Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

CHAPTER XLVII

THE SIEGE OF MOUNT SORREL

SEVEN miles to the north of Leicester, built on a steep and rugged hill, overlooking the river Soar, with a fair town and priory at its feet, the castle of Mount Sorrel, in the spring of 1217, frowned with feudal pride, and seemed to bid defiance to all comers. It was not, however, so impregnable as it looked, but had more than once changed hands during the terrible and sanguinary conflict then raging in England. However, the custody of Mount Sorrel was claimed as part of his inheritance by Sayer de Quency, Earl of Winchester, one of the twenty-five conservators of the Great Charter, and held by his deputy, Henry de Braybroke, in the interest of Prince Louis and the Anglo-Norman barons.

Mount Sorrel, however, was deemed a very important stronghold; and the Earl of Pembroke was anxious to gain possession of it for the king, with the object, as would appear from the result, of levelling it with the ground on which it stood. No sooner, therefore, did the protector’s truce with Louis expire, than Pembroke mustered an army, and, carrying the boy-king with him, marched to Mount Sorrel and laid siege to the castle, with such an appearance of determination to make himself master of the stronghold, that Henry de Braybroke, in great alarm, sent messengers to De Quency, declaring that, unless reinforced, he could not long hold out against such overwhelming odds.

On hearing that Mount Sorrel was invested by Pembroke, the Earl of Winchester went to Louis, and entreated him to send an army to relieve the fortress without delay; and the prince, who deemed it politic at the time to remain in the capital, summoned the Count de Perche, and entrusted him with the command of six hundred knights and twenty thousand men in mail – a force composed of Flemings, French, and Anglo-Normans – a large proportion being cavalry. Robert Fitzwalter, the Earls of Winchester and Hereford, William de Roos, William Beauchamp, William Moubray, with many other barons, accompanied the Count of Perche on his northward expedition, and the citizens of London manifested what zeal still existed among them for the invaders by furnishing funds to pay the cost of equipping so many warriors. It was thought that the Count de Perche and the Anglo-Norman barons were certain to strike a shattering blow at the royal cause, and Louis, on parting with the leaders of the enterprise, believed that he was simply sending them forth to put his enemies under their feet.

Moving from London on the 30th of April, the French and Anglo-Normans signalised their march northward by every kind of outrage. Never had the youths and maidens of Middlesex and Hertfordshire known a May Day associated with such painful memories. The foreign invaders and their Anglo-Norman allies, indeed, celebrated the festival in a way which raised a general shout of horror, but seemed to revel in the crimes of which they were guilty. They slew men, outraged women, plundered houses, and wantonly destroyed churches and abbeys as they went, pursued everywhere by the maledictions of the English, who vowed vengeance, and prepared the means of executing it, as if admonished by instinct that the day was not very distant.

The Count de Perche, however, pursued his march in triumph, paying no attention whatever to the curses and threats of the insulted and the injured, no matter how flagrant the insult or how deep the injury, and only eager to come up with the royalists. Pembroke, however, was well informed of all that was taking place, and acted with his wonted prudence. Knowing the impossibility of contending with so superior a force as that headed by the Count de Perche, the protector raised the siege, marched to Nottingham, and summoned the king’s adherents in all quarters to come to his support; and then removing from Nottingham to Newark-on-Trent, he calmly awaited the arrival of his friends and intelligence of his foes.

Meanwhile the Count de Perche made his way to Leicestershire, and on reaching Mount Sorrel found that Pembroke had raised the siege and gone northward. Perche and Fitzwalter, however, did not follow the foe. In fact, they resolved, without delay, to march to Lincoln, where there was still work to be done for their Lord Louis. Accordingly they marched through the vale of Belvoir, and, continuing to perpetrate every enormity as they advanced, at length reached the city which had been so long and so bravely defended by the royalists.

