MEANWHILE Charles’s friends had been scouring the country far and wide, and wherever they went crying vengeance, and that not vainly. A bevy of thirty knights at once took up arms and swore they would not lay them down until they had washed them in the blood of the assassins, and—ominous note of warning—these men were all of them, or nearly all of them, partisans of the Erembalds. By common consent they chose Gervais Van Praet for their chief, and at once began to lay waste and plunder the lands and property of those who would not join them. Thus, gaining fresh recruits wherever they went, the little band rapidly grew into a vast army. Soon the town and fortress of Ravenschoot—a mighty stronghold of the Karls which, through some unaccountable blunder, had been left ungarrisoned—went up in flames; by the end of the week the smouldering embers of his brother Wulfric’s palace, not a stone’s throw from Bruges, warned Bertulph that the enemy was at his gates, and there was no sign of the reinforcements which William of LÖo, who was perhaps in daily communication with the Provost, had promised to send from Ypres. Next morning, therefore, his nephews made a sortie beyond the ramparts, in the hope of putting the insurgents to flight, but after no little hard fighting they were smitten hip and thigh and forced to lead their shattered troops back to the city.

The burghers, however, still loyal to the cause of their chÂtelain, had been hard at work night and day strengthening the fortifications—old men, women and children, even the clergy themselves, had lent a willing hand—and the town was said to be impregnable. Perhaps it was, but for all that, on Wednesday the 9th of March, the enemy walked in at the Sablon gate. There was a traitor within the camp. May be one of the provost’s own household. It was the hour of the evening meal, and so confident were the townsfolk in the strength of their walls that they remained quietly seated at table whilst the Isegrins[11] were marching through their streets, and the insurgents were already in the heart of the city before the news of their advent had reached Bertulph’s palace. The Erembalds then were had at an advantage, and though they fought bravely—they always fought bravely—after a long and bloody conflict, the chief shock of which was on the Pont de l’Ane Aveugle, they were at last forced to retire to the Bourg, hoping against hope that they would be able to hold out until William of LÖo should arrive.

As for the burghers, when they saw how the land lay, and that the insurgents would probably prove victorious, they either joined hands with them or endeavoured to maintain a neutral attitude, awaiting the issue of events—a prudent policy which their descendants have not unfrequently followed. Some ten days after the night of the great betrayal, the Isegrins approached their opponents with overtures of peace—offers of life and liberty for all within the beleaguered fortress who averred their innocence, if only they would come forth and prove it.

In the turmoil and confusion incident on the flight to the Bourg not a few of the attacking party were still within the fortress when the gates were shut, and many plain citizens, who perhaps had little sympathy with either side, but certainly had had no part in Charles’s death, were in like predicament. It was on behalf of these men that the Isegrins now approached their foes. Still there is no reason to doubt that the offer was made in good faith. ‘Many who were innocent availed themselves of it, and many also,’ says Galbert, ‘whose conduct was suspected. Of their ultimate fate we know nothing, nor what proportion the out-goers bore to those who remained behind. The number of these last, however, must have been considerable, and among them were Bertulph, Hacket and a nephew whom the contemporary chroniclers invariably describe as Robert the Child. Not that these three acknowledged themselves guilty—on the contrary, they stoutly maintained their innocence, nor had they any sympathy with the murder—but for them the bonds of kinship were indissoluble, and the guilt of Burchard and some other members of the family was notorious and avowed. ‘Not one among ye,’ cried Hacket, who was spokesman for the rest, ‘not one among ye bewails this bloody deed more bitterly than do we. Send into exile, if ye will, all those who acknowledge their guilt. Impose on them what penalty our judges and our bishops shall deem fit, provided that life and liberty be respected, and that ye do them no bodily harm. Give us some assurance of this, and that we, who declare our innocence, shall be offered opportunity of proving it, each man as befitteth his state—clerk according to Church law, knight in accordance with the laws of chivalry—and we surrender, but if these conditions do not seem good to ye, then will we remain here and defend this fortress. It is better to live with our guilty kinsmen than to come forth and meet a dishonourable death at your hands.’ This extraordinary speech is given by Walbert, who was at Bruges during the whole of this troublous period, and avers that he noted down on his tablets each night the events that had occurred during the day, but he adds that owing to the excitement and turmoil that prevailed in the city it is not unlikely that some of his statements are inaccurate.

