“Learn thou thenTo what damned deeds religion urges men.”
“Learn thou thenTo what damned deeds religion urges men.”
“Learn thou then
To what damned deeds religion urges men.”
Too bad that the word “religion” must needs do service to express the extravagances of mythology, the ravings of fanaticism, and the teachings of the gentle Christ.
Eudes, duke of Aquitaine, first opposed the Moslems as they advanced beyond the Pyrenees. He was at first successful but later suffered a signal defeat at Toulouse, “in so much so”, says an old chronicler, “that only God could count the number of Christians slain.” Eudes himself escaped and hastening northward sought the aid of Charles, duke of Austrasia, mayor of the palace, and soon to be known as Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer.)
On came the conquering Saracen hosts, grown insolent by victory, deeming themselves invincible, and proudly confident in the destiny that should lead them to Rome. Asia and Africawere in arms against Europe; the old against the new; maturity against lusty youth; and they met steel to steel on the plains of Tours.
“He either fears his fate too muchOr his deserts are small;Who dares not put it to the touchAnd gain or lose it all.”
“He either fears his fate too muchOr his deserts are small;Who dares not put it to the touchAnd gain or lose it all.”
“He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small;
Who dares not put it to the touch
And gain or lose it all.”
Tours towers in solemn awe in the vagueWhat might have been. Was it wise to have risked Christendom on the issue of one battle? The result says Yes; but—
Upon what seeming trifles turns the hinge of destiny! The casting-vote of Callimachus, urged by the eloquence of Miltiades, made Marathon; panic-fear let loose among Darius’ million men made Arbela; an eclipse of the sun won at Zama; Teutoberger Wald, Chalons, Tours—invisible, unknown, but not the less effective were the forces in these fights making fatefully for defeat and for victory. That which we term a trifle may be as a single bead of perspiration; trifling in itself, no doubt, but representative of a force far from trifling.
Battle raged indecisively all day long from early light till dark. Prince Charles seemed to wield the hammer of Thor. Abderame fell. The Saracens withdrew sullenly within their tents. Quiet darkness gathered mournfully over the living, the dying, and the dead.
And the next morning there was a great silence in the Moslem camp; in so much that the Christians trembled as at some uncanny treachery and stood awaiting they knew not what. But as the early morning hours passed and broad daylight brought back manly courage, the Christian army approached the camp of the enemy. It was deserted. The foe had fled. Christendom had won.
Charles did not immediately pursue the fleeing Moslem hordes. He still feared treachery. Perhaps, too, some wakeningsentiment of humanity restrained him from further bloodshed. The vast plains of Tours were covered with ghastly forms horribly hacked and hewed but now strangely still. According to an old chronicle the number of Moslem dead upon the field of Tours was three hundred and fifty thousand; that of the Christians, fifteen hundred. Surely that was enough of slaughtering death even for Karl Martel.
The battle of Tours was fought Oct. 4, 732 A. D. The following Spring Charles went in pursuit of the Saracens who were still ravaging southern France. They withdrew from place to place as Charles drew near; and ultimately—without risking another encounter with the Hammer of Thor—they retired across the Pyrenees. France was freed from the Crescent.
All writers agree that the eighth century was the darkest age of the so-called Dark Ages. The Benedictine monks, authors ofL’ histoire litteraire de la Francesay that the eighth century wasthe darkest, the most ignorant, the most barbarousthat France had ever seen. It seemed to be the seething culmination of four hundred years of Barbarism, one infusion following fast upon another.
In 407 A. D. the Vandals from the upper Rhine invaded Gaul and Germany: in 410 the West Goths under Alaric besieged and sacked Rome: in 429 the Vandals under Genseric came down upon Numidia and Mauritania: in 443 the Burgundian invaders settled on the upper Rhone and on the Saone: in 451 came the Huns under Attila. Towards the end of the fifth century the Franks from the lower Rhine came into Gaul, destroying every vestige of civilization that had survived the invasion and occupation of France by the Vandals and Burgundians. About this time, too, the Angles and Saxons established themselves in Britain,and the Visigoths in Spain. In the sixth and seventh centuries the Heruli, the East Goths, and the Lombards destroyed whatever remained of Roman civilization in northern Italy.
And now to complete this scene of chaotic confusion came the fanatic Moslem hordes from the south. Surely every remaining reminder of old-world civilization seemed about to be crushed and broken to pieces between these contending crest waves of barbarism. The cataclysmic clash and crash came at the battle of Tours.