But in the interim Pembroke was not idle. In fact, the old warrior-statesman was every day proving himself, by his sagacity and energy, worthy of the position he occupied. His efforts were even more successful than he could have anticipated, and to the royal standard at Newark gathered chiefs of great name and high reputation. Thither came Ralph, Earl of Chester, William, Earl Ferrars, William, Earl of Salisbury, William, Earl of Arundel, and William, Earl of Albemarle; thither also, from the castles which they held for the king, came William de Cantelupe, Robert de Vipont, Brian de Lisle, Geoffrey de Lucy, and Thomas Bassett; thither, with his mercenaries, came Falco, who had almost become popular by fighting very earnestly against mercenaries ten times less scrupulous than his own; and thither came Philip de Albini and John Marshal, whose crossbowmen had done such good service on the English coast. Four hundred knights, many yeomen on horseback, and a considerable body of foot, formed the army which Pembroke headed to save England from the foreigner; and though it was much inferior, especially in cavalry, to that under the Count de Perche, the old protector did not despair of dealing with his foes in a manner satisfactory to the king and country.

It was Friday, the 19th of May, the sixth day of Whitsuntide, when Pembroke, having made all his arrangements, prepared to leave Newark and put everything to the test. Before marching, however, the warriors of England took the sacrament, and received from the papal legate white crosses, to mark them as men engaged in a holy war. At the same time the legate excommunicated Prince Louis and his principal partisans by name; and, having addressed the king’s adherents in encouraging language, he sent them on their way rejoicing in the hope of a glorious victory or a brave death.

On the evening of Friday, Pembroke, too prudent to fatigue his army with long marches when about to encounter so formidable an enemy, halted at Stowe, a village with a park and a Norman church, and there the royalists passed the night. Next morning the protector entrusted the king to the care of the legate, with whom the royal boy was to remain while warriors did battle for that crown which he was destined to find so thorny, and which, after causing him half a century of trouble, would have been torn from his hoary head, had not his mighty son, breaking chains and defying difficulties, prostrated Simon de Montfort and the baronial oligarchy on the field of Evesham. Pembroke was not gifted with the genius which fifty years later guided Edward on the way to victory, nor animated, as was the greatest of the Plantagenets, by the ambition of creating a free and prosperous nation out of hostile races, and enrolling his name in the annals of fame as one of the greatest leaders in war and rulers in peace; but the good earl was guided by an instinctive sagacity which made him equal to the work he was called on to do, and albeit he coveted no reward save the ennobling consciousness of having done his duty, he was not the less anxious to perform that duty faithfully and well.

And in a cautious spirit, but with a fearless heart, Pembroke marshalled his army skilfully in seven battalions, and set his face towards Lincoln to make the great venture, Philip de Albini and John Marshal, with the crossbowmen, leading the van and keeping about a mile in advance, and the baggage waggons, well guarded, bringing up the rear. Bucklers glittered and banners waved in all directions, for each knight had on the occasion two standards, one of which was borne before him, and the other carried by the soldiers in charge of the baggage, and thus the army of England had the appearance of being a much more numerous host than it in reality was, as on that Saturday morning, in the merry month of May, Pembroke left Stowe, and, in admirable order, took his way to Lincoln.

CHAPTER XLVIII

LINCOLN

LINCOLN is situated on the summit and side of a hill that slopes with a deep descent to the margin of the river Witham, which here bends its course eastward, and, being divided into three small channels, washes the lower part of the city.

Viewed from the London road, on the south, in the month of May, the aspect of Lincoln is particularly beautiful. Before you is the Witham’s silver stream flowing on the east, the open country on the west, and in front the ancient city itself stretching from the level ground up a hill, studded with houses and embowered in trees, its eminence crowned with the keep of the dilapidated castle, and the still magnificent cathedral.

Far different, no doubt, was the appearance of Lincoln in the days when the third Henry was king, and the great Earl of Pembroke protector. It is difficult, indeed, mentally to annihilate the rich and varied scene presented from the spot referred to, and to substitute the ancient prospect in its stead. But if to the gazer’s view, “by some strange parallax,” the mediæval Lincoln were suddenly presented, with its noble castle and grand cathedral; its palace, its churches, and wealthy religious house keeping the flames of piety and learning still burning; its hospital for the sick, and its hospital for decayed priests; its narrow streets, with their projecting houses, tenanted by burgher and chapman; its Jewry, with its strange inhabitants with outlandish garments and olive complexions, trembling for their lives during every commotion, yet too covetous not to be cruel and harsh when Christians were at their mercy in times of peace; its Roman arches, and its strong walls, with gates, and towers, and turrets – all unlike as such a scene might be to the present, save in its hill, and vale, and silvery stream, he would still confess that it was more picturesque and not less fair than that which now lies so beautiful before the arrested eye.

