The Camp of Refuge: A Tale of the Conquest of the Isle of Ely

by Charles MacFarlane

  CHAPTER XVI.

  THE TRAITOROUS MONKS OF PETERBOROUGH

  But the Lord of Brunn could not be everywhere. While he was gaininggreat victories on the southern side of the Fen Country, the Normanswere gaining strength in the north, and were receiving the aid ofcowards and traitors. Brand, the uncle of Lord Hereward, and the goodLord Abbat of Peterborough, who had ever laboured to keep his conventtrue to their own saints and to their own country, was now lying by theside of the abbats, his predecessors, under the stone-flooring of theabbey-church; and with him had died all the English spirit of theplace. The monks began to murmur, for that they were called upon tocontribute to the sustenance of the Saxon fighting men that had beenleft to guard their house; and for that they had been called upon tosend some small matter of gold and silver for the use of the braveSaxons that were maintaining the liberties of England in the Camp ofRefuge. Having, by their own representations and entreaties, broughtabout the removal of nearly every bowman and billman that Hereward hadleft behind him, these monks next began to turn up their eyes, and saythat they had no armed strength wherewith to withstand the Normans, andthat therefore it were better to make terms with Ivo Taille-Bois, andcease all connection and correspondence with the Lord of Brunn and thatfaction. But happily even at Peterborough, when the good Abbat Brandwas dead, not all the monks were traitorous. Some of them made haste toinform their late abbat's nephew, and the hope and stay of England, ofwhat was passing; and the Lord Hereward made haste to apply some remedyto this foul disorder.

  Great had been the wrath excited among the Normans by that last greatact of Abbat Brand's life--the Saxon knighthood of Lord Hereward. DukeWilliam had sworn by the splendour of God that the abbat should rue theday on which he had given his benediction to the sword of a rebel; buta greater than kings had saved good Brand from this kingly fury. Whenhe knew that he was dead, William named as his successor that terribleNorman, the Abbat Torauld[172] of Fescamp, who always wore a coat ofmail under his rochet, and who wielded the sword and battle-axe muchoftener or much more willingly than he carried the crosier.[173] Thisterrible Torauld had been wont to govern his monks even in foreignparts as captains govern their turbulent soldiery; and whenever anyopposition was offered to him, it was his custom to cry, "Come hither,my men-at-arms!" and upon men-at-arms he always depended for theenforcing of his ecclesiastical discipline. Where he ruled there werefew penances except such as were inflicted with his own hand; for hewas a very choleric man, and would smite his monks and novices overtheir fleshiest parts with the flat of his heavy sword, and tweak theirnoses with his sharp steel gloves, and strike them over their shavencrowns with his batoon. Terrible as a man, and still more terrible asan abbat, was this same Torauld of Fescamp! Monks crossed themselves,and said _Libera nos_, whenever his name was mentioned. Now DukeWilliam told this terrible Torauld that as Peterborough was so near tothe turbulent Fen Country, and so little removed from the Camp ofRefuge, it was a place well suited to an abbat who was so good asoldier, and that a soldier rather than an abbat was wanted to presideover that abbey. And Torauld was farther told, by Ivo Taille-Bois, whowas roaring, like a bear bereft of her cub, for the loss of themanor-house at Spalding, that on arriving at Peterborough he must takegood care to disinter the Abbat Brand, and throw his body upon the dungheap; that he must well scourge the monks for their past contumacy, andmake a quick clutch at such treasure as might yet remain within thehouse, seeing that the Norman troops were greatly distressed by reasonof their poverty, and that, notably, he, the Vicomte of Spalding, hadnot a denier.[174]

  "_Factum est_," said Torauld, "consider all this as done."

  And in order that it might be done the more easily, Ivo Taille-Boissuperadded one hundred and forty men to those that the fighting abbatbrought with him, thus making Torauld's whole force consist of onehundred and sixty well-armed Frenchmen. At the head of this littlearmy, with sword girded round his middle and with battle-axe tied tohis saddle-bow, the monk of Fescamp began his march from Stamford Town.As soon as the disloyal monks heard that he was coming, they drove awayby main force the very few Saxon soldiers that remained about thehouse, and began to prepare sackcloth and ashes for themselves, and asumptuous feast for the Abbat Torauld, hoping thereby to conciliatehim, and make him forget the bold doings of my Lord Abbat Brand.

