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27 chapters
LEGENDS OF LOVE AND CHIVALRY. Knights of England, France, and Scotland.
LEGENDS OF LOVE AND CHIVALRY. Knights of England, France, and Scotland.
THE KNIGHTS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND SCOTLAND. BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “THE CAVALIERS OF ENGLAND”—“THE ROMAN TRAITOR”—“CROMWELL,” “THE BROTHERS”—“CAPTAINS OF THE OLD WORLD,” ETC. REDFIELD, CLINTON HALL, NEW YORK 1852. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, By J. S. REDFIELD, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE, 13 Chambers Street, N. Y....
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THE SAXON’S OATH.
THE SAXON’S OATH.
The son of Godwin was the flower of the whole Saxon race. The jealousies which had disturbed the mind of Edward the Confessor had long since passed away; and Harold, whom he once had looked upon with eyes of personal aversion, he now regarded almost as his own son. Yet still the Saxon hostages—Ulfnoth, and the young son of Swerga, who in the time of his mad predilection for the Normans, and his unnatural distrust of his own countrymen, had been delivered for safe keeping to William, duke of Norm
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THE NORMAN’S VENGEANCE.
THE NORMAN’S VENGEANCE.
Edward the Confessor was dead; and dying, had bequeathed the crown of merry England to Harold, son of Godwin, destined, alas! to be the last prince of the Saxon race who should possess the throne of the fair island. The oath which he had sworn to William, duke of Normandy, engaging to assist him in obtaining that same realm, which had now fallen to himself, alike by testament of the late king, and by election of the people, dwelt not in the new monarch’s bosom! Selfishness and ambition, aided, p
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THE FAITH OF WOMAN.
THE FAITH OF WOMAN.
It was the morning after the exterminating fight at Hastings. The banner blessed of the Roman pontiff streamed on the tainted air, from the same hillock whence the dragon standard of the Saxons had shone unconquered to the sun of yester-even! Hard by was pitched the proud pavilion of the conqueror, who, after the tremendous strife and perilous labors of the preceding day, reposed himself in fearless and untroubled confidence upon the field of his renown; secure in the possession of the land, whi
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THE ERRING ARROW.
THE ERRING ARROW.
As beautiful a summer’s morning as ever chased the stars from heaven, was dawning over that wide tract of waste and woodland, which still, though many a century has now mossed over the ancestral oaks which then were in their lusty prime, retains the name by which it was at that day styled appropriately—the “New Forest.” Few years had then elapsed since the first Norman lord of England had quenched the fires that burned in thirty hamlets; had desecrated God’s own altars, making the roofless aisle
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THE SAXON PRELATE’S DOOM.
THE SAXON PRELATE’S DOOM.
The mightiest monarch of his age, sovereign of England—as his proud grandsire made his vaunt of yore—by right of the sword’s edge; grand duke of Normandy, by privilege of blood; and liege lord of Guienne, by marriage with its powerful heritress; the bravest, the most fortunate, the wisest of the kings of Europe, Henry the Second, held his court for the high festival of Christmas in the fair halls of Rouen. The banquet was already over, the revelry was at the highest, still, the gothic arches rin
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THE FATE OF THE BLANCHE NAVIRE.B
THE FATE OF THE BLANCHE NAVIRE.B
The earliest dawning of a December’s morning had not yet tinged the eastern sky, when in the port of Barfleur the stirring bustle which precedes an embarkation broke loudly on the ear of all who were on foot at that unseemly hour; nor were these few in number, for all the population of that town—far more considerable than it appears at present, when mightier cities, some rendered so by the gigantic march of commerce, some by the puissant and creative hands of military despotism, have sprung on e
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THE SAXON’S BRIDAL.
THE SAXON’S BRIDAL.
