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TITLE: HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH
AUTHOR: CHARLES KINGSLEY
EBOOK: E05764 (O'Briens Book Cellar)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

HEREWARD,
THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH.

BY
CHARLES KINGSLEY

CONTENTS.

PRELUDE

CHAPTER
      I. HOW HEREWARD WAS OUTLAWED, AND WENT NORTH TO SEEK HIS FORTUNES

     II. HOW HEREWARD SLEW THE BEAR

    III. HOW HEREWARD SUCCORED A PRINCESS OF CORNWALL

     IV. HOW HEREWARD TOOK SERVICE WITH RANALD, KING OF WATERFORD

      V. HOW HEREWARD SUCCORED THE PRINCESS OF CORNWALL A SECOND TIME

     VI. HOW HEREWARD WAS WRECKED UPON THE FLANDERS SHORE

    VII. HOW HEREWARD WENT TO THE WAR AT GUISNES

   VIII. HOW A FAIR LADY EXERCISED THE MECHANICAL ART TO WIN HEREWARD'S
         LOVE

     IX. HOW HEREWARD WENT TO THE WAR IN SCALDMARILAND

      X. HOW HEREWARD WON THE MAGIC ARMOR

     XI. HOW THE HOLLANDERS TOOK HEREWARD FOR A MAGICIAN

    XII. HOW HEREWARD TURNED BERSERK

   XIII. HOW HEREWARD WON MARE SWALLOW

    XIV. HOW HEREWARD RODE INTO BRUGES LIKE A BEGGAR-MAN

     XV. HOW EARL TOSTI GODWINSSON CAME TO ST. OMER

    XVI. HOW HEREWARD WAS ASKED TO SLAY AN OLD COMRADE

   XVII. HOW HEREWARD TOOK THE NEWS FROM STANFORD BRIGG AND HASTINGS

  XVIII. HOW EARL GODWIN'S WIDOW CAME TO ST. OMER

    XIX. HOW HEREWARD CLEARED BOURNE OF FRENCHMEN

     XX. HOW HEREWARD WAS MADE A KNIGHT AFTER THE FASHION OF THE ENGLISH

    XXI. HOW IVO TAILLEBOIS MARCHED OUT OF SPALDING TOWN

   XXII. HOW HEREWARD SAILED FOR ENGLAND ONCE AND FOR ALL

  XXIII. HOW HEREWARD GATHERED AN ARMY

   XXIV. HOW ARCHBISHOP ALDRED DIED OF SORROW

    XXV. HOW HEREWARD FOUND A WISER MAN IN ENGLAND THAN HIMSELF

   XXVI. HOW HEREWARD FULFILLED HIS WORDS TO THE PRIOR OF THE GOLDEN
         BOROUGH

  XXVII. HOW THEY HELD A GREAT MEETING IN THE HALL OF ELY

 XXVIII. HOW THEY FOUGHT AT ALDRETH

   XXIX. HOW SIR DADE BROUGHT NEWS FROM ELY

    XXX. HOW HEREWARD PLAYED THE POTTER; AND HOW HE CHEATED THE KING

   XXXI. HOW THEY FOUGHT AGAIN AT ALDRETH

  XXXII. HOW KING WILLIAM TOOK COUNSEL OF A CHURCHMAN

 XXXIII. HOW THE MONKS OF ELY DID AFTER THEIR KIND

  XXXIV. HOW HEREWARD WENT TO THE GREENWOOD

   XXXV. HOW ABBOT THOROLD WAS PUT TO RANSOM

  XXXVI. HOW ALFTRUDA WROTE TO HEREWARD

 XXXVII. HOW HEREWARD LOST SWORD BRAIN-BITER

XXXVIII. HOW HEREWARD CAME IN TO THE KING

  XXXIX. HOW TORFRIDA CONFESSED THAT SHE HAD BEEN INSPIRED BY THE DEVIL

     XL. HOW HEREWARD BEGAN TO GET HIS SOUL'S PRICE

    XLI. HOW EARL WALTHEOF WAS MADE A SAINT

   XLII. HOW HEREWARD GOT THE BEST OF HIS SOUL'S PRICE

  XLIII. HOW DEEPING FEN WAS DRAINED

HEREWARD, THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH.

PRELUDE.

The heroic deeds of Highlanders, both in these islands and elsewhere, have
been told in verse and prose, and not more often, nor more loudly, than
they deserve. But we must remember, now and then, that there have been
heroes likewise in the lowland and in the fen. Why, however, poets have so
seldom sung of them; why no historian, save Mr. Motley in his "Rise of the
Dutch Republic," has condescended to tell the tale of their doughty deeds,
is a question not difficult to answer.

