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EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
FICTION
RUNNYMEDE AND LINCOLN FAIR WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY L. K. HUGHES
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A TALE WHICH HOLDETH CHILDREN FROM PLAY & OLD MEN FROM THE CHIMNEY CORNER
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
RUNNYMEDE and LINCOLN FAIR · A Story of the Great Charter · By J.G. EDGAR.
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FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION 1908 REPRINTED 1914
INTRODUCTION
_Runnymede and Lincoln Fair_ was the last story drawing upon the warsand great affairs of English history which its author was destined towrite. Like _Cressy and Poictiers_, which is already included in“Everyman’s Library,” and which preceded it by some three years in itsoriginal issue, it first ran as a serial through the magazineparticularly associated with Edgar--the _Boys’ Own Magazine_; it wasfirst published as a separate book in 1866.
Some further particulars of the brief career of its writer may be addedto what has already been told of him in the earlier volume. John GeorgeEdgar was the fourth son of the Rev. John Edgar of Hutton inBerwickshire, who was said to be a representative of the ancient familyof Edgar of Wedderlie, settled for ages in the parish of Westruther inthat county. There seems to be some disagreement as to the date of hisbirth. The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1864 and Cooper’s _BiographicalDictionary_ give it as 1834, but James Hannay in _Characters andCriticisms_, published in 1865, says that Edgar was born in the year1827. From Edgar’s literary record and subsequent career one is inclinedto believe the latter version the more correct; and to further quoteHannay: “He was educated at Coldstream school under a man of good localreputation, Mr. Richard Henderson, and the Latin he acquired thereproved of great value to him afterwards, in reading the old mediævalchronicles. He went to a commercial situation in Liverpool in 1843; andin 1846 left Liverpool for the West Indies, where he remained till 1848.Returning to Liverpool in the last-mentioned year, he resumed hisLiverpool duties till 1852, when he settled in London.”
Thenceforward Edgar deserted commerce and devoted himself toliterature, and in little more than ten years he wrote some sixteenvolumes, intended mainly for the reading and entertainment of boys. Hewas the first editor of _Every Boy’s Magazine_, and its constantcontributor. Nor was that the only periodical to which he contributed;we find his name in other journals, and he occasionally wrote politicalarticles, from a typically conservative point of view; but, as Hannaysays, Edgar was always “rather a writer of books than a journalist. Hestudied his subjects for their own sake, and then made what literary usehe could of them; but he was little interested in the general pursuitsof the literary world proper, and profoundly indifferent to the arts bywhich literary advancement is sometimes pursued there. Indeed, hisappearance in the modern metropolitan world of wags and cynics andtale-writers had something about it that was not only picturesque butunique. He came in among those clever, amusing, and essentially modernmen like one of Scott’s heroes. Profoundly attached to the feudaltraditions,--a Tory of the purest Bolingbrokian School, as distinct fromthe Pittite Tory or modern Conservative, and supporting these doctrineswith a fearless and eccentric eloquence, to which his fine person andfrank and gallant address gave at once an easy and a stately charm,--herepresented in London the Scot of a past age.... He made seriouspreparation for a book on the barons’ war, in which he was to take theside of the English monarchy, and which would have certainly exhibitedadmirable knowledge, and talents for investigation and description, thatmust have commanded an attention which his previous performances hadbeen too modest even to desire to invite.”
Edgar died of congestion of the brain on April 15, 1864, and his remainslie buried in Highgate Cemetery.
That an author of so much power and promise should have had to endthere, half-way, at that comparatively early age, is the more to belamented, because it was due to the physical carelessness which oftenwrecks men to whom nature has given a splendid constitution. Accordingto Hannay, Edgar presumed too much on his strength: “He thought it wouldfight him through anything, so after a bout of solitary literary labour,during which he had lived _more suo_ upon tea and tobacco, he wasattacked with brain fever. He would not believe it serious, nor wouldhe send for advice till it was too late.”
When Edgar wrote _Runnymede and Lincoln Fair_, he filled a gap inEnglish historical fiction. Scott had left the period untouched, andShakespeare, as a dramatist, had naturally preferred to dwell on thedeeds and characters of individuals, rather than on the politicalcontroversies of John and his subjects.
Yet the thirteenth century is one of the most important and interestingperiods in English history; but it was not an age of chivalry andromance, and this must be borne in mind when we are obliged to admitthat _Runnymede and Lincoln Fair_ does not rank so high as _Cressy andPoictiers_ as a work of fiction. Moreover, there is no contemporarychronicler so vivacious and romantic as Froissart for the novelist todraw upon.
The historical literature of the time of Magna Charta is largelymonastic, and Edgar follows pretty closely the chronicles of Roger ofWendover and his editor and continuator, Matthew Paris, who was thegreatest of the thirteenth-century chroniclers. But he has drawn onvarious sources besides, among which are the _Memoriale_ of Walter ofCoventry, the annals of Waverly, Dunstable, and other monasteries, thechronicle of Ralph of Coggeshall, a full and important chronicle givingmany details. For the description of London which Edgar made use of tosuch advantage he was indebted to _The Life of Thomas à Becket_ by atwelfth-century writer, William Fitzstephen.
