CHAPTER LIV
AN AWKWARD PREDICAMENT
When the army of the Count de Perche had been routed at Lincoln duringWhitsuntide, and the armament of Eustace the Monk destroyed at the mouthof the Thames, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, the position of Prince Louisbecame desperate, and he felt infinitely more eager to get out ofEngland without dishonour than he had felt to invade it a year earlier.But this proved no easy business; and the prince had to pass severalmonths of such intense anxiety as he was little prepared to experience.
On hearing of the catastrophe of Lincoln, Louis immediately abandonedthe siege of Dover, and made for London, perhaps still hoping againsthope. But even in the capital, which had been his stronghold, he soondiscovered that he was the reverse of secure. Plots and conspiracies todrive out the French were almost every week brought to light, andcountenanced by many who had once shouted most loudly, “All hail, LordLouis!” Constantine Fitzarnulph, indeed, continued true to the end; but,as a body, the rich citizens were most anxious to get out of the scrapeinto which they had been beguiled by the confederate barons who atLincoln had surrendered like so many sheep.
Such being the state of affairs, Louis never knew what a day might bringforth; and he became somewhat apprehensive of consequences, as heinformed Philip Augustus by letter, saying, at the same time, “Ourlosses are brought on by God more than by man.”
The King of France, somewhat alarmed, summoned the messengers of Louisto his presence.
“Does William Marshal still live?” asked he.
“Yes, sire,” answered they.
“Then,” said Philip, much relieved, “I have no fears for my son.”
The French king was so far right that the adversaries of Prince Louishad now much more compassion for him than his friends, who blamed himfor all their misfortunes; and Pembroke was as moderate in the day oftriumph as he had been inflexible in the day of adversity. But he didnot, therefore, fail in his duty to the young king or to the country,the affairs of which, as protector, he had undertaken to administer. Hewas a man who understood not only how to conquer but how to conciliate;and in order to begin the work of conciliation he felt strongly thenecessity of ridding England of the invaders without any unnecessarydelay. Therefore he marched his army on London, while the mariners ofthe Cinque Ports sailed into the Thames, and, beleaguering the city bothby land and water, so that no provisions could enter it, he reduced theFrench prince to such extreme distress that he shouted out veryearnestly for peace. Accordingly a conference was appointed with a viewof settling the terms on which peace was to be concluded.
The 11th of September was appointed for this important conference; andon that day, Henry, attended by the protector, and Louis by such of hisnobles as had survived the war, met near Kingston, on an islet of theThames. Everything went smoothly, for Louis was all eagerness to shakehimself clear of his perplexities; and Pembroke, so far from beinginclined to bear hard on vanquished foes, was sincerely anxious toconvert them into friends. Accordingly, such terms were agreed to asenabled the French prince to leave England without dishonour, and gavethe captive barons an opportunity of recovering their liberty andreturning to their allegiance.
“It was concluded,” says the chronicler, “that Prince Louis should havefifteen thousand marks for the charges he had been at, and abjure hisclaim to any interest in the kingdom; and withal to work his father forrestitution of such provinces in France as appertained to the Englishcrown, and that when he himself should be king he should resign them ina peaceable manner. On the other hand, King Henry takes his oath, andafter him the legate and the protector, to restore unto the barons ofthe realm, and others his subjects, all their rights and privileges, forwhich the discord began between the late king and his people. Afterthis, Prince Louis is honourably attended to Dover, and departs out ofEngland about Michaelmas.”
Almost ere the ships which carried the French prince and his survivingcomrades from the land which they had hoped to make their own hadreached France, affairs in England assumed their wonted aspect, andEnglishmen most devoutly thanked Heaven that peace was restored to thesuffering country. Nor did Pembroke leave his work half done. The GreatCharter having been carefully revised, and so modified as not tointerfere with “the king’s government being carried on,” was solemnlyconfirmed, to the satisfaction of all parties; and young Henry, when heentered London, on the occasion of going to be crowned with the goldencrown of the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, “was received with greatjoy by the people.”
