Heroines of the Crusades. Celestia Angenette Bloss

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ foot, ill, weary, and penniless; and had not a kind Providence sent the noble Earls Robert and Stephen to our relief, we might at last have perished on the banks of the Eure.

      CHAPTER IX

      Can piety the discord heal,

      Or stanch the death-feud’s enmity?

      Can Christian lore, can patriot’s zeal,

      Can love of blessed charity?

      The year 1077 opened with great rejoicing in Normandy. The royal family were reunited for the last time, to celebrate the marriage of Adela and Constance, with the wealthy and powerful husbands of the Conqueror’s choice. The young Count and Countess of Blois, whose castles were numerous as the days in the year, determined to make a festive progress through their dominions, and the Earl of Bretagne, with his bride, with their young sister, Gundred, and her undeclared lover, the Earl of Warrenne, joined the happy party.

      In the midst of her happiness Adela did not forget her promise to Ingulfus. The evening before her departure, she visited the cloister of the palmer, and acquainted him with his preferment to the Abbey of Croyland. The good friar’s gratitude and pleasure were unbounded.

      “Holy father,” said the countess, “I have yet one boon to crave.”

      “Name it,” said the priest. “If it lieth in my poor ability it shall not fail thee.”

      “Because it lieth in thy power do I intrust it to thee,” continued she. “The body of Earl Waltheof, the father of our much-injured Maude, is interred at the four cross-roads, without the gates of Winchester; when thou takest possession of thy benefice, as soon as may be, thou wilt give him Christian burial, in the church-yard of Croyland, and cause daily masses to be said for his soul.”

      Ingulfus readily promised compliance.

      Adela still lingered. “The lovely Maude goes with thee to England. Thou wilt be compelled to marry her to Simon. Soften, as much as possible, her hard fate, and watch over her interests, and comfort her with thy counsels.”

      “It shall be done,” said Ingulfus, fervently.

      “Father, I would confess.”

      And the young countess, in all her beauty and pride, knelt at the feet of the venerable man, and with the simplicity of a child, poured out her soul before him.

      As Adela had predicted, the Conqueror, on his return to England, took with him Maude, as the bride of Simon. Robert sailed, also, in the same vessel, being commissioned by the king to establish Simon, now Earl of Huntingdon, in his new possessions.

      William, too, accompanied his father, for he, more than any of the sons, comprehended the policy, and partook of the spirit of the Conqueror.

      The remaining years of the Queen Duchess Matilda, were passed in splendid solitude, in the royal palace at Bayeux. The early death of the princess Adeliza, the failing health of Constance, together with fresh dissensions in her family, pressed heavily upon her mind, and occasioned the lingering illness that slowly conducted her to the tomb.

      The loss of his beloved queen, and the undutiful conduct of his sons, aggravated the natural irritability and imperiousness of William, so that according to the English chroniclers, “He became, after her death, a thorough tyrant.” He passed the four remaining years of his life in a constant succession of petty annoyances, and fruitless wars, with Philip of France.

      In the stately castle of Chartres, sat the lovely Countess Adela apparently busy with embroidery, in that age almost the only home occupation of females. A shade of sadness was upon her brow, and an expression of anxious care indicated the mother’s sympathy with the suffering child, that an attendant was vainly striving to soothe.

      “Draw the couch of the little William to my side, Therese,” said the countess, observing the tears in the girl’s eyes. “Thou hast a tiresome task. Remove these frames,” continued she to the maidens, “and go ye all to disport awhile in the pleasance, I will watch my boy’s slumbers.”

      The feeble child stretched his hands to his mother, and laying his head upon her breast sank quietly to sleep.

      “Poor suffering one,” soliloquized Adela, “thou knowest naught but thy mother’s love. Already thy younger brothers despise thy imbecility – the courtiers regard thee with indifference – and the very menials flout thee. No ducal coronet, or kingly crown will grace the head of my first-born.”

      The sound of heavy steps in the corridor disturbed the slumberer. He lifted his head, moaned heavily, and regarded with a vacant stare the warrior who entered.

      “Robert, my beloved brother!” exclaimed the countess, the joy of former times flitting across her countenance.

      With a moody and dissatisfied air the duke returned the frank greeting of his sister, and throwing himself upon a seat by her side, said in a tone of ill-concealed impatience,

      “Adela, I have come to thee, for the prudent counsel of our mother dwells with thee. I am robbed of my rights and stripped of my heritage.”

      “Art thou not Duke of Normandy,” inquired his sister with surprise.

      “Aye, verily. Our father left me the duchy with a blessing that sounded marvellously like a curse. ‘The dukedom of Normandy,’ said he, ‘I granted unto my son Robert, and having received the homage of his baronage, that honor given cannot be revoked: yet he is a foolish, proud knave, and will be punished with cruel fortune.’”

      “The saints preserve thee,” said the countess with a look of alarm, “and England” —

      Robert interrupted. – “’Tis of that I would speak. The Conqueror bitterly bewailing the desolation and woe he had wrought in England, protested that he had so misused that fair and beautiful land, that he dare not appoint a successor to it, but left the disposal of that matter in the hands of God.”

      “Thou shouldst then have been king,” said the Countess, “since God made thee his first-born.”

      “So should I have been,” said the duke, “but for the craft of William; but while I tarried in Germany, little thinking that my father’s illness would terminate so suddenly, the red-haired usurper hastened over sea, and gaining Lanfranc to his interest secured the throne.”

      “Always unready,” sighed Adela. “And while the elder sons were thus employed, the young Henry watched by the bed of his dying father. Is it not so?”

      “Small watching had the Conqueror’s death-bed,” said Robert, with something between a smile and a sneer. “The filial Beauclerk set off to secure the treasures, and the attendants equally rapacious and inhuman, plundered the house of all the money, plate, and precious furniture, and even stripped the person of the monarch. And after Herlwin had succeeded in conveying the body to the abbey of St. Stephen’s, and they were about to place it in the grave, there stood forth an insolent noble, and forbade the interment. ‘This spot,’ said he, ‘was the site of my father’s house, which this dead duke took violently from him, and here upon part of my inheritance founded this church. This ground I therefore challenge, and charge ye all as ye shall answer it at the great and dreadful day of judgment, that ye lay not the bones of the destroyer on the hearth of my fathers.’ And there, exposed to the jeers of the assembled multitudes, was the body forced to wait, while Henry drove a sharp bargain with the owner of the soil, and purchased leave of burial for the paltry sum of sixty shillings. Oh Adela!” said Robert, rising and striding through the apartment in extreme perturbation, СКАЧАТЬ