The hero of the tale, Oliver Icingla, in so far as being the descendantof Saxon chiefs, and of the house of De Moreville, gives
us the keynoteof the period--the amalgamation of the two races, Saxon and Norman, toform an English nation. Towards the close of the twelfth century a newlanguage began to be formed, a blending of Anglo-Saxon and Norman; andby the end of the thirteenth century the last manifest difference ofrace, the distinctive peculiarities of dress, had passed away. But incharacter Icingla does not represent this fusion of the races. He doesnot join the united barons and English people in the struggle fornational freedom, but appears as a champion of the royal cause; andlater, of England against the foreigners.
One cannot help perceiving, as one reads the story, that the sympathyof the author is chiefly with the crown. Walter Merley is the onlyNorman noble of the king’s adversaries whom he would have us admire.This is also the tone of Roger of Wendover, who calls the leaders of thebarons “the chief promoters of this pestilence.” Yet according toMatthew Paris, who is very fair and just, with all his enthusiasm, thebarons were not all rogues. He gives the following incident which Edgarhas omitted in connection with the siege of Rochester:--“One day duringthe siege of Rochester Castle, the king and Sauvery were riding round itto examine the weaker parts of it, when a crossbowman in the service ofWilliam d’Albini saw them, and said to his master, ‘Is it your will, mylord, that I should slay the king, with this arrow which I have ready?’To this William replied, ‘No, no; far be it from us, villain, to causethe death of the Lord’s anointed.’ The crossbowman said, ‘He would notspare you in a like case.’ To which the knight replied, ‘The Lord’s willbe done. The Lord disposes events, not he.... This circumstance wasafterwards known to the king, who, notwithstanding this, did not wish tospare William when his prisoner, but would have hung him had he beenpermitted.”
In the opening chapters of his story Edgar gives an idea of theturbulent state of the country just after the battle of Bouvines--thedefeat to which, according to the historians, England owes its MagnaCharta. The barons had now the upper hand. John was crestfallen, and“concealed his hatred of the barons under a calm countenance,” saysMatthew Paris.
When describing the great day of Runnymede, Edgar shows that he did notconsider the resistance to royal tyranny to be a constitutional andreally national movement. The reader is frequently reminded that thebarons were fighting for their own selfish ends.
The period of cruelty and ravage between Runnymede and the battle ofLincoln is enlivened by touches of romance, and exploits such as thoseof William de Collingham, which remind us of Robin Hood, but all themore interesting because Collingham is a historical character mentionedby the contemporary writers. Roger of Wendover says, “A young man namedWilliam, refusing to make his fealty to Louis, collected a company of athousand crossbowmen, and taking to the woods and forests with whichthat part of the country[1] abounded, he continued to harass the Frenchduring the whole war, and slew many thousands of them.”
[1] Sussex.
Edgar’s description of the sea-fight between Hubert de Burgh and Eustacethe Monk is much the same as that given by the chroniclers, but he omitsthe answer of the nobles who, when Hubert proposed that they should goto meet the French fleet, said: “We are not sailors, pirates, orfishermen, do you go therefore and die.”
So also in his account of Lincoln Fair, and of the rising of Fitzarnulphand the citizens of London, he still keeps close to the old chronicle ofWendover; especially is he in his element on Lincoln Fair day, and ableto give full rein to his patriotic fire, the essential point of which,in his case, as in that of the chronicler, was loyalty to the king. ButEdgar adds to Roger’s account when he introduces us to Nichola deCamville, whose story is given by Walter of Coventry.
Finally, when the temporary peace was established, Edgar concludes histale in the conventional way, dear to novel readers in every age, withthe rescue of the heroine by the hero, and the “living happy everafter.”
Hannay says of Edgar’s style: “It is not a showy style; but it issingularly clear, masculine, and free from every trace of literaryimpurity or fashionable affectation.” It is certain that he was at hisbest when describing boyish adventures or historic events. Beatrix deMoreville’s only essential place in the story is as an object ofadmiration for Oliver Icingla, thereby causing the former friends,Oliver and Fitzarnulph, to become romance-rivals as well as politicalopponents. It is not, in truth, of such as Beatrix de Moreville that thegreat heroines are made. With Wolf, the son of Styr, the author is, onthe contrary, much more at home; and he makes us at last as interestedas he was himself in the boy who was the loyal servant of his master.
Edgar, with his strong conservative instinct and his feeling for the oldchroniclers, had much to aid him in his special service of makinghistory into pure story. If he had gone on to write the major work hehad planned on the subject of this last story of his, he might have lefta more solid fame behind him. His story will help, as it is, to sendother students and writers to review the turbulent reign of that Johnwhom he over-estimated.
L. K. HUGHES.
_April 1908._
The following are the published works of John George Edgar:--
Biography for Boys, 1853; The Boyhood of Great Men, 1853; History for Boys, 1855; Boy Princes, 1857; The Heroes of England, 1858; The Wars of the Roses, 1859; The Crusades and the Crusaders, 1860; Cavaliers and Roundheads, 1861; Sea Kings and Naval Heroes, 1861; Memorable Events of Modern History, 1862; Danes, Saxons, and Normans, 1863; Cressy and Poictiers (in Beeton’s _Boys’ Own Magazine_, 1863), 1865; Historical Anecdotes of Animals, 1865; Runnymede and Lincoln Fair, 1866.
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