Needless to say that the Isegrins turned a deaf ear to Hacket’s proposals. In the deliverance of their friends they had obtained all that they wanted; the only answer they vouchsafed was from the mouth of the ‘Winged Lie’ and the ‘Winged Lie’ breathed out threatening, and slaughter, and curses into the bargain. All hope of conciliation was at an end, and, says Walbert, ‘the belligerents went their several ways full of headiness and gall.’

All that day the fight continued without any marked success on either side, but towards sunset the attacking party were beaten back with great loss, and the Erembalds were left, as they fondly believed, at peace for the night.

Worn out with hard fighting, and filled with an overweening sense of security, inspired by their unlooked-for success, the whole of the little garrison had retired to rest, save only a handful of sentinels wearily straining their eyes over the dark city. All through the night these men were content to freeze on the ramparts, chilled to the bone by a cutting east wind, but towards the small hours of morning the icy breath of coming day drove them into the great hall of Charles’s palace, where some one had kindled a fire. There they sat before the glowing logs, dozing and drinking and chatting together in a fool’s paradise, and clean forgot the little western door by which their friends were wont to come and go, and that a rusty lock and half-a-dozen nails alone secured it. ‘This one weak spot, when we were freezing on the battlements, some prowling Isegrin smelt out, and whilst we are rubbing a little life into our poor numbed limbs before Charles’s fire, a host of them swarm round it. Some one suggests an axe, it yields at a blow, and the rabid pack rush in so swiftly and so suddenly, and with so little noise, that their cruel fangs are at our throats almost before we are awake. The whole Bourg is alive with men—they seem to spring up from the earth, every crevice and every corner bristles with them, and so dark is it that we cannot distinguish friends from foes. Panic lays hold of us, we lose our heads, turn cowards and sue for mercy, or leap in despair over ramparts as doth poor Giselbert, whose bruised and bleeding body they tie to a horse’s tail and drag all round the market-place. The bravest of us take to our heels, and trampling one another down, crush through the narrow bridgeway which leads from Charles’s palace into St. Donatian’s church, determined there to make our last stand, and then, O wonderment! the howling pack draw off and leave us for a little space at peace.’

Such was the scene in the Bourg on this momentous night. All that was left of the Erembald host was huddled up in the cathedral, too much shattered in mind and body to be a cause of present disquietude; their opponents were free to do what they would, and they were more eager for plunder than revenge. They had come to a conglomeration of palaces, to a region abounding in treasure, to a place where much corn and wine and oil were stored up; their mouths watered for these things, and the word was given to plunder, and like a flock of locusts they carried off everything. Charles’s palace, containing also Hacket’s apartments; the provost’s palace, and the palace of the canons of Bruges, all of them were stripped; from the bed and the underlinen in Bertulph’s sleeping apartment to the gridirons and saucepans in his kitchen, and from the mead and ale in his cellar to the leaden gutters of his roof. Nor had they any greater respect for the property which had once belonged to Charles. They carried off even the meat hanging up in his larder, and the bed on which he had slept. Disappointed at not discovering the much-coveted treasure in his strong-room, they consoled themselves by wrenching off the wrought-iron doors, and bearing them away on their shoulders, nor did they despise the chains and manacles and other instruments of torture that they found in the dungeons under the palace, though the rich hangings and tapestry which they tore from the walls of his state-room, and the great store of wheat heaped up in his granary were doubtless objects more to their taste. The canons’ dormitories in the cloister contained great treasure. So well stocked were they with rich and costly apparel, most likely ecclesiastical vestments, that though the marauders began to carry them off early in the morning, it was not until nightfall that the task was complete.

Galbert, who gives a detailed account of all this, concludes his observations with this quaint remark: ‘Our citizens,’ he says, ‘in acting thus, were fully convinced they were doing no wrong.’