William Turner, S. T. D. in his History of Philosophy speaking of the eighth century says: “We can scarcely realize the desolation that during these centuries reigned throughout what had been the Roman Empire. Although surrounded by all the external signs and conditions of dissolution and decay, the Church remained true to her mission of moral and intellectual enlightenment, drawing the nations to her by the very grandeur of her confidence in her mission of peace, and by the sheer force of her obstinate belief in her own ability to lift the new peoples to a higher spiritual and intellectual life. It was these traits in the character of the Church that especially attracted the barbarian kings. But, though towards the end of the fifth century Clovis became a Christian, it was not until the beginning of the ninth century that the efforts of the Church to reconquer the countries of Europe to civilization began to show visible results. The Merovingian kings—the ‘do-nothing-kings,’ as they were styled—could scarcely be called civilized. Even Charlemagne, who was the third of the Carolingian dynasty, could hardly write his name.”
The Church is for all ages and all conditions of men. She is equally effective in answering the soul-questionings of savage peoples, barbarous, semi-civilized, cultured, and æsthetic: of a superstitious monk of the Thebaid and of the philosopherAugustine, Bishop of Hippo: of a Thais of the desert and of Ursula, virgin and martyr: of Charles Martel, of the bloody battle Tours, and the gentle Francisof Assisi: of Constantine, Clovis, Charlemagne; and of John Henry Cardinal Newman, Mangan, Oscar Wilde, Strindberg, and Francis Thompson. As the manna that fell from heaven for the Israelites had in it every taste that might be in accordance with the peculiar desire of him who tasted, so in like manner, the Church of all ages has ever brought to her children that which was in accordance with their peculiar needs and desires. Fiercely kind, sternly kind, firmly kind, humanly kind, and divinely kind—as occasion may require, the Church has been and may be.
In Charles Martel, hero of Tours, the Church had a gallant defender. Under his son Pepin, and his greater grandson Charlemagne, the Church made that leap forward, away from ninth century barbarism, up and onward to her fair and full flowering in the thirteenth centuryRenaissance.
At the second siege of Constantinople, when Moslemah with a land force of one hundred twenty thousand Arabs and Persians stood ready to attack the city; and a fleet of eighteen hundred ships—as a moving forest,—covered the Bosphorus, Constantinople seemed doomed. A night attack of the combined land and sea forces was planned; and no one might reasonably doubt the issue of the conflict. But here again the unexpected happened.
Truly the race is not to the swift nor is the battle to the strong. Marathon, Salamis, Arbela, Tours,Cressy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Saratoga, Valmy,—were battles not to the strong. “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends.”
As night approached and the formidable “moving forest”gathered round the doomed city, suddenly there darted amidst the towering timbers—lighted monsters, Greek Fire-ships belching forth from dragon-mouthed prows the fatal Greek Fire. Here, there, everywhere plunged the fire-breathing ships leaving behind them Moslem vessels in flames. The Bosphorus was on fire. Of the fated soldiers in that mighty fleet of eighteen hundred ships, few escaped to make known the tragedy or to describe the horribly magnificent scene.
What was the Greek Fire? how compounded? how used? how propelled? does the world of today know the secret of Greek Fire?Gibbon says:“The historian who presumes to analyze this extraordinary composition should suspect his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine guides, so prone to the marvelous, so careless, and, in this instance, so jealous of the truth. From their obscure, and perhaps fallacious, hints it should seem that the principal ingredient of the Greek Fire was the naphtha, or liquid bitumen, a light, tenacious, and inflammable oil, which springs from the earth, and catches fire as soon as it comes in contact with the air. The naphtha was mingled, I know not by what methods or in what proportions, with sulphur and with pitch that is extracted from evergreen firs. From this mixture, which produced a thick smoke and a loud explosion, proceeded a fierce and obstinate flame, which not only rose in perpendicular ascent, but likewise burnt with equal vehemence in descent or lateral progress; instead of being extinguished, it was nourished and quickened by the element of water; and sand or vinegar were the only remedies that could damp the fury of this powerful agent, which was justly denominatedby the Greekstheliquidor themaritimefire. For the annoyance of the enemy it was employed, with equal effect, by sea and land, in battles or in sieges. It was either poured from the rampart in large boilers, or launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with wax and tow, which had deeply imbibed the inflammableoil; sometimes it was deposited in fire-ships, the victims and instruments of a more ample revenge, and was most commonly blown through long tubes of copper which were planted on the prow of a galley, and fancifully shaped into the mouths of savage monsters, that seemed to vomit a stream of liquid and consuming fire.”
The paralyzing effect of fear let loose among a multitude of men has decisively determined many a battle. When the Romans saw elephants for the first time, and saw them too, in the midst of Pyrrhus’ hostile hosts bearing down upon them—those brave world-conquerors promptly turned and fled. Chariots armed with scythes madly rushing down upon a body of infantry, were used with success by the Britons against Cæsar’s terrified legions. And Greek Fire, Byzantium’s secret for four hundred years, infused such enduring terror into the hearts of the nations that had taken part in that night attack upon Constantinople, that this remembering fear, rather than the effective force of Byzantium, may be said to have saved Christendom.
