Hermit, began to preach in various places
against the Turks, and to declare that it was the
duty of good Christians to drive away those un-
believers from the tomb of Our Saviour, and to
take possession of it, and protect it. An excite-
ment such as the world had never known before
was created. Thousands and thousands of men
of all ranks and conditions departed for Jeru-
salem to make war against the Turks. The war
is called in history the first Crusade ; and every
Crusader wore a cross marked on his right
shoulder.

All the Crusaders were not zealous Christians.
Among them were vast numbers of the restless,
idle, profligate, and adventurous spirits of the
time. Some became Crusaders for the love of
change ; some, in the hope of plunder ; some,
because they had nothing to do at home ; some,
because they did what the priests told them ;
some, because they liked to see foreign countries ;
some, because they were fond of knocking men
about, and would as soon knock a Turk about
as a Christian. Robert of Normandy may have
been influenced by all these motives ; and by a
kind desire, besides, to save the Christian Pil-
grims from bad treatment in future. He wanted
to raise a number of armed men, and to go to
the Crusade. He could not do so without
money. He had no money ; and he sold his
dominions to his brother, the Red King, for
five years. With the large sum he thus obtained,
he fitted out his Crusaders gallantly, and went
away to Jerusalem in martial state. The Red
King, who made money out of everything, stayed



WILLI A At THE SECOND.



27



at home, busily squeezing more money out of
Normans and English.

After three years of great hardship and suffer-
ing — from shipwreck at sea ; from travel iri
strange lands; from hunger, thirst, and fever,
upon the burning sands of the desert • and from
the fury of the Turks — the valiant Crusaders got
possession of Our Saviour's tomb. The Turks
were still resisting and fighting bravely, but this
success increased the general desire in Europe
to join the Crusade. Another great French
Duke was proposing to sell his dominions for a
term to the rich Red King, when the Red
King's reign came to a sudden and violent end.

You have not forgotten the New Forest which
the Conqueror made, and which the miserable
people whose homes he had laid waste, so hated.
The cruelty of the Forest Laws, and the torture
and death they brought upon the peasantry,
increased this hatred. The poor persecuted
country people believed that the New Forest
was enchanted. They said that in thunder-
storms, and on dark nights, demons appeared,
moving beneath the branches of the gloomy
trees. They said that a terrible spectre had
foretold to Norman hunters that the Red King
should be punished there. And now, in the
pleasant season of May, when the Red King
had reigned almost thirteen years , and a second
Prince of the Conqueror's blood — another
Richard, the son of Duke Robert — was killed
by an arrow in this dreaded Forest â–  the people
said the second time was not the last, and that
there was another death to come.

It was a lonely forest, accursed in the people's
hearts for the wicked deeds that had been done
to make it ; and no man save the King and his
Courtiers and Huntsmen, liked to stray there.
But, in reality, it was like any other forest. In
the spring, the green leaves broke out of the
buds ; in the summer, flourished heartily, and
made deep shades ; in the winter, shrivelled and
blew down, and lay in brown heaps on the
moss. Some trees were stately, and grew high
and strong; some had fallen of themselves;
some were felled by the forester's axe ; some
wore hollow, and the rabbits burrowed at their
roots ; some few were struck by lightning, and
stood white and bare. There were hill- sides
covered with rich fern, on which the morning
dew so beautifully sparkled ; there were brooks,
where the deer went down to drink, or over
which the whole herd bounded, flying from the
arrows of the huntsmen ; there were sunny
glades, and solemn places where but little light
came through the rustling leaves. The songs of
the birds in the New Forest were pleasanter to



hear than the shouts of fighting men outside ;
and even when the Red King and his Court
came hunting through its solitudes, cursing loud
and riding hard, with a jingling of stirrups and
bridles and knives and daggers, they did much
less harm there than among the English or
Normans, and the stags died (as they lived) far
easier than the people.

Upon a day in August, the Red King, now
reconciled to his brother, Fine-Scholar, came
with a great train to hunt in the New Forest.
Fine-Scholar was of the party. They were a
merry party, and had lain all night at Malwood-
Keep, a hunting-lodge in the forest, where they
had made good cheer, both at supper and break-
fast, and had drunk a deal of wine. The party
dispersed in various directions, as the custom of
hunters then was. The King took with him
only Sir Walter Tyrrel, who was a famous
sportsman, and to whom he had given, before
they mounted horse that morning, two fine
arrows.

