So saying, he pressed forward over the bridge, while the officers, breaking up the encampment, put the columns in motion to follow him.
It was shown abundantly, on many occasions in the course of Cæsar's life, that he had no faith in omens. There are equally numerous instances to show that he was always ready to avail himself of the popular belief in them, to awaken his soldiers' ardor or to allay their fears. Whether, therefore, in respect to this story of the shepherd trumpeter it was an incident that really and accidently occurred, or whether Cæsar planned and arranged it himself, with reference to its effect, or whether, which is, perhaps, after all, the most probable supposition, the tale was only an embellishment invented out of something or nothing by the story-tellers of those days to give additional dramatic interest to the narrative of the crossing of the Rubicon, it must be left for each reader to decide.
As soon as the bridge was crossed, Cæsar called an assembly of his troops, and, with signs of great excitement and agitation, made an address to them on the magnitude of the crisis through which they were passing. He showed them how entirely he was in their power; he urged them, by the most eloquent appeals, to stand by him, faithful and true, promising them the most ample rewards when he should have attained the object at which he aimed. The soldiers responded to this appeal with promises of the most unwavering fidelity.
The first town on the Roman side of the Rubicon was Ariminum. Cæsar advanced to this town. The authorities opened its gates to him—very willing, as it appeared, to receive him as their commander. Cæsar's force was yet quite small, as he had been accompanied by only a single legion in crossing the river. He had, however, sent orders for the other legions, which had been left in Gaul, to join him without any delay, though any reinforcement of his troops seemed hardly necessary, as he found no indications of opposition to his progress. He gave his soldiers the strictest injunctions to do no injury to any property, public or private, as they advanced, and not to assume, in any respect, a hostile attitude toward the people of the country. The inhabitants, therefore, welcomed him wherever he came, and all the cities and towns followed the example of Ariminum, surrendering, in fact, faster than he could take possession of them.
In the confusion of the debates and votes in the Senate at Rome before Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, one decree had been passed deposing him from his command of the army and appointing a successor. The name of the general thus appointed was Domitius. The only real opposition which Cæsar encountered in his progress toward Rome was from him. Domitius had crossed the Apennines at the head of an army on his way northward to supersede Cæsar in his command, and had reached the town of Corfinium, which was perhaps one third of the way between Rome and the Rubicon. Cæsar advanced upon him here and shut him in.
After a brief siege the city was taken, and Domitius and his army were made prisoners. Everybody gave them up for lost, expecting that Cæsar would wreak terrible vengeance upon them. Instead of this, he received the troops at once into his own service and let Domitius go free.
In the meantime, the tidings of Cæsar's having passed the Rubicon, and of the triumphant success which he was meeting with at the commencement of his march toward Rome, reached the capital, and added greatly to the prevailing consternation. The reports of the magnitude of his force and of the rapidity of his progress were greatly exaggerated. The party of Pompey and the Senate had done everything to spread among the people the terror of Cæsar's name in order to arouse them to efforts for opposing his designs; and now, when he had broken through the barriers which had been intended to restrain him and was advancing toward the city in an unchecked and triumphant career, they were overwhelmed with dismay. Pompey began to be terrified at the danger which was impending. The Senate held meetings without the city—councils of war, as it were, in which they looked to Pompey in vain for protection from the danger which he had brought upon them. He had said that he could raise an army sufficient to cope with Cæsar at any time by stamping with his foot. They told him they thought now that it was high time for him to stamp.
In fact, Pompey found the current setting everywhere strongly against him. Some recommended that commissioners should be sent to Cæsar to make proposals for peace. The leading men, however, knowing that any peace made with him under such circumstances would be their own ruin, resisted and defeated the proposal. Cato abruptly left the city and proceeded to Sicily, which had been assigned him as his province. Others fled in other directions. Pompey himself, uncertain what to do, and not daring to remain, called upon all his partisans to join him, and set off at night, suddenly, and with very little preparation and small supplies, to retreat across the country toward the shores of the Adriatic Sea. His destination was Brundusium, the usual port of embarkation for Macedon and Greece.
Cæsar was all this time gradually advancing toward Rome. His soldiers were full of enthusiasm in his cause. As his connection with the government at home was sundered the moment he crossed the Rubicon, all supplies of money and of provisions were cut off in that quarter until he should arrive at the capital and take possession of it. The soldiers voted, however, that they would serve him without pay. The officers, too, assembled together and tendered him the aid of their contributions. He had always observed a very generous policy in his dealings with them, and he was now greatly gratified at receiving their requital of it.
The further he advanced, too, the more he found the people of the country through which he passed disposed to espouse his cause. They were struck with his generosity in releasing Domitius. It is true that it was a very sagacious policy that prompted him to release him. But, then, it was generosity too. In fact, there must be something of a generous spirit in the soul to enable a man even to see the policy of generous actions.
Among the letters of Cæsar that remain to the present day, there is one written about this time to one of his friends, in which he speaks of this subject. "I am glad," says he, "that you approve of my conduct at Corfinium. I am satisfied that such a course is the best one for us to pursue, as by so doing we shall gain the good will of all parties, and thus secure a permanent victory. Most conquerors have incurred the hatred of mankind by their cruelties, and have all, in consequence of the enmity they have thus awakened, been prevented from long enjoying their power. Sylla was an exception; but his example of successful cruelty I have no disposition to imitate. I will conquer after a new fashion, and fortify myself in the possession of the power I acquire by generosity and mercy."
Domitius had the ingratitude, after this release, to take up arms again, and wage a new war against Cæsar. When Cæsar heard of it he said it was all right. "I will act out the principles of my nature," said he, "and he may act out his."
Another instance of Cæsar's generosity occurred which is even more remarkable than this. It seems that among the officers of his army there were some whom he had appointed at the recommendation of Pompey, at the time when he and Pompey were friends. These men would, of course, feel under obligations of gratitude to Pompey as they owed their military rank to his friendly interposition in their behalf. As soon as the war broke out Cæsar gave them all his free permission to go over to Pompey's side if they chose to do so.
Caesar acted thus very liberally in all respects. He surpassed Pompey very much in the spirit of generosity and mercy with which he entered upon the great contest before them. Pompey ordered every citizen to join his standard, declaring that he should consider all neutrals as his enemies. Cæsar, on the other hand, gave free permission to every one to decline, if he chose, taking any part in the contest, saying that he should consider all who did not act against him as his friends. In the political contests of our day it is to be observed that the combatants are much more prone to imitate the bigotry of Pompey than the generosity of Cæsar, condemning, as they often do, those who choose to stand aloof from electioneering struggles, more than they do their most determined opponents and enemies.
When, at length, Cæsar arrived at Brundusium, he found that Pompey had sent a part of his army across the Adriatic into Greece and was waiting for the transports to return that he might go over himself with the remainder. In the meantime, he had fortified himself strongly in the city. Cæsar immediately laid siege to the place, and he commenced some works to block up the mouth of the harbor. He built piers on each side, extending out as far into the sea as the depth of the water would allow them to be built. He then constructed a series of rafts, which he anchored on the deep water, in a line extending from one pier to the other. He built towers upon these rafts, and garrisoned them with soldiers, in hopes by this means to prevent all egress from the fort. He thought that, when this work was completed, Pompey would be entirely shut in, beyond all possibility of escape.
