A Book of Golden Deeds

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

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Night came on, and with it a stormy wind, whose howling mingled with the
voice of her prayers, and whistled in the hair of the sufferer. One of
the guard brought her a cloak. She climbed on the wheel, and spread the
covering over her husband's limbs; then fetched some water in her shoe,
and moistened his lips with it, sustaining him above all with her
prayers, and exhortations to look to the joys beyond. He had ceased to
try to send her away, and thanked her for the comfort she gave him. And
still she watched when morning came again, and noon passed over her, and
it was verging to evening, when for the last time he moved his head; and
she raised herself so as to be close to him. With a smile, he murmured,
'Gertrude, this is faithfulness till death,' and died. She knelt down to
thank God for having enabled her to remain for that last breath--

'While even as o'er a martyr's grave
She knelt on that sad spot,
And, weeping, blessed the God who gave
Strength to forsake it not!'

She found shelter in a convent at Basle, where she spent the rest of her
life in a quiet round of prayer and good works; till the time came when
her widowed heart should find its true rest for ever.

WHAT IS BETTER THAN SLAYING A DRAGON

1332

The next story we have to tell is so strange and wild, that it would
seem better to befit the cloudy times when history had not yet been
disentangled from fable, than the comparatively clear light of the
fourteenth century.

It took place in the island of Rhodes. This Greek isle had become the
home of the Knights of St. John, or Hospitaliers, an order of sworn
brethren who had arisen at the time of the Crusades. At first they had
been merely monks, who kept open house for the reception of the poor
penniless pilgrims who arrived at Jerusalem in need of shelter, and
often of nursing and healing. The good monks not only fed and housed
them, but did their best to cure the many diseases that they would catch
in the toilsome journey in that feverish climate; and thus it has come
to pass that the word hospitium, which in Latin only means an inn, has,
in modern languages, given birth, on the one hand, to hotel, or lodging
house, on the other, to hospital, or house of healing. The Hospital at
Jerusalem was called after St. John the Almoner, a charitable Bishop of
old, and the brethren were Hospitaliers. By and by, when the first
Crusade was over, and there was a great need of warriors to maintain the
Christian cause in Jerusalem, the Hospitaliers thought it a pity that so
many strong arms should be prevented from exerting themselves, by the
laws that forbade the clergy to do battle, and they obtained permission
from the Pope to become warriors as well as monks. They were thus all in
one--knights, priests, and nurses; their monasteries were both castles
and hospitals; and the sick pilgrim or wounded Crusader was sure of all
the best tendance and medical care that the times could afford, as well
as of all the ghostly comfort and counsel that he might need, and, if he
recovered, he was escorted safely down to the seashore by a party strong
enough to protect him from the hordes of robber Arabs. All this was for
charity's sake, and without reward. Surely the constitution of the Order
was as golden as its badge--the eight-pointed cross--which the brethren
wore round their neck. They wore it also in white over their shoulder
upon a black mantle. And the knights who had been admitted to the full
honors of the Order had a scarlet surcoat, likewise with the white
cross, over their armor. The whole brotherhood was under the command of
a Grand Master, who was elected in a chapter of all the knights, and to
whom all vowed to render implicit obedience.

Good service in all their three capacities had been done by the Order as
long as the Crusaders were able to keep a footing in the Holy Land; but
they were driven back step by step, and at last, in 1291, their last
stronghold at Acre was taken, after much desperate fighting, and the
remnant of the Hospitaliers sailed away to the isle of Cyprus, where,
after a few years, they recruited their forces, and, in 1307, captured
the island of Rhodes, which had been a nest of Greek and Mahometan
pirates. Here they remained, hoping for a fresh Crusade to recover the
Holy Sepulcher, and in the meantime fulfilling their old mission as the
protectors and nurses of the weak. All the Mediterranean Sea was
infested by corsairs from the African coast and the Greek isles, and
these brave knights, becoming sailors as well as all they had been
before, placed their red flag with its white cross at the masthead of
many a gallant vessel that guarded the peaceful traveler, hunted down
the cruel pirate, and brought home his Christian slave, rescued from
laboring at the oar, to the Hospital for rest and tendance. Or their
treasures were used in redeeming the captives in the pirate cities. No
knight of St. John might offer any ransom for himself save his sword and
scarf; but for the redemption of their poor fellow Christians their
wealth was ready, and many a captive was released from toiling in
Algiers or Tripoli, or still worse, from rowing the pirate vessels,
chained to the oar, between the decks, and was restored to health and
returned to his friends, blessing the day he had been brought into the
curving harbour of Rhodes, with the fine fortified town of churches and
monasteries.

