“two things there be on earth that ne’er forget— a woman, and a dog—where once their love is set!”—old ms.
it was the morning after the exterminating fight at hastings. the banner blessed of the roman pontiff streamed on the tainted air, from the same hillock whence the dragon standard of the saxons had shone unconquered to the sun of yester-even! hard by was pitched the proud pavilion of the conqueror, who, after the tremendous strife and perilous labors of the preceding day, reposed himself in fearless and untroubled confidence upon the field of his renown; secure in the possession of the land, which he was destined to transmit to his posterity for many a hundred years, by the red title of the sword.
to the defeated saxons, morning, however, brought but a renewal of those miseries which, having yesterday commenced with the first victory of their norman lords, were never to conclude, or even to relax, until the complete amalgamation of the rival races should leave no normans to torment, no saxons to endure; all being merged at last into one general name of english, and by their union giving origin to the most powerful, and brave, and intellectual people, the world has ever looked upon since the extinction of rome’s freedom.
at the time of which we are now speaking, nothing was thought of by the victors save how to rivet most securely on38 the necks of the unhappy natives their yoke of iron; nothing by the poor, subjugated saxons, but how to escape for the moment the unrelenting massacre which was urged far and wide by the remorseless conquerors throughout the devastated country. with the defeat of harold’s host, all national hope of freedom was at once lost to england. though, to a man, the english population were brave and loyal, and devoted to their country’s rights, the want of leaders—all having perished side by side on that disastrous field—of combination, without which myriads are but dust in the scale against the force of one united handful—rendered them quite unworthy of any serious fears, and even of consideration, to the bloodthirsty barons of the invading army. over the whole expanse of level country which might be seen from the slight elevation whereon was pitched the camp of william, on every side might be descried small parties of the norman horse, driving in with their bloody lances, as if they were mere cattle, the unhappy captives; a few of whom they now began to spare, not from the slightest sentiment of mercy, but literally that their arms were weary with the task of slaying, although their hearts were yet insatiate of blood.
it must be taken now into consideration by those who listen with dismay and wonder to the accounts of pitiless barbarity—of ruthless, indiscriminating slaughter on the part of men whom they have hitherto been taught to look upon as brave indeed as lions in the field, but not partaking of the lion’s nature after the field was won—not only that the seeds of enmity had long been sown between those rival people, but that the deadly crop of hatred had grown up, watered abundantly by the tears and blood of either; and, lastly, that the fierce fanaticism of religious persecution was added to the natural rancor of a war waged for the ends of conquest or extermination. the saxon nation, from the king downward to the meanest serf who fought39 beneath his banner, or buckled on the arms of liberty, were all involved under the common ban of the pope’s interdict. they were accursed of god, and handed over by his holy church to the kind mercies of the secular arm; and therefore, though but yesterday they were a powerful and united nation, to-day they were but a vile horde of scattered outlaws, whom any man might slay wherever he should find them, whether in arms or otherwise—amenable for blood neither to any mortal jurisdiction, nor even to the ultimate tribunal to which all must submit hereafter, unless deprived of their appeal like these poor fugitives, by excommunication from the pale of christianity. for thirty miles around the norman camp, pillars of smoke by day, continually streaming upward to the polluted heaven, and the red glare of nightly conflagration, told fatally the doom of many a happy home! neither the castle nor the cottage might preserve their male inhabitants from the sword’s edge, their females from more barbarous persecution. neither the sacred hearth of hospitality nor the more sacred altars of god’s churches might protect the miserable fugitives; neither the mail-shirt of the man-at-arms nor the monk’s frock of serge availed against the thrust of the fierce norman spear. all was dismay and havoc, such as the land wherein those horrors were enacted has never witnessed since, through many a following age.
