Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you donât realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Hereward, the Last of the English by Charles Kingsley (i am reading a book .TXT) đ
- Author: Charles Kingsley
Book online «Hereward, the Last of the English by Charles Kingsley (i am reading a book .TXT) đ». Author Charles Kingsley
âThe carcass is here, and the eagles are gathered together. Fetch me the holy sacrament, Chaplain, and God be merciful to an unfaithful shepherd.â
The chaplain went.
âI have slain my own sheep!â moaned the archbishop. âI have given them up to the wolves,âgiven my own minster, and all the treasures of the saints; andâandâI am very cold.â
When the chaplain came back with the blessed sacrament, Archbishop Aldred was more than cold; for he was already dead and stiff.
But William Malet would not yield. He and his Normans fought, day after day, with the energy of despair. They asked leave to put forth the body of the archbishop; and young Waltheof, who was a pious man, insisted that leave should be given.
So the archbishopâs coffin was thrust forth of the castle-gate, and the monks from the abbey came and bore it away, and buried it in the Cathedral church.
And then the fight went on, day after day, and more and more houses burned, till York was all aflame. On the eighth day the minster was in a light low over Archbishop Aldredâs new-made grave. All was burnt,âminster, churches, old Roman palaces, and all the glories of Constantine the Great and the mythic past.
The besiegers, hewing and hammering gate after gate, had now won all but the Keep itself. Then Maletâs heart failed him. A wife he had, and children; and for their sake he turned coward and fled by night, with a few men-at-arms, across the burning ruins.
Then into what once was York the confederate Earls and Thanes marched in triumph, and proclaimed Edgar king,âa king of dust and ashes.
And where were Edwin and Morcar the meanwhile? It is not told. Were they struggling against William at Stafford, or helping Edric the Wild and his Welshmen to besiege Chester? Probably they were aiding the insurrection,âif not at these two points, still at some other of their great earldoms of Mercia and Chester. They seemed to triumph for a while: during the autumn of 1069 the greater part of England seemed lost to William. Many Normans packed up their plunder and went back to France; and those whose hearts were too stout to return showed no mercy to the English, even as William showed none. To crush the heart of the people by massacres and mutilations and devastations was the only hope of the invader; and thoroughly he did his work whenever he had a chance.
CHAPTER XXV. â HOW HEREWARD FOUND A WISER MAN IN ENGLAND THAN HIMSELF.
There have been certain men so great, that he who describes them in words, much more pretends to analyze their inmost feelings, must be a very great man himself, or incur the accusation of presumption. And such a great man was William of Normandy,âone of those unfathomable master-personages who must not be rashly dragged on any stage. The genius of a Bulwer, in attempting to draw him, took care, with a wise modesty, not to draw him in too much detail,âto confess always that there was much beneath and behind in Williamâs character which none, even of his contemporaries, could guess. And still more modest than Bulwer is this chronicler bound to be.
But one may fancy, for once in a way, what Williamâs thoughts were, when they brought him the evil news of York. For we know what his acts were; and he acted up to his thoughts.
Hunting he was, they say, in the forest of Dean, when first he heard that all England, north of the Watling Street, had broken loose, and that he was king of only half the isle.
Did heâas when, hunting in the forest of Rouen, he got the news of Haroldâs coronationâplay with his bow, stringing and unstringing it nervously, till he had made up his mighty mind? Then did he go home to his lodge, and there spread on the rough oak board a parchment map of England, which no child would deign to learn from now, but was then good enough to guide armies to victory, because the eyes of a great general looked upon it?
As he pored over the map, by the light of bog-deal torch or rush candle, what would he see upon it?
Three separate blazes of insurrection, from northwest to east, along the Watling Street.
At Chester, Edric, âthe wild Thane,â who, according to Domesday-book, had lost vast lands in Shropshire; Algitha, Haroldâs widow, and Blethwallon and all his Welsh,ââthe white mantles,â swarming along Chester streets, not as usually, to tear and ravage like the wild-cats of their own rocks, but fast friends by blood of Algitha, once their queen on Penmaenmawr. [Footnote: See the admirable description of the tragedy of Penmaenmawr, in Bulwerâs âHarold.â] Edwin, the young Earl, Algithaâs brother, Herewardâs nephew,âhe must be with them too, if he were a man.
Eastward, round Stafford, and the centre of Mercia, another blaze of furious English valor. Morcar, Edwinâs brother, must be there, as their Earl, if he too was a man.
Then in the fens and Kesteven. What meant this news, that Hereward of St. Omer was come again, and an army with him? That he was levying war on all Frenchmen, in the name of Sweyn, King of Denmark and of England? He is an outlaw, a desperado, a boastful swash-buckler, thought William, it may be, to himself. He found out, in after years, that he had mistaken his man.
And north, at York, in the rear of those three insurrections lay Gospatrick, Waltheof, and Marlesweyn, with the Northumbrian host. Durham was lost, and Comyn burnt therein. But York, so boasted William Malet, could hold out for a year. He should not need to hold out for so long.
And last, and worst of all, hung on the eastern coast the mighty fleet of Sweyn, who claimed England as his of right. The foe whom he had part feared ever since he set foot on English soil, a collision with whom had been inevitable all along, was come at last; but where would he strike his blow?
William knew, it may be, that the Danes had been defeated at Norwich; he knew, doubt it not (for his spies told him everything), that they had purposed entering the Wash. To prevent a junction between them and Hereward was impossible. He must prevent a junction between them and Edwin and Morcarâs men.
He determined, it seemsâfor he did itâto cut the English line in two, and marched upon Stafford as its centre.
So it seems; for all records of these campaigns are fragmentary, confused, contradictory. The Normans fought, and had no time to write history. The English, beaten and crushed, died and left no sign. The only chroniclers of the time are monks. And little could Ordericus Vitalis, or Florence of Worcester, or he of Peterborough, faithful as he was, who filled up the sad pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,âlittle could they see or
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