Agitated by these thoughts, he could only bid the unfortunate Rowena be
comforted, and assure her, that as yet she had no reason for the
excess of despair to which she was now giving way. But in this task of
consolation De Bracy was interrupted by the horn, "hoarse-winded blowing
far and keen," which had at the same time alarmed the other inmates
of the castle, and interrupted their several plans of avarice and
of license. Of them all, perhaps, De Bracy least regretted the
interruption; for his conference with the Lady Rowena had arrived at a
point, where he found it equally difficult to prosecute or to resign his
enterprise.
And here we cannot but think it necessary to offer some better proof
than the incidents of an idle tale, to vindicate the melancholy
representation of manners which has been just laid before the reader. It
is grievous to think that those valiant barons, to whose stand against
the crown the liberties of England were indebted for their existence,
should themselves have been such dreadful oppressors, and capable of
excesses contrary not only to the laws of England, but to those of
nature and humanity. But, alas! we have only to extract from the
industrious Henry one of those numerous passages which he has collected
from contemporary historians, to prove that fiction itself can hardly
reach the dark reality of the horrors of the period.
The description given by the author of the Saxon Chronicle of the
cruelties exercised in the reign of King Stephen by the great barons and
lords of castles, who were all Normans, affords a strong proof of the
excesses of which they were capable when their passions were inflamed.
"They grievously oppressed the poor people by building castles; and when
they were built, they filled them with wicked men, or rather devils, who
seized both men and women who they imagined had any money, threw them
into prison, and put them to more cruel tortures than the martyrs ever
endured. They suffocated some in mud, and suspended others by the feet,
or the head, or the thumbs, kindling fires below them. They squeezed the
heads of some with knotted cords till they pierced their brains, while
they threw others into dungeons swarming with serpents, snakes, and
toads." But it would be cruel to put the reader to the pain of perusing
the remainder of this description. [29] As another instance of these bitter fruits of conquest, and perhaps the
strongest that can be quoted, we may mention, that the Princess Matilda,
though a daughter of the King of Scotland, and afterwards both Queen of
England, niece to Edgar Atheling, and mother to the Empress of Germany,
the daughter, the wife, and the mother of monarchs, was obliged, during
her early residence for education in England, to assume the veil of a
nun, as the only means of escaping the licentious pursuit of the Norman
nobles. This excuse she stated before a great council of the clergy of
England, as the sole reason for her having taken the religious habit.
The assembled clergy admitted the validity of the plea, and the
notoriety of the circumstances upon which it was founded; giving thus
an indubitable and most remarkable testimony to the existence of that
disgraceful license by which that age was stained. It was a matter of
public knowledge, they said, that after the conquest of King William,
his Norman followers, elated by so great a victory, acknowledged no
law but their own wicked pleasure, and not only despoiled the conquered
Saxons of their lands and their goods, but invaded the honour of their
wives and of their daughters with the most unbridled license; and hence
it was then common for matrons and maidens of noble families to assume
the veil, and take shelter in convents, not as called thither by the
vocation of God, but solely to preserve their honour from the unbridled
wickedness of man.