reflection of the flames was red as blood, and there was every prospect of the flames meeting in such a way as to reduce the old house to a heap of ashes and ruins. Driven by the wind, the fire reached the outbuildings, and stables, barns, brewhouse, and cow-houses, and pigeon-houses were involved in one general conflagration. Only the little chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan, from the fact of its standing apart from the other buildings, and in the quarter opposite to that towards which the wind was blowing, had a chance of escape.

At this stage, and while all but one wing of the house was enveloped in flame and smoke, Styr the Anglo-Saxon, having accidentally learned that some catastrophe had occurred, joined his son in the darkness, and he did not come a moment too soon. Scarcely had Wolf, in hurried accents, explained what had happened, when shouts and screams of agony reached their ears, and, listening to ascertain the direction from which the cries came, they, by the lurid light which the fire threw around, descried, at the casement of an upper chamber in the wing still unscathed, faces of men and women in mortal terror of the most terrible of deaths. Styr guessed all: the inhabitants of Oakmede had fled to the hiding-hole to escape the hands of the foreign soldiery, and, ignorant that the house was on fire, had remained in concealment till the flames had seized the stairs, and their means of escape had been cut off. Their position was now truly awful; and the old man shuddered at the sight.

Nevertheless, Styr’s presence of mind did not desert him. He remembered that in the orchard was a ladder, and he hoped that it might be long enough to enable them to descend. Thither, as if he had suddenly shaken off twenty years of his age, he rushed, Wolf, in keeping pace with him, much marvelling at his father’s swiftness of foot. But when the ladder was brought, and when, to the joy of those who were imperilled, it was placed against the wall, their joy was suddenly turned into sorrow, and a simultaneous cry of despair rose from their lips as they perceived that it was too short to serve the purpose of saving them.

But Styr did not despair: it was not his way in life. Calmly he ascended the ladder step by step, till he was almost on the highest, while Wolf held it below to keep it steady. And much had the domestics to rejoice that the veteran’s stature was tall, and his shoulder strong. One by one he caught them in his iron arms – first the women, then the men – and descended with them on his shoulders, and all this he did calmly and in solemn silence, like a man who felt his responsibility, and was determined to acquit himself of it with credit. But when the last of the domestics was saved – and by that time the moon had risen – he turned round and gazed on them with the air of a person who wishes to ask a question, but dreads to receive the answer.

“Where,” said he at length, struggling to find words – “where, in the name of St. Dunstan and St. Edward, is the Hleafdian?”

Men and maids alike stared at each other, but for a time returned no answer.

“Marry, we know not,” at last said the steward.

Styr the Anglo-Saxon raised his shaggy eyebrows, and darted on the circle a look of reproach, such as, even seen by moonlight, none of those present ever forgot during their lives, and then hid his face in his hands, as if praying.

“Now,” said he, after a moment, “let everybody who would be saved bear back and away, for danger cannot be far distant.”

“Move away,” repeated Wolf, setting the example; and everybody with precipitation got out of reach of the tottering walls.

The prescience of the old man was speedily vindicated. All was soon over, and flames rushed from every casement, including even that by which the domestics had made their narrow escape. Then the roof gave way, a cloud of vapour darkened the sky, a pillar of fire rose high, and the old walls tottered and fell with a crash.

Next morning, when tidings of the catastrophe spread through homesteads and hamlets, and when the peasantry flocked to see what was to be seen, the old hall of the Icinglas was a heap of blackened ruins. But what had befallen Dame Isabel was the question which everybody asked, and the question which nobody could answer.

CHAPTER XLIII

FOUND DYING

WHEN Dame Isabel Icingla comprehended the cause of Wolf the varlet’s intrusion, and meditated for a moment on the intelligence he brought, she became pale as death, uttered an exclamation of terror, and shuddered with horror at the idea of herself and her household being at the mercy of men who knew nothing of mercy but the name. Nevertheless, she was true to herself and her dignity. Falling on her knees, she prayed earnestly for heavenly support, and called not only on St. Moden, the patron of the Morevilles, but on St. Edward and other Saxon saints whom the Icinglas were in the habit of invoking at moments of anger and in times of trouble, to shield her from the danger that beset her; and having done this, the Norman lady doubtless felt that she had done her duty, at least, in placing herself under powerful and holy protection.

