The early kings of Norway; also an essay on the portraits of John Knox

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* (3) X

3^

THE

EARLY KINGS OF NOWAY:

AN ESSAY ON THE

PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

BY

THOMAS CAELYLE.

LONDON :
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.

1875.

[All rights reserved,]

LONDON :
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WIIITEFRIARS.

■0 37
It 75*,

CONTENTS.

P\fiK

EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY . . 1

I. — HARALD HAARFAGR 3

II. — ERIC BLOOD-AXE AND BROTHERS . . . 12

III. — UAKON THE GOOD l7

IV. — HARALD GREY-FELL AND BROTHERS . . . 30

V.— IIAKON JARL 37

VI.— OLAF TRYGGVESON 48

VII. — REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON .... 56

VIII. — JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN 86

IX. — KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS . . 96
X. — REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT . . .110

XL— MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS . . . . 154
XII.— OLAF THE TRANQUIL, MAGNUS BAREFOOT, AND

SIGURD THE CRUSADER 175

XIII. — MAGNUS THE BLIND, HARALD GYLLE, AND MUTUAL

EXTINCTION OF THE HAARFAGRS . . .185

XIV. — SVERRIR AND DESCENDANTS, TO HAKON THE OLD 188

XV. — HAKON THE OLD AT LARGS 193

XVI.— EPILOGUE 198

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX .... 209'

EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

The Icelanders, in their long winter, had a great
habit of writing; and were, and still are, excellent
in penmanship, says Dahlmann. It is to this fact
that any little history there is of the Norse Kings
and their old tragedies, crimes, and heroisms, is
almost all due. The Icelanders, it seems, not only
made beautiful letters on their paper or parchment,
but were laudably observant and desirous of accuracy ;
and have left us such a collection of narratives (Sagas,
literally ' Says ') as, for quantity and quality, is
unexampled among rude nations. Snorro Sturleson's
History of the Norse Kings is built out of these old
Sagas, and has in it a great deal of poetic fire, not a
little faithful sagacity applied in sifting and adjusting
these old Sagas, and, in a word, deserves, were it
once well edited, furnished with accurate maps,

2 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

chronological summaries, &c, to be reckoned among
the great history-books of the world. It is from
these sources, greatly aided by accurate, learned, and
unwearied Dahlmann,* the German Professor, that
the following rough notes of the early Norway Kings
are hastily thrown together. In Histories of England
(Rapin's excepted) next to nothing has been shown
of the many and strong threads of connection between
English affairs and Norse.

* J. G. Dahlmann, Geschichte von Dannemarlc, 3 voll. 8vo.
Hamburg, 1840-3.

CHAPTER I.

HARALD HAARFAGR.

Till about the Year of Grace 860 there were no
kings in Norway, nothing but numerous jarls, — essen-
tially kinglets, — each presiding over a kind of re-
publican or parliamentary little territory; generally
striving each to be on some terms of human neigh-
bourhood with those about him, but, — in spite of
'Fylke Things' (Folk Things, little parish parlia-
ments), and small combinations of these, which had
gradually formed themselves, — often reduced to the
unhappy state of quarrel with them. Harald Haar-
fagr was the first to put an end to this state of things,
and become memorable and profitable to his country
by uniting it under one head and making a kingdom
of it ; which it has continued to be ever since. His
father, Halfdan the Black, had already begun this
rough but salutary process, — inspired by the cupidi-

4 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

ties and instincts, by the faculties and opportunities,
which the good genius of this world, beneficent often
enough under savage forms, and diligent at all times
to diminish anarchy as the world's worst savagery,
usually appoints in such cases, — conquest, hard fighting,
followed by wise guidance of the conquered ; — but it
was Harald the Fairhaired, his son, who conspicu-
ously carried it on and completed it. Harald's birth-
year, death-year, and chronology in general, are
known only by inference and computation; but, by
the latest reckoning, he died about the year 933 of
our era, a man of eighty- three.

The business of conquest lasted Harald about twelve
years (a.d. 860-872 ?), in which he subdued also the
vikings of the out-islands, Orkneys, Shetlands, He-
brides, and Man. Sixty more years were given him
to consolidate and regulate what he had conquered,
which he did with great judgment, industry, and
success. His reign altogether is counted to have
been of over seventy years.

The beginning of his great adventure was of a
romantic character, — youthful love for the beautiful
Gyda, a then glorious and famous young lady of those

HARALD HAARFAGR. 5

regions, whom the young Harald aspired to marry.
Gyda answered his embassy and prayer in a distant,
lofty manner : " Her it would not beseem to wed any
Jarl or poor creature of that kind; let him do as
Gorm of Denmark, Eric of Sweden, Egbert of Eng-
land, and others had done, — subdue into peace and
regulation the confused, contentious bits of jarls
round him, and become a king; then, perhaps, she
might think of his proposal ; till then, not." Harald
was struck with this proud answer, which rendered
Gyda tenfold more desirable to him. He vowed to
let his hair grow, never to cut or even to comb it till
this feat were done, and the peerless Gyda his own.
He proceeded accordingly to conquer, in fierce battle,
a Jarl or two every year, and, at the end of twelve
years, had his unkempt (and almost unimaginable)
head of hair clipt off, — Jarl Eognwald {Reginald) of
More, the most valued and valuable of all his subject-
jarls, being promoted to this sublime barber function ;
— after which King Harald, with head thoroughly
cleaned, and hair grown, or growing again to the
luxuriant beauty that had no equal in his day,
brought home his Gyda, and made her the brightest

6 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

queen in all the north. He had after her, in succes-
sion, or perhaps even simultaneously in some cases,
at least six other wives; and by Gyda herself one
daughter and four sons.

Harald was not to be considered a strict-living
man, and he had a great deal of trouble, as we shall
see, with the tumultuous ambition of his sons ; but
he managed his government, aided by Jarl Kognwald
and others, in a large, quietly potent, and successful
manner; and it lasted in this royal form till his
death, after sixty years of it.

These were the times of Norse colonisation ; proud
Norsemen flying into other lands, to freer scenes, — to
Iceland, to the Faroe Islands, which were hitherto
quite vacant (tenanted only by some mournful hermit,
Irish Christian fakir, or so) ; still more copiously to
the Orkney and Shetland Isles, the Hebrides and
other countries where Norse squatters and settlers
already were. Settlement of Iceland, we say ; settle-
ment of the Faroe Islands, and, by far the notablest
of all, settlement of Normandy by Rolf the Ganger
(a.d. 876 ?) *

* 'Settlement,' dated 912, by Munch, Henault, &c. The Saxon

HARALD HAARFAGR. 7

Rolf, son of Eognwald,* was lord of three little
islets far north, near the Fjord of Folden, called the
Three Yigten Islands ; but his chief means of living
was that of sea-robbery ; which, or at least Rolf 's con-
duct in which, Harald did not approve of. In the
Court of Harald, sea-robbery was strictly forbidden as
between Harald' s own countries, but as against foreign
countries it continued to be the one profession for a
gentleman ; thus, I read, Harald's own chief son,
King Eric that afterwards was, had been at sea in
such employments ever since his twelfth year. Eolf 's
crime, however, was that in coming home from one
of these expeditions, his crew having fallen short of
victual, Eolf landed with them on the shore of Nor-
way, and, in his strait, drove in some cattle there (a
crime by law) and proceeded to kill and eat ; which,
in a little while, he heard that King Harald was on
foot to enquire into and punish ; whereupon Eolf the
Ganger speedily got into his ships again, got to the
coast of France with his sea-robbers, got infeftment

Chronicle says (anno 876) : ' In this year Rolf overran Normandy
1 with his army, and he reigned fifty winters. '
* Dahlmann, ii. 87.

8 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

by the poor King of France in the fruitful, shaggy
desert which is since called Normandy, land of the
Northmen ; and there, gradually felling the forests,
banking the rivers, tilling the fields, became, during
the next two centuries, Wilhelmus Conquestor, the
man famous to England, and momentous at this day,
not to England alone, but to all speakers of the
English tongue, now spread from side to side of the
world in a wonderful degree. Tancred of Hauteville
and his Italian Normans, though important too, in
Italy, are not worth naming in comparison. This is
a feracious earth, and the grain of mustard-seed will
grow to miraculous extent in some cases.

Harald's chief helper, counsellor, and lieutenant
was the above-mentioned Jarl Rognwald of More, who
had the honour to cut Harald's dreadful head of hair.
This Kognwald was father of Turf-Einar, who first
invented peat in the Orkneys, finding the wood all
gone there ; and is remembered to this day. Einar,
being come to these islands by King Harald's permis-
sion, to see what he could do in them, — islands
inhabited by what miscellany of Picts, Scots, Norse
squatters we do not know, — found the indispensable

HARALD HAARFAGR. 9

fuel all wasted. Turf-Einar too may be regarded as a
benefactor to his kind. He was, it appears, a bas-
tard ; and got no coddling from bis father, who dis-
liked him, partly perhaps, because ' he was ugly and
blind of an eye/ — got no flattering even on his con-
quest of the Orkneys and invention of peat. Here
is the parting speech his father made to him on
fitting him out with a 'long-ship' (ship of war,
1 dragon-ship/ ancient seventy-four), and sending him
forth to make a living for himself in the world : "It
were best if thou never earnest back, for I have small
hope that thy people will have honour by thee ; thy
mother's kin throughout is slavish/ '

Harald Haarfagr had a good many sons and
daughters ; the daughters he married mostly to jarls
of due merit who were loyal to him ; with the sons,
as remarked above, he had a great deal of trouble.
They were ambitious, stirring fellows, and grudged at
their finding so little promotion from a father so kind
to his jarls ; sea-robbery by no means an adequate
career for the sons of a great king. Two of them,
Halfdan Haaleg (Long-leg), and Gudrod Ljome
(Gleam), jealous of the favours won by the great Jarl

10 EAELY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Rognwald, surrounded him in his house one night,
and burnt him and sixty men to death there. That
was the end of Rognwald, the invaluable jarl, always
true to Haarfagr ; and distinguished in world history
by producing Rolf the Ganger, author of the Norman
Conquest of England, and Turf-Einar, who invented
peat in the Orkneys. Whether Rolf had left Norway
at this time there is no chronology to tell me. As to
Rolfs surname, 'Ganger/ there are various hypo-
theses; the likeliest, perhaps, that Rolf was so
weighty a man no horse (small Norwegian horses,
big ponies rather) could carry him, and that he
usually walked, having a mighty stride withal, and
great velocity on foot.

One of these murderers of Jarl Rognwald quietly set
himself in Rognwald's place, the other making for
Orkney to serve Turf-Einar in like fashion. Turf-
Einar, taken by surprise, fled to the mainland ; but
returned, days or perhaps weeks after, ready for
battle, fought with Halfdan, put his party to flight,
and at next morning's light searched the island and
slew all the men he found. As to Halfdan Long-leg
himself, in fierce memory of his own murdered father,

HARALD HAARFAGR. 11

Turf-Einar ' cut an eagle on his back,' that is to say,
hewed the ribs from each side of the spine and
turned them out like the wings of a spread-eagle : a
mode of Norse vengeance fashionable at that time hv
extremely aggravated cases !

Harald Haarfagr, in the meantime, had descended
upon the Eognwald scene, not in mild mood towards
the new jarl there ; indignantly dismissed said jarl,
and appointed a brother of Eognwald (brother, notes
Dahlmann), though Eognwald had left other sons.
Which done, Haarfagr sailed with all speed to the
Orkneys, there to avenge that cutting of an eagle on
the human back on Turf-Einar's part. Turf-Einar
did not resist ; submissively met the angry Haarfagr,
said he left it all, what had been done, what provoca-
tion there had been, to Haarfagr's own equity and
greatness of mind. Magnanimous Haarfagr inflicted
a fine of sixty marks in gold, which was paid in ready
money by Turf-Einar, and so the matter ended.

CHAPTER II.

ERIC BLOOD-AXE AND BROTHERS.

In such, violent courses Haarfagr's sons, I know not
how many of them, had come to an untimely end ;
only Eric, the accomplished sea-rover, and three
others remained to him. Among these four sons,
rather impatient for property and authority of their
own, King Harald, in his old days, tried to part his
kingdom in some eligible and equitable way, and
retire from the constant press of business, now be-
coming burdensome to him. To each of them he
gave a kind of kingdom ; Eric, his eldest son, to be
head king, and the others to be feudatory under him,
and pay a certain yearly contribution ; an arrange-
ment which did not answer well at all. Head-King
Eric insisted on his tribute ; quarrels arose as to the
payment, considerable fighting and disturbance, bring-
ing fierce destruction from King Eric upon many

ERIC BLOOD-AXE AND BROTHERS. 13

valiant but too stubborn Norse spirits, and among
the rest upon all his three brothers, which got him
from the Norse populations the surname of Blod-axe,
'Eric Blood-axe/ his title in history. One of his
brothers he had killed in battle before his old father's
life ended; this brother was Bjorn, a peaceable,
improving, trading, economic, Under-king, whom the
others mockingly called ' Bjorn the Chapman.' The
great-grandson of this Bjorn became extremely dis-
tinguished by-and-by as Saint Olaf. Head-King Eric
seems to have had a violent wife, too. She was
thought to have poisoned one of her other brothers-
in-law. Eric Blood- axe had by no means a gentle
life of it in this world, trained to sea-robbery on the
coasts of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France,
since his twelfth year.

