CAMEO
XVII

Standard.

66

The fierce Kelts of Galloway, guided by a tall spear, wreathed with heather blossom, and shouting, “ Albin ! Albin !" with harsh dissonant Battle of the cries like the roar of a tempest, fell headlong on the English ranks, and at first their fury carried them on so that they burst through them as if they had been a spider's web. But the Norman chivalry round the standard stood firm, and hewed down the undefended Galwegians, nor could the long claymores of the Highland clans, who next attacked them, break through their steel armour. The charge of Prince Henry's horsemen had more effect, and at one time the youth had almost won his way to the standard, when some traitor in the rear raised a bloody head on the point of a lance, shouting that the King was slain. consternation the Scots gave back; the English saw their advantage, and pressed upon them: and though David rode forward and displayed the dragon standard which marked his presence (inherited from the Saxon kings), he could not rally them, and but just succeeded in protecting their flight to Carlisle, which then belonged to him as Earl of Cumberland.

In

This first of the long series of Scottish defeats was called the Battle of the Standard, from the banner of St. Cuthbert, which was always thought to bring success. It came forth at the battle of Nevil's Cross, and was again victorious, and it was preserved with great reverence till the Reformation, when, in 1549, Catherine Whittingham, the wife of the Dean of Durham, burnt it, out of zeal against Popery. It is some comfort that she was a Frenchwoman.

Stephen had left his Northern subjects to take care of themselves, because he was full of perplexities in the South. He had tried to please all parties, and by no means succeeded. He was a humane, kind-hearted man, and really wished to befriend the unfortunate Saxons; but, on the other hand, he was afraid to affront their Norman oppressors, whom he had allowed to build castles, and strengthen themselves in the very way which it had been Henry Beauclerc's policy to prevent. Almost every spot where green mounds and blocks of massive masonry remain within an ancient moat, is said by tradition to have been "a castle in Stephen's time," and we wonder, considering that he reigned but nine years, how such immense works could have been effected. Dens of thieves they seem to have been, and misery and destruction reigned round them; while the least attempt on the King's part to restrain the ferocity of their owners was requited by a threat of bringing in our lady the Empress.

Her party became continually stronger, and Stephen, living in constant mistrust, added to it by offending several Bishops, even his own brother Henry de Blois, by trying to deprive them of their fortified castles. Next he made an attack on the Earl of Gloucester, who being thus freed from his engagement to keep the peace, after repulsing Stephen, went to Normandy to fetch the Empress, and inform her that this was the time for establishing her right.

Maude gladly accepted his invitation, but her husband Geoffrey seems

CAMEO
XVII.

to have been glad to be rid of her ungracious company, and chose to remain in Anjou. She landed in safety, for Stephen was at this time extremely ill, and her brother placed her in Arundel Castle, which Empress belonged to her father's widow, Queen Alice, lately married to William Maude. de Albini, the ancestor of the noble line of Howard. Here Maude remained, while her brother went to his own estates to raise troops; but in the meantime Stephen recovered, and advanced on Arundel Castle. Queen Alice sent to tell him that her step-daughter had come to seek her protection, and beg him not to make her do anything disloyal, and Stephen, who had many of the qualities of a courteous knight, forbore to make any personal attack on the ladies, but allowed the Empress to depart unmolested to meet Earl Robert.

He brought her to his castle at Bristol, where she remained two years, while the warfare was carried on in a desultory manner, chiefly by the siege of castles. At last Stephen laid siege to Lincoln, where Robert's daughter was, with her husband Ralf, Earl of Chester. Her father came to her relief with an army of 10,000 men. Stephen was advised to retreat; but he thought his honour concerned, and gave battle. His forces were soon overwhelmed ; but he fought on desperately at the foot of his standard, so fiercely that no one dared to approach him, though his sword and battle-axe were both broken. At last a stone brought him to the ground, and a knight named William Kames grappled with him and held him fast; but even then he refused to yield the fragment of his sword to any but the Earl of Gloucester, who came up at the moment and prevented any further violence.

Stephen was given into the keeping of Countess Amabel, and Maude was conducted in state to Winchester, where Stephen's own brother, the Bishop, proclaimed her Queen, standing on the steps of the altar. Her uncle, King David, came to visit her, and she held her court with great splendour. It was here that she disgusted every one by her disdainful manners, and treated her cousin, Stephen's queen, with such harshness as to drive her to take up arms again. London had always been favourable to Stephen, and two months of negotiation were necessary before David and Robert could prevail on the citizens to receive her. At midsummer, however, they consented to admit her, and she came to Westminster; but as soon as a deputation of citizens were in her presence she showed her pride and hostile spirit. They asked for charters; she replied by ordering them to bring money, and telling them they were very bold to talk of their privileges, when they had just been aiding her enemies. Robert made speeches to try to soften matters, and David reasoned with her in vain, till she was convinced of her folly in a way for which he was little prepared. It is said that she actually flew at him and struck him; and if she could thus treat a royal uncle, how must not men inferior in rank have sped?

It was noon, and the deputies went home, as Maude thought, to dinner; but presently all the bells began to ring, and burghers, armed with bows and bills, began to swarm in the streets. The followers of the

K

CAMEO XVII. Maude's escape from Winchester.

Empress were too few to resist ; so, after a brief council, David galloped
off to the North, and Robert rode with his sister to Oxford, while the
Londoners opened their gates to Matilda, Stephen's wife, and her son
Eustace.