There are times in England when the merry month of May is not, as it would now appear, merely a poet’s fiction; when the air is indeed mild and balmy, and the more conspicuously so, that it succeeds the furious gusts and driving hailstorms of the boisterous March, the fickle sunshine and capricious rains of April. One of these singular epochs in the history of weather it was in which events occurred, which remained unforgotten for many a day, in the green wilds of Charnwood forest. If was upon a
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THE SYRIAN LADY; A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
THE SYRIAN LADY; A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
There is something in the first approach of spring—in the budding of the young leaves, the freshness increasing warmth and lustre of the sun—as contrasted with the gloomy winter which has just departed, that can not fail to awaken ideas of a gay and lively character in all hearts accessible to the influences of gratitude and love. In compliance, as it were, with this feeling, a custom has more or less generally prevailed among all nations, and in all ages, of celebrating the arrival of this seas
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THE TRIALS OF A TEMPLAR; A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
THE TRIALS OF A TEMPLAR; A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
A summer-day in Syria was rapidly drawing toward its close, as a handful of European cavalry, easily recognised by their flat-topped helmets, cumbrous hauberks, and chargers sheathed like their riders, in plate and mail, were toiling their weary way through the deep sand of the desert, scorched almost to the heat of molten lead by the intolerable glare of an eastern sun. Insignificant in numbers, but high of heart, confident from repeated success, elated with enthusiastic valor, and inspiriting
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THE RENEGADO; A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
THE RENEGADO; A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
For well nigh two long years had the walls of Acre rung to the war-cries and clashing arms of the contending myriads of Christian and Mohammedan forces, while no real advantage had resulted to either army, from the fierce and sanguinary struggles that daily alarmed the apprehensions, or excited the hopes of the besieged. The rocky heights of Carmel now echoed to the flourish of the European trumpet, and now sent back the wilder strains of the Arabian drum and cymbal. On the one side were mustere
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
There were merriment and music in the Chateau des Tournelles—at that time the abode of France’s royalty!—music and merriment, even from the break of day! That was a singular age, an age of great transitions. The splendid spirit-stirring soul of chivalry was alive yet among the nations— yet! although fast declining, and destined soon to meet its death-blow in the spear-thrust that hurled the noble Henry, last victim of its wondrous system, at once from saddle and from throne! In every art, in eve
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
It was a clear, bright day in the early autumn, when the royal tiltyard, on the Isle de Paris, was prepared for a deadly conflict. The tilt-yard was a regular, oblong space, enclosed with stout, squared palisades, and galleries for the accommodation of spectators, immediately in the vicinity of the royal residence of the Tournelles, a splendid Gothic structure, adorned with all the rare and fanciful devices of that rich style of architecture. At a short distance thence rose the tall, gray towers
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
A cold and dark northeaster, had swept together a host of straggling vapors and thin lowering clouds over the French metropolis—the course of the Seine might be traced easily among the grotesque roofs and Gothic towers which at that day adorned its banks, by the gray ghostly mist which seethed up from its sluggish waters—a small fine rain was falling noiselessly, and almost imperceptibly, by its own weight as it were, from the surcharged and watery atmosphere—the air was keenly cold and piercing
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
The early sun was shining on as beautiful a morning of the merry month of May as ever lover dreamed or poet sang, over a gentle pastoral scene in the sunny land of France. It was a little winding dale between soft, sloping hills, covered with the tenderest spring verdure, and dotted with small brakes and thickets of hawthorn and sweet-brier; the former all powdered over, as if by a snowstorm, with their sweet, white blossoms, and the others exhaling their aromatic perfume from every dew-spangled
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
They were dark and dismal days in the fair land of France. Foreign invasion was triumphant, domestic insurrection was rife. The terrible and fatal field of Poictiers, the field of the Black Prince, had stricken down at a single stroke the might of a great, a glorious nation; her king a captive in a foreign dungeon; one third of the best and bravest nobles dead on the field of honor, or languishing in English fetters; a weak and nerveless regent on her throne; and Charles, the bad king of Navarre
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PART I.
PART I.
There was a mighty stir in the streets of Paris, as Paris’s streets were in the olden time. A dense and eager mob had taken possession, at an early hour of the day, of all the environs of the Bastile, and lined the way which led thence to the Place de Grève in solid and almost impenetrable masses. People of all conditions were there, except the very highest; but the great majority of the concourse was composed of the low populace, and the smaller bourgeoisie. Multitudes of women were there, too,
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PART II.
PART II.
The castle of St. Renan, like the dwellings of many of the nobles of Bretagne and Gascony, was a superb old pile of solid masonry towering above the huge cliffs which guard the whole of that iron coast with its gigantic masses of rude masonry. So close did it stand to the verge of these precipitous crags on its seaward face, that whenever the wind from the westward blew angrily and in earnest, the spray of the tremendous billows which rolled in from the wide Atlantic, and burst in thunder at the
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PART III.