Meanwhile the men of Ghent were secretly negotiating for Charles’s body; it was arranged that it should be handed out to them through one of the windows in the choir, and early next morning they proceeded to put the plan in execution. ‘Our burghers, however, got wind of it, and they being as keen to retain the relics as the Ghenters were to carry them away, infinite tumult ensued, which was only quenched by the stones and arrows and boiling pitch which the Erembalds, who had by this time shaken themselves together, were hurling down from the battlements. Thus rudely brought to their senses, the contending factions came to terms, joined forces, took the church, and drove their opponents into the tower. Fortune had once more almost smiled on the Karls, and again that day the cup of hope was destined to be dashed from their lips. It happened thus:—

When the Bourg was taken, Bertulph’s palace had been allotted to the Stratens as their share of the plunder, or rather they had allotted it to themselves, and that very morning had ‘insolently and vauntingly and vaingloriously’ run up their standard over the roof, at sight of which all were filled with disgust, for the provost and his household, before the betrayal, were in sooth devout and courteous men, held in high esteem by the whole city. ‘The hearts of our burghers swell against them and we lust for their blood, the more so as they are actually carrying off corn and wine which is our property, for it was we who bore the brunt of the battle whilst these men were snoring in bed. At all costs this pilfering must be stopped. We break into the courtyard, and one of us with his sword staves in a cask of wine—signal for infinite uproar. The Stratens take to their heels. Our men outrun them, and slam the gates of the city so that none shall escape. Hacket rushes out on his tower and frenziedly exhorts the mob to slay his foes—calumniators for whose sake Count Charles was slain. The market-place bristles with armed men, a waving forest of spears. All Flanders is in town to-day. Greed, vengeance, lust for relics, itching ears—a hundred wayward impulses have drawn them here, but one are they, at least, in this one sentiment—old Tancmar and his nephews merit hemp. Of all the blood and all the tears which have been shed these scandalmongers are the cause, these backbiters, these intriguers, these liars, who, with false, foul tongues, for sordid ends, moved Charles to spurn our noblest men and stung them on to slay him. Thus we murmur, thus we declaim, and the whole town roars with the thunder of our indignation, until pressing onward to the Bourg, where rumour says young Walter lies concealed, for we would fain have him out and hang him, there at the very gates, upon the bridge which spans the Boterbeke,[12] we meet our new-made chÂtelain Gervais Praet, who with his ready tongue doth still the storm. ‘Yon vaunting ensign shall be furled—see, friends, it is even now furled—nor shall this Tancmar lord it in your provost’s house; he and his kith and kin shall forthwith quit the town. I pass my word, and as for the liquor and the grain, the men who took the citadel shall have the eating and the drinking of it.’ So we disperse, and whilst old Bertulph’s choicest wine is gurgling down our parched-up throats or we are hurrying on to grab what share we may of his great store of wheat—in this pinched time of dearth no little boon—the trembling Tancmar and his nephews skulk away, each one of them empillioned behind a stalwart knight, so timorous are they of the men of Bruges; and darkness falls upon the town, shrill with the blaring trumpets of the Erembalds, who all night long sound signals of distress, for this day arrows winged with lying script have brought to them assurances of help.

The day before the Bourg was taken Bertulph managed to effect his escape. He was let down by a cord from the battlements, and safely conducted by a friend in the Isegrin camp, whom he had heavily bribed, out of the town and three leagues further into the open country beyond. Here left to his own devices, walking by night and sleeping where he could by day, he at length reached the manor of Alard van Woesten, who had married one of his nieces, and was lord of the little town of Woesten on the French frontier in the neighbourhood of Ypres.

In this stronghold he lay in hiding for about three weeks, after which time, the rumour of his arrival having somehow or other leaked out, it presently reached the ears of William of LÖo, who was keeping his Easter in the city hard-by. Upon receipt of this important news William at once took horse, and with ‘much noise and great expedition’ began to make inquiries concerning the provost’s whereabouts.

Having searched Alard’s house, and the house of his daughter hard-by, and not finding the object of his quest, he was beside himself with rage, fired both houses, seized the girl, swore that he would put her to torture if Bertulph were not produced before the morrow, and rode off. Alard, therefore, having to choose between his daughter and his uncle, revealed the place where Bertulph was concealed, and he was at once taken prisoner by William’s officers.

