CHAPTER XL
A CAMP OF REFUGE
Immediately after his exploit at Chas-Chateil, William de Collingham, asif a great idea had been suggested to him, repaired with Oliver Icinglato an islet deep in the forests of Sussex, overgrown with willows andrushes, and surrounded by marshes which regularly in autumn overflowedwith water and became a large lake, with the islet rising in the midst.This islet had at one period been inhabited, and the ruins of afortress, of which the origin and history were lost in the obscurity ofancient days, were still visible; but now it had no inhabitant save ananchorite, who dwelt among the ruins in a rude hermitage built of timberand overgrown with moss, and who appeared to be cut off fromcommunication with mankind, occupying himself much with the study of thestars, and enjoying the reputation of being able to predict events, asif he had been privileged to read what was written in the book of fate.
It was in this islet, situated in the recesses of what remained of thegreat forest which before the Conquest extended all over Sussex, thatCollingham determined to establish a camp of Refuge for Englishmen who,like himself, would not bow the knee to Prince Louis and his myrmidons,and he had several reasons for selecting the place; some of these hefrankly stated, but the principal reason, which was a very strong one,he, like a prudent man, kept to himself. However, he proceeded to throwup intrenchments, constructed huts of earth and wood, set up his ravenbanner, and summoned all to come thither who had made up their minds toendure any privations and fight to the death rather than submit to theFrench invaders and lay down their arms.
The summons of Collingham was not disregarded. Within a fortnight somefive hundred men had sworn to follow the raven banner for better or forworse, and never a day passed without some new band of outlaws, or someindividual fighting man, or some ardent patriot, coming and adding tothe number. No doubt there were bad as well as good among those whotook refuge on the islet; but under Collingham’s discipline all wereunder the necessity of living decently and in order.
At this camp of refuge, on the evening of the 2nd of June, 1216, an hourafter sunset, arrived William de Collingham and Oliver Icingla, ridingone horse, like the old Knights of the Temple, accompanied by the russetbloodhound which Clem the Bold Rider had that morning been patting inthe stable-yard of the White Hart, but which now willingly followed itsold master, from whom it had been taken by Hugh de Moreville, whocoveted the animal as well as the rest of the patrimony which OliverIcingla ought to have derived from his mother. As for the knight and thesquire, they were by no means in the best plight. The garments ofboth--the rustic garments which they had worn to disguisethemselves--were spotted with blood, and their appearance indicated thatthey had been engaged in a desperate struggle for life or death.
All doubt on this subject, however, vanished when, after passing thewater on a raft, Collingham and Oliver entered the camp and threw downtheir weapons. Both warriors were wounded: the sword of the knight washacked and red; the axe of the squire was dyed dark with gore. Moreover,the strong steed that had carried them to the place of refuge was soweary and wounded that it died that night of fatigue and loss of blood.Such was the consequence to the patriotic warriors of one of theirearliest conflicts with the enemy; they were to have many more equallysanguinary, but not so unequal in numbers.
But fierce as they had found the combat, neither Collingham nor Icinglawas daunted. No sooner were their wounds dressed and bound up by theanchorite than, assembling the men by the light of the moon, they took asolemn oath, by the cross on the hilt of the knight’s sword, not tosleep under a roof, nor to dine in a hall, nor to drink a brimming canat a chimney corner, till Prince Louis and the French were expelled fromEngland. At the same time, every man present--Oliver Icinglaincluded--engaged never to decline a combat with three of the enemy, andto yield implicit obedience to the commands of their leader, upon whichCollingham swore to relieve them from their promise if he was known toshrink from an encounter single-handed with six of the enemy.
And now every man understood what he was expected to do, and the workwas begun with spirit, and the camp of refuge soon boasted of a thousandmen, mostly archers, who attacked the French, and the Anglo-Normans whosided with them, whenever an opportunity presented itself, and, ashistorians tell us, made themselves particularly formidable when Louismarched into Sussex to take possession of the county.
“Louis, availing himself of John’s weakness,” says Carte, “sent WilliamFitzpiers, Earl of Essex, and Robert Fitzwalter, and WilliamHuntingfield into Essex and Suffolk, and marching himself into Sussex,took all the fortresses in the county, but could not quell William deCollingham, who, with a thousand archers, made incursions from the woodsand forests in those parts, killed several thousands of the French indifferent encounters, and held out all the time that the hostilitieslasted. There was no attacking this man,” adds Carte, “in the fortresseswherein he kept without great disadvantage.”
