Читать книгу The Conquerors: The Pageant of England - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 25

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Good news travels fast, even in a land where most of the roads are no better than cow trails. The word which swept over England immediately after the accession to the throne of the youngest son of William the Conqueror was so good that it set the whole countryside ablaze with joyful expectations. Henry wanted to take a Saxon princess as his bride.

It was quite true. Henry had openly stated his desire to wed Edytha, daughter of the late King Malcolm of Scotland and Queen Margaret, who had been a sister of Edgar the Atheling and was one of the few descendants left of King Alfred. The English people knew all about the lovely little princess. They had talked about her wherever they met, at entrances to church, on village greens, in clay-floored taverns, most particularly in the evenings when the doors and windows of the wattled huts were barred against the devil, who roamed the earth in the hours of darkness. Her hair was like gold and she was as sweet as sugar roset and as good as her mother, who had been like a saint. No wonder the young King had fallen in love with her! No wonder he had waited all these years until he was in a position to claim her!

But Henry had not remained unwed until his thirty-second year out of a deep passion for the daughter of the Scottish King. It is not even certain that he had seen her. He knew of her beauty and her fine qualities (three men of high degree, including Warren, Henry’s cousin, had sought her hand) and he was wise enough to perceive the advantages of marriage with a princess of the old royal line. Unfortunately the highly romantic picture of a landless prince languishing for love of a princess and winning her in the end was much too good to be true.

When he ascended the throne Henry had already acknowledged twenty illegitimate children!

Before proceeding with the story of the King’s courtship, it will be necessary to tell something about the Princess Edytha and her family. Two years after the Battle of Hastings, Edgar the Atheling left England, taking his sisters Margaret and Christina with him. Their objective was Hungary, where they had relatives, but a storm came up and drove their ship so far out of its course that they landed finally on the Firth of Forth. Malcolm Canmore (Bighead) had just succeeded in recovering his kingdom from the usurper Macbeth and he came down to the shore to welcome the fugitives. One glance at the Princess Margaret was enough. Her sweet and lovely face so enthralled him that he proposed for her hand at once. He seems to have been a fine fellow, this young King Malcolm. His nickname belied him, for he could neither read nor write, but he was loyal and honest and a good soldier. The match was arranged (what exile could refuse the hand of a king?), and Malcolm remained devoted to his Queen for the rest of his life.

During the reign of William Rufus, Malcolm Canmore was killed in an invasion of the north of England. Queen Margaret died soon after, and the throne was seized by Donald Bane, an illegitimate brother of Malcolm. Fearing for the safety of the orphaned family, Edgar the Atheling hurried north and took all of the royal brood back with him, five young princes and two daughters, the older of the pair being Edytha. He placed the girls in the nunnery of Rumsey, where the Princess Christina had been made abbess, and here they were brought up. Rumsey belonged to the Black Benedictines, and the royal abbess was determined that both girls should join the order. As a result Edytha wore the regulation head covering of coarse black cloth when she received visitors.

To say that all England hung on the news of Henry’s preference would be no exaggeration. It meant (or so the downtrodden people believed) the difference between remaining a conquered race and attaining some degree of equality with the Normans. It meant, at least, that the blood of great King Alfred would again flow in the veins of the rulers of the land! There was dismay, therefore, when it became known that the Norman nobility were against the match, that they were determined to stop it and had started to laugh scornfully at the King’s expense, calling the couple Gaffer Godric and Goody Godiva. The dismay changed to despair when it developed that a serious obstacle had been encountered. The Abbess Christina had lodged a protest to the effect that “her niece was a veiled nun and that it would be an act of sacrilege to remove her from the convent.”

Henry realized that the objection raised by the abbess would have to be passed on by the Church. Archbishop Anselm, who had gone into exile as a result of his quarrel with William Rufus, was still living in Lyons. The new King sent an urgent summons, asking the old man to come back at once and settle the question. Anselm assented, but he was so old that he traveled very slowly and it took a long time for him to reach England again. His first step on arriving was to convoke the Council of the Church to Lambeth to hear the evidence. Edytha herself was summoned to appear.

London streets were black with people the day the princess rode in from Wilton. They were almost a different race, the Londoners, with their guilds, their laws, their special rights, their portgraves and aldermen. They were shrewd, commercial, a little arrogant of their privileges, a little selfish in matters of gain. Many of them were Norman and all were taking on some of the outward semblance of Normanism. The tailor Baldwin, who came over with the invading army and who set up his booth on the very edge of the bloodstained turf of Senlac, had moved to London as soon as William had been crowned King. Gilbert the Weaver, Mauger the Smith, Benet the Steward had all done the same. Other Norman tailors had come to London since, and now they had their own little settlement in the busy city on the Thames. Some of the citizens had fallen into the habit of going there for their clothes. They had been showing a weakness for the more luxurious type of costume which had come in with the vain Red King, the long sleeves, the cuffs embroidered inside and out, the ankle garters of fine leather. A few even were combing and curling their beards, and their wives were wearing gowns of costly materials, richly diapered and embroidered. London was more Norman than any other part of England, but in matters of racial importance or racial conflict the people left no doubt as to where they stood.

