Part 8

In this year Ingi the king fell sick also, and Skuli, his brother, urged upon him to place the crown on the head of his son Guttorm. Some men agreed with Skuli, and the Birchlegs feared for Hacon, and desired to bear him away with them and gather an army and fight and see who should be king; but Hacon would not listen to the old Birchlegs, and said it was 'unwise to set those at one another who ought to fight under the same shield, and that he would wait, and for the present let things be.' After all Ingi the king got well, and for two more winters he ruled as before. But when Hacon was thirteen and Guttorm eleven a sore weakness fell upon Ingi, and he knew that he would go out no more to battle. Grievous was it for a man who had spent his life in faring to and fro to be tied down to his bed; but he uttered no words of wailing, and lay listening to the merry jests of Hacon and his steward Nicholas till he laughed himself, and his illness felt lighter. Skuli, the king's brother, likewise watched by him, and his friends were gathered there also, and they pressed Ingi sore to give the kingdom into Skuli the earl's hands. And Ingi had no strength to say them nay, and he let them have their will, and soon he died, leaving the rule to Skuli. But the men of Norway did not all agree as to this matter. Some wished that Guttorm, Ingi's son, should be king, others declared that Hacon had the best right; while the rest said that the throne of Norway was no place for a boy, and they would have a man such as Skuli to reign over them. For Skuli, though filled with ambition and a man whose word and promises were swiftly broken, was tall and handsome, generous with his gold, and pleasant of speech. Therefore he had a large following and a powerful one; but to Hacon he was ever a bad friend, seeking his throne, and met his death hereafter in strife against him.

It happened that Guttorm the archbishop was away in the far north, and Skuli would fain have waited till his return, for many canons and learned clerks desired him for their lord, and the earl hoped that the archbishop might gain over others also. So he went to work secretly, seeking by sundry devices to put off the choice of a king, and so cunning he was that he seemed to have succeeded. But one day when he was asking counsel of a friend the blast of trumpets was heard.

'What means that?' cried the earl, starting up from his seat, and, striding out of his chamber, he went quickly down the narrow stairs and entered the great hall, which was crowded with men.

'Lord earl,' said one of the bodyguard, an old man with scars about his face, 'Lord earl, we have waited long enough for the archbishop, and we are minded to wait no longer. A meeting shall be held this morning in this very place, and Hacon, Sverrir's grandson, shall sit by your side on the high seat, and king shall he be called till the great Thing be got together. If you say nay to this, then will the rowers make ready the ships, and Hacon shall sail with us southwards to the land of Bergen, and there another Thing shall be summoned, and we and the bodyguard that dwells there will declare him king. Now choose.'

Then Skuli saw that there were many against him, and he let a high seat be built close to the church of St. Nicholas, and Onund, standard-bearer of the Birchlegs, stood up and said that the Croziermen were gathered in the bay which lies south of Christiania and were ruled by a king. But when tidings reached them that the men of Norway were but a headless host the Croziermen would agree with the bishops and strife would be in the land. A great shout arose when Onund had finished speaking, and twelve men of the king's guard were sent to fetch Hacon, who was at the school over against Christ Church. The boy was sitting on a bench, his eyes bent on a priest who was reading out from a Latin roll the tale of the burning of Dido, and when he had done it was his custom to make each boy in turn tell him what he had heard. Suddenly, with a clatter, the door flew open and the twelve messengers entered.

'God greet you, king's son,' spake the oldest of them. 'The Birchlegs and the yeomen who meet in the courtyard of the palace have sent us to fetch you.'

Hacon looked first at the priest and then at the Birchleg, and held out his hand, and went with them down to the church of St. Nicholas. Then Skuli the earl said that many were present who did not hold that the boy was Sverrir's grandson, and that until he had proved his right to sit on the high seat he must be content with a low one.

'Ingi and Hacon the earl knew well he was the king's son,' cried a voice from out the crowd; but Skuli pretended not to hear, and declared that by the counsel of his friends, Inga, Hacon's mother, must be tried by the ordeal of hot iron.

In those days it was a common thing that anyone accused of a great crime should prove his innocence in three ways, and he might choose which of them pleased him best. Either he might walk over red-hot ploughshares, or hold in his hand a piece of red-hot iron, and if his hands or feet were marked with no scar he was held to be accused falsely. Or he could, if so he willed, be tried by the ordeal of water and, having his hands and feet bound, be cast into a river. If, after being in the water a certain time or floating a certain distance, he remained alive and unhurt, he also was let go free. In Norway the ordeal of iron alone was used, and gladly did the king's mother offer to submit to it. Straight from the meeting she went to the church of St. Peter, and fasted three days and three nights and spoke to no one. On the third day she came forth, her face shining, but the iron bar, which should have been lying in a chest in the church, was nowhere to be found. For in truth the canons and priests, who were Skuli's men, had misdoubted their cause, and had hidden it away, lest the ordeal should prove their own undoing. But the captain of the Birchlegs understood well what had befallen, and sent messengers over the land to summon a Thing, to be held in a month's time. And daily they set Hacon in the high seat beside the earl, and Skuli dared not gainsay them.