It appeared, however, that the three maidens who had been listening, or pretending to listen, while she read to them a narrative of saintly life, did not thoroughly sympathise with Dame Isabel’s pious sentiments. At all events, they failed to follow her example in so far as concerned the invoking of saintly aid. In fact, no sooner did they become aware of their peril than they fluttered, and started up, and screamed, and fled like larks at the approach of the sparrowhawk, and, hurrying pell-mell from the room, followed the other inmates of Oakmede, who were rushing in haste and consternation to a hiding-hole which was formed by a kind of double wall in one wing of the old building, and in which, according to tradition, the Icinglas had found refuge when assailed by the Danes in the days of Harold Harefoot and other of the Danish kings who ruled in England before the coronation of the Confessor.

When, therefore, Dame Isabel rose from her knees and looked round, she found herself unattended, save by the spaniel which had growled and barked at Wolf’s entrance, and which now looked up in her face, and, in default of the faculty of speech, seized the skirt of her russet robe, as if to implore her to fly. The instinct of self-preservation seconded the suggestion of the dog, and after rushing into the passage, and in vain summoning the fugitive nymphs to return, she, hesitating no longer, tottered tremblingly down the stair that led to the hall in which Oliver and De Moreville had supped on Christmas Eve, and, escaping by the rear of the house, she made for the little chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan, with some vague notion that she should be safe under the roof and before the altar of an edifice which in her eyes was so sacred.

But here Dame Isabel was exposed to a severe disappointment. In her hurry and tremor she had forgotten that the door of the chapel was locked; and as she paused in extreme perplexity, and stood for a moment pondering what to do next, or where she was to betake herself, she almost fainted from the intensity of her alarm as the tramp of steeds, and the ringing of bridles, and the clash of steel, and the voices of men, sounded in her ear, and intimated that the outlandish soldiers, whom she knew to be so brutal and bloodthirsty, were passing within a stone’s throw of her, and that she was only concealed from their eyes by the trees and the roofs of the outbuildings.

Under such circumstances, Dame Isabel hesitated no longer, but, attended by the faithful spaniel, she passed with trembling steps through the orchard, and, just as darkness was about to descend on the earth, she, recking little of mud and mire, fled into the woodlands. For a time she wandered about, not knowing whither she went, and aware that the woodland was not without its dangers, but fearing little from the bear, or the wolf, or the yellow hyæna, in comparison with her dread of the monsters in human form, at whose approach she had left the home where for years she had dwelt, sadly indeed, but in peace and safety. Fatigued at length, after wandering for hours without reaching a house, she came to a halt, and seating herself under a tree, in the moonlight, the faithful dog at her side, she thought of her dead husband and her absent son, and shed bitter tears, and then stretched herself on the cold grass and fell asleep.

Next day, Styr the Anglo-Saxon made a diligent search for Dame Isabel in the neighbourhood of Oakmede. But, though aided by Wolf and others, he utterly failed to discover any traces of the Norman lady, and was driven to the conclusion that she had perished in the fire. The old man, however, was not satisfied with the part which had been played by the domestics; and when after his fruitless search he returned towards evening to his cottage, he bitterly reflected on the conduct both of the men and maidens who had, on such an occasion, left the Hleafdian to her fate, not even sparing his own son. Indeed, Styr reproached Wolf so sharply, that the boy, to avoid a quarrel, left the cottage to look after Ayoub and Muradel, which, in the morning, were found quietly standing near the spot where their stable had been, and apparently wondering at the change that had been wrought by the fire in the aspect of everything around.

Wolf had not departed five minutes when Styr and his wife were startled by a strange scratching and whining at the other door, which caused their watch-dog to bark loudly, and when it was opened, Dame Isabel’s spaniel entered, looking the picture of woe, and ever and anon turning and pointing towards the door, and gazing earnestly in their faces, as if imploring them to follow. Styr and his wife guessed all, and without loss of time followed the dog into the woodland till they reached the leafless oak associated with traditions of Druidical rites, and there, within the broken circle of rough stones, lay a woman in a wimple and a russet gown, her hands clasped as if she prayed. It was Dame Isabel, and she was not dead but dying.

The Anglo-Saxon and his wife carried her reverentially to their cottage, and used all the means in their power to restore her; but their efforts proved vain. She recovered, indeed, sufficiently to tell the sad story of her flight and of her wanderings; but, this done, she sank into a sleep from which she never awoke. Next morning she was a corpse, cold and rigid, and the monks from a neighbouring religious house, to which she had been a benefactress in the days when she was a great baroness and wife of one of Cœur-de-Lion’s most puissant knights, came and removed the body to their church, where masses were said for the soul that had departed under circumstances so melancholy, and then the remains of Dame Isabel were conveyed with all honour to Oakmede and laid among the bones of the Icinglas in the little chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan.