A Book of Golden Deeds

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> A Book of Golden Deeds

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Sandwich and Ipswich made no defense, and were plundered; and the fleet
then sailed into the mouth of the River Blackwater, as far as Maldon,
where the ravagers landed, and began to collect spoil. When, however,
they came back to their ships, they found that the tide would not yet
serve them to re-embark; and upon the farther bank of the river bristled
the spears of a body of warriors, drawn up in battle array, but in
numbers far inferior to their own.

Anlaff sent a messenger, over the wooden bridge that crossed the river,
to the Earl, who, he understood, commanded this small army. The brave
old man, his grey hair hanging down beneath his helmet, stood, sword in
hand, at the head of his warriors.

'Lord Earl,' said the messenger, 'I come to bid thee to yield to us thy
treasure, for thy safety. Buy off the fight, and we will ratify a peace
with gold.'

'Hear, O thou sailor!' was Brythnoth's answer, 'the reply of this
people. Instead of Danegeld, thou shalt have from them the edge of the
sword, and the point of the spear. Here stands an English Earl, who will
defend his earldom and the lands of his King. Point and edge shall judge
between us.'

Back went the Dane with his message to Anlaff, and the fight began
around the bridge, where the Danes long strove to force their way
across, but were always driven back by the gallant East-Saxons. The tide
had risen, and for some time the two armies only shot at one another
with bows and arrows; but when it ebbed, leaving the salt-marches dry,
the stout old Earl's love of fair play overpowered his prudence, and he
sent to offer the enemy a free passage, and an open field in which to
measure their strength.

The numbers were too unequal; but the battle was long and bloody before
the English could be overpowered. Brythnoth slew one of the chief Danish
leaders with his own hand, but not without receiving a wound. He was
still able to fight on, though with ebbing strength and failing numbers.
His hand was pierced by a dart; but a young boy at his side instantly
withdrew it, and, launching it back again, slew the foe who had aimed
it. Another Dane, seeing the Earl faint and sinking, advanced to plunder
him of his ring and jeweled weapons; but he still had strength to lay
the spoiler low with his battleaxe. This was his last blow; he gathered
his strength for one last cheer to his brave men, and then, sinking on
the ground, he looked up to heaven, exclaiming: 'I thank thee, Lord of
nations, for all the joys I have known on earth. Now, O mild Creator!
have I the utmost need that Thou shouldst grant grace unto my soul, that
my spirit may speed to Thee with peace, O King of angels! to pass into
thy keeping. I sue to Thee that Thou suffer not the rebel spirits of
hell to vex my parting soul!'

With these words he died; but an aged follower, of like spirit, stood
over his corpse, and exhorted his fellows. 'Our spirit shall be the
hardier, and our soul the greater, the fewer our numbers become!' he
cried. 'Here lies our chief, the brave, the good, the much-loved lord,
who has blessed us with many a gift. Old as I am, I will not yield, but
avenge his death, or lay me at his side. Shame befall him that thinks to
fly from such a field as this!'

Nor did the English warriors fly. Night came down, at last, upon the
battlefield, and saved the lives of the few survivors; but they were
forced to leave the body of their lord, and the Danes bore away with
them his head as a trophy, and with it, alas! ten thousand pounds of
silver from the King, who, in his sluggishness and weakness had left
Brythnoth to fight and die unaided for the cause of the whole nation.
One of the retainers, a minstrel in the happy old days of Hadleigh, who
had done his part manfully in the battle, had heard these last goodly
sayings of his master, and, living on to peaceful days, loved to
rehearse them to the sound of his harp, and dwell on the glories of one
who could die, but not be defeated.

Ere those better days had come, another faithful-hearted Englishman had
given his life for his people. In the year 1012, a huge army, called
from their leader, 'Thorkill's Host', were overrunning Kent, and
besieging Canterbury. The Archbishop Aelfeg was earnestly entreated to
leave the city while yet there was time to escape; but he replied, 'None
but a hireling would leave his flock in time of danger;' and he
supported the resolution of the inhabitants, so that they held out the
city for twenty days; and as the wild Danes had very little chance
against a well-walled town, they would probably have saved it, had not
the gates been secretly opened to them by the traitorous Abbot Aelfman,
whom Aelfeg had once himself saved, when accused of treason before the
King.

