Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/132



It perhaps did not tend to the moral improvement of William Rufus to find himself thus shamefully deceived by one so near of kin to himself, so high in ecclesiastical rank. At the moment the treachery of Odo stirred him up to greater efforts. Rochester should be won, though it might need the whole strength of the kingdom to win it. But the King saw that it was only by English hands that it could be won. He gathered around him his English followers, and by their advice put out a proclamation in ancient form bidding all men, French and English, from port and from upland, to come with all speed to the royal muster, if they would not be branded with the shameful name of Nithing. That name, the name which had been fixed, as the lowest badge of infamy, on the murderer Swegen, was a name under which no Englishman could live; and it seems to have been held that strangers settled on English ground would have put on enough of English feeling to be stirred in the like sort by the fear of having such a mark set upon them. What the Frenchmen did we are not told; but the fyrd of England answered loyally to the call of a King who thus knew how to appeal to the most deep-set feelings and traditions of Englishmen. Men came in crowds to King Anglos suos appellat; jubet ut compatriotas advocent ad obsidionem venire, nisi si qui velint sub nomine Niðing, quod nequam sonat, remanere. Angli, qui nihil miserius putarent quam hujusce vocabuli dedecore aduri, catervatim ad regem confluunt, et invincibilem exercitum faciunt." This leaves out the fact that the proclamation was addressed both to French and English. The words of the Chronicle are express; "Ða se cyng undergeat þat þing, þa ferde he æfter mid þam here þe he þær hæfde, and sende ofer eall Englalande, and bead þæt ælc man þe wære unniðing sceolde cuman to him, Frencisce and Englisce, of porte and of uppelande." We can hardly doubt that we have here the actual words of the proclamation. It must not be forgotten that, by the law of the Conqueror, Frenchmen who had settled in King Eadward's day were counted as English. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 620.]