Gay indeed was the city of London on that day, and gladly the citizens,rejoicing in the restoration of peace--with the exception ofConstantine Fitzarnulph, who muttered vague threats about “biding histime,” and shut himself up in his high, large dwelling--decked theirhouses, and rushed to window and housetop to witness the procession,which certainly contrasted marvellously with the procession which,twelve months earlier, had been witnessed, at a period so gloomy, by thecitizens of Gloucester. Keen was the curiosity of the dames and damselsto see what they could of the pageant; and even Dame Waledger, albeitlooking somewhat sullen, and Beatrix de Moreville, albeit lookingsomewhat sad, came forth to view the magnificent cavalcade from thebalcony of the great mansion of the De Morevilles, in Ludgate. DeMoreville himself was away in the far North, shut up within the strongwalls of Mount Moreville, his mind alternating between vague hopes anddesperate resolutions, never even mentioning his daughter to RalphHornmouth, but one day forming a project for placing Alexander, King ofScots, on the English throne, another day vowing by the bones of St.Moden to raise his own banner and make an effort to redeem the lostcause of Louis, and on a third declaring that his career was run, andthat nothing remained but to take the cowl and become a monk in thegreat abbey which his ancestor had founded at Dryburgh, on the Tweed;but Sir Anthony Waledger, who, freed from his captivity and solaced bythe wine-cup, bore defeat more easily, was, though carefully concealed,looking scornfully out on the triumph of those against whom he hadfought, if not with chivalrous courage, at least with fiendishmalevolence.
And grand and brilliant indeed--with its banners, and martial music, andheralds--looked the company of earls and barons and knights and squireswho attended the boy-king in his procession, their plumes and mantleswaving and their bridles ringing as they rode haughtily along, theirsteeds stepping proudly, as if they disdained the ground. But no onelooked that day higher and braver than Oliver Icingla, who, side by sidewith William Longsword, Salisbury’s young heir, rode gallantly along onhis black horse Ayoub, no longer wearing the white jacket in which hehad made himself so terrible to the French, but arrayed, as beseemed hisrank, in cap and white feather, and gay mantelet of scarlet, now andthen, also, recognised by the crowd, and cheered as “The Icingla,” andas the boy-warrior whose axe had been wielded with such good effectagainst England’s foes.
And as the cavalcade reached Ludgate, on the way westward, the gatepresented a slight impediment and there was a brief halt in theprocession, and as Oliver raised his eyes to that balcony where DeMoreville’s daughter was under the wing of Dame Waledger, theyencountered that marvellously fair face, with eyes like the violet andhair like the raven’s wing, which had haunted him in all his adventures,and, as he gallantly raised his cap, his heart for a moment leaped withthe emotion of a young lover suddenly face to face with her he adores.But it was only for a moment. Quick as the lightning’s flash his memoryrecalled that terrible dream, the recollection of which he had in vainendeavoured to banish, and so powerful was the impression which it hadleft, that he almost involuntarily breathed a prayer to be deliveredfrom temptation. As he did so the procession resumed its course towardsWestminster, and Oliver rode on, musing silently, and all that day andall that night his thoughts were gloomy, and he was still in melancholymood next morning when, having been roused at sunrise, he mounted toaccompany William de Collingham to take possession of Chas-Chateil inKing Henry’s name.
And Beatrix de Moreville became more sad. Part of her sadness arose fromthe belief th
at Oliver Icingla had all but forgotten the fair kinswomanwhose presence had cheered his heart in captivity as sunshine lights upthe landscape in latest October, or only remembered to think of her withdislike as the daughter of a man by whom he had been deeply injured. Butthis was not all that preyed upon the mind of Beatrix de Moreville, andbrought the tears to her eyes. She was aware that ConstantineFitzarnulph, known to her only as a person of strong will and violentambition, had become madly enamoured of her; that he had vowed that theNorman maiden should be his bride. She was aware that he had secured theco-operation of the Waledgers, male and female, who, reflecting on DeMoreville’s harshness in other days, and deeming him now ruined andpowerless either to benefit or to injure, had neither scruples nor fearsso far as the Norman baron was concerned; and she was aware, also, thatFitzarnulph had, in all the confidence of untold wealth and municipalinfluence, sworn by the blood of St. Thomas, citizen as he was, heshould wed the proud demoiselle, even if it cost the country arevolution and ten thousand lives to fill up the social gap thatseparated them.
Such being her position, and being endowed with all the sensitivedelicacy of a flower reared in a forest, De Moreville’s daughter,finding herself abandoned by her sire, shut up in that great house inLudgate, worried daily by Dame Waledger, pestered by Sir Anthony, andwith no one of her own age, and rank, and sex to sympathise with herwoes, brooded pensively as she recalled the past, with all its romance,and sighed heavily as she thought of the future, with all its hazards.
It was, in truth, a woeful termination to the sweet and fanciful musingsof which Oliver’s captivity at Chas-Chateil had been the origin. Why, Owhy, did the heir of the Icinglas dream that frightful dream in theSussex forest?
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