Old King Fairhair, at the age of seventy, had
another son, to whom was given the name of Hakon.
His mother was a slave in Fairhair's house ; slave by
ill-luck of war, though nobly enough born. A strange
adventure connects this Hakon with England and
King Athelstan, who was then entering upon his
great career there. Short while after this Hakon

14 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

came into the world, there entered Fairhair's palace,
one evening as Fairhair sat feasting, an English am-
bassador or messenger, bearing in his hand, as gift
from King Athelstan, a magnificent sword, with gold
hilt and other fine trimmings, to the great Harald,
King of Norway. Harald took the sword, drew it, or
was half-drawing it, admiringly from the scabbard,
when the English excellency broke into a scornful
laugh, " Ha, ha ; thou art now the feudatory of my
English king ; thou hast accepted the sword from
him, and art now his man ! " (acceptance of a sword
in that manner being the symbol of investiture in
those days). Harald looked a trifle flurried, it is
probable ; but held-in his wrath, and did no damage
to the tricksy Englishman. He kept the matter in
his mind, however, and next summer little Hakon,
having got his weaning done, — one of the prettiest,
healthiest little creatures, — Harald sent him off, under
charge of fHauk' (Hawk so-called), one of his prin-
cipal warriors, with order, " Take him to England,"
and instructions what to do with him there. And
accordingly, one evening, Hauk, with thirty men
escorting, strode into Athelstan's high dwelling (where

ERIC BLOOD- AXE AND BROTHERS. 15

situated, how built, whether with logs like Harald's,
I cannot specifically say), into Athelstan's high pre-
sence, and silently set the wild little cherub upon
Athelstan's knee. " What is this?" asked Athelstan,
looking at the little cherub. " This is King Harald's
son, whom a serving maid bore to him, and whom he
now gives thee as foster-child ! " Indignant Athel-
stan drew his sword, as if to do the gift a mischief ;
but Hauk said, " Thou hast taken him on thy knee "
(common symbol of adoption) ; " thou canst kill him
if thou wilt ; but thou dost not thereby kill all the
sons of Harald.', Athelstan straightway took milder
thoughts ; brought up, and carefully educated Hakon;
from whom, and this singular^'adventure, came, before
very long, the first tidings of Christianity into
Norway.

Harald Haarfagr, latterly withdrawn from all kinds
of business, died at the age of eighty-three — about
a.d. 933, as is computed; nearly contemporary in
death with the first Danish King, Gorm the Old,
who had done a corresponding feat in reducing Den-
mark under one head. Remarkable old men, these
two first kings ; and possessed of gifts for bringing-"

10 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Chaos a little nearer to the form of Cosmos; pos-
sessed, in fact, of loyalties to Cosmos, that is to say,
of authentic virtues in the savage state, such as have
heen needed in all societies at their incipience in this
world; a kind of 'virtues' hugely in discredit at
present, hut not unlikely to he needed again, to the
astonishment of careless persons, before all is done !

CHAPTER III.

HAKON THE GOOD.

Eric Blood-axe, whose practical reign is counted
to have begun about a.d. 930, had by this time,
or within a year or so of this time, pretty much
extinguished all his brother kings, and crushed down
recalcitrant spirits, in his violent way ; but had natu-
rally become entirely unpopular in Norway, and filled
it with silent discontent and even rage against him.
Hakon Fairhair's last son, the little foster-child of
Athelstan in England, who had been baptised and
carefully educated, was come to his fourteenth or
fifteenth year at his father's death ; a very shining
youth, as Athelstan saw with just pleasure. So soon
as the few preliminary preparations had been settled,
Hakon, furnished with a ship or two by Athelstan,
suddenly appeared in Norway ; got acknowledged by
the Peasant Thing in Trondhjem ; ' the news of

18 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

' which, flew over Norway, like fire through dried
' grass,' says an old chronicler. So that Eric, with his
Queen Grunhild, and seven small children, had to run ;
no other shift for Eric. They went to the Orkneys
first of all, then to England, and he ' got Northum-
berland as earldom/ I vaguely hear, from Athelstan.
But Eric soon died, and his queen, with her children,
went back to the Orkneys in search of refuge or help ;
to little purpose there or elsewhere. From Orkney
she went to Denmark, where Harald Blue-tooth took
her poor eldest boy as foster-child ; but I fear did not
very faithfully keep that promise. The Danes had
been robbing extensively during the late tumults in
Norway ; this the Christian Hakon, now established
there, paid in kind, and the two countries were at
war ; so that Gunhild's little boy was a welcome card
in the hand of Blue-tooth.

Hakon proved a brilliant and successful king ; re-
gulated many things, public law among others (Guk-
Thing Law, Froste- Thing Law : these are little codes
of his accepted by their respective Things, and had a
salutary effect in their time) ; with prompt dexterity
he drove back the Blue-tooth foster-son invasions

HAKON THE GOOD. 19

every time they came ; and on the whole gained for
himself the name of Hakon the Good. These Danish
invasions were a frequent source of trouble to him,
but his greatest and continual trouble was that of
extirpating heathen idolatry from Norway, and in-
troducing the Christian Evangel in its stead. His
transcendent anxiety to achieve this salutary enter-
prise was all along his grand difficulty and stumbling-
block ; the heathen opposition to it being also rooted
and great. Bishops and priests from England Hakon
had, preaching and baptising what they could, but
making only slow progress ; much too slow for
Hakon' s zeal. On the other hand, every Yule-tide,
when the chief heathen were assembled in his own
palace on their grand sacrificial festival, there was
great pressure put upon Hakon, as to sprinkling with
horse-blood, drinking Yule-beer, eating horse-flesh,
and the other distressing rites ; the whole of which
Hakon abhorred, and with all his steadfastness strove
to reject utterly. Sigurd, Jarl of Lade (Trondhjem),
a liberal heathen, not openly a Christian, was ever a
wise counsellor and conciliator in such affairs ; and
proved of great help to Hakon. Once, for example,

c 2

20 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

there having risen at a Yule-feast, loud, almost
stormful demand that Hakon, like a true man and
brother, should drink Yule-beer with them in their
sacred hightide, Sigurd persuaded him to comply, for
peace's sake, at least in form. Hakon took the cup
in his left hand (excellent hot beer), and with his right
cut the sign of the cross above it, then drank a
draught. "Yes; but what is this with the king's
right hand ?" cried the company. " Don't you see ? "
answered shifty Sigurd ; "he makes the sign of Thor's
hammer before drinking ! " which quenched the mat-
ter for the time.

Horse-flesh, horse-broth, and the horse ingredient
generally, Hakon all but inexorably declined. By
Sigurd's pressing exhortation and entreaty, he did
once take a kettle of horse-broth by the handle, with
a good deal of linen-quilt or towel interposed, and did
open his lips for what of steam could insinuate itself.
At another time he consented to a particle of horse-
liver, intending privately, I guess, to keep it outside
the gullet, and smuggle it away without swallowing ;
but farther than this not even Sigurd could persuade
him to go. At the Things held in regard to this

HAKON THE GOOD. 21

matter Hakon's success was always incomplete ; now
and then it was plain failure, and Hakon had to draw
back till a better time. Here is one specimen of the
response he got on such an occasion ; curious specimen,
withal, of antique parliamentary eloquence from an
Anti- Christian Thing.

At a Thing of all the Fylkes of Trondhjem, Thing
held at Froste in that region, King Hakon, with all
the eloquence he had, signified that it was impera-
tively necessary that all Bonders and sub-Bonders
should become Christians, and believe in one God,
Christ the Son of Mary ; renouncing entirely blood
sacrifices and heathen idols ; should keep every
seventh day holy, abstain from labour that day, and
even from food, devoting the day to fasting and
sacred meditation. Whereupon, by way of universal
answer, arose a confused universal murmur of entire
dissent. "Take away from us our old belief, and
also our time for labour ! " murmured they in angry
astonishment ; " how can even the land be got tilled
in that way ? " " We cannot work if we don't get
food," said the hand labourers and slaves. " It lies
in King jHakon's blood/' remarked others ; " his

22 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

father and all his kindred were apt to be stingy about
food, though liberal enough with money." At
length, one Osbjorn (or Bear of the Asen or Gods,
what we now call Osborne), one Osbjorn of Medal-
husin Gulathal, stept forward, and said, in a distinct
manner, " We Bonders (peasant proprietors) thought,
King Hakon, when thou heldest thy first Thing-day
here in Trondhjem, and we took thee for our king,
and received our hereditary lands from thee again,
that we had got heaven itself. But now we know
not how it is, whether we have won freedom, or
whether thou intendest anew to make us slaves, with
this wonderful proposal that we should renounce our
faith, which our fathers before us have held, and all
our ancestors as well, first in the age of burial by
burning, and now in that of earth burial ; and yet
these departed ones were much our superiors, and
their faith, too, has brought prosperity to us ! Thee,
at the same time, we have [loved so 'much that we
raised thee to manage all [the laws of the land, and
speak as their voice to us all. And even now it is
our will and the vote of all Bonders to keep that
paction which thou gavest us liere on the Thing at

HAKON THE GOOD. 23

Froste, and to maintain thee as king so long as any
of us bonders who are here upon the Thing has life
left, provided thou, king, wilt go fairly to work, and
demand of us only such things as are not impossible.
But if thou wilt fix upon this thing with so great
obstinacy, and employ force and power, in that case,
we Bonders have taken the resolution, all of us, to
fall away from thee, and to take for ourselves another
head, who will so behave that we may enjoy in
freedom the belief which is agreeable to us. Now
shalt thou, king, choose one of these two courses
before the Thing disperse.', * Whereupon/ adds
the Chronicle, 'all the Bonders raised a mighty
' shout, "Yes, we will have it so, as has been said." ?
So that Jarl Sigurd had to intervene, and King
Hakon to choose for the moment the milder branch
of the alternative.* At other Things Hakon was
more or less successful. All his days, by such
methods as there were, he kept pressing forward with
this great enterprise; and on the whole did thoroughly
shake asunder the old edifice of heathendom, and
fairly introduce some foundation for the new and

* Dahlmann, ii. 93.

24 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

better rule of faith and life among his people,
Sigurd, Jarl of Lade, his wise counsellor in all these
matters, is also a man worthy of notice.

Hakon's arrangements agaiust the continual
invasions of Eric's sons, with Danish Blue-tooth
backing them, were manifold, and for a long time
successful. He appointed, after consultation and
consent in the various Things, so many war-ships,
fully manned and ready, to be furnished instantly on
the King's demand by each province or fjord ; watch-
fires, on fit places, from hill to hill all along the coast,
were to be carefully set up, carefully maintained in
readiness, and kindled on any alarm of war. By
such methods Blue-tooth and Co.'s invasions were
for a long while triumphantly, and even rapidly, one
and all of them, beaten back, till at length they
seemed as if intending to cease altogether, and leave
Hakon alone of them. But such was not their issue
after all. The sons of Eric had only abated under
constant discouragement, had not finally left off from
what seemed their one great feasibility in life.
Gunhild, their mother, was still with them : a most
contriving, fierce-minded, irreconcilable woman, dili-

HAKON THE GOOD. 2o

gent and urgent on them, in season and out of
season ; and as for King Blue-tooth, he was at all
times ready to help, with his good- will at least.

That of the alarm-fires on Hakon's part was found
troublesome by his people ; sometimes it was even
hurtful and provoking (lighting your alarm-fires and
rousing the whole coast and population, when it was
nothing but some paltry viking with a couple of
ships) ; in short, the alarm-signal system fell into
disuse, and good King Hakon himself, in the first
place, paid the penalty. It is counted, by the latest
commentators, to have been about a.d. 961, sixteenth
or seventeenth year of Hakon's pious, valiant, and
worthy reign. Being at a feast one day, with many
guests, on the Island of Stord, sudden announcement
came to him that ships from the south were approach-
ing in quantity, and evidently ships of war. This
was the biggest of all the "Blue-tooth forster-son
invasions ; and it was fatal to Hakon the Good that
night. Eyvind the Skaldaspillir (annihilator of all
other Skalds), in his famed Hakon s Song, gives
account, and, still more pertinently, the always
practical Snorro. Danes in great multitude, six to

26 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

one, as people afterwards computed, springing swiftly
to land, and ranking themselves ; Hakon, neverthe-
less, at once deciding not to take to his ships and run,
but to fight there,^one to six ; fighting, accordingly,
in his most splendid manner, and at last gloriously
prevailing; routing and scattering hack to their
ships and flight homeward these six-to-one Danes.
1 During the struggle of the fight/ says Snorro, * he
' was very conspicuous among other men ; and while
' the sun shone, his bright gilded helmet glanced, and
' thereby many weapons were directed at him. One
' of his henchmen, Eyvind Finnson {i.e. Skaldaspillir,
' the poet), took a hat, and put tit over the king's
1 helmet. Now, among the hostile first leaders were
1 two uncles of the Ericsons, brothers of Gunhild,
'great champions both; Skreya, the elder of them,
1 on the disappearance of the glittering helmet,
1 shouted boastfully, " Does the king of the Norse-
' men hide himself, then, or has he fled? Where now
' is the golden helmet?" And so saying, Skreya, and
' his brother Alf with him, pushed on like fools or
1 madmen. The king said, " Come on in that way,
1 and you shall find the king of the Norsemen ! " ■

HAKON THE GOOD. 27

And in a short space of time braggart Skreya did
come up, swinging his sword, and made a cut at the
king; but Thoralf the Strong, an Icelander, who
fought at the king's side, dashed his shield so hard
against Skreya, that he tottered with the shock.
On the same instant the king takes his sword
1 quernbiter ' (able to cut querns or mill-stones) with
both hands, and hews Skreya through helm and
head, cleaving him down to the shoulders. Thoralf
also slew Alf. That was what they got by such
over-hasty search for the king of the Norsemen.*

Snorro considers the fall of these two champion
uncles as the crisis of the fight; the Danish force
being much disheartened by such a sight, and King
Hakon now pressing on so hard that all men gave
way before him, the battle on the Ericson part
became a whirl of recoil ; and in a few minutes more
a torrent of mere flight and haste to get on board
their ships, and put to sea again; in which opera-
tion many of them were drowned, says Snorro ; sur-
vivors making instant sail for Denmark in that sad
condition.

* Laing's Snorro, i. 344.

28 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

This seems to have been King Hakon's finest
battle, and the most conspicuous of his victories, due
not a little to his own grand qualities shown on the
occasion. But, alas! it was his last also. He was
still zealously directing the chase of that mad Danish
flight, or whirl of recoil towards their ships, when an
arrow, shot most likely at a venture, hit him under
the left armpit ; and this proved his death.