The Danes slaughtered all whom they found in the streets, and the
Archbishop's friends tried to keep him in the church, lest he should run
upon his fate; but he broke from them, and, confronting the enemy,
cried: 'Spare the guiltless! Is there glory in shedding such blood? Turn
your wrath on me! It is I who have denounced your cruelty, have ransomed
and re-clad your captive.' The Danes seized upon him, and, after he had
seen his cathedral burnt and his clergy slain, they threw him into a
dungeon, whence he was told he could only come forth upon the payment of
a heavy ransom.

His flock loved him, and would have striven to raise the sum; but,
miserably used as they were by the enemy, and stripped by the exactions
of the Danes, he would not consent that they should be asked for a
further contribution on his account. After seven months' patience in his
captivity, the Danish chiefs, who were then at Greenwich desired him to
be brought into their camp, where they had just been holding a great
feast. It was Easter Eve, and the quiet of that day of calm waiting was
disturbed with their songs, and shouts of drunken revelry, as the
chained Archbishop was led to the open space where the warriors sat and
lay amid the remains of their rude repast. The leader then told him that
they had agreed to let him off for his own share with a much smaller
payment than had been demanded, provided he would obtain a largesse for
them from the King, his master.

'I am not the man,' he answered, 'to provide Christian flesh for Pagan
wolves;' and when again they repeated the demand, 'Gold I have none to
offer you, save the true wisdom of the knowledge of the living God.' And
he began, as he stood in the midst, to 'reason to them of righteousness,
temperance, and judgment to come.'

They were mad with rage and drink. The old man's voice was drowned with
shouts of 'Gold, Bishop--give us gold!' The bones and cups that lay
around were hurled at him, and he fell to the ground, with the cry, 'O
Chief Shepherd, guard Thine own children!' As he partly raised himself,
axes were thrown at him; and, at last, a Dane, who had begun to love and
listen to him in his captivity, deemed it mercy to give him a deathblow
with an axe. The English maintained that Aelfeg had died to save his
flock from cruel extortion, and held him as a saint and martyr, keeping
his death day (the 19th of April) as a holiday; and when the Italian
Archbishop of Canterbury (Lanfranc) disputed his right to be so
esteemed, there was strong opposition and discontent. Indeed, our own
Prayer Book still retains his name, under the altered form of St.
Alphege; and surely no one better merits to be remembered, for having
loved his people far better than himself.

GUZMAN EL BUENO

1293

In the early times of Spanish history, before the Moors had been
expelled from the peninsula, or the blight of Western gold had enervated
the nation, the old honor and loyalty of the Gothic race were high and
pure, fostered by constant combats with a generous enemy. The Spanish
Arabs were indeed the flower of the Mahometan races, endowed with the
vigor and honor of the desert tribes, yet capable of culture and
civilization, excelling all other nations of their time in science and
art, and almost the equals of their Christian foes in the attributes of
chivalry. Wars with them were a constant crusade, consecrated in the
minds of the Spaniards as being in the cause of religion, and yet in
some degree freed from savagery and cruelty by the respect exacted by
the honorable character of the enemy, and by the fact that the
civilization and learning of the Christian kingdoms were far more
derived from the Moors than from the kindred nations of Europe.

By the close of the thirteenth century, the Christian kingdoms of
Castille and Aragon were descending from their mountain fastnesses, and
spreading over the lovely plains of the south, even to the Mediterranean
coast, as one beautiful Moorish city after another yielded to the
persevering advances of the children of the Goths; and in 1291 the
nephew of our own beloved Eleanor of Castille, Sancho V. called El
Bravo, ventured to invest the city of Tarifa.

This was the western buttress of the gate of the Mediterranean, the base
of the northern Pillar of Hercules, and esteemed one of the gates of
Spain. By it five hundred years previously had the Moorish enemy first
entered Spain at the summons of Count Julian, under their leader Tarif-
abu-Zearah, whose name was bestowed upon it in remembrance of his
landing there. The form of the ground is said to be like a broken punch
bowl, with the broken part towards the sea. The Moors had fortified the
city with a surrounding wall and twenty-six towers, and had built a
castle with a lighthouse on a small adjacent island, called Isla Verde,
which they had connected with the city by a causeway. Their
fortifications, always admirable, have existed ever since, and in 1811,
another five hundred years after, were successfully defended against the
French by a small force of British troops under the command of Colonel
Hugh Gough, better known in his old age as the victor of Aliwal. The
walls were then unable to support the weight of artillery, for which of
course they had never been built, but were perfectly effective against
escalade.

