The Scouring of the White Horse. Hughes Thomas

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ not seen him since. At that moment the harrier came into the hall and went round wagging its tail, and fawning on the whole company, but especially on the king; when he had eaten his fill, he again left the hall. This happened often; until some one at last followed the dog to see where he went, and having found the body of the murdered Lodbroc, came and told the story to the king. The affair was now carefully inquired into, and when the truth was at last found out, the huntsman was exposed on the sea, without oars, in the boat which had belonged to Lodbroc. In some days, he was cast ashore in Denmark, and brought before the sons of Lodbroc; who, putting him to the torture, inquired of him what had become of their father, to whom they knew the boat belonged. To this Berne answered,” as one might have guessed he would answer, he being a liar and cowardly murderer, “that their father Lodbroc had fallen into the hands of Edmund, King of East Anglia, by whose orders he had been put to death.” Now, King Edmund was a wise and righteous man, who “devoutly undertook the government of the East Angles, and held it with the right hand of power, always adoring and glorifying God for all the good things which he enjoyed;”3 and it is a pity he did not on this occasion remember, that having safely caught a great scoundrel, the best thing to do with him was to see him hung out of the way himself; for, by letting him go, you see, he gave a chance to the devil, who can’t afford to lose such gentlemen as Berne the huntsman out of the world, and has considerable grudges against kings like Edmund.

      Well, when Hinguar and Hubba heard the tale of Berne the huntsman, they, like good and true sons, according to the notions of piety then current amongst the Danes, hastened to fit out a fleet to invade England, and avenge their father. And their three sisters wove for them the standard, called the Raven, in one day – which flag waved over many a bloody field, from Northumbria to Devonshire, until it was taken by King Alfred’s men, under Odda, the Alderman of Devon, before a certain castle in that county, which is called Cynuit by Asser, and Kenuith elsewhere, (the situation of which castle I cannot identify, or the name,) where were slain King Halfdene, a brother of Hinguar and Hubba, and 840 Danish warriors. It was said, that when the Danes were about to gain a battle, a live crow would fly before the middle of the standard; but if they were to be beaten, it would hang motionless.4

      So Hinguar and Hubba, as has been said, landed in the country of the East Angles, in the late autumn, bent on vengeance. King Edmund knew nothing of the blood-feud between him and these Danish leaders, by reason of Berne’s lying story, so took no more than the usual measures for preparing to attack them; but whether it was that they found King Edmund too strong for them at the time, or for some other reason, they seem to have wintered there quietly, and to have bought horses, and made some sort of truce with the East Angles.5 But in the spring of the year 867, they crossed the Humber, marched hastily upon York, and took it.

      The kingdom of Northumbria was just the place for the army of Pagans and the standard Raven at this time; for it was divided against itself. Osbert, the rightful king, had been playing Tarquin in the house of Bruern Brocard, one of his chief earls; so his people had cast him out, and had taken to themselves a king Ælla, of unkingly blood, and the two were warring against one another when the Danes took York. Late in the autumn, however, a peace was made between Osbert and Ælla, and they marched to York; where within the very walls of the city into which the Northumbrians penetrated, was fought a most bloody battle. In that fight fell almost all the Northumbrian warriors, and both the kings, and a multitude of noble men; and the remainder who escaped made peace with the Pagans.6 By this time, no doubt, there was small spoil left for Hinguar and Hubba north of the Humber.

      Accordingly, in the year 868, the pagan army, leaving Northumbria, marched into Mercia, and surprised and took Nottingham. Then Burhred, King of Mercia, and his witan sent to Æthelred, king of the West Saxons, to come and help them. And Æthelred and Alfred marched to Nottingham with the West Saxon power, and with Burhred besieged the Pagans, there; but they could not force the wall, and there was no great battle, and Æthelred and Alfred went home with their troops. But the Pagans, after wintering at Nottingham, made peace with Burhred and the Mercians; that is to say, such a peace as they loved to make – I mean a peace till it was worth their while to come again; for in 874 they came back, drove King Burhred over the sea, and subdued the whole country – and Burhred went to Rome and died there, and his body lies in St. Mary’s Church at the English School.7

      In the year 869, “the aforesaid army of Pagans, galloping back to Northumbria, went to York, and there passed the winter;” or, in the words of Huntingdon, “remained there cruelly for one year.” And what sort of a winter was it for the poor Yorkshiremen? “There was again a great famine, a mortality among men, and a pest among cattle.” Such is the fate of a divided people which can only make truces with its oppressors.

      In this winter, Hinguar and Hubba seem to have got large reinforcements from over the sea, headed by two other kings, Bægseeg and Halfdene their brother, for in the year 870 we find them no longer surprising a city, and from thence defying their enemies and oppressing the neighbourhood. Now they march openly and fearlessly across Mercia; and, the day of vengeance having come, burst upon East Anglia, and take up their head-quarters at Thetford. And then comes the saddest part of a sad story. King Edmund, being a king like Josiah, who believed in God and ruled in righteousness, was not the man to see the desolation of any part of his people, or to shut himself up in fenced cities while the pagan cavalry rode through East Anglia – so the aforesaid King Edmund gathered his men, and “fought fiercely and manfully against the army. But because the merciful God foreknew that he was to arrive at the crown of martyrdom, he there fell gloriously. Of his passion I would fain insert some particulars into our history, that the sons of men may know and perceive how terrible is Christ the Son of God in the counsels of men, and with what glorious triumph he adorns those whom he tries here under the name of suffering, that the saying may be fulfilled, ‘He is not crowned except he strive lawfully.’ (2 Tim. ii. 5.)”8 Such is the lesson which the old monk Simeon, præcentor of the Church of Durham, gets out of the death and martyrdom of King Edmund, and I know not where we are to look for a better. Perhaps it may help us when we think of India9 to remember with Simeon, how terrible is Christ the Son of God in the counsels of men, and with what glorious triumph he adorns those whom he tries here under the name of suffering. For Hinguar and Hubba took the wounded king on the field of battle, and tied him to a tree, because he chose to die sooner than give over his people to them, and there shot him through the body with their arrows.10 But his people got the body and buried it at Bradoriesunyrthe, now called St. Edmund’s Bury, or Bury St. Edmunds;11 and many miracles were wrought at his tomb, and he was canonized – at which honour let all Englishmen rejoice, the earth having as much need as ever of many such kings and saints.

      And they were rare then as now, and then as now men went their own way, and not God’s way, and cut out their own work instead of taking his. For “when King Edmund was slain, his brother Edwold, dreading the pleasures of the world, and seeing that a hard lot had fallen on himself and his brother, retired to the monastery of Carnelia in Dorsetshire, near a clear well which St. Augustine had formerly brought out of the earth by prayer, to baptize the people in, and there he led a hermit’s life on only bread and water.”12 Yes! and no doubt thought himself righteous and despised others – and left the kingdom which God had given him to the Pagans, who “subdued all the land and destroyed all the ministers they came to,” which Edmund his brother had built – “and that same time they came to Medeshamstede, and burned and beat it down, slew abbot and monks, and all that place which before was full rich, they reduced to nothing,”13 while Edwold, who should have been there with the remnant of the East Angles, to make his last stand, like a true shepherd of his people, was eating his bread and drinking his water in peace, by a clear well near the monastery СКАЧАТЬ