  But before that uncanonical abbat and his men-at-arms could get halfway to Peterborough,[175] the Lord Hereward, who had been duly apprisedof all these late proceedings and intentions, arrived at the abbey withElfric his sword-bearer, and about three-score fighting men; and beforethe monks could make fast their gates he was within the house. There besome who do say that the entrance was not got without a fight, and thatsome of my Lord Hereward's people set fire to a part of the monastery;but I ween there was no fighting or beating of monks until Torauld,that very stern man, got possession of the house, and that there was nofire until a time long after the visit of the Saxons, when the monks ofPeterborough, being disorderly and drunken, set fire to the housethemselves by accident. The Lord of Brunn made straight for the housewhich King Etheldred of happy memory had built for the Lord Abbats. Abuilding it was very large and stately; all the rooms of commonhabitation were built above-stairs, and underneath were very fairvaults, and goodly cellars for sundry uses; and the great hall abovewas a magnificent room, having at the upper end, in the wall, very highabove the floor, three stately thrones, whereon were seated theeffigies of the three royal founders, carved curiously in wood, andpainted and gilt.[176] In this hall stood Hereward and his merry men.Little did the monks wot of this visit. They thought the Lord of Brunnwas many a league off, fighting in the fens; and when he came amongthem like one dropped from the clouds, and they saw in his honest,plain-speaking face that he was angered, the traitors began to blush,and some of them to turn pale; and when this first perturbation wasover, they began to welcome him in the very words of a speech they hadprepared for the welcoming of Torauld. But Hereward soon cut theirspeech short, and asked the prior of the house what was become of thetwenty men he had left there for the protection of the house. The priorsaid that the men had behaved in a riotous manner, eating and drinkingall the day long, and had deserted and run away because they had beenreproved.

  "It likes me not to call a priest a liar, but this is false!" said theLord of Brunn; "thou and thy French faction have driven away thosehonest men; and here be some of them to speak for themselves, and totell thee, oh prior, how busy thou hast been ever since the death of mygood uncle (peace to his soul!) in preparing to make terms with theFrench--in preparing to welcome the shaven cut-throat that is nowa-coming to rule over this house!"

  The men stood forward, and the loyal part of the monks (alas! that theywere so few) stood forward also, and told the traitors to their facesall that they had been doing. The prior and the chamberlain, therefectorarius and the rest of the officials, then began to excusethemselves on the plea of their weakness, and on the plea of the greatdanger in which they stood.

  "You confess, then," said Hereward, "that you cannot of yourselvesdefend this house and its shrines?"

  "Of a surety we confess it," said the prior; "nor is this house to beheld against the Normans even with a garrison of armed men.Peterborough is not Ely, good my lord! _There_ Saxon monks may holdtheir own; but _here_ it cannot be done."

  "So ho!" quoth Hereward, "this is where I would have thee! andtherefore, oh prior, since thou canst not keep thy gilded crosses andsilver vessels, thy chalices and pateras, thy drapery and rich churchhangings, and as all these things and all other the property of thishouse will fall into the hands of the Norman thieves if they are notremoved, I will and must carry them all off to Ely, where thou allowestthey will be in safe Saxon keeping."

  "Wouldst thou despoil the temple of the Lord? Wouldst thou rob theshrines of Saxon saints?" said the sacrist.

  "My Lord of Brunn, thou darest not do the deed," said the prior.

  "It is not for thee, false monk! to
set the limits to my daring, whenmy conscience sanctions that which I am doing, and when the cause of mycountry urges it to be done," said Hereward.

  "I will excommunicate thee as a sacrilegious robber," said the prior.

  "Archbishop Stigand, the true primate of England, will excommunicatethee as a traitor to his country and traitor to his church," quoth theLord of Brunn. "But I have little time to waste in words. Come, mymerry men, be stirring! pack up all the plate, and all the hangings,and everything that we can carry with us."

  "They shall not have the keys," said the chamberlain or treasurer ofthe house.

  "We have them already," quoth Elfric, who had been led to thechamberlain's cell by one of the true Saxon monks. "We have the keysalready, and so have we the engraven seals of silver gilt. The sigillumof so good a man as Abbat Brand shall never be used by so bad a man asTorauld. See! here it is, my lord!" And so saying Elfric handed thegood massive seal to his master, who kissed it as though it had been arelic, and then put it in his bosom.

  "This is sacrilege! This is the worst of thefts," roared the prior."This is done in the teeth of the law, and in outrage of the gospel.Sinful young man, knowest thou not the old Saxon law which saith,Sevenfold are the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the church, and seven arethe degrees of ecclesiastical states and holy orders, and seven timesshould God's servants praise God daily in church, and it is veryrightly incumbent on all God's friends that they love and venerateGod's church, and in grith and frith[177] hold God's servants; and lethim who injures them, by word or work, earnestly make reparation with asevenfold bot, if he will merit God's mercy, because holiness, andorders, and God's hallowed houses, are, for awe of God, ever to beearnestly venerated?"

