The Robber Baron of Bedford Castle Read online

  *CHAPTER IV.*

  _*IN BEDFORD CASTLE.*_

  A few weeks after William de Breaute, his face smarting and disfiguredby a blow from a woman's hand, had ridden off from Bletsoe, his elderbrother Fulke--"that disgrace to knighthood," as Ralph de Beauchamp hadtermed him--sat one morning in his wife's apartment in his castle ofBedford.

  The lady's bower, as the private room of the _chatelaine_ was called,was at Bedford pleasantly situated in the upper part of the great keepreared by Pain de Beauchamp. The interior arrangement of a Normancastle was usually as follows:--

  The ground-floor, to which there was no entrance from without, wascalled the _dungeon_, and was used as a storehouse for the provisionswhich were necessary to enable the castle to stand a siege. Here, also,was the well, another necessity, and prisoners were also sometimesconfined in the ground-floor, hence the application of the name toprisons in general. The greater part of the first floor was occupied bythe large apartment called the hall. This was approached by stepsoutside the building, and was entered through a portal which was oftenhighly ornamented. The great hall was common ground to all who had anyright to enter the keep, but above it were the private rooms for thelord and his family, which were usually approached by a staircase builtat one corner of the keep. The windows were very small: in the lowerportion of the building were long narrow tunnels pierced through thethickness of the wall; but in the upper stories, where the walls weresafe from attack by battering-rams or such engines, they were oftensplayed within at a wide angle. In the recess thus formed seats couldbe placed commanding a view through the narrow window, covered only by awooden shutter, which could be hooked back when the weather permitted.

  In such a nook, in her own private room, sat Margaret de Ripariis, thelady of Bedford Castle. The view from out of the open window was apleasant one. Immediately at her feet was the strong wall surroundingthe keep itself; its exact position can even now be determined, as westand on the flat bowling-green which occupies the summit of the moundwhere the keep once stood. Beyond, the broad stream of the Ouseprotected the castle along the whole of the southern front. Across theriver, to the right, the Micklegate, or southern portion of the town,clustered round the two churches of St. Mary and St. Peter, Dunstable;and the view from the upper stories of the keep embraced the abbey ofElstow, with its great Norman church, some two miles further to thesouth, and was only bounded by the blue line of the Ampthill hills.

  But charming as was the prospect, the Lady Margaret was not regarding itwith any expression of satisfaction. In fact, her thoughts were quiteotherwise occupied. A controversy was going on at that moment betweenherself and her lord and master, and she merely gazed out of the windowin order to turn away her eyes from him, for they were full of tears. Anunfortunate contrast to the scene within were the calm river and thebright spring sunshine without.

  The Lady Margaret had barely reached middle age, but sorrow and care hadworn weary lines on a face which, some twenty years before, must havebeen one of exceeding beauty. When a young girl, she had betrothedherself to William de Beauchamp, Ralph's uncle; but by an overstrainingof that feudal law which allowed the king, or any other chief, the powerto give his ward in marriage, she had been forced by King John into adistasteful match with Fulke de Breaute. It would have been possible,but difficult, for a strong-willed woman to resist the will and thecommand of a feudal superior. But in the case of an heiress, such aswas Margaret de Ripariis, great pressure was exercised, and many womenin those days had to yield against their will and inclination. Fulke deBreaute himself was at that time a young man in the height of favourwith King John, who was then engaged in his desperate struggle with hisbarons, and who eventually rewarded his supporter with the governorshipof Bedford, and the hand of the rich heiress.

  But on the morning in question in this chapter the redoubtable Fulke wasin a somewhat less defiant, and even in a penitent mood. Not, however,that he had as yet made any act of reparation for the terrible deed ofpillage and murder committed on St. Vincent's Eve at St. Alban's, andwhich the ferocious knight had finally crowned by carrying off a crowdof men, women, and children to his stronghold at Bedford.

  In those days freebooting barons pounced upon prisoners for the sake ofransom, much as the Greek brigands do now, and we may be sure that theburgesses of St. Alban's had to pay up pretty heavily ere theirfellow-townsfolk were restored to them. The chronicler, however, doesnot relate the fate of these unfortunate creatures thus hurried off toBedford, but what he does tell us is, that the conscience of Fulke, deadenough probably when that miscreant was awake, had been pricking him ashe slept; and "conscience doth make cowards of us all."