The transports, however, returned before the work was completed. Its progress was, of course, slow, as the constructions were the scene of a continued conflict; for Pompey sent out rafts and galleys against them every day, and the workmen had thus to build in the midst of continual interruptions, sometimes from showers of darts, arrows, and javelins, sometimes from the conflagrations of fireships, and sometimes from the terrible concussions of great vessels of war, impelled with prodigious force against them. The transports returned, therefore, before the defences were complete, and contrived to get into the harbor. Pompey immediately formed his plan for embarking the remainder of his army.
He filled the streets of the city with barricades and pitfalls excepting two streets which led to the place of embarkation. The object of these obstructions was to embarrass Cæsar's progress through the city in case he should force an entrance while his men were getting on board the ships. He then, in order to divert Cæsar's attention from his design, doubled the guards stationed upon the walls on the evening of his intended embarkation, and ordered them to make vigorous attacks upon all Cæsar's forces outside. Then, when the darkness came on, he marched his troops through the two streets which had been left open to the landing-place, and got them as fast as possible on board the transports. Some of the people of the town contrived to make known to Cæsar's army what was going on, by means of signals from the walls; the army immediately brought scaling ladders in great numbers, and, mounting the walls with great ardor and impetuosity, they drove all before them, and soon broke open the gates and got possession of the city. But the barricades and pitfalls, together with the darkness, so embarrassed their movements that Pompey succeeded in completing his embarkation and sailing away.
Cæsar had no ships in which to follow. He returned to Rome. He met, of course, with no opposition. He re-established the government there, organized the Senate anew, and obtained supplies of corn from the public granaries and of money from the city treasury in the capital. In going to the Capitoline Hill after this treasure, he found the officer who had charge of the money stationed there to defend it. He told Cæsar that it was contrary to law for him to enter. Cæsar said that, for men with swords in their hands, there was no law. The officer still refused to admit him. Cæsar then told him to open the doors or he would kill him on the spot. "And you must understand," he added, "that it will be easier for me to do it than it has been to say it." The officer resisted no longer, and Cæsar went in.
After this, Cæsar spent some time in vigorous campaigns in Italy, Spain, Sicily, and Gaul, wherever there was manifested any opposition to his sway. When this work was accomplished, and all these countries were completely subjected to his dominion, he began to turn his thoughts to the plan of pursuing Pompey across the Adriatic Sea.
By Charlotte M. Yonge
Four hundred years of the Roman dominion had entirely tamed the once wild and independent Gauls. Everywhere, except in the moorlands of Brittany, they had become as much like Romans themselves as they could accomplish; they had Latin names, spoke the Latin tongue, all their personages of higher rank were enrolled as Roman citizens, their chief cities were colonies where the laws were administered by magistrates in the Roman fashion, and the houses, dress, and amusements were the same as those of Italy. The greater part of the towns had been converted to Christianity, though some paganism still lurked in the more remote villages and mountainous districts.
It was upon these civilized Gauls that the terrible attacks came from the wild nations who poured out of the center and east of Europe. The Franks came over the Rhine and its dependent rivers, and made furious attacks upon the peaceful plains, where the Gauls had long lived in security, and reports were everywhere heard of villages harried by wild horsemen, with short double-headed battle-axes, and a horrible short pike covered with iron and with several large hooks, like a gigantic artificial minnow, and like it fastened to a long rope, so that the prey which it had grappled might be pulled up to the owner. Walled cities usually stopped them, but every farm or villa outside was stripped of its valuables, set on fire, the cattle driven off, and the more healthy inhabitants seized for slaves.
It was during this state of things that a girl was born to a wealthy peasant at the village now called Nanterre, about two miles from Lutetia, which was already a prosperous city, though not as yet so entirely the capital as it was destined to become under the name of Paris. She was christened by an old Gallic name, probably Gwenfrewi, or White Stream, in Latin Genovefa, but she is best known by the late French form of Genevieve. When she was about seven years old, two celebrated bishops passed through the village, Germanus, of Auxerre, and Lupus, of Troyes, who had been invited to Britain to dispute the false doctrines of Pelagius. All the inhabitants flocked into the church to see them, pray with them, and receive their blessing; and here the sweet childish devotion of Geneviéve so struck Germanus, that he called her to him, talked to her, made her sit beside him at the feast, gave her his special blessing, and presented her with a copper medal with a cross engraven upon it. From that time the little maiden always deemed herself especially consecrated to the service of Heaven, but she still remained at home, daily keeping her father's sheep, and spinning their wool as she sat under the trees watching them, but always with her heart full of prayer.
After this St. Germanus proceeded to Britain, and there encouraged his converts to meet the heathen Picts at Maes Garmon, in Flintshire, where the exulting shout of the white-robed catechumens turned to flight the wild superstitious savages of the north,—and the Hallelujah victory was gained without a drop of bloodshed. He never lost sight of Geneviève, the little maid whom he had so early distinguished for her piety.
After she lost her parents she went to live with her godmother, and continued the same simple habits, leading a life of sincere devotion and strict self-denial, constant prayer and much charity to her poorer neighbors.
In the year 451 the whole of Gaul was in the most dreadful state of terror at the advance of Attila, the savage chief of the Huns, who came from the banks of the Danube with a host of savages of hideous features, scarred and disfigured to render them more frightful. The old enemies, the Goths and the Franks, seemed like friends compared with these formidable beings, whose cruelties were said to be intolerable, and of whom every exaggerated story was told that could add to the horrors of the miserable people who lay in their path. Tidings came that this "Scourge of God," as Attila called himself, had passed the Rhine, destroyed Tongres and Metz, and was in full march for Paris. The whole country was in the utmost terror. Every one seized their most valuable possessions, and would have fled; but Geneviève placed herself on the only bridge across the Seine, and argued with them, assuring them, in a strain that was afterwards thought of as prophetic, that, if they would pray, repent, and defend instead of abandoning their homes, God would protect them. They were at first almost ready to stone her for thus withstanding their panic, but just then a priest arrived from Auxerre, with a present for Geneviève from St. Germanus, and they were thus reminded of the high estimation in which he held her; they became ashamed of their violence, and she led them back to pray and to arm themselves. In a few days they heard that Attila had paused to besiege Orleans, and that Aëtius, the Roman general, hurrying from Italy, had united his troops with those of the Goths and Franks, and given Attila so terrible a defeat at Châlons that the Huns were fairly driven out of Gaul. And here it must be mentioned that when in the next year, 452, Attila with his murderous host, came down into Italy, and after horrible devastation of all the northern provinces, came to the gates of Rome, no one dared to meet him but one venerable bishop, Leo, the Pope, who, when his flock were in transports of despair, went forth only accompanied by one magistrate to meet the invader, and endeavored to turn his wrath aside. The savage Huns were struck with awe by the fearless majesty of the unarmed old man. They conducted him safely to Attila, who listened to him with respect, and promised not to lead his people into Rome, provided a tribute should be paid to him. He then retreated, and, to the joy of all Europe, died on his way back to his native dominions.
