Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (e ink ebook reader txt) 📗

better feelings predominated over those which were

most familiar to him. “I care not,” he said, “I care not---let

me go. If there is damage, it will cost you nothing---if there

is usage money, Kirjath Jairam will forgive it for the sake of

his kinsman Isaac. Fare thee well!---Yet hark thee, good youth,”

said he, turning about, “thrust thyself not too forward into this

vain hurly-burly---I speak not for endangering the steed, and

coat of armour, but for the sake of thine own life and limbs.”

“Gramercy for thy caution,” said the Palmer, again smiling; “I

will use thy courtesy frankly, and it will go hard with me but

I will requite it.”

They parted, and took different roads for the town of Sheffield.

CHAPTER VII

Knights, with a long retinue of their squires,

In gaudy liveries march and quaint attires;

One laced the helm, another held the lance,

A third the shining buckler did advance.

The courser paw’d the ground with restless feet,

And snorting foam’d and champ’d the golden bit.

The smiths and armourers on palfreys ride,

Files in their hands, and hammers at their side;

And nails for loosen’d spears, and thongs for shields provide.

The yeomen guard the streets in seemly bands;

And clowns come crowding on, with cudgels in their hands.

Palamon and Arcite

The condition of the English nation was at this time sufficiently

miserable. King Richard was absent a prisoner, and in the power

of the perfidious and cruel Duke of Austria. Even the very place

of his captivity was uncertain, and his fate but very imperfectly

known to the generality of his subjects, who were, in the

meantime, a prey to every species of subaltern oppression.

Prince John, in league with Philip of France, Coeur-de-Lion’s

mortal enemy, was using every species of influence with the Duke

of Austria, to prolong the captivity of his brother Richard, to

whom he stood indebted for so many favours. In the meantime, he

was strengthening his own faction in the kingdom, of which he

proposed to dispute the succession, in case of the King’s death,

with the legitimate heir, Arthur Duke of Brittany, son of

Geoffrey Plantagenet, the elder brother of John. This

usurpation, it is well known, he afterwards effected. His own

character being light, profligate, and perfidious, John easily

attached to his person and faction, not only all who had reason

to dread the resentment of Richard for criminal proceedings

during his absence, but also the numerous class of “lawless

resolutes,” whom the crusades had turned back on their country,

accomplished in the vices of the East, impoverished in substance,

and hardened in character, and who placed their hopes of harvest

in civil commotion. To these causes of public distress and

apprehension, must be added, the multitude of outlaws, who,

driven to despair by the oppression of the feudal nobility, and

the severe exercise of the forest laws, banded together in large

gangs, and, keeping possession of the forests and the wastes, set

at defiance the justice and magistracy of the country. The

nobles themselves, each fortified within his own castle, and

playing the petty sovereign over his own dominions, were the

leaders of bands scarce less lawless and oppressive than those of

the avowed depredators. To maintain these retainers, and to

support the extravagance and magnificence which their pride

induced them to affect, the nobility borrowed sums of money from

the Jews at the most usurious interest, which gnawed into their

estates like consuming cankers, scarce to be cured unless when

circumstances gave them an opportunity of getting free, by

exercising upon their creditors some act of unprincipled

violence.

Under the various burdens imposed by this unhappy state of

affairs, the people of England suffered deeply for the present,

and had yet more dreadful cause to fear for the future. To

augment their misery, a contagious disorder of a dangerous nature

spread through the land; and, rendered more virulent by the

uncleanness, the indifferent food, and the wretched lodging of

the lower classes, swept off many whose fate the survivors were

tempted to envy, as exempting them from the evils which were to

come.

Yet amid these accumulated distresses, the poor as well as the

rich, the vulgar as well as the noble, in the event of a

tournament, which was the grand spectacle of that age, felt as

much interested as the half-starved citizen of Madrid, who has

not a real left to buy provisions for his family, feels in the

issue of a bull-feast. Neither duty nor infirmity could keep

youth or age from such exhibitions. The Passage of Arms, as it

was called, which was to take place at Ashby, in the county of

Leicester, as champions of the first renown were to take the

field in the presence of Prince John himself, who was expected to

grace the lists, had attracted universal attention, and an

immense confluence of persons of all ranks hastened upon the

appointed morning to the place of combat.

The scene was singularly romantic. On the verge of a wood, which

approached to within a mile of the town of Ashby, was an

extensive meadow, of the finest and most beautiful green turf,

surrounded on one side by the forest, and fringed on the other by

straggling oak-trees, some of which had grown to an immense size.

The ground, as if fashioned on purpose for the martial display

which was intended, sloped gradually down on all sides to a level

bottom, which was enclosed for the lists with strong palisades,

forming a space of a quarter of a mile in length, and about half

as broad. The form of the enclosure was an oblong square, save

that the corners were considerably rounded off, in order to

afford more convenience for the spectators. The openings for the

entry of the combatants were at the northern and southern

extremities of the lists, accessible by strong wooden gates, each

wide enough to admit two horsemen riding abreast. At each of

these portals were stationed two heralds, attended by six

trumpets, as many pursuivants, and a strong body of men-at-arms

for maintaining order, and ascertaining the quality of the

knights who proposed to engage in this martial game.

