History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0050/00504.txt

Text File | 1992-10-11 | 23KB | 367 lines

$Unique_ID{how00504}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{A Child's History Of England
Chapter X.  England Under Henry The First, Called Fine-Scholar.}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{king
robert
prince
ship
henry
time
normandy
brother
england
upon}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       A Child's History Of England
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter X.  England Under Henry The First, Called Fine-Scholar.

     Fine-Scholar, on hearing of the Red King's death, hurried to Winchester
with as much speed as Rufus himself had made, to seize the royal treasure. But
the keeper of the treasure, who had been one of the hunting-party in the
forest, made haste to Winchester too, and, arriving there at about the same
time, refused to yield it up.  Upon this, Fine-Scholar drew his sword, and
threatened to kill the treasurer; who might have paid for his fidelity with
his life, but that he knew longer resistance to be useless, when he found the
prince supported by a company of powerful barons, who declared they were
determined to make him king.  The treasurer, therefore, gave up the money, and
jewels of the crown; and on the third day after the death of the Red King,
being a Sunday, Fine-Scholar stood before the high altar in Westminster Abbey,
and made a solemn declaration, that he would resign the Church property which
his brother had seized; that he would do no wrong to the nobles; and that he
would restore to the people the laws of Edward the Confessor, with all the
improvements of William the Conqueror.  So began the reign of King Henry the
First.

     The people were attached to their new king, both because he had known
distresses, and because he was an Englishman by birth, and not a Norman.  To
strengthen this last hold upon them, the king wished to marry an English lady;
and could think of no other wife than Maud the Good, the daughter of the king
of Scotland.  Although this good princess did not love the king, she was so
affected by the representations the nobles made to her of the great charity it
would be in her to unite the Norman and Saxon races, and prevent hatred and
bloodshed between them for the future, that she consented to become his wife.
After some disputing among the priests, who said that as she had been in a
convent in her youth, and had worn the veil of a nun, she could not lawfully
be married, - against which the princess stated that her aunt, with whom she
had lived in her youth, had indeed sometimes thrown a piece of black stuff
over her, but for no other reason than because the nun's veil was the only
dress the conquering Normans respected in girl or woman, and not because she
had taken the vows of a nun, which she never had, - she was declared free to
marry, and was made King Henry's queen.  A good queen she was, - beautiful,
kind-hearted, and worthy of a better husband than the king.

     For he was a cunning and unscrupulous man, though firm and clever.  He
cared very little for his word, and took any means to gain his ends.  All this
is shown in his treatment of his brother Robert, - Robert, who had suffered
him to be refreshed with water, and who had sent him the wine from his own
table, when he was shut up, with the crows flying below him, parched with
thirst, in the castle on the top of St. Michael's Mount, where his Red brother
would have let him die.

     Before the king began to deal with Robert, he removed and disgraced all
the favorites of the late king; who were for the most part base characters,
much detested by the people.  Flambard, or Firebrand, whom the late king had
made Bishop of Durham, of all things in the world, Henry imprisoned in the
Tower; but Firebrand was a great joker and a jolly companion, and made himself
so popular with his guards, that they pretended to know nothing about a long
rope that was sent into his prison at the bottom of a deep flagon of wine.
The guards took the wine, and Firebrand took the rope; with which, when they
were fast asleep, he let himself down from a window in the night, and so got
cleverly aboard ship and away to Normandy.

     Now Robert, when his brother Fine-Scholar came to the throne, was still
absent in the Holy Land.  Henry pretended that Robert had been made sovereign
of that country, and he had been away so long, that the ignorant people
believed it.  But, behold, when Henry had been some time king of England,
Robert came home to Normandy!  having leisurely returned from Jerusalem
through Italy, in which beautiful country he had enjoyed himself very much,
and had married a lady as beautiful as itself.  In Normandy, he found
Firebrand waiting to urge him to assert his claim to the English crown, and
declare war against King Henry.  This, after great loss of time in feasting
and dancing with his beautiful Italian wife among his Norman friends, he at
last did.

     The English in general were on King Henry's side, though many of the
Normans were on Robert's.  But the English sailors deserted the king, and took
a great part of the English fleet over to Normandy; so that Robert came to
invade this country in no foreign vessels, but in English ships.  The virtuous
Anselm, however, whom Henry had invited back from abroad, and made Archbishop
of Canterbury, was steadfast in the king's cause; and it was so well
supported, that the two armies, instead of fighting, made a peace.  Poor
Robert, who trusted anybody and everybody, readily trusted his brother, the
king; and agreed to go home and receive a pension from England, on condition
that all his followers were fully pardoned.  This the king very faithfully
promised; but Robert was no sooner gone than he began to punish them.