Some eighteen years after the conquest of Rhodes, the whole island was
filled with dismay by the ravages of an enormous creature, living in a
morass at the foot of Mount St. Stephen, about two miles from the city
of Rhodes. Tradition calls it a dragon, and whether it were a crocodile
or a serpent is uncertain. There is reason to think that the monsters of
early creation were slow in becoming extinct, or it is not impossible
that either a crocodile or a python might have been brought over by
storms or currents from Africa, and have grown to a more formidable size
than usual in solitude among the marshes, while the island was changing
owners. The reptile, whatever it might be, was the object of extreme
dread; it devoured sheep and cattle, when they came down to the water,
and even young shepherd boys were missing. And the pilgrimage to the
Chapel of St. Stephen, on the hill above its lair, was especially a
service of danger, for pilgrims were believed to be snapped up by the
dragon before they could mount the hill.

Several knights had gone out to attempt the destruction of the creature,
but not one had returned, and at last the Grand Master, Helion de
Villeneuve, forbade any further attacks to be made. The dragon is said
to have been covered with scales that were perfectly impenetrable either
to arrows or any cutting weapon; and the severe loss that encounters
with him had cost the Order, convinced the Grand Master that he must be
let alone.

However, a young knight, named Dieudonne de Gozon, was by no means
willing to acquiesce in the decree; perhaps all the less because it came
after he had once gone out in quest of the monster, but had returned, by
his own confession, without striking a blow. He requested leave of
absence, and went home for a time to his father's castle of Gozon, in
Languedoc; and there he caused a model of the monster to be made. He had
observed that the scales did not protect the animal's belly, though it
was almost impossible to get a blow at it, owing to its tremendous
teeth, and the furious strokes of its length of tail. He therefore
caused this part of his model to be made hollow, and filled with food,
and obtaining two fierce young mastiffs, he trained them to fly at the
under side of the monster, while he mounted his warhorse, and endeavored
to accustom it likewise to attack the strange shape without swerving.

When he thought the education of horse and dogs complete, he returned to
Rhodes; but fearing to be prevented from carrying out his design, he did
not land at the city, but on a remote part of the coast, whence he made
his way to the chapel of St. Stephen. There, after having recommended
himself to God, he left his two French squires, desiring them to return
home if he were slain, but to watch and come to him if he killed the
dragon, or were only hurt by it. He then rode down the hillside, and
towards the haunt of the dragon. It roused itself at his advance, and at
first he charged it with his lance, which was perfectly useless against
the scales. His horse was quick to perceive the difference between the
true and the false monster, and started back, so that he was forced to
leap to the ground; but the two dogs were more staunch, and sprang at
the animal, whilst their master struck at it with his sword, but still
without reaching a vulnerable part, and a blow from the tail had thrown
him down, and the dragon was turning upon him, when the movement left
the undefended belly exposed. Both mastiffs fastened on it at once, and
the knight, regaining his feet, thrust his sword into it. There was a
death grapple, and finally the servants, coming down the hill, found
their knight lying apparently dead under the carcass of the dragon. When
they had extricated him, taken off his helmet, and sprinkled him with
water, he recovered, and presently was led into the city amid the
ecstatic shouts of the whole populace, who conducted him in triumph to
the palace of the Grand Master.

We have seen how Titus Manlius was requited by his father for his breach
of discipline. It was somewhat in the same manner that Helion de
Villeneuve received Dieudonne. We borrow Schiller's beautiful version of
the conversation that took place, as the young knight, pale, with his
black mantle rent, his shining armor dinted, his scarlet surcoat stained
with blood, came into the Knights' Great Hall.

'Severe and grave was the Master's brow,
Quoth he, 'A hero bold art thou,
By valor 't is that knights are known;
A valiant spirit hast thou shown;
But the first duty of a knight,
Now tell, who vows for CHRIST to fight
And bears the Cross on his coat of mail.'
The listeners all with fear grew pale,
While, bending lowly, spake the knight,
His cheeks with blushes burning,
'He who the Cross would bear aright
Obedience must be learning.'