On a platform beyond the southern entrance, formed by a natural

elevation of the ground, were pitched five magnificent pavilions,

adorned with pennons of russet and black, the chosen colours of

the five knights challengers. The cords of the tents were of the

same colour. Before each pavilion was suspended the shield of

the knight by whom it was occupied, and beside it stood his

squire, quaintly disguised as a salvage or silvan man, or in some

other fantastic dress, according to the taste of his master, and

the character he was pleased to assume during the game.*

This sort of masquerade is supposed to have occasioned the introduction of supporters into the science of heraldry.

The central pavilion, as the place of honour, had been assigned

to Brian be Bois-Guilbert, whose renown in all games of chivalry,

no less than his connexions with the knights who had undertaken

this Passage of Arms, had occasioned him to be eagerly received

into the company of the challengers, and even adopted as their

chief and leader, though he had so recently joined them. On one

side of his tent were pitched those of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf

and Richard de Malvoisin, and on the other was the pavilion of

Hugh de Grantmesnil, a noble baron in the vicinity, whose

ancestor had been Lord High Steward of England in the time of the

Conqueror, and his son William Rufus. Ralph de Vipont, a knight

of St John of Jerusalem, who had some ancient possessions at a

place called Heather, near Ashby-de-la-Zouche, occupied the fifth

pavilion. From the entrance into the lists, a gently sloping

passage, ten yards in breadth, led up to the platform on which

the tents were pitched. It was strongly secured by a palisade on

each side, as was the esplanade in front of the pavilions, and

the whole was guarded by men-at-arms.

The northern access to the lists terminated in a similar entrance

of thirty feet in breadth, at the extremity of which was a large

enclosed space for such knights as might be disposed to enter the

lists with the challengers, behind which were placed tents

containing refreshments of every kind for their accommodation,

with armourers, tarriers, and other attendants, in readiness to

give their services wherever they might be necessary.

The exterior of the lists was in part occupied by temporary

galleries, spread with tapestry and carpets, and accommodated

with cushions for the convenience of those ladies and nobles who

were expected to attend the tournament. A narrow space, betwixt

these galleries and the lists, gave accommodation for yeomanry

and spectators of a better degree than the mere vulgar, and might

be compared to the pit of a theatre. The promiscuous multitude

arranged themselves upon large banks of turf prepared for the

purpose, which, aided by the natural elevation of the ground,

enabled them to overlook the galleries, and obtain a fair view

into the lists. Besides the accommodation which these stations

afforded, many hundreds had perched themselves on the branches of

the trees which surrounded the meadow; and even the steeple of a

country church, at some distance, was crowded with spectators.

It only remains to notice respecting the general arrangement,

that one gallery in the very centre of the eastern side of the

lists, and consequently exactly opposite to the spot where the

shock of the combat was to take place, was raised higher than the

others, more richly decorated, and graced by a sort of throne and

canopy, on which the royal arms were emblazoned. Squires, pages,

and yeomen in rich liveries, waited around this place of honour,

which was designed for Prince John and his attendants. Opposite

to this royal gallery was another, elevated to the same height,

on the western side of the lists; and more gaily, if less

sumptuously decorated, than that destined for the Prince himself.

A train of pages and of young maidens, the most beautiful who

could be selected, gaily dressed in fancy habits of green and

pink, surrounded a throne decorated in the same colours. Among

pennons and flags bearing wounded hearts, burning hearts,

bleeding hearts, bows and quivers, and all the commonplace

emblems of the triumphs of Cupid, a blazoned inscription informed

the spectators, that this seat of honour was designed for “La

Royne de las Beaulte et des Amours”. But who was to represent

the Queen of Beauty and of Love on the present occasion no one

was prepared to guess.

Meanwhile, spectators of every description thronged forward to

occupy their respective stations, and not without many quarrels

concerning those which they were entitled to hold. Some of these

were settled by the men-at-arms with brief ceremony; the shafts

of their battle-axes, and pummels of their swords, being readily

employed as arguments to convince the more refractory. Others,

which involved the rival claims of more elevated persons, were

determined by the heralds, or by the two marshals of the field,

William de Wyvil, and Stephen de Martival, who, armed at all

points, rode up and down the lists to enforce and preserve good

order among the spectators.

Gradually the galleries became filled with knights and nobles, in

their robes of peace, whose long and rich-tinted mantles were

contrasted with the gayer and more splendid habits of the ladies,

who, in a greater proportion than even the men themselves,

thronged to witness a sport, which one would have thought too

bloody and dangerous to afford their sex much pleasure. The

lower and interior space was soon filled by substantial yeomen

and burghers, and such of the lesser gentry, as, from modesty,

poverty, or dubious title, durst not assume any higher place. It

was of course amongst these that the most frequent disputes for

precedence occurred.