CHAPTER XXV.

THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP.

The Camp of Refuge, wherein the Saxons had so long withstood the violent threats of the Normans, was not in itself a very noticeable place. But for the army and the last hopes of England collected therein, the wayfarer might have passed it without any especial observation, there being several such places in the Fen country, partly surrounded by embankments of earth, and wholly girded in, and doubly or trebly girded by rivers, ditches, pools, and meres. The embankments had been first made, in very remote ages, by those who first attempted to drain parts of the fen country; but tradition said that these peaceful works had been made to serve the purposes of defensive war, in those days when the Iceni stood against their Roman invaders, when the Britons stood against the first Saxons, and when the Saxons opposed the marauding Danes. The embankments which were made to keep out the water, and confine the rivers to their beds, were proper to keep out an enemy, even if he could reach them; and the fenners, who kept solely to the business of grazing, fishing, and fowling, knew best how to defend and how to stock such places. In the upland countries men took shelter on the high hills; but here, when an enemy approached, men threw themselves within these flats and enclosures in the midst of the waters, taking with them their herds and flocks, and their hooks and nets for fishing, and their snares for fowling. At the first sound of this Norman invasion, and before any Saxon lord or knight fled for refuge into the Isle of Ely, the people of the country drove their fattening beeves into the enclosed but wide space which afterwards came to be called the Camp, but which for a long season bore rather the appearance of a grazing-field than that of a place of arms; and even when the Saxon lords and knights came and gathered together their armed followers on that green grassy spot, the space was so wide that the cattle were left to remain where they were, and the many cowherds and shepherds were mixed with the Saxon soldiery, each by times doing the duty of the other; and now, when well-nigh everything else was consumed and gone, there remained within the broad limits of the Camp great droves of the finest and fattest cattle.

There was no moon, and the night was of the darkest, when Elfric approached the Camp, flying along the ground like a lapwing. As watches were set, and as the men were vigilant as became the soldiers of the Lord of Brunn, he was challenged sundry times before he reached his lord’s tent. Hereward was asleep, but at the voice and tidings of his sword-bearer he was presently up and armed, and ready to go the round of the Camp.

“Elfric,” said Hereward, “if the traitorous monks of Ely shall have called in their own people, who formed our outer guard, and have given the Normans the clue to the watery labyrinth which has been our strength and safety so long, we may still hold out against more than one assault behind the embankments of this Camp, provided only our people do not get panic-stricken by the suddenness of the attack, and in the darkness of this night. Would that it were morning! But come what may, there is one comfort: we shall have our harness on our backs before the fight begins!”

And having so said, the Lord of Brunn, followed by his sword-bearer, went from post to post to bid the men be on the alert, and from tent to tent, or from hut to hut, to rouse the sleeping chiefs to tell them that the monks of Ely were traitors to the good cause, and that the Normans were coming; and when this was done, Hereward, with an unperturbed spirit, and with all that knowledge of war which he had acquired beyond sea, and from the knowing Salernitan, and from all that quickness which nature had given him, laid down his plan for defending the interior of the Camp, and appointed every chief to the post he should hold, speaking cheerfully to them all, and telling them that five years had passed since the battle of Hastings, and that England was not conquered yet; and that if the Normans should be foiled in this attack, their loss would be terrible, their retreat across the fens almost impracticable.

By the time all this was said and done it was more than two hours after the midnight hour, and it had scarcely been done ere the war-cry of the Normans was heard close under the south-western face of the Camp. By using the name of the Abbat Thurstan, the false prior had made the people of the abbey abandon the fords in that direction; and by the same false prior’s procurement, a traitorous fenner had guided the Normans through the labyrinth. But there was more fatal mischief yet to proceed from the same dark cauldron and source of evil. Some other traitor, serving among the retainers of the abbey that had been left quartered in the Camp, because they could not be withdrawn without Lord Hereward’s order set up the cry that the Saxons were all betrayed, and that the Normans had gotten into the Camp; and thereupon the poor bewildered wights, who knew but too well that the Norman war-cry could be heard where it was heard only through treachery, fell into disorder and dismay, and abandoning the post which they had been appointed to hold, and disregarding the voice of their commander, they fled across the Camp, shouting, “Treason! treason! Fly, Saxons, fly!”