By the defeat of Tours in the west and the failure of the siege in the east, the two horns of the Crescent, burning into Europe, were effectively repulsed and chilled. Mohammedanism with its threefold blight—propagation by the sword, polygamy, and religious intolerance—was swept back into Asia, leaving Europe to develop under the milder sway of Christianity.
Writers of note are unanimous in attributing to the victory of Charles Martel over the Saracens at Tours the deliverance of Europe from the thraldom of Mahomet. Even Gibbon so characteristically fond of “Snapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer” speaks of this battle as “the event that rescued our ancestors of Britain and our neighbors of Gaul from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran.” Arnold speaks of this victory as “among those signal deliverances which have effected for centuries the happiness of mankind.” The historianRanke writing of this period points out as “one of the most important epochs in the history of the world, the commencement of the eighth century, when on one side Mohammedanism threatened to overspread Italy and Gaul, and on the other the ancient idolatry of Saxony and Friesland once more forced its way across the Rhine. In this peril of Christian institutions, a youthful prince of Germanic race, Karl Martell, arose as their champion, maintained them with all the energy which the necessity for self-defense calls forth, and finally extended them into new regions.” Schlegel, with devoutly grateful heart, tells of this “mighty victory whereby the arm of Charles Martel saved and delivered the Christian nations of the West from the deadly grasp of all-destroying Islam.”
“If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you:If you can trust yourself when all men doubt youYet make allowance for their doubting too.If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about don’t deal in lies;Or being hated not give way to hating,And yet don’t seem too good or talk too wise.”—Kipling.
“If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you:If you can trust yourself when all men doubt youYet make allowance for their doubting too.If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about don’t deal in lies;Or being hated not give way to hating,And yet don’t seem too good or talk too wise.”—Kipling.
“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you:
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
Yet make allowance for their doubting too.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about don’t deal in lies;
Or being hated not give way to hating,
And yet don’t seem too good or talk too wise.”
—Kipling.
If—laconic fate-word! hinge of destiny!Ifthe Persians had won at Marathon; and if the brilliant imagination of a Persian Herodotus had fixed in fame the glories of conquering Persia:ifthePeloponnesian Warhad not mutually destroyed the Grecian empire:ifAlexander the Great had lost the battles Granicus, Issus, Arbela;ifworld-conquering Alexander the Great had been successful in the conquest of his own down-dragging human heart, andifhe had not died at Babylon, aged thirty-two, world-victor and self-victim:ifthe village by the Tiber had not advanced by bloody strides o’er fixed-star battlefields from Rome a wilderness, to Rome Mistress of the World:ifthe barbarous hordes of the North had not ever longingly before their eyes the fairyland of southern Europe, the troll-gardens of Italy:ifRome had not become enervated;ifGaul and Goth and Hun and Norseman had not won:ifthe Crescent had waved victorious o’er a fallen Cross at Tours, Belgrade, Lepanto: if William of Normandy son of Robert the Devil, had been pierced by an arrow and buried indistinguishably among the dead on the slaughter-field of Senlac-Hastings—If!
But we are a perennially hopeful race and happily unimaginative and dully content with the Real: and so we unquestioningly acquiesce when grave historians tell us that in each and every historic struggle the juggernaut determinant of theIfacted favorably to the best interests of civilization and progress: so, too, would we obligingly believe had the determinant favored the opposing cause. Perhaps to all-conquering Progress as to world-conquering Rome, all battles are victories; either as a victory proper with roll of triumph-drum and flash of conquering colors, or as that grim Cannæ-defeat potential of a future Zama-victory.
It is well that there should be two possible interpretations of the answers of the oracle: thus is Truth ever serenely secure unperturbed by the errors of mortals.
It is hard to control the winged steed. His next flight and whereabouts of alighting are as happily unknown to the rider as to the beholder—to the writer as to the reader. However Pegasus, the real, can never fail to be interesting whether he leap over the historic ages, or play antics on anIf, or neigh irreverently in the temple of Delphian Apollo, or speed to the finding of Harold Godwin amid the indistinguishably dead on the slaughter-field of Senlac-Hastings.
Vikings of the northern seas, wolf-men of the Sagas, dark devotees of Thor, heirs of Valkirie—little wonder that the semi-civilized world shuddered at their distant approach; little wonder that Charlemagne, hero of a hundred wars, grew sick at heart, foreseeing the rivers of blood that should deluge fair France, when, one day, by chance, his eagle gaze caught sight of the Dragon-Head long-boats of the Northmen as yet far off, red-glittering on shaggy northern seas.
Time passed; the Charlemagne vision had dread realization; France, England, Southern Europe were overrun by conquering Saxon, Dane, Norsemen.