He was helped into his ship, and made sail for
Alrekstad, where his chief residence in those parts
was ; but had to stop at a smaller place of his (which
had been his mother's, and where he himself was
born) — a place called Hella (the Flat Rock), still
known as 'Hakon's Hella/ faint from loss of blood,
and crushed down as he had never before felt.
Having no son and only one daughter, he appointed
these invasive sons of Eric to be sent for, and if he
died to become kings; but to "spare his friends and
kindred.,, " If a longer life be granted me," he said,
"I will go out of this land to Christian men, and do
penance for what I have committed against God.
But if I die in the country of the heathen, let me
have such burial as you yourselves think fittest."

HAKON THE GOOD. ZV

These are his last recorded words. And in heathen
fashion he was buried, and besung by Eyvind and
the Skalds, though himself a zealously Christian
king. Hakon the Good; so one still finds him
worthy of being called. The sorrow on Hakon 's
death, Snorro tells us, was so great and universal,
* that he was lamented both by friends and enemies ;
1 and they said that never again would Norway see
' such a king.'

CHAPTER IY.

HARALD GREY-FELL AND BROTHERS.

Eric's sons, four or five of them, with a Harald at
the top, now at once got Norway in hand, all of it
but Trondhjem, as king and under-kings ; and made a
severe time of it for those who had been, or seemed
to be, their enemies. Excellent Jarl Sigurd, always
so useful to Hakon and his country, was killed by
them; and they came to repent that before very
long. The slain Sigurd left a son, Hakon, as Jarl,
who became famous in the northern world by and by.
This Hakon, and him only, would the Trondhjemers
accept as sovereign. " Death to him, then," said the
sons of Eric, but only in secret, till they had got
their hands free and were ready ; which was not yet
for some years. Nay, Hakon, when actually attacked,
made good resistance, and threatened to cause trouble.
Nor did he by any means get his death from these

HARALD GREY-FELL AND BROTHERS. 31

sons of Eric at this time, or till long afterwards at all,
from one of their kin, as it chanced. On the con-
trary, he fled to Denmark now, and by and by
managed to come back, to their cost.

Among their other chief victims were two cousins
of their own, Tryggve and Gudrod, who had been
honest under-kings to the late head-king, Hakon the
Good; but were now become suspect, and had to
fight for their lives, and lose them in a tragic manner.
Tryggve had a son, whom we shall hear of. Gudrod,
son of worthy Bjorn the Chapman, was grandfather
of Saint Olaf, whom all men have heard of, — who
has a church in Southwark even, and another in Old
Jewry, to this hour. In all these violences, Gunhild,
widow of the late king Eric, was understood to have
a principal hand. She had come back to Norway
with her sons ; and naturally passed for the secret ad-
viser and Maternal President in whatever of violence
went on ; always reckoned a fell, vehement, relentless
personage where her own interests were concerned.
Probably as things settled, her influence on affairs
grew less. At least one hopes so ; and, in the Sagas,
hears less and less of her, and before long nothing.

32 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Harald, the head-king in this Eric fraternity, does
not seem to have been a bad man, — the contrary
indeed ; but his position was untowardly, full of diffi-
culty and contradictions. Whatever Harald could
accomplish for behoof of Christianity, or real benefit
to Norway, in these cross circumstances, he seems to
have done in a modest and honest manner. He got
the name of Greyfell from his people on a very trivial
account, but seemingly with perfect good humour on
their part. Some Iceland trader had brought a cargo
of furs to Trondhjem (Lade) for sale; sale being
slacker than the Icelander wished, he presented a
chosen specimen, cloak, doublet, or whatever it was,
to Harald; who wore it with acceptance in public,
and rapidly brought disposal of the Icelander's stock,
and the surname of Greyfell to himself. His under-
kings and he were certainly not popular, though I
almost think Greyfell himself, in absence of his
mother and the under-kings, might have been so.
But here they all were, and had wrought great
trouble in Norway. "Too many of them/' said
everybody ; "too many of these courts and court
people, eating up any substance that there is." For

HARALD GREY-FELL AND BROTHERS. 33

the seasons withal, two or three of them in suc-
cession, were bad for grass, much more for grain;
no herring came either ; very cleanness of teeth was
like to come in Eyvind Skaldaspillir's opinion. This
scarcity became at last their share of the great
Famine of a.d. 975, which desolated Western Europe
(see the poem in the Saxon Chronicle). And all
this by Eyvind Skaldaspillir, and the heathen Norse
in general, was ascribed to anger of the heathen gods..
Discontent in Norway, and especially in Eyvind
Skaldaspillir, seems to have been very great.

Whereupon exile Hakon, Jarl Sigurd's son, bestirs
himself in Denmark, backed by old King Blue-tooth,
and begins invading and encroaching in a miscel-
laneous way ; especially intriguing and contriving
plots all round him. An unfathomably cunning kind
of fellow, as well as an audacious and strong-handed !
Intriguing in Trondhjem, where he gets the under-
king, Greyfell's brother, fallen upon and murdered;
intriguing with Gold Harald, a distinguished cousin
or nephew of King Blue-tooth's, who had done fine
viking work, and gained such wealth that he got
the epithet of 'Gold,' and who now was infinitely

34 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

desirous of a share in Blue-tooth's kingdom as the
proper finish to these sea-rovings. He even ventured
one day to make publicly a distinct proposal that way
to King Harald Blue-tooth himself; who flew into
thunder and lightning at the mere mention of it;
so that none durst speak to him for several days
afterwards. Of both these Haralds Hakon was con-
fidential friend; and needed all his skill to walk
without immediate annihilation between such a pair
of dragons, and work out Norway for himself withal.
In the end he found he must take solidly to Blue-
tooth's side of the question ; and that they two must
provide a recipe for Gold Harald and Norway both
at once.

" It is as much as your life is worth to speak again
of sharing this Danish kingdom/ ' said Hakon very
privately to Gold Harald ; " but could not you, my
golden friend, be content with Norway for a kingdom,
if one helped you to it ? "

" That could I well/' answered Harald.

" Then keep me those nine war-ships you have just
been rigging for a new viking cruise ; have these in
readiness when I lift my finger ! "

HARALD GREY-FELL AN'D BROTHERS. 35

That was the recipe contrived for Gold Harald;
recipe for King Greyfell goes into the same phial, and
is also ready.

Hitherto the Hakon-Blue-tooth disturbances in
Norway had amounted to but little. King Greyfell,
a very active and valiant man, has constantly, without
much difficulty, repelled these sporadic bits of troubles;
but Greyfell, all the same, would willingly have peace
with dangerous old Blue-tooth (ever anxious to get
his clutches over Norway on any terms), if peace with
him could be had. Blue-tooth, too, professes every
willingness ; inveigles Greyfell, he and Hakon do, to
have a friendly meeting on the Danish borders, and
not only settle all these quarrels, but generously settle
Greyfell in certain fiefs which he claimed in Denmark
itself ; and so swear everlasting friendship. Greyfell
joyfully complies, punctually appears at the appointed
day in Lymfjord Sound, the appointed place. Where-
upon Hakon gives signal to Gold Harald, ■ To Lymf-
jord with these nine ships of yours, swift!' Gold
Harald flies to Lymfjord with his ships, challenges
King Harald Greyfell to land and fight ; which the
undaunted Greyfell, though so far outnumbered, does ;

d 2

36 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

and, fighting his very best, perishes there, he and
almost all his people. Which done, Jarl Hakon, who
is in readiness, attacks Gold Harald, the victorious
but the wearied ; easily beats Gold Harald, takes him
prisoner, and instantly hangs and ends him, to the
huge joy of King Blue-tooth and Hakon ; who now
make instant voyage to Norway; drive all the brother
under-kings into rapid flight to the Orkneys, to any
readiest shelter ; and so, under the patronage of Blue-
tooth, Hakon, with the title of Jarl, becomes ruler of
Norway. This foul treachery done on the brave and
honest Harald Greyfell is by some dated about a.d.
969, by Munch, 965, by others, computing out of
Snorro only, a.d. 975. For there is always an uncer-
tainty in these Icelandic dates (say rather, rare and
rude attempts at dating, without even an 'a.d.' or
other fixed * year one ' to go upon in Iceland), though
seldom, I think, so large a discrepancy as here.

CHAPTER Y.

HAKON JARL.

Hakon Jarl, such the style he took, had engaged
to pay some kind of tribute to King Blue-tooth, ' if
he could;' but he never did pay any, pleading always
the necessity of his own affairs ; with which excuse,
joined to Hakon' s readiness in things less important,
King Blue-tooth managed to content himself, Hakon
being always his good neighbour, at least, and the two
mutually dependent. In Norway, Hakon, without
the title of king, did in a strong-handed, steadfast,
and at length successful way, the office of one;
governed Norway (some count) for above twenty
years ; and, both at home and abroad, had much
consideration through most of that time; specially
amongst the heathen orthodox, for Hakon Jarl him-
self was a zealous heathen, fixed in his mind against
these chimerical Christian innovations and unsalutary

38 EAELY KINGS OF NORWAY.

changes of creed, and would have gladly trampled out
all traces of what the last two kings (for Greyfell,
also, was an English Christian after his sort) had
done in this respect. But he wisely discerned that it
was not possible, and that, for peace's sake, he must
not even attempt it, but must strike preferably into
'perfect toleration/ and that of 'every one getting
to heaven ' (or even to the other goal) ' in his own
way.' He himself, it is well known, repaired many
heathen temples (a great 'church builder' in his
way !), manufactured many splendid idols, with much
gilding and such artistic ornament as there was, — in
particular, one huge image of Thor, not forgetting the
hammer and appendages, and such a collar (supposed
of solid gold, which it was not quite, as we shall hear
in time) round the neck of him as was never seen in
all the North. How he did his own Yule festivals,
with what magnificent solemnity, the horse-eatings,
blood-sprinklings, and other sacred rites, need not be
told. Something of a ' Eitualist/ one may perceive;
perhaps had Scandinavian Puseyisms in him, and
other desperate heathen notions. He was universally
believed to have gone into magic, for one thing, and

HAKON JARL. 39

to have dangerous potencies derived from the Devil
himself. The dark heathen mind of him struggling
vehemently in that strange element, not altogether so
unlike our own in some points.

For the rest, he was evidently, in practical matters,
a man of sharp, clear insight, of steadfast resolution,
diligence, promptitude; and managed his secular
matters uncommonly well. Had sixteen Jarls under
him, though himself only Hakon Jarl by title ; and
got obedience from them stricter than any king since
Haarfagr had done. Add to which that the country
had years excellent for grass and crop, and that the
herrings came in exuberance ; tokens, to the thinking
mind, that Hakon Jarl was a favourite of Heaven.

His fight with the far-famed Jomsvikings was his
grandest exploit in public rumour. Jomsburg, a
locality not now known, except that it was near the
mouth of the River Oder, denoted in those ages the
impregnable castle of a certain body corporate, or
1 Sea Robbery Association (limited)/ which, for
some generations, held the Baltic in terror, and
plundered far beyond the Belt, — in the ocean itself, in
Flanders and the opulent trading havens there, —

40 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

above all, in opulent anarchic England, which, for
forty years from about this time, was the pirates'
Goshen ; and yielded, regularly every summer, slaves,
danegelt, and miscellaneous plunder, like no other
country Jomsburg or the viking-world had ever
known. Palnatoke, Bue, and the other quasi-heroic
heads of this establishment are still remembered in
the northern parts. Palnatoke is the title of a tragedy
by Oehlenschlager, which had its run of immortality
in Copenhagen some sixty or seventy years ago.

I judge the institution to have been in its floweriest
state, probably now in Hakon Jarl's time. Hakon
Jarl and these pirates, robbing Hakon's subjects and
merchants that frequented him, were naturally in
quarrel ; and frequent fightings had fallen out, not
generally to the profit of the Jomsburgers, who at
last determined on revenge, and the rooting out of
this obstructive Hakon Jarl. They assembled in force
at the Cape of Stad, — in the Firda Fylke ; and the
fight was dreadful in the extreme, noise of it filling all
the north for long afterwards. Hakon, fighting like
a lion, could scarcely hold his own, — Death or Victory,
the word on both sides ; when suddenly, the heavens

HAKON JARL. 41

grew black, and there broke out a terrific storm of
thunder and hail, appalling to the human mind, —
universe swallowed wholly in black night ; only the
momentary forked-blazes, the thunder-pealing as of
Ragnarok, and the battering hail-torrents, hail-stones
about the size of an egg. Thor with his hammer
evidently acting ; but in behalf of whom ? The Joms-
burgers in the hideous darkness, broken only by
flashing thunderbolts, had a dismal apprehension that
it was probably not on their behalf (Thor having a
sense of justice in him) ; and before the storm ended,
thirty-five of their seventy ships sheered away, leaving
gallant Bue, with the other thirty-five, to follow as
they liked, who reproachfully hailed these fugitives,
and continued the now hopeless battle. Bue's nose
and lips were smashed or cut away ; Bue managed,
half- articulately, to exclaim, "Ha! the maids (' mays')
of Fiinen will never kiss me more. Overboard, £\
ye Bue's men ! " And taking his two sea-chests, with
all the gold he had gained in such life-struggle from
of old, sprang overboard accordingly, and finished the
affair. Hakon Jarl's renown rose naturally to the
transcendent pitch after this exploit. His people, I

42 EAKLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

suppose chiefly the Christian part of them, whispered
one to another, with a shudder, " That in the "blackest
of the thunderstorm, he had taken his youngest little
boy, and made away with him ; sacrificed him to
Thor or some devil, and gained his victory by art-
magic, or something worse." Jarl Eric, Hakon's eldest
son, without suspicion of art-magic, but already a dis-
tinguished viking, became thrice distinguished by his
style of sea-fighting in this battle ; and awakened
great expectations in the viking public ; of him we
shall hear again.