Even after hearing the account of the conflict, the Grand Master did not
abate his displeasure.

'My son, the spoiler of the land
Lies slain by thy victorious hand
Thou art the people's god, but so
Thou art become thine Order's foe;
A deadlier foe thine heart has bred
Than this which by thy hand is dead,
That serpent still the heart defiling
To ruin and to strife beguiling,
It is that spirit rash and bold,
That scorns the bands of order;
Rages against them uncontrolled
Till earth is in disorder.

'Courage by Saracens is shown,
Submission is the Christian's own;
And where our Saviour, high and holy,
Wandered a pilgrim poor and lowly
Upon that ground with mystery fraught,
The fathers of our Order taught
The duty hardest to fulfil
Is to give up your own self-will
Thou art elate with glory vain.
Away then from my sight!
Who can his Saviour's yoke disdain
Bears not his Cross aright.'

'An angry cry burst from the crowd,
The hall rang with their tumult loud;
Each knightly brother prayed for grace.
The victor downward bent his face,
Aside his cloak in silence laid,
Kissed the Grand Master's hand, nor stayed.
The Master watched him from the hall,
Then summoned him with loving call,
'Come to embrace me, noble son,
Thine is the conquest of the soul;
Take up the Cross, now truly won,
By meekness and by self-control.'

The probation of Dieudonne is said to have been somewhat longer than the
poem represents, but after the claims of discipline had been
established, he became a great favorite with stern old Villeneuve, and
the dragon's head was set up over the gate of the city, where Thèvenot
professed to have seen it in the seventeenth century, and said that it
was larger than that of a horse, with a huge mouth and teeth and very
large eyes. The name of Rhodes is said to come from a Phoenician word,
meaning a serpent, and the Greeks called this isle of serpents, which is
all in favor of the truth of the story. But, on the other hand, such
traditions often are prompted by the sight of the fossil skeletons of
the dragons of the elder world, and are generally to be met with where
such minerals prevail as are found in the northern part of Rhodes. The
tale is disbelieved by many, but it is hard to suppose it an entire
invention, though the description of the monster may have been
exaggerated.

Dieudonne de Gozon was elected to the Grand Mastership after the death
of Villeneuve, and is said to have voted for himself. If so, it seems as
if he might have had, in his earlier days, an overweening opinion of his
own abilities. However, he was an excellent Grand Master, a great
soldier, and much beloved by all the poor peasants of the island, to
whom he was exceedingly kind. He died in 1353, and his tomb is said to
have been the only inscribed with these words, 'Here lies the Dragon
Slayer.'

THE KEYS OF CALAIS

1347

Nowhere does the continent of Europe approach Great Britain so closely
as at the straits of Dover, and when our sovereigns were full of the
vain hope of obtaining the crown of France, or at least of regaining the
great possessions that their forefathers has owned as French nobles,
there was no spot so coveted by them as the fortress of Calais, the
possession of which gave an entrance into France.

Thus it was that when, in 1346, Edward III. had beaten Philippe VI. at
the battle of Crecy, the first use he made of his victory was to march
upon Calais, and lay siege to it. The walls were exceedingly strong and
solid, mighty defenses of masonry, of huge thickness and like rocks for
solidity, guarded it, and the king knew that it would be useless to
attempt a direct assault. Indeed, during all the Middle Ages, the modes
of protecting fortifications were far more efficient than the modes of
attacking them. The walls could be made enormously massive, the towers
raised to a great height, and the defenders so completely sheltered by
battlements that they could not easily be injured and could take aim
from the top of their turrets, or from their loophole windows. The gates
had absolute little castles of their own, a moat flowed round the walls
full of water, and only capable of being crossed by a drawbridge, behind
which the portcullis, a grating armed beneath with spikes, was always
ready to drop from the archway of the gate and close up the entrance.
The only chance of taking a fortress by direct attack was to fill up the
moat with earth and faggots, and then raise ladders against the walls;
or else to drive engines against the defenses, battering-rams which
struck them with heavy beams, mangonels which launched stones, sows
whose arched wooden backs protected troops of workmen who tried to
undermine the wall, and moving towers consisting of a succession of
stages or shelves, filled with soldiers, and with a bridge with iron
hooks, capable of being launched from the highest story to the top of
the battlements. The besieged could generally disconcert the battering-
ram by hanging beds or mattresses over the walls to receive the brunt of
the blow, the sows could be crushed with heavy stones, the towers burnt
by well-directed flaming missiles, the ladders overthrown, and in
general the besiegers suffered a great deal more damage than they could
inflict. Cannon had indeed just been brought into use at the battle of
Crecy, but they only consisted of iron bars fastened together with
hoops, and were as yet of little use, and thus there seemed to be little
danger to a well-guarded city from any enemy outside the walls.

