Ivanhoe: A Romance
effect of contrast, and that, could he have derived a similar advantage
from making his heroine blue, blue she should have been.
I do not pretend to plead the immunities of my order so highly as this;
but neither will I allow that the author of a modern antique romance is
obliged to confine himself to the introduction of those manners only
which can be proved to have absolutely existed in the times he is
depicting, so that he restrain himself to such as are plausible and
natural, and contain no obvious anachronism. In this point of view,
what can be more natural, than that the Templars, who, we know, copied
closely the luxuries of the Asiatic warriors with whom they fought,
should use the service of the enslaved Africans, whom the fate of war
transferred to new masters? I am sure, if there are no precise proofs
of their having done so, there is nothing, on the other hand, that can
entitle us positively to conclude that they never did. Besides, there
is an instance in romance.
John of Rampayne, an excellent juggler and minstrel, undertook to
effect the escape of one Audulf de Bracy, by presenting himself in
disguise at the court of the king, where he was confined. For this
purpose, “he stained his hair and his whole body entirely as black as
jet, so that nothing was white but his teeth,” and succeeded in
imposing himself on the king, as an Ethiopian minstrel. He effected, by
stratagem, the escape of the prisoner. Negroes, therefore, must have
been known in England in the dark ages. 60
NOTE TO CHAPTER XVII.
Note C.—Minstrelsy.
The realm of France, it is well known, was divided betwixt the Norman
and Teutonic race, who spoke the language in which the word Yes is
pronounced as “oui”, and the inhabitants of the southern regions, whose
speech bearing some affinity to the Italian, pronounced the same word
“oc”. The poets of the former race were called “Minstrels”, and their
poems “Lays”: those of the latter were termed “Troubadours”, and their
compositions called “sirventes”, and other names. Richard, a professed
admirer of the joyous science in all its branches, could imitate either
the minstrel or troubadour. It is less likely that he should have been
able to compose or sing an English ballad; yet so much do we wish to
assimilate Him of the Lion Heart to the band of warriors whom he led,
that the anachronism, if there be one may readily be forgiven.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXI.
Note D.—Battle of Stamford.
A great topographical blunder occurred here in former editions. The
bloody battle alluded to in the text, fought and won by King Harold,
over his brother the rebellious Tosti, and an auxiliary force of Danes
or Norsemen, was said, in the text, and a corresponding note, to have
taken place at Stamford, in Leicestershire, and upon the river Welland.
This is a mistake, into which the author has been led by trusting to
his memory, and so confounding two places of the same name. The
Stamford, Strangford, or Staneford, at which the battle really was
fought, is a ford upon the river Derwent, at the distance of about
seven miles from York, and situated in that large and opulent county. A
long wooden bridge over the Derwent, the site of which, with one
remaining buttress, is still shown to the curious traveller, was
furiously contested. One Norwegian long defended it by his single arm,
and was at length pierced with a spear thrust through the planks of the
bridge from a boat beneath.
The neighbourhood of Stamford, on the Derwent, contains some memorials
of the battle. Horseshoes, swords, and the heads of halberds, or bills,
are often found there; one place is called the “Danes’ well,” another
the “Battle flats.” From a tradition that the weapon with which the
Norwegian champion was slain, resembled a pear, or, as others say, that
the trough or boat in which the soldier floated under the bridge to
strike the blow, had such a shape, the country people usually begin a
great market, which is held at Stamford, with an entertainment called
the Pear-pie feast, which after all may be a corruption of the
Spear-pie feast. For more particulars, Drake’s History of York may be
referred to. The author’s mistake was pointed out to him, in the most
obliging manner, by Robert Belt, Esq. of Bossal House. The battle was
fought in 1066.
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXII.
Note E.—The range of iron bars above that glowing charcoal.
This horrid species of torture may remind the reader of that to which
the Spaniards subjected Guatimozin, in order to extort a discovery of
his concealed wealth. But, in fact, an instance of similar barbarity is
to be found nearer home, and occurs in the annals of Queen Mary’s time,
containing so many other examples of atrocity. Every reader must
recollect, that after the fall of the Catholic Church, and the
Presbyterian Church Government had been established by law, the rank,
and especially the wealth, of the Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and so
forth, were no longer vested in ecclesiastics, but in lay impropriators
of the church revenues, or, as the Scottish lawyers called them,
titulars of the temporalities of the benefice, though having no claim
to the spiritual character of their predecessors in office.
Of these laymen, who were thus invested with ecclesiastical revenues,
some were men of high birth and rank, like the famous Lord James
Stewart, the Prior of St Andrews, who did not fail to keep for their
own use the rents, lands, and revenues of the church. But if, on the
other hand, the titulars were men of inferior importance, who had been
inducted into the office by the interest of some powerful person, it
was generally understood that the new Abbot should grant for his
patron’s benefit such leases and conveyances of the church lands and
tithes as might afford their protector the lion’s share of the booty.
This was the origin of those who were wittily termed Tulchan 61
Bishops, being a sort of imaginary prelate, whose image was set up to
enable his patron and principal to plunder the benefice under his name.