For six months King Sancho besieged Tarifa by land and sea, his fleet,
hired from the Genoese, lying in the waters where the battle of
Trafalgar was to be fought. The city at length yielded under stress of
famine, but the King feared that he had no resources to enable him to
keep it, and intended to dismantle and forsake it, when the Grand Master
of the military order of Calatrava offered to undertake the defense with
his knights for one year, hoping that some other noble would come
forward at the end of that time and take the charge upon himself.

He was not mistaken. The noble who made himself responsible for this
post of danger was a Leonese knight of high distinction, by name Alonso
Perez de Guzman, already called El Bueno, or 'The Good', from the high
qualities he had manifested in the service of the late King, Don Alonso
VI, by whom he had always stood when the present King, Don Sancho, was
in rebellion. The offer was readily accepted, and the whole Guzman
family removed to Tarifa, with the exception of the eldest son, who was
in the train of the Infant Don Juan, the second son of the late King,
who had always taken part with his father against his brother, and on
Sancho's accession, continued his enmity, and fled to Portugal.

The King of Portugal, however, being requested by Sancho not to permit
him to remain there, he proceeded to offer his services to the King of
Morocco, Yusuf-ben-Yacoub, for whom he undertook to recover Tarifa, if
5,000 horse were granted to him for the purpose. The force would have
been most disproportionate for the attack of such a city as Tarifa, but
Don Juan reckoned on means that he had already found efficacious; when
he had obtained the surrender of Zamora to his father by threatening to
put to death a child of the lady in command of the fortress.

Therefore, after summoning Tarifa at the head of his 5,000 Moors, he led
forth before the gates the boy who had been confided to his care, and
declared that unless the city were yielded instantly, Guzman should
behold the death of his own son at his hand! Before, he had had to deal
with a weak woman on a question of divided allegiance. It was otherwise
here. The point was whether the city should be made over to the enemies
of the faith and country, whether the plighted word of a loyal knight
should be broken. The boy was held in the grasp of the cruel prince,
stretching out his hands and weeping as he saw his father upon the
walls. Don Alonso's eyes, we are told, filled with tears as he cast one
long, last look at his first-born, whom he might not save except at the
expense of his truth and honor.

The struggle was bitter, but he broke forth at last in these words: 'I
did not beget a son to be made use of against my country, but that he
should serve her against her foes. Should Don Juan put him to death, he
will but confer honor on me, true life on my son, and on himself eternal
shame in this world and everlasting wrath after death. So far am I from
yielding this place or betraying my trust, that in case he should want a
weapon for his cruel purpose, there goes my knife!'

He cast the knife in his belt over the walls, and returned to the Castle
where, commanding his countenance, he sat down to table with his wife.
Loud shouts of horror and dismay almost instantly called him forth
again. He was told that Don Juan had been seen to cut the boy's throat
in a transport of blind rage. 'I thought the enemy had broken in,' he
calmly said, and went back again.

The Moors themselves were horrorstruck at the atrocity of their ally,
and as the siege was hopeless they gave it up; and Don Juan, afraid and
ashamed to return to Morocco, wandered to the Court of Granada.

King Sancho was lying sick at Alcala de Henares when the tidings of the
price of Guzman's fidelity reached him. Touched to the depths of his
heart he wrote a letter to his faithful subject, comparing his sacrifice
to that of Abraham, confirming to him the surname of Good, lamenting his
own inability to come and offer his thanks and regrets, but entreating
Guzman's presence at Alcala.

All the way thither, the people thronged to see the man true to his word
at such a fearful cost. The Court was sent out to meet him, and the
King, after embracing him, exclaimed, 'Here learn, ye knights, what are
exploits of virtue. Behold your model.'

Lands and honors were heaped upon Alonso de Guzman, and they were not a
mockery of his loss, for he had other sons to inherit them. He was the
staunch friend of Sancho's widow and son in a long and perilous
minority, and died full of years and honors. The lands granted to him
were those of Medina Sidonia which lie between the Rivers Guadiana and
Guadalquivir, and they have ever since been held by his descendants, who
still bear the honored name of Guzman, witnessing that the man who gave
the life of his first-born rather than break his faith to the King has
left a posterity as noble and enduring as any family in Europe.