But with the Huns the danger and suffering of Europe did not end. The happy state described in the Prophets as "dwelling safely, with none to make them afraid," was utterly unknown in Europe throughout the long break-up of the Roman Empire; and in a few more years the Franks were overrunning the banks of the Seine, and actually venturing to lay siege to the Roman walls of Paris itself. The fortifications were strong enough, but hunger began to do the work of the besiegers, and the garrison, unwarlike and untrained, began to despair. But Geneviève's courage and trust never failed; and finding no warriors willing to run the risk of going beyond the walls to obtain food for the women and children who were perishing around them, this brave shepherdess embarked alone in a little boat, and guiding it down the stream, landed beyond the Frankish camp, and repairing to the different Gallic cities, she implored them to send succor to their famished brethren. She obtained complete success. Probably the Franks had no means of obstructing the passage of the river, so that a convoy of boats could easily penetrate into the town: at any rate they looked upon Geneviève as something sacred and inspired whom they durst not touch; probably as one of the battle-maids in whom their own myths taught them to believe. One account indeed says that, instead of going alone to obtain help, Geneviève placed herself at the head of a forage party, and that the mere sight of her inspired bearing caused them to be allowed to enter and return in safety; but the boat version seems the more probable, since a single boat on the broad river would more easily elude the enemy than a troop of Gauls pass through their army.
But a city where all the valor resided in one woman could not long hold out, and in another inroad, when Genevieve was absent, Paris was actually seized by the Franks. Their leader, Hilperik, was absolutely afraid of what the mysteriously brave maiden might do to him, and commanded the gates of the city to be carefully guarded lest she should enter; but Geneviève learnt that some of the chief citizens were imprisoned, and that Hilperik intended their death, and nothing could withhold her from making an effort in their behalf. The Franks had made up their minds to settle and not to destroy. They were not burning and slaying indiscriminately, but while despising the Romans, as they called the Gauls, for their cowardice, they were in awe of their superior civilization and knowledge of arts. The country people had free access to the city, and Geneviève in her homely gown and veil passed by Hilperik's guards without being suspected of being more than any ordinary Gaulish village-maid; and thus she fearlessly made her way, even to the old Roman halls, where the long-haired Hilperik was holding his wild carousal. Would that we knew more of that interview—one of the most striking that ever took place!
We can only picture to ourselves the Roman tesselated pavement bestrewn with wine, bones, and fragments of the barbarous revelry. There were, untamed Franks, their sun-burnt hair tied up in a knot at the top of their heads, and falling down like a horse's tail, their faces close-shaven, except two huge mustaches, and dressed in tight leather garments, with swords at their wide belts. Some slept, some feasted, some greased their long locks, some shouted out their favorite war-songs around the table, which was covered with the spoils of churches, and at their head sat the wild, long-haired chieftain, who was a few years later driven away by his own followers for his excesses,—the whole scene was all that was abhorrent to a pure, devout, and faithful nature, most full of terror to a woman. Yet there, in her strength, stood the peasant maiden, her heart full of trust and pity, her looks full of the power that is given by fearlessness of them that can kill the body. What she said we do not know—we only know that the barbarous Hilperik was overawed; he trembled before the expostulations of the brave woman, and granted all she asked—the safety of his prisoners, and mercy to the terrified inhabitants. No wonder that the people of Paris have ever since looked back to Genevieve as their protectress, and that in after-ages she has grown to be the patron saint of the city.
She lived to see the son of Hilperik, Chlodwig, or, as he was more commonly called, Clovis, marry a Christian wife, Clotilda, and after a time become a Christian. She saw the foundation of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and of the two famous churches of St. Denys and of St. Martin of Tours, and gave her full share to the first efforts for bringing the rude and bloodthirsty conquerors to some knowledge of Christian faith, mercy, and purity. After a life of constant prayer and charity she died, three months after King Clovis, in the year 512, the 89th of her age.
[Illustration: HE SHOOK HIS CLENCHED FIST AT THE OBSTRUCTED SEA-STRAIT From the drawing by Gertrude Demain Hammond]
By E. S. Brooks
Old Rane, the helmsman, whose fierce mustaches and shaggy shoulder-mantle made him look like some grim old Northern wolf, held high in air the great bison-horn filled with foaming mead.
"Skoal to the Viking! Hael was-hael!"[Footnote: "Hail and health to the Viking!"] rose his exultant shout. From a hundred sturdy throats the cry re-echoed till the vaulted hall of the Swedemen's conquered castle rang again.
"Skoal to the Viking! Hael; was-hael!" and in the centre of that throng of mail-clad men and tossing spears, standing firm and fearless upon the interlocked and uplifted shields of three stalwart fighting-men, a stout-limbed lad of scarce thirteen, with flowing light-brown hair and flushed and eager face, brandished his sword vigorously in acknowledgment of the jubilant shout that rang once again through the dark and smoke-stained hall: "Was-hael to the sea-wolf's son! Skoal to Olaf the King!"
Then above the din and clash of shouting and of steel rose the voice of Sigvat the saga-man, or song-man of the young viking, singing loud and sturdily:
"Olaf the King is on his cruise,
His blue steel staining,
Rich booty gaining,
And all men trembling at the news,
Up, war-wolf's brood! our young fir's name
O'ertops the forest trees in fame,
Our stout young Olaf knows no fear.
Though fell the fray,
He's blithe and gay,
And warriors fall beneath his spear.
Who can't defend the wealth they have
Must die or share with the rover brave!"
A fierce and warlike song, boys and girls, to raise in honor of so young a lad. But those were fierce and warlike days when men were stirred by the recital of bold and daring deeds—those old, old days, eight hundred years ago, when Olaf, the boy viking, the pirate chief of a hundred mail-clad men, stood upon the uplifted shields of his exultant fighting-men in the grim and smoke-stained hall of the gray castle of captured Sigtun, oldest of Swedish cities.
Take your atlas and, turning to the map of Sweden, place your finger on the city of Stockholm. Do you notice that it lies at the easterly end of a large lake? That is the Maelar, beautiful with winding channels, pine-covered islands, and rocky shores. It is peaceful and quiet now, and palace and villa and quaint Northern farmhouse stand unmolested on its picturesque borders. But channels, and islands, and rocky shores have echoed and re-echoed with the war-shouts of many a fierce sea-rover since those far-off days when Olaf, the boy viking, and his Norwegian ships of war ploughed through the narrow sea-strait and ravaged the fair shores of the Maelar with fire and sword.
Stockholm, the "Venice of the North," as it is called, was not then in existence; and little now remains of old Sigtun save ruined walls. But travellers may still see the three tall towers of the ancient town, and the great stone-heap, alongside which young Olaf drew his ships of war, and over which his pirate crew swarmed into Sigtun town, and planted the victorious banner of the golden serpent upon the conquered walls.
For this fair young Olaf came of hardy Norse stock. His father, Harald Graenske, or "Gray-mantle," one of the tributary kings of Norway, had fallen a victim to the tortures of the haughty Swedish queen; and now his son, a boy of scarce thirteen, but a warrior already by training and from desire, came to avenge his father's death. His mother, the Queen Aasta, equipped a large dragon-ship or war-vessel for her adventurous son, and with the lad, as helmsman and guardian, was sent old Rane, whom men called "the far-travelled," because he had sailed westward as far as England and southward to Nörvasund (by which name men then knew the Straits of Gibraltar). Boys toughened quickly in those stirring days, and this lad, who, because he was commander of a dragon-ship, was called Olaf the King—though he had no land to rule—was of viking blood, and quickly learned the trade of war. Already, among the rocks and sands of Sodermann, upon the Swedish coast, he had won his first battle over a superior force of Danish war-vessels.