It was not, however, till the French had learned by severe experiencewhat manner of man Collingham was, and the ferocity of his “Ravens”--forso his followers were called, from the fierce raven on his banner--thatthey came to regard him as invincible and his camp as impregnable. Inthe effort to put him down, more than one continental warrior of highname was tried and found wanting. Especially did there fail in thisendeavour a very valiant captain of free lances, who had been entrustedwith the castle of Lewes, and who was deemed equal to any enterprise ofthe kind.
He was a native of Rheims, his name was Clarembald, and he was one ofthe mercenary leaders who had come with Louis to conquer England,bringing with him a rather remarkable surname, which, no doubt, he hopedto exchange for a territorial title derived from some earldom or baronyon the Thames, or the Humber, or the Tweed. In fact, from his nocturnalexcursions into towns and villages in Anjou and Normandy during the warsof King John and Philip Augustus, Clarembald had won the surname of“Eveille-chiens,” or Wake-dog, and he had rendered the surname veryterrible to such as had learned what it was to have the misfortune to bethe foe of his friends.
When Louis seized the castles of the king’s adherents in Sussex,Clarembald was appointed governor of Lewes, one of the castles of theWarrens, and he began to rule the neighbourhood with a rod of iron.Nowhere did the inhabitants of England find the invaders so tyrannicaland so merciless. In vain the unfortunate English endeavoured to softenhis heart by rendering him every possible honour. It only made himworse. He vexed them, tormented them, plundered them, hounded his dogson their cattle so as to drive them into the marshes, and by breakingtheir limbs or backs killed or rendered them worthless. Nay more, helamed their horses, slaughtered their sheep, and treated them very muchas the French magnates of the fourteenth century treated JacquesBonhomme, till the said Jacques, rendered furious by cruel treatment,turned on his persecutors, and proved to the world, during that outbreakknown as the “Jacquerie,” how much worse than the beasts of the forest ahuman being can become when brutalised by long and continuousoppression.
Now Clarembald Eveille-chiens received very peremptory orders fromPrince Louis to attack and destroy the camp of refuge in Sussex, and thebold warrior immediately prepared for the enterprise, only regretting,as far as he was concerned, that it was not one in which there was anychance of plunder.
It was late in autumn when Clarembald Eveille-chiens left the castle ofLewes, encamped in the wood, set up his standard, which was the colourof blood, and, investing the camp of refuge on all sides, constructeddykes and gangways over the marshes, and commenced on one side acauseway through the waters, so that his soldiers might enter the isletand put its occupants to the sword. But he soon found that the work inwhich he was engaged was no child’s play. Not only were the workmenharassed and interrupted in their operations by mocking jests andflights of arrows, but, night after night, Oliver Icingla, in spite ofthe watch that was kept, contrived to cross the marshes in his whitejacket, and made attacks so sudden and unforeseen that the French atlength verily suspected that he dealt in magic.
; One night in December, when the snow lay pretty thick, and the frost wassevere, and the ground hard as iron, and Eveille-chiens was absent fromhis camp on one of the many love adventures with which he diverted hisleisure hours, the French were suddenly aroused from their slumbers byshouts of
“Hey for the fierce raven! Ho for the fierce raven!”
and found that Oliver in his white jacket, accompanied by six men, eachof them as fearless and most of them stronger than himself, was amongthem and felling down everything in his way. Penetrating even toClarembald’s tent, with the hope of taking the doughty warrior captive,they no sooner observed that it was empty than they seized on his redbanner, carried it off as a trophy, and cutting their way with shouts ofscorn and defiance through their startled foes, reached the island insafety. Oliver immediately climbed a high tree that grew close to theedge of the water, and fastened the red banner to one of the mostprominent branches.
“There,” said he, as he descended and it began to flap in the keen,frosty wind--“there let it hang in wind and rain till Wake-dog plucks upcourage to come and reclaim it. By the Holy Cross, the sight of it maytempt him to do something very venturesome, for surely it cannot fail tohave the effect on him which scarlet has on the wounded bull.”