Well knowing that his days were numbered, and that he had nothing to hope from the gratitude of the man for whose sake he had risked so much, and at whose hands he had received so little, the aged prelate prepared himself to face death with what courage he could. He was a dying man, he said, and he wished to see a priest. His captors granted the request, ‘and there, in the sight of all men, he confessed his sins, and prostrate on the ground smote his breast and prayed God to have pity on him.’ Next morning they would have taken him on horseback to Ypres, but he refused to ride, and though it was freezing hard persisted in walking there barefoot. ‘This soft, luxurious prelate,’ comments Walbert, ‘who in the days when fortune smiled on him used to shrink from a flea bite as from a dagger thrust!’

A certain priest from whose lips Walter learned the details here noted down, walked by Bertulph’s side and, as they went, they intoned alternately verse by verse the Lady Office and the Te Deum. Thus, martyr-like, with a song of triumph on his lips, this staunch old man went forth to die. ‘As they drew near to the gates of the city a great multitude came forth to meet them, crying aloud and clapping their hands and leaping for joy, and they struck the provost with their fists, and beat him with staves and pelted him with the heads of sea-fish (of which very many are taken in these parts), and heaped every kind of insult upon him, all of which he bore with patience, speaking never a word.’ This was all the more remarkable, says Walter, because the provost was naturally a proud man who could ill brook ridicule or insult of any kind; and he adds:—Apropos of this, I remember a story which was told me by one of his own servants. Upon a certain occasion when the provost was seated before the fire in his great hall, with his household around him, the discourse turned to the Passion of Our Lord, and of the insults which He suffered with so much meekness in the house of Caiaphas. ‘For my part,’ quoth the provost, ‘I can never understand that portion of Scripture. If low fellows of that kind had struck me I would at least have spat in their face.’

The remaining portion of the story of Bertulph’s execution is told for us by Walbert. It reads like some breviary legend of a martyr’s death.

There he stood in the midst of the market-place, surrounded by a ribald, jeering throng, with countenance unmoved and eyes turned heavenward as though invoking God’s pity. Then one of those who were standing by struck him on the head, saying, ‘O thou proud man, why dost thou not deign to sue for mercy, seeing that thy life is in our hands?’ but the provost opened not his mouth. And for his greater ignominy they stripped him of his clothes and hanged him naked on a cross in the midst of the market-place, as if he had been a thief or a robber.

Then drew nigh unto him William of LÖo, and thus addressed him, ‘Tell me, O provost, I conjure thee, on the salvation of thy soul, in addition to those whose names we already know, who are they who are implicated in Count Charles’s death,’ and Bertulph made answer, and said before all those present, ‘Thou knowest, O Burgrave, as well as I.’ William, hearing those words, was transported with fury, and commanded stones and mud to be cast at the provost and that he should be put to death. Then those who were assembled in the market-place to sell fish, tore his flesh with their iron hooks and beat him with rods, and thus they put an end to his days.

‘William at once sent a herald to Bruges to inform the Isegrins of what he had done, and we in our turn,’ says Walbert, ‘handed on the news to the Erembalds in their tower, whereat terror and despair pressed them closer than the generals of our army, and naught was heard but the sound of their lamentations.’ Thus Walbert. Nevertheless, they held out bravely until the 20th of April, and that, notwithstanding that they were besieged by Louis the Fat and a great army of French knights; by William Cliton, the newly-elected count, and a horde of Normans; by almost all the chivalry of Flanders, and a host of burghers from Ghent, who still hoped that they would be able to obtain Charles’s body for Blandinium.

The great army, which six weeks before had taken refuge in the Bourg, was now reduced to a mere handful. Of the rest not a few must have died in battle, others perhaps of wounds and wretchedness and want, but in all probability the vast majority had made their escape, hoping perhaps that they would be able to raise a sufficient force to effectually succour those of their comrades who remained in Bruges, and afterwards place on the throne a sovereign who would respect their liberties. Be this as it may, by the 20th of April but thirty worn-out men remained in St. Donatian’s, who continually straining their eyes over the vast expanse of flat country surrounding them, descried there no token of hope. Moreover, the Isegrins were battering in the tower—at each thrust of the ram it trembled to its base. Instant surrender or instant death was the only alternative, the Karls chose the first, and young Robert cried out, in the name of the rest, that if his personal liberty were guaranteed they would lay down their arms. Louis accepted the condition and they prepared to descend. One brave fellow indeed, preferring death to disgrace, would have leapt over the ramparts had not his comrades held him back. ‘At sight of which,’ says Walbert, ‘our burghers shed tears,’ but their sympathy led them no further.

