Chapter XVII The King in Council
For some time Ralph lay in a precarious state in the house of one of the burgesses of Bedford. The bolt from the cross-bow had given him a nasty wound, which it required all the skill of the leech to heal. Moreover, he lay fretting and fuming at the thought that his Aliva was a prisoner in the hands of his enemy, and his mental anxiety seriously interfered with his bodily recovery.
As he got better, however, he received visits from many of the principal townspeople, who were much attached to the house of De Beauchamp, and full of pity for the young knight.
“Sir Ralph,” quoth one of these grave personages, as he sat solemnly stroking his beard by the pallet where the young man still lay, “if one richer in the experience of years than thou art may be permitted to advise thee, I would show thee how useless a waste of life and blood would be any attempt of thine, unaided, to rescue thy fair lady from her direful plight.”
“Marry, but have I not learned that lesson already!” ejaculated Ralph irritably; “but whither then to get aid? for get aid I must. This emprise is of more worth to me than a dozen lives! Speak you on behalf of your kind, Gilbert the Clothier, the other traders and craftsmen of the town? Are ye ready to strike a blow against this tyrant?”
“I crave thy pardon, Sir Knight, but we are men of peace, unused to warlike weapons, and we have much to lose. With one swoop Fulke de Breauté could burn about our ears all the amassed gain of a lifetime!”
Ralph shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“’Tis vain to speak to barn-door fowls of the liberty of the hawk’s flight!” replied Ralph, somewhat ungraciously. “But, Sir Merchant, if the only weapons ye can use be your tools and your measuring-yards, yet methinks ye have store of wisdom in your heads, in full measure above us who spend all our wits upon our sinews!” he added laughingly. “Prithee, counsel me.”
“There are none in all the county round, in these days when so many of our gentlefolks are impoverished with the wars and disturbances of these last years, who can hope to lift a spear successfully against this rich Frenchman,” the merchant began. “We must e’en seek aid further afield. Anon I had word brought me that the churchmen brook ill that the learned brother of Martin de Pateshulle and Thomas de Muleton lies in the keeping of the enemy of the Church, and are minded to stir in this matter with the king.”
“The king!” exclaimed Ralph, half raising himself. “That is in good sooth good news!”
“The king holds a council shortly at Northampton, as ye know,” Gilbert went on, “and it is there they purport to lay our case before him and his barons and bishops assembled.”
“I will to Northampton, then,” cried Ralph eagerly. “Certes, I was even purposing to go thither ere this unlucky scratch detained me. I sought the king’s favour to give me some command in this army which is about to inarch for the north.”
“Better turn your lance-point nearer home, Sir Knight,” the merchant replied. “There will be work enow and glory enow to be gotten for all who list in pulling down this robber Frenchman’s stronghold!”
“I will to Northampton as soon as this leech who holds me in his clutches gives me leave to buckle on my armour again,” Ralph added.
And so it came about that, not many days later, our hero rode over to Northampton, where he found the king in council with the bishops, abbots, barons, and justices.
The youthful Henry III. was at this time only seventeen years old, though he had been declared to be of age two years before. His trusted guardian and adviser, Hubert de Burgh, was, however, still with him, and was present at the council. The old chronicler tells how, while the monarch and his advisers were thus assembled, deliberating on the affairs of state, news was brought of the raid upon the judges, and of the capture of Henry de Braybrooke by William de Breauté.
Here was an unbearable insult to the royal supremacy. The attention of the council was instantly turned from the banks of the Tweed to those of the Ouse.
In the storm of indignation which was aroused by the Robber Baron’s latest misdeed the voice of the Church made itself heard. The judges of the land were at that period mostly ecclesiastics. Could they put up with this indignity to their learned brother? Was not Fulke also a destroyer of abbeys and churches? Had he not pulled down St. Paul’s Church at Bedford? and had not that impious raid upon St. Alban’s Abbey been but poorly atoned for by the discipline in the chapter-house? Had any restitution been made?
Further, doubtless, the great barons called to their master’s council—they whose sires had forced his father to sign Magna Charta on the field of Runnymede, and who had spilt their blood for the liberties of England—had somewhat to say against this French upstart, De Breauté, this bastard soldier of fortune, who had ensconced himself in a fortress where one of the old Norman families had been established ever since the days of the Conqueror.