     Among them was the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, on being summoned by the king
to answer to five-and-forty accusations, rode away to one of his strong
castles, shut himself up therein, called around him his tenants and vassals,
and fought for his liberty, but was defeated and banished.  Robert, with all
his faults, was so true to his word, that, when he first heard of this
nobleman having risen against his brother, he laid waste the Earl of
Shrewsbury's estates in Normandy to show the king that he would favor no
breach of their treaty.  Finding, on better information, afterwards, that the
earl's only crime was having been his friend, he came over to England, in his
old thoughtless, warm-hearted way, to intercede with the king, and remind him
of the solemn promise to pardon all his followers.

     This confidence might have put the false king to the blush, but it did
not.  Pretending to be very friendly, he so surrounded his brother with spies
and traps, that Robert, who was quite in his power, had nothing for it but to
renounce his pension, and escape while he could.  Getting home to Normandy,
and understanding the king better now, he naturally allied himself with his
old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had still thirty castles in that
country.  This was exactly what Henry wanted.  He immediately declared that
Robert had broken the treaty, and next year invaded Normandy.

     He pretended that he came to deliver the Normans, at their own request,
from his brother's misrule.  There is reason to fear that his misrule was bad
enough; for his beautiful wife had died, leaving him with an infant son; and
his court was again so careless, dissipated, and ill-regulated, that it was
said he sometimes lay in bed of a day for want of clothes to put on, - his
attendants having stolen all his dresses.  But he headed his army like a brave
prince and a gallant soldier, though he had the misfortune to be taken
prisoner by King Henry, with four hundred of his knights.  Among them was poor
harmless Edgar Atheling, who loved Robert well.  Edgar was not important
enough to be severe with.  The king afterwards gave him a small pension, which
he lived upon and died upon in peace, among the quiet woods and fields of
England.

     And Robert, - poor, kind, generous, wasteful, heedless Robert, with so
many faults, and yet with virtues that might have made a better and a happier
man, - what was the end of him?  If the king had had the magnanimity to say
with a kind air, "Brother, tell me, before these noblemen, that from this time
you will be my faithful follower and friend, and never raise your hand against
me or my forces more," he might have trusted Robert to the death. But the king
was not a magnanimous man.  He sentenced his brother to be confined for life
in one of the royal castles.  In the beginning of his imprisonment he was
allowed to ride out, guarded; but he one day broke away from his guard and
galloped off.  He had the evil fortune to ride into a swamp, where his horse
stuck fast and he was taken.  When the king heard of it he ordered him to be
blinded, which was done by putting a red-hot metal basin on his eyes.

     And so, in darkness and in prison many years, he thought of all his past
life, - of the time he had wasted, of the treasure he had squandered, of the
opportunities he had lost, of the youth he had thrown away, of the talents he
had neglected.  Sometimes, on fine autumn mornings, he would sit and think of
the old hunting-parties in the free forest, where he had been the foremost and
the gayest.  Sometimes, in the still nights, he would wake, and mourn for the
many nights that had stolen past him at the gaming-table; sometimes would seem
to hear, upon the melancholy wind, the old songs of the minstrels; sometimes
would dream, in his blindness, of the light and glitter of the Norman court.
Many and many a time, he groped back, in his fancy, to Jerusalem, where he had
fought so well; or, at the head of his brave companions, bowed his feathered
helmet to the shouts of welcome greeting him in Italy, and seemed again to
walk among the sunny vineyards, or on the shore of the blue sea, with his
lovely wife.  And then, thinking of her grave, and of his fatherless boy, he
would stretch out his solitary arms and weep.

     At length, one day, there lay in prison, dead, with cruel and disfiguring
scars upon his eyelids, bandaged from his jailer's sight, but on which the
eternal heavens looked down, a worn old man of eighty.  He had once been
Robert of Normandy.  Pity him!

     At the time when Robert of Normandy was taken prisoner by his brother,
Robert's little son was only five years old.  This child was taken too, and
carried before the king, sobbing and crying; for, young as he was, he knew he
had good reason to be afraid of his royal uncle.  The king was not much
accustomed to pity those who were in his power, but his cold heart seemed for
the moment to soften towards the boy.  He was observed to make a great effort,
as if to prevent himself from being cruel, and ordered the child to be taken
away; whereupon a certain baron, who had married a daughter of Duke Robert's
(by name, Helie of Saint Saen), took charge of him tenderly.  The king's
gentleness did not last long.  Before two years were over, he sent messengers
to this lord's castle to seize the child and bring him away.  The baron was
not there at the time; but his servants were faithful, and carried the boy off
in his sleep and hid him.  When the baron came home, and was told what the
king had done, he took the child abroad, and, leading him by the hand, went
from king to king, and from court to court, relating how the child had a claim
to the throne of England, and how his uncle the king, knowing that he had had
that claim, would have murdered him, perhaps, but for his escape.