FAITHFUL TILL DEATH

1308

One of the ladies most admired by the ancient Romans was Arria, the wife
of Caecina Paetus, a Roman who was condemned by the Emperor Claudius to
become his own executioner. Seeing him waver, his wife, who was resolved
to be with him in death as in life, took the dagger from his hand,
plunged it into her own breast, and with her last strength held it out
to him, gasping out, 'It is not painful, my Paetus.'

Such was heathen faithfulness even to death; and where the teaching of
Christianity had not forbidden the taking away of life by one's own
hand, perhaps wifely love could not go higher. Yet Christian women have
endured a yet more fearful ordeal to their tender affection, watching,
supporting, and finding unfailing fortitude to uphold the sufferer in
agonies that must have rent their hearts.

Natalia was the fair young wife of Adrian, an officer at Nicomedia, in
the guards of the Emperor Galerius Maximianus, and only about twenty-
eight years old. Natalia was a Christian, but her husband remained a
pagan, until, when he was charged with the execution of some martyrs,
their constancy, coupled with the testimony of his own wife's virtues,
triumphed over his unbelief, and he confessed himself likewise a
Christian. He was thrown into prison, and sentenced to death, but he
prevailed on his gaoler to permit him to leave the dungeon for a time,
that he might see his wife. The report came to Natalia that he was no
longer in prison, and she threw herself on the ground, lamenting aloud:
'Now will men point at me, and say, 'Behold the wife of the coward and
apostate, who, for fear of death, hath denied his God.'

'Oh, thou noble and strong-hearted woman,' said Adrian's voice at the
door, 'I bless God that I am not unworthy of thee. Open the door that I
may bid thee farewell.'

But this was not the last farewell, though he duly went back to the
prison; for when, the next day, he had been cruelly scourged and
tortured before the tribunal, Natalia, with her hair cut short, and
wearing the disguise of a youth, was there to tend and comfort him. She
took him in her arms saying, 'Oh, light of mine eyes, and husband of
mine heart, blessed art thou, who art chosen to suffer for Christ's
sake.'

On the following day, the tyrant ordered that Adrian's limbs should be
one by one struck off on a blacksmith's anvil, and lastly his head. And
still it was his wife who held him and sustained him through all and,
ere the last stroke of the executioner, had received his last breath.
She took up one of the severed hands, kissed it, and placed it in her
bosom, and escaping to Byzantium, there spent her life in widowhood.

Nor among these devoted wives should we pass by Gertrude, the wife of
Rudolf, Baron von der Wart, a Swabian nobleman, who was so ill-advised
as to join in a conspiracy of Johann of Hapsburg, in 1308, against the
Emperor, Albrecht I, the son of the great and good Rudolf of Hapsburg.

This Johann was the son of the Emperor's brother Rudolf, a brave knight
who had died young, and Johann had been brought up by a Baron called
Walther von Eschenbach, until, at nineteen years old, he went to his
uncle to demand his father's inheritance. Albrecht was a rude and
uncouth man, and refused disdainfully the demand, whereupon the noblemen
of the disputed territory stirred up the young prince to form a plot
against him, all having evidently different views of the lengths to
which they would proceed. This was just at the time that the Swiss,
angry at the overweening and oppressive behaviour of Albrecht's
governors, were first taking up arms to maintain that they owed no duty
to him as Duke of Austria, but merely as Emperor of Germany. He set out
on his way to chastise them as rebels, taking with him a considerable
train, of whom his nephew Johann was one. At Baden, Johann, as a last
experiment, again applied for his inheritance, but by way of answer,
Albrecht held out a wreath of flowers, telling him they better became
his years than did the cares of government. He burst into tears, threw
the wreath upon the ground, and fed his mind upon the savage purpose of
letting his uncle find out what he was fit for.

By and by, the party came to the banks of the Reuss, where there was no
bridge, and only one single boat to carry the whole across. The first to
cross were the Emperor with one attendant, besides his nephew and four
of the secret partisans of Johann. Albrecht's son Leopold was left to
follow with the rest of the suite, and the Emperor rode on towards the
hills of his home, towards the Castle of Hapsburg, where his father's
noble qualities had earned the reputation which was the cause of all the
greatness of the line. Suddenly his nephew rode up to him, and while one
of the conspirators seized the bridle of his horse, exclaimed, 'Will you
now restore my inheritance?' and wounded him in the neck. The attendant
fled; Der Wart, who had never thought murder was to be a part of the
scheme, stood aghast, but the other two fell on the unhappy Albrecht,
and each gave him a mortal wound, and then all five fled in different
directions. The whole horrible affair took place full in view of Leopold
and the army on the other side of the river, and when it became possible
for any of them to cross, they found that the Emperor had just expired,
with his head in the lap of a poor woman.