And Rollo of Norway, called Rollo the Dane, settled in northern France. He named that part of the country Normandy in honor of his native land. After many years of bloodshed and as advancing age subdued the battle fever, he entered into a compromise compact with Charles the Simple of France. Rollo was to do homage to the king, be baptized, and marry Giselle, the king’s daughter: in return he should be acknowledged as the lawful Duke of Normandy with right of succession to his heirs forever. But rough old Rollo protested against the humiliating conditions of the homage ceremony. It was obligingly agreed that it should be done by proxy. History relates that the warrior appointed as proxy in the homage ceremony felt deeply the humiliation of having to kiss the slippered foot of King Charles and that in this act he rudely raised the foot so high that the monarch was unseated and fell from his chair. Amid the wild hilarity caused by this scene and the seeming revival of barbarism, King Charles was too fearful of Rollo to make open complaint: concealing his chagrin he proceeded with the ceremony and no doubt felt happily relieved when all was over, and Rollo at the head of his wild followers stood forth as Robert, the first Duke of Normandy. The baptism and the marriage followed in due succession and thus was won over and fixed in civilization, Christianity, and historic fame Rollo the Dane, forefather of six dukes of Normandy, and of a long line of English kings extending directly or indirectly from William the Conqueror to Queen Anne, last of the Stuarts.
William was the son of Robert, sixth duke of Normandy: William’s mother was Arlotte, a peasant girl, daughter of ahumble tanner of Falaise. William was reared at the court of his father, and being a beautiful and precocious boy as well as heir apparent of the realm, he became a great favorite among the warrior courtiers of Duke Robert.
The magic of danger, the lure of the unknown, the glamour of romance and chivalry lay, at that time, in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Thither turned the eyes of the half-civilized descendants of the savage old Vikings; and, as the war fever of youth abated, many men, combining incongruously remorse for crimes andpenitential expiationwith love of daring adventure, turned away from strong feudal castles and lordly possessions in Europe to brave the hardships and uncertainties of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Among those thus lured into fatal uncertainties was Robert le Diable, sixth Duke of Normandy. He left the realm to his son William—if by chance he himself should not return—appointed Alan of Brittany regent during William’s minority, and having left the boy safe at the court of Henry of France, Robert set out on that pilgrimage to the Holy Land from which he never returned.
Ever insatiably hungry is the heart of man. Pleasure is a mirage. Yet perhaps, happier is it to fall and perish in full pursuit of an ever receding pleasure than to walk inane in the beaten sand-way and—live. To do is easier than to endure: to act is easier than to wait; to roam abroad and strive is easier than to stay at home and pray; to wander amid strange scenes and stranger men, to draw the approving sword in a cause approved, to fight and die and leave his bones to bleach on Asiatic plains were easier far for Rollo’s blood than to wait and waste away secure in a feudal fortress of Normandy.
At Robert’s death there were various claimants to his possessions; but, finally, owing, in great measure, to the fidelity of the regent Allan of Brittany, the dukedom was secured for William. He left the court of Paris, and soon after, taking fullpossession of the realm, he began to exhibit those indomitable character qualifications which together with his military education and robust physical powers led him on from conquest to conquest even unto the tragic culmination at Senlac-Hastings from which he came forth blood-baptized as William the Conqueror.
When Ethelred, the Saxon King of England, fled from his realm and left it to the victorious Danes, he sought refuge at the court of Richard, the fourth duke of Normandy. There he met and married the Lady Emma, sister of Duke Richard. This lady was famed for her beauty and known throughout the realm as the Pearl of Normandy.
Edward of England, known in England as Edward the Confessor, was the son of Ethelred and Lady Emma; and it was upon this relationship that William, at the time of Edward’s death, laid claim to the crown. Whatever may be said of this claim, it was at least more tangible than that of Harold, son of Earl Godwin.
The days have gone by when the rights of blood relationship were claims for which contending realms might squander fortunes and armies: but he who estimates the ages past by the standards of today, would better roll up and read no more the enigmatic scrolls of history. Rivers of blood have freely flowed in order that some royal rascal, slightly richer in royal rascality than a rival claimant, might win a throne. Yet we who cannot understand the code of theSamurai, as worked out logically today; we to whom the principles ofBushido, when carried to the last full measure of devotion, are fascinatingly unreal; we to whomjun-shi,hari-kiri,seppukuare words ominous, indeed, but unintelligible even when translated into deed in the whitelight of today[A]—how shall we be able to understand or estimate aright the mysteries of the mighty past!
So upon this faint claim of relationship, William, the seventh duke of Normandy, nephew of Lady Emma, Queen of England, founded his right to the English throne: and for better or worse, right or wrong, faint claim or no claim—he won.