From an historical point of view, Lincoln is one of the most interesting of English cities. It still boasts monuments of its importance when England was Britain, and when Britain was in the hands of the Romans; and at the time of the Norman Conquest, when six centuries had rolled over, it was one of the richest and most populous places in the kingdom. Moreover, the citizens were chiefly men of Danish origin, and therefore to be dreaded; and the Conqueror, on taking Lincoln, resolved to build a strong castle, not only to keep the inhabitants in awe, but to guard against any attempt made by them, in concert with their kinsmen the Danish sea-kings, to throw off the Norman yoke; and having demolished about two hundred and seventy houses to make room for the edifice, the Conqueror crowned the hill with a stronghold, which frowned sullen on the city over which it looked, and awed all malcontents, whether Dane or Saxon. The Empress Maude added to the fortifications while struggling with Stephen; and Lincoln was the scene of important events and a great battle during that war which, after tearing England to pieces, resulted in the peaceful accession of Henry Plantagenet.

But Lincoln, as time passed over, was exposed to other horrors than those of war. In 1180, an earthquake shook the city to its foundations, and almost rent the cathedral in twain. But the citizens repaired their dwellings, and Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln – since celebrated in history as St. Hugh of Burgundy – rebuilt the cathedral and restored all its former splendour.

Before the era of the Great Charter, however, Bishop Hugh had been carried to his last resting-place on the shoulders of King John and the two sub-kings of Scotland and Wales, and the place which he had filled with so much honour was occupied by Henry Welles, a prelate who resolutely espoused the cause of the Anglo-Norman barons and their “good Lord Louis.” Nevertheless, the royal cause was well supported in Lincoln, and its adherents were headed by a dame somewhat like the widowed Countess Albemarle, whom the chronicler describes as “a woman almost a man, being deficient in nothing masculine but manhood.”

It seems that, in the reign of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, Gerard de Camville held the castle of Lincoln, “the custody whereof was known to belong to the inheritance of Nichola, the wife of the same Gerard, but under the king.” However, when Richard was absent in the East, on his way to the Holy Land, and when a feud broke out between Prince John and the Bishop of Ely, who was chancellor and regent of the kingdom, Gerard took part with John, and, in his absence, the castle of Lincoln was besieged by the chancellor-bishop. “But,” says the chronicler, “Nichola, proposing to herself nothing effeminate, defended the castle like a man.” In fact, she held out till the siege was raised.

Nichola de Camville was now a widow, and could not have been young. But neither her courage nor her energy had departed; and though Gilbert de Gant, whom Prince Louis had rewarded with an earldom before he conquered, had been exerting himself strenuously to take Lincoln, his efforts had been in vain; the royal standard still waved over the town and castle when the Count de Perche and Robert Fitzwalter brought their army to the besiegers’ aid.

The arrival of a force so formidable, however, soon changed the face of matters, and the town surrendered. But the castle showed no signs of being likely to yield; and De Perche and his Anglo-Norman allies were fain to commence a very systematic siege, bringing into play their engines of war, battering the walls with huge stones, and hurling other missiles against the garrison. However, they had great confidence in their numbers and in their warlike engines; and they were pressing the siege on the morning of Saturday, the 20th of May, with high hopes of a speedy success, when informed by their scouts that the English were approaching in hostile array with banners displayed.

The Count de Perche at first treated the intelligence with something like indifference, and continued to direct the soldiers, who were hurling missiles from the “mangonels” to destroy the walls of the castle. But Robert Fitzwalter and the Earl of Winchester did not take the matter so coolly. Mounting their horses forthwith, the two barons rode out to survey Pembroke’s army, and returned somewhat flurried, elate with the idea of their own superiority as regarded numbers.

“Our enemies come against us in good order,” said they to De Perche, “but we are much more numerous than they are; therefore our advice is to sally forth to the ascent of the hill and meet them, for if we do so we shall catch them like larks.”

