A Legend of Reading Abbey

by Charles MacFarlane

  X.

  Before the swallows made their next return to our meads and river sides,the flames of war were again kindled in our near neighbourhood. Whenthat I heard Sir Ingelric had stolen back into the island with anAngevin band, and that Brian Fitzcount, through the treachery of some ofKing Stephen's people, had been allowed to win his way into hisinexpugnable castle at Wallingford with great supply of munitions ofwar, I did foresee that the year eleven hundred and fifty-three would bea year of storm and trouble to Reading Abbey, and to all the countrybesides. Sir Ingelric's return was soon notified to us by the burning ofdivers villages between Reading and Speen, and by the sudden plunder anddevastation of some of our own outlying manors; and while we weregrieving at these things, news was brought to us that Brian Fitzcounthad called upon all the castle holders in the west to take up arms, notfor the Countess Matilda, but for her son Henry; and that the said SirBrian had ravaged well nigh all the country from Wallingford toOxenford, making a great prey of men and cattle.

  Sir Alain de Bohun and our stout-hearted Abbat Reginald collected suchforce as they could, and marched in quest of Sir Ingelric; but thatcruel knight fled at their approach, and then retreated into the farwest. King Stephen made an appeal to the wealthy and warlike citizens ofLondon, who were ever truer to him than were his great barons, and beingwell furnished with arms and men, and the great machines proper for thesieges of strong places, the king went straight to Wallingford with adetermination not to remove thence until he had reduced that terriblecastle. This time he came not unto our abbey, but the lord abbat sentsome of our retainers to assist in the great siege; and as all the lordsthat were true to the king marched with the best of their vassals toWallingford, a great army was collected there. Of the people of thatvicinage, every free man that was at all able to work repaired to theking's camp, and offered his labour for the capture and destruction ofBrian Fitzcount's den. A deep trench was speedily cut all round thecastle, and such bulwarks and palisadoes were made that none could comeout of the place or enter therein; and catapults were in readiness tobatter the walls, and mines were digging that would have caused the keepto totter and fall. Certes, the emprise was close to a successful issue,when tidings were brought that Henry Plantagenet had landed in thesouth-west with one hundred and forty knights, and three thousandforeign foot soldiers, that all the great barons of the west wereproclaiming him to be the lawful king of England, and were joining hisstandard, and that he was moving with a mighty force to lay siege toMalmesbury. King Stephen had found no more faith abroad than he hadfound at home. Ludovicus, the French king, having many weighty reasonsto mislike and fear Henry Plantagenet, had made a treaty of alliancewith Stephen, had affianced his daughter Constance to Prince Eustacethe son of Stephen, and had engaged to keep the powerful Angevin at homeby threatening Anjou and Normandie with the invasion of a great Frencharmy; but, instead of a great army, the French king sent but a fewill-governed bands; and when these had been discomfited in a fewencounters, Ludovicus listened to proposals of peace, and abandoned theinterests of Stephen. And that great English earl, Ranulph, earl ofChester, whom King Stephen had driven out of Lincoln, went over to Anjouto invite Henry into England, and to engage soul and body in hisservice; first taking care to obtain from that young prince a deed ofcharter conveying to him, the said Earl Ranulph, in _foede etheriditate_, the lands of William de Peveril, and many fiefs and broadmanors in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, and elsewhere,together with sundry strong castles which the said earl hoped tokeep--but did not. Forced was King Stephen to raise his siege ofWallingford Castle, and to evacuate and destroy the wooden castle ofCranmerse which he had raised close to Brian Fitzcount's gates. He hadscarcely drawn off his people, and begun a march along the left bank ofThamesis above Wallingford, ere Henry Plantagenet, having gottenpossession of Malmesbury and of many strong castles, which thecastle-builders, not foreseeing that which was to happen, had given upto him, appeared on the right bank of the river with his great army ofhorse and foot. The Plantagenet was of an heroical temper; and Stephen,who had fought in so many battles, was yet as brave as his young rival,and was transported with wrath at seeing how many barons who hadrepeatedly sworn allegiance to him were in array against him; moreover,Prince Eustace was with his father, and, like a valorous and passionateyouth, was eager for the fight; and of a certainty there would have beena terrible and bloody battle, if battle could have been joined at thefirst confronting of these two forces; but a heavy and long-continuingrain had swollen all the rivers and brooks, and had poured such a volumeof water into Thamesis that there was no crossing it. Therefore lay thetwo mighty armies opposite to each other for the space of several days;and during that interval certain of our prelates bestirred themselves aspeace-makers, and sundry great lords on either side said that verily itwas time this unnatural war should have an end. But Henry Plantagenetdid want for his immediate wearing the kingly crown of England, andStephen had vowed by the glory of God to keep that crown on his headuntil his death, and none durst speak to him of a present surrender ofit. When the waters somewhat abated the king marshalled his host, as ifdetermined to come at his foe by crossing the river at a ford not faroff; but upon mounting his war-horse, which had carried him in manybattles, the steed stumbled and fell, not without peril to his rider.The king mounted again, laughing as at a trifling accident; but when thehorse fell a second time under him, his countenance became troubled.Nevertheless he essayed a third time, and for a third time the steedfell flat to the earth as though he had been pierced through poitrailand heart by an arrow. Then did the king turn pale, and his nobles 'ganwhisper that this was a fearful omen.