But still Clarembald made nothing worthy of the name of progress in hisenterprise, whilst Oliver continued to make nocturnal sallies which costthe French so dear that Eveille-chiens was glad when the truce whichLouis concluded with Pembroke gave him a fair excuse for leaving his redbanner to its fate, drawing off his force, and returning to spend hisChristmas at Lewes in the halls of the Warrens. The existence of thetruce was also notified to William de Collingham by a messengerdespatched by the Protector. But Collingham bluntly refused to recogniseit.
“I know nothing,” the knight said, “of truces or treaties with Frenchmenwho have come into England as invaders. I have sworn to devote myself toridding the land of them, and to succeed or die in the attempt; and,come what may, I will never lay aside my arms till the invaders havelaid down theirs. I have said my say.”
“What mean you, sir knight?” asked the messenger, astonished.
“I mean what I say,” was the brief answer.
And, in truth, Collingham did soon show that he meant what he said. WhenLouis, with his train, escorted by the Bastard of Melun--a Frenchman,who was captain of Bramber--was on his way from the castle of De Braosto the coast, to take shipping for the Continent, Oliver Icingla,despatched by Collingham to lie in wait for the prince, suddenlyappeared with some hundreds of archers, and made a fierce attack--hismen shouting, “Ho for the black raven!” and “St. Edward for Icingla!”Louis attempted to charge the archers; but his horse was killed underhim, and he rolled on the ground. His knights assisted him to rise, andhe was about to mount a fresh steed, when Oliver and his men penetratedto the very spot where he was drawing his sword; and the axe of theIcingla, having rung well on the prince’s head, was already swung asecond time, and descending with a force which would have smashed bothhelmet and head. But fifty knights spurred to the rescue, and saved theinvader’s head from the patriot’s hand. A fierce conflict ensued, andLouis, after finding himself more than once in danger, deemed itdiscreet to escape while his attendants screened his flight with theirbodies.
Hurrying on and hailing his ships, he embarked in haste, confusion, andagitation, and sailed in no joyous mood from the shores on which, sevenmonths earlier, he had set foot with prospects so inviting and a heartso elate. Indeed, a great reaction had already manifested itself; andeven in London the exploits of the English at the camp of refuge werecelebrated in ballads and sung about the streets--the names of Williamde Collingham and Oliver Icingla gradually becoming so popular that theywere on every man’s tongue, and at length reached the ear of the Countde Perche.
Evil was the hour in which this took place.
De Perche was a martial Frank, who frequently exclaimed “_Mort Dieu!_”and sometimes swore by the bones of St. John the Baptist, which had beensecured by Martin Litz as spoil when Constantinople was taken by theCrusaders in 1204, and brought to France, with the arm of St. James anda piece of the true cross, as most precious sacred relics. The count wasa handsome personage, with broad shoulders, hazel eyes, and acountenance “prouder than lion or leopard;” and he was cruel towards thepeople of the country to which he had come as an invader.
One day the count, when about to leave London for the castle ofHertford, and conversing with Constantine Fitzarnulph about the attackmade on Prince Louis, suddenly said--
“Foi de mon âme, fair sir, I would you could tell me where lies thedomain of this Icingla, for of him I would like well to make an example,in order to encourage others not to follow his footsteps.”
Fitzarnulph smiled at the idea of Oliver’s domain, and explained to thecount that the Icingla only possessed an old grange in a woodlandoccupied by his mother, who was a widow.
“Nevertheless,” rejoined the count, shaking his head, “it is necessaryto do something by way of an example; and if, by your favour, I can butfind one familiar with the country to guide me to the house of theIcingla on my way to Hertford, _mort Dieu!_ I will teach him, and suchas are of his company, to think twice before they defy the authority andattack the person of our good lord Louis.”
Fitzarnulph opened his mouth to speak, then paused, reflected, andhesitated; then struggled with his own sense of what was generous; andfinally got over all the difficulty which he felt by shifting theresponsibility of this business to the shoulders of a man whom he knewwould be very willing to bear the burden, heavy and crushing as thatburden might one day become.
“Sir count,” at length he replied, “I swear to you, by St. Thomas, thatI scarce know what to do in this matter; for I own that I can hardly,with propriety, aid you in your wish. But,” added the citizen,significantly, “if you will send for that good knight, Sir AnthonyWaledger, who is even now at the house of the Lord Hugh de Moreville, inLudgate, I will answer for his finding you as trusty a guide as youcould desire.”
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