It appears to have been sound advice, and such as the count ought to have adopted, for his superiority in cavalry would have given him a great advantage in the country; but the very fact of its coming from Fitzwalter and Winchester made it distasteful to the French.

“No,” replied De Perche, who, like all Prince Louis’s captains, treated his Anglo-Norman allies cavalierly; “you have reckoned them according to your own judgment and given your opinion; but I must go forth and count them in the French fashion. Besides, I hardly deem the English would be mad enough to attack us in a walled town.”

“No more than stags would dream of attacking lions,” added the Marshal of France, jeeringly.

“Their fate would be sealed,” said the Castellan of Arras.

However, that they might judge for themselves as to the extent of the danger to which they were exposed, the count and his French knights and the marshal and the castellan rode forth and surveyed Pembroke’s army as horsemen and footmen came dauntlessly on, the sun shining on their weapons and their armour. Indeed, the spectacle was not calculated to increase De Perche’s confidence of conquering. Mistaking the baggage and the standards carried by the men who guarded it for a second army, he formed a very erroneous notion of the numbers coming against him, and spurred back to the city a sadder if not a wiser man than he had left it.

And now the French and Anglo-Normans held a hurried council of war, and it was proposed to divide their forces, so that while one party was defending the gates and walls to prevent the English entering the city, the other party should continue to besiege the castle and keep the garrison in check. The count’s friends took different views as to the policy of such a course. Some approved of the plan; others condemned it as not suited to the emergency. But there was no time left for argument, and the proposal was hastily adopted as the best thing that could be done under the circumstances.

And having in this manner decided on the course to be followed, the leaders repaired each to the post assigned to him and prepared for action – one party to guard the gates and walls, the other to direct their efforts against the castle. But scarcely had they taken their places and encouraged their men by word and gesture to do their duty boldly, when both from French and Anglo-Normans rose a loud yell, followed by a long wail, as of men in mortal agony, and ere this died away Pembroke’s trumpets were sounding and his men were thundering at the gates, and the conflict which was to render that May Saturday memorable had begun in earnest, the fate of England trembling in the balance.

CHAPTER XLIX

COLLINGHAM’S RAVENS

IT has been before stated that William de Collingham had a very strong reason for forming his camp of refuge where he did form it – on the islet in the heart of a forest in Sussex, and near the sea-coast. His adventure at Chas-Chateil had very forcibly reminded the stout knight that connected with the ruins tenanted by the anchorite at the islet was a secret passage formed by the hand of man in the earlier days of England’s history, and leading to a precipitous little vale in the wood, at the distance of half-a-mile. This passage was not, indeed, in the best condition, the ground having in some places fallen in, so as almost to block it up; but the knight, on examining it carefully, saw that with a little labour it might be rendered passable without inconvenience, and not only give his followers a great advantage over their foes in the partisan warfare which he intended to carry on, but afford them the means of a secret retreat in case of being threatened by any overwhelming force.

In both respects the subterranean passage served his purpose admirably. By means of it, even when the islet was invested, Oliver Icingla was enabled to sally forth on such nocturnal expeditions as that during which he entered the tent of Eveille-chiens, and seized that leader’s banner, the display of which gave the foreigners an idea that preternatural influences were at work against them; and by means of it, when the islet was invested by Eveille-chiens and Ralph Hornmouth with such a body of troops that resistance would have been hopeless, Collingham, while his enemies were occupied with the construction of the causeway, gradually withdrew his whole force, and left his camp the solitude which, to their amazement, the French captain and the English squire found it when they entered.

Nor, in truth, did Collingham very much regret the necessity under which he was of leaving the place associated with so many daring deeds. By the time, indeed, that he was menaced by Eveille-chiens and Hornmouth in company, he had received intelligence that Pembroke was preparing to renew the war in the heart of England, and he had resolved that his raven banner should flutter in the conflicts likely to ensue. The knight was eager, indeed, to take part in the opening war, and to give his aid to the royal cause where it was likely to be of most value.