  De Breaute was suffering mentally from an uneasy night and a very uglydream. He had seen, the chronicler relates--though how he came by suchan intimate knowledge of the knight's dream does not transpire--he hadseen a huge stone fall from the summit of the great central tower of St.Alban's Abbey--that tower built of the bricks of the Roman Verulam whichwe still see rising high above the city--and had felt it fall upon himand crush him to powder.

  One cannot but think that Sir Fulke was paying the penalty for a toohearty indulgence in some indigestible dish at the supper-table theevening before. Be that how it may, however, he awoke with a great cry,and told the dream to Lady Margaret. The latter, as much alarmed as herhusband, drew from him an account of his late raid, of which thepresence of the captives had given her an inkling, and then urged him togo off forthwith to St. Alban's, and make reparation at the shrine ofthe saint.

  With the morning light, however, Sir Fulke, himself again, demurred. Hebegan to regret that he had told his wife all. The brief season ofsuperstitious fear had passed away, and his usual condition of ferocityand self-will supervening, he was endeavouring, and not unsuccessfully,to master the better feeling that had arisen within him.

  The Lady Margaret had, under the seemingly fortuitous circumstances ofher husband's brief penitence, ventured to bring forward a matter shehad at heart. It was now the season of Lent. In the famous BenedictineNunnery of Elstow, close to Bedford, Martin de Pateshulle, Archdeacon ofNorthampton, and the uncle of Aliva, was holding a series of specialdevotional services for women, or what we should now call a retreat,which was attended by many of the ladies of the county. Margaret, sickat heart with her life at Bedford Castle, and weary of the blasphemiesand the sacrilege of her husband, was most anxious to escape, if onlyfor a time, into the seclusion of religious life.

  The old chaplain of the castle, the pious and venerable priest, who hadtaught Ralph de Beauchamp his _hic_, _haec_, _hoc_, had long since beengathered to his rest. Indeed, had he still been alive, he couldscarcely have continued in his office under the new _regime_. Sochaplain at this time there was none in Bedford Castle. He must,indeed, have been a strange priest who would have been acceptable toFulke and his crew.

  St. Paul's, the principal church in the town, had been despoiled by thesacrilegious baron, who had carried off the stones of which it was builtto repair his stronghold, and it is not clear if the Augustinian canonswho continued to serve it, though they had removed many years before tothe priory erected for them at Newenham by Roisia de Beauchamp, wouldhave found just then an altar to serve. Only on certain occasions wouldher brutal husband permit Margaret to attend to her religious duties atthe chapel of St. Thomas-at-bridge, which stood at the foot of thebridge outside the castle gate. This morning, however, taking advantageof the fit of penitence which had seized him in the night, she wascraving permission to go to the retreat at Elstow.

  "I like not your running after these priests and their masses,"remonstrated Sir Fulke. "We have gone many years with chapel unservedhere. You know I have made of it a lumber-room; and we are none theworse for it, and," he added, with a grim chuckle, "perchance none thebetter."

  "But, and did you allow me, I would go pray for you, while you yourselfget you to the shrine of St. Alban, and make reparation
to the holyservants of St. Benedict there, as you promised me last night, on yourhonour, you would do," pleaded the wife.

  Sir Fulke winced at this allusion to his weakness and terror in thehours of darkness.

  "Besides, you have often exhorted me to stand well for your sake withthe knights and noble families round, and you know full well how manyladies are like to be at Elstow."

  Sir Fulke paused awhile. It was perfectly true, as his wife had said,that he wanted to improve his social position in the neighbourhood, andthough the superstitious fears arising from his fearful dream had nowvanished, he was well aware that his last raid, with its accompanyingmurders, was more than any decent-minded men could put up with, even inthose rough and cruel days. Therefore, as religious observances countedfor much in the way of expiation of crime, he came to the conclusionthat no harm would be done by a little vicarious repentance.

  "Go, then," he said roughly. "But take care that if aught is said toyou concerning this St. Alban's turmoil, you make out the best case youcan for me. Say that the bailiff was burned by my men ere I got to theabbey gate, and that I knew naught of it till afterwards. You can addthat some of my men-at-arms have been hanged for it, or aught else thatoccurs to you. Your woman-wit will tell you what to say."