     The youth and innocence of the pretty little William Fitz-Robert (for
that was his name) made him many friends at that time.  When he became a young
man, the King of France, uniting with the French Counts of Anjou and Flanders,
supported his cause against the King of England, and took many of the king's
towns and castles in Normandy.  But King Henry, artful and cunning always,
bribed some of William's friends with money, some with promises, some with
power.  He bought off the Count of Anjou, by promising to marry his eldest
son, also named William, to the count's daughter; and indeed the whole trust
of this king's life was in such bargains; and he believed (as many another
king has done since, and as one king did in France a very little time ago)
that every man's truth and honor can be bought at some price.  For all this,
he was so afraid of William Fitz-Robert and his friends, that for a long time
he believed his life to be in danger; and never lay down to sleep, even in his
palace, surrounded by his guards, without having a sword and buckler at his
bedside.

     To strengthen his power, the king with great ceremony betrothed his
eldest daughter, Matilda, then a child only eight years old, to be the wife of
Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of Germany.  To raise her marriage-portion, he
taxed the English people in a most oppressive manner; then treated them to a
great procession, to restore their good humor; and sent Matilda away, in fine
state, with the German ambassadors, to be educated in the country of her
future husband.

     And now his queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died.  It was a sad thought
for that gentle lady, that the only hope with which she had married a man whom
she had never loved, - the hope of reconciling the Norman and English races -
had failed.  At the very time of her death, Normandy and all France was in
arms against England; for, so soon as his last danger was over, King Henry had
been false to all the French powers he had promised, bribed, and bought, and
they had naturally united against him.  After some fighting, however, in which
few suffered but the unhappy common people (who always suffered, whatsoever
was the matter), he began to promise, bribe, and buy again; and by those
means, and by the help of the pope, who exerted himself to save more
bloodshed, and by solemnly declaring, over and over again, that he really was
in earnest this time, and would keep his word, the king made peace.

     One of the first consequences of this peace was, that the king went over
to Normandy with his son Prince William and a great retinue, to have the
prince acknowledged as his successor by the Norman nobles, and to contract the
promised marriage (this was one of the many promises the king had broken)
between him and the daughter of the Count of Anjou.  Both these things were
triumphantly done, with great show and rejoicing; and, on the 25th of
November, in the year 1120, the whole retinue prepared to embark at the Port
of Barfleur, for the voyage home.

     On that day, and at that place, there came to the king, Fitz-Stephen, a
sea-captain, and said, -

     "My liege, my father served your father all his life, upon the sea.  He
steered the ship, with the golden boy upon the prow, in which your father
sailed to conquer England.  I beseech you to grant me the same office.  I have
a fair vessel in the harbor here, called 'The White Ship,' manned by fifty
sailors of renown.  I pray you, sire, to let your servant have the honor of
steering you in 'The White Ship' to England!"

     "I am sorry, friend," replied the king, "that my vessel is already
chosen, and that I cannot (therefore) sail with the son of the man who served
my father.  But the prince and all his company shall go along with you, in the
fair 'White Ship,' manned by the fifty sailors of renown."

     An hour or two afterwards, the king set sail in the vessel he had chosen,
accompanied by other vessels, and, sailing all night with a fair and gentle
wind, arrived upon the coast of England in the morning.  While it was yet
night, the people in some of those ships heard a faint wild cry come over the
sea, and wondered what it was.

     Now the prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of eighteen, who bore
no love to the English, and had declared that when he came to the throne he
would yoke them to the plough like oxen.  He went aboard "The White Ship,"
with one hundred and forty youthful nobles like himself, among whom were
eighteen noble ladies of the highest rank.  All this gay company, with their
servants and the fifty sailors, made three hundred souls aboard the fair
"White Ship."

     "Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen," said the prince, "to the fifty
sailors of renown.  My father, the king, has sailed out of the harbor.  What
time is there to make merry here, and yet reach England with the rest?"

     "Prince," said Fitz-Stephen, "before morning my fifty and 'The White
Ship' shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attendance on your father, the
king, if we sail at midnight!"

     Then the prince commanded to make merry; and the sailors drank out the
three casks of wine, and the prince and all the noble company danced in the
moonlight on the deck of "The White Ship."

     When, at last, she shot out of the harbor of Barfleur, there was not a
sober seaman on board.  But the sails were all set, and the oars all going
merrily.  Fitz-Stephen had the helm.  The gay young nobles and the beautiful
ladies, wrapped in mantles of various bright colors to protect them from the
cold, talked, laughed, and sang.  The prince encouraged the fifty sailors to
row harder yet, for the honor of "The White Ship."