The last time the King was ever seen alive,
he was riding with Sir Walter Tyrrel, and their
dogs were hunting together.

It was almost night, when a poor charcoal-
burner, passing through the forest with his cart,
came upon the solitary body of a dead man,
shot with an arrow in the breast, and still bleed-
ing. He got it into his cart. It was the body
of the King. Shaken and tumbled, with its red
beard all whitened with lime and clotted with
blood, it was driven in the cart by the charcoal-
burner next day to Winchester Cathedral, where
it was received and buried.

Sir Walter Tyrrel, who escaped to Normandy,
and claimed the protection of the King of
France, swore in France that the Red King was
suddenly shot dead by an arrow from an unseen
hand, while they were hunting together ; that he
was fearful of being suspected as the King's
murderer ; and that he instantly set spurs to his
horse, and fled to the sea-shore. Others de-
clared that the King and Sir Walter Tyrrel were
hunting in company, a little before sunset,
standing in bushes opposite, one another, when
a stag came between them. That the King
drew his bow and took aim, but the string
broke. That the King then cried, " Shoot,
Walter, in the Devil's name ! " That Sir Walter
shot. That the arrow glanced against a tree,
was turned aside from the stag, and struck the
King from his horse, dead.

By whose hand the Red King really fell, and
whether that hand despatched the arrow to his
breast by accident or by design, is only known
to God. Some think his brother may have



28



A CHILD 'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.



caused him to be killed ; but the Red King had
made so many enemies, both among priests and
people, that suspicion may reasonably rest upon
a less unnatural murderer. Men know no more
than that he was found dead in the New Forest,
which the suffering people had regarded as a
doomed ground for his race.



CHAPTER X.



ENGLAND UNDER



HENRY THE FIRST, CALLED FINE-
SCHOLAR.




about
Upon



"f|lNE-SCHOLAR, on hearing of the
Red King's death, hurried to Win-
Hr^ Chester with as much speed as Rufus
himself had made, to seize the Royal
* treasure. But the keeper of the
treasure, who had been one of the
hunting-party in the Forest, made haste
to 'Winchester too, and, arriving there at
the same time, refused to yield it up.
this, Fine-Scholar drew his sword, and
threatened to kill the treasurer ; who might have
paid for his fidelity with his life, but that he
knew longer resistance to be useless when he
found the Prince supported by a company of
powerful barons, who declared they were deter-
mined to make him King. The treasurer,
therefore, gave up the money and jewels of the
Crown : and on the third day after the death of
the Red King, being a Sunday, Fine-Scholar
stood before the high altar in Westminster
Abbey, and made a solemn declaration that he
would resign the Church property which his
brother had seized ; that he would do no wrong
to the nobles ; and that he would restore to the
people the laws of Edward the Confessor, with
all the improvements of William the Conqueror.
So began the reign of King Henry the
First.

The people were attached to their new King,
both because he had known distresses, and be-
cause he was an Englishman by birth and not a
Norman. To strengthen this last hold upon
them, the King wished to marry an English
lady ; and could think of no other wife than
Maud the Good, the daughter of the King of
Scotland. Although this good Princess did not
love the King, she was so affected by the repre-
sentations the nobles made to her of the great
charity it would be in her to unite the Norman
and Saxon races, and prevent hatred and blood-
shed between them for the future, that she con-
sented to become his wife. After some disputing



among the priests, who said that as she had been
in a convent in her youth, and had worn the veil
of a nun, she could not lawfully be married —
against which the Princess stated that her aunt,
with whom she had lived in her youth, had in-
deed sometimes thrown a piece of black stuff
over her, but for no other reason than because
the nun's veil was the only dress the conquering
Normans respected in girl or woman, and not
because she had taken the vows of a nun, which
she never had — she was declared free to marry,
and was made King Henry's Queen. A good
Queen she was ; beautiful, kind-hearted, and
worthy of a better husband than the King.