The Jomsburgers, one might fancy, after this sad
clap went visibly down in the world ; but the fact is
not altogether so. Old King Blue-tooth was now
dead, died of a wound got in battle with his zmnatural
(so called ( natural') son and successor, Otto Svein
of the Forked Beard, afterwards king and conqueror
of England for a little while ; and seldom, perhaps
never, had vikingism been in such flower as now.
This man's name is Sven in Swedish, Svend in Ger-
man, and means boy or lad, — the English * swain/
It was at old 'Father Blue- tooth's funeral-ale '
(drunken burial-feast), that Svein, carousing with his

HAKON JARL. 43

Jomsburg chiefs and other choice spirits, generally of
the robber class, all risen into height of highest robber
enthusiasm, pledged the vow to one another ; Svein
that he would conquer England (which, in a sense,
he, after long struggling, did) ; and the Jomsburgers
that they would ruin and root out Hakon Jarl (which,
as we have just seen, they could by no means do), and
other guests other foolish things which proved equally
unfeasible. Sea-robber volunteers so especially abound-
ing in that time, one perceives how easily the Joms-
burgers could recruit themselves, build or refit new
robber fleets, man them with the pick of crews, and
steer for opulent, fruitful England; where, under
Ethelred the Unready, was such a field for profitable
enterprise as the viking public never had before or
since.

An idle question sometimes rises on me — idle
enough, for it never can be answered in the affirma-
tive or the negative, Whether it was not these same
refitted Jomsburgers who appeared some while after
this at Bed Head Point, on the shore of Angus, and
sustained a new severe beating, in what the Scotch
still faintly remember as their * Battle of Loncarty ? '

44 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Beyond doubt a powerful Norse-pirate armament
dropt anchor at the Red Head, to the alarm of peace-
able mortals, about that time. It was thought and
hoped to be on its way for England, but it visibly
hung on for several days, deliberating (as was thought)
whether they would do this poorer coast the honour to
land on it before going farther. Did land, and vigor-
ously plunder and burn south-westward as far as
Perth ; laid siege to Perth ; but brought out King
Kenneth on them, and produced that * Battle of
Loncarty ' which still dwells in vague memory among
the Scots. Perhaps it might be the Jomsburgers ;
perhaps also not ; for there were many pirate associa-
tions, lasting not from century to century like the
Jomsburgers, but only for very limited periods, or
from year to year ; indeed, it was mainly by such
that the splendid thief- harvest of England was reaped
in this disastrous time. No Scottish chronicler gives
the least of exact date to their famed victory of Lon-
carty, only that it was achieved by Kenneth III.,
which will mean some time between a.d. 975 and
994 ; and, by the order they put it in, probably soon
after a.d. 975, or the beginning of this Kenneth's

HAKON JARL. 45

reign. Buchanan's narrative, carefully distilled from
all the ancient Scottish sources, is of admirable quality
for style and otherwise ; quiet, brief, with perfect
clearness, perfect credibility even, — except that semi-
miraculous appendage of the Ploughmen, Hay and
Sons, always hanging to the tail of it ; the grain of
possible truth in which can now never be extracted
by man's art ! * In brief, what we know is, fragments
of ancient human bones and armour have occasionally
been ploughed up in this locality, proof-positive of
ancient fighting here ; and the fight fell out not long
after Hakon's beating of the Jomsburgers at the Cape
of Stad. And in such dim glimmer of wavering twi-
light, the question whether these of Loncarty were
refitted Jomsburgers or not, must be left hanging.
Loncarty is now the biggest bleachfield in Queen
Victoria's dominions ; no village or hamlet there, only
the huge bleaching-house and a beautiful field, some
six or seven miles north-west of Perth, bordered by
the beautiful Tay river on the one side, and by its
beautiful tributary Almond on the other ; a Loncarty

* G. Buchanani Opera Omnia, i. 103-4 (Curantc Ruddimano,
Edinburgi 1715).

46 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

fitted either for bleaching linen, or for a bit of fair
duel between nations, in those simple times. Whether
our refitted Jomsburgers had the least thing to do
with it is only matter of fancy, but if it were they
who here again got a good beating, fancy would be
glad to find herself fact. The old piratical kings of
Denmark had been at the founding of Jomsburg, and
to Svein of the Forked Beard it was still vitally
important, but not so to the great Knut, or any king
that followed ; all of whom had better business than
mere thieving ; and it was Magnus the Good, of
Norway, a man of still higher anti-anarchic qualities,
that annihilated it, about a century later.

Hakon Jarl, his chief labours in the world being
over, is said to have become very dissolute in his
elder days, especially in the matter of women ; the
wretched old fool, led away by idleness and fulness of
bread, which to all of us are well said to be the
parents of mischief. Having absolute power, he got
into the habit of openly plundering men's pretty
daughters and wives from them, and, after a few
weeks, sending them back ; greatly to the rage of the
fierce Norse heart, had there been any means of

HAKON JARL. 47

resisting or revenging. It did, after a little while,
prove the'ruin and destruction of Hakon the Rich, as
he was then called. It opened the door, namely, for
entry of Olaf Tryggveson upon the scene, — a very
much grander man ; in regard to whom the wiles and
traps of Hakon proved to be a recipe, not on Trygg-
veson, but on the wily Hakon himself, as shall now
be seen straightway.

CHAPTER VI.

OLAF TRYGGVESON.

Hakon, in late times, had heard of a famous stirring
person, victorious in various lands and seas, latterly-
united in sea-robbery with Svein, Prince Koyal of
Denmark, afterwards King Svein of the Double-beard
(' Zvae Skiaeg,' Twa Shag) or fork-beard, both of
whom had already done transcendent feats in the
viking way during this copartnery. The fame of
Svein, and this stirring personage, whose name was
' Ole,' and, recently, their stupendous feats in plunder
of England, siege of London, and other wonders and
splendours of viking glory and success, had gone over
all the North, awakening the attention of Hakon and
everybody there. The name of ' Ole' was enigmatic,
mysterious, and even dangerous-looking to Hakon
Jarl; who at length sent out a confidential spy to
investigate this ' Ole ' ; a feat which the confidential

OLAF TRYGGVESON. 49

spy did completely accomplish, — by no means to
Hakon's profit ! The mysterious ' Ole ' proved to be
no other than Olaf, son of Tryggve, destined to blow
Hakon Jarl suddenly into destruction, and become
famous among the heroes of the Norse world.

Of Olaf Tryggveson one always hopes there might,
one day, some real outline of a biography be written ;
fished from the abysses where (as usual) it welters
deep in foul neighbourhood for the present. Farther
on we intend a few words more upon the matter. But
in this place all that concerns us in it limits itself to
the two following facts : first, that Hakon's confiden-
tial spy ' found Ole in Dublin ' ; picked acquaintance
with him, got him to confess that he was actually
Olaf, son of Tryggve (the Tryggve, whom Blood-axe's
fierce widow and her sons had murdered) ; got him
gradually to own that perhaps an expedition into
Norway might have its chances ; and finally that,
under such a wise and loyal guidance as his (the
confidential spy's, whose friendship for Tryggveson
was so indubitable), he (Tryggveson) would actually
try it upon Hakon Jarl, the dissolute old scoundrel.
Fact second is, that about the time they two set sail

50 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

from Dublin on their Norway expedition, Hakon Jarl
removed to Trondhjem, then called Lade ; intending
to pass some months there.

Now just about the time when Tryggveson, spy, and
party had landed in Norway, and were advancing
upon Lade, with what support from the public could
be got, dissolute old Hakon Jarl had heard of one
Gudrun, a Bonder's wife, unparalleled in beauty, who
was called in those parts, ' Sunbeam of the Grove •
(so inexpressibly lovely) ; and sent off a couple of
thralls to bring her to him. "Never," answered
Gudrun ; " never," her indignant husband ; in a tone
dangerous and displeasing to these Court thralls ; who
had to leave rapidly, but threatened to return in better
strength before long. Whereupon, instantly, the
indignant Bonder and his Sunbeam of the Grove sent
out their war-arrow, rousing all the country into angry
promptitude, and more than one perhaps into greedy
hope of revenge for their own injuries. The rest of
Hakon's history now rushes on with extreme rapidity.

Sunbeam of the Grove, when next demanded of her
Bonder, has the whole neighbourhood assembled in
arms round her ; rumour of Tryggveson is fast making

OLAF TRYGGVESON. 51

it the whole country. Hakon's insolent messengers
are cut in pieces ; Hakon finds he cannot fly under
cover too soon. With a single slave he flies that
same night ; — but whitherward ? Can think of no
safe place, except to some old mistress of his, who
lives retired in that neighbourhood, and has some pity
or regard for the wicked old Hakon. Old mistress
does receive him, pities him, will do all she can to
protect and hide him. But how, by what uttermost
stretch of female artifice hide him here ; everyone
will search here first of all ! Old mistress, by the
slave's help, extemporises a cellar under the floor of
her pig-house ; sticks Hakon and slave into that, as
the one safe seclusion she can contrive. Hakon and
slave, begrunted by the pigs above them, tortured by
the devils within and about them, passed two days in
circumstances more and more horrible. For they
heard, through their light-slit and breathing-slit, the
triumph of Tryggveson proclaiming itself by Trygg-
veson's own lips, who had mounted a big boulder near
by and was victoriously speaking to the people,
winding up with a promise of honours and rewards to
whoever should bring him wicked old Hakon's head.

E 2

02 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Wretched Hakon, justly suspecting his slave, tried to
at least keep himself awake. Slave did keep himself
awake till Hakon dozed or slept, then swiftly cut off
Hakon's head, and plunged out with it to the presence
of Tryggveson. Tryggveson, detesting the traitor,
useful as the treachery was, cut off the slaved head
too, had it hung up along with Hakon's on the
pinnacle of the Lade Gallows, where the populace
pelted both heads with stones and many curses,
especially the more important of the two. * Hakon
the Bad* ever henceforth, instead of Hakon the
Rich.

This was the end of Hakon Jarl, the last support
of heathenry in Norway, among other characteristics
he had : a strong-handed, hard-headed, very relent-
less, greedy and wicked being. He is reckoned to
have ruled in Norway, or mainly ruled, either in the
struggling or triumphant state, for about thirty years
(965-95 P) He and his seemed to have formed, by
chance rather than design, the chief opposition which
the Haarfagr posterity throughout its whole course
experienced in Norway. Such the cost to them of
killmg", good Jarl Sigurd, in GreyfeH's time ! For

OLAF TRYGGVESON. 53

'curses, like chickens,' do sometimes visibly 'come
home to feed/ as they always, either visibly or
else invisibly, are punctually sure to do.

Hakon Jarl is considerably connected with the
Far'der Saga; often mentioned there, and comes out
perfectly in character ; an altogether worldly-wise
man of the roughest type, not without a turn for
practicality of kindness to those who would really be
of use to him. His tendencies to magic also are not
forgotten.

Hakon left two sons, Eric and Svein, often also
mentioned in this Saga. On their father's death
they fled to Sweden, to Denmark, and were busy
stirring up troubles in those countries against Olaf
Tryggveson ; till at length, by a favourable com-
bination, under their auspices chiefly, they got his
brief and noble reign put an end to. Nay, further-
more, Jarl Eric left sons, especially an elder son,,
named also Eric, who proved a sore affliction, and a
continual stone of stumbling to a new generation of
Haarfagrs, and so continued the curse of Sigurd's
murder upon them.

Towards the end of this Hakon's reign it was that

54 EAKLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

the discovery of America took place (985). Actual
discovery, it appears, by Eric the Red, an Icelander ;
concerning which there has been abundant investiga-
tion and discussion in our time. Ginnungagap (Roar-
ing Abyss) is thought to be the mouth of Behring's
Straits in Baffin's Bay ; Big Helloland, the coast from
Cape Walsingham to near Newfoundland; Little
Helloland, Newfoundland itself. Markland was Lower
Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. South-
ward thence to Chesapeak Bay was called Wine Land
(wild grapes still grow in Rhode Island, and more
luxuriantly further south). White Man's Land,
called also Great Ireland, is supposed to mean the two
Carolinas, down to the Southern Cape of Florida. In
Dahlmann's opinion, the Irish themselves might even
pretend to have probably been the first discoverers of
America ; they had evidently got to Iceland itself
before the Norse exiles found it out. It appears to be
certain that, from the end of the tenth century to the
early part of the fourteenth, there was a dim know-
ledge of those distant shores extant in the Norse
mind, and even some straggling series of visits thither
by roving Norsemen ; though, as only danger, diffi-

OLAF TRYGGVESON. 55

culty, and no profit resulted, the visits ceased, and
the whole matter sank into oblivion, and, but for the
Icelandic talent of writing in the long winter nights,
would never have been heard of by posterity at all.

CHAPTER VII.

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON.

Olaf Tryggveson (a.d. 995 — 1000) also makes a
great figure in the Faroer Sagay and recounts there
his early troubles, which were strange and many. He
is still reckoned a grand hero of the North, though
his vates now is only Snorro Sturleson of Iceland.
Tryggveson had indeed many adventures in the world.
His poor mother, Astrid, was obliged to fly, on mur-
der of her husband by Gunhild, — to fly for life, three
months before he, her little Olaf, was born. She lay
concealed in reedy islands, fled through trackless
forests; reached her father's with the little baby in her
arms, and lay deep-hidden there, tended only by her
father himself ; Gunhild's pursuit being so incessant,
and keen as with sleuth-hounds. Poor Astrid had to
fly again, deviously to Sweden, to Esthland (Esthonia),
to Russia. In Esthland she was sold as a slave, quite

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 57

parted from her boy, — who also was sold, and again
sold ; but did at last fall in with a kinsman high in
the Russian service; did from him find redemption
and help, and so rose, in a distinguished manner, to
manhood, victorious self-help, and recovery of his
kingdom at last. He even met his mother again, he
as king of Norway, she as one wonderfully lifted out
of darkness into new life and happiness still in store.
Grown to manhood, Tryggveson, now become ac-
quainted with his birth, and with his, alas, hopeless
claims ; left Russia for the one profession open to him,
that of sea-robbery ; and did feats without number in
that questionable line in many seas and scenes, — in
England latterly, and most conspicuously of all. In
one of his courses thither, after long labours in the
Hebrides, Man, Wales, and down the western shores
to the very Land's End and farther, he paused at the
Scilly Islands for a little while. He was told of a
wonderful Christian hermit living strangely in these
sea- solitudes ; had the curiosity to seek him out, exa-
mine, question, and discourse with him ; and, after
some reflection, accepted Christian baptism from the
venerable man. In Snorro the story is involved in

58 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

miracle, rumour, and fable ; but the fact itself seems
certain, and is very interesting ; the great, wild, noble
soul of fierce Olaf opening to this wonderful gospel of
tidings from beyond the world, tidings which infinitely
transcended all else he had ever heard or dreamt of !
It seems certain he was baptised here ; date not
fixable; shortly before poor heart-broken Dunstan's
death, or shortly after ; most English churches, mon-
asteries especially, lying burnt, under continual
visitation of the Danes. Olaf, such baptism notwith-
standing, did not quit his viking profession ; indeed,
what other was there for him in the world as yet ?