William sought to strengthen his position by an influential matrimonial alliance. Matilda, daughter of the Duke of Flanders, became the object of his choice. This lady was very beautiful and an adept in the accomplishments of her time—music and tapestry weaving. In fact a wonderful piece of tapestry known as the Bayeaux Tapestry and even now in a state of comparative preservation, is said to have been the work of Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror. This famous piece of embroidery on linen is four hundred feet long and nearly two feet wide; it is a series of designs illustrating the various events and incidents of the Battle of Hastings and other exploits of the Conqueror.
William and Matilda were married in 1052, the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, so that the Bayeaux Tapestry has resisted the gnawing tooth of time for more than eight hundred years.
Who shall unerringly perceive in the glare of the passing day, what is great, what small: what is enduring,what evanescent! Linen fibres, silken threads, a woman’s needlework—endure: shields, helmets, swords, battle axes, all the iron horrors of Hastings have passed away.
And the moral values of the passing hour are, to human perception, equally elusive, intangible, untraceable. But are we called upon to understand the full meaning of the passing show?
Surely the Power above us smiles at our endeavors to fit together here in Time things whose fitness shall not have developed in a thousand years.
The old Norse story runs that when Thor went to Jotun-heim, the home of the Giants, he failed ignominiously in the accomplishments of the tasks imposed upon him. He struck with might and main at the head of the prostrate giant Skrymir, but the huge creature only moved restlessly and murmured in his sleep that a leaf or twig had fallen upon his face. Thor failed in the race with Hugi. Thor failed in the drinking bout proposed by Utgard-Loki. Thor failed in the wresting match with Elli, the old nurse of Utgard-Loki. Thor failed to lift the Giant’s sleeping cat, and though he tugged with all his strength, he succeeded in lifting only one paw from the ground. Thor failed apparently in every task that was set before him.
But, behold! when revelation was made, it was found that Thor had, indeed, been Thor and that his failure-achievements had terrified even the Norns. For the giant Skrymir later confessed to Thor that by magic he had shielded his head with a mountain when Thor struck with his hammer, and that the mountain had been well nigh severed by the blow. And as to the race with Hugi, why Hugi is Thought; and no man may hope to surpass the speed of thought. And as to Thor’s failure in the drinking bout, why the drinking horn had been secretly in connection with the ocean, and Thor’s deep draughts had seriously lowered old ocean’s vast domain. And as to Elli, the nurse, why she was Old Age and her no mortal may overcome. And as to Thor’s failure to lift the sleeping cat—why the seeming cat had been in dread reality, the Midgard serpent coiled around the world, and his nearly successful efforts to rouse the serpent and tear it from the charmed circle, had terrified even the Norns. And so Thor was still Thor in his failure-achievements in Jotun-heim: so likewise may we, in the great Revelation,be found to have been splendid conquerors in the grim failure-strife of Time. And then, too, shall a fateful Skrymir make known to us the true nature of the forces against which we strove; the fatal necessity of failure in such a strife, were we Thor or even Odin: then too shall we learn with astonishment and delight the Herculean results of our labors; and throughout all the upward cycles of our immortality we shall be stronger and better because of our failure-achievements down in earth’s Jotun-heim.
As there was some tie of consanguinity between William and Matilda, their marriage could take place only by special dispensation from the Pope. After some vexatious delays, however, this dispensation was obtained, but William and Matilda were advised by the Pope to erect a Hospital for incurable patients and two monasteries, one for men, the other for women.
William and Matilda joyfully agreed to fulfill these conditions. The hospital was built first, and later two imposing monastic piles, one under the special patronage of Matilda, the other under William, were erected at Cæn. Strange to relate that after forty or fifty years had passed away, Matilda was brought to her wedding monument monastery and quietly interred, and a few years later William was laid to rest in his wedding monument monastery. And thus near yet apart they have slept thro’ the long ages.
Harold Godwin and William of Normandy were not strangers to each other when they drew up their battle forces on the field of Senlac-Hastings. Harold had spent some months in Normandy at the court of William some years prior to the death of Edward. And William had made known to Harold his claimto the English throne and his intention of maintaining that claim when the time should come. History relates that Harold, concealing his own ambitious designs, vowed solemnly to support William’s cause.
At the death of Edward, however, Harold found himself at the head of a powerful Saxon faction and felt strong enough to oppose William, should he persist in his intent to claim the throne.
But what about that oath made solemnly in the presence of the Sacrament! Is a man ever courageously self-respecting and invincibly valiant in whose soul festers the ulcer—perjury! When Richard the Third went forth to battle upon Bosworth field, he was already defeated and slain by his own avenging conscience.
When Harold heard of the landing of William’s Norman troops at Pevensey, he was then in the north of England engaged in a struggle with the Danes under the leadership of his own brother Tostig. Harold was slightly wounded in this battle but, in the end, Tostig lay dead upon the field and the Danes were put to flight. Thus from a battlefield red with a brother’s blood, Harold, a wounded man and a perjured man hastened southward to his fate in the dread slaughter of Hastings.