King Edward arrived before the place with all his victorious army early
in August, his good knights and squires arrayed in glittering steel
armor, covered with surcoats richly embroidered with their heraldic
bearings; his stout men-at-arms, each of whom was attended by three bold
followers; and his archers, with their crossbows to shoot bolts, and
longbows to shoot arrows of a yard long, so that it used to be said that
each went into battle with three men's lives under his girdle, namely,
the three arrows he kept there ready to his hand. With the King was his
son, Edward, Prince of Wales, who had just won the golden spurs of
knighthood so gallantly at Crecy, when only in his seventeenth year, and
likewise the famous Hainault knight, Sir Walter Mauny, and all that was
noblest and bravest in England.

This whole glittering army, at their head the King's great royal
standard bearing the golden lilies of France quartered with the lions of
England, and each troop guided by the square banner, swallow-tailed
pennon or pointed pennoncel of their leader, came marching to the gates
of Calais, above which floated the blue standard of France with its
golden flowers, and with it the banner of the governor, Sir Jean de
Vienne. A herald, in a rich long robe embroidered with the arms of
England, rode up to the gate, a trumpet sounding before him, and called
upon Sir Jean de Vienne to give up the place to Edward, King of England,
and of France, as he claimed to be. Sir Jean made answer that he held
the town for Philippe, King of France, and that he would defend it to
the last; the herald rode back again and the English began the siege of
the city.

At first they only encamped, and the people of Calais must have seen the
whole plain covered with the white canvas tents, marshalled round the
ensigns of the leaders, and here and there a more gorgeous one
displaying the colours of the owner. Still there was no attack upon the
walls. The warriors were to be seen walking about in the leathern suits
they wore under their armor; or if a party was to be seen with their
coats of mail on, helmet on head, and lance in hand, it was not against
Calais that they came; they rode out into the country, and by and by
might be seen driving back before them herds of cattle and flocks of
sheep or pigs that they had seized and taken away from the poor
peasants; and at night the sky would show red lights where farms and
homesteads had been set on fire. After a time, in front of the tents,
the English were to be seen hard at work with beams and boards, setting
up huts for themselves, and thatching them over with straw or broom.
These wooden houses were all ranged in regular streets, and there was a
marketplace in the midst, whither every Saturday came farmers and
butchers to sell corn and meat, and hay for the horses; and the English
merchants and Flemish weavers would come by sea and by land to bring
cloth, bread, weapons, and everything that could be needed to be sold in
this warlike market.

The Governor, Sir Jean de Vienne, began to perceive that the King did
not mean to waste his men by making vain attacks on the strong walls of
Calais, but to shut up the entrance by land, and watch the coast by sea
so as to prevent any provisions from being taken in, and so to starve
him into surrendering. Sir Jean de Vienne, however, hoped that before he
should be entirely reduced by famine, the King of France would be able
to get together another army and come to his relief, and at any rate he
was determined to do his duty, and hold out for his master to the last.
But as food was already beginning to grow scarce, he was obliged to turn
out such persons as could not fight and had no stores of their own, and
so one Wednesday morning he caused all the poor to be brought together,
men, women, and children, and sent them all out of the town, to the
number of 1,700. It was probably the truest mercy, for he had no food to
give them, and they could only have starved miserably within the town,
or have hindered him from saving it for his sovereign; but to them it
was dreadful to be driven out of house and home, straight down upon the
enemy, and they went along weeping and wailing, till the English
soldiers met them and asked why they had come out. They answered that
they had been put out because they had nothing to eat, and their
sorrowful, famished looks gained pity for them. King Edward sent orders
that not only should they go safely through his camp, but that they
should all rest, and have the first hearty dinner that they had eaten
for many a day, and he sent every one a small sum of money before they
left the camp, so that many of them went on their way praying aloud for
the enemy who had been so kind to them.