The Normans began to enter the Camp in overpowering numbers; and although the first glimmerings of day began to be seen from the east, it was still so dark that it was hard to distinguish between friend and foe. But Hereward soon found himself at the spot where the danger was greatest; and the foe, who had not yet recovered from the dread of his name, halted at the shouts of “Hereward for England!” and were soon driven out of the Camp, with a great slaughter. Whilst this was doing on the south-western side, another host of Normans, under the same traitorous guidance, got round towards the north face of the Camp, and after some hard fighting, got over the embankment, and into the Camp. Leaving a brave old Saxon earl and his people to keep the ground he had recovered, Hereward rushed with Elfric and his own choice band to the northern side; and although the distance was considerable, his battle-axe was ringing among the Normans there before they had found time to form themselves in good fighting order. But Odo, the fighting bishop, was among these Normans; and thus knights and men-at-arms fought most valiantly, and held the ground they had gained for a long time. Nevertheless, just as the rising sun was shining on the tower of Ely Abbey, Odo and his host, or such of his host as survived, retreated the way they had come; but while they were in the act of retreating, Duke William led in person an assault on another part of the Camp; and on the south-west side, the brave old Saxon earl being slain, his men gave way, and the Normans again rushed in on that side. Also, and at nearly the same instant of time, Norman spears were discerned coming round upon the Camp from other quarters. As he paused to deliberate whither he should first direct his steps, and as he shook the blood from the blade and shaft of his battle-axe—a ponderous weapon which no other man then in England could wield—the Lord of Brunn, still looking serenely, bespoke his sword-bearer, “May God defend the house of Ely and the Lord Abbat; but the knavish monks have done the work of treachery very completely! They must have made known unto the Normans all the perilous passages of the fens. We are beset all about! But we must even drive the Normans back again. Numerous are they, yet their knights love not to fight on foot, and they can have brought few horses or none across the swamps. But Elfric, my man, thou art bleeding! Art much hurt?”

Now, although Elfric had got an ugly cut upon his brow, he smiled, and said, “’Tis nothing, good my Lord: ’tis only a scratch from the sharp end of Bishop Odo’s pastoral crook. If he had not been so timeously succoured, I would have cleft his shaven crown in spite of his steel cap, or have made him a prisoner!”

When this was said, and when the keen eye of Hereward had made survey of the whole field, he and his sword-bearer, and all his matchless band, who had been trained to war in a hundred fights and surprises, rushed towards the spot where floated the proud banner of Duke William. They were soon upon that prime of the Norman army; and then was seen how the Lord of Brunn and his Saxons true bore them in the brunt of war. Thunder the battle-axes; gride the heavy swords! Broad shields are shivered, and the Norman left arms that bore them are lopped off like hazel twigs; helms are broken, and corslets reft in twain; and still this true Saxon band shouted, “Holy rood! holy rood! Out! out! Get ye out, Normans! Hereward for England! Saxons, remember Hastings!” Stout young Raoul of Caen, the page that carried the arms and the shield (_arma ac scuta_) of the Duke, was slain by Hereward’s sword-bearer; and where Raoul met his untimely death, other Normans perished or bled. Duke William shouted, “Notre Dame! Notre Dame! Dieu aide! Dieu aide!” but was forced to give ground, and the Duke retreated beyond the earth-raised mound or great embankment which girded the Camp on that side.

“The patrimony of Saint Etheldreda is not easy to conquer! We have beaten off the two brothers!” Thus spoke Elfric.

“So far is well,” quoth Hereward! “but what is this I see and hear? What are those cravens doing in the centre of the Camp? By the Lord of Hosts, some of them be throwing down their weapons, and crying for quarter! Wipe the blood from out thine eyes, Elfric; keep close to my side, and come on, brave men all!”

And away from the earth-raised mound, over which he had driven the Norman Duke, went the Lord of Brunn with his warrior band; and then was the fight renewed in the midst of the Camp, where some of the disheartened Saxons were using all the French they knew in crying, “Misericorde! misericorde! Grace! grace!”