However, Collingham resolved not to stake all upon the cast which was about to be made. He therefore divided his force into two bodies. One of them he left to harass the French garrisons in Sussex; at the head of the other he marched right northward, and, keeping to the woods and unfrequented places, so as to avoid coming in contact with the foreign and Anglo-Norman soldiers who held towns and castles for Prince Louis, he contrived, after many days’ journey, to reach the neighbourhood of Lincoln in the very nick of time – in fact, on the evening of Friday in Whitsuntide, when Pembroke and the king reached Stowe; and, learning that the protector intended on the morrow, without fail, to march upon the foe, Collingham halted and encamped on the verge of a wood to the north of the city, that his men might rest from their fatigue, and be in readiness and the best condition to join the royalist army on its march from Stowe. All were in strong health and spirits. None of the brave band were very magnificently arrayed; many of them, in truth, were almost in rags. But most of them were armed with bows or crossbows and short swords, and a few, like Oliver Icingla, had axes and shields. As for Collingham, he had a long sword, and that terrible iron club which had often served him well in times of need, and which on the morrow was likely to do its work thoroughly.

All went well with the bold yeomen and foresters, and with their leaders, who well-nigh twelve months earlier had vowed never to sleep under a roof till England was cleared of the invaders, and who rigidly kept their word. Under the May moon they reposed tranquilly till daybreak, and, having then risen and refreshed themselves with food, they awaited the approach of Pembroke and the army that was about to do battle for England.

And right glad at that crisis was the great Protector to have such an addition to his force, and infinite was the curiosity of nobles and knights and fighting men to see the rough and ragged warriors who, as “Collingham’s ravens,” had been celebrated in town and hamlet as the terror of the invaders. But none were more curious on the subject than the knights and squires of the Earl of Salisbury, who gasped and stared at the sight of Oliver Icingla – in other days, when at Salisbury, and in Spain and Flanders, the pink of youthful chivalry in his dress and equipments – with his shaggy beard, his tattered white jacket, and his battle-axe, so antique in appearance that one of Salisbury’s knights asked laughingly if it had been wielded by some of the Icinglas who were comrades of Hengist or of Cerdic.

However, the warriors who excited so much curiosity, and, it must be added, some ridicule, had a pride of their own, and felt a kind of satisfaction which few even in Pembroke’s army could know. When loyal earls and barons were submitting to the invaders, they had treated the invaders with defiance; they had attacked Prince Louis himself, and forced him to make an undignified flight to his ships – the first rough treatment he experienced in England – and, through good and evil reports, they had adhered to the cause of England and England’s king, enduring all hardships and despising all odds.

Verily such things might well make Collingham’s band a little proud under the circumstances; and proud they felt of their fidelity and their exploits as they marched towards Lincoln, their raven banner fluttering and their stalwart chief towering in front like some giant Dane of the days of Canute. Nor was Oliver Icingla idle. He was still much under the influence of his strange dream in the Sussex forest, for, like most of his race, he had the element of superstition largely in his composition, and considered dreams and omens too serious to be disregarded. This made him all the more joyous to go into battle, if only for change and excitement, moving from front to rear, talking pithily to all the men, stimulating their enthusiasm, and firing their courage and patriotism.

“Englishmen and freemen,” so ran the words of the heir of the Icinglas, “remember your vows as the hour of battle approaches; for a battle there will be, strong and obstinate, albeit not so bloody as some that have been fought on English soil; and that the men whom you are going to encounter are aliens and oppressors. So strike and spare not! Spare neither French count nor Norman baron! This is no day for dainty chivalry, as when a feudal sovereign takes the field against a refractory vassal about some petty dispute, to exchange a few blows, without inflicting a wound, and then feast together in the hall of the nearest castle or abbey, as if nothing had happened. This is, in truth, a very different kind of war. It is a war of Englishmen against foreign invaders – a war of true and loyal men against false men and traitors – a war for our homes which they have burned, and our hearths which they have rendered desolate. Wherefore I say to you, smite and spare not! Down with every ruffian Frank who crosses your path, and down, down with the traitors who invited the ruffian Franks hither! I myself will not fail, if opportunity serve me, to show you in this an example such as an Icingla should show to Englishmen fighting for their country, and may God and good St. Edward aid us in doing battle for our young king and our ancient rights!”