  "And then," exclaimed Lady Margaret, overlooking, in her thankfulness,the condition of lying imposed on the desired permission--"and then youwill go yourself to St. Alban's, and--"

  "Peace, woman!" interrupted the knight; "leave me to order my owndoings. I will command your palfrey to be ready. Take one of yourwomen with you, and I will order varlets to go attend you. I would notthat the wife of De Breaute should go to Elstow with any fewer trainthan the other dames."

  So saying, Sir Fulke strode from the room, leaving his wife settingabout her preparations for departure with all alacrity.

  De Breaute, rough and cruel as he was, had a great idea of keeping suchstate at Bedford as befitted a castle of such importance, and had nonotion of letting it go down from the position which it had occupied inthe time of the De Beauchamps. Indeed, from a military point of view,he had considerably strengthened it by adding to its defences with thematerial he had robbed from St. Paul's. Within, it was well garrisonedand provisioned, and held by a force of nearly one hundred men-at-arms,or trained soldiers, besides grooms, servants, and followers. Thoughdeprived of the services of a chaplain, the Lady Margaret was allowed tohave two or three waiting-women or attendants, who held more theposition of companions than mere servants.

  Accompanied by one of these, she found herself, an hour or two after herinterview with her husband, riding on her palfrey towards Elstow Abbey.

  Her companion was a young and pretty girl who, by her combined prudenceand archness, managed to hold her own among the rough crew whogarrisoned Bedford Castle, while her bright wit and merry laugh at timesshed a brief ray of brightness on the gloomy life of her unfortunatemistress, whose loneliness was cheered by her faithful attachment.

  Beatrice Mertoun might, had she been inclined, have chosen a husband forherself from her many admirers among De Breaute's chief retainers. Buther affections were already fixed upon an officer in the royal army, oneJohn de Standen, the king's miner, from the Forest of Dean. De Standenoccupied an important post as director of the mining operations sonecessary in a siege, though he did not hold the rank of a knight, andtherefore could hardly be said to represent a modern officer ofengineers.

  As the two ladies, followed by their grooms, proceeded on the way, theLady Margaret confided to Beatrice the story of her lord's dream,congratulating herself on its result being so far favourable as to allowher to pay this visit to the abbey.

  "Now, by my halidom," quoth the maiden, as she listened to the accountof the vision, her thoughts running rather on her lover than on thispious pilgrimage, "methinks to hurl down a stone like that were rathermore like the work of Master John de Standen than of the holy Alban!"

  "Tush, child! jest not of the blessed saints!" reproved the elder woman.

  "I meant no harm, lady," retorted the incorrigible Beatrice. "I wasever taught that the holy Alban was a good soldier and true, like DeStanden, but I never heard that he was at his best in the mining worksof a siege!"

  But her lady hardly caught her last remark. Her eye perceived the tallcentral tower of Elstow rising among the trees, and the sight suggestedalarming thoughts to her harassed mind.

  "Ah me!" she said, half to herself. "What if my lord in his madnessshould attack the holy abbey of Elstow and the reverend women there!"

  "And lack-a-day, my lady," Beatrice went on, "men do say that the kingwill certes one day pull down Bedford Castle over Sir Fulke's head; andwho could raze those stout walls without the aid of bold John and hismen?"

  But the elder lady continued to pursue her own train of thoughtconcerning the abbey and the approaching retreat, so that theconversation ran on between the two in the following somewhat disjointedfashion, the venerable Archdeacon Martin de Pateshulle and the bold Johnde Standen being alternately the theme.

  "He will draw us all up higher when we come within those walls."

  "Nay, lady; methinks he will draw them down about our ears and ourselveswith them."

  "How meanest thou? I speak of the holy church and the reverend father."

  "In good sooth, it looks strong and stout, the abbey church; and yet,were it a castle, methinks John could find his way beneath its walls."

  "And how, Beatrice? To me it seems to figure the firmness of HolyChurch, founded on the rock of the blessed apostle, the see of our lordhis Holiness the Pope."

  "Yet neither rock nor sea can withstand the skilful miner's advances;for John has ofttimes explained to me how he has dug his mines beneaththe water of the deepest moat."

  And so, running on at cross purposes, they rode through the abbeygateway, and entered the outer or guests' yard.