The murderers escaped into the Swiss mountains, expecting shelter there;
but the stout, honest men of the cantons were resolved not to have any
connection with assassins, and refused to protect them. Johann himself,
after long and miserable wanderings in disguise, bitterly repented,
owned his crime to the Pope, and was received into a convent; Eschenbach
escaped, and lived fifteen years as a cowherd. The others all fell into
the hands of the sons and daughters of Albrecht, and woeful was the
revenge that was taken upon them, and upon their innocent families and
retainers.

That Leopold, who had seen his father slain before his eyes, should have
been deeply incensed, was not wonderful, and his elder brother
Frederick, as Duke of Austria, was charged with the execution of
justice; but both brothers were horribly savage and violent in their
proceedings, and their sister Agnes surpassed them in her atrocious
thirst for vengeance. She was the wife of the King of Hungary, very
clever and discerning, and also supposed to be very religious, but all
better thoughts were swept away by her furious passion. She had nearly
strangled Eschenbach's infant son with her own bare hands, when he was
rescued from her by her own soldiers, and when she was watching the
beheading of sixty-three vassals of another of the murderers, she
repeatedly exclaimed, 'Now I bathe in May dew.' Once, indeed, she met
with a stern rebuke. A hermit, for whom she had offered to build a
convent, answered her, 'Woman, God is not served by shedding innocent
blood and by building convents out of the plunder of families, but by
compassion and forgiveness of injuries.'

Rudolf von der Wart received the horrible sentence of being broken on
the wheel. On his trial the Emperor's attendant declared that Der Wart
had attacked Albert with his dagger, and the cry, 'How long will ye
suffer this carrion to sit on horseback?' but he persisted to the last
that he had been taken by surprise by the murder. However, there was no
mercy for him; and, by the express command of Queen Agnes, after he had
been bound upon one wheel, and his limbs broken by heavy blows from the
executioner, he was fastened to another wheel, which was set upon a
pole, where he was to linger out the remaining hours of his life. His
young wife, Gertrude, who had clung to him through all the trial, was
torn away and carried off to the Castle of Kyburg; but she made her
escape at dusk, and found her way, as night came on, to the spot where
her husband hung still living upon the wheel. That night of agony was
described in a letter ascribed to Gertrude herself. The guard left to
watch fled at her approach, and she prayed beneath the scaffold, and
then, heaping some heavy logs of wood together, was able to climb up
near enough to embrace him and stroke back the hair from his face,
whilst he entreated her to leave him, lest she should be found there,
and fall under the cruel revenge of the Queen, telling her that thus it
would be possible to increase his suffering.

'I will die with you,' she said, 'tis for that I came, and no power
shall force me from you;' and she prayed for the one mercy she hoped
for, speedy death for her husband.

In Mrs. Hemans' beautiful words--

'And bid me not depart,' she cried,
'My Rudolf, say not so;
This is no time to quit thy side,
Peace, peace, I cannot go!
Hath the world aught for me to fear
When death is on thy brow?
The world! what means it? Mine is here!
I will not leave thee now.
'I have been with thee in thine hour
Of glory and of bliss;
Doubt not its memory's living power
To strengthen me through this.
And thou, mine honor'd love and true,
Bear on, bear nobly on;
We have the blessed heaven in view,
Whose rest shall soon be won.'

When day began to break, the guard returned, and Gertrude took down her
stage of wood and continued kneeling at the foot of the pole. Crowds of
people came to look, among them the wife of one of the officials, whom
Gertrude implored to intercede that her husband's sufferings might be
ended; but though this might not be, some pitied her, and tried to give
her wine and confections, which she could not touch. The priest came and
exhorted Rudolf to confess the crime, but with a great effort he
repeated his former statement of innocence.

A band of horsemen rode by. Among them was the young Prince Leopold and
his sister Agnes herself, clad as a knight. They were very angry at the
compassion shown by the crowd, and after frightfully harsh language
commanded that Gertrude should be dragged away; but one of the nobles
interceded for her, and when she had been carried away to a little
distance her entreaties were heard, and she was allowed to break away
and come back to her husband. The priest blessed Gertrude, gave her his
hand and said, 'Be faithful unto death, and God will give you the crown
of life,' and she was no further molested.

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