Historic Girls Part 7

EDITH OF SCOTLAND.: THE GIRL OF THE NORMAN ABBEY.

(Afterward known as the "Good Queen Maud" of England.) A.D. 1093.

On a broad and deep window-seat in the old Abbey guest-house at Gloucester, sat two young girls of thirteen and ten; before them, brave-looking enough in his old-time costume, stood a manly young fellow of sixteen. The three were in earnest conversation, all unmindful of the noise about them--the romp and riot of a throng of young folk, attendants, or followers of the knights and barons of King William's court.

For William Rufus, son of the Conqueror and second Norman king of England, held his Whitsuntide gemot, or summer council of his lords and lieges, in the curious old Roman-Saxon-Norman town of Gloucester, in the fair vale through which flows the n.o.ble Severn. The city is known to the young folk of to-day as the one in which good Robert Raikes started the first Sunday-school more than a hundred years ago. But the gemot of King William the Red, which was a far different gathering from good Mr.

Raikes' Sunday-school, was held in the great chapter-house of the old Benedictine Abbey, while the court was lodged in the Abbey guest-houses, in the grim and fortress-like Gloucester Castle, and in the houses of the quaint old town itself.

The boy was shaking his head rather doubtfully as he stood, looking down upon the two girls on the broad window-seat.

"Nay, nay, beausire(1); shake not your head like that," exclaimed the younger of the girls. "We did escape that way, trust me we did; Edith here can tell you I do speak the truth--for sure, 't was her device."

(1) "Fair sir": an ancient style of address, used especially toward those high in rank in Norman times.

Thirteen-year-old Edith laughed merrily enough at her sister's perplexity, and said gayly as the lad turned questioningly to her:

"Sure, then, beausire, 't is plain to see that you are Southron-born and know not the complexion of a Scottish mist. Yet 't is even as Mary said.

For, as we have told you, the Maiden's Castle standeth high-placed on the crag in Edwin's Burgh, and hath many and devious pathways to the lower gate, So when the Red Donald's men were swarming up the steep, my uncle, the Atheling, did guide us, by ways we knew well, and by twists and turnings that none knew better, straight through Red Donald's array, and all unseen and unnoted of them, because of the blessed thickness of the gathering mist."

"And this was YOUR device?" asked the boy, admiringly.

"Ay, but any one might have devised it too," replied young Edith, modestly. "Sure, 't was no great device to use a Scotch mist for our safety, and 't were wiser to chance it than stay and be stupidly murdered by Red Donald's men. And so it was, good Robert, even as Mary did say, that we came forth unharmed, from amidst them and fled here to King William's court, where we at last are safe."

"Safe, say you, safe?" exclaimed the lad, impulsively. "Ay, as safe as is a mouse's nest in a cat's ear--as safe as is a rabbit in a ferret's hutch. But that I know you to be a brave and dauntless maid, I should say to you----"

But, ere Edith could know what he would say, their conference was rudely broken in upon. For a royal page, das.h.i.+ng up to the three, with scant courtesy seized the arm of the elder girl, and said hurriedly:

"Haste ye, haste ye, my lady! Our lord king is even now calling for you to come before him in the banquet-hall."

Edith knew too well the rough manners of those dangerous days. She freed herself from the grasp of the page, and said:

"Nay, that may I not, master page. 'T is neither safe nor seemly for a maid to show herself in baron's hall or in king's banquet-room."

"Safe and seemly it may not be, but come you must," said the page, rudely. "The king demands it, and your nay is naught."

And so, hurried along whether she would or no, while her friend, Robert Fitz G.o.dwine, accompanied her as far as he dared, the young Princess Edith was speedily brought into the presence of the king of England, William H., called, from the color of his hair and from his fiery temper, Rufus, or "the Red."

For Edith and Mary were both princesses of Scotland, with a history, even before they had reached their teens, as romantic as it was exciting. Their mother, an exiled Saxon princess, had, after the conquest of Saxon England by the stern Duke William the Norman, found refuge in Scotland, and had there married King Malcolm Canmore, the son of that King Duncan whom Macbeth had slain. But when King Malcolm had fallen beneath the walls of Alnwick Castle, a victim to English treachery, and when his fierce brother Donald Bane, or Donald the Red, had usurped the throne of Scotland, then the good Queen Margaret died in the gray castle on the rock of Edinburgh, and the five orphaned children were only saved from the vengeance of their bad uncle Donald by the shrewd and daring device of the young Princess Edith, who bade their good uncle Edgar, the Atheling, guide them, under cover of the mist, straight through the Red Donald's knights and spearmen to England and safety.

You would naturally suppose that the worst possible place for the fugitives to seek safety was in Norman England; for Edgar the Atheling, a Saxon prince, had twice been declared king of England by the Saxon enemies of the Norman conquerors, and the children of King Malcolm and Queen Margaret--half Scotch, half Saxon--were, by blood and birth, of the two races most hateful to the conquerors. But the Red King in his rough sort of way--hot to-day and cold to-morrow--had shown something almost like friends.h.i.+p, for this Saxon Atheling, or royal prince, who might have been king of England had he not wisely submitted to the greater power of Duke William the Conqueror and to the Red William, his son. More than this, it had been rumored that some two years before, when there was truce between the kings of England and of Scotland, this harsh and headstrong English king, who was as rough and repelling as a chestnut burr, had seen, noticed, and expressed a particular interest in the eleven-year-old Scottish girl--this very Princess Edith who now sought his protection.

So, when this wandering uncle boldly threw himself upon Norman courtesy, and came with his homeless nephews and nieces straight to the Norman court for safety, King William Rufus not only received these children of his hereditary foeman with favor and royal welcome, but gave them comfortable lodgment in quaint old Gloucester town, where he held his court.