For he was a cunning and unscrupulous man,
though firm and clever. He cared very little
for his word, and took any means to gain his
ends. All this is shown in his treatment of his
brother Robert — Robert, who had suffered him
to be refreshed with water, and who had sent
him the wine from his own table, when he was
shut up, with the crows flying below him, parched
with thirst, in the castle on the top of St. Michael's
Mount, where his Red brother would have let
him die.

Before the King began to deal with Robert,
he removed and disgraced all the favourites of
the late King ; who were for the most part base
characters, much detested by the people. Flam-
bard, or Firebrand, whom the late King had
made Bishop of Durham, of all things in the
world, Henry imprisoned in the Tower ; but
Firebrand was a great joker and a jolly com-
panion, and made himself so popular with his
guards that they pretended to know nothing
about a long rope that was sent into his prison
at the bottom of a deep flagon of wine. The
guards took the wine, and Firebrand took the
rope ; with which, when they were fast asleep,
he let himself down from a window in the night,
and so got cleverly aboard ship and away to
Normandy.

Now Robert, wheji his brother Fine-Scholar
came to the throne, was still absent in the Holy
Land. Henry pretended that Robert had been
made Sovereign of that country ; and he had
been away so long, that the ignorant people
believed it. But, behold, when Henry had been
some time King of England, Robert came home
to Normandy; having leisurely returned from
Jerusalem through Italy, in which beautiful
country he had enjoyed himself very much, and
had married a lady as beautiful as itself! In
Normandy, he found Firebrand waiting to urge
him to assert his claim to the English crown,
and declare war against King Henry. This.
after great loss of time in feasting and dancing



HENRY THE FIRST.



29



with his beautiful Italian wife among his Norman
friends, he at last did.

The English in general were on King Henry's
side, though many of the Normans were on
Robert's. But the English sailors deserted the
King, and took a great part of the English fleet
over to Normandy ; so that Robert came to in-
vade this country in no foreign vessels, but in
English ships. The virtuous Anselm, however,
whom Henry had invited back from abroad, and
made Archbishop of Canterbury, was steadfast
in the King's cause ; and it was so well sup-
ported that the two armies, instead of fighting,
made a peace. Poor Robert, who trusted any-
body and everybody, readily trusted his brother,
the King ; and agreed to go home and receive
a pension from England, on condition that all
his followers were fully pardoned. This the King
very faithfully promised, but Robert was no sooner
gone than he began to punish them.

Among them was the Earl of Shrewsbury, who,
on being summoned by the King to answer to
five-and -forty accusations, rode away to one of
his strong castles, shut himself up therein, called
around him his tenants and vassals, and fought
for his liberty, but was defeated and banished.
Robert, with all his faults, was so true to his
word, that when he first heard of this nobleman
having risen against his brother, he laid waste
the Earl of Shrewsbury's estates in Normandy,
to show the King that he would favour no breach
of their treaty. Finding, on better information,
afterwards, that the Earl's only crime was having
been his friend, he came over to England, in his
old thoughtless warm-hearted way, to intercede
with the King, and remind him of the solemn
promise to pardon all his followers.

This confidence might have put the false King
to the blush, but it did not. Pretending to be
very friendly, he so surrounded his brother with
spies and traps, that Robert, who was quite in
his power, had nothing for it but to renounce
his pension and escape while he could. Getting
home to Normandy, and understanding the King
better now, he naturally allied himself with his
old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had still
thirty castles in that country. This was exactly
what Henry wanted. He immediately declared
that Robert had broken the treaty, and next year
invaded Normandy.

He pretended that he came to deliver the
Normans, at their own request, from his
brother's misrule. There is reason to fear
that his misrule was bad enough ; for his
beautiful wife had died, leaving him with an
infant son, and his court was again so careless,
dissipated, and ill -regulated, that it was said he



sometimes lay in bed of a day for want of clothes
to put on — his attendants having stolen all his
dresses. But he headed his army like a brave
prince and a gallant soldier, though he had the
misfortune to be taken prisoner by King Henry,
with four hundred of his Knights. Among
them was poor harmless Edgar Atheling, who
loved Robert well. Edgar was not important
enough to be severe with. The King afterwards
gave him a small pension, which he lived upon
and died upon, in peace, among the quiet woods
and fields of England.