Other ships of war joined him; the name of Olaf the Brave was given him by right of daring deeds, and "Skoal to the Viking!" rang from the sturdy throats of his followers as the little sea-king of thirteen was lifted in triumph upon the battle-dented shields.
But a swift runner bursts into the gray hall of Sigtun. "To your ships, O king; to your ships!" he cries. "Olaf, the Swedish king, men say, is planting a forest of spears along the sea-strait, and, except ye push out now, ye may not get out at all!"
The nimble young chief sprang from the upraised shields.
"To your ships, vikings, all!" he shouted. "Show your teeth, war-wolves!
Up with the serpent banner, and death to Olaf the Swede!"
Straight across the lake to the sea-strait, near where Stockholm now stands, the vikings sailed, young Olaf's dragon-ship taking the lead. But all too late; for, across the narrow strait, the Swedish king had stretched great chains, and had filled up the channel with stocks and stones. Olaf and his Norsemen were fairly trapped; the Swedish spears waved in wild and joyful triumph, and King Olaf, the Swede, said with grim satisfaction to his lords: "See, jarls and lendermen, the Fat Boy is caged at last!" For he never spoke of his stout young Norwegian namesake and rival save as "Olaf Tjocke"—Olaf the Thick, or Fat.
The boy viking stood by his dragon-headed prow, and shook his clenched fist at the obstructed sea-strait and the Swedish spears.
"Shall we, then, land, Rane, and fight our way through?" he asked.
"Fight our way through?" said old Rane, who had been in many another tight place in his years of sea-roving, but none so close as this. "Why, king, they be a hundred to one!"
"And if they be, what then?" said impetuous Olaf "Better fall as a viking breaking Swedish spears than die a straw-death [Footnote: So contemptuously did those fierce old sea-kings regard a peaceful life that they said of one who died quietly on his bed at home: "His was but a straw-death."] as Olaf of Sweden's bonder-man. May we not cut through these chains?"
"As soon think of cutting the solid earth, king," said the helmsman.
"So; and why not, then?" young Olaf exclaimed, struck with a brilliant idea. "Ho, Sigvat," he said, turning to his saga-man, "what was that lowland under the cliff where thou didst say the pagan Upsal king was hanged in his own golden chains by his Finnish queen?"
"'Tis called the fen of Agnefit, O king," replied the saga-man, pointing toward where it lay.
"Why, then, my Rane," asked the boy, "may we not cut our way out through that lowland fen, to the open sea and liberty?"
"'Tis Odin's own device," cried the delighted helmsman, catching at his young chief's great plan. "Ho, war-wolves all, bite ye your way through the Swedish fens! Up with the serpent banner, and farewell to Olaf the Swede!"
It seemed a narrow chance, but it was the only one. Fortune favored the boy viking. Heavy rains had flooded the lands that slope down to the Maelar Lake; in the dead of night the Swedish captives and stout Norse oarsmen were set to work, and before daybreak an open cut had been made in the lowlands beneath Agnefit, or the "Rock of King Agne," where, by the town of Sodertelje, the vikings' canal is still shown to travellers; the waters of the lake came rushing through the cut, and an open sea-strait awaited young Olaf's fleet.
"Unship the rudder; hoist the sail aloft!" commanded Bane the helmsman. "Sound war-horns all! Skoal to the Viking; skoal to the wise young Olaf!"
A strong breeze blew astern; the Norse rowers steered the rudderless ships with their long oars, and with a mighty rush, through the new canal and over all the shallows, out into the great Norrstrom, or North Stream, as the Baltic Sea was called, the fleet passed in safety while the loud war-horns blew the notes of triumph.
So the boy viking escaped from the trap of his Swedish foes, and, standing by the "grim, gaping dragon's head" that crested the prow of his warship, he bade the helmsman steer for Gotland Isle, while Sigvat, the saga-man, sang with the ring of triumph:
"Down the fiord sweep wind and rain;
Our sails and tackle sway and strain;
Wet to the skin
We're sound within.
Our sea-steed through the foam goes prancing,
While shields and spears and helms are glancing.
From fiord to sea,
Our ships ride free,
And down the wind with swelling sail
We scud before the gathering gale."
What a breezy, rollicking old saga it is! Can't you almost catch the spray and sea-swell in its dashing measures, boys?
Now, turn to your atlases again and look for the large island of Gotland off the southeastern coast of Sweden, in the midst of the Baltic Sea. In the time of Olaf it was a thickly peopled and wealthy district, and the principal town, Wisby, at the northern end, was one of the busiest places in all Europe. To this attractive island the boy viking sailed with all his ships, looking for rich booty, but the Gotlanders met him with fair words and offered him so great a "scatt," or tribute, that he agreed not to molest them, and rested at the island, an unwelcome guest, through all the long winter. Early in the spring he sailed eastward to the Gulf of Riga and spread fear and terror along the coast of Finland. And the old saga tells how the Finlanders "conjured up in the night, by their witchcraft, a dreadful storm and bad weather; but the king ordered all the anchors to be weighed and sail hoisted, and beat off all night to the outside of the land. So the king's luck prevailed more than the Finlander's witchcraft."
Then away "through the wild sea" to Denmark sailed the young pirate king, and here he met a brother viking, one Thorkell the Tall. The two chiefs struck up a sort of partnership; and coasting southward along the western shores of Denmark, they won a sea-fight in the Ringkiobing Fiord, among the "sand hills of Jutland." And so business continued brisk with this curiously matched pirate firm—a giant and a boy—until, under the cliffs of Kinlimma, in Friesland, hasty word came to the boy viking that the English king, Ethelred the Unready, was calling for the help of all sturdy fighters to win back his heritage and crown from young King Cnut, or Canute the Dane, whose father had seized the throne of England. Quick to respond to an appeal that promised plenty of hard knocks, and the possibility of unlimited booty, Olaf, the ever ready, hoisted his blue and crimson sails and steered his war-ships over the sea to help King Ethelred, the never ready. Up the Thames and straight for London town he rowed.
"Hail to the serpent banner! Hail to Olaf the Brave!" said King Ethelred, as the war-horns sounded a welcome; and on the low shores of the Isle of Dogs, just below the old city, the keels of the Norse war-ships grounded swiftly, and the boy viking and his followers leaped ashore. "Thou dost come in right good time with thy trusty dragon-ships, young king," said King Ethelred; "for the Danish robbers are full well entrenched in London town and in my father Edgar's castle."
And then he told Olaf how, "in the great trading place which is called Southwark," the Danes had raised "a great work and dug large ditches, and within had builded a bulwark of stone, timber, and turf, where they had stationed a large army.
"And we would fain have taken this bulwark," added the king, "and did in sooth bear down upon it with a great assault; but indeed we could make naught of it."
"And why so?" asked the young viking.
"Because," said King Ethelred, "upon the bridge betwixt the castle and Southwark have the ravaging Danes raised towers and parapets, breast high, and thence they did cast down stones and weapons upon us so that we could not prevail. And now, sea-king, what dost thou counsel? How may we avenge ourselves of our enemies and win the town?"
Impetuous as ever, and impatient of obstacles, the young viking said: "How? why, pull thou down this bridge, king, and then may ye have free river-way to thy castle."
"Break down great London Bridge, young hero?" cried the amazed king. "How may that be? Have we a Duke Samson among us to do so great a feat?"
