CHAPTER XIII
“I have deeply felt The mockery of the shrine at which my spirit knelt. Mine is the requiem of years in reckless folly passed, The wail above departed hopes on a frail venture cast.”
Acting upon the hint of Adela, Prince Henry repaired immediately to Huntingdon and secured the good offices of Maude and her husband, in effecting a communication with the beautiful novice Matilda. He was thus enabled to counteract the efforts of his powerful rival Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, to whom Rufus had promised her hand. Deeming it unsafe however to quit England, he tarried at court and passed his time in hunting and hawking, according to the manners of the age. The New Forest was the constant scene of dissolute pleasures. The sweet solemnity of the deep woods was daily disturbed by the Bacchanal revel, and the pure echoes of the dell were forced to answer the loose laugh and thoughtless imprecation. Godly men lifted up their voice against the corruptions of the age, and saintly priests warned by omens and dreams, admonished the Red King on a certain day, to avoid the glen in which Prince Richard was supposed to have contracted his fatal disease. But the impious Rufus, with studied contempt led the chase that way, diverting his attendants with ribald jests upon the warnings he had received. “Come, Deer’s foot,” said Warrenne, tauntingly to Prince Henry, “yonder bounds the stag. The fair hand of Matilda to him who brings the antlered monarch down.” “I have broken the string of my arblast, and must repair to the hut of this forrester to replace it,” replied Henry coldly. “Come on, ye laggards. Ho! Tyrrel, thou and I alone will be in at the death,” cried Rufus, putting spurs to his horse. As Henry entered the cottage, a weird wife rose up as if from the ground before him, chanting in Norman French,
“Hasty news to thee I bring —
Henry, thou art now a king.
Mark the words and heed them well,
Which to thee in sooth I tell.”
The closing words were interrupted by hurried cries of alarm and distress. The prince turned, and the horror-stricken Tyrrel, whose erring shaft had slain the king, dashed past the door. Comprehending the whole affair at once, Henry remounted his horse and rode full speed to Winchester, forced the keys from the keeper, and took possession of the regalia and royal treasure. The people thronged round him in the streets, and while the nobles and prelates were debating on the claims of Robert, the populace, whose allegiance he secured by the promise of English laws and an English Queen, made the city resound with loud shouts of “Long live King Henry.” Within three days he was crowned at Winchester, by the bishop of London.
Scarce a month after the Countess of Blois was apprized of these events, the tardy Robert arrived at Chartres. He had lingered in Apulia to woo Sybilla, the fair cousin of Bohemond, and now returned to claim his inheritance, after his younger brother was securely seated on the throne. The countess received him with the greatest joy, and honored his peerless bride with the most distinguishing attentions; but when she learned that he depended upon her good offices with Stephen to secure assistance in a meditated invasion of England, her love for her favorite brother Henry, and her apprehension of the unsteady rule of Robert, moved her to dissuade him from the scheme, and she secretly hoped that he might be made instrumental in inducing her husband to return again to the Holy Land. She learned from Robert the various success of the leaders of the crusade. While some were still carving their way with the sword, Bohemond was Prince of Antioch, Baldwin of Edessa, and Godfrey enjoyed the enviable distinction of being King of Jerusalem.
“The voice of fame has spoken oft to me of the prowess of my brother Robert,” said she. “Did not his peers deem him worthy a principality in Palestine?”
“Nay, it needed not the suffrages of the chiefs, since heaven itself preferred my poor claims above all others,” replied Robert. “When a king was to be chosen, the bishops gave to each leader a waxen candle, and directed us to walk in procession to the Holy Sepulchre. As we advanced within the sacred place, a sudden flame kindled upon the taper I held in my hand, but at that moment a whisper of Rufus’ death swept across my spirit, and remembering the throne of England I dashed out the light.” —
“Unhappy man!” exclaimed the countess. “Thou hast refused the call of heaven. Look not for success in any future enterprise. Hope not that divine sanction will back thine endeavor, and expect not aid or succor by thy sister’s intervention.”
“By the Holy Rood,” shouted Robert in wrath, “thou Queen’st it well for a woman whose craven husband was the first to desert his standard. It were indeed the part of a madman to expect assistance from the dastard earl.” Before the anger of the countess gave her voice to reply, he strode from her presence.
Meantime, Henry hearing that Robert had arrived in Normandy, strengthened his power by conciliating the English nation, and took prompt measures to redeem his promise of giving them an English Queen. But for some unaccountable reason the Saxon princess seemed averse to quitting her gloomy convent, nor would she consent to bestow her hand upon the handsomest and most accomplished sovereign of his time, till he had promised to confirm to the nation all the ancient laws and privileges established by her great ancestor Alfred, and ratified by Edward the Confessor. When a digest of these rights and immunities had been made, and a hundred copies committed to the care of the principal bishoprics and monasteries of England, she consented to become “the bond of peace to a divided nation – the dove of the newly sealed covenant between the Norman sovereign and her own people.”
The efforts of Robert, delayed till Henry’s power was thus consolidated, of course proved ineffectual. He wasted the munificent dower of his beautiful Sybilla, in idle feasting, and having buried his lovely wife the third year after their marriage, he gave up Normandy to Henry, for an annual pension, and was finally taken in a revolt, conveyed to Cardiff Castle, where in a sort of honorable captivity he passed the remainder of his useless life.
The spirit of crusade was still active in Europe, and combined with this spirit, was the hope of gain, springing from vague and exaggerated accounts of the wealth and principalities which the leaders of the first expedition had acquired. The devastated lands of Palestine were soon settled by families who immigrated from pecuniary or pious motives, and not long after the death of Godfrey, and the election of Baldwin I. to the throne of Jerusalem, several bodies of armed men set out to join their brethren in Asia. Count Stephen, wearied with the incessant importunities of his ambitious wife, shamed by the example of Hugh, Count of Vermandois, and stimulated, perhaps, by the hope of obtaining easier conquest, and less dangerous honors, consented to return to the Holy Land. At Constantinople they met with Raimond of Toulouse, who