So the Thing was held in the meadow, and trumpets were blown, but the canons forbade the holy shrine to be brought out from the church of St. Olaf, as was the custom at the choosing of a king. In this they acted unwisely, for the hearts of many of their own men grew hot at this base device, and turned against them, and Hacon was proclaimed king, and oaths were sworn to him. After that Hacon the king and Skuli the earl sailed together to Bergen, in a ship of twenty benches. At the mouth of the fiord a messenger brought him word that the canons and priests of Bergen, moved by their fellows at Drontheim, did not mean to pay him kingly honours. To this Hacon made answer that, as their king, he expected the homage they had paid his fathers, or they would have to bear the penalty, and his words bore fruit, for he rowed up the fiord with all the church bells ringing and the people shouting. Then a Thing was held, and he was chosen king by the people of Bergen also. But, better than ruling over assemblies, Hacon loved to watch the strange games of boys and men. King though he was, many troubled years were in store for Hacon. Skuli was not minded to sit down quietly as Hacon's liegeman, and at once began to lay plots with the Croziermen and with John Earl of Orkney. He had taken for himself all the money which Sverrir, Hacon his son, and Ingi had stored up, and all the gold that Hacon possessed was a brooch and a ring. Thus it became plain even to the Birchlegs that Hacon could not fight both the earl and the Croziermen, and so it was agreed that Skuli should be lord over a third part of Norway and that peace should be made.

Hardly was this done when there arose in the east a band of poor men, under the lead of Benedict the priest, whom folk called Benny. From their torn garments they were known as the Ragged Regiment, and at first they did nothing but steal from farmyards and rob houses. But afterwards, when rich and strong men who would not obey the laws joined them, they grew bolder and attacked Tunsberg, the chief city near the Bay, and though they were driven back and many were killed, yet for long they harried the lands of Hacon, and with another band of rebels, called the Ribbalds, laid waste the country. Till they were conquered, which took Hacon ten years, little rest had he, and always Skuli was there to trouble him.

It was when Hacon was fourteen years old that the archbishop and earl Skuli sent messengers to Bergen to ask that Inga, his mother, might once more go through the ordeal of iron to satisfy all men of his right to the throne. In answer Hacon summoned the bishops and archbishops and Skuli, together with some of his liegemen, to assemble in the vestry of the church, and spoke to them in this wise:

'It would seem hard to many a king to undergo the ordeal when his rule was established. Before, when my mother offered herself to suffer it, I had not been chosen king, and you all know how it happened that when she came forth the iron was hidden. You know, too, that when we first entered Norway she declared herself ready to undergo the ordeal, but Ingi the king and Hacon the earl answered that none misdoubted, neither was there any need for it. Yet now I will do as you will for three causes. First, that no man may say I have claimed what is not mine by right; second, that I would that my subjects should learn that in all things I strive to content them; and third, that the Judge into whose hands I put myself will fail none whose cause is true. And therefore I go gladly to this judgment.

Then Inga went into the church to fast for three days and three nights, and some men fasted with her, and, twelve watched on the outside as before. But on the Wednesday before the trial was to take place Sigar, one of Skuli's men, skilled in learning, came secretly to good man Dagfinn, Hacon's liegeman, and said thus: 'I know your heart is vexed and sore because of this ordeal, but I can promise to make all things right so that the king's mother shall not suffer.'

'How mean you?' asked Dagfinn who was not minded to talk with the man, not liking his face.

'It is in this wise,' answered Sigar with a cunning look; 'I have only to rub this herb over the hand of Inga and the iron will not harm her, however hot it be.'

'I thank you,' said Dagfinn; 'but tell me what name has this herb, and where I may find it.'

'It grows on every house in Bergen,' replied Sigar, who knew well full that there was no virtue in the herb at all, but thought that Dagfinn was with him in the matter, and that together they might proclaim that Inga had sought the aid of leechcraft, and so discredit her in the eyes of all men. But Dagfinn made as though he would spring on him, and bade him begone while he kept his hands off him. After that Dagfinn told the tale to Inga, and warned her lest she should fall into any snares.

Next morning Hacon the king, and Skuli, and the archbishop, and John Earl of Orkney, and many other notable men, went into the church where the priest said the office. Then the piece of holy iron was taken from the great chest and heated in a brazier under the eyes of all, and when it glowed white, so that none could look on it, the priest drew it forth with long pincers and placed it in Inga's hand. As she took it, Hacon shivered, as if the pain had been his. He alone turned his head away; but the rest never lifted their gaze from the face of Inga, which was calm and peaceful as ever.