  "By our Ladie St. Mary," quoth Prince Eustace, "the steed hath grownold, and distemper hath seized him during his days of inactivity inthis swampy and overflooded country! This is all the omen, and the deathof the poor horse will be all our loss."

  And the resolute young prince would have mounted his father on anothersteed, and have marched on to the ford, and then straight to battle. Butthe Earl of Arundel, being much inclined to peace, and a bold andeloquent man, took advantage of the consternation which the omen orhorse-sickness had created in the king's army, and going up to Stephen,he did advise him to make a present convention and truce with HenryPlantagenet, affirming that the title of Duke Henry to the crown ofEngland was held to be just by a large part of the nation, and by somewho had never been willing to admit his mother to the throne; that thecountry was all too weary of these wars, and that the king ought byexperience to know the little trust that was to be put in many of hispresent followers. "But I will not die a discrowned king," said Stephen."Nor shalt thou," replied the great Earl of Arundel.

  After many entreaties and prayers, the kingly mind of Stephen yielded sofar as to allow a parley for a truce; and Henry Plantagenet, not beingless politic than warlike, entered upon a convention, and then agreed toconfer with Stephen.

  The place for conference was so appointed that the river Thamesis, whereit narrows a little above Wallingford, parted the two princes and thegreat lords that were with them; so that from either bank King Stephenand Duke Henry saluted each other, and afterwards conversed together.The conference ended in a truce, during which neither party was toattempt any enterprise of war, but both were to discuss and amicablysettle the question of Duke Henry's right to the crown upon the demiseof Stephen.