“And were things only called by their right name,Cæsar himself would be ashamed of fame.”—Byron.
“And were things only called by their right name,Cæsar himself would be ashamed of fame.”—Byron.
“And were things only called by their right name,
Cæsar himself would be ashamed of fame.”—Byron.
The wordbattlefieldis a euphemism for human shambles. And “the chief who in triumph advances” is, in grim reality, but the lustiest and the bloodiest of the dogs of war. And the Alexanders, Cæsars, Napoleons are the madmen who have made men mad by their contagion, and have so accumulated horrors Pelion-Ossa piled on horrors as to make the angels weep o’er this mad planet of the universe.
A forceful peculiarity of mental unsoundness is the vehemencewith which its victim conceives himself to be right and everybody else wrong, himself sane and all not in agreement with him insane. This fatuity is characteristic of ages as well as of individuals. It is manifest in the complaisant superiority which every age, every generation assumes toward the immediately preceding. “Back in the past, during the Dark Ages, in primitive times, etc.” are the words of balm with which the passing hour begins its own eulogy.
But blood is blood and hate is hate and war is war, whether waged by Macedonian Alexander B. C. 331, or by the Balkan forces A. D. 1912. Shades of the fallen upon that age-long battle ground! wouldn’t you feel strangely at home in the fray if by any chance you should come to life today?
International courts of justice, arbitration, disarmament, World-Peace—will they ever prevail? Knowing the past, knowing the heart of man, we answerNo: dreaming of the future, dreaming of the godlike in the heart of man, we answerYes.
So all day long the tide of battle rolled—from early day till dark. And William and his Norman followers were in possession of the field, and round them lay a host of dead and wounded, yet by reason of the sudden darkness and the exhaustion of the troops, no search could be made even for the Norman wounded: and tho’ groans and cries of thirst and deep sighings arose incessantly from the writhing masses just darker than the darkness, yet no search could be made or any aid given by reason of the utter exhaustion of the troops.
And on that field of death and awfully dying life Harold Godwin lay happily dead under a heap of the slain. Two monks, lanterns in hand, went out to search for him and with them went also the mother of Harold and Edith the woman that loved him. After hours of fruitless search amid scenes of gruesome horror, and as the dawn burst in red wonder over a bleeding world, Edith discovered Harold. So changed was he, somutilated, hacked and hewed, blood-clotted, dismembered, that even his mother knew him not but the woman that loved him knew. With great difficulty was the body of Harold extricated from under the heap of the slain, but the monks and the women persevered at their task and finally bore him away.
We know only what life has brought within our own cognition; beyond that all is conjecture. The love turned to hate and delighting in the avenging pangs of a lover is utterly uncognizable by the man or woman unto whom love is love forevermore. Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s weird poem “Sister Helen” is, thank God, quite meaningless to the greater number of women: and yet such women as Sister Helen exist; they know each other; they understand the poem.
Strange, indeed, was that practice among primitive people, of injuring an image of an enemy and claiming that thereby, in like manner, they injured the enemy. In the poem referred to, the woman is engaged in the magic rite of holding a waxen image in the flame and letting it slowly consume under incantation. She is interrupted from time to time by her wondering little brother, and in her answers to him Helen makes known her wrongs, her slighted love, her love turned to hate, her revenge, her vindictive madness, her black-art vengeance reaching even beyond the grave, her triumph-despair. At the end of the incantation as for the seventh time she turns the waxen figure and it breaks up and melts dripping away—her perjured lover dies.
A formula of this magic rite runs as follows:
“Take parings, nails, hair, saliva, etc., of your victim and make them up into his likeness with wax from a deserted bees’comb. Hold the waxen image in slow flame for seven consecutive nights repeating intently over the image—
‘It is not wax that I am scorching,It is the liver, heart, spleen ofSo and So.’
‘It is not wax that I am scorching,It is the liver, heart, spleen ofSo and So.’
‘It is not wax that I am scorching,
It is the liver, heart, spleen ofSo and So.’
After the seventh time, turn your figure and your victim’s life will go out with the last drippings of the wax into the flame.”
Gladly would we relegate this grotesque rite back to the twilight of animistic superstitions: but if we are vitally in touch both with the past and with the passing hour, we dare not do so. There is subtle relationship between this concretely hideous formula of other days and such abstract expressions—not unfamiliar today—asmental assassination, use ofmalicious animal magnetism, hypnotic control of the aura, aggressive telepathic forces, etc. The garb of the occult changes, adapts itself with Protean pliability to the passing hour—but the inscrutable Occult forever hid behind the Isis-veil, does not change.
It is said of Molière that behind the mask of comedy, he bore a heart heavy with tragic woe: that his farces are satires on human nature: that he, more piercingly than any other mortal, had gazed down into the heart of man. Perhaps for Molière then, or such as he, the all around understanding of every act or emotion is sympathetically possible, but to the ordinary mortal there is full knowledge only of that which has come within his own cognition.