"Lay me thy ships alongside mine, king, close to this barricaded bridge," said the valorous boy, "and I will vow to break it down, or ye may call me caitiff and coward."
"Be it so," said Ethelred, the English king; and all the war-chiefs echoed: "Be it so!" So Olaf and his trusty Rane made ready the war-forces for the destruction of the bridge.
Old London Bridge was not what we should now call an imposing structure, but our ancestors of nine centuries back esteemed it quite a bridge. The chronicler says that it was "so broad that two wagons could pass each other upon it," and "under the bridge were piles driven into the bottom of the river."
So young Olaf and old Rane put their heads together, and decided to wreck the bridge by a bold viking stroke. And this is how it is told in the "Heimskringla," or Saga of King Olaf the Saint:
"King Olaf ordered great platforms of floating wood to be tied together with hazel bands, and for this he took down old houses; and with these, as a roof, he covered over his ships so widely that it reached over the ships' sides. Under this screen he set pillars, so high and stout that there both was room for swinging their swords, and the roofs were strong enough to withstand the stones cast down upon them."
"Now, out oars and pull for the bridge," young Olaf commanded; and the roofed-over war-ships were rowed close up to London Bridge.
And as they came near the bridge, the chronicle says: "There were cast upon them, by the Danes upon the bridge, so many stones and missile weapons, such as arrows and spears, that neither helmet nor shield could hold out against it; and the ships themselves were so greatly damaged that many retreated out of it."
But the boy viking and his Norsemen were there for a purpose, and were not to be driven back by stones or spears or arrows. Straight ahead they rowed, "quite up under the bridge."
"Out cables, all, and lay them around the piles," the young sea-king shouted; and the half-naked rowers, unshipping their oars, reached out under the roofs and passed the stout cables twice around the wooden supports of the bridge. The loose end was made fast at the stern of each vessel, and then, turning and heading down stream, King Olaf's twenty stout war-ships waited his word:
"Out oars!" he cried; "pull, war-birds! Pull all, as if ye were for Norway!"
Forward and backward swayed the stout Norse rowers; tighter and tighter pulled the cables; fast down upon the straining war-ships rained the Danish spears and stones; but the wooden piles under the great bridge were loosened by the steady tug of the cables, and soon with a sudden spurt the Norse war-ships darted down the river, while the slackened cables towed astern the captured piles of London Bridge. A great shout went up from the besiegers, and "now," says the chronicle, "as the armed troops stood thick upon the bridge, and there were likewise many heaps of stones and other weapons upon it, the bridge gave way; and a great part of the men upon it fell into the river, and all the others fled—some into the castle, some into Southwark." And before King Ethelred, "the Unready, "could pull his ships to the attack, young Olaf's fighting-men had sprung ashore, and, storming the Southwark earthworks, carried all before them, and the battle of London Bridge was won.
And the young Olaf's saga-man sang triumphantly:
"London Bridge is broken down—
Gold is won and bright renown.
Shields resounding,
War-horns sounding,
Hildar shouting in the din!
Arrows singing,
Mail-coats ringing,
Odin makes our Olaf win!"
And perhaps, who knows, this wrecking of London Bridge so many hundred years ago by Olaf, the boy viking of fifteen, may have been the origin of the old song-game dear to so many generations of children:
"London Bridge is fallen down, fallen down, fallen down—
London Bridge is fallen down, my fair lady!"
So King Ethelred won back his kingdom, and the boy viking was honored above all others. To him was given the chief command in perilous expeditions against the Danes, and the whole defence of all the coast of England. North and south along the coast he sailed with all his warships, and the Danes and Englishmen long remembered the dashing but dubious ways of this young sea-rover, who swept the English coast and claimed his dues from friend and foe alike. For those were days of insecurity for merchant and trader and farmer, and no man's wealth or life was safe except as he paid ready tribute to the fierce Norse allies of King Ethelred. But soon after this, King Ethelred died, and young Olaf, thirsting for new adventures, sailed away to the south and fought his way all along the French coast as far as the mouth of the River Garonne. Many castles he captured; many rival vikings subdued; much spoil he gathered; until at last his dragon-ships lay moored under the walls of old Bordeaux, waiting for fair winds to take him around to the Straits of Gibraltar, and so on "to the land of Jerusalem."
One day, in the booty-filled "fore-hold" of his dragon-ship, the young sea-king lay asleep; and suddenly, says the old record, "he dreamed a wondrous dream."
"Olaf, great stem of kings, attend!" he heard a deep voice call; and, looking up, the dreamer seemed to see before him "a great and important man, but of a terrible appearance withal."
"If that thou art Olaf the Brave, as men do call thee," said the vision, "turn thyself to nobler deeds than vikings' ravaging and this wandering cruise. Turn back, turn back from thy purposeless journey to the land of Jerusalem, where neither honor nor fame awaits thee. Son of King Harald, return thee to thy heritage; for thou shalt be king over all Norway."
Then the vision vanished and the young rover awoke to find himself alone, save for the sleeping foot-boy across the cabin door-way. So he quickly summoned old Rane, the helmsman, and told his dream.
"'Twas for thy awakening, king," said his stout old follower. "'Twas the great Olaf, thine uncle, Olaf Tryggvesson the king, that didst call thee. Win Norway, king, for the portent is that thou and thine shall rule thy fatherland."
And the war-ships' prows were all turned northward again, as the boy viking, following the promise of his dream, steered homeward for Norway and a throne.
Now in Norway Earl Eric was dead. For thirteen years he had usurped the throne that should have been filled by one of the great King Olaf's line; and, at his death, his handsome young son, Earl Hakon the Fair, ruled in his father's stead. And when young King Olaf heard this news, he shouted for joy and cried to Rane:
"Now, home in haste, for Norway shall be either Hakon's heritage or mine!"
"'Tis a fair match of youth 'gainst youth," said the trusty helmsman; "and if but fair luck go with thee, Norway shall be thine!"
So from "a place called Furovald," somewhere between the mouths of Humber and of Tees, on the English coast, King Olaf, with but two stout war-ships and two hundred and twenty "well-armed and chosen persons," shook out his purple sails to the North Sea blasts, and steered straight for Norway.
As if in league against this bold young viking the storm winds came rushing down from the mountains of Norway and the cold belt of the Arctic Circle and caught the two war-ships tossing in a raging sea.
The storm burst upon them with terrific force, and the danger of shipwreck was great. "But," says the old record, "as they had a chosen company and the king's luck with them all went on well."
"Thou able chief!"
sings the faithful saga-man,
"With thy fearless crew
Thou meetest with skill and courage true
The wild sea's wrath
On thy ocean path.
Though waves mast-high were breaking round,
Thou findest the middle of Norway's ground,
With helm in hand
On Saelo's strand."
Now Sael was Norse for "lucky" and Saelo's Island means the lucky island.
"I'll be a lucky king for landing thus upon the Lucky Isle," said rash young Olaf, with the only attempt at a joke we find recorded of him, as, with a mighty leap, he sprang ashore where the sliding keel of his war-ship ploughed the shore of Saelo's Isle.
"True, 'tis a good omen, king," said old Rane the helmsman, following close behind.