  Prince Eustace had not been a prince if he had quietly submitted to anarrangement which went to deprive him of the succession to a greatkingdom: he burst suddenly away from the king's camp, calling upon thosewho had taken the oaths to him to follow him to the east. Not many rodeoff with him; but our young Lord Arthur, feeling the obligations of hisreplicated vows and the ties of duty and friendship, would not quit hismaster; nor did his father Sir Alain, who had placed him in the prince'sservice, make any effort to restrain him. As for the good lord ofCaversham himself, he returned to his home with the double determinationof observing the truce, and of not giving up his allegiance to KingStephen, u
nless the king should voluntarily release him therefrom; for,much as he sighed for the return of peace, Sir Alain prized his honour,and did never think that a good settlement of the kingdom could beobtained through falsehood and perjury. But woful apprehensions andsadness did again fall upon the house at Caversham, for the course takenby Prince Eustace was full of danger to him and his few adherents, andit was reported that his great anger and desperation had driven him mad.But short was the career of that hapless young prince, who, though bornto a kingdom, lived not to see anything but the calamities thereof. Iwis those men who had most flattered him, and had taken oaths to him asto the lawful heir to this glorious crown of England, did speak mostevil of him in the days of his adversity, and after his death. I, whoknew him and conversed with him oft times, did ever find him a youth ofa right noble nature, valorous and merciful like his father, and asdevout and friendly unto the church as his mother Queen Maud. Yet may Inot deny that in his last despair he did some wicked deeds which sorelygrieved our young Lord Arthur, who could not prevent them, and who yetwould not abandon him in this extremity of his fortune. Coming into thecountries of the east, and finding few to join him, he burst into theliberties of St. Edmund, and into the very abbey of St. Edmund, king andmartyr, and demanded from the Lord Abbat Ording, and the monks of thatholy house, money and other means for the carrying on of his headydesigns; and when that brotherhood, as in duty bound, and like men thatwere unwilling to be wagers of new wars, did refuse his request andpoint out the unreasonableness and ungodliness of them, he ordered hishungry and desperate soldiers to seize all the corn that was in theabbey, and carry it into a castle which he held hard by, and then to goforth and plunder and waste the lord abbat's manors. The corn wascarried to the castle, but before further mischief could be done thesoul of Prince Eustace was required of him; for that very day, as he satat dinner in his castle, he dropped down in a deadly fit, and was deadbefore the kind Arthur could get a monk to shrive him. The CountessMatilda, I ween, had done worse deeds at Reading than Eustace did at St.Edmund's Bury, and, certes, the patrons and protectors of our house, ourLadie the Virgin, and St. James, and St. John the evangelist, were notless powerful to punish than St. Edmund the king and martyr;nevertheless Matilda was let live, and the young Eustace perished in hisprime. But these things are not to be scanned by mortal eye, and thejudgments of heaven are not always immediate, and it might not have beenso much in vengeance for Eustace's great sin in robbing the monks of St.Edmund's Bury of their corn, as in mercy to the suffering people ofEngland, that the son of King Stephen was so suddenly smitten andremoved. The monks of St. Edmund did, however, give out that it wastheir saint who slew him for his sin, causing the first morsel of thestolen victual he put into his mouth to drive him into a frenzy, whereofhe died. Others there were who accounted for his opportune death byalleging that some subtile poison had been administered to him; but ofthis was there never any proof. Our young Lord Arthur, without denyingthe great provocation he had given unto St. Edmund, did always thinkthat his brain had been touched ever since his father held theconference above Wallingford with Duke Henry, and that a great gust ofpassion killed him. But whatever was the cause of his death, and howeversad was that event in itself, he was surely dead, and it was just assure that the kingdom would be the better for it. If few had followedhim while he was alive, still fewer stayed to do honour to his remains;but Arthur, with a very sincere grief, and with all respect and piety,carried the body of his master to the sea-side, and thence by water intoKent, and saw it interred at Feversham by the side of Queen Maud, withall the rites and obsequies of holy church. Fidelity could not go beyondthis; the great arbiter, Death, had freed him from his allegiance andvows to the prince, and so from the honoured grave in Feversham Abbey,Arthur de Bohun rode with all possible speed unto Caversham. So true wasit, that nothing that man could do could keep Alice and him longasunder.

  Many of our wicked castle builders, who had not always respected thetruce of God, would not now be bound by the truce concluded between twomortal princes; and when the term of that suspension had expired, someof the barons on either side would have renewed the war on a grandscale, and have carried it into all parts of the kingdom. Some fewsieges were commenced, and some hostile movements made in the field, byKing Stephen and Duke Henry; but since the unhappy death of PrinceEustace, the king cared not much about keeping the crown in his family,for he had but one other lawful son, and this son, the gentle-temperedWilliam, was only a boy, and was without ambition; for his eyes had notbeen dazzled by any near prospect of the crown, and none of the baronagehad ever sworn fealty to him. And thus, when the peace-makers renewedtheir blessed endeavours, King Stephen was easily induced to agree thatDuke Henry should be his successor in this kingdom, provided that heleft him a peaceable possession of the disputed throne for the term ofhis natural life, and bound himself to fulfil a few other engagements.The king's brother, the Bishop of Winchester, did now join with his oldenemy, Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, in urging this accord, and oneither side the great barons recommended the adjustment; for all wereweary of the war except a few desperate robbers, whose crimes had beenso numerous that they could not hope to escape punishment at the returnof peace. Another great council of barons and prelates was, therefore,called together at Winchester; and in that royal and episcopal city, onthe seventh of the Kalends of November, in this the last year of ourwoe, eleven hundred and fifty-three, the agreement was finished, and acharter naming Henry heir to the throne was granted by Stephen, andwitnessed by Theobald the archbishop, the Bishop of Winchester, elevenother bishops, the prior of Bermondsey, the head of the knightsTemplars, and eighteen great lay lords. And a short season after this,the king and the duke travelled lovingly together to Oxenford, where theearls and barons, by the king's commandment, did swear fealty to theduke, saving the king's honour, so long as he lived; and the Plantagenetdid pledge himself to behave to Stephen of Blois as a duteous andaffectionate son, and to grant to him, all the days of his life, thename and seat of the kingly pre-eminence. In the presence of the best ofour baronage, the king and duke did then confer about other statematters, and did fully agree and concur in this--that there must be anend of castle-building and castle-builders, that the donjons whichremained must all down, and that the vengeance of the law must fall uponthe robbers, whether they had been, or had pretended to be, followers ofMatilda, or Stephen, or Duke Henry himself; for, being now acknowledgedheir to the crown, Henry wished not to come into a wasted andimpoverished land, and well he knew, at all times, that the prosperityof the people maketh the wealth, and power, and glory of the ruler.Those castles in the west, which had been given up to him by theirbuilders, were presently levelled with the earth; and even BrianFitzcount was warned that he must quit his strong house at Wallingford,or abide the most fearful consequences. Some of the cruel oppressors oftheir country came in of their own will, and submitted to King Stephenand the law; but others held out stiffly, denying all allegiance whetherto the king regnant or to Duke Henry as his successor; and in this sortthe poor people in divers parts continued to be harrowed, and plundered,and captured, and tortured, as in the foregone time. Nay, some of ourwicked barons, making league with the rapinous princes and wild chiefsof the Welsh mountains, did continue to keep the open fields in thewestern parts, and to desolate the land from the river Severn even untothe river Mersey.

