The Rival Heirs; being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune

by A. D. Crake

  Produced by Martin Robb

  THE RIVAL HEIRS:

  Being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune;by Rev. A. D. Crake.

  PREFACE.

  CHAPTER I. THE ANGLO-SAXON HALL.

  CHAPTER II. THE BLACK AND DARK NIGHT.

  CHAPTER III. THE WEDDING OF THE HAWK AND THE DOVE.

  CHAPTER IV. THE NORMAN PAGES.

  CHAPTER V. A FRAY IN THE GREENWOOD.

  CHAPTER VI. A REVELATION.

  CHAPTER VII. FRUSTRATED.

  CHAPTER VIII. VAE VICTIS.

  CHAPTER IX. A HUNT IN THE WOODS.

  CHAPTER X. EVEN THE TIGER LOVES ITS CUB.

  CHAPTER XI. ALIVE--OR DEAD?

  CHAPTER XII. THE ENIGMA SOLVED.

  CHAPTER XIII. "COALS OF FIRE."

  CHAPTER XIV. THE GUIDE.

  CHAPTER XV. RESTORED TO LIFE.

  CHAPTER XVI. RETRIBUTION.

  CHAPTER XVII. THE ENGLISH HEIR TAKES POSSESSION.

  CHAPTER XVIII. AT THE ABBEY OF ABINGDON.

  CHAPTER XIX. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CONQUEROR.

  CHAPTER XX. THE MESSENGER FROM THE CAMP OF REFUGE.

  CHAPTER XXI. TWO DOCUMENTS.

  CHAPTER XXII. THE CHAPTER HOUSE OF ABINGDON.

  CHAPTER XXIII. "GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY."

  CHAPTER XXIV. THE CASTLE OF OXFORD.

  CHAPTER XXV. IN THE FOREST OF LEBANON.

  CHAPTER XXVI. "QUANTUM MUTATUS AB ILLO HECTORE."

  CHAPTER XXVII. THE FRIENDS WHO ONCE WERE FOES.

  CHAPTER XXVIII. AESCENDUNE ONCE MORE.

  PREFACE.

  This little volume, now presented to the indulgence of the reader,is the third of a series intended to illustrate the history andmanners of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, whom a great historian veryappropriately names "The Old English:" it does not claim the meritof deep research, only of an earnest endeavour to be true to thefacts, and in harmony with the tone, of the eventful period of "TheNorman Conquest."

  The origin of these tales has been mentioned in the prefaces to theearlier volumes, but may be briefly repeated for those who have notseen the former "Chronicles." The writer was for many years thechaplain of a large school, and it was his desire to make theleisure hours of Sunday bright and happy, in the absence of thesports and pastimes of weekdays.

  The expedient which best solved the difficulty was the narration oforiginal tales, embodying the most striking incidents in thehistory of the Church and of the nation, or descriptive of thelives of our Christian forefathers under circumstances ofdifficulty and trial.

  One series of these tales, of which the first was Aemilius, a taleof the Decian and Valerian persecutions, was based on the historyof the Early Church; the second series, on early English history,and entitled "The Chronicles of Aescendune."

  The first of these Chronicles described the days of St. Dunstan,and illustrated the story of Edwy and Elgiva; the second, the laterDanish invasions, and the struggle between the Ironside and Canute;the third is in the hands of the reader.

  The leading events in each tale are historical, and the writer hasstriven most earnestly not to tamper with the facts of history; hehas but attempted to place his youthful readers, to the best of hispower, in the midst of the exciting scenes of earlier days--to makethe young of the Victorian era live in the days when the Danesharried the shires of Old England, or the Anglo-Saxon power andglory collapsed, for the time, under the iron grasp of the NormanConqueror.

  Sad and terrible were those latter days to the English of everydegree, and although we cannot doubt that the England of thepresent day is greatly the better for the admixture of Normanblood, nor forget that the modern English are the descendants ofvictor and vanquished alike,--yet our sympathy must be with ourAnglo-Saxon forefathers, in their crushing humiliation and bondage.

  The forcible words of Thierry, in summing up the results of theConquest, may well be brought before the reader. He tells us thatwe must not imagine a change of government, or the triumph of onecompetitor over the other, but the intrusion of a whole people intothe bosom of another people, broken up by the invaders, thescattered community being only admitted into the new social orderas personal property--"ad cripti glebae," to quote the verylanguage of the ancient acts; so that many, even of princelydescent, sank into the ranks of peasants and artificers--nay, ofthralls and bondsmen--compelled to till the land they once owned.

  We must imagine, he adds, two nations on the surface of the samecountry: the Normans, rich and free from taxes; the English (forthe term Saxon is an anachronism), poor, dependent, and oppressedwith burdens; the one living in vast mansions or embattled castles,the other in thatched cabins or half-ruined huts; the one peopleidle, happy, doing nought but fight or hunt, the other, men ofsorrow and toil--labourers and mechanics; on the one side, luxuryand insolence; on the other, misery and envy,--not the envy of thepoor at the sight of the riches of others, but of the despoiled inpresence of the spoilers.