Prelate and lord both agreed that the most pressing question of the day was the overthrow of this robber chief.
When Ralph rode into the ancient town of Northampton, now crowded with the magnates of the land, he had no difficulty in finding men of position and weight who were willing to introduce him, as a scion of the De Beauchamp family, to the council.
Henry and his advisers, in earnest discussion over this business of Bedford, were not sorry to find one who was well acquainted with the castle and its fortifications. Accordingly, when Ralph was presented to the council, he was received by the young king with much cordiality. Henry III., though one of the few weak-minded monarchs of the strong Plantagenet line, was still so young that his character could hardly be said to be yet formed, and any mistakes he might make were naturally set down to his youth and inexperience. This affair of Bedford Castle, however, was an undertaking in which he exhibited all the promptitude and energy of his predecessors upon the throne. He resolved to attend the siege in person, and ordered his council to suspend all other business and direct their attention solely to the means of carrying it out.
The council of war, or committee, to whom were confided the necessary preparations, took Ralph into their confidence. They were presided over by no less a personage than Hubert de Burgh himself, who summoned the young knight to appear before them in the chamber in Northampton Castle, where they held their conclave.
Ralph’s feelings, as he found himself in the presence of one so renowned, formerly the governor of Dover Castle, and the custodian in Brittany of King John’s luckless nephew Arthur, and the late guardian of the king, were those of some shyness. He was a plain, country-born youth, unused to courts and dignitaries, and even of late years a landless, penniless knight, one of an outcast family. But the great justiciary’s manner reassured him.
“Sir Ralph,” he said, “we understand that thou wast brought up in Bedford Castle, and art well acquainted with all its parts.”
“Certes, noble Hugh,” replied Ralph, “always excepting those portions where Fulke de Breauté may have made alterations and additions during the last few years.”
“Well answered, and with a caution exceeding thy years, Sir Knight. Say on—what alterations?”
“By my faith, I can scarcely tell! But he hath pulled down and well-nigh destroyed the church of St. Paul, and the stones thereof have been used in the castle walls.”
“For new work, mean you, or for the strengthening of old work?” inquired the justiciary.
“That cannot I rightly say,” answered Ralph, “for since my uncle was driven forth, or rather surrendered to Fulke acting in his sovereign’s name, I have not set foot within the castle walls.”
But he added beneath his breath: “Would I were within at this moment!”
De Burgh overheard him, and with some surprise.
“So shalt thou be, and that shortly, and with stout men-at-arms at thy back, an I mistake not. But for the nonce we must learn more about these walls. How sayest thou the castle lieth?”
“Along the banks of the Ouse, and on the north side of the stream.”
“And its defences—what be they? All say that the keep was indeed built by thy ancestor Pain de Beauchamp, and is strong and not easily to be assaulted.”
“The keep is indeed strong and well built,” Ralph replied, “and round it run a high wall and a deep moat. On the west side only might an attack be made with any hope of victory, for there lie the bailey yards, the gate-house, and the barbican. Moreover, between the outer and the inner bailey there standeth a tower, which we call the old tower, the like of which, I have heard tell, is not to be found in many castles, and which commands the bridge.”
As he spoke Ralph made a sort of rough drawing.
“Here,” he said, “is the keep, upon a lofty mound. On this side only is an entrance possible. We must e’en break through all the outer defences, and pass on from west to east. But it will be no light emprise.”
A gleam of pleasure came over the face of the veteran.
“By the bones of St. Thomas,” he exclaimed, “thou showest no mean knowledge or skill, fair sir. Where hast thou learned the art of war?”
“I have oft heard my uncle tell the story of how King Stephen besieged the castle when our ancestor Milo de Beauchamp held it for the Empress Matilda, nigh upon a hundred years ago,” modestly answered Ralph. “He even contended that it was so strong that no attack could prevail, and that had it been better victualled it would never have surrendered. And then, noble knight, if I may make so bold as to remind thee, there is that sad passage in the history of our house which hath been seared into the memory of my boyhood—I mean when my uncle, Sir William, surrendered to this same Fulke, who came in the name of our late king, who was indeed the enemy of our house. Ofttimes hath my uncle gone over that tale with me, and hath showed me how he might yet have held the castle had he possessed better stores and more men.”