But even when the royal fugitives deemed themselves safest were they in the greatest danger.

Among the attendant knights and n.o.bles of King William's court was a Saxon knight known as Sir Ordgar, a "thegn,"(1) or baronet, of Oxfords.h.i.+re; and because those who change their opinions--political or otherwise--often prove the most unrelenting enemies of their former a.s.sociates, it came to pa.s.s that Sir Ordgar, the Saxon, conceived a strong dislike for these orphaned descendants of the Saxon kings, and convinced himself that the best way to secure himself in the good graces of the Norman King William was to slander and accuse the children of the Saxon Queen Margaret.

(1) p.r.o.nounced thane.

And so that very day, in the great hall, when wine was flowing and pa.s.sions were strong, this false knight, raising his gla.s.s, bade them all drink: "Confusion to the enemies of our liege the king, from the base Philip of France to the baser Edgar the Atheling and his Scottish brats!"

This was an insult that even the heavy and peace-loving nature of Edgar the Atheling could not brook. He sprang to his feet and denounced the charge:

"None here is truer or more leal to you, lord king," he said, "than am I, Edgar the Atheling, and my charges, your guests."

But King William Rufus was of that changing, temper that goes with jealousy and suspicion. His flushed face grew still more red, and, turning away from the Saxon prince, he demanded:

"Why make you this charge, Sir Ordgar?

"Because of its truth, beausire," said the faithless knight. "For what other cause hath this false Atheling sought sanctuary here, save to use his own descent from the ancient kings of this realm to make head and force among your lieges? And, his eldest kinsgirl here, the Princess Edith, hath she not been spreading a trumpery story among the younger folk, of how some old wyrd-wif(1) hath said that she who is the daughter of kings shall be the wife and mother of kings? And is it not further true that when her aunt, the Abbess of Romsey, bade her wear the holy veil, she hath again and yet again torn it off, and affirmed that she, who was to be a queen, could never be made a nun? Children and fools, 't is said, do speak the truth, beausire; and in all this do I see the malice and device of this false Atheling, the friend of your rebellious brother, Duke Robert, as you do know him to be; and I do brand him here, in this presence, as traitor and recreant to you, his lord."

(1) Witch-wife or seeress.

The anger of the jealous king grew more unreasoning as Sir Ordgar went on.

"Enough!" he cried. "Seize the traitor,----or, stay; children and fools, as you have said, Sir Ordgar, do indeed speak the truth. Have in the girl and let us hear the truth. 'Not seemly'? Sir Atheling," he broke out in reply to some protest of Edith's uncle. "Aught is seemly that the king doth wish. Holo! Raoul! Damian! sirrah pages! Run, one of you, and seek the Princess Edith, and bring her here forthwith!"

And while Edgar the Atheling, realizing that this was the gravest of all his dangers, strove, though without effect, to reason with the angry king, Damian, the page, as we have seen, hurried after the Princess Edith.

"How now, mistress!" broke out the Red King, as the young girl was ushered into the banquet-hall, where the disordered tables, strewn with fragments of the feast, showed the ungentle manners of those brutal days. "How now, mistress! do you prate of kings and queens and of your own designs--you, who are but a beggar guest? Is it seemly or wise to talk,--nay, keep you quiet, Sir Atheling; we will have naught from you,--to talk of thrones and crowns as if you did even now hope to win the realm from me--from me, your only protector?"

The Princess Edith was a very high-spirited maiden, as all the stories of her girlhood show. And this unexpected accusation, instead of frightening her, only served to embolden her. She looked the angry monarch full in the face.

"'T is a false and lying charge, lord king," she said, "from whomsoever it may come. Naught have I said but praise of you and your courtesy to us motherless folk. 'T is a false and lying charge; and I am ready to stand test of its proving, come what may."

"Even to the judgment of G.o.d, girl?" demanded the king.

And the brave girl made instant reply: "Even to the judgment of G.o.d, lord king." Then, skilled in all the curious customs of those warlike times, she drew off her glove. "Whosoever my accuser be, lord king,"

she said, "I do denounce him as foresworn and false, and thus do I throw myself upon G.o.d's good mercy, if it shall please him to raise me up a champion." And she flung her glove upon the floor of the hall, in face of the king and all his barons.

It was a bold thing for a girl to do, and a murmur of applause ran through even that unfriendly throng. For, to stand the test of a "wager of battle," or the "judgment of G.o.d," as the savage contest was called, was the last resort of any one accused of treason or of crime. It meant no less than a "duel to the death" between the accuser and the accused or their accepted champions, and, upon the result of the duel hung the lives of those in dispute. And the Princess Edith's glove lying on the floor of the Abbey hall was her a.s.sertion that she had spoken the truth and was willing to risk her life in proof of her innocence.

Edgar the Atheling, peace-lover, though he was, would gladly have accepted the post of champion for his niece, but, as one also involved in the charge of treason, such action was denied him.

For the moment, the Red King's former admiration for this brave young princess caused him to waver; but those were days when suspicion and jealousy rose above all n.o.bler traits. His face grew stern again.

"Ordgar of Oxford," he said, "take up the glove!" and Edith knew who was her accuser. Then the King asked: "Who standeth as champion for Edgar the Atheling and this maid, his niece?"

Almost before the words were spoken young Robert Fitz G.o.dwine had sprung to Edith's side.

"That would I, lord king, if a young squire might appear against a belted knight!"

"Ordgar of Oxford fights not with boys!" said the accuser contemptuously.