We mentioned his occasional copartneries with
Svein of the Double-beard, now become King of
Denmark, but the greatest of these, and the alone
interesting at this time, is their joint invasion of
England, and Tryggveson's exploits and fortunes there
some years after that adventure of baptism in the
Scilly Isles. Svein and he 'were above a year in
England together/ this time: they steered. up the
Thames with three hundred ships and many fighters ;
siege, or at least furious assault, of London was their
first or main enterprise, but it did not succeed. The

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON 59

Saxon Chronicle gives date to it, a.d. 994, and names
expressly, as Svein's co-partner, * Olaus, king of Nor-
way/— which he was as yet far from being ; but in
regard to the Year of Grace the Saxon Chronicle is
to be held indisputable, and, indeed, has the field to
itself in this matter. Famed Olaf Tryggveson, seen
visibly at the siege of London, year 994, it throws a
kind of momentary light to us over that disastrous
whirlpool of miseries and confusions, all dark and
painful to the fancy otherwise ! This big voyage and
furious siege of London is Svein Double-beard's first
real attempt to fulfil that vow of his at Father Blue-
tooth's ' funeral ale/ and conquer England, — which it
is a pity he could not yet do. Had London now
fallen to him, it is pretty evident all England must
have followed, and poor England, with Svein as king
over it, been delivered from immeasurable woes, which
had to last some two and twenty years farther, before
this result could be arrived at. But finding London
impregnable for the moment (no ship able to get
athwart the bridge, and many Danes perishing in the
attempt to do it by swimming), Svein and Olaf turned
to other enterprises ; all England in a manner lying

60 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

open to them, turn which way they liked. They
hurnt and plundered over Kent, over Hampshire,
Sussex ; they stormed far and wide ; world lying all
"before them where to choose. "Wretched Ethelred,
as the one invention he could fall upon, offered them
Danegelt (16,000/. of silver this year, but it rose in
other years as high as 48,000/.) ; the desperate
Ethelred, a clear method of quenching fire by pouring
oil on it ! Svein and Olaf accepted ; withdrew to
Southampton, — Olaf at least did, — till the money was
got ready. Strange to think of, fierce Svein of the
Double-beard, and conquest of England by him ; this
had at last become the one salutary result which re-
mained for that distracted, down-trodden, now utterly
.chaotic and anarchic country. A conquering Svein,
followed by an ably and earnestly administrative, as
well as conquering, Knut (whom Dahlmann compares
to Charlemagne), were thus by the mysterious
destinies appointed the effective saviours of England.

Tryggveson, on this occasion, was a good while at
Southampton ; and roamed extensively about, easily
victorious over everything, if resistance were at-
tempted, but finding little or none ; and acting now

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 61

in a peaceable or even friendly capacity. In the
Southampton country he came in contact with the
then Bishop of Winchester, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipher-
able to us as a man of great natural discernment,
piety, and inborn veracity ; a hero-soul, probably of
real brotherhood with Olafs own. He even made
court visits to King Ethelred; one visit to him at
Andover of a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as
we can discover, he was introduced into the real
depths of the Christian faith. Elphegus, with due
solemnity of apparatus, in presence of the king, at
Andover, baptised Olaf anew, and to him Olaf
engaged that he would never plunder in England any
more ; which promise, too, he kept. In fact, not long
after, Svein's conquest of England being in an evi-
dently forward state, Tryggveson (having made,
withal, a great English or Irish marriage, — a dowager
Princess, who had voluntarily fallen in love with him,
— see Snorro for this fine romantic fact !) mainly
resided in our island for two or three years, or else in
Dublin, in the precincts of the Danish Court there in
1 the Sister Isle. Accordingly it was in Dublin, as

62 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

above noted, that Hakon's spy found him ; and from
the Liffey that his squadron sailed, through the
Hebrides, through the Orkneys, plundering and bap-
tising in their strange way, towards such success as
we have seen.

Tryggveson made a stout, and, in effect, victorious
and glorious struggle for himself as king. Daily and
hourly vigilant to do so, often enough by soft and
even merry methods,— for he was a witty, jocund
man, and had a fine ringing laugh in him, and clear
pregnant words ever ready, — or if soft methods would
not serve, then by hard and even hardest he put
down a great deal of miscellaneous anarchy in
Norway; was especially busy against heathenism
(devil-worship and its rites) : this, indeed, may be
called the focus and heart of all his royal endeavour
in Norway, and of all the troubles he now had with
his people there. For this was a serious, vital, all-
comprehending matter ; devil-worship, a thing not to
be tolerated one moment longer than you could by
any method help! Olafs success was intermittent,
of varying complexion ; but his effort, swift or slow,
was strong and continual ; and on the whole he did

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 63

succeed. Take a sample or two of that wonderful
conversion process :

At one of his first Things he found the Bonders all
assembled in arms ; resolute to the death seemingly,
against his proposal and him. Tryggveson said
little ; waited impassive, " What your reasons are,
good men?" One zealous Bonder started up in
passionate parliamentary eloquence ; but after a
sentence or two, broke down ; one, and then another,
and still another, and remained all three staring in
open-mouthed silence there ! The peasant-proprietors
accepted the phenomenon as ludicrous, perhaps partly
as miraculous withal, and consented to baptism this
time.

On another occasion of a Thing, which had
assembled near some heathen temple to meet him, —
temple where Hakon Jarl had done much repairing,
and set up many idol figures and sumptuous orna-
ments, regardless of expense, especially a very big
and splendid Thor, with massive gold collar round the
neck of him, not the like of it in Norway, — King Olaf
Tryggveson was clamorously invited by the Bonders
to step in there, enlighten his eyes, and partake of

64 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

the sacred rites. Instead of which he rushed into
the temple with his armed men; smashed down,
with his own battle-axe, the god Thor, prostrate on
the ground at one stroke, to set an example ; and, in
a few minutes, had the whole Hakon Pantheon
wrecked ; packing up meanwhile all the gold and
preciosities accumulated there (not forgetting Thor's
illustrious gold collar, of which we shall hear again),
and victoriously took the plunder home with him for
his own royal uses and behoof of the state.

In other cases, though a friend to strong measures,
he had to hold in, and await the favourable moment.
Thus once, in beginning a parliamentary address, so
soon as he came to touch upon Christianity, the
Bonders rose in murmurs, in vociferations and
jingling of arms, which quite drowned the royal
voice ; declared, They had taken arms against king
Hakon the Good to compel him to desist from his
Christian proposals; and they did not think king
Olaf a higher man than him (Hakon the Good).
The king then said, 'He purposed coming to them
' next Yule to their great sacrificial feast, to see for
' himself what their customs were/ which pacified the

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 65

Bonders for this time. The appointed place of
meeting was again a Hakon-Jarl Temple, not yet
done to ruin ; chief shrine in those Trondhjem parts,
I believe : there should Tryggveson appear at Yule.
Well, but before Yule came, Tryggveson made a
great banquet in his palace at Trondhjem, and in-
vited far and wide, all manner of important persons out
of the district as guests there. Banquet hardly done,
Tryggveson gave some slight signal, upon which
armed men strode in, seized eleven of these principal
persons, and the king said : "Since he himself was to
become a heathen again, and do sacrifice, it was his
purpose to do it in the highest form, namely, that of
Human Sacrifice; and this time not of slaves and
malefactors, but of the best men in the country ! "
In which stringent circumstances the eleven seized
persons, and company at large, gave unanimous con-
sent to baptism ; straightway received the same, and
abjured their idols ; but were not permitted to go home
till they had left, in sons, brothers, and other precious
relatives, sufficient hostages in the king's hands.

By unwearied industry of this and better kinds,
Tryggveson had trampled down idolatry, so far as

66 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

form went, — how far in substance may be greatly-
doubted. But it is to be remembered withal, that
always on the back of these compulsory adventures
there followed English bishops, priests and preachers ;
whereby to the open-minded, conviction, to all
degrees of it, was attainable, while silence and
passivity became the duty or necessity of the uncon-
vinced party.

In about two years Norway was all gone over
with a rough harrow of conversion. Heathenism at
least constrained to be silent and outwardly con-
formable. Tryggveson next turned his attention to
Iceland, sent one Thangbrand, priest from Saxony, of
wonderful qualities, military as well as theological,
to try and convert Iceland. Thangbrand made a few
converts ; for Olaf had already many estimable Ice-
land friends, whom he liked much, and was much
liked by ; and conversion was the ready road to his
favour. Thangbrand, I find, lodged with Hall of
Sid a (familiar acquaintance of 'Burnt Njal/ whose
Saga has its admirers among us even now). Thang-
brand converted Hall and one or two other leading
men ; but in general he was reckoned quarrelsome

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 67

and blusterous rather than eloquent and piously
convincing. Two skalds of repute made biting
lampoons upon Thangbrand, whom Thangbrand, by
two opportunities that offered, cut down and did to
death because of their skaldic quality. Another he
killed with his own hand, I know not for what reason.
In brief, after about a year, Thangbrand returned to
Norway and king Olaf ; declaring the Icelanders to be
a perverse, satirical, and inconvertible people, having
himself, the record says, ' been the death of three
men there.' King Olaf was in high rage at this
result; but was persuaded by the Icelanders about
him to try farther, and by a milder instrument. He
accordingly chose one Thormod, a pious, patient,
and kindly man, who, within the next year or so, did
actually accomplish the matter; namely, get Chris-
tianity, by open vote, declared at Thing valla by the
general Thing of Iceland there ; the roar of a volcanic
eruption at the right moment rather helping the
conclusion, if I recollect. Whereupon Olaf's joy
was no doubt great.

One general result of these successful operations was
the discontent, to all manner of degrees, on the part

v 2

68 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

of many Norse individuals, against this glorious and
victorious, but peremptory and terrible king of tbeirs.
Tryggveson, I fancy, did not much regard all that ; a
man of joyful, cheery temper, habitually contemptuous of
danger. Another trivial misfortune that befell in these
conversion operations, and became important to him,
he did not even know of, and would have much de-
spised if he had. It was this : Sigrid, queen dowager
of Sweden, thought to be amongst the most shining
women of the world, was also known for one of the
most imperious, revengeful, and relentless, and had
got for herself the name of Sigrid the Proud. In her
high widowhood she had naturally many wooers ; but
treated them in a manner unexampled. Two of her
suitors, a simultaneous Two, were, King Harald
Oraenske (a cousin of King Tryggveson's, and kind
of king in some district, by sufferance of the late
Hakon's), — this luckless Grsenske and the then Rus-
sian Sovereign as well, name not worth mentioning,
were zealous suitors of Queen Dowager Sigrid, and were
perversely slow to accept the negative, which in her
heart was inexorable for both, though the expression
of it could not be quite so emphatic. By ill-luck for

REIGN OF OLAF THYGGVESON. 69

them tliey came once, — from the far West, Graenske ;
from the far East, the Russian; — and arrived both
together at Sigrid's court, to prosecute their impor-
tunate, and to her odious and tiresome suit ; much,
how very much, to her impatience and disdain. She
lodged them both in some old mansion, which she
had contiguous, and got compendiously furnished for
them ; and there, I know not whether on the first or
on the second, or on what following night, this un-
paralleled Queen Sigrid had the house surrounded,
set on fire, and the two suitors and their people burnt
to ashes ! No more of bother from these two at least !
This appears to be a fact; and it could not be un-
known to Tryggveson.

In spite of which, however, there went from Trygg-
veson, who was now a widower, some incipient mar-
riage proposals to this proud widow ; by whom they
were favourably received ; as from the brightest man
in all the world, they might seem worth being. Now,
in one of these anti-heathen onslaughts of King Olaf 's
on the idol temples of Hakon — (I think it was that
case where Olaf's own battle-axe struck down the
monstrous refulgent Thor, and conquered an immense

70 EAKLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

gold ring from the neck of him, or from the door of
his temple), — a huge gold ring, at any rate, had come
into Olaf 's hands ; and this he bethought him might
be a pretty present to Queen Sigrid, the now favour-
able, though the proud. Sigrid received the ring with
joy ; fancied what a collar it would make for her own
fair neck ; but noticed that her two goldsmiths, weigh-
ing it on their fingers, exchanged a glance. " What
is that ? V exclaimed Queen Sigrid. " Nothing," an-
swered they, or endeavoured to answer, dreading mis-
chief. But Sigrid compelled them to break open the
ring ; and there was found, all along the inside of it,
an occult ring of copper, not a heart of gold at all !
" Ha," said the proud Queen, flinging it away, " he
that could deceive in this matter can deceive in many
others ! " And was in hot wrath with Olaf; though,
by degrees, again she took milder thoughts.