  "I know that good Saxon law," said Hereward, "and bow my head inreverence to it! I earnestly venerate this hallowed house and allhouses that be hallowed, and all the shrines that belong to them. I donot rob, but only remove to safe keeping what others would rob; and,for any mischief that may be done to the goods of this house by suchremoval, I will myself make bot, not seven but seventy-fold, wheneverEngland shall be free, and Harold restored to his throne."

  "Dreams!" said the prior--"thy King Harold lies six feet deep inWaltham clay!"

  "Unmannered priest, thou liest in thy throat for saying so! King Haroldis alive, is safe in some foreign land, and at his own good time willbe back to claim his own. But come he back or come he not back, theNormans shall not have the spoil of this house. They have spoiled toomany hallowed houses already! Look at Saint Alban's! look at SaintEdmund's-bury! and at York and Durham and Lindisfarn, and all otherplaces, and tell me how they have respected Saxon saints and theproperty consecrate of our monasteries!"

  "Leave that to us," said the chamberlain.

  "I tell thee again I will leave nought for the Normans!" quoth LordHereward. And while he was speaking, his merry men all, aided andassisted by the honest monks, who revered the memory of Abbat Brand,were packing; and before the prior could finish a _maledicite_ which hebegan, all the gold and silver, all the linen and silks and embroideredhangings, and all the effigies of the Saxon saints, and all thesilver-gilded plates from their shrines, were carefully made up intodivers parcels, for facility of carriage, and the relics of the saintswere packed up in coffers. Ywere, an un-Saxon monk of the house, hadsucceeded in concealing the testaments, mass-hackles, cantel-copes, andsuch other small things, which he afterwards laid at the feet of theFrench abbat; but Hereward's people had gotten all the things of greatvalue: they had climbed up to the holy rood, and had taken away thediadem from our Lord's head, all of pure gold, and had seized thebracket that was underneath his feet, which was all of red-gold: theyhad climbed up the campanile, or belfry, and had brought down a tablethat was hid there, all gold and silver; they had seized two shrines ofgold and nine reliquaries of silver, and fifteen large crucifixes ofgold and of silver; and, altogether, they had so many treasures inmoney, in raiment and in books, as no man could tell another.

  The prior now snivelled and said, "Lord Hereward, my Lord of Brunn,wilt thou then leave us nothing to attract pilgrims to our shrines?Thou mightest as well carry off the house and the church, as carrythese things away with thee!"

  "Our house will be discredited and we shall starve!" said the sacrist."Lord of Brunn, leave us at least the bones of our saints!"

  "Once more," said Hereward, "once more and for the last time I tell yeall that I will leave to the Norman spoilers and oppressors nought thatI can carry. If I could carry away the house and the church and thealtars, by Saint Ovin and his cross, by Saint Withburga and her blessedand ever-flowing well, I would do it!--but only to bring them backagain when this storm shall be passed, and when every true Saxon shallget his own."

  Then turning to Elfric, Hereward said, "Where is the sacrist's registerof all these effects and properties?"

  Elfric handed a very long scroll of parchment to his lord. Thisparchment had been placed in the hands of Elfric by the sub-sacrist,one of the honest party, and the parchment contained, in good Saxonwriting, a list of the treasures, even as they had been left on the dayof the death of the good Abbat Brand.

  "Now write me at the bottom of this scroll a receipt and declaration,"said the Lord of Brunn to the sub-sacrist. "Say that I, Hereward theSaxon, have taken away with me into the Isle of Ely, and unto thathallowed house of the true Saxon Abbat Lord Thurstan, all the thingsabove enumerated. Say that I have removed them only in order to savethem from the thievish hands of the Normans, or only to prevent theirbeing turned against ourselves--say that I swear by all my hopes oflife eternal to do my best to restore them uninjured so soon as theNormans are driven out of England; and say that I will make bot forevery loss and for every injury. Mortal man can do no more than this."

  The sub-sacrist, maugre the threats and maledictions of his superiorthe sacrist, and of the prior and refectorarius, and all the upperofficials, quickly engrossed on the parchment all that the Lord ofBrunn wanted; and Hereward, being himself a scholar and penman, signedit with his name. Next he called for signatures of witnesses. Girolamoof Salerno wrote a _sic subscribitur_, and wrote his signature, andElfric, who had improved as much in learning as in the art of war, didthe same. Some others made the sign of the cross opposite to theirnames that were written for them; but upon the whole it was a goodreceipt, and solemn and well witnessed. The Lord of Brunn handed theparchment to the prior, bidding him to take care of it, and show it tohis new abbat Torauld as soon as that Frenchman should arrive with hisone hundred and sixty men-at-arms; but the prior cast the parchmentupon the ground, saying that the house was impiously spoiled--thatnothing would ever be gotten back again--that nothing was left in thehouse but woe, nakedness, and tribulation.

