Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers. Various
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"Marry will I," quoth the Abbot, warming with the Saint's eloquence: "ay, marry will I, and that instanter. But there is one thing you have forgotten most Beatified—the name of the culprit."
"Robert de Shurland."
"The Lord of Sheppey! Bless me!" said the Abbot, crossing himself, "won't that be rather inconvenient? Sir Robert is a bold baron, and a powerful: blows will come and go, and crowns will be cracked and—"
"What is that to you, since yours will not be of the number?"
"Very true, Beatissime!—I will don me with speed and do your bidding."
"Do so, Anselm!—fail not to hang the Baron, burn his castle, confiscate his estate, and buy me two large wax candles for my own particular shrine out of your share of the property."
With this solemn injunction, the vision began to fade.
"One thing more!" cried the Abbot, grasping his rosary.
"What is that?" asked the Saint.
"O Beate Augustine, ora pro nobis!"
"Of course I shall," said St. Austin. "Pax vo-biscum!"—and Abbot Anselm was left alone.
Within an hour all Canterbury was in commotion. A friar had been murdered—two friars—ten, twenty; a whole convent had been assaulted, sacked, burnt—all the monks had been killed, and all the nuns had been kissed! Murder! fire! sacrilege! Never was city in such an uproar. From St. George's gate to St. Dunstan's suburb, from the Donjon to the borough of Staplegate, it was noise and hubbub. "Where was it?"—"When was it?"—"How was it?" The Mayor caught up his chain, the Aldermen donned their furred gowns, the Town Clerk put on his spectacles. "Who was he?"—"What was he?"—"Where was he?"—He should be hanged—he should be burned—he should be broiled—he should be fried—he should be scraped to death with red-hot-oyster-shells! "Who was he?"—"What was his name?"
The Abbot's Apparitor drew forth his roll and read aloud:—'Sir Robert de Shurland, Knight banneret, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and Lord of Sheppey.
The Mayor put his chain in his pocket, the Aldermen took off their gowns, the Town Clerk put his pen behind his ear. It was a county business altogether;—the Sheriff had better call out the posse comitatus.
While saints and sinners were thus leaning against him, the Baron de Shurland was quietly eating his breakfast. He had passed a tranquil night, undisturbed by dreams of cowl or capuchin; nor was his appetite more affected than his conscience. On the contrary, he sat rather longer over his meal than usual; luncheon-time came, and he was ready as ever for his oysters: but scarcely had Dame Martin opened his first half-dozen when the warder's horn was heard from the barbican.
"Who the devil's that?" said Sir Robert. "I'm not at home, Periwinkle.
I hate to be disturbed at meals, and I won't be at home to anybody."
"An't please your lordship," answered the Seneschal, "Paul Prior hath given notice that there is a body—"
"Another body!" roared the Baron. "Am I to be everlastingly plagued with bodies? No time allowed me to swallow a morsel. Throw it into the moat!"
"So please you my lord, it is a body of horse—and—and Paul says there is a still large body of foot behind it; and he thinks, my lord—that is, he does not know, but he thinks—and we all think, my lord, that they are coming to—to besiege the castle!"
"Besiege the castle! Who? What? What for?"
"Paul says, my lord, that he can see the banner of St. Austin, and the bleeding heart of Hamo de Crevecoeur, the Abbot's chief vassal; and there is John de Northwood, the sheriff, with his red cross engrailed; and Hever, and Leybourne, and Heaven knows how many more: and they are all coming on as fast as ever they can."
"Periwinkle," said the Baron, "up with the draw-bridge; down with the portcullis; bring me a cup of canary, and my nightcap. I won't be bothered with them. I shall go to bed."
"To bed, my lord!" cried Periwinkle, with a look that seemed to say,
"He's crazy!"
At this moment the shrill tones of a trumpet were heard to sound thrice from the champaign. It was the signal for parley; the Baron changed his mind; instead of going to bed, he went to the ramparts.
"Well, rapscallions! and what now?" said the Baron.
A herald, two pursuivants, and a trumpeter, occupied the foreground of the scene; behind them, some three hundred paces off, upon a rising ground, was drawn up in battle-array the main body of the ecclesiastical forces.
"Hear you, Robert de Shurland, Knight, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and Lord of Sheppey, and know all men, by these presents, that I do hereby attach you, said Robert, of murder and sacrilege, now, or of the late, done and committed by you, the said Robert, contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and dignity: and I do hereby require and charge you, the said Robert, to forthwith surrender and give up your own proper person, together with the castle of Shurland aforesaid, in order that the same may be duly dealt with according to law. And here standeth John de Northwood, Esquire, good man and true, sheriff of this his Majesty's most loyal county of Kent, to enforce the same if need be, with his posse comitatus—"
"His what?" said the Baron.
"His posse comitatus, and—" "Go to Bath!" said the Baron.
A defiance so contemptuous roused the ire of the adverse commanders. A volley of missiles rattled about the Baron's ears. Nightcaps avail little against contusions. He left the walls, and returned to the great hall. "Let them pelt away," quoth the Baron; "there are no windows to break, and they can't get in." So he took his afternoon nap, and the siege went on.
Towards evening his lordship awoke, and grew tired of the din. Guy Pearson, too, had got a black eye from a brick bat, and the assailants were clambering over the outer wall. So the Baron called for his Sunday hauberk of Milan steel, and his great two-handed sword with the terrible name:—it was the fashion in feudal times to give names to swords: King Arthur's was christened Excalibar; the Baron called his Tickletoby, and whenever he took it in hand, it was no joke.
"Up with the portcullis! down with the bridge!" said Sir Robert; and out he sallied followed by the elite of his retainers. Then there was a pretty to-do. Heads flew one way—arms and legs another; round went Tickletoby, and, wherever it alighted, down came horse and man, the Baron excelled himself that day. All that he had done in Palestine faded in the comparison; he had fought for fun there, but now it was for life and lands. Away went John de Northwood; away went William of Hever, and Roger of Leybourne. Hamo de Crevecoeur, with the church vassals and the banner of St. Austin, had been gone some time. The siege was raised, and the Lord of Sheppey was left alone in his glory.
But, brave as the Baron undoubtedly was, and total as had been the defeat of his enemies, it cannot be supposed that La Stoccata would be allowed to carry it away thus. It has before been hinted that Abbot Anselm had written to the Pope, and Boniface the Eight piqued himself on his punctuality as a correspondent in all matters connected with church discipline. He sent back an answer by return of post; and by it all Christian people were strictly enjoined to aid in exterminating the offender, on pain of the greater excommunication in this world and a million of years of purgatory in the next. But then, again, Boniface the Eight was rather at a discount in England just then. He had affronted Longshanks, as the royal lieges had nicknamed their monarch; and Longshanks had been rather sharp upon the clergy in consequence. If the Baron de Shurland could but get the King's pardon for what, in his cooler moments, he admitted to be a peccadillo, he might sniff at the Pope, and bid him 'to do his devilmost.'
Fortune, who as the poet says, delights to favor the bold, stood his friend on this occasion. Edward had been for some time collecting a large force on the coast of Kent, to carry on his French wars for the recovery of Guienne; he was expected shortly to review it in person; but, then, the troops lay principally in cantonments about the mouth of the Thames, and his