Milder thoughts, we say ; and consented to a meet-
ing next autumn, at some half-way station, where
their great business might be brought to a happy
settlement and betrothment. Both Olaf Tryggveson
and the high dowager appear to have been tolerably
of willing mind at this meeting ; but Olaf interposed,

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 71

what was always one condition with him, "Thou
must consent to baptism, and give up thy idol-gods."
" They are the gods of all my forefathers," answered
the lady, " choose thou what gods thou pleases t, hut
leave me mine." Whereupon an altercation ; and
Tryggveson, as was his wont, towered up into
shining wrath, and exclaimed at last, " Why should
I care about thee then, old faded heathen creature ? "
And impatiently wagging his glove, hit her, or slightly
switched her, on the face with it, and contemptuously
turning away, walked out of the adventure. " This
is a feat that may cost thee dear one day," said Sigrid.
And in the end it came to do so, little as the magni-
ficent Olaf deigned to think of it at the moment.

One of the last scuffles I remember of Olaf 's having
with his refractory heathens, was at a Thing in Hor-
daland or Eogaland, far in the North, where the chief
opposition hero was one Jaernskaegg, (' ironbeard,'
Scottice 'Airn-shag,' as it were !). Here again was a
grand heathen temple, Hakon Jarl's building, with a
splendid Thor in it and much idol furniture. The
king stated what was his constant wish here as else-
where, but had no sooner entered upon the subject

72 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

of Christianity than universal murmur, rising into
clangour and violent dissent, interrupted him, and
Ironbeard took up the discourse in reply. Ironbeard
did not break down ; on the contrary, he, with great
brevity, emphasis, and clearness, signified " that the
proposal to reject their old gods was in the highest
degree unacceptable to this Thing ; that it was con-
trary to bargain, withal ; so that if it were insisted
on, they would have to fight with the king about it ;
and in fact were now ready to do so." In reply to
this, Olaf, without word uttered, but merely with
some signal to the trusty armed men he had with
him, rushed off to the temple close at hand ; burst
into it, shutting the door behind him ; smashed Thor
and Co. to destruction; then reappearing victorious,
found much confusion outside, and, in particular, what
was a most important item, the rugged Ironbeard
done to death by Olaf *s men in the interim. Which
entirely disheartened the Thing from fighting at that
moment; having now no leader who dared to head
them in so dangerous an enterprise. So that everyone
departed to digest his rage in silence as he could.
Matters having cooled for a week or two, there was

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 73

another Thing held ; in which King Olaf testified re-
gret for the quarrel that had fallen out, readiness to
pay what mulct was due by law for that unlucky
homicide of Ironbeard by his people; and, withal,
to take the fair daughter of Ironbeard to wife, if
all would comply and be friends with him in other
matters ; which was the course resolved on as most
convenient : accept baptism, we ; marry Jaernskaegg's
daughter, you. This bargain held on both sides. The
wedding, too, was celebrated, but that took rather a
strange turn. On the morning of the bride-night,
Olaf, who had not been sleeping, though his fair
partner thought he had, opened his eyes, and saw,
with astonishment, the fair partner aiming a long
knife ready to strike home upon him ! Which at once
ended their wedded life ; poor Demoiselle Ironbeard
immediately bundling off with her attendants home
again ; King Olaf into the apartment of his servants,
mentioning there what had happened, and forbidding
any of them to follow her.

Olaf Tryggveson, though his kingdom was the
smallest of the Norse Three, had risen to a renown
over all the Norse world, which neither he of

74 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Denmark nor he of Sweden could pretend to rival.
A magnificent, far-shining man ; more expert in all
' bodily exercises ' as the Norse called them, than
any man had ever been before him, or after was.
Could keep five daggers in the air, always catching
the proper fifth by its handle, and sending it aloft
again; could shoot supremely, throw a javelin with
either hand ; and, in fact, in battle usually threw two
together. These, with swimming, climbing, leaping,
were the then admirable Fine Arts of the North ; in
all which Tryggveson appears to have been the
Raphael and the Michael Angelo at once. Essen-
tially definable, too, if we look well into him, as a
wild bit of real heroism, in such rude guise and
environment; a high, true, and great human soul.
A jovial burst of laughter in him, too ; a bright,
airy, wise way of speech ; dressed beautifully and
with care ; a man admired and loved exceedingly by
those he liked ; dreaded as death by those he did
not like. ' Hardly any king,' says Snorro, ' was ever
1 so well obeyed ; by one class out of zeal and love,
' by the rest out of dread.' His glorious course, how-
ever, was not to last loner.

HEIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 75

King Svein of the Double -Beard had not yet
completed his conquest of England, — by no means
yet, some thirteen horrid years of that still before
him! — when, over in Denmark, he found that
complaints against him and intricacies had arisen, on
the part principally of one Burislav, King of the
Wends (far up the Baltic), and in a less degree with
the King of Sweden and other minor individuals.
Svein earnestly applied himself to settle these, and
have his hands, free. Burislav, an aged heathen
gentleman, proved reasonable and conciliatory; so,
too, the King of Sweden, and Dowager Queen Sigrid,
his managing mother. Bargain in both these cases
got sealed and crowned by marriage. Svein, who
had become a widower lately, now wedded Sigrid ;
and might think, possibly enough, he had got a proud
bargain, though a heathen one. Burislav also insisted
on marriage with Princess Thyri, the Double-Beard's
sister. Thyri, inexpressibly disinclined to wed an
aged heathen of that stamp, pleaded hard with her
brother ; but the Double-Bearded was inexorable ;
Thyri' s wailings and entreaties went for nothing.
With some guardian foster-brother, and a serving-

76 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

maid or two, she had to go on this hated journey.
Old Burislav, at sight of her, blazed out into
marriage-feast of supreme magnificence, and was
charmed to see her ; but Thyri would not join the
marriage party ; refused to eat with it or sit with it
at all. Day after day, for six days, flatly refused ;
and after nightfall of the sixth, glided out with her
foster-brother into the woods, into by-paths and in-
conceivable wanderings ; and, in effect, got home to
Denmark. Brother Svein was not for the moment
there; probably enough gone to England again.
But Thyri knew too well he would not allow her to
stay here, or anywhere that he could help, except
with the old heathen she had just fled from.

Thyri, looking round the world, saw no likely road
for her, but to Olaf Tryggveson in Norway ; to beg
protection from the most heroic man she knew of in
the world. Olaf, except by renown, was not known
to her ; but by renown he well was. Olaf, at sight
of her, promised protection and asylum against all
mortals. Nay, in discoursing with Thyri Olaf per-
ceived more and more clearly what a fine handsome
being, soul and body, Thyri was; and in a short

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 77

space of time winded up by proposing marriage to
Thyri ; who, humbly, and we may fancy with what
secret joy, consented to say yes, and become Queen of
Norway. In the due months they had a little son,
Harald ; who, it is credibly recorded, was the joy of
both his parents; but who, to their inexpressible
sorrow, in about a year died, and vanished from
them. This, and one other fact now to be mentioned,
is all the wedded history we have of Thyri.

The other fact is, that Thyri had, by inheritance or
covenant, not depending on her marriage with old
Burislav, considerable properties in Wendland ;
which, she often reflected, might be not a little be-
hoveful to her here in Norway, where her civil-list
was probably but straitened. She spoke of this to
her husband ; but her husband would take no hold,
merely made her gifts, and said, " Pooh, pooh, can't
we live without old Burislav and his Wendland
properties ? " So that the lady sank into ever deeper
anxiety and eagerness about this Wendland object ;
took to weeping ; sat weeping whole days ; and when
Olaf asked, " What ails thee, then ? " would answer,
or did answer once, "What a different man my

78 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

father Harald Gormson was " (vulgarly called Blue-
tooth), " compared with some that are now kings !
For no King Svein in the world would Harald
Gormson have given up his own or his wife's just
rights ! " "Whereupon Tryggveson started up, ex-
claiming in some heat, "Of thy brother Svein I
never was afraid ; if Svein and I meet in contest, it
will not be Svein, I believe, that conquers ; " and
went off in a towering fume. Consented, however,
at last, had to consent, to get his fine fleet equipped
and armed, and decide to sail with it to Wendland to
have speech and settlement with King Burislav.

Tryggveson had already ships and navies that were
the wonder of the North. Especially in building war
ships, — the Crane, the Serpent, last of all the Long Ser-
pent,*— he had, for size, for outward beauty, and in-
ward perfection of equipment, transcended all example.

This new sea expedition became an object of
attention to all neighbours ; especially Queen Sigrid
the Proud and Svein Double-Beard, her now king,
were attentive to it.

* His Long Serpent, judged by some to be of the size of a frigate
of forty-five guns.— Laing.

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 79

"This insolent Tryggveson," Queen Sigrid would
often say, and had long been saying, to her Svein,
" to marry thy sister without leave had or asked of
thee ; and now flaunting forth his war navies, as if he,
king only of paltry Norway, were the big hero of the
North ! "Why do you suffer it, you kings really great ?"

By such persuasions and reiterations, King Svein
of Denmark, King Olaf of Sweden, and Jarl Eric,
now a great man there, grown rich by prosperous sea
robbery and other good management, were brought to
take the matter up, and combine strenuously for
destruction of King Olaf Tryggveson on this grand
Wendland expedition of his. Fleets and forces were
with best diligence got ready ; and, withal, a eertain
Jarl Sigwald, of Jomsburg, chieftain of the Joms-
vikings, a powerful, plausible, and cunning man, was
appointed to find means of joining himself to Trygg-
veson's grand voyage, of getting into Tryggveson's
confidence, and keeping Svein Double-Beard, Eric,
and the Swedish King aware of all his movements.

King Olaf Tryggveson, unacquainted with all this,
sailed away in summer, with his splendid fleet ; went
through the Belts with prosperous winds, under bright

80 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

skies, to the admiration of both shores. Such a fleet,
with its shining Serpents, long and short, and perfec-
tion of equipment and appearance, the Baltic never
saw before. Jarl Sigwald joined with new ships by
the way : " Had," he too, " a visit to King Burislav
to pay ; how could he ever do it in better company ? "
and studiously and skilfully ingratiated himself with
King Olaf. Old Burislav, when they arrived, proved
altogether courteous, handsome, and amenable ; agreed
at once to Olaf 's claims for his now queen, did the rites
of hospitality with a generous plenitude to Olaf; who
cheerily renewed acquaintance with that country,
known to him in early days (the cradle of his fortunes
in the viking line), and found old friends there still
surviving, joyful to meet him again. Jarl Sigwald
encouraged these delays, King Svein and Co. not
being yet quite ready. "Get ready!" Sigwald
directed them, and they diligently did. Olaf s men,
their business now done, were impatient to be home ;
and grudged every day of loitering there ; but, till
Sigwald pleased, such his power of flattering and
cajoling Tryggveson, they could not get away.
At length, Sigwald's secret messengers reporting all

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 81

ready on the part of Svein and Co., Olaf took farewell
of Burislav and Wendland, and all gladly sailed
away. Svein, Eric, and the Swedish king, with their
combined fleets, lay in wait behind some cape in a
safe little bay of some island, then called Svolde, but
not in our time to be found ; the Baltic tumults in
the fourteenth century having swallowed it, as some
think, and leaving us uncertain whether it was in the
neighbourhood of Riigen Island or in the Sound of
Elsinore. There lay Svein, Eric, and Co. waiting till
Tryggveson and his fleet came up, Sigwald's spy
messengers daily reporting what progress he and it
had made. At length, one bright summer morning,
the fleet made appearance, sailing in loose order,
Sigwald, as one acquainted with the shoal places,
steering ahead, and shewing them the way.

Snorro rises into one of his pictorial fits, seized with
enthusiasm at the thought of such a fleet, and reports
to us largely in what order Tryggveson's winged
Coursers of the Deep, in long series, for perhaps an
hour or more, came on, and what the three potentates,
from their knoll of vantage, said of each as it hove in
sight. Svein thrice over guessed this and the other

82 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

noble vessel to be the Long Serpent ; Eric always
correcting him, "No, that is not the Long Serpent
yet " (and aside always), " Nor shall you be lord of it,
king, when it does come." The Long Serpent itself
did make appearance. Eric, Svein, and the Swedish
king hurried on board, and pushed out of their hiding-
place into the open sea. Treacherous Sigwald, at the
beginning of all this, had suddenly doubled that cape
of theirs, and struck into the bay out of sight, leaving
the foremost Tryggveson ships astonished, and uncer-
tain what to do, if it were not simply to strike sail
and wait till Olaf himself with the Long Serpent
arrived.

Olaf 's chief captains, seeing the enemy's huge fleet
come out, and how the matter lay, strongly advised
King Olaf to elude this stroke of treachery, and, with
all sail, hold on his course, fight being now on so
unequal terms. Snorro says, the king, high on the
quarter-deck where he stood, replied, " Strike the
sails; never shall men of mine think of flight. I
never fled from battle. Let God dispose of my life ;
but flight I will never take/' And so the battle
arrangements immediately began, and. the battle with

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 83

all fury went loose ; and lasted hour after hour, till
almost sunset, if I well recollect. " Olaf stood on the
Serpent's quarter-deck,' ' says Snorro, "high over the
others. He had a gilt shield and a helmet inlaid
with gold ; over his armour he had a short red coat,
and was easily distinguished from other men."
Snorro's account of the battle is altogether animated,
graphic, and so minute that antiquaries gather from
it, if so disposed (which we hut little are), what the
methods of Norse sea -fighting were ; their shooting of
arrows, casting of javelins, pitching of big stones,
ultimately boarding, and mutual clashing and smash-
ing, which it would not avail us to speak of here.
Olaf stood conspicuous all day, throwing javelins, of
deadly aim, with both hands at once ; encouraging,
fighting and commanding like a highest sea-king.