But the soil of the "Lucky Isle" was largely clay, moist and slippery, and as the eager young viking climbed the bank his right foot slipped, and he would have fallen had not he struck his left foot firmly in the clay and thus saved himself. But to slip at all was a bad sign in those old, half-pagan, and superstitious times, and he said, ruefully: "An omen; an omen, Rane! The king falls!"
"Nay,'tis the king's luck," says ready and wise old Rane. "Thou didst not fall, king. See; thou didst but set fast foot in this thy native soil of Norway."
"Thou art a rare diviner, Rane," laughed the young king, much relieved, and then he added solemnly: "It may be so if God doth will it so."
And now news comes that Earl Hakon, with a single war-ship, is steering north from Sogne Fiord; and Olaf, pressing on, lays his two ships on either side of a narrow strait, or channel, in Sandunga Sound. Here he stripped his ships of all their war-gear, and stretched a great cable deep in the water, across the narrow strait. Then he wound the cable-ends around the capstans, ordered all his fighting-men out of sight, and waited for his rival. Soon Earl Hakon's war-ship, crowded with rowers and fighting-men, entered the strait. Seeing, as he supposed, but two harmless merchant-vessels lying on either side of the channel, the young earl bade his rowers pull between the two. Suddenly there is a stir on the quiet merchant-vessels. The capstan bars are manned; the sunken cable is drawn taut. Up goes the stern of Earl Hakon's entrapped warship; down plunges her prow into the waves, and the water pours into the doomed boat. A loud shout is heard; the quiet merchant-vessels swarm with mail-clad men, and the air is filled with a shower of stones, and spears, and arrows. The surprise is complete. Tighter draws the cable; over topples Earl Hakon's vessel, and he and all his men are among the billows struggling for life. "So," says the record, "King Olaf took Earl Hakon and all his men whom they could get hold of out of the water and made them prisoners; but some were killed and some were drowned."
Into the "fore-hold" of the king's ship the captive earl was led a prisoner, and there the young rivals for Norway's crown faced each other. The two lads were of nearly the same age—between sixteen and seventeen—and young Earl Hakon was considered the handsomest youth in all Norway. His helmet was gone, his sword was lost, his ring-steel suit was sadly disarranged, and his long hair, "fine as silk," was "bound about his head with a gold ornament." Fully expecting the fate of all captives in those cruel days—instant death—the young earl nevertheless faced his boy conqueror proudly, resolved to meet his fate like a man.
"They speak truth who say of the house of Eric that ye be handsome men," said the king, studying his prisoner's face. "But now, earl, even though thou be fair to look upon, thy luck hath failed thee at last."
"Fortune changes," said the young earl. "We both be boys; and thou, king, art perchance the shrewder youth. Yet, had we looked for such a trick as thou hast played upon us, we had not thus been tripped upon thy sunken cables. Better luck next time."
"Next time!" echoed the king; "dost thou not know, earl, that as thou standest there, a prisoner, there may be no 'next time' for thee?"
The young captive understood full well the meaning of the words. "Yes, king," he said; "it must be only as thou mayst determine. Man can die but once. Speak on; I am ready!" But Olaf said: "What wilt thou give me, earl, if at this time I do let thee go, whole and unhurt?"
"'Tis not what I may give, but what thou mayst take, king," the earl made answer. "I am thy prisoner; what wilt thou take to free me?"
"Nothing," said the generous young viking, advancing nearer to his handsome rival. "As thou didst say, we both be boys, and life is all before us. Earl, I give thee thy life, do thou but take oath before me to leave this my realm of Norway, to give up thy kingdom, and never to do battle against me hereafter."
The conquered earl bent his fair young head.
"Thou art a generous chief, King Olaf," he said. "I take my life as thou dost give it, and all shall be as thou wilt."
So Earl Hakon took the oath, and King Olaf righted his rival's capsized war-ship, refitted it from his own stores of booty, and thus the two lads parted; the young earl sailing off to his uncle, King Canute, in England, and the boy viking hastening eastward to Vigen, where lived his mother, the Queen Aasta, whom he had not seen for full five years.
It is harvest-time in the year 1014. Without and within the long, low house of Sigurd Syr, at Vigen, all is excitement; for word has come that Olaf the sea-king has returned to his native land, and is even now on his way to this his mother's house. Gay stuffs decorate the dull walls of the great-room, clean straw covers the earth floor, and upon the long, four-cornered tables is spread a mighty feast of mead and ale and coarse but hearty food, such as the old Norse heroes drew their strength and muscle from. At the door-way stands the Queen Aasta with her maidens, while before the entrance, with thirty "well-clothed men," waits young Olafs stepfather, wise Sigurd Syr, gorgeous in a jewelled suit, a scarlet cloak, and a glittering golden helmet. The watchers on the housetops hear a distant shout, now another and nearer one, and soon, down the highway, they catch the gleam of steel and the waving of many banners; and now they can distinguish the stalwart forms of Olaf's chosen hundred men, their shining coats of ring-mail, their foreign helmets, and their crossleted shields flashing in the sun. In the very front rides old Rane, the helmsman, bearing the great white banner blazoned with the golden serpent, and, behind him, cased in golden armor, his long brown hair flowing over his sturdy shoulders, rides the boy viking, Olaf of Norway.
It was a brave home-coming; and as the stout young hero, leaping from his horse, knelt to receive his mother's welcoming kiss, the people shouted for joy, the banners waved, the war-horns played their loudest; and thus, after five years of wandering, the boy comes back in triumph to the home he left when but a wild and adventurous little fellow of twelve.
The hero of nine great sea-fights, and of many smaller ones, before he was seventeen, young Olaf Haraldson was a remarkable boy, even in the days when all boys aimed to be battle-tried heroes. Toughened in frame and fibre by his five years of sea-roving, he had become strong and self-reliant, a man in action though but a boy in years.
"I am come," he said to his mother and his step-father, "to take the heritage of my forefathers. But not from Danish nor from Swedish kings will I supplicate that which is mine by right. I intend rather to seek my patrimony with battle-axe and sword, and I will so lay hand to the work that one of two things shall happen: Either I shall bring all this kingdom of Norway under my rule, or I shall fall here upon my inheritance in the land of my fathers."
These were bold words for a boy of seventeen. But they were not idle boastings. Before a year had passed, young Olaf's pluck and courage had won the day, and in harvest-time, in the year 1015, being then but little more than eighteen years old, he was crowned King of Norway in the Drontheim, or "Throne-home," of Nidaros, the royal city, now called on your atlas the city of Drontheim. For fifteen years King Olaf the Second ruled his realm of Norway. The old record says that he was "a good and very gentle man"; but history shows his goodness and gentleness to have been of a rough and savage kind. The wild and stern experiences of his viking days lived again even in his attempts to reform and benefit his land. When he who had himself been a pirate tried to put down piracy, and he who had been a wild young robber sought to force all Norway to become Christian, he did these things in so fierce and cruel a way that at last his subjects rebelled, and King Canute came over with a great army to wrest the throne from him. On the bloody field of Stiklestad, July 29, 1030, the stern king fell, says Sigvat, his saga-man,
"beneath the blows By his own thoughtless people given."
So King Canute conquered Norway; but after his death, Olaf's son, Magnus the Good, regained his father's throne. The people, sorrowful at their rebellion against King Olaf, forgot his stern and cruel ways, and magnified all his good deeds so mightily that he was at last declared a saint, and the shrine of Saint Olaf is still one of the glories of the old cathedral in Drontheim. And, after King Magnus died, his descendants ruled Norway for nearly four hundred years; and thus was brought to pass the promise of the dream that, in the "fore-hold" of the great dragon-ship, under the walls of old Bordeaux, came so many years before to the daring and sturdy young Olaf of Norway, the boy viking.