The end of this interview was that Ralph, in consideration of the valuable information he had proved himself willing and able to bestow, was admitted to all the deliberations of the council, and was listened to with attention. Neither his uncle William de Beauchamp, nor his kinsman at Eaton Socon, had come to Northampton; the latter by reason of his age, and the former on account of his sullen despair, and perhaps also hindered by a latent distrust of the house of Plantagenet, which had dealt so ill with him. Thus it happened that Ralph represented, as it were, the De Beauchamp family.
He was given plenty to do in the way of hastening preparations, moreover, and as his heart was in the work, for Aliva’s sake, he was busy both night and day.
His duties brought him into frequent communications with a personage who was much to the front when any question of a siege was on hand—namely, John de Standen, the chief of the miners. Ralph soon discovered that John had considerable knowledge of Bedford Castle and its fortifications. This puzzled him not a little at the time, and it was not till later on that he solved the mystery.
When the chief of the miners and his assistants had determined what supplies of material were necessary for the siege, royal writs were issued for their production. Timber was required for the manufacture of the bombarding engines or petraria, which were to fling great stones at the castle, and ox or horse hides were needed for the protection of these machines. Thousands of quarrels were ordered for the cross-bows and dart-throwing engines. Iron was ordered in great quantities, to be worked up on the spot, and pickaxes and other tools were not forgotten.
Moreover, writs were issued to the sheriffs of Hertford, Oxford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, Warwick, Leicester, Rutland, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincoln, and Middlesex, directing them to send two men from each plough-land (the usual division of land in those days) to work the aforementioned engines. Then the feeding of these men had to be attended to. One Peter Buyam, a Burgundian merchant, was ordered to purchase one hundred and eight casks of wine at St. Botolph’s fair, at forty-three shillings and four-pence a cask.
From St. Briavels in Gloucestershire, the native place of John de Standen, were brought thirty assistant miners. But carpenters, saddlers, and leather-workers, to shape the shields for the engines, were found nearer at hand by the sheriffs of the counties of Northampton and Bedford, as were also the men who were to fashion the stones to be discharged from the petraria. The whole of the midlands was astir over the siege of Bedford Castle.
Neither was the Church inactive. To show their horror at the outrages of the wicked Fulke, the assembled prelates and abbots forthwith granted the king a subsidy of half a mark for each of their plough-lands, and also sent, for each hide of land held by them, two men to work the engines, taking care, however, to obtain an acknowledgment from the king that this was a special grant. The priory of Newenham, which had been founded by the De Beauchamps, furnished the stones for the bombardment, and the abbey of St. Alban’s naturally took a deep interest in the proceedings, which are fully chronicled in the records of the house.
No sooner, however, was it known that a Bedfordshire maiden, the Lady Aliva de Pateshulle, was a prisoner of the foreign interloper, than all the men of the county rose to assist in the undertaking. Even our stalwart friend the Benedictine lay-brother, as soon as—thanks to the care of Lady Mabel—he had recovered at Eaton Socon from the dastardly wound inflicted by Bertram de Concours, found his way to the headquarters of preparations.
Martin de Pateshulle, also, as one of those justices whose writs had been so rudely repudiated by Fulke, was summoned to the council. This worthy ecclesiastic, who was none the worse for his overthrow by William de Breauté’s horsemen, was much concerned over the fate of his niece.
In him Ralph, tortured by anxiety which he was striving to drown in work, found a friend and ready sympathizer.
“My son,” said the archdeacon one day at the close of a long sitting of the council of war, “thou toilest in this business both as a servant of Holy Church and as a gallant knight for the rescue of fair lady.”
Ralph sighed.
“Indeed, venerable father, it is only when my whole heart is busy with my work that it finds peace. I am torn with doubts and fears concerning her whom I love. Could I but have one word, one token from her! Could I but hear something of her, were it even ill news! But this silence, it ofttimes is more than I can bear.”
John de Standen, still busy at the table over a rough sketch, looked up at these words.
“Sir Knight,” he said, “thou meanest what thou sayest? Hast a stout heart? Canst bear ill news?”
Ralph sprang from his seat, and gripped the king’s miner by the arm till he winced.
“Speak, man, I conjure thee! Thou hast heard aught?”
“Speech is just what is forbidden to me,” replied John. “My lips are sealed. All the message I have for thee is: ‘Haste, or it may be too late!’ Ask me no more.”