The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March. Baring-Gould Sabine

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      Many other things did the saint set forth about the ministry of dumb animals to the faithful. The dove from the ark told that the waters were dried up.

      The young prince replied, "The things you tell me would be more likely to work faith in me if the hart you have taught to wander in the forest with the rope round its neck were to appear in answer to your prayers." The saint prostrated himself in prayer, and lo! the hart burst from the thicket. The saint exclaimed, "All things are possible to him that believeth. Hear then, and believe the faith of Christ." The saint instructed him, and baptized him. The next day he received the Eucharist, and went home, and told his brother Rufine that he had become a Christian. The other said, "I have long wished for baptism; I will seek holy Chad." The brothers set out together. Rufine espying the hart with the cord round its neck, gave hot chase; the animal made for the saint's cell, and leaped into the fountain as before. Rufine saw a venerable man praying near. He said, "Art thou, my lord, father Chad, guide of my brother Wulfade to salvation?" He answered, "I am." The prince earnestly desiring baptism, Chad baptized him, Wulfade holding him at the font, after the manner taught by holy Church.

      Then they departed, but returned daily to him. Werbode stealthily spied their ways and doings, and told their father that they had become Christians, and were then worshipping in Chad's oratory, adding that their conversion would alienate his subjects. The king set out in anger for the cell, the queen sending Werbode before to tell the princes of his approach, that they might hide. But Werbode only looked in at the window of the oratory, and saw them praying earnestly. He returned to the king, and told him that his sons were obstinate in their purpose of worshipping Christ. The king, pale with anger, rushed towards the oratory. He threatened them with his vengeance for breaking the laws of the land by becoming Christians, and bade them renounce Christ. Wulfade replied, "They did not want to break the laws, and that the king himself once professed the faith which now he renounced. They wished to retain his fatherly affection, but no tortures could turn them from Christ." The king rushed furiously upon him, and cut off his head. His brother, Rufine, fled, but his father pursued him, and gave him a mortal wound. Thus these two departed to celestial glory. Werbode was smitten with madness when they returned to the castle and told the murder in the ears of all. The queen buried her sons honourably in one stone tomb, and withdrew with her daughter, Werburga, to the monastery at Sheppey, and then to that of Ely.

      The king, overcome with remorse, fell dangerously ill. The queen counselled him to seek out Chad, and confess to him. Wulfere took her advice, and starting one morning with his thanes, as if to follow the chase, his attendants got scattered from him, and he was left alone. Soon he espied the meek hart with the rope round its neck; he followed its track gladly, till he came to Chad's cell. The king, approaching the oratory, espied the saint saying mass; he dared not enter till he had been shriven. When the canon began, so great a light shone through the apertures in the wall, that priest and sacrifice were covered with such splendour that the king was nearly blinded by it, for it was brighter than that of the natural sun.

      The saint knew what the king wanted, so when the office was ended he hastily put off his vestments, and, thinking to lay them upon the appointed place, unwittingly hung them upon a sunbeam, for the natural sun was now streaming through the window. He found the king prostrate before the door; raising him up he heard the penitent's confession, and enjoined him as a penance, to root out idolatry, and to found monasteries.4 He then motioned to the king that he should enter the oratory and pray. Wulfere, chancing to lift up his eyes, with wonder saw the vestments hanging on the sunbeam. He rose from his knees, and, drawing near, placed his own gloves and baldric upon the beam, but they immediately fell to the ground. The king understood by this that Chad was beloved by the Sun of Righteousness, since the natural sun paid him such homage.

B. CHARLES THE GOOD, M., COUNT OF FLANDERS(A.D. 1127.)

      [Hermann Greven and Molanus in their additions to Usuardus, Galesinius, Canisius, Saussaye, and the Belgian Martyrologies. Authorities: – A life by a contemporary, Walter, archdeacon of Thèrouanne, another life by Gualbert of Bruges, written about two years after the death of the count, and another by Suger, abbot of S. Denys, d. 1151.]

      Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, the son of S. Canute, King of Denmark, and Adelheid,5 daughter of Robert the Frisian, was taken to Bruges after the martyrdom of his father, (see Jan. 19th), and received a careful education from Robert II., Count of Flanders, his uncle on his mother's side, who trained him to be a good knight, 'without fear and without reproach,' and at the same time to be a good Christian. Charles distinguished himself by his bravery in the Holy Land, and in the war carried on by his uncle against the English, and after the death of Baldwin VII., who succeeded his father, Robert II., in 1111, and died without issue, he was declared his successor by acclamation of the nobility and people, in accordance with the dying wish of his uncle. His elevation was not, however, acceptable to every party in the state, and his government, which began in the midst of plots, was brought to a close by one.

      He was married to Margaret de Clermont, sister of the Bishop of Tournai, and of the royal blood of France.

      On the sea-banks, in the midst of the sand-hills, living by piracy, and by fishing, were colonies of Flemings. Furnes is the centre of this district. It was held by Clémence of Burgundy, the widow of Count Robert II., as her dowry. She had married one of her nieces to King Louis VI., another to William de Loo, Viscount of Ypres, son of Philip, her brother-in-law. Consequently there were several ambitious and powerful parties ready to lay claim to the County of Flanders, and wrest it from the hands of Charles.

      The Flemings of the sea-coast rose, at the instigation of Clémence, and were secretly favoured by the King of France; whilst, at the same time, William de Loo asserted his claim.

      The feudal nobles desired to profit by these circumstances, to increase their own power. One of them, Godfrey of Louvain, married the dowager countess, Clémence. The Counts of Hainault, Boulogne, S. Pol, and Hesdin, took arms. Clémence took Audenarde, the Count of S. Pol invaded West Flanders, but Charles fell suddenly on them with an army, subjugated De Loo, deprived S. Pol of his castle, and the countess of her dowry, dispersed the armed men of Hainault, Boulogne, and Coucy, and as Walter of Thérouanne says, "The land held its tongue before him." The king of France was the first to strike an alliance with him.

      These successes excited the mistrust of the king of England and the emperor Henry V. The latter, under pretext of a war against the duke of Saxony, assembled an army in August 1124, crossed the Rhine, and marched towards Metz, threatening to destroy Rheims, where pope Callixtus II. had lately excommunicated him. In this imminent peril, all the vassals of the king rallied around Louis VI. "The noble Count of Flanders," says the abbot Suger, "brought with him ten thousand brave soldiers, and if there had been time, he would have brought thrice as many." In face of these preparations to resist his invasion the emperor withdrew to Utrecht. On his death, all eyes turned to Charles, and the imperial crown was offered him. He refused it, as he did also the crown of Jerusalem, offered him by the Christians in the Holy Land. He now devoted himself to the administration of his country with great zeal. He enacted wise laws, and laboured to make justice prevail in all the courts of judicature. Nevertheless a vague uneasiness prevailed amongst his subjects. The sea had overleaped the sand-hills, fires had broken out and consumed certain monasteries, and an eclipse of the sun gave prognostication of further evils. The winter of 1125 was of unparalleled severity; ice and snow prevailed till the end of March, and no sooner had the fields and woods begun to resume their verdant tints, than furious gales and a deluge of rain dissipated СКАЧАТЬ