The Danish fleet, the Swedish fleet, were, both of
them, quickly dealt with, and successively withdrew
out of shot-range. And then Jarl Eric came up, and
fiercely grappled with the Long Serpent, or, rather,
with her surrounding comrades; and gradually, as
they were beaten empty of men, with the Long
Serpent herself. The fight grew ever fiercer, more

g2

84 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

furious. Eric was supplied with new men from the
Swedes and Danes; Olaf had no such resource,
except from the crews of his own heaten ships, and
at length this also failed him ; all his ships, except
the Long Serpent, being beaten and emptied. Olaf
fought on unyielding. Eric twice boarded him, was
twice repulsed. Olaf kept his quarter-deck ; uncon-
querable, though left now more and more hopeless,
fatally short of help. A tall young man, called Einar
Tamberskelver, very celebrated and important after-
wards in Norway, and already the best archer known,
kept busy with his bow. Twice he nearly shot Jarl
Eric in his ship. "Shoot me that man," said Jarl
Eric to a bowman near him ; and, just as Tamber-
skelver was drawing his bow the third time, an arrow
hit it in the middle and broke it in two. " What is
this that has broken ? " asked King Olaf. " Norway
from thy hand, king," answered Tamberskelver.
Tryggveson's men, he observed with surprise, were
striking violently on Eric's ; but to no purpose ;
nobody fell. "How is this?" asked Tryggveson.
'* Our swords are notched and blunted, king ; they do
not cut." Olaf stept down to his arm-chest ; delivered

REIGN OF OLAF TRYGGVESON. 85

out new swords; and it was observed as he did it,
blood ran trickling from his wrist; but none knew
where the wound was. Eric boarded a third time.
Olaf, left with hardly more than one man, sprang
overboard (one sees that red coat of his still glancing -
in the evening sun), and sank in the deep waters to
his long rest.

Rumour ran among his people that he still was not
dead ; grounding on some movement by the ships cf
that traitorous Sigwald, they fancied Olaf had dived
beneath the keels of his enemies, and got away with
Sigwald, as Sigwald himself evidently did. 'Much
was hoped, supposed, spoken/ says one old mourning
Skald; 'but the truth was, Olaf Tryggveson was
never seen in Norseland more.' Strangely he remains
still a shining figure to us ; the wildly beautifullest
man, in body and in soul, that one has ever heard of
in the North.

CHAPTER VIII.

JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN.

Jarl Eric, splendent with this victory, not to speak
of that over the Jomsburgers with his father long ago,
was now made Governor of Norway: Governor or
quasi-sovereign, with his brother, Jarl Svein, as part-
ner, who, however, took but little hand in governing ;
— and, under the patronage of Svein Double-Beard
and the then Swedish king (Olaf his name, Sigrid the
Proud, his mother's), administered it, they say, with
skill and prudence for above fourteen years. Trygg-
veson's death is understood and laboriously computed
to have happened in the year 1000 ; but there is no
exact chronology in these things, but a continual
uncertain guessing after such ; so that one eye in
History as regards them is as if put out; — neither
indeed have I yet had the luck to find any decipher-
able and intelligible map of Norway : so that the

JARLS ERIC AND SVEJN. 87

other eye of History is much blinded withal, and her
path through those wild regions and epochs is an ex-
tremely dim and chaotic one. An evil that much
demands remedying, and especially wants some first
attempt at remedying, by enquirers into English His-
tory ; the whole period from Egbert, the first Saxon
King of England, on to Edward the Confessor, the
last, being everywhere completely interwoven with
that of their mysterious, continually-invasive 'Danes,'
as they called them, and inextricably unintelligible till
these also get to be a little understood, and cease to
.be utterly dark, hideous, and mythical to us as they
now are.

King Olaf Tryggveson is the first Norseman who
is expressly mentioned to have been in England by
our English History books, new or old ; and of him
it is merely said that he had an interview with King
Ethelred II. at Andover, of a pacific and friendly
nature, — though it is absurdly added that the noble
Olaf was converted to Christianity by that extremely
stupid Royal Person. Greater contrast in an inter-
view than in this at Andover, between heroic Olaf
Tryggveson and Ethelred the forever Unready, was

88 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

not perhaps seen in the terrestrial Planet that day.
Olaf, or ' Olaus,' or 'Anlaf,' as they name him, did
* engage on oath to Ethelred not to invade England
any more/ and kept his promise, they farther say.
Essentially a truth, as we already know, though the
circumstances were all different; and the promise was
to a devout High Priest, not to a crowned Blockhead
and cowardly Do-nothing. One other ' Olaus' I find
mentioned in our Books, two or three centuries before,
at a time when there existed no such individual ; not
to speak of several Anlafs, who sometimes seem to
mean Olaf, and still oftener to mean nobody possible.
Which occasions not a little obscurity in our early
History, says the learned Selden. A thing remediable,
too, in which, if any Englishman of due genius (or
even capacity for standing labour), who understood
the Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon languages, would en-
gage in it, he might do a great deal of good, and
bring the matter into a comparatively lucid state.
Yain aspirations, — or perhaps not altogether vain.

At the time of Olaf Tryggveson's death, and indeed
long before, King Svein Double-Beard had always for
chief enterprise the Conquest of England, and followed

JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN. 89

it by fits with extreme violence and impetus ; often
advancing largely towards a successful conclusion ; but
never, for thirteen years yet, getting it concluded.
He possessed long since all England north of Watling
Street. That is to say, Northumberland, East Anglia
(naturally full of Danish settlers by this time), were
fixedly his; Mercia, his oftener than not; Wessex
itself, with all the coasts, he was free to visit, and to
burn and rob in at discretion. There or elsewhere,
Ethelred the Unready had no battle in him whatever;
and, for a forty years after the beginning of his reign,
England excelled in anarchic stupidity, murderous
devastation, utter misery, platitude, and sluggish con-
temptibility, all the countries one has read of. Ap-
parently a very opulent country, too ; a ready skill in
such arts and fine arts as there were; Svein's very
ships, they say, had their gold dragons, top-mast pen-
nons, and other metallic splendours generally wrought
for them in England. 'Unexampled prosperity' in
the manufacture way not unknown there, it would
seem ! But co-existing with such spiritual bankruptcy
as was also unexampled, one would hope. Read Lu-
pus (Wulfstan), Archbishop of York's amazing Sermon

90 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

on the subject,* addressed to contemporary audiences ;
setting forth such a state of things, — sons selling thei
fathers, mothers, and sisters as Slaves to the Danisl
robber; themselves living in debauchery, blusterous
gluttony, and depravity ; the details of which are
well-nigh incredible, though clearly stated as things
generally known, — the humour of these poor wretches
sunk to a state of what we may call greasy despera-
tion, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."
The manner in which they treated their own English
nuns, if young, good-looking, and captive to the
Danes ; buying them on a kind of brutish or sub-
ter-brutish l Greatest Happiness Principle ! (for the
moment), and by a Joint- Stock arrangement, far trans-
cends all human speech or imagination, and awakens
in one the momentary red-hot thought, The Danes
have served you right, ye accursed ! The so-called
soldiers, one finds made not the least fight anywhere;
could make none, led and guided as they were : and
the 'Generals/ often enough traitors, always ignorant,

* This sermon was printed by Hearne ; and is given also by
Langebek in his excellent Collection, Berum Danicarum Scriptores
Medii uEvi. Ha/nice, 1772-1834.

JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN. 91

and blockheads, were in the habit, when expressly
commanded to fight, of taking physic, and declaring
that nature was incapable of castor-oil and battle both
at once. This onght to be explained a little to the
modern English and their "War-Secretaries, who
undertake the conduct of armies. The undeniable
fact is, defeat on defeat was the constant fate of the
English ; during these forty years not one battle in
which they were not beaten. Txo gleam of victory or
real resistance till the noble Edmund Ironside (whom
it is always strange to me how such an Ethelred could
produce for son) made his appearance and ran his
brief course, like a great and far-seen meteor, soon
extinguished without result. No remedy for England
in that base time, but yearly asking the victorious,
plundering, burning and murdering Danes, 'How
much money will you take to go away?' Thirty
thousand pounds in silver, which the annual Danegelt
soon rose to, continued to be about the average yearly
sum, thougli generally on the increasing hand ; in
the last year I think it had risen to seventy-two
thousand pounds in silver, raised yearly by a tax
(Income-Tax of its kind, rudely levied), the worst of

92 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

all remedies, good for the day only. Nay, there was
one remedy still worse, which the miserable Ethelred
once tried : that of massacring * all the Danes settled
in England* (practically, of a few thousands or hundreds
of them), by treachery and a kind of Sicilian Yespers.
Which issued, as such things usually do, in terrible
monition to you not to try the like again ! Issued'
namely, in redoubled fury on the Danish part;
new fiercer invasion by Svein's Jarl Thorkel; then
by Svein himself; which latter drove the miserable
Ethelred, with wife and family into Normandy, to
wife's brother, the then Duke there ; and ended
that miserable struggle by Svein's becoming King of
England himself. Of this disgraceful massacre, which
it would appear has been immensely exaggerated in
the English books, we can happily give the exact
date (a.d. 1002) ; and also of Svein's victorious ac-
cession (a.]). 1013),* — pretty much the only benefit
one gets out of contemplating such a set of objects.

King Svein's first act was to levy a terribly increased
Income- Tax for the payment of his army. Svein was
levying it with a stronghanded diligence, but had not
* Kennct, i. 67; Rapin, i. 119, 121 (from the Saxon Chronich both).

JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN. 93

yet done levying it, when, at Gainsborough one
night, he suddenly died ; smitten dead, once used to
he said, hy St. Edmund, whilom murdered King of
the East Angles ; who could not hear to see his shrine
and monastery of St. Edmundsbury plundered by the
Tyrant's tax-collectors, as they were on the point of
being. In all ways impossible, however, — Edmund's
own death did not occur till two years after S vein's.
S veins death, by whatever cause, befell 1014; his
fleet, then lying in the Humber ; and only Knut,* his
eldest son (hardly yet eighteen, count some), in charge
of it ; who, on short counsel, and arrangement about
this questionable kingdom of his, lifted anchor ; made
for Sandwich, a safer station at the moment ; ■ cut off
the feet and noses' (one shudders, and hopes Not,
there being some discrepancy about it ! ) of his
numerous hostages that had been delivered to King
Svein ; set them ashore ; — and made for Denmark, his
natural storehouse and stronghold, as the hopefullest
first-thing he could do.

Knut soon returned from Denmark, with increase
of force sufficient for the English problem; which
* Knut born a.d. 938 according to Munch' s calculation (II. 126).

94 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

latter he now ended in a victorious, and essentially,
for himself and chaotic England, beneficent manner.
Became widely known by and by, there and elsewhere,
as Knut the Great ; and is thought by judges of our
day to have really merited that title. A most nimble,
sharp-striking, clear-thinking, prudent and effective
man, who regulated this dismembered and distracted
England in its Church matters, in its State matters,
like a real King. Had a Standing Army (House
Carles), who were well paid, well drilled and dis-
ciplined, capable of instantly quenching insurrection
or breakage of the peace; and piously endeavoured
(with a signal earnestness, and even devoutness, if we
look well) to do justice to all men, and to make all
men rest satisfied with justice. In a word, he success-
fully strapped-up, by every true method and regulation,
this miserable, dislocated, and dissevered mass of
bleeding Anarchy into something worthy to be called
an England again ; — only that he died too soon, and
a second 'Conqueror* of us, still weightier of structure,
and under improved auspices, became possible, and
was needed here ! To appearance, Knut himself
was capable of being a Charlemagne of England and

JARLS ERIC AND SVEIN. 95

the North (as has been already said or quoted), had
he only lived twice as long as he did. But his whole
sum of years seems not to have exceeded forty. His
father Svein of the Forkbeard is reckoned to have
been fifty to sixty when St. Edmund finished him at
Gainsborough. We now return to Norway, ashamed
of this long circuit which has been a truancy more
or less.

CHAPTER IX.

KING OLAF THE THICK-SET's VIKING DAYS.

King Hakald Grjenske, who, with another from
Russia accidentally lodging beside him, got burned to
death in Sweden, courting that unspeakable Sigrid
the Proud, — was third cousin or so to Tryggve, father
of our heroic Olaf. Accurately counted, he is great-
grandson of Bjorn the Chapman, first of Haarfagr's
sons whom Eric Bloodaxe made away with. His little
' kingdom/ as he called it, was a district named the
Greenland (Grceneland) ; he himself was one of those
little Haarfagr kinglets whom Hakon Jarl, much
more Olaf Tryggveson, was content to leave reigning,
since they would keep the peace with him. Harald
had a loving wife of his own, Aasta the name of her,
soon expecting the birth of her and his pretty babe,
named Olaf, — at the time he went on that deplorable
Swedish adventure, the foolish, fated creature, and

KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS. 97

ended self and kingdom altogether. Aasta was greatly
shocked ; composed herself however ; married a new
husband, Sigurd Syr, a kinglet, and a great-grandson
of Harald Fairhair, a man of great wealth, prudence,
and influence in those countries ; in whose house, as
favourite and well-beloved stepson, little Olaf was
wholesomely and skilfully brought up. In Sigurd's
house he had, withal, a special tutor entertained for
him, one Rane, known as Rane the Far-travelled, by
whom he could be trained, from the earliest basis,
in Norse accomplishments and arts. New children
came, one or two ; but Olaf, from his mother, seems
always to have known that he was the distinguished
and royal article there. One day his Foster-father,
hurrying to leave home on business, hastily bade
Olaf, no other being by, saddle his horse for him.
Olaf went out with the saddle, chose the biggest he-
goat about, saddled that, and brought it to the door
by way of horse. Old Sigurd, a most grave manv
grinned sardonically at the sight. " Hah, I see thou
hast no mind to take commands from me ; thou art of
too high a humour to take commands." To which,
says Snorro, Boy Olaf answered little except by*

98 EAELY KINGS OF NOKWAY.

laughing, till Sigurd saddled for himself, and rode
away. His mother Aasta appears to have been a
thoughtful, prudent woman, though always with a
fierce royalism at the bottom of her memory, and
a secret implacability on that head.