high noon approached, and in the conqueror’s tent a gorgeous feast was spread. the red wine flowed profusely, and song and minstrelsy arose with their heart-soothing tones, to which the feeble groans of dying wretches bore a dread burden from the plain whereon they still lay struggling in their great agonies, too sorely maimed to live, too strong as yet to die. but, ever and anon, their wail waxed feebler and less frequent; for many a plunderer was on foot, licensed to ply his odious calling in the full light of day—reaping his first if not his richest booty from the dead bodies of their slaughtered foemen. ill40 fared the wretches who lay there, untended by the hand of love or mercy, “scorched by the death-thirst, and writhing in vain;” but worse fared they who showed a sign of life to the relentless robbers of the dead, for then the dagger—falsely called that of mercy—was the dispenser of immediate immortality. the conqueror sat at his triumphant board, and barons drank his health: “first english monarch, of the pure blood of normandy!”—“king by the right of the sword’s edge!”—“great, glorious, and sublime!” yet was not his heart softened, nor was his bitter hate toward the unhappy prince who had so often ridden by his side in war, and feasted at the same board with him in peace, relinquished or abated. even while the feast was at the highest, while every heart was jocund and sublime, a trembling messenger approached, craving on bended knee permission to address the conqueror and king—for so he was already schooled by brief but hard experience to style the devastator of his country.
“speak out, dog saxon!” cried the ferocious prince; “but since thou must speak, see that thy speech be brief, an’ thou wouldst keep thy tongue uncropped thereafter!”
“great duke and mighty,” replied the trembling envoy, “i bear you greeting from elgitha, herewhile the noble wife of godwin, the queenly mother of our late monarch—now, as she bade me style her, the humblest of your suppliants and slaves. of your great nobleness and mercy, mighty king, she sues you, that you will grant her the poor leave to search amid the heaps of those our saxon dead, that her three sons may at least lie in consecrated earth—so may god send you peace and glory here, and everlasting happiness hereafter!”
“hear to the saxon slave!” william exclaimed, turning as if in wonder toward his nobles; “hear to the saxon slave, that dares to speak of consecrated earth, and of interment for the accursed body of that most perjured, excommunicated liar!41 hence! tell the mother of the dead dog, whom you have dared to style your king, that for the interdicted and accursed dead the sands of the seashore are but too good a sepulchre!”
“she bade me proffer humbly to your acceptance the weight of harold’s body in pure gold,” faintly gasped forth the terrified and cringing messenger, “so you would grant her that permission.”
“proffer us gold! what gold, or whose? know, villain, all the gold throughout this conquered realm is ours. hence, dog and outcast, hence! nor presume e’er again to come, insulting us by proffering, as a boon to our acceptance, that which we own already, by the most indefeasible and ancient right of conquest!—said i not well, knights, vavasours, and nobles?”
“well! well and nobly!” answered they, one and all. “the land is ours, and all that therein is: their dwellings, their demesnes, their wealth, whether of gold, or silver, or of cattle—yea, they themselves are ours! themselves, their sons, their daughters, and their wives—our portion and inheritance, to be our slaves for ever!”
“begone! you have our answer,” exclaimed the duke, spurning him with his foot; “and hark ye, arbalast-men and archers, if any saxon more approach us on like errand, see if his coat of skin be proof against the quarrel of the shaft!”
and once again the feast went on; and louder rang the revelry, and faster flew the wine-cup, round the tumultuous board. all day the banquet lasted, even till the dews of heaven fell on that fatal field, watered sufficiently already by the rich gore of many a noble heart. all day the banquet lasted, and far was it prolonged into the watches of the night; when, rising with the wine-cup in his hand—“nobles and barons,” cried the duke, “friends, comrades, conquerors, bear witness to my vow! here, on these heights of hastings, and more especially upon yon mound and hillock, where god gave to us our high victory,42 and where our last foe fell—there will i raise an abbey to his eternal praise and glory. richly endowed, it shall be, from the first fruits of this our land. battle, it shall be called, to send the memory of this, the great and singular achievement of our race, to far posterity; and, by the splendor of our god, wine shall be plentier among the monks of battle, than water in the noblest and richest cloister else, search the world over! this do i swear: so may god aid, who hath thus far assisted us for our renown, and will not now deny his help, when it be asked for his own glory!”
