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BRIAN FITZ-COUNT


      *      *      *      *      *      *

By the same Author.


_Crown 8vo._      7s. 6d.

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH

UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE,

A.D. 30-476.


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EDWY THE FAIR,

OR THE

FIRST CHRONICLE OF AESCENDUNE.

A TALE OF THE DAYS OF SAINT DUNSTAN.


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ALFGAR THE DANE,

OR THE SECOND CHRONICLE OF AESCENDUNE.

A TALE OF THE DAYS OF EDMUND IRONSIDE.


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THE RIVAL HEIRS,

BEING THE THIRD AND LAST CHRONICLE OF AESCENDUNE.


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THE HOUSE OF WALDERNE.

A TALE OF THE CLOISTER AND THE FOREST IN THE
DAYS OF THE BARONS' WARS.

      *      *      *      *      *      *


BRIAN FITZ-COUNT

A Story of Wallingford Castle and Dorchester Abbey

by

THE REV. A. D. CRAKE, B.A.

Vicar of Cholsey, Berks; and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society;
Author of the 'Chronicles Of Aescendune,' etc. etc.


     'Heu miserande puer, siqua fata aspera rumpas,
     Tu Marcellus eris.'
     VIRGIL: _Aeneid_, vi. 882-3.






Rivingtons
Waterloo Place, London
MDCCCLXXXVIII



DEDICATED WITH GREAT RESPECT

TO

JOHN KIRBY HEDGES, ESQ., J.P.

OF WALLINGFORD CASTLE




PREFACE


The author has accomplished a desire of many years in writing a story of
Wallingford Castle and Dorchester Abbey. They are the two chief
historical landmarks of a country familiar to him in his boyhood, and
now again his home. The first was the most important stronghold on the
Thames during the calamitous civil war of King Stephen's days. The
second was founded at the commencement of the twelfth century, and was
built with the stones which came from the Bishop's palace in Dorchester,
abandoned when Remigius in 1092 removed the seat of the Bishopric to
Lincoln.

The tale is all too true to mediaeval life in its darker features. The
reader has only to turn to the last pages of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_
to justify the terrible description of the dungeons of the Castle, and
the sufferings inflicted therein. Brian Fitz-Count was a real personage.
The writer has recorded his dark deeds, but has striven to speak gently
of him, especially of his tardy repentance; his faults were those of
most Norman barons.

The critic may object that the plot of the story, so far as the secret
of Osric's birth is concerned, is too soon revealed--nay, is clear from
the outset. It was the writer's intention, that the fact should be
patent to the attentive reader, although unknown at the time to the
parties most concerned. Many an intricate story is more interesting the
second time of reading than the first, from the fact that the reader,
having the key, can better understand the irony of fate in the tale, and
the hearing of the events upon the situation.

In painting the religious system of the day, he may be thought by
zealous Protestants too charitable to the Church of our forefathers; for
he has always brought into prominence the evangelical features which,
amidst much superstition, ever existed within her, and which in her
deepest corruption was still _the salt_ which kept society from utter
ruin and degradation. But, as he has said elsewhere, it is a far nobler
thing to seek points of agreement in controversy, and to make the best
of things, than to be gloating over "corruptions" or exaggerating the
faults of our Christian ancestors. At the same time the author must not
be supposed to sympathise with all the opinions and sentiments which, in
consistency with the period, he puts into the mouth of theologians of
the twelfth century.

There has been no attempt to introduce archaisms in language, save that
the Domesday names of places are sometimes given in place of the modern
ones where it seemed appropriate or interesting to use them. The
speakers spoke either in Anglo-Saxon or Norman-French: the present
diction is simply translation. The original was quite as free from
stiffness, so far as we can judge.

The roads, the river, the hills, all the details of the scenery have
been familiar to the writer since his youth, and are therefore described
from personal knowledge. The Lazar-House at Byfield yet lingers in
tradition. Driving by the "Pond" one day years ago, the dreary sheet of
water was pointed out as the spot where the lepers once bathed; and the
informant added that to that day the natives shrank from bathing
therein. A strange instance of the long life of oral tradition--which
is, however, paralleled at Bensington, where the author in his youth
found traditions of the battle of the year 777 yet in existence,
although the fight does not find a place, or did not then, in the short
histories read in schools.

The author dedicates this book, with great respect, to the present owner
of the site and remains of Wallingford Castle, John Kirby Hedges, Esq.,
who with great kindness granted him free access to the Castle-grounds at
all times for the purposes of the story; and whose valuable work, _The
History of Wallingford_, has supplied the topographical details and the
special history of the Castle. For the history of Dorchester Abbey, he
is especially indebted to the notes of his lamented friend, the late
vicar of Dorchester.

A. D. C.

CHRISTMAS 1887.




CONTENTS

CHAP.                                        PAGE
     I. THE LORD OF THE CASTLE                  1

    II. THE CHASE                               8

   III. WHO STRUCK THE STAG?                   16

    IV. IN THE GREENWOOD                       24

     V. CWICHELM'S HLAWE                       32

    VI. ON THE DOWNS                           40

   VII. DORCHESTER ABBEY                       48

  VIII. THE BARON AND HIS PRISONERS            56

    IX. THE LEPERS                             64

     X. THE NEW NOVICE                         72

    XI. OSRIC'S FIRST RIDE                     79

   XII. THE HERMITAGE                          87

  XIII. OSRIC AT HOME                          95

   XIV. THE HERMITAGE                         104

    XV. THE ESCAPE FROM OXFORD CASTLE         117

   XVI. AFTER THE ESCAPE                      131

  XVII. LIFE AT WALLINGFORD CASTLE            141

 XVIII. BROTHER ALPHEGE                       150

   XIX. IN THE LOWEST DEPTHS                  158

    XX. MEINHOLD AND HIS PUPILS               170

   XXI. A DEATHBED DISCLOSURE                 178

  XXII. THE OUTLAWS                           189

 XXIII. THE PESTILENCE (AT BYFIELD)           200

  XXIV. THE OPENING OF THE PRISON HOUSE       206

   XXV. THE SANCTUARY                         216

  XXVI. SWEET SISTER DEATH                    226

 XXVII. FRUSTRATED                            234

XXVIII. FATHER AND SON                        244

  XXIX. IN THE HOLY LAND                      257




CHAPTER I

THE LORD OF THE CASTLE


It was the evening of the 30th of September in the year of grace 1139;
the day had been bright and clear, but the moon, arising, was rapidly
overpowering the waning light of the sun.

Brian Fitz-Count, Lord of Wallingford Castle by marriage with the Lady
Maude (_Matildis Domina de Walingfort_), the widow of the doughty Baron
Milo Crispin, who died in 1107, without issue--was pacing the ramparts
of his castle, which overlooked the Thames. Stern and stark was this
mediaeval baron, and large were his possessions. He was the son of Count
Alain of Brittany[1]--a nephew of Hamelin de Baladin, of Abergavenny
Castle, from whom he inherited large possessions in Wales: a nephew also
of Brian, lord of a manor in Cornwall, which he also inherited.


     "Great his houses, lands, and castles,
     Written in the Domesday Book."


Furthermore, he was an especial favourite with Henry the First, who
commanded the Lady of Wallingford to marry his minion--according to the
law which placed such widows at the disposal of the crown--he was
present at the consecration of the great abbey of Reading, where amongst
the co-signatories we read "_Signum Brientii filii comitis, de
Walingfort_:" the seal of Brian Fitz-Count of Wallingford.

He walked the ramparts on this last evening of September, and gazed
upon