“Fools!” shouted the Lord of Brunn, “these Normans will show ye no mercy! There is no grace for ye but in your own swords!” And then the Saxons took heart again, and rallying round Hereward, they soon charged the foe, and fought them hand to hand. In their turn the Normans began to yield, and to cry for quarter; but this band in the centre was supported by another and another; and soon Duke William, and that ungodly bishop, his brother, came back into the interior of the Camp, with many knights and men-at-arms that had not yet tasted the sharpness of the Saxon steel, and that were all fresh for the combat. Louder and louder waxed the war-cry on either side, and terrible and strange became the scene within the wide Camp; for the cattle, scared by the loud noise, and by the clash and the glittering of arms, were running wildly about the Camp in the midst of the combatants; and the fierce bulls of the fens, lashing themselves into furor, and turning up the soil with their horns, came careering down, and breaking through the serried lines of the invaders; and many a Norman was made to feel that his mail jacket was but a poor defence against the sharp horns of the bull that pastured on the patrimony of Saint Etheldreda. Also rose there to heaven a dreadful rugitus, or roaring, mixed with the loud bewailing and the shrieks of timid herdsmen, and of women and children; and the wives and children of the Saxons ran about the Camp, seeking for a place of safety, and finding none. The Saxon warriors were now falling fast, but the Normans fell also; and victory was still doubtful, when loud shouts were heard, and another forest of lances was seen coming down on the Camp from the south; and upon this, one entire body of the Saxon host threw down their arms, and surrendered themselves as prisoners.

Hereward, who was leaning upon his battle-axe, and wiping the sweat from his brow, said to his sword-bearer, “This is a sad sight!”

“A sad sight and a shameful,” quoth Elfric; “but there are Saxons still that are not craven; Here our lines be all unbroken.”

“And so will we yet fight on,” quoth Hereward.

But the Lord of Brunn had scarcely said the words when a number of Saxon lords, old dwellers in the Camp of Refuge, and men that had fought at Hastings, and in many a battle since, gathered round Lord Hereward, and threw their swords and battle-axes and dinted shields upon the ground, and told him that the fight was lost, and that (_de communi concilio magnatum_), with the common advice and consent of the magnates, they had all determined to surrender upon quarter, and take the King’s peace.

Quoth the Lord of Brunn, “Ye will not do the thing ye name! or, an ye do it, bitterly will ye rue it! Your names be all down in a book of doom: the Normans will mutilate and butcher ye all! Better that ye die fighting! The battle is not lost, if ye will but think it is not. I was with King Harold at the battle by Stamford Bridge, and in a worse plight than now; and yet on that day we conquered. So, up hearts, my Saxon lords and thanes! Let us make one charge more for King Harold and the liberties of England! Nay, we will make a score good charges ere we die!”

But the Magnates would not be heartened, nor take up the shields and the arms they had thrown down; and when the reinforced battalia of the Norman centre formed once more into line, and levelled their spears, and when the rest of that countless Norman host began to close round the Saxon army in the midst of the Camp, all the fighting men that obeyed these Saxon lords threw down their arms, and cried for quarter—for forgiveness and mercy!

Sad and sick was the heart of the Lord of Brunn; but this lasted but for a moment, and his eye was bright and his face joyous as he shouted to Elfric and the rest of his own devoted band, “Let the fools that court dishonour and mutilation, and an opprobrious grave, stay here and yield; but let those who would live in freedom or die with honour follow me! We will cut our way out of this foully betrayed Camp, and find another Camp of Refuge where there be no monks of Ely for neighbours!”

And at these good words three hundred stout Saxons and more formed themselves into a compact column, and the Lord of Brunn, with Elfric by his side, put himself in the head of the column, and the band shouted again, “Hereward for England! Saxons, remember Hastings!” Then were heard the voices of command all along the different Norman lines, and from the right and from the left, from behind and from before, those lines began to move and to close, and to form living barriers and hedgerows of lances on every side: and next, near voices were heard offering fifty marks of gold to the man that should slay or seize the traitor Hereward. But the Norman was not yet born that could withstand the battle-axe of the Lord of Brunn: and so the Norman lines yielded to his charge, and so he led his three hundred Saxons and more triumphantly out of the Camp and across the fens—yea, over rivers and streams and many waters, where Normans could not follow—until they came into a thick wood of willows, where they found the six good cloister-monks and the ten good lay-brothers who had fled with Elfric from Ely Abbey, and the party of true men from Turbutsey, who had carried with them the corn, meal, and wine, and likewise the body of Girolamo of Salerno. Loudly was the Lord of Brunn greeted by every man that was in the wood. The first thing that was done after his coming was to bury the Salernitan. Near the edge of the wood, and by the side of a stream, the monks of Ely of the old time had built a small mass-house for the conveniency of the souls of some of the fenners, who could not always quit their fishing and fowling and go so far as the abbey church; and on a green dry hillock, at the back of the mass-house, there was a small cœmeterium holding the wattled graves of not a few of the fenners.

“This ground,” said Father Celred, “is consecrated ground; the Normans will not soon get hither, and we will leave no cross and make no sign to show the stranger’s grave; and every man here is too true a man ever to betray the secret to the Normans.”