A great deal happened whilst King Edward kept watch in his wooden town
and the citizens of Calais guarded their walls. England was invaded by
King David II. of Scotland, with a great army, and the good Queen
Philippa, who was left to govern at home in the name of her little son
Lionel, assembled all the forces that were left at home, and crossed the
Straits of Dover, and a messenger brought King Edward letters from his
Queen to say that the Scots army had been entirely defeated at Nevil's
Cross, near Durham, and that their King was a prisoner, but that he had
been taken by a squire named John Copeland, who would not give him up to
her.

King Edward sent letters to John Copeland to come to him at Calais, and
when the squire had made his journey, the King took him by the hand
saying, 'Ha! welcome, my squire, who by his valor has captured our
adversary the King of Scotland.'

Copeland, falling on one knee, replied, 'If God, out of His great
kindness, has given me the King of Scotland, no one ought to be jealous
of it, for God can, when He pleases, send His grace to a poor squire as
well as to a great Lord. Sir, do not take it amiss if I did not
surrender him to the orders of my lady the Queen, for I hold my lands of
you, and my oath is to you, not to her.'

The King was not displeased with his squire's sturdiness, but made him a
knight, gave him a pension of 500l. a year, and desired him to surrender
his prisoner to the Queen, as his own representative. This was
accordingly done, and King David was lodged in the Tower of London. Soon
after, three days before All Saint's Day, there was a large and gay
fleet to be seen crossing from the white cliffs of Dover, and the King,
his son, and his knights rode down to the landing place to welcome
plump, fair haired Queen Philippa, and all her train of ladies, who had
come in great numbers to visit their husbands, fathers, or brothers in
the wooden town.

Then there was a great Court, and numerous feasts and dances, and the
knights and squires were constantly striving who could do the bravest
deed of prowess to please the ladies. The King of France had placed
numerous knights and men-at-arms in the neighboring towns and castles,
and there were constant fights whenever the English went out foraging,
and many bold deeds that were much admired were done. The great point
was to keep provisions out of the town, and there was much fighting
between the French who tried to bring in supplies, and the English who
intercepted them. Very little was brought in by land, and Sir Jean de
Vienne and his garrison would have been quite starved but for two
sailors of Abbeville, named Marant and Mestriel, who knew the coast
thoroughly, and often, in the dark autumn evenings, would guide in a
whole fleet of little boats, loaded with bread and meat for the starving
men within the city. They were often chased by King Edward's vessels,
and were sometimes very nearly taken, but they always managed to escape,
and thus they still enabled the garrison to hold out.

So all the winter passed, Christmas was kept with brilliant feastings
and high merriment by the King and his Queen in their wooden palace
outside, and with lean cheeks and scanty fare by the besieged within.
Lent was strictly observed perforce by the besieged, and Easter brought
a betrothal in the English camp; a very unwilling one on the part of the
bridegroom, the young Count of Flanders, who loved the French much
better than the English, and had only been tormented into giving his
consent by his unruly vassals because they depended on the wool of
English sheep for their cloth works. So, though King Edward's daughter
Isabel was a beautiful fair-haired girl of fifteen, the young Count
would scarcely look at her; and in the last week before the marriage
day, while her robes and her jewels were being prepared, and her father
and mother were arranging the presents they should make to all their
Court on the wedding day, the bridegroom, when out hawking, gave his
attendants the slip, and galloped off to Paris, where he was welcomed by
King Philippe.

This made Edward very wrathful, and more than ever determined to take
Calais. About Whitsuntide he completed a great wooden castle upon the
seashore, and placed in it numerous warlike engines, with forty men-at-
arms and 200 archers, who kept such a watch upon the harbour that not
even the two Abbeville sailors could enter it, without having their
boats crushed and sunk by the great stones that the mangonels launched
upon them. The townspeople began to feel what hunger really was, but
their spirits were kept up by the hope that their King was at last
collecting an army for their rescue.

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