By Treadwell Walden
Almost every one has heard of the famous battles of Crecy and Poitiers, which were so much alike in all that made them remarkable that they are generally coupled together,—one always reminding us of the other. Yet there is one point they had in common which has not been especially remarked, but which ought to link them memorably together in the imagination of young people.
These two great battles really took place ten years apart; for one was fought in 1346 and the other in 1356. The battle-fields also were wide apart; for Crecy was far in the north of France, near the coast of the English Channel, and Poitiers away in the south, deep in the interior, nearly three hundred miles from Crecy. But they have drawn near to each other in the mind of students of history, because in both cases the French largely outnumbered the English; in both cases the English had gone so far into the country that their retreat seemed to be cut off; in both cases there was a most surprising and unexpected result, for the French were terribly defeated; and in both cases this happened because they made the same mistake: they trusted so much to their overwhelming numbers, to their courage and their valor, that they forgot to be careful about anything else, while the English made up for their small numbers by prudence, discipline, and skill, without which courage and valor are often of no avail.
It is quite exciting to read the description of these battles, with their archery fights, the clashing together of furious knights, the first brave advance and the final running away; but, after a while, the battles at large seem to fade out in the greater interest which surrounds the figures of two youngsters,—one hardly more than fifteen, the other scarcely fourteen,—for one carried off all the honors of the victory of Crecy, and the other redeemed from total dishonor the defeat of Poitiers. Let us now take up the romantic story of the English lad in the former battle, and of the French lad in the latter.
When, in 1346, Edward III of England had determined upon an invasion of France, he brought over his army in a fleet of nearly a thousand sail. He had with him not only the larger portion of his great nobles, but also his eldest son, Edward Plantagenet, the Prince of Wales. He had good reasons for taking the boy. The prince was expected to become the next King of England. His father evidently thought him able to take a very important part in becoming also the King of France. If all the accounts of him are true, he was a remarkable youth; wonderfully strong and courageous, and wonderfully discreet for his years.
There was only one road to success or fame in those days, and that was the profession of arms. The ambition of every high-born young fellow was to become a knight. Knighthood was something that both king and nobles regarded as higher in some respects than even the royalty or nobility to which they were born. No one could be admitted into an order of the great brotherhood of knights, which extended all over Europe and formed an independent society, unless he had gone through severe discipline, and had performed some distinguished deed of valor. Then he could wear the golden spurs; for knighthood had its earliest origin in the distinction of fighting on horseback, while ordinary soldiers fought on foot. Although knighthood changed afterward, the word "chivalry" always expressed it, from cheval, a horse. And in addition to valor, which was the result of physical strength and courage, the knight was expected to be generous, courteous, faithful, devout, truthful, high-souled, high-principled. Hence the epithet, "chivalrous," which, even to-day, is so often heard applied to men of especially fine spirit. "Honor" was the great word which included all these qualities then, as it does in some measure now.
I have only time to give you the standard, and cannot pause to tell you how well or ill it was lived up to generally. But I would not have taken this story in hand if chivalry had to be left out of the account, for it was chivalry that made my two boys the heroes they were.
As soon as King Edward landed at La Hague, he gave very clear evidence of the serious work he had cut out for his son, and of his confidence that the youngster would be equal to it. He publicly pledged his boy, beforehand, to some great deed, and to a life of valor and honor. In sight of the whole army, he went through the form of making him a knight. Young Edward, clad in armor, kneeled down before him on the wet sand, when the king touched his shoulder with his sword, saying: "I dub thee knight. Be brave, bold, and loyal!" You may imagine how proudly then the young fellow seized lance and sword and shield, and sprang into his saddle at a leap, and with what high resolve he rode on beside his mailed and gallant father to deserve the name which that impressive ceremony had given him.
The army moved rapidly forward and northward toward Calais, conquering everything on its way, till when in the neighborhood of Crecy, the intelligence came that the French king, Philip, with an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men and all the chivalry of France, had come in between it and the sea. There was no retreat possible. Edward had but thirty thousand to oppose this great host. They were four to one. He was in a dangerous spot also; but after a time he succeeded in getting away to a good position, and there he awaited the onset. No one will doubt that he was anxious enough, and yet what did he do? After arranging his troops in battle order, three battalions deep, he sent young Edward to the very front of the brilliant group of his finest barons to take the brunt of the terrible charge that was now to come! It shows of what stern material the king and the men of that time were made, for all his present love, all his future hope, lay around that gallant boy. But he knew that the value of the glory which might be earned was worth all the risk. Besides, he was as much under chivalrous necessity to send him, as the lad was under to go. That pledge to knighthood, on the sea-shore, had not been either lightly taken or lightly given. If chivalry was not equal to sacrifice, it was equal to nothing. There was keen wisdom, too, in the act. The king could count all the more on the enthusiasm, self-devotion and valor of the knights and men-at-arms, in whose keeping he had placed so precious a charge. That whole first battalion would be nerved to tenfold effort because the prince was among them, for every one would be as deeply concerned as the father in the boy's success.
Edward carried his feeling of devotion to his son's best interests to such a chivalrous extent that he made it a point of duty to keep out of the battle altogether.
He was nowhere to be seen. He went into a windmill on a height nearby, and watched the fight through one of the narrow windows in its upper story. He would not even put on his helmet. That was the way the father stood by his son—by showing absolute confidence in him, and denying himself all the glory that might come from a great and important battle. And the young fellow was a thousandfold nerved and strengthened by knowing that his father fully trusted in him.
I need not give the details of the battle. It is sufficient to know that the first line of the French chivalry charged with the utmost fury. Among these was an ally of note, John, King of Bohemia, who with his barons and knights was not behindhand in the deadly onset; and yet this king was old and blind! His was chivalry in another form! He would have his stroke in the battle, and he plunged into it with his horse tied by its reins to one of his knights on either side. A plume of three ostrich feathers waved from his helmet, and the chroniclers say he laid about him well. After the battle, he and his two companions were found dead, with their horses tied together.
But although the French were brave they were not wise. For not only had they brought on the fight with headlong energy before they were prepared, but they had allowed Edward to place himself so that the afternoon sun, then near its setting, blazed full in their eyes and faces. Edward's army fought in the shadow. The terrible English bowmen sent their deadly cloth-yard arrows so thick and fast into the dazzled and crowded ranks of fifteen thousand Genoese archers and the intermingled men-at-arms, that the missiles filled the air like snow. The Genoese were thrown into confusion, and this spread throughout the whole French army. The French king, with some of his dukes, flew foaming over the field in the rear, trying in vain to get up in time to swell the onset upon the English front.
But the onset had proved bad enough as it was. The knights around the young prince were frightened for his safety. One of them, Sir Thomas of Norwich, was sent hack to Edward to ask him to come to the assistance of the prince.
"Sir Thomas," said the king, "is my son dead or unhorsed, or so wounded that he cannot help himself?"
"Not so, my lord, thank God; but he is fighting against great odds, and is like to have need of your help."