Robert went to raise more forces, and Maude, hearing that Bishop
Henry de Blois was conferring with his sister-in-law, sharply summoned
him to her presence. He quietly made answer,
"Parabo me," I pre-
pare myself; and Maude, in a passion, set out, intending to surprise him
at Wolvesley, his palace at Winchester. She found it well fortified,
and laid siege to it, from the castle at Winchester, where she was joined
by her uncle and brother; and the town was in a miserable state, burnt
by both parties in turn. Twenty churches and two convents were
destroyed, and the Bishop took Knut's crown out of the Cathedral, —to
save it from the enemy, as was said, but it was never seen again. At
last Eustace de Blois and his mother brought such a force that the
Empress was besieged in her turn, and completely starved out. Her
garrison resolved to break through the enemy at all risks, and on
Sunday they set forth, Maude riding first with her uncle David, and
Robert following with a band of knights, under a vow to die rather
than let her be taken.

At Stourbridge the pursuers came up with them, many of the knights fell, and Robert was captured. So closely were the royal fugitives pursued, that David at one time was in the enemy's hands, and only escaped by the stratagem of his godson, David Olifant. Maude and one faithful knight, by the speed of their horses, reached Devizes, whence she was carried in a coffin to Gloucester.

Maude could not make up her mind to release her foe, Stephen, even for the sake of recovering her brother; but the Countess of Gloucester, considering the king as her own property, acted for herself, and exchanged him for her husband. Queen Matilda tried to make Robert promise to bring about peace, to secure England to Stephen, and Normandy to Maude; but he would make no engagements which he knew she would not observe, and matters continued in the same state.

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XVIII.

On the 1st of November, 1138, Stephen was set at liberty, and Robert of Gloucester being exchanged for him rejoined his sister the Empress at Gloucester; and during this time of quiet her fierce nature seems Stephen's to have somewhat softened.

Stephen, meanwhile, had one of his terrible attacks of illness, in which he lay for hours, if not days, in a death-like lethargy, and, of course, his followers did nothing but build castles whenever the frost would let them work, prey on their neighbours, and make the state of the country far worse than it had been under any of the Normans of hated memory. Maude's domain was in better order, as Robert's rule was modelled on that of his father's, in its best points. It is wonderful that Robert, whose mother was a princess by birth, and had been treated as a wife till the Etheling marriage had become a matter of policy, should have put forward no pretensions to the crown, but have uniformly given his staunch support to his proud and ungrateful sister. In a council held at Devizes in the course of the winter it was decided that he should go to Normandy to intreat the Count of Anjou to bring succours to his wife. Geoffrey, however, had no desire to return to her haughty companionship, and represented that there were still many castles in Normandy unsubdued. Robert gave efficient aid in taking these; but Geoffrey still could not persuade himself to meet his wife, though, at Robert's persuasion, he consented to give into his charge Henry, his eldest son, a boy of ten years old, with a large body of troops.

Maude had in the meanwhile been placed in the strong fortress at Oxford; but no sooner had Stephen recovered from his illness than he collected his army, and marched southwards. In the end of September he besieged her at Oxford, where at first she thought herself safe; but he crossed the river, set fire to the city in several places, and blockaded her in the castle.

Her nobles collected at Wallingford, and sent defiances to Stephen to fight a pitched battle with them; but he knew his own advantage too

illness.

CAMEO
XVIII.

Maude at
Oxford.

well, and took no notice. Earl Robert, landing near Wareham, tried to create a diversion by beseiging that seaport; but he could not draw the enemy off from Oxford. Famine prevailed in the castle, and after much suffering it became impossible for the garrison to hold out any longer. The depth of winter had come, the ground was covered with snow, and the Isis was frozen over. Maude, whose courage never failed, caused herself and three of her knights to be dressed in white, and let down from the battlements upon the snow, where they were met by one of Stephen's men whom they had gained over, and by him were led, unseen and unheard, through the camp of the enemy, hearing the call of the sentinels, and trembling with anxiety. For six miles they crept over the snow, and at last arrived at Abingdon, nearly frozen, for their garments had been far too scanty for the piercing weather; but they could not remain a moment for rest or warmth, but took horse, and never paused till they reached Wallingford Castle. Thither, so soon as the news reached Earl Robert, he brought her young son, and her troubles were forgotten in her joy.

Thence she repaired with her son to Bristol Castle, where the boy remained under the care of a learned tutor named Matthew, who instructed him under the superintendence of Earl Robert.

This great Earl deserved the name of Beauclerc almost as well as his father; he was well read, and two histories were dedicated to him, William of Malmesbury's, and Geoffrey of Monmouth's wonderful chronicle of the old British kings, whose blood flowed in Robert's veins; that chronicle-wrought out of queer Welsh stories-that served as a foundation for Edward's claims on Scotland, and whence came our Lear and Cymbeline.

All that knightly training could do for young Henry was done by Earl Robert, and the boy so far answered to his care as to have that mixture of scholarliness and high spirit that was inherent in the Norman and Angevin princes. But the shrewd unscrupulousness and hard selfishness of the Norman were there too-the qualities from which noble Gloucester himself was free. It may be, however, that the good Earl did not see these less promising characteristics of his ward; for after five years of the boy's residence at Bristol and the old desultory warfare between the partizans of King and Empress Count Geoffrey sent for his son, to take leave of him before going on a crusade, and while Henry was absent Earl Robert died, in 1147. It speaks much for Henry Beauclerc's court that such men should have grown up in it as Robert of Gloucester and David of Scotland.

Geoffrey in the meantime paid a visit to his younger brother, Baldwin III. of Jerusalem, a very gallant prince. On his return Maude came back to him, and after their eight years' absence, they met with affection they never had shown to one another before. She did not attempt to take the government of Normandy, but left it wholly in Geoffrey's hands.

Stephen, meanwhile, was unmolested in England till 1149, when Henry sailed for Scotland, there to be knighted by his uncle, King