In the first place, they have been fewer in number. The lowlands of the
world, being the richest spots, have been generally the soonest conquered,
the soonest civilized, and therefore the soonest taken out of the sphere
of romance and wild adventure, into that of order and law, hard work and
common sense, as well as--too often--into the sphere of slavery,
cowardice, luxury, and ignoble greed. The lowland populations, for the
same reasons, have been generally the first to deteriorate, though not on
account of the vices of civilization. The vices of incivilization are far
worse, and far more destructive of human life; and it is just because they
are so, that rude tribes deteriorate physically less than polished
nations. In the savage struggle for life, none but the strongest,
healthiest, cunningest, have a chance of living, prospering, and
propagating their race. In the civilized state, on the contrary, the
weakliest and the silliest, protected by law, religion, and humanity, have
chance likewise, and transmit to their offspring their own weakliness or
silliness. In these islands, for instance, at the time of the Norman
Conquest, the average of man was doubtless superior, both in body and
mind, to the average of man now, simply because the weaklings could not
have lived at all; and the rich and delicate beauty, in which the women of
the Eastern Counties still surpass all other races in these isles, was
doubtless far more common in proportion to the numbers of the population.

Another reason--and one which every Scot will understand--why lowland
heroes "carent vate sacro," is that the lowlands and those who live in
them are wanting in the poetic and romantic elements. There is in the
lowland none of that background of the unknown, fantastic, magical,
terrible, perpetually feeding curiosity and wonder, which still remains in
the Scottish highlands; which, when it disappears from thence, will remain
embalmed forever in the pages of Walter Scott. Against that half-magical
background his heroes stand out in vivid relief; and justly so. It was not
put there by him for stage purposes; it was there as a fact; and the men
of whom he wrote were conscious of it, were moulded by it, were not
ashamed of its influence. Nature among the mountains is too fierce, too
strong, for man. He cannot conquer her, and she awes him. He cannot dig
down the cliffs, or chain the storm-blasts; and his fear of them takes
bodily shape: he begins to people the weird places of the earth with weird
beings, and sees nixes in the dark linns as he fishes by night, dwarfs in
the caves where he digs, half-trembling, morsels of copper and iron for
his weapons, witches and demons on the snow-blast which overwhelms his
herd and his hut, and in the dark clouds which brood on the untrodden
mountain-peak. He lives in fear: and yet, if he be a valiant-hearted man,
his fears do him little harm. They may break out, at times, in
witch-manias, with all their horrible suspicions, and thus breed cruelty,
which is the child of fear; but on the whole they rather produce in man
thoughtfulness, reverence, a sense, confused yet precious, of the
boundless importance of the unseen world. His superstitions develop his
imagination; the moving accidents of a wild life call out in him sympathy
and pathos; and the mountaineer becomes instinctively a poet.

The lowlander, on the other hand, has his own strength, his own "virtues,"
or manfulnesses, in the good old sense of the word: but they are not for
the most part picturesque or even poetical.

He finds out, soon enough for his weal and his bane, that he is stronger
than Nature; and right tyrannously and irreverently he lords it over her,
clearing, delving, diking, building, without fear or shame. He knows of no
natural force greater than himself, save an occasional thunder-storm; and
against that, as he grows more cunning, he insures his crops. Why should
he reverence Nature? Let him use her, and eat. One cannot blame him. Man
was sent into the world (so says the Scripture) to fill and subdue the
earth. But he was sent into the world for other purposes, which the
lowlander is but too apt to forget. With the awe of Nature, the awe of the
unseen dies out in him. Meeting with no visible superior, he is apt to
become not merely unpoetical and irreverent, but somewhat of a sensualist
and an atheist. The sense of the beautiful dies out in him more and more.
He has little or nothing around him to refine or lift up his soul, and
unless he meet with a religion and with a civilization which can deliver
him, he may sink into that dull brutality which is too common among the
lowest classes of the English lowlands, and remain for generations gifted
with the strength and industry of the ox, and with the courage of the
lion, and, alas! with the intellect of the former, and the self-restraint
of the latter.

But there may be a period in the history of a lowland race when they, too,
become historic for a while. There was such a period for the men of the
Eastern Counties; for they proved it by their deeds.

When the men of Wessex, the once conquering race of Britain, fell at
Hastings once and for all, and struck no second blow, then the men of the
Danelagh disdained to yield to the Norman invader. For seven long years
they held their own, not knowing, like true Englishmen, when they were
beaten; and fought on desperate, till there were none left to fight. Their
bones lay white on every island in the fens; their corpses rotted on
gallows beneath every Norman keep; their few survivors crawled into
monasteries, with eyes picked out, or hands and feet cut off, or took to

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