  Many were the private discourses which King Stephen held with thehopeful Plantagenet, for Stephen's heart was all for the commonalty ofEngland, and he trusted that he could give such instruction and adviceto Henry as would aid that prince in making his future government firm,and, at home, pacific, and in that sort a blessing to the people. Butthe Plantagenet had solemnly pledged his faith by treaty and by oath toleave unto Stephen, so long as he should live, the full exercise of theauthority royal, and this could hardly have been if Henry had tarried inEngland; and, moreover, matters of high concernment called for thereturn of the duke to Anjou and Normandie. So, in the spring season ofthe ye
ar of grace eleven hundred and fifty-four, after some longconsultations held at Dunstable to treat of the future state and peaceof the kingdom, the king accompanied the duke to the sea-coast, and,with a loving leave-taking of Stephen, Henry embarked and sailed overto Normandie. Foul rumours there were, as that Stephen's young son witha party of Flemings would have waylaid the duke on Barham downs, andhave there slaughtered him; but I wis all this was but a fable, for theboy William was too young for such matters, and being of a gentle andunambitious nature, and too well knowing that the crown of England hadbeen a crown of thorns to his father, he was more than content with thelands and honours secured unto him by the Charta Conventionum.

  Also was it nigh upon the time that William, archbishop of York, akinsman of King Stephen, who had been deprived by the pope in the yeareleven hundred and forty-seven, and who had been reinstated after thetruce concluded at Wallingford, suddenly departed this life at York, andwas buried with great haste and little ceremony in that minster. Andhere too there were evil reports spread through the land as thatArchbishop William had been poisoned. Having no light wherewith topenetrate the darkness of this mystery, I will not affirm that KingStephen's kinsman was so disposed of; but verily the malice of men'shearts was great, and there was much secret poisoning in these times!

  Stephen being thus left to govern by himself, sundry of our great men,having from that which they had seen and heard of Prince Henry come tothe conclusion that if he should be king he would keep a bit in theirmouths and keep a strong rein in his own hands, did repair to the kingwho had so often been betrayed by them, and did strongly urge him tobreak the treaty and trust to war and the valour and faith of hisvassals for the continuance of his family on the throne. But Stephenhaving a respect for his oaths (which mayhap was the greater by reasonof a sickness that was upon him), and knowing the trust that was to beput in the faith and steadiness of these men, said, "There hath been warenough, and too much woe!" and he would not give his ear unto them, butdid command forces to be gathered for putting down the castle-buildersand the robbers that had allied themselves with the Welsh.

