Ivanhoe: A Romance
retainers, like the lighter-coloured edges of a sable cloud. The
multitude, who had raised a clamorous shout of reprobation, paused and
gazed in silence on the formidable and experienced body to which they
had unwarily bade defiance, and shrunk back from their front.
The Earl of Essex, when he beheld them pause in their assembled force,
dashed the rowels into his charger’s sides, and galloped backwards and
forwards to array his followers, in opposition to a band so formidable.
Richard alone, as if he loved the danger his presence had provoked,
rode slowly along the front of the Templars, calling aloud, “What,
sirs! Among so many gallant knights, will none dare splinter a spear
with Richard?—Sirs of the Temple! your ladies are but sun-burned, if
they are not worth the shiver of a broken lance?”
“The Brethren of the Temple,” said the Grand Master, riding forward in
advance of their body, “fight not on such idle and profane quarrel—and
not with thee, Richard of England, shall a Templar cross lance in my
presence. The Pope and Princes of Europe shall judge our quarrel, and
whether a Christian prince has done well in bucklering the cause which
thou hast to-day adopted. If unassailed, we depart assailing no one. To
thine honour we refer the armour and household goods of the Order which
we leave behind us, and on thy conscience we lay the scandal and
offence thou hast this day given to Christendom.”
With these words, and without waiting a reply, the Grand Master gave
the signal of departure. Their trumpets sounded a wild march, of an
Oriental character, which formed the usual signal for the Templars to
advance. They changed their array from a line to a column of march, and
moved off as slowly as their horses could step, as if to show it was
only the will of their Grand Master, and no fear of the opposing and
superior force, which compelled them to withdraw.
“By the splendour of Our Lady’s brow!” said King Richard, “it is pity
of their lives that these Templars are not so trusty as they are
disciplined and valiant.”
The multitude, like a timid cur which waits to bark till the object of
its challenge has turned his back, raised a feeble shout as the rear of
the squadron left the ground.
During the tumult which attended the retreat of the Templars, Rebecca
saw and heard nothing—she was locked in the arms of her aged father,
giddy, and almost senseless, with the rapid change of circumstances
around her. But one word from Isaac at length recalled her scattered
feelings.
“Let us go,” he said, “my dear daughter, my recovered treasure—let us
go to throw ourselves at the feet of the good youth.”
“Not so,” said Rebecca, “O no—no—no—I must not at this moment dare to
speak to him—Alas! I should say more than—No, my father, let us
instantly leave this evil place.”
“But, my daughter,” said Isaac, “to leave him who hath come forth like
a strong man with his spear and shield, holding his life as nothing, so
he might redeem thy captivity; and thou, too, the daughter of a people
strange unto him and his—this is service to be thankfully
acknowledged.”
“It is—it is—most thankfully—most devoutly acknowledged,” said
Rebecca—“it shall be still more so—but not now—for the sake of thy
beloved Rachel, father, grant my request—not now!”
“Nay, but,” said Isaac, insisting, “they will deem us more thankless
than mere dogs!”
“But thou seest, my dear father, that King Richard is in presence, and
that—-”
“True, my best—my wisest Rebecca!—Let us hence—let us hence!—Money he
will lack, for he has just returned from Palestine, and, as they say,
from prison—and pretext for exacting it, should he need any, may arise
out of my simple traffic with his brother John. Away, away, let us
hence!”
And hurrying his daughter in his turn, he conducted her from the lists,
and by means of conveyance which he had provided, transported her
safely to the house of the Rabbi Nathan.
The Jewess, whose fortunes had formed the principal interest of the
day, having now retired unobserved, the attention of the populace was
transferred to the Black Knight. They now filled the air with “Long
life to Richard with the Lion’s Heart, and down with the usurping
Templars!”
“Notwithstanding all this lip-loyalty,” said Ivanhoe to the Earl of
Essex, “it was well the King took the precaution to bring thee with
him, noble Earl, and so many of thy trusty followers.”
The Earl smiled and shook his head.
“Gallant Ivanhoe,” said Essex, “dost thou know our Master so well, and
yet suspect him of taking so wise a precaution! I was drawing towards
York having heard that Prince John was making head there, when I met
King Richard, like a true knight-errant, galloping hither to achieve in
his own person this adventure of the Templar and the Jewess, with his
own single arm. I accompanied him with my band, almost maugre his
consent.”
“And what news from York, brave Earl?” said Ivanhoe; “will the rebels
bide us there?”
“No more than December’s snow will bide July’s sun,” said the Earl;
“they are dispersing; and who should come posting to bring us the news,
but John himself!”
“The traitor! the ungrateful insolent traitor!” said Ivanhoe; “did not
Richard order him into confinement?”
“O! he received him,” answered the Earl, “as if they had met after a
hunting party; and, pointing to me and our men-at-arms, said, ‘Thou
seest, brother, I have some angry men with me—thou wert best go to our
mother, carry her my duteous affection, and abide with her until men’s
minds are pacified.’”
“And this was all he said?” enquired Ivanhoe; “would not any one say
that this Prince invites men to treason by his clemency?”
“Just,” replied the Earl, “as the man may be said to invite death, who
undertakes to fight a combat, having a dangerous wound unhealed.”