  "Oh prior!" said Hereward, and he smiled as he said it--"oh untrue andun-Saxon prior! the savoury odours that come upwards from thy kitchentell me that there is something more than this. By saint Ovin! it isnot Torauld of Fescamp and his men-at-arms that shall eat this thyfeast! Elfric, see those viands served up in the refectory, and we willeat them all, be they cooked or uncooked, done or underdone."

  "My Lord," responded Elfric, "the roast meats be done to a turn, theboiled meats and the stewed meats, and fowl and fish be all ready. Thecook of this house of Peterborough, being no caterer for Normans, but aSaxon true, and one that hath owed his promotion to thine uncle, ofhappy memory, the Abbat Brand, hath seen to all these things, and hathadvanced the good dinner by an hour or twain."

  "Then for love of mine uncle's nephew, let him dish up as quickly asmay be! Elfric, what say thy scouts? Where be the Frenchmen now?"

  "Good ten miles off, my lord; so do not over-hurry the meal."

  "Prior, sacrist, chamberlain, traitors all!" said Lord Hereward, "willye do penance with us in eating of this feast which ye had prepared forNorman stomachs?"

  "The wrath of the Lord will overtake thee for this ribaldry! Oh,Hereward of Brunn, we will not break bread with thee, nor sit at thetable with such as thou art."

  "T
hen stay here where ye are, and munch your dry bread to the odour ofour roast meats," said the young Lord of Brunn.

  And so, leaving the false monks under guard of some of his merry men,Hereward with the true monks went straight to the refectory and faredsumptuously; and then, like the bounteous lord that he was, he made allhis followers, of whatsoever degree, eat, drink, and be merry; and soheartily did these true Saxons eat and drink, that of that same feastthey left nothing behind them for Torauld of Fescamp and his hungryNormans. And when it was time to get gone, and they could drink nomore, Elfric and sub-sacrist went down to the cellars and set everycask running, to the end that there should not be a drop of wine or adrop of ale or a drop of mead to cool the throats of the disappointedFrenchmen.

  Then the Lord of Brunn and his merry men all took their departure fromthe abbey of Peterborough, taking with them the chalices and pateras,the crosses and candelabra, the shrine-plates and the reliquaries, thediadems and the tables, the linens, the silks, and hangings, andeverything that was worth taking, and everything that Torauld ofFescamp and his men-at-arms most wanted to find and seize. And thus didthe great house of Peterborough cease to be called the rich and beginto be called miserably poor, _de aurea erat pauperrima_.[178]

  Judge ye the wrath of that terrible false French abbat when he came tothe house at Peterborough, and heard and likewise saw all that had beendone! First he pulled at his own hair, and next he snatched at theprior's head and tore his hair away by handfuls. He would not believeone jot of the tale that was told him about Hereward's forcible entryand seizures; he would believe nothing but that they were all in leaguewith the rebels and robbers of the fens, even as they had been whenAbbat Brand blessed the sword of Hereward and made him knight, and tookinto his house a garrison of armed Saxons. The more they protested andvowed, the more he disbelieved them; and this first conference betweenthese untrue Saxon monks and their choleric Norman abbat ended inTorauld's shouting, "Come hither, my men-at-arms, and fustigate theseliars!" And while the men-at-arms beat the commoner monks and thelay-brothers of the house, Torauld himself tweaked the noses of thesuperiors with his gauntleted hand, and drawing his heavy sword, heapplied the flat of it to the prior, the sacrist, the chamberlain, therefectorarius, and all the rest of the officials, beating them all evenas he used to belabour his monks and novices in Normandie. But the trueEnglish members of the house did not share in this pain andhumiliation, for the sub-sacrist and every one of them that was a goodSaxon had gone off with Lord Hereward more than an hour before. When hegrew tired of this his first hard lesson in ecclesiastical discipline,Torauld caused the prior and the sacrist and every monk that had stayedbehind, to be thrown into the dungeon of the house, and there he keptthem two days and two nights without food and drink.

  Some few of the new Lord Abbat of Peterborough's men-at-arms thought,that instead of fustigating the English monks, they ought to havefollowed Hereward and the English soldiers, and have made an effort torecover the good things they had carried off; but Torauld, who was boldonly where there was no chance of resistance, would not venture apursuit after an alert and most daring enemy into a difficult country;and so he swore to his people that the Saxon robbers must have beengone, not one, but more than three hours before his arrival; thatinstead of counting sixty men, they were six hundred strong at the veryleast. Whether they were sixty or six hundred, none of the men-at-armswho knew anything concerning the fenny country were at all eager forthe pursuit, albeit they all imagined that the treasure which LordHereward had carried off with him from the abbey was great enough topay for a king's ransom.

  Thus the new Norman Abbat and his unpriestly and ungodly men enteredupon possession of the ancient abbey of Peterborough: but feast thatday was there none.