"Sir Thomas," replied the king, "return to them who sent you, and tell them from me not to send for me, whatever chance befall them, so long as my son is alive, and tell them that I bid them let the lad win his spurs; for I wish, if God so desire, that the day should be his, and the honor thereof remain to him and to those to whom I have given him in charge."
And there he stayed in the windmill till the battle was over. Soon the cry of victory reached him as the French fled in the darkness, leaving their dead strewn upon the field. Now the young prince appeared covered with all the glory that his father had coveted for him, bearing the ostrich plume which he had taken from the dead King of Bohemia. The boy rode up with his visor raised,—his face was as fair as a girl's, and glowed under a crown of golden hair. He bore his trophy aloft, and when it was placed as a knightly decoration above the crest of his helmet, he little thought that the triple tuft was to wave for more than five hundred years, even to this day, on England's front, for such it does, and that, next to the crown, there shall be no badge so proudly known as the three feathers which nod above the coronet of the Prince of Wales. Edward Albert, son of King George V, now wears it because Edward, the Prince of Wales, when still in his teens, won it at Crecy. We will leave him there, and go on ten years.
Philip, the French king, had passed away about six years before, and John, a wild character for such a trying time, had ascended the throne. He was always plunging himself into difficulties, and was often guilty of cruelty; and yet was of such a free, generous nature, and had so many of the virtues of chivalry in that day, that he was known as "John the Good." He was the extreme opposite to the grave, prudent, sagacious Edward III, who was still alive and well, and King of England.
Some time after the victory of Crecy, Calais had been taken, and then both nations were glad to arrange a truce. Nine years of this had gone by, when Edward thought it necessary to make another attempt on France. As soon as might be, therefore, young Edward, his son, now twenty-five, came over alone, landing at Bordeaux. He had, meantime, gained great fame. He was now known as "the Black Prince," because he had a fancy for having his armor painted as black as midnight, in order, they say, to give a greater brightness to his fresh blond complexion and golden hair. Marshaling his little army of 12,000 men, he set out into the interior of France. When he had reached the neighborhood of Poitiers, he was astounded by the news that King John was both after him and behind him, with a force of 60,000 men—five to one! Here was Crecy over again as to numbers, but there was one thing made it worse; for, as Edward III not long before had instituted the famous "Order of the Garter" which is even now one of the foremost orders of knighthood in Europe, so John, not to be behindhand, and in order to give a new chivalrous impulse to his nobles, had just instituted the "Order of the Star." He made five hundred knights of this new order, every one of whom had vowed that he would never retreat, and would sooner be slain than yield to an enemy.
The Black Prince thought it almost impossible to fight his way through such a desperately determined host. So he offered to restore all he had just conquered and to make another truce, if he might pass by unmolested. But John would not consent. He must have Calais back again, and the prince, with one hundred of his best knights, into the bargain. "This will never do," thought the prince. "Better try for another Crecy."
On the morning of September 19,1356, the battle began. John had with him all four of his sons, Charles, Louis, John and Philip; the eldest only nineteen, and the youngest fourteen. The three former were put under good guardianship in different portions of the field; but why the hair-brained monarch took the youngest boy with him into the very front and thickest of the fight, it is hard to guess, unless it was another imitation of Edward, and he had also good reason to think that the lad was unusually well able to take care of himself, having been trained at arms and pledged to knighthood. But young "Sir Philip," as he was called, proved quite equal to the occasion.
King John himself led the van, moving down through a defile, into which, after a time, his whole army found themselves crowded. Meantime, the Prince of Wales had planted his army just where he would tempt John into that trap and had set his archers in good position. These men were clad in green, like Robin Hood's men, and carried bows seven feet long and so thick that few men of modern days could bend them. A cloth-yard shaft from one of these would fly with tremendous force. Edward had placed these archers in ambush, behind green hedges, and crouching in the green of the vineyards.
Just as the French king, with all his new chivalry around him, dashed down the narrow valley—the white standard of France on one side of him, his keen-eyed little son on the other—and began to deploy the whole advance battalion, preliminary to a grand charge—whiz! whiz! whir! whir! from both sides came the arrows, as thick as hail and as terrible as javelins, from the hidden archers. The astonished Frenchmen fell back. That crowded still more those who were yet wedged in the narrow space behind. Now came the English onset. Then a panic. Then a rout. Then a general flight. Dukes, barons, knights of all sorts fled with the rest; also Charles, Louis, John, the three elder sons of the king. The king was in great danger of being slain; but he did not move, and Philip stood fighting by his side. The standard-bearer fell, and the white ensign lay in the dust. Many a faithful knight was cut down, or swept away a prisoner. But Philip flinched not.
The assailants—some of whom knew the king, while others were wondering who he might be—pressed them fiercely on every side, striking at them, but more anxious to take them captives than to kill them, for they were worth a heavy ransom. The Englishmen shouted all together, "Yield you! Yield you, else you die!" Little Sir Philip had no yield in him, as long as his father held out. He kept close to him, trying to ward off the blows which were aimed at him, and warning him in time, as his quick eye caught a near danger on either hand. Every instant he was heard calling out, "Father, ware right! Father, ware left!" Suddenly a mounted knight appeared, who hailed the king in French. It was a French knight, who was fighting on the English side.
"Sir, sir!" he shouted, "I pray you yield!"
"To whom shall I yield me?" said John, "Where is my cousin, the
Prince of Wales?"
"Sir, yield you to me; I will bring you to him."
"Who are you?" said the king.
"Denis de Morbecque, a knight of Artois; I serve the King of England, not being able to live in France, for I have lost all I possessed there."
"I yield me to you," said John, handing him his steel glove.
Then the whole crowd began to drag at him, each exclaiming: "I took him!" Both the king and the prince were sadly hustled, until two barons broke through the throng by dint of their horses, and led the two to the tent of the Prince of Wales, "and made him a present of the King of France!" says an old chronicler. "The prince also bowed full low before the king, and received him as a king, properly and discreetly, as he well knew how to do."
In the evening he entertained him and Philip at supper, "and would not sit at the king's table for all the king's entreaty, but waited as a serving man, bending the knee before him, and saying: 'Dear sir, be pleased not to put on so bad a countenance, because it hath not pleased God to consent this day to your wishes; for, assuredly, my lord and father will show you all the honor and friendship he shall be able, and he will come to terms with you so reasonably that you shall remain good friends forever.'"
Nor did all this end in words, but it went on for years during all the captivity of King John and Prince Philip,—first at Bordeaux and afterward at the then new Windsor Castle, in England, where galas, tournaments, hawking and hunting, and all sorts of entertainments were devised for them. When King John was brought from Bordeaux to England, where King Edward had prepared to meet him in great state, the French king was mounted on a tall, cream-colored charger, and young Philip rode by his side in great honor also, while the Prince of Wales sat on a small black horse, like an humble attendant on them both. The two royal fathers met midway in that London street, the houses which lined the way were hung with rich tapestries, the trades were out in companies of many colors, the people thronged round the steelclad cavalcades as they came together, and they filled the air with shouts—but what two figures now most fill the eye when all that pageant has passed away? Not the father who stood by his son with such chivalrous faith, nor the father whose son stood by him with such chivalrous devotion, but the fair youth who carries that tuft of feathers upon his helmet, with its motto, "I serve," and the lad whom all have heard of as "Philip the Bold"; the boy-hero of Crecy doing chivalrous honor to the boy-hero of Poitiers!