And Robert — poor, kind, generous, wasteful,
heedless Robert, with so many faults, and yet
with virtues that might have made a better and
a happier man — what was the end of him ? If
the King had had the magnanimity to say with
a kind air, " Brother, tell me, before these
noblemen, that from this time you will be my
faithful follower and friend, and never raise your
hand against me or my forces more ! " he might
have trusted Robert to the death. But the King
was not a magnanimous man. He sentenced
his brother to be confined for life in one of the
Royal Castles. In the beginning of his im-
prisonment, he was allowed to ride out,
guarded ; but he one day broke away from his
guard and galloped off. He had the evil for-
tune to ride into a swamp, where his horse
stuck fast and he was taken. When the King
heard of it he ordered him to be blinded, which
was done by putting a red-hot metal basin on
his eyes.

And so, in darkness and in prison, many
years, he thought of all his past life, of the time
he had wasted, of the treasure he had squandered,
of the opportunities he had lost, of the youth he
had thrown away, of the talents he had neglected.
Sometimes, on fine autumn mornings, he would
sit and think of the old hunting parties in the
free Forest, where he had been the foremost and
the gayest. Sometimes, in the still nights, he
would wake, and mourn for the many nights
that had stolen past him at the gaming-table ;
sometimes, would seem to hear, upon the melan-
choly wind, the old songs of the minstrels ;
sometimes, would dream, in his blindness, of the
light and glitter of the Norman Court. Many
and many a time, he groped back, in his fancy,
to Jerusalem, where he had fought so well ; or,
at the head of his brave companions, bowed his
feathered helmet to the shouts of welcome greet-
ing him in Italy, and seemed again to walk
among the sunny vineyards, or on the shore of
the blue sea, with his lovely wife. And then,
thinking of her grave, and of his fatherless boy,
he would stretch out his solitary arms and weep.



3°



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.



At length, one day, there lay in prison, dead,
with cruel and disfiguring scars upon his eyelids,
bandaged from his jailer's sight, but on which
the eternal Heavens looked down, a worn old
man of eighty. He had once been Robert of
Normandy. Pity him !

At the time when Robert of Normandy was
taken prisoner by his brother, Robert's little
son was only five years old. This child was
taken, too, and carried before the King, sob-
bing and crying ; for, young as he was, he knew
he had good reason to be afraid of his Royal
uncle. The King was not much accustomed to
pity those who were in his power, but his cold
heart seemed for the moment to soften towards
the boy. He was observed to make a great
effort, as if to prevent himself from being cruel,
and ordered the child to be taken away ; where-
upon a certain Baron, who had married a
daughter of Duke Robert's (by name, Helie of
Saint Saen), took charge of him, tenderly. The
King's gentleness did not last long. Before two
years were over, he sent messengers to this
lord's Castle to seize the child and bring him
away. The Baron was not there at the time,
but his servants were faithful, and carried the
boy off in his sleep and hid him. When the
Baron came home, and was told what the King
had done, he took the child abroad, and leading
him by the hand, went from King to King and
from Court to Court, relating how the child had
a claim to the throne of England, and how his
uncle the King, knowing that he had that claim,
would have murdered him, perhaps, but for his
escape.

The youth and innocence of the pretty little
"William Fitz-Robert (for that was his name)
made him many friends at that time. When he
became a young man, the King of France,
uniting with the French Counts of Anjou and
Flanders, supported his cause against the King
of England, and took many of the King's towns
and castles in Normandy. But, King Henry,
artful and cunning always, bribed some of
William's friends with money, some with
promises, some with power. He bought off the
Count of Anjou, by promising to marry his
eldest son, also named William, to the Count's
daughter ; and indeed the whole trust of this
King's life was in such bargains, and he be-
lieved (as many another King has done since,
and as one King did in France a very little
time ago) that every man's truth and honour
can be bought at some price. For all this, he
was so afraid of William Fitz-Robert and his
friends, that, for a long time, he believed his life
to be in danger ; and never lay down to sleep,



even in his palace surrounded by his guards,
without having a sword and buckler at his bed-
side.

To strengthen his power, the King with great
ceremony betrothed his eldest daughter Ma-
tilda, then a child only eight years old, to be
the wife of Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of
Germany. To raise her marriage-portion, he
taxed the English people in a most oppressive
manner; then treated them to a great proces-
sion, to restore their good humour; and sent
Matilda away, in fine state, with the German
ambassadors, to be educated in the country of
her future husband.