the second day dawned on the place of horror, and not a saxon had presumed, since the intolerant message of the duke, to come to look upon his dead. but now the ground was needed whereon to lay the first stone of the abbey william had vowed to god. the ground was needed; and, moreover, the foul steam from the human shambles was pestilential on the winds of heaven. and now, by trumpet-sound, and proclamation through the land, the saxons were called forth, on pain of death, to come and seek their dead, lest the health of the conquerors should suffer from the pollution they themselves had wrought. scarce had the blast sounded, and the glad tidings been announced once only, ere from their miserable shelters, where they had herded with the wild beasts of the forest—from wood, morass, and cavern, happy if there they might escape the norman spear—forth crept the relics of that persecuted race. old men and matrons, with hoary heads, and steps that tottered no less from the effect of terror than of age—maidens, and youths, and infants—too happy to obtain permission to search amid those festering heaps, dabbling their hands in the corrupt and pestilential gore which filled each nook and hollow of the dinted soil, so they might bear away, and water with their tears, and yield to consecrated ground, the relics of those brave ones, once loved so fondly, and now so bitterly lamented.43 it was toward the afternoon of that same day, when a long train was seen approaching, with crucifix, and cross, and censer—the monks of waltham abbey, coming to offer homage for themselves, and for their tenantry and vassals, to him whom they acknowledged as their king; expressing their submission to the high will of the norman pontiff—justified, as they said, and proved by the assertion of god’s judgment upon the hill of hastings. highly delighted by this absolute submission, the first he had received from any english tongue, the conqueror received the monks with courtesy and favor, granting them high immunities, and promising them free protection, and the unquestioned tenor of their broad demesnes for ever. nay, after he had answered their address, he detained two of their number—men of intelligence, as with his wonted quickness of perception he instantly discovered—from whom to derive information as to the nature of his newly-acquired country and newly-conquered subjects. osgad and ailric, the deputed messengers from the respected principal of their community, had yet a further and higher object than to tender their submission to the conqueror. their orders were, at all and every risk, to gain permission to consign the corpse of their late king and founder to the earth previously denied to him. and soon, emboldened by the courtesy and kindness of the much-dreaded norman, they took courage to approach the subject, knowing it interdicted, even on pain of death; and, to their wonder and delight, it was unhesitatingly granted.
throughout the whole of the third day succeeding that unparalleled defeat and slaughter, those old men might be seen toiling among the naked carcasses, disfigured, maimed, and festering in the sun, toiling to find the object of their devoted veneration. but vain were all their labors—vain was their search, even when they called in the aid of his most intimate attendants, ay, of the mother that had borne him! the corpses of44 his brethren, leofwyn and gurth, were soon discovered; but not one eye, even of those who had most dearly loved him, could now distinguish the maimed features of the king.
at last, when hope itself was now almost extinct, some one named edith—edith the swan-necked! she had been the mistress—years ere he had been, or dreamed of being, king—to the brave son of godwin. she had beloved him in her youth with that one, single-minded, constant, never-ending love, which but few, even of her devoted sex, can feel, and they but once, and for one cherished object. deserted and dishonored when he she loved was elevated to the throne, she had not ceased from her true adoration; but, quitting her now-joyless home, had shared her heart between her memories and her god, in the sequestered cloisters of the nunnery of croyland. more days elapsed ere she could reach the fatal spot, and the increased corruption denied the smallest hope of his discovery: yet, from the moment when the mission was named to her, she expressed her full and confident conviction that she could recognise that loved one so long as but one hair remained on that head she had once so cherished! it was night when she arrived on the fatal field, and by the light of torches once more they set out on their awful duty. “show me the spot,” she said, “where the last warrior fell;” and she was led to the place where had been found the corpses of his gallant brethren: and, with an instinct that nothing could deceive, she went straight to the corpse of harold! it had been turned already to and fro many times by those who sought it; his mother had looked on it, and pronounced it not her son’s: but that devoted heart knew it at once—and broke! whom rank, and wealth, and honors had divided, defeat and death made one!—and the same grave contained the cold remains of edith the swan-necked and the last scion of the saxon kings of england.
