CHAPTER XXXIX

A CONQUEROR IN IMAGINATION

When King John died at Newark, and when the boy Henry was crowned at Gloucester, Louis of France and the Anglo-Norman barons were still before Dover. But Hugh de Burgh held out gallantly; and Louis, wearying of an enterprise in which there was no prospect of success, swallowed the vow he had made never to move from before the castle till he had taken it and hanged the garrison, and resolved on withdrawing from the siege, and employing his energies to consolidate the conquests he had already achieved in England. Accordingly, he returned to London, which was still devoted to his cause, and on the 6th of November took possession of the Tower, which, doubtless, he considered a stronghold which would stand him in good stead, in case of the citizens becoming refractory, and requiring to be kept down with the strong hand.

So far the French prince, notwithstanding his check at Dover, saw no reason to despair of ultimate triumph over the obstacles which barred his way to the throne, and, looking upon young Henry’s coronation as a farce, he was already a conqueror in imagination. Moreover, he daily showed himself more and more indifferent to the opinions of his Anglo-Norman allies, bestowing all his confidence on the lords and knights who had accompanied him from France, and not scrupling to make Robert Fitzwalter and his confederates feel the full humiliation of their position. It is difficult to guess whether or not Fitzwalter believed the story which was current as to the death of his daughter, Maude the Fair, by the poisoned egg. But even if so, his conscience must sometimes have reproached him when he reflected that, in order to gratify his revenge for a private wrong, he had played a part similar to that of Count Julian of Spain, when, five hundred years earlier, he, in order to avenge the wrongs of his daughter, Caba, had invited the Moors to seize the kingdom of Roderick, overthrew the monarchy of the Goths, and placed his native land and its inhabitants at the mercy of foreign invaders. Probably, however, Fitzwalter seldom thought either of Count Julian’s country or of his own, but gave his whole attention to his own safety and his own interests, and troubled himself very lightly with the misery which he had been the means of bringing on England and on Englishmen.

At all events, when Louis, having taken possession of the Tower, again marched from the capital to pursue his career of conquest, Fitzwalter accompanied the French prince, and aided him in his various enterprises. His position, indeed, and that of the other Anglo-Normans who aided the foreigners to ravage the country, even if they were destitute of patriotism, could hardly have been very pleasant; for at that time there existed no love between the barons of England and the warriors of France; and it appears that the continental adventurers were in the habit of assuming airs of superiority, and treating the islanders with something very like contempt, vapouring about their own prowess, repeating the wretched joke about Englishmen being born with tails like horses as a punishment for somebody having cut off the tail of Thomas à Becket’s horse, and describing the islanders, without distinction of race, as “English tails.”

Now it must have been sufficiently mortifying to Fitzwalter, and De Quency, and De Roos to be supposed to have tails like horses, and perhaps still more mortifying to them as Normans to be treated as English. Nevertheless, they bore all taunts and insults as best they could, and fought side by side with their laughing allies--no doubt valiantly and well. First they besieged and took the castle of Hertford, and then the great castle of Berkhampstead, a place renowned in the history of the Norman Conquest. Elated by his successes, Louis proceeded to St. Albans, and threatened to burn the magnificent abbey which Offa, the Saxon king, had founded and dedicated to the proto-martyr of Britain, if the abbot did not come and do him homage. Trembling for the edifice, and trembling for his own safety, the abbot, nevertheless, declined to do what, as an Englishman, he could not do with honour. However, the holy man offered a large sum of money as a bribe, and Louis, having accepted the abbot’s gold instead of his homage, passed on. But ere this a serious misunderstanding had broken out in his camp, and threatened mischievous consequences. When Berkhampstead was taken by the French, Fitzwalter suggested that the castle, on which he pretended to have an hereditary claim, should be committed to his custody. Louis thereupon consulted the French knights who were with him whether or not he should do as Fitzwalter wished.

“No,” answered they, scornfully. “How can any confidence be placed in English tails, who are traitors to their own sovereign?”

Louis returned to Fitzwalter.

“You must wait patiently till the kingdom is conquered,” said he, “and I will then give every man what he has a right to possess.”

Fitzwalter remonstrated, but Louis curtly refused to listen longer to the proposal; and the Anglo-Norman baron grew purple with rage. A violent quarrel ensued; and it looked as if the French prince was about to lose an adherent whose value in calm moments he could hardly fail to recognise. Fitzwalter, however, had linked himself too firmly with the Frenchman to have it in his power to break his chains, and the matter was accommodated. But the friends of the Anglo-Norman baron, exposed to frequent insults of the kind, grew sullen and discontented; and Louis began to perceive that it would not be prudent to rely too far on the fidelity of men born on English ground, and to concert measures for surrounding himself with a force of foreigners sufficient to render him independent of aid from the natives. With this view he consented to a truce with the Protector from Christmas to Easter, and resolved to employ the interval in a voyage to France, and to make a great attempt to persuade his crafty sire to furnish a force formidable enough to overawe all his enemies, and to terminate his successes as a conqueror with a crowning triumph.

Accordingly, Louis, having appointed the Lord De Coucy as his lieutenant in England, set out for the coast of Sussex to embark at Shoreham for the Continent, dreading no interruption. This time he found himself wrong in his calculations. There was a serious obstacle in the way, in the shape of a small but very formidable body of men, headed by a warrior in his teens, wearing a long white jacket, and wielding a very formidable battle-axe, who rushed to the assault with very little respect for persons--whether royal or knightly--under a white silken banner on which figured a fierce raven with open beak, and spread wings, and outstretched neck.