“And when better days come, we will provide some suitable monument for the stranger who died in fighting for the Saxon. Girolamo, thou art happy in that thou hast not lived to see this foul morning! Father Celred, fathers all, I warrant ye he was a true son of the church, and died a good Christian. So withhold not to do the rites and give him Christian burial.”

Thus spake the Lord of Brunn as he gazed upon the awfully placid face of the Salernitan, whose body lay uncovered upon a rustic bier: and the good monks all said that they doubted not, and would never doubt, the word of Lord Hereward. And the Saxon hinds, under the direction of Elfric, rapidly scooped out a grave on the sunniest side of the green hillock, on the side which faced the south and was turned toward the sunny land in which the stranger was born; and when the grave was made, Hereward took his own good mantle from his shoulders and piously wrapped it round the dead body to serve it instead of shroud and coffin, which could not be had; and then Father Celred blessed the grave, and the lay-brothers laid the body reverentially in it; and then all the monks that had come from Ely said the service for the dead and chanted the _De Profundis_. Next the earth was thrown in, and the green sods, which had been removed carefully and piecemeal, were laid upon the surface and joined together so as to unite and grow together in a few days, making the spot look like the rest of the sward: and thus, without mound or withy-bound hillock, without a stone or a cross, was left all that could die of Girolamo the Salernitan—far, far, far away from the land of his birth and of his love. Yet was his lowly grave not unhonoured.

After these sad offices, Hereward and his party refreshed themselves with wine and bread, and renewed their march, going in the direction of the river Welland and the succursal cell at Spalding.[242]

And, meanwhile, how fared it with the Saxon idiots in the Camp who had cast down their weapons, and trusted to Norman mercy and to Norman promises?—How fared it? In sooth it fared with them as the Lord of Brunn had foretold, and as it ever hath fared with men that surrendered when they ought to have fought on. The conquerors, in summing up the amount of the harm they did to the Camp of Refuge, counted not the lives of the churls and serfs—which went for nothing in their eyes—but they put down that they slew, after the fight was over, of Saxon nobles and knights and fighting-men of gentle blood, more than a thousand. But happy those who were slain outright! A thousandfold worse the fate of those that were let live: their right hands and their right feet were cut off, their eyes were put out, and they were cast upon the wide world to starve, or were thrown into loathsome dungeons to rot, or transported beyond the seas to exhibit their misery to the scornful eyes of the people of Normandie and Anjou, to remain living monuments of Duke William’s vengeance, and to be a terror to such as presumed to dispute his authority. In this way some of the noblest of the land were sent into Normandie. Egelwin, the good Bishop of Durham, being found in the Camp, was sent a close prisoner to Abingdon, where he died shortly after of a broken heart. Never yet heard we of a fight more noble than that of the Camp of Refuge, while the Lord of Brunn was there and the Saxons in heart to fight; and never yet was there a sadder scene than that which followed upon his departure thence! Except cattle and sheep, and armour and arms, and human bodies to hack and destroy, the Normans found scarcely anything in the Camp, wherein they had expected to make great booty.