On this day they waited for the arrival of the princess in anxious groups all the way from the western entrances to London Bridge. Their faces reflected a mood of the deepest gloom. Was this one great chance for rehabilitation to be taken away from them?

Despite their misgivings they tossed their pointed caps high into the air when a party of horsemen appeared with the princess riding in their midst, and they cheered madly when it was seen that she had not followed the Norman custom of keeping her hair wrapped and coiffed in heavy veilings but was wearing no headdress of any kind, so that her long golden locks fell down over her shoulders in the good old English manner. Her eyes were a bright blue and she was, in fact, so beautiful that many of them fell to their knees as she rode by and prayed that nothing might stand in the way of the marriage. Even the name of Goody Godiva seemed lovely when applied to her, and those who remained on their feet used it with affectionate fervor. Lovely Goody Godiva, when had her equal been seen! No other queen would they have but this slender Saxon girl who smiled to them as she rode by and raised her gloved hand in greeting!

All the princes of the Church had gathered in the dingy episcopal palace at Lambeth. It was fortunate that Anselm was there, for it was certain that the kind old archbishop would see the case was fairly tried. It was fortunate also that a Saxon priest named Edmer sat at the old man’s elbow and took copious notes of the proceedings, scribbling feverishly on a pad of parchment which he held on his knee. Years later, when he had been given a high post and could spare himself the time, Edmer set down the events of this turbulent period in a series of useful chronicles. He alone gives a full report of the hearing in his Historia Novorum.

Edmer does not describe the scene, but it is not difficult to summon from the imagination a picture of the long room: Anselm seated at the end, his back bent with the weight of years but his eye as resolutely clear as ever; the bishops in a half circle about him, wearing their miters and their gleaming pectoral crosses; Edytha seated alone in front of them, hands clasped nervously in her lap; the officials of the court bustling about and passing documents one to another. It is certain that the girl, straight from the calm life of a nunnery, stirred uneasily as she faced this circle of stern faces.

The Council of the Church was exclusively Norman, and it can be taken for granted that each bishop and abbot there felt as disapproving as the barons of this match on which Henry had set his heart. The record makes it clear, however, that they found their doubts dwindling as they listened to her answers.

Anselm conducted the questioning himself.

Had she embraced a religious life by her own choice?

She raised her voice until it could be heard in all parts of the high-arched hall. “No, my lord.”

Had she done so at the wish of her parents or to fulfill a parental vow?

“Neither, my lord.”

Had she worn the black veil of the votaress at her father’s court?

There was a moment’s delay, and then she answered in a lower tone: “It cannot be denied that I wore the veil at my father’s court. When I was a child my aunt Christina put black cloth over my head, but the King my father tore it off in a rage and blamed my aunt.”

She had worn it once only, then?

“No, my lord. On other occasions I made a pretense of wearing it to excuse myself from unsuitable marriages. Once my father tore it off again and said to Alan of Bretagne,” naming one of her three suitors, a man of high rank but decidedly mature years, “that he intended to give me in marriage and not devote me to the Church.”

Had she worn the veil in the nunnery at Rumsey?

“Yes, my lord bishop.” A long pause followed. The reason she must give would not please Norman ears. “I wore it as a protection from the violence of—of the Norman nobles.” She went on to say that she had continued to wear it on the stern insistence of her militant aunt. “She would torment me with blows and reproaches and so I wore it in her presence, but always, when I was out of her sight, I took the veil off.” She did not put it into words, but it was clear there had been no love lost between herself and the determined Christina.

Two archdeacons were then heard, William of Canterbury and Humbold of Salisbury. They had been sent to Rumsey and had questioned the sisters, bringing back the impression that neither princess had ever been considered by the rank and file as Dei sponsa.

The Council then went into secret session to arrive at a verdict. The princess continued to sit quietly in her chair, where every pair of eyes remained fixed on her. It might have been seen that her hands were clasped still more tensely together in her lap and that she watched the door through which the princes of the Church would return with the words on which her future depended. If they said she could not marry the King, then she could never marry at all but would be sent back to the nunnery under her stern and disapproving aunt. She would wear the stiff headdress of the Black Benedictines for the rest of her life.

Anselm himself announced the decision. The Princess Edytha, he said, had been found free to contract marriage with the King.

The archbishop proceeded to read a curious clause of justification. It ran as follows: “When King William conquered this land, many of his men, elated by the greatness of the victory, not only seized the possessions of the conquered but invaded the honor of their wives and daughters whenever they had the opportunity. This forced many ladies to preserve their honor by putting on the veil.” A strange admission indeed from a body of high-placed Normans! This was the first clear evidence that it was now possible for people on both sides to look back at the events of the Conquest with some degree of detachment.

The delight of the native population was so intense that even the announcement of the change of the bride’s name to Matilda in honor of the King’s mother (and perhaps to appease the still unreconciled barons) did not blunt its edge. They now had a king born on English soil and he was taking to himself a wife of the sacred line of great Alfred. Surely better days were ahead for England!