'It is enough,' said the priest at last, and Hacon sprang forward as if to go to his mother, when the priest stopped him. 'All is not yet finished; back to your place,' and, standing in front of Inga so that no man could behold her hand, he wound a white cloth many times round it. 'Now you may come,' said the priest, and Hacon went with his mother to her house.

For many days they waited, and then the priest sent word to Hacon the king, and Skuli the earl, and the archbishop and the bishops and the nobles, that the following evening they should meet in Christ Church, and he would unbind the hand of Inga. Not one of them was missing, and in the presence and sight of all the priest unwound the linen and stretched out the hand of Inga, and behold! the skin of that hand was whiter and fairer to see than the skin of the other. And the archbishop proclaimed a Thing to be held the next Sunday in the space in front of the church, and there he gave out how that the king's mother had won through the ordeal, and that any who from that day misdoubted Hacon's right to the crown should be laid under the ban of the Church. Also, he said that Hacon the king and Skuli the earl had made a new compact of friendship.

But compacts did not count for much with Skuli, not even when, a year later, Hacon, then fifteen, was betrothed to his daughter Margaret. In this matter the king followed the counsel of his friends, though he himself knew Skuli too well to expect that the earl would suffer a marriage or anything else to bind him. 'It will all come to the same thing, I fear,' he said to his mother, as he set out at Michaelmas for the ceremony at Drontheim. For some reason we do not know the marriage was delayed for six years, and it was not until 1225, when Hacon was twenty-one, that it actually took place. Then, after Easter, Hacon took ship at Tunsberg on the Bay, and sailed for five days till he reached Bergen. As soon as he arrived the preparations for the wedding began, and on Trinity Sunday, when the sun remains in the sky all night long in the far north, Hacon and Margaret were married in Christ Church. Afterwards great feasts were held for nearly a week in the palace. Hacon sat at the high table at the head of the men in the Yule Hall, and Margaret gathered round her the women in the Summer Hall, and the monks and abbots held a banquet in another place.

All the days that Hacon lived Margaret was a good wife to him, and wept sore for the trouble that Skuli, her father, brought on the land. For Hacon the king had been right in his prophecy, and for fifteen years Skuli never ceased from scheming against him, and murdering those that stood in his way, till even his own men grew ashamed and tired of him. Nothing was there which he held sacred, and this brought him more dishonour than all his other crimes. Once Hacon sent Ivar and Gunnar to him with letters. Warm was their welcome from Skuli, and splendid were the presents which he gave them when they left. But secretly he bade men ride after them and slay them where they could find them. Fast rode Skuli's men, but Ivar and Gunnar rode faster, for Hacon had need of them. At length they rested for the night in a farm belonging to the king, and Skuli's men, with Gaut Wolfskin and Sigurd Saltseed at their head, came unawares to the house also. As they entered they beheld Gunnar leaning against the lattice of the window, and they threw open the door and slew him where he stood, but not before many of their band lay dead upon the ground. When Ivar saw that his help could be of no avail he sprung into the loft close by, and, squeezing himself through a narrow opening, leaped to the ground and sought to take refuge in the church, but it was locked. Then he seized a ladder which was standing by and ran up it to the roof, throwing the ladder down when he reached the top. In the dark no man troubled him; but it was November, and the wind was keen, and no clothes had he upon him save a shirt and his breeches. When the sun rose he found that Skuli's men were gathered below, watching that he should not escape; but, indeed, his hands were so frozen with cold that he could have taken hold of nothing. He prayed them to grant him his life; but they laughed him to scorn, and Sigurd Saltseed seized the ladder and set it up against the church, and climbed upon it, and thrust Ivar through with a spear so that he fell dead to the ground.

Now these things displeased the people of Norway, and one by one his liegemen departed from Skuli and took service with Hacon, till at length so few followers had the earl that he was forced to fly. The Birchlegs sought him everywhere, and one day news was brought to them that he was lying hidden in a monastery, and some of his men also. So the Birchlegs came up to the monastery to attack it, but the archbishop went forth to meet them and begged that Skuli might be let pass in peace to see the king. Some listened to the archbishop, but others, whose hearts were harder, crept away and set fire to the monastery, and the fire spread. Then Skuli saw that the time for fighting was past, and, lifting up his shield, he stood in the doorway crying, 'Strike me not in the face, for not so is it done to princes'; therefore they thrust him through in the body, and he died.