     Crash!  A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts.  It was the cry
the people in the distant vessels of the king heard faintly on the water. "The
White Ship" had struck upon a rock, - was filling, - going down!

     Fitz-Stephen hurried the prince into a boat, with some few nobles. "Push
off," he whispered, "and row to the land.  It is not so far, and the sea is
smooth.  The rest of us must die."

     But as they rowed away fast from the sinking ship, the prince heard the
voice of his sister Marie, the countess of Perche, calling for help.  He never
in his life had been so good as he was then.  He cried in an agony, "Row back
at any risk!  I cannot bear to leave her!"

     They rowed back.  As the prince held out his arms to catch his sister,
such numbers leaped in, that the boat was overset.  And in the same instant
"The White Ship" went down.

     Only two men floated.  They both clung to the mainyard of the ship, which
had broken from the mast and now supported them.  One asked the other who he
was?  He said, "I am a nobleman, Godrey by name, the son of Gilbert de
l'Aigle.  And you?" said he.  "I am Berold, a poor butcher of Rouen," was the
answer.  Then they said together, "Lord, be merciful to us both!" and tried to
encourage one another, as they drifted in the cold benumbing sea on that
unfortunate November night.

     By and by, another man came swimming towards them, whom they knew, when
he pushed aside his long wet hair, to be Fitz-Stephen.  "Where is the prince?"
said he.  "Gone, gone!" the two cried together.  "Neither he, nor his brother,
nor his sister, nor the king's niece, nor her brother, nor any one of all the
brave three hundred, noble or commoner, except we three, has risen above the
water!" Fitz-Stephen, with a ghastly face, cried, "Woe!  woe to me!" and sunk
to the bottom.

     The other two clung to the yard for some hours.  At length the young
noble said faintly, "I am exhausted, and chilled with the cold, and can hold
no longer.  Farewell, good friend!  God preserve you!" So he dropped and sunk;
and, of all the brilliant crowd, the poor butcher of Rouen alone was saved.
In the morning, some fishermen saw him floating in his sheep-skin coat, and
got him into their boat, - the sole relater of the dismal tale.

     For three days, no one dared to carry the intelligence to the king.  At
length they sent into his presence a little boy, who, weeping bitterly, and
kneeling at his feet, told him that "The White Ship" was lost with all on
board.  The king fell to the ground like a dead man, and never, never
afterwards was seen to smile.

     But he plotted again, and promised again, and bribed and bought again, in
his old deceitful way.  Having no son to succeed him, after all his pains
("The prince will never yoke us to the plough now!" said the English people),
he took a second wife, - Adelais, or Alice, a duke's daughter, and the pope's
niece.  Having no more children, however, he proposed to the barons to swear
that they would recognize as his successor his daughter Matilda, whom, as she
was now a widow, he married to the eldest son of the Count of Anjou, Geoffrey,
surnamed Plantagenet, from a custom he had of wearing a sprig of flowering
broom (called genet in French) in his cap for a feather.  As one false man
usually makes many, and as a false king, in particular, is pretty certain to
make a false court, the barons took the oath about the succession of Matilda
(and her children after her) twice over, without in the least intending to
keep it.  The king was now relieved from any remaining fears of William
Fitz-Robert, by his death in the Monastery of St. Omer, in France, at
twenty-six years old, of a pike-wound in the hand.  And, as Matilda gave birth
to three sons, he thought the succession to the throne secure.

     He spent most of the latter part of his life, which was troubled by
family quarrels, in Normandy, to be near Matilda.  When he had reigned upwards
of thirty-five years, and was sixty-seven years old, he died of an indigestion
and fever, brought on by eating, when he was far from well, of a fish called
lamprey, against which he had often been cautioned by his physicians.  His
remains were brought over to Reading Abbey, to be buried.

     You may perhaps hear the cunning and promise-breaking of King Henry the
First, called "policy" by some people, and "diplomacy" by others.  Neither of
these fine words will in the least mean that it was true; and nothing that is
not true can possibly be good.

     His greatest merit, that I know of, was his love of learning.  I should
have given him greater credit even for that, if it had been strong enough to
induce him to spare the eyes of a certain poet he once took prisoner, who was
a knight besides.  But he ordered the poet's eyes to be torn from his head,
because he had laughed at him in his verses; and the poet, in the pain of that
torture, dashed out his own brains against his prison wall.  King Henry the
First, was avaricious, revengeful, and so false that I suppose a man never
lived whose word was less to be relied upon.