  These countries touched each other in every point, and yet weremore distinct than if the sea rolled between them. Each had itslanguage: in the abbeys and castles they only spoke French; in thehuts and cabins, the old English.

  No words can describe the insolence and disdain of the conquerors,which is feebly pictured in the Etienne de Malville of the presenttale. The very name of which the descendants of these Normans grewproud, and which they adorned by their deeds on many a field ofbattle--the English name--was used as a term of the utmostcontempt. "Do you think me an Englishman?" was the inquiry ofoutraged pride.

  Not only Normans, but Frenchmen, Bretons--nay, Continentals of allnations, flocked into England as into an uninhabited country, slewand took possession.

  "Ignoble grooms," says an old chronicler, "did as they pleased withthe best and noblest, and left them nought to wish for but death.These licentious knaves were amazed at themselves; they went madwith pride and astonishment, at beholding themselves sopowerful--at having servants richer than their own fathers had been{i}." Whatever they willed they deemed permissible to do; theyshed blood at random, tore the bread from the very mouths of thefamished people, and took everything--money, goods, lands {ii}.Such was the fate which befell the once happy Anglo-Saxons.

  And it was not till after a hundred and forty years of slavery,that the separation of England from Normandy, in the days of thecowardly and cruel King John, and the signing of Magna Carta, gaveany real relief to the oppressed; while it was later still, nottill after the days of Simon de Montfort, when resistance to newforeigners had welded Norman and English into one, that the severedraces became really united, as Englishmen alike. Then the greatestof the Plantagenets, Edward the First, the pupil of the man he slewat Evesham, was proud to call himself an Englishman--the firsttruly English king since the days of the hapless Harold; and one ofwhom, in spite of the misrepresentations of Scottish historians andnovelists, English boys may be justly proud: his noble legislationwas the foundation of that modern English jurisprudence, in whichall are alike in the eyes of the law.

  Not long after came the terrible "hundred years war," whereinEnglishmen, led by the descendants of their Norman and Frenchconquerors, retaliated upon Normandy and France the woes they hadthemselves endured. Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt avengedHastings; the siege of Rouen under Henry the Fifth was a strangeNemesis. During that century the state of France was almost as sadas that of England during the earlier period; it was but a fieldfor English youth to learn the arts of warfare at the expense ofthe wretched inhabitants.

  But these events, s
ad or glorious, as the reader, according to hisage, may consider them, were long subsequent to the date of ourtale; they may, however, well be before the mind of the youthfulstudent as he sighs over the woes of the Conquest.

  Two remarks which the writer has made in the prefaces to the formerChronicles he will venture to repeat, as essential to the subjectin each case.

  He has not, as is so common with authors who treat of this period,clothed the words of his speakers in an antique phraseology. Hefeels sure that men and boys spoke a language as free and easy inthe times in question as our compatriots do now. We cannot presentthe Anglo-Saxon or Norman French they really used, and to load thework with words culled from Chaucer would be simply an anachronism;hence he has freely translated the speech of his characters intothe modern vernacular.

  Secondly, he always calls the Anglo-Saxons as they calledthemselves, "English;" the idea prevalent some time since, andwhich even finds its place in the matchless story of Ivanhoe, or inthat striking novelette by Charles Mackay, "The Camp of Refuge,"that they called themselves or were called "Saxons," is now utterlyexploded among historians. It is true the Welsh, the Picts, andScots called them by that designation, and do still; {iii} butthey had but one name for themselves, as the pages of theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle make manifest--"Englishmen." Nor did theirNorman conquerors affect to call them by any other title, althoughin their mouths the honoured appellation was, as we have said, buta term of reproach {iv}.

  The author has chosen his two heroes, Wilfred and Etienne, ifheroes they can be called, as types of the English and Norman youthof the period, alike in their merits and in their vices. Theeffects of adversity on the one, and of success and dominant prideon the other--happily finally subdued in each case beneath theCross on Calvary--form the chief attempt at "character painting" inthe tale.

  It is not without a feeling of regret that he sends forth from hishands the last of these "Chronicles," and bids farewell to the realand imaginary characters who have seemed to form a part of hisworld, almost as if he could grasp their hands or look into theirfaces.

  They are interwoven, too, with many treasured remembrances of pastdays, of the listening crowd of boys, now scattered through theworld, and lost to the sight of the narrator, but who once by theireager interest encouraged the speaker, and at whose request theearliest of these tales was written. Happy indeed would he be,could he hope the written page would arouse the same interest,which the spoken narrative undoubtedly created, or the tales hadnever been published.

  And now the writer must leave his tale to speak for itself, onlytaking this opportunity of assuring old friends, whose remembrancesof a vanished past may be quickened by the story, how dear thememory of those days is to him; and to show this, however feebly,he begs leave to dedicate this tale to those who first heard it, onsuccessive Sunday evenings, in the old schoolroom of All Saints'School, Bloxham.

  A. D. C.