But all this happened fifteen years after the marriage of Hacon, and it is no longer the concern of this tale, which treats only of his youth. At sixty years old he died, having worn the crown of Norway forty-seven years. In spite of his enemies at home, he did many things for his people, and ruled them well. The poor were mercifully dealt with, and his soldiers were forbidden to steal from either friends or foes. Churches and hospitals and great halls he built in plenty, rivers he widened and numbers of ships he had, swift sailing and water-tight, for he was overlord of lands far away over the sea. Iceland and Greenland paid their dues to him. The Isle of Man, which owned a king, did him homage, and so did the south isles of Scotland—the 'Sudar' Isles as they were called, Jura, and Islay, and Bute, and the rest—and their bishop was known as the Bishop of Sodor and Man, as he is to this day. Besides this, the friendship of Hacon was sought by many foreign princes: by the Emperor Frederick the Second, 'the Wonder of the World'; by the Grand Prince of Russia; by the Pope Innocent IV., who sent a legate to crown him king. Hacon also sent his daughter to Spain with a great dowry, to marry whichever of the king's four sons pleased her best. Still, in spite of his fame, his voyages were few, and it seems strange that he should have been seized with mortal illness at the bishop's house in Kirk wall. At first they read him Latin books, but his head grew tired, and he bade them take the scrolls away and tell him instead the tales of the Norse kings his forefathers. And so he died, and when the ice was melted and the sea set free, his body was carried to Bergen and buried in Christ Church, where he had been married and where he had been crowned.

This is the tale of Hacon the King.

_MI REINA! MI REINA!_

WHEN Marie Louise d'Orléans, daughter of Madame, and niece of Louis XIV., was born, on March 27, 1662, both her grandmothers as well as her mother were terribly disappointed that she was not a boy. 'Throw her into the river,' exclaimed Madame, in fun, of course; but the queen-mother of England, the widow of Charles I., whose sorrows had crushed all jokes out of her, answered gravely that after all, perhaps, things were not quite so bad as they seemed, for by-and-by she might marry her cousin the dauphin who was only a few months older.

Quite unconscious of her cold welcome, the baby grew and thrived, and was so pretty and had such charming little ways, that they soon forgave her for being only a girl, especially as when she was two years old she had a little brother. The Duc de Valois, as he was called, was a beautiful child, strong and healthy, whereas the dauphin was always ill, and Louis XIV. had no other sons to inherit his crown. So great rejoicings were held at the Duc de Valois' birth in the château of Fontainebleau; bonfires were lighted and banquets were given, and, more than that, an allowance of money was settled on him by the king. His other uncle, Charles II., was his godfather, and the baby was given his name, with that of his father Philippe. The children lived mostly at St. Cloud, where there were splendid gardens to run about in and merry little streams to play with. When their mother drove to Paris or St. Germain to attend great balls or fêtes at Court, Madame de St. Chaumont took care of them, and saw that they did not fall into any mischief. For some time they never had an ache or a pain, but when the Duc de Valois was about two years old he was very ill, from the difficulty of cutting his teeth. Madame de St. Chaumont stayed with him and nursed him night and day till his mother could reach him; however, he soon improved, and Madame was able to go back to St. Germain, knowing that his governess would take as much care of him as she could herself. After he grew better, the great coach and six horses were got ready, and he was driven to the Palais Royal in Paris, and placed in the charge of the fashionable doctor of the day, Maître Gui Patin. But unhappily, in spite of all their precautions, the boy managed to catch cold; convulsions followed, and Monsieur insisted on preparations being made for the christening, instead of only having, as was usual, a hasty ceremony, while the public rite was commonly put off till the royal child had passed its twelfth birthday. It was on December 7, 1667, that little Philippe Charles was baptized, and the following day he had a fresh attack, and died of exhaustion, to the despair of his mother, who adored him. All the honours customary to be paid to one so near the throne were bestowed on the dead child. For three days he lay in state, and the princes of the blood, headed by the king himself, passed before him and sprinkled water on his bier. Then the people were let in, and many a woman's eyes grew wet at the sight of that beautiful baby. Three days later he was put to rest in the royal burying-place at St. Denis, near Paris.

The next few years passed peacefully away. Marie Louise was a clever little girl, and not only was fond of books, like her mother, but had sharp eyes, and noticed everything that went on round her. On wet days she danced in the rooms of St. Cloud or the Palais Royal, as Madame had danced twenty years ago at the Louvre; and when she was seven there was a small sister, Anne Marie, for her to play with and to nurse. 'She can move her fingers and toes, and squeaks without being squeezed. She is more amusing than any doll,' said Marie Louise.

But the quiet of the child's life was soon to be disturbed, and Mademoiselle was to learn her first sorrow. One morning, at the end of 1669, a messenger in the royal livery arrived from the king, bearing a letter for Madame, who burst into sobs while reading it. Dismissing the messenger with a wave of her hand—for she was unable to speak—she sank back on the sofa, and for some minutes wept bitterly. Then, gathering up her strength, she passed into the adjoining room, where Madame de St. Chaumont was sitting over her embroidery.