One by one the little band of heroes came forth, the lean men through a narrow aperture giving on the stairs, those who were too corpulent through a larger window near the summit of the tower, and these men let themselves down by ropes.

‘Pale they were,’ says Walbert, ‘and livid and ugly with hunger, and they bore on their faces the stigma of their crimes; but our citizens wept when they saw those who had once been their leaders led away to prison.’ No wonder; the dark fetid hole into which they were huddled was of such narrow dimensions that the inmates were not even able to sit down, and after a few days’ detention there, only three or four of them had strength to stand.

From this wretched fate young Robert alone was exempted, but Louis thought that his promise not to cast him into prison was sufficiently respected by giving him into the custody of a citizen of Bruges. Of Robert’s entire innocence there can be no doubt. Even Walbert, the enemy of his race, bears testimony to his noble qualities. He was most popular, not only in Bruges, but throughout Flanders. Again and again the burghers had petitioned Louis in his favour. Even some of the Isegrin leaders had followed their example, but for all of them the French king had one answer. He had sworn to take no step without the consent of his Council, and Robert remained in custody.

As to the other prisoners, their captivity lasted only a fortnight. It was then (4th May) determined that they should be thrown from the tower which they had so bravely defended, and the same day the sentence was carried out.

The soldiers entrusted with this odious task had received strict orders to complete it with as little noise as possible, and with brutal levity they told their victims that the King was about to give them proof of his mercy.

The prisoners were then led one by one to the scene of execution, not by way of the Place du Bourg, which then, as now, was open to the public, but secretly through the Loove and across the covered bridge uniting it to the cathedral.

On more than one occasion the townsfolk had shown marked sympathy for the Erembalds, and Louis feared that if his project was generally known, or if the victims were afforded an opportunity of appealing to them, an attempt at rescue might be made, which would perhaps end in revolution.

The first to suffer was Wulfric Cnopp, the brother of Bertulph and Hacket. Until a few moments before his death he was ignorant of the fate in store for him. He had just time to take one last look at his beloved city, and then with a mighty effort, for Wulfric was a man of gigantic stature, the executioners threw him over the ramparts. There is reason to believe that this man was really guilty of the crime imputed to him.

Then came young Walter, the son of the ChÂtelain of Ardenburg, a noble and a comely youth. ‘For the love of God,’ he cried, when he reached the summit of the tower and the executioners were about to complete their task, ‘for the love of God let me say a prayer first.’ They granted him a moment’s respite, and then like a flash of lightning he fell down headlong and dashed all the life out of his beautiful body.

The next to die was one Eric, a knight of noble birth. Though he had been hurled from so great a height, and though in the fall his body had crashed against a wooden staircase with such violence that a step secured by five nails had been thereby wrenched off, he was still breathing when he reached the ground—had strength even to make the sign of the Cross. Some women of the people would have staunched his wounds, but one of the King’s household heaved a great stone and drove them away. Better so—‘the little life that was left in him was but a lingering and a cruel death.’

The rest suffered in like manner. Some were innocent, some were guilty, seven-and-twenty of them all told. Their names are not recorded—this only we know of them. They faced death without flinching, and died like Christian men. His Saviour’s name was the last word which passed the lips of each of them, and each of them made the sign of the Cross before he fell. By a refinement of barbarity they were not permitted to receive the consolations of religion under pretext that they were excommunicated. This was in direct contravention of Charles’s own ordinance concerning criminals. Their bodies were denied Christian burial. They were thrown into a marsh beyond the village of St. AndrÉ, and for years afterwards no man after nightfall would willingly pass that way.

‘On Friday, May 6, King Louis resolved to go back to France, and the same day he left Bruges, carrying away Robert with him.’ Great was the lamentation of our citizens when they saw him depart, for this noble youth was beloved by all of them, and they knew he would never return. “Good friends,” said he, on seeing their grief, “my life is not in your hands. Pray God to have pity on my soul.” Louis did not dare to execute his victim at Bruges, nor indeed here offer him any indignity, but no sooner had they quitted the outskirts of the town than he gave orders that his legs should be tied under his saddle, and when they reached Mont Cassel he cut off his head.

