The border must not be forgotten. It is a narrow edge above and below. At first it is worked with subjects from Phaedrus’s fables (on having translated which was rested the fame of Henry’s scholarship), and very cleverly are they chosen; for, as if in comment on Harold’s visit to Rouen, we find in near neighborhood the stork with her head in the wolf’s mouth, and the crow letting fall her cheese into the fox’s jaws.
Matilda did not upbraid the Normans by working the Parliament of Lillebonne, but she or her designer surely had it in mind when a herd of frightened beasts was drawn, an ape in front of them making an oration to what may be a lion, as it is much bigger than the rest; but as Matilda never saw a lion, the likeness is not remarkable.
Further on are representations of agriculture, sowing, reaping, &c. Wherever there is a voyage, fishes swim above and below, and in the battle there is a border plentiful in dead men.
The Bayeux tapestry--the “Toile de St. Jean,” as it is there called, from the feast-day when the cathedral was hung with it--remained unknown and forgotten, till it was brought to light by one of the last people that could have been expected--Napoleon. He was then full of his plan for invading England, and called general attention to the toile de St. Jean, to bring to mind the Norman Invasion, and show that England had once been conquered.
So she had, but he had to deal with the sons of both victors, and of those who were slain. Now vanquished, Norman and Saxon were one, and by the great mercy of Heaven upon their offspring, the English, not one battle has been fought, since Hastings, with a Continental foe upon English ground.
CAMEO VIII. THE CAMP OF REFUGE. (1067-1072.)
In the fen country of Lincolnshire, there lived, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, a wealthy Saxon franklin named Leofric, Lord of Bourn. He was related to the great Earls of Mercia, and his brother Brand was Abbot of Peterborough, so that he, and his wife Ediva, were persons of consideration in their own neighborhood. They had a son named Hereward, and called, for some unknown, reason, Le Wake, a youth of great height and personal strength, and of so fierce and violent a disposition, that he disturbed the peace of the neighborhood to such a degree that he was banished from the realm. His high spirit found fit occupation in the armies of foreign princes: and pilgrims and minstrels brought home such reports of his prowess, that the people of Bourn no longer regarded him as a turbulent young scapegrace, but considered him as their pride and glory.