Therefore, to depict the feelings of William the Conqueror, as he stood among the dead and dying on the field of Hastings is beyond the power of ordinary mortal. Whether he felt elated or depressed—for we know that ofttimes in the hour of seeming triumph there is deadly depression of soul; whether he turned heartsick from the reproachful glare in dead and dying eyes and shuddered that such things should be, or gazed delightedlyand eagerly upon the sullen silent faces of the Saxon foe: whether with infinite pity regretful and remorseful he could have wept for the brave men who lay dead because of him, or saw them not at all, or, at best, only as stepping stones to a throne: who shall say? who shall know?
When a man as stoically severe as the late General Nogi, has by chance been revealed to the world as a tender father and a man weighed down by fatal woe even whilst he was urging on the furiously victorious death-charges up the hill of Port Arthur—we would willingly suspend judgment as to what may have been the feelings in the hour of triumph deep down in the heart of William the Conqueror.
William had left his wife Matilda as regent of Normandy when he set out for the invasion of England. Robert, the eldest boy, a bright lad of fourteen and his mother’s idol was also participant in the regency. As the years rolled by and the boy grew more able and willing to rule, Matilda willingly sank to second place in active government and Robert was in deed if not in title the Duke of Normandy.
Eight years passed by before William found his English realm calm enough for him to leave it and make a visit to his old home Normandy. At his coming he found all going on admirably without him. Matilda was happy in the affection of her favorite son Robert; and Robert a valiant young prince, was happy in the love of an over-indulgent mother and the possession of ducal power. All this was changed when William came. Perhaps jealousy of the place Robert held in the affections of Matilda, perhaps insatiable avarice and lust of power, perhaps unnatural hatred of the son who dared to oppose the unconquerable will of the Conqueror—perhaps any orall of these feelings intermingling impelled William to act as he did, but certainly, in the light of calmer times, William’s conduct towards his son Robert cannot be justified.
Robert was deposed from the place which he held during the regency and which he had slowly grown to regard as his own. The proud spirit of the princely youth could not endure this humiliation. He fled to Flanders, and there among his mother’s friends and his own followers and retainers, he gathered together an army and appeared in open rebellion against his father.
Matilda was, indeed, a devoted wife to William, but she was an even more devoted mother to her son; and her heart was torn with grief when hostilities broke out and father and son were arrayed against each other on the field of battle. It is related that Robert saved William’s life in the engagement that followed. Both were in armor and their faces were concealed by the helmet and visor, so that they did not recognize one another. In the heat of the strife, Robert saw one of his knights hurl a javelin at a burly figure on horseback in the opposing ranks. With a cry and a groan the injured man fell from his horse, and Robert horrified at the voice which he recognized as his father’s, rushed headlong to the side of the fallen man and rescued him from the feet of trampling horses. He was touched with remorse and wept as William uplifted his helmet and visor revealing a face white and weary and covered with blood.
The generous heart of the youth even then might have been won to better things had William himself been morally high enough to draw his son higher; but he was not.
That hasty action and as hasty reaction in the hearts of the young-world children—hate surging suddenly into remorseful love, strength into weakness, audacious rebellion into repentantsubmission: and then as hastily surging back again! Robert saving the life of his father against whom he had come in battle array: Richard Cœur de Lion bitterly weeping at the bier of his father whose death he had desired and hastened: Henry I. who never smiled again after the loss of his son and heir when theWhite Shipwent down: the Black Prince, chivalrously subservient to his prisoner King John of Franceconquered at Poitiers—strangely fascinating is this hasty action and reaction in the hearts of the young-world children!
Matilda succeeded in bringing about a reconciliation between her husband and her son after that strange battle; but it was only for a time. William was compelled to return to England and Robert took advantage of this occasion to enforce his claim on Normandy. Matilda was secretly in favor of her son (the women are always right!) tho’ she tried to conciliate both. Rebellion again raged in Normandy openly carried on by Robert and secretly abetted by Matilda. William was, at the same time, threatened with an uprising in England and was obliged to remain on the island. But certainly there could have been little peace or happiness in the heart of the man whose subjects were in insurrection against him and in whose household there was hate and discord and rebellion.
As William became more and more alienated from Robert, he looked more favorably upon his second son William Rufus and his third son Henry. These in turn succeeded him upon the throne of England to the exclusion of Robert, the rightful heir.
Robert languished in prison the last twenty-seven years of his life—thus adding another chapter to the book in which is recorded the story of men and women who have nearly succeeded in their ambitious designs—but not quite: theAlmostsof literature and of life; who have struggled fearfully and failed; whose fierce activities have died down indungeon gloom; who have been, in the main, more sinned against than sinning; who have lived and happily died leaving behind a tragic name flame-cut into fame.