Burchard too had paid the penalty of his crime. The Karls said that, having quarrelled with Robert, he had been slain by him in a duel, during the time when they were besieged in the tower, but Walter and Walbert affirm that in this they lied, and that in reality he had made his escape, and that he was afterwards captured and executed; and there is also a tradition that he succeeded in escaping altogether from his native land, and after many wanderings at length found refuge in the south of Ireland.

Be this as it may, he had disappeared from Flanders, and thus the great house of Erembald was all but wiped out. Of those who traced their descent in the direct male line to its mighty founder, only Hacket and his little son Robert, a child of tender years, remained alive. The chÂtelain made his escape from the tower a few days before the surrender. Whether he purchased the good will of one or other of the Isegrin leaders, or whether he had succeeded in hoodwinking them, is uncertain. All we know is that he escaped from Bruges, and, wandering alone across the great salt marsh at the north of the city, presently reached the impregnable stronghold of his son-in-law, Walter Cromlin, the mighty Lord of Lisseweghe, a mere village now, but in those days an important sea-coast town. Here he lay concealed until Dierick of Alsace, more than a year later, brought peace once more to Flanders.

Hacket was shortly afterwards placed on trial, and the fact that he succeeded in clearing his character is proof presumptive that Bertulph, who like his brother Hacket had all along protested his innocence and his capability of proving it, would have likewise been able to make his words good.[13] Immediately after the trial Hacket was restored to his former rank and possessions, we hear nothing more of the charge of serfdom, and for many generations his descendants were mighty men in Flanders. Amongst them note the magnificent Louis of Gruthuise, Peer of Flanders, France and England to boot—Edward IV. created him Earl of Winchester—who in the fourteen hundreds lived in royal state in the beautiful palace on the banks of the Roya, which still goes by his name.

Of Hacket’s subsequent history little is certainly known, but if the conjectures of Olivier de Wree are well founded—and the evidence which he adduces in their support is surely worthy of consideration—the life and career of Desiderius Hacket was indeed a strange and chequered one.

Briefly the facts are as follows. In 1135 Rodolphe of Nesle, a scion of the house of Erembald, was appointed ChÂtelain of Bruges; the name of Hacket does not cease to appear at the foot of official documents until nearly fifty years later, but whereas previous to 1135 the writer of this signature invariably describes himself as chÂtelain, subsequent to that date he signs as Canon of St. Donatian’s, later on as Dean of the same church, and later still as Abbot of Dunes.

Bearing in mind the uncommonness of the name, and the fact that we lose all trace of Hacket the layman when Hacket the churchman appears, it would seem in the highest degree probable that the signatures before and after 1135 were the handiwork of one man. That this was certainly the case after that date the testimony of the monastic chroniclers clearly shows. They also tell us something more. The ecclesiastic in question, before he was appointed Abbot of Dunes, for a short time governed a branch house which he himself seems to have founded at Lisseweghe.[14] He was reputed in his day a famous preacher; he was living and signing documents in 1183, and died at an advanced age and in the odour of sanctity. It would seem then that the bellicose ChÂtelain of Bruges ended his days as a monk.

Strangely enough Hacket’s sworn enemy and rival, the man to whose enmity was due all the misfortune that befell his house, the treacherous Tancmar of Straten himself, towards the close of his life also donned the cowl. He became a monk in the great Benedictine house of St. Andrew hard-by his own estate, and tradition says that he too died a saint.

Surely it is not a little significant that three of the chief actors in this bloody drama should have been numbered by their contemporaries in the ranks of the blessed. Charles, that hero of blood and sentiment, of violence and delicate emotions, who firmly believed that he was dying for justice sake; Straten, the devotee, who for his own ends fanned the flame of his master’s wrath—and poor Hacket, who was accused of murder, escaped by the skin of his teeth, and at length proved his innocence, most probably by the rite of ordeal. The age in which these men lived was an age of contrasts, an age of clashing tones and inharmonious tints. In those days it was the fashion to be devout, and the shibboleth of the fine gentleman was the fervent expression of his unwavering faith.