And how fared it with the guilty prior and the traitorous monks of Ely? Did they profit by their great treason? Were peace and joy their lot when the blood of their countrymen had been poured out like water? Did they and their house thrive after all that torture and horror in the Camp? Not so! not so! Those who deal in treachery reap treachery for their reward; and all men hate and scorn even the traitors who have most served them. Before the butchery in the Camp was well over, a great band of Normans ran to the abbey and took forcible possession of it, and beat and reviled the monks because they did not bring forth the money and the bread and wine which they had not to give; and these rude soldiers lodged themselves in the house, and turned all the monks into the barns and outhouses—all but a few, who remonstrated and resisted, and who where therefore thrown into that noxious prison underground into which they had cast Elfric the night before. And on the morrow of the fight in the Camp, the Norman Duke[243] himself went up to the abbey with all his great chiefs, saying that he would pay his devotions at the shrine of St. Etheldreda, albeit she was but a Saxon saint. And William did go into the church, and kneel at the shrine of the saint. Yea, he did more than this, for he laid his offering upon the shrine. But what was the princely offering of this great prince who ruled on both sides of the sea?—It was just one single mark of gold,[244] and that a mark which had been in the hands of the Jews and clipped! And when he had made this splendid donation, he called the monks together in the hall, and told them that they must pay unto him a thousand marks of gold as the price of his pardon for the long rebellion they had been in. And when the chapfallen chamberlain said, and said truly, that there was no money in the house, a sneering Norman knight told him that there were Jews at Norwich, and that the monks must get money by pledging their lands and by giving bonds to the Israelites. The good Abbat Thurstan, being still sick in his bed, escaped the sight of much of this woe: but when the prior knelt at the foot of Duke William, and said that he trusted he would be merciful to the ruined house, and continue him as the head of it, and sanction his election by the brotherhood as lord abbat, the Duke swore his great oath, “By the splendour of God’s face,” that he was not so minded; and that Abbat Thurstan should be abbat still, inasmuch as he was a man of noble birth and of a noble heart. Sundry great Saxon lords, who had long since made their peace with the Norman, had spoken well for the high-born Thurstan; but that which decided the mind of Duke William was the reflection that, if so true and stout a man as Thurstan promised him his allegiance, he would prove true to his promise at whatsoever crisis; while no faith or trust could be put in the promises and vows of such a man as the prior. And thus Thurstan[245] was told on his sick-bed that his rule was restored, and that he should be allowed to appoint and have a new set of officials, instead of the prior, the chamberlain, the sacrist and sub-sacrist the cellarer, and all the rest that had been rebellious and traitorous unto him—provided only that he would promise to be at peace with the Normans. And, after Thurstan had been most solemnly assured by some of the Saxon thanes who came to the abbey with the Conqueror, that King Harold, his benefactor, was assuredly dead, and lay buried in Waltham Abbey, and that good terms would be granted to his friend my Lord of Brunn if he would but cease the hopeless contest, Thurstan promised to live in peace and to think no more of resistance: and before Duke William departed from the house of Ely the lord abbat saluted him as King of England, and put his hand into his hand as a token and pledge that he was and would be true and liege man unto him. It cost his Saxon heart a pang which almost made it crack; but having thus pledged himself, nothing upon earth, being earthly, would ever make Thurstan untrue to the Norman.

In leaving the abbey, the Conqueror did not remove with him all the Normans. On the contrary, he called up still more knights and men-at-arms, and ordered them all to quarter themselves upon the monks, and be by them entertained with meat, drink, and pay, as well as lodging.[246] The Norman knights and soldiers kept possession of the best parts of the house, respecting only the inner apartments of the restored abbat: the knights suspended their arms and shields in the great hall, where the arms of the Saxon thanes had lately hung, and in the refectory at every meal-time a hungry Norman soldier was seated by the side of every monk. This was a strange and unseemly sight to see in the common hall of so noble and once so religious a house; but it was the will of the Conqueror that it should be so, and the monks had brought down all these mischiefs upon their own heads. From the lands and revenues especially appertaining to Thurstan as lord abbat, the Norman knights were not allowed to take much; but upon those appertaining to the monks in common, they fell without restriction and without remorse, seizing a manor here and a manor there, and getting them converted into heritable property, to their heirs for ever, by grant and fief-charter from Duke William. And while so many broad hides were taken from them for good, the monks were compelled to pledge other lands, and the very revenues of the shrines, in order to pay the imposed fine of a thousand marks, and in order to find meat and drink, and whatsoever else was demanded by their rapacious guests. Sad grew the monks of Ely, and every day thinner. The knights and men-at-arms ever helped themselves first, and very often left their unwilling hosts nothing to eat. The proverb about the glorious feast of the monks of Ely seemed to have become nothing but a proverb, or the mere legend of a state of happiness which had passed away never to return. Greater still had been the woes of the monks if the restored abbat had been prone to spite and vengeance, for the Normans were willing to put a rod of iron in his hands, and would have rejoiced to see him use it; but Thurstan had a forgiving heart, and when he had deprived the worst of the officials of their offices, and had gotten the prior and the chamberlain removed to other houses far away from the Isle of Ely, he took pity upon all the rest of the convent, and did what in him lay to comfort them in their afflictions, and to supply their wants from his own store. Thus lived the monks, and thus the abbat, for about the space of three years: at the end of that time the good old Thurstan died, and was interred in the chancel among his mitred predecessors.[247] And then still worse befel the monks; for Duke William, or his brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, brought over one of their most fighting and turbulent monks from Normandie, and made him lord abbat of Ely;[248] and this new abbat did not cease from persecuting the Saxon monks until two-thirds of them were in their graves, and their places supplied by French monks. These were the things which befel the convent after their foul rebellion against Abbat Thurstan, and their fouler betrayal of the Camp of Refuge.