Matilda died in 1082, and about five years later William followed her to the tomb. Matilda died in the palace part of the monastery at Cæn erected by William at the time of their marriage. Her last days were deeply shadowed by the renewal of hostilities between William and Robert, and by the death of a daughter, a young and beautiful girl full of hope and promise, who had suddenly been stricken with an incurable illness.
It was well that in those days in the twilight of the grave, Matilda could not foresee the sad fate of her son Robert. Little did that tender mother-heart dream of the destiny overhanging the boy, when at that last clandestine interview she hastily blessed him and kissed him good bye. Thank God for the heavy curtain rolled down impenetrably between the present and the future.
William, notwithstanding his grievance against Matilda, came to see her in her last illness. He was with her when she died. He followed her in the funeral cortege to that monastery built by her in far off happier days, and he stood sadly by as that devoted wife and mother of his many children was laid to rest.
Philip of France abetted the cause of Robert, and William, now an old man and grown excessively corpulent, was forced again to take up arms. William was under medical treatment for his corpulency, and Philip, hearing of this, jestingly remarked that “the old woman of England was in the straw.” A tale-bearer repeated this to William and in a rage the King swore that “the old woman of England would soon make things too hotfor him.” William kept his word; burning villages and war horrors arose on every side as the irate monarch began his march of revenge.
The town of Mantes, on the road to Paris, was in flames, and William, riding thro’ and giving out orders in all directions, failed to notice that his horse was treading upon smoking ashes. Suddenly the horse reared violently, his feet evidently having been burnt by smouldering flame, and William was internally injured. He was borne by litter to a monastery just outside the gates of Rouen. William soon realized that he was face to face with the King of Terrors. He shrank with horror from the remembrance of his deeds: he ordered that a large sum of money should be given to the poor and that their prayers should be enlisted in his behalf; he gave orders that all the churches of Mantes, destroyed by him, should be at once rebuilt, and he richly endowed the monastery.
His sons William and Henry were soon at his side, but Robert came not. When asked as to whom he bequeathed the kingdom of England he replied that it had not been bequeathed to him, that, therefore, he bequeathed it to no one, but that he wished that his son William Rufus might succeed him.
William, at last, when he could hold it no longer, left Normandy to his eldest son Robert.
William tried to make his peace with Heaven as the dread summons came nearer and nearer. He was one morning suddenly aroused from a comatose state by the ringing of the church bells. Hastily arising and thinking himself in the clash of battle he demanded to know what that clangor meant. On being told that it was the church bells of St. Mary’s ringing for morning services, he lifted up his hands, turned his eyes heavenward, and exclaimed, “I commend myself to my Lady Mary, the holy Mother of God.” He then sank back and died.
William Rufus succeeded to the throne of England and after a troubled reign of thirteen years, he died.
Henry, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, claimed the crown and after overcoming his brother Robert in a terrible battle, he quietly took possession of the throne. Robert was held a prisoner by Henry I. until death released him twenty-seven years later.
So long ago were these scenes enacted, and so very long have the actors slumbered! Would they recognize themselves in the descriptions given of them today? and would they be pleased or displeased with the parts attributed to them in the play?
However all the actors, immediate and mediate, connected with the battle of Senlac-Hastings have long ago gone off the stage. The colossalIfupon which once hung the history of England has become fate-fixed actuality. The Houses of Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart—England’s story from 1066 to the passing hour are inseparably woven one with the battle of Senlac-Hastings and theIfdeterminant in favor of William the Conqueror.
What France won in three years (1428-1431) under the leadership of Joan of Arc restored all that France had lost during the Hundred Years’ War. Cressy, Poitiers, Agincourt were negatived by Orleans.
More wonderful than any myth of any nation under the sun, than any concept of poetic fancy throughout all literatures, than any vision of poet-sage or seer in all Sybilline rhapsodies—is the plain historical narrative of the life and deeds of Joan of Arc. Some power beyond the natural worked thro’ the peasant maid of Domremy.
“The people of Orleans when they first saw her in their city thought that it was an angel from Heaven that had come down to save them”, said an eye-witness of the scene who testified at the reversal of Jeanne’s sentence ten years after her death. On the contrary the Duke of Bedford, in a letter still extant, writing to Henry VI. and lamenting recent disasters to the English army says: “And alle thing there prospered for you til the tyme of the Siege of Orleans taken in hand God knoweth by what advis.
“At the which tyme, after the adventure fallen to the person of my cousin of Salisbury, whom God assoile, there fell by the hand of God as it seemeth, a great strook upon your peuple that was assembled there in grete nombre, caused in great part as I trowe, of lakke of sadde beleve, and of unlevefull doubte, that they had of a disciple and limb of the Feende, called the Pucelle, that used fals enchantments and sorcerie.”