And now his Queen, Maud the Good, un-
happily died. It was a sad thought for that
gentle lady, that the only hope with which she
had married a man whom she had never loved
— the hope of reconciling the Norman and
English races — had failed. At the very time
of her death, Normandy and all Fiance was in
arms against England ; for, so soon as his last
danger was over, King Flenry had been false to
all the French powers he had promised, bribed,
and bought, and they had naturally united
against him. After some fighting, however, in
which few suffered but the unhappy common
people (who always suffered, whatsoever was
the matter), he began to promise, bribe, and
buy again ; and by those means, and by the
help of the Pope, who exerted himself to save
more bloodshed, and by solemnly declaring,
over and over again, that he really was in
earnest this time, and would keep his word, the
King made peace.

One of the first consequences of this peace
was, that the King went over to Normandy with
his son Prince William and a great retinue, to
have the Prince acknowledged as his successor
by the Norman Nobles, and to contract the
promised marriage (this was one of the many
promises the King had broken) between him
and the daughter of the Count of Anjou. Both
these things were triumphantly done, with great
show and rejoicing ; and on the twenty-fifth of
November, in the year one thousand one hun-
dred and twenty, the whole retinue prepared to
embark at the Port of Barfleur, for the voyage
home.

On that day, and at that place, there came to
the King, Fitz-Stephen, a sea-captain, and said :

" My liege, my father served your father all
his life, upon the sea. He steered the ship with
the golden boy upon the prow, in which your
father sailed to conquer England. I beseech
you to grant me the same office. I have a fair
vessel m the harbour here, called The White



HENRY THE FIRST.



3i



Ship, manned by fifty sailors of renown. I pray
you, Sire, to let your servant have the honour of
steering you in The White Ship to England."

" I am sorry, friend," replied the King, " that
my vessel is already chosen, and that I cannot
(therefore) sail with the son of the man who
served my father. But the Prince and aU his
company shall go along with you, in the fair
White Ship, manned by the fifty sailors of
renown."

An hour or two afterwards, the King set sail
in the vessel he had chosen, accompanied by
other vessels, and, sailing all night with a fair
and gentle wind, arrived upon the coast of
England in the morning. While it was yet
night, the people in some of those ships heard
a faint wild cry come over the sea, and won-
dered what it was.

Now, the Prince was a dissolute, debauched
young man of eighteen, who bore no love to
the English, and had declared that when he
came to the throne he would yoke them to the
plough like oxen. He went aboard The White
Ship, with one hundred and forty youthful
Nobles like himself, among whom were eighteen
noble ladies of the highest rank. All this gay
company, with their servants and the fifty sailors,
made three hundred souls aboard the fair White
Ship.

" Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen,"
said the Prince, " to the fifty sailors of renown !
My father the King has sailed out of the har-
bour. What time is there to make merry here,
and yet reach England with the rest ? "

" Prince," said Fitz-Stephen, " before morning,
my fifty and The White Ship shall overtake the
swiftest vessel in attendance on your father the
King, if we sail at midnight ! "

Then, the Prince commanded to make merry ;
and the sailors drank out the three casks of wine ;
and the Prince and all the noble company
danced in the moonlight on the deck of The
White Ship.

When, at last, she shot out of the harbour of
Barfleur, there was not a sober seaman on
board. But the sails were all set, and the oars
all going merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm.
The gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies,
wrapped in mantles of various bright colours to
protect them from the cold, talked, laughed, and
sang. The Prince encouraged the fifty sailors to
row harder yet, for the honour of The White Ship.

Crash ! A terrific cry broke from three hun-
dred hearts. It was the cry the people in the
distant vessels of the King heard faintly on the
water. The White Ship had struck upon a rock
— was filling — going down !



Fitz-Stephen hurried the Prince into a boat,
with some few Nobles. " Push off," he whis-
pered ; " and row to the land. It is not far, and
the sea is smooth. The rest of us must die."

But, as they rowed away, fast, from the sink-
ing ship, the Prince her.rd the voice of his sister
Marie, the Countess of Perche, calling for help.