“I forgive thee the jest, Lord Earl,” said Ivanhoe; “but, remember, I
hazarded but my own life—Richard, the welfare of his kingdom.”
“Those,” replied Essex, “who are specially careless of their own
welfare, are seldom remarkably attentive to that of others—But let us
haste to the castle, for Richard meditates punishing some of the
subordinate members of the conspiracy, though he has pardoned their
principal.”
From the judicial investigations which followed on this occasion, and
which are given at length in the Wardour Manuscript, it appears that
Maurice de Bracy escaped beyond seas, and went into the service of
Philip of France; while Philip de Malvoisin, and his brother Albert,
the Preceptor of Templestowe, were executed, although Waldemar
Fitzurse, the soul of the conspiracy, escaped with banishment; and
Prince John, for whose behoof it was undertaken, was not even censured
by his good-natured brother. No one, however, pitied the fate of the
two Malvoisins, who only suffered the death which they had both well
deserved, by many acts of falsehood, cruelty, and oppression.
Briefly after the judicial combat, Cedric the Saxon was summoned to the
court of Richard, which, for the purpose of quieting the counties that
had been disturbed by the ambition of his brother, was then held at
York. Cedric tushed and pshawed more than once at the message—but he
refused not obedience. In fact, the return of Richard had quenched
every hope that he had entertained of restoring a Saxon dynasty in
England; for, whatever head the Saxons might have made in the event of
a civil war, it was plain that nothing could be done under the
undisputed dominion of Richard, popular as he was by his personal good
qualities and military fame, although his administration was wilfully
careless, now too indulgent, and now allied to despotism.
But, moreover, it could not escape even Cedric’s reluctant observation,
that his project for an absolute union among the Saxons, by the
marriage of Rowena and Athelstane, was now completely at an end, by the
mutual dissent of both parties concerned. This was, indeed, an event
which, in his ardour for the Saxon cause, he could not have
anticipated, and even when the disinclination of both was broadly and
plainly manifested, he could scarce bring himself to believe that two
Saxons of royal descent should scruple, on personal grounds, at an
alliance so necessary for the public weal of the nation. But it was not
the less certain: Rowena had always expressed her repugnance to
Athelstane, and now Athelstane was no less plain and positive in
proclaiming his resolution never to pursue his addresses to the Lady
Rowena. Even the natural obstinacy of Cedric sunk beneath these
obstacles, where he, remaining on the point of junction, had the task
of dragging a reluctant pair up to it, one with each hand. He made,
however, a last vigorous attack on Athelstane, and he found that
resuscitated sprout of Saxon royalty engaged, like country squires of
our own day, in a furious war with the clergy.
It seems that, after all his deadly menaces against the Abbot of Saint
Edmund’s, Athelstane’s spirit of revenge, what between the natural
indolent kindness of his own disposition, what through the prayers of
his mother Edith, attached, like most ladies, (of the period,) to the
clerical order, had terminated in his keeping the Abbot and his monks
in the dungeons of Coningsburgh for three days on a meagre diet. For
this atrocity the Abbot menaced him with excommunication, and made out
a dreadful list of complaints in the bowels and stomach, suffered by
himself and his monks, in consequence of the tyrannical and unjust
imprisonment they had sustained. With this controversy, and with the
means he had adopted to counteract this clerical persecution, Cedric
found the mind of his friend Athelstane so fully occupied, that it had
no room for another idea. And when Rowena’s name was mentioned the
noble Athelstane prayed leave to quaff a full goblet to her health, and
that she might soon be the bride of his kinsman Wilfred. It was a
desperate case therefore. There was obviously no more to be made of
Athelstane; or, as Wamba expressed it, in a phrase which has descended
from Saxon times to ours, he was a cock that would not fight.
There remained betwixt Cedric and the determination which the lovers
desired to come to, only two obstacles—his own obstinacy, and his
dislike of the Norman dynasty. The former feeling gradually gave way
before the endearments of his ward, and the pride which he could not
help nourishing in the fame of his son. Besides, he was not insensible
to the honour of allying his own line to that of Alfred, when the
superior claims of the descendant of Edward the Confessor were
abandoned for ever. Cedric’s aversion to the Norman race of kings was
also much undermined,—first, by consideration of the impossibility of
ridding England of the new dynasty, a feeling which goes far to create
loyalty in the subject to the king “de facto”; and, secondly, by the
personal attention of King Richard, who delighted in the blunt humour
of Cedric, and, to use the language of the Wardour Manuscript, so dealt
with the noble Saxon, that, ere he had been a guest at court for seven
days, he had given his consent to the marriage of his ward Rowena and
his son Wilfred of Ivanhoe.
The nuptials of our hero, thus formally approved by his father, were
celebrated in the most august of temples, the noble Minster of York.
The King himself attended, and from the countenance which he afforded
on this and other occasions to the distressed and hitherto degraded
Saxons, gave them a safer and more certain prospect of attaining their
just rights, than they could reasonably hope from the precarious chance
of a civil war. The Church gave her full solemnities, graced with all
the splendour which she of Rome knows how to apply with such brilliant
effect.
Gurth, gallantly apparelled, attended as esquire upon his young master