There were other cases, however, in which men who had got grants of
these secularised benefices, were desirous of retaining them for their
own use, without having the influence sufficient to establish their
purpose; and these became frequently unable to protect themselves,
however unwilling to submit to the exactions of the feudal tyrant of
the district.
Bannatyne, secretary to John Knox, recounts a singular course of
oppression practised on one of those titulars abbots, by the Earl of
Cassilis in Ayrshire, whose extent of feudal influence was so wide that
he was usually termed the King of Carrick. We give the fact as it
occurs in Bannatyne’s Journal, only premising that the Journalist held
his master’s opinions, both with respect to the Earl of Cassilis as an
opposer of the king’s party, and as being a detester of the practice of
granting church revenues to titulars, instead of their being devoted to
pious uses, such as the support of the clergy, expense of schools, and
the relief of the national poor. He mingles in the narrative,
therefore, a well deserved feeling of execration against the tyrant who
employed the torture, which a tone of ridicule towards the patient, as
if, after all, it had not been ill bestowed on such an equivocal and
amphibious character as a titular abbot. He entitles his narrative,
THE EARL OF CASSILIS’ TYRANNY AGAINST A QUICK (i.e. LIVING) MAN.
“Master Allan Stewart, friend to Captain James Stewart of Cardonall, by
means of the Queen’s corrupted court, obtained the Abbey of
Crossraguel. The said Earl thinking himself greater than any king in
those quarters, determined to have that whole benefice (as he hath
divers others) to pay at his pleasure; and because he could not find
sic security as his insatiable appetite required, this shift was
devised. The said Mr Allan being in company with the Laird of Bargany,
(also a Kennedy,) was, by the Earl and his friends, enticed to leave
the safeguard which he had with the Laird, and come to make good cheer
with the said Earl. The simplicity of the imprudent man was suddenly
abused; and so he passed his time with them certain days, which he did
in Maybole with Thomas Kennedie, uncle to the said Earl; after which
the said Mr Allan passed, with quiet company, to visit the place and
bounds of Crossraguel, [his abbacy,] of which the said Earl being
surely advertised, determined to put in practice the tyranny which long
before he had conceived. And so, as king of the country, apprehended
the said Mr Allan, and carried him to the house of Denure, where for a
season he was honourably treated, (if a prisoner can think any
entertainment pleasing;) but after that certain days were spent, and
that the Earl could not obtain the feus of Crossraguel according to his
own appetite, he determined to prove if a collation could work that
which neither dinner nor supper could do for a long time. And so the
said Mr Allan was carried to a secret chamber: with him passed the
honourable Earl, his worshipful brother, and such as were appointed to
be servants at that banquet. In the chamber there was a grit iron
chimlay, under it a fire; other grit provision was not seen. The first
course was,—‘My Lord Abbot,’ (said the Earl,) ‘it will please you
confess here, that with your own consent you remain in my company,
because ye durst not commit yourself to the hands of others.’ The Abbot
answered, ‘Would you, my lord, that I should make a manifest lie for
your pleasure? The truth is, my lord, it is against my will that I am
here; neither yet have I any pleasure in your company.’ ‘But ye shall
remain with me, nevertheless, at this time,’ said the Earl. ‘I am not
able to resist your will and pleasure,’ said the Abbot, ‘in this
place.’ ‘Ye must then obey me,’ said the Earl,—and with that were
presented unto him certain letters to subscribe, amongst which there
was a five years’ tack, and a nineteen years’ tack, and a charter of
feu of all the lands (of Crossraguel), with all the clauses necessary
for the Earl to haste him to hell. For if adultery, sacrilege,
oppression, barbarous cruelty, and theft heaped upon theft, deserve
hell, the great King of Carrick can no more escape hell for ever, than
the imprudent Abbot escaped the fire for a season as follows.
“After that the Earl spied repugnance, and saw that he could not come
to his purpose by fair means, he commanded his cooks to prepare the
banquet: and so first they flayed the sheep, that is, they took off the
Abbot’s cloathes even to his skin, and next they bound him to the
chimney—his legs to the one end, and his arms to the other; and so they
began to beet [i.e. feed] the fire sometimes to his buttocks, sometimes
to his legs, sometimes to his shoulders and arms; and that the roast
might not burn, but that it might rest in soppe, they spared not
flambing with oil, (basting as a cook bastes roasted meat); Lord, look
thou to sic cruelty! And that the crying of the miserable man should
not be heard, they dosed his mouth that the voice might be stopped. It
may be suspected that some partisan of the King’s [Darnley’s] murder
was there. In that torment they held the poor man, till that often he
cried for God’s sake to dispatch him; for he had as meikle gold in his
awin purse as would buy powder enough to shorten his pain. The famous
King of Carrick and his cooks perceiving the roast to be aneuch,
commanded it to be tane fra the fire, and the Earl himself began the
grace in this manner:—‘Benedicite, Jesus Maria, you are the most
obstinate man that ever I saw; gif I had known that ye had been so
stubborn, I would not for a thousand crowns have handled you so; I
never did so to man before you.’ And yet he returned to the same