PART III.
It would be wonderful, were it not of daily occurrence, and to be observed by all who give attention to the characteristics of the human mind, how quickly confidence, even when shaken to its very foundations, and almost obliterated, springs up again, and recovers all its strength in the bosoms of the young of either sex. Let but a few more years pass over the heart, and when once broken, if it be only by a slight suspicion, or a half unreal cause, it will scarce revive again in a lifetime; nor t
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CHASTELAR.
CHASTELAR.
The last flush of day had not yet faded from the west, although the summer moon was riding above the verge of the eastern horizon, in a flood of mellow glory, with the diamond-spark of Lucifer glittering in solitary brightness at her side. It was one of those enchanting evenings which, peculiar to the southern lands of Europe, visit, but at far and fleeting intervals, the sterner clime of Britain. Not Italy, however, could herself have boasted a more delicious twilight than this, which now was w
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RIZZIO.
RIZZIO.
Bru. Do you know them? Luc. No, sir; their hats are plucked about their brows, And half their faces buried in their cloaks, That by no means I may discover them By any marks of favor.— Julius Cæsar. The shadows of an early evening, in the ungenial month of March, were already gathering among the narrow streets and wynds of the Scottish metropolis. There was a melancholy air of solitude about the grim and dusky edifices, which towered to the height of twelve or thirteen stories against the gray h
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THE KIRK OF FIELD.
THE KIRK OF FIELD.
It was a dark and stormy night without, such as is not unfrequent even during the height of summer, under the changeable influences of the Scottish climate. The west wind, charged with moisture collected from the vast expanse of ocean it had traversed since last it had visited the habitations of man, rose and sank in wild and melancholy cadences; now howling violently, as it dashed the rain in torrents against the rattling casements; now lulling till its presence could be traced alone in the sma
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BOTHWELL.
BOTHWELL.
The summer sun was pouring down a flood of lustre over wood and moorland, tangled glen, and heathery fells, with the broad and blue expanse of the German ocean sparkling in ten thousand ripples far away in the distance. But the radiance of high noon fell not upon the forest and the plain in their solitary loveliness, but on the marshalled multitudes of two vast hosts, arrayed in all the pomp and circumstance of antique warfare, glittering with helms and actons, harquebuss and pike, and waving wi
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THE CAPTIVITY.
THE CAPTIVITY.
Eighteen long years of solitary grief—of that most wretched sickness that arises, even to a proverb, from hope too long deferred—had already passed away since, in the fatal action of Langside, the wretched Mary had for the last time seen her banner fall, and her adherents scattered like chaff before the wind by the determined valor of her foes. All, all was lost! It had been the work of months to draw that gallant army to a head, of which so many now lay stark in their curdled gore; while the mi
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THE CLOSING SCENE.
THE CLOSING SCENE.
It was a dark, but lovely night; moonless, but liquid and transparent; the stars which gemmed the firmament glittered more brightly from the absence of the mightier planet, and from the influence of a slight degree of frost upon the atmosphere, although it was indeed so slight, that its presence could be traced only in the crispness of the herbage, and in the uncommon purity of the heavens. Beneath a sky such as I have vainly endeavored to portray, the towers of Fotheringay rose black and dismal
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ELIZABETH’S REMORSE.
ELIZABETH’S REMORSE.
The twelfth hour of the night had already been announced from half the steeples of England’s metropolis, and the echoes of its last stroke lingered in mournful cadences among the vaulted aisles of Westminster. It was not then, as now, the season of festivity, the high-tides of the banquet and the ball, that witching time of night. No din of carriages or glare of torches disturbed the sober silence of the streets, illuminated only by the waning light of an uncertain moon; no music streamed upon t
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THE MOORISH FATHER. A TALE OF MALAGA.
THE MOORISH FATHER. A TALE OF MALAGA.
It was the morning of the day succeeding that which had beheld the terrible defeat, among the savage glens and mountain fastnesses of Axarquia, of that magnificent array of cavaliers which, not a week before, had pranced forth from the walls of Antiquera, superbly mounted on Andalusian steeds, fiery, and fleet, and fearless, with helm and shield and corslet engrailed with arabesques of gold, surcoats of velvet and rich broidery, plumes of the desert bird, and all in short that can add pomp and c
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