  And of a surety in these his last days King Stephen betook himselfwholly to repair the ruins of the state, and heal the great afflictionsof the church. He made a progress into most parts of the kingdom toreform the monstrous irregularities which had arisen by long war, tocurb the too great baronial power, to get back to our abbeys andchurches the things whereof they had been despoiled, and to speak anddeal comfortably with all manner of peace-loving men. Some castles hereduced by force, others he terrified into submission, and others weretaken by a few good lords like Sir Alain de Bohun. In all theseoccurrents nothing was heard of our impenitent neighbour Sir Ingelric,save that his wife the dark ladie of the castle had died, and that hehimself was thought to have gone into the west. Of that greater and farmore terrible chief, Brian Fitzcount, we did hear enough and more thanenough, for in despite of the joint commandment of King Stephen and DukeHenry, he kept possession of his castle at Wallingford and continued hisevil courses in all things. Yea, at a season when we did apprehend nosuch doing, one of his excommunicated companies, stealing by night downthe vale of Thamesis, did set fire to our granaries at Pangbourne, andmaim our cattle, and so sweep our basse-court that we had not left somuch as one goose wherewith to celebrate the feast of St. Michael. Thebetter to put down these atrocious doings, King Stephen called togetherwithin the city of London a great and godly meeting of barons andprelates and head men of towns; and sooth to say the spirit of peace andlove presided over that great council, and many proper methods weretaken by it and good laws passed. I, who went unto London city with ourlord abbat, did see with mine own eyes the respect which was now paidunto the eldermen of great towns and boroughs, and likewise to thefranklins, whether mixed by the marriages of their fathers orgrandfathers with Norman women, or whether of the old and unmixed Saxonstock, the number of these last being as a score to one; and then did Isay to myself that if these things continued, the day might arrive whenthe burghers and free plebeians of England might be something in thestate. Nay, I did even dream that in process of time the collar might betaken from the neck of our serf, and the cultivator of the soil be nolonger a villein, but a free man. But I concealed this my bright vision,lest it should expose me to censure and mockery.

  When this great council at London was broken up King Stephen made repairunto Dover to meet and confer with his ancient ally and friend the Earlof Flanders. The king was well attended, and among the best lords ofEngland that went with him was our neighbour Sir Alain de Bohun. We, themonks of Reading, or such of us as had gone to the great city, journeyedback to our abbey, in a great fall of autumnal rain; and when, at theend of three days, we in uncomfortable case did reach the abbey, wefound that the swollen river had swept away good part of the mill whichwe had built on the Kennet, at a short space from our house, and hadotherwise done us much mischief. Also was there seen a great fallingstar, and there were heard in the heavens, on one very dark and gustynight, some dolorous sounds, as of men wailing and lamenting. In a fewdays more some sad but uncertain rumours did begin to reach our house;but it was not until one stormy night in the early part of November,when Sir Alain de Bohun on his way homeward stopped at our gates, thatwe knew of a certainty that which had befallen. Ah, well-a-day, KingStephen was dead! He who for well nigh nineteen years had not known oneday's perfect peace was now, inasmuch as the world and mortal man couldaffect him, at peace for ever! And may God have mercy on his soul in theworld to come! After the politic conferences with the Earl of Flanders,and the departure of the said earl for his own dominions, the king wasall of a sudden seized with the great pain of the Iliac passion, andwith an old disease which had more than once brought him to the brink ofthe grave; and so, after short but acute suffering, he laid him down todie, and did die in the house of the monks of Canterbury, on the fiveand twentieth day of the kalends of October. _Sic mors rapit omnegenus._ And our true-hearted lord of Caversham, who was true unto death,and who had tenderly nursed the dying king, conveyed the body toFeversham, and placed it in the same grave with his beloved wife Maud,and his son Stephen, in the goodly abbey which he and his queen hadbuilt and endowed in that Kentish township; and having in this guisedone the last duty to his liege lord and king, and being by deathliberated from the oaths of fealty and allegiance, which he had neverbroken by word or deed, Sir Alain, caring for none of the honours andadvancements which other lords were ready to struggle for at the comingin of a new king, came quietly home, only hoping and praying that hiscountry would be happy under Henry Plantagenet.

  King Stephen being gone, much evil was said of him on all sides and byall parties: yea, his own partisans, in the expectation that such wordswould be grateful to the ear of the new king, did affect to murmur andlament that he should so long have kept the great Henricus from thethrone; and, generaliter, the great men did burthen the memory ofStephen with the past miseries of the people of England, of which theythemselves had been the promoters. I have said it: the defunct king, inthe straits and troubles into which he had been driven by the greed,ambition, and faithlessness of the baronage, had ofttimes done amiss,and, specialiter, had much travailed churchmen: yet be it rememberedthat he built more royal abbeys than any king that went before him; thathe founded hospitals for the poor sick; and that during the whole of histroublous reign he laid no new tax or tallage upon the people; and thathe was of a nature so mild and merciful that notwithstanding the manyrevolts and rebellions and treasons practised against him, he did neverput any great man to death. I, Felix, who had seen how large he was ofheart and how open of hand, and who had tasted of his bounty andcondescension, could not forget these things when, in a few days, aftersaying a mass of Requiem for his soul, we chanted in our church a TeDeum laudamus for his successor.