At the age of twelve Olaf went to sea ; furnished
with a little fleet, and skilful sea-counsellor, expert
old Rane, by his Foster-father, and set out to push
his fortune in the world. Rane was a steersman and
counsellor in these incipient times; but the crew
always called Olaf ' King/ though at first, as Snorro
thinks, except it were in the hour of battle, he merely
pulled an oar. He cruised and fought in this capacity
on many seas and shores ; passed several years,
perhaps till the age of nineteen or twenty, in this
wild element and way of life ; fighting always in a
glorious and distinguished manner. In the hour of
battle, diligent enough 'to amass property/ as the
Vikings termed it ; and in the long days and nights
of sailing, given over, it is likely, to his own
thoughts and the unfathomable dialogue with the
ever-moaning Sea ; not the worst High School a
man could have, and indeed infinitely preferable to

KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS. 99

the most that arc going even now, for a high and
deep young soul.

His first distinguished expedition was to Sweden :
natural to go thither first, to avenge his poor father's
death, were it nothing more. Which he did, the
Skalds say, in a distinguished manner ; making vic-
torious and handsome battle for himself, in entering
Mselare Lake ; and in getting out of it again, after
being frozen there all winter, showing still more
surprising, almost miraculous contrivance and dex-
terity. This was the first of his glorious victories ;
of which the Skalds reckon up some fourteen or
thirteen very glorious indeed, mostly in the Western
and Southern countries, most of all in England ; till
the name of Olaf Haraldson became quite famous in
the Viking and strategic world. He seems really
to have learned the secrets of his trade, and to have
been, then and afterwards, for vigilance, contrivance,
valour, and promptitude of execution, a superior
fighter. Several exploits recorded of him betoken, in
simple forms, what may be called a military genius.

The principal, and to us the alone interesting, of

his exploits seem to have lain in England, and, what

h2

100 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

is further notable, always on the anti-Svein side.
English books do not mention him at all that I can
find ; but it is fairly credible that, as the Norse records
report, in the end of Ethelred's reign, he was the ally
or hired general of Ethelred, and did a great deal of
sea-fighting, watching, sailing and sieging for this
miserable king and Edmund Ironside, his son.
Snorro says expressly, London, the impregnable city,
had to be besieged again for Ethelred's behoof (in the
interval between Svein's death and young Knut's
getting back from Denmark), and that our Olaf
Haraldson was the great engineer and victorious
captor of London on that singular occasion, — London
captured for the first time. The Bridge, as usual,
Snorro says, offered almost insuperable obstacles.
But the engineering genius of Olaf contrived huge
'platforms of wainscoting ' (old walls of wooden
houses, in fact), ' bound together by withes ' ; these,
carried steadily aloft above the ships, will (thinks
Olaf) considerably secure them and us from the
destructive missiles, big boulder stones, and other
mischief profusely showered down on us, till we get
under the Bridge with axes and cables, and do some

KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS. 101

good upon it. Olaf 's plan was tried ; most of the
other ships, in spite of their wainscoting and withes,
recoiled on reaching the Bridge, so destructive were
the boulder and other missile showers. But Olaf's
ships and self got actually under the Bridge ; fixed all
manner of cables there ; and then, with the river
current in their favour, and the frightened ships
rallying to help in this safer part of the enterprise,
tore out the important piles and props, and fairly
broke the poor Bridge, wholly or partly, down into
the river, and its Danish defenders into immediate
surrender. That is Snorro's account.

On a previous occasion, Olaf had been deep in a
hopeful combination with Ethelred's two younger
sons, Alfred and Edward, afterwards King Edward
the Confessor : That they two should sally out from
Normandy in strong force, unite with Olaf in ditto,
and, landing on the Thames, do something effectual
for themselves. But impediments, bad weather or
the like, disheartened the poor Princes, and it came to
nothing. Olaf was much in Normandy, what they
then called Walland ; a man held in honour by those
Norman Dukes.

102 EAELY KINGS OF NORWAY.

What amount'of ' property ' lie had amassed I do
not know, but could prove, were it necessary, that he
had acquired some tactical or even strategic faculty
and real talent for war. At Lymfjord, in Jutland,
but some years after this (a.d. 1027), he had a sea-
battle with the great Knut himself, — ships combined
with flood-gates, with roaring, artificial deluges ; right
well managed by King Olaf ; which were within a
hair's-breadth of destroying Knut, now become a King
and Great ; and did in effect send him instantly
running. But of this more particularly by and by.

"What still more surprises me is the mystery, where
Olaf, in this wandering, fighting, sea-roving life,
acquired his deeply religious feeling, his intense
adherence to the Christian Faith. I suppose it had
been in England, where many pious persons, priestly
and other, were still to be met with, that Olaf had
gathered these doctrines ; and that in those his un-
fathomable dialogues with the ever-moaning Ocean,
they had struck root downwards in the soul of him,
and borne fruit upwards to the degree so conspicuous
afterwards. It is certain he became a deeply pious
man during these long Viking cruises; and directed

KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS. 103

all his strength, when strength and authority were
lent him, to establishing the Christian religion in his
country, and suppressing and abolishing Vikingism
there ; both of which objects, and their respective
worth and unworth, he must himself have long known
so well.

It was well on in a.d. 1016 that Knut gained his
last victory, at Ashdon, in Essex, where the earth
pyramids and antique church near by still testify the
thankful piety of Knut,— or, at lowest, his joy at
having won instead of lost and perished, as he was
near doing there. And it was still this same year
when the noble Edmund Ironside, after forced par-
tition-treaty ' in the Isle of Ahiey,' got scandalously
murdered, and Knut became indisputable sole King of
England, and decisively settled himself to his work of
governing there. In the year before either of which
events, while all still hung uncertain for Knut, and
even Eric Jarl of Norway had to be summoned in aid
of him, — in that year 1015, as one might naturally
guess, and as all Icelandic hints and indications lead
us to date the thing, Olaf had decided to give up
Yikingism in all its forms ; to return to Norway and

104 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

try whether he could not assert the place and career
that belonged to him there. Jarl Eric had vanished
with all his war forces towards England, leaving only
a boy, Hakon, as successor, and Svein, his own
brother, — a quiet man, who had always avoided war.
Olaf landed in Norway without obstacle ; but decided
to be quiet till he had himself examined and consulted
friends.

His reception by his mother Aasta was of the
kindest and proudest, and is lovingly described by
Snorro. A pretty idyllic or epic piece, of Norse
Homeric type: How Aasta, hearing of her son's
advent, set all her maids and menials to work at the
top of their speed ; despatched a runner to the harvest-
field, where her husband Sigurd was, to warn him to
come home and dress. How Sigurd was standing
among his harvest folk, reapers and binders ; and
what he had on, — broad slouch hat, with veil (against
the midges), blue kirtle, hose of I forget what colour,
with laced boots ; and in his hand a stick with silver
head and ditto ring upon it; — a personable old
gentleman, of the eleventh century, in those parts.
^ Sigurd was cautious, prudentially cunctatory, though

KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS. 105

heartily friendly in his counsel to Olaf, as to the King
question. Aasta had a Spartan tone in her wild
maternal heart; and assures Olaf that she, with a
half-reproachful glance at Sigurd, will stand hy him
to the death in this his just and nohle enterprise.
Sigurd promises to consult farther in his neighbour-
hood, and to correspond by messages ; the result is,
Olaf, resolutely pushing forward himself, resolves to
call a Thing, and openly claim his kingship there.
The Thing itself was willing enough : opposition
parties do here and there bestir themselves ; but Olaf
is always swifter than they. Five kinglets somewhere
in the Uplands,* — all descendants of Haarfagr ; but
averse to break the peace, which Jarl Eric and Hakon
Jarl both have always willingly allowed to peaceable
people, — seem to be the main opposition party. These
five take the field against Olaf with what force they
have ; Olaf, one night, by beautiful celerity and
strategic practice which a Friedrich or a Turenne
might have approved, surrounds these Five ; and
when morning breaks, there is nothing for them but

* Snorro, Laing's Translation, ii. p. 31 el scq., will minutely
specify.

106 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

either death or else instant surrender, and swearing
fealty to King Olaf. Which latter branch of tl
alternative they gladly accept, the whole five of thei
and go home again.

This was a beautiful bit of war-practice by King
Olaf on land. By another stroke still more compen-
dious at sea, he had already settled poor young
Hakon, and made him peaceable for a long while.
Olaf, by diligent quest and spy-messaging, had ascer-
tained that Hakon, just returning from Denmark and
farewell to Papa and Knut, both now under way for
England, was coasting north towards Trondhjem ; and
intended on or about such a day to land in such and
such a fjord towards the end of this Trondhjem
voyage. Olaf at once mans two big ships, steers
through the narrow mouth of the said fjord, moors
one ship on the north shore, another on the south;
fixes a strong cable, well sunk under water, to the
capstans of these two ; and in all quietness waits for
Hakon. Before many hours, Hakon's royal or quasi-
royal barge steers gaily into this fjord; is a little
surprised, perhaps, to see within the jaws of it two
big ships at anchor; but steers gallantly along, nothing

KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS. 107

doubting. Olaf, with a signal of * All hands/ works
his two capstans ; has the cable up high enough at
the right moment, catches with it the keel of poor
Hakon's barge, upsets it, empties it wholly into the
sea. "Wholly into the sea; saves Hakon, however,
and his people from drowning, and brings them on
board. His dialogue with poor young Hakon, espe-
cially poor young Hakon's responses, is very pretty.
Shall I give it, out of Snorro, and let the reader take
it for as authentic as he can ? It is at least the true
image of it in authentic Snorro's head, little more than
two centuries later.

1 Jarl Hakon was led up to the king's ship. He
1 was the handsomest man that could be seen. He
' had long hair as fine as silk, bound about his head
' with a gold ornament. When he sat down in the
1 forehold the king said to him ' :

King. — " It is not false, what is said of your family,
' that ye are handsome people to look at ; but now
' your luck has deserted you."

Hakon. — " It has always been the case that success
' is changeable ; and there is no luck in the matter.
* It has gone with your family as with mine to have

108 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

' by turns the better lot. I am little beyond child-
* hood in years ; and at any rate we could not have
' defended ourselves, as we did not expect any attack
' on the way. It may turn out better with us another
' time."

King. — " Dost thou not apprehend that thou art in
' such a condition that, hereafter, there can be neither
' victory nor defeat for thee ? "

Hakon. — " That is what only thou canst determine,
' King, according to thy pleasure."

King. — " What wilt thou give me, Jarl, if, for this
' time I let thee go, whole and unhurt f"

Hakon.—" What wilt thou take, King f "

King. — "Nothing, except that thou shalt leave
' the country ; give up thy kingdom ; and take an
' oath that thou wilt never go into battle against
' me." *

Jarl Hakon accepted the generous terms ; went to
England and King Knut, and kept his bargain for a
good few years; though he was at last driven, by
pressure of King Knut, to violate it, — little to his
profit, as we shall see. One victorious naval battle

* JSnorro, ii. pp. 24-5.

KING OLAF THE THICK-SET'S VIKING DAYS. 109

with Jarl Svcin, Hakon's uncle, and his adherents,
who fled to Sweden, after his beating, — battle not
difficult to a skilful, hard-hitting king, — was pretty
much all the actual fighting Olaf had to do in this
enterprise. He various times met angry Bonders and
refractory Things with arms in their hand ; but by
skilful, firm management, — perfectly patient, but also
perfectly ready to be active, — he mostly managed
without coming to strokes ; and was universally
recognised by Norway as its real king. A promising
young man, and fit to be a king, thinks Snorro. Only
of middle stature, almost rather shortish ; but firm-
standing, and stout-built ; so that they got to call
him Olaf the Thick (meaning Olaf the Thickset, or
Stout-built), though his final epithet among them was
infinitely higher. For the rest, ' a comely, earnest,
1 prepossessing look ; beautiful yellow hair in quantity ;
' broad, honest face, of a complexion pure as snow and
' rose;' and finally (or firstly) 'the brightest eyes in the
' world ; such that, in his anger, no man could stand
1 them.' He had a heavy task ahead, and needed all
his qualities and fine gifts to get it done.

CHAPTER X.

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT.

The late two Jarls, now gone about their business,
bad both been baptised, and called themselves Chris-
tians. But during their government they did nothing
in the conversion way ; left every man to choose his
own God or Gods ; so that some had actually two, the
Christian God by land, and at sea Thor, whom they
considered safer in that element. And in effect the
mass of the people had fallen back into a sluggish
heathenism or half-heathenism, the life-labour of Olaf
Tryggveson lying ruinous or almost quite overset.
The new Olaf, son of Harald, set himself with all his
strength to mend such a state of matters ; and stood
by his enterprise to the end, as the one highest
interest, including all others, for his People and him.
His method was by no means soft ; on the contrary,
it was hard, rapid, severe, — somewhat on the model

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. Ill

of Tryggveson's, though with more of bishoping and
preaching superadded. Yet still there was a great
deal of mauling, vigorous punishing, and an entire
intolerance of these two things : Heathenism and Sea-
robbery, at least of Sea- robbery in the old style;
whether in the style we moderns still practise, and
call privateering, I do not quite know. But Yik-
ingism proper had to cease in Norway ; still more,
Heathenism, under penalties too severe to be borne ;
death, mutilation of limb, not to mention forfeiture
and less rigorous coercion. Olaf was inexorable
against violation of the law. "Too severe," cried
many ; to whom one answers, " Perhaps in part yes,
perhaps also in great part no; depends altogether on
the previous question, How far the law was the
eternal one of God Almighty in the universe, How far
the law merely of Olaf (destitute of right inspiration)
left to his own passions and whims ?"

Many were the jangles Olaf had with the refrac-
tory Heathen Things and Ironbeards of a new genera-
tion : very curious to see. Scarcely ever did it come
to fighting between King and Thing, though often
enough near it; but the Thing discerning, as it

112 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

usually did in time, that the King was stronger in
men, seemed to say unanimously to itself, " "We have
lost, then ; baptise us, we must burn our old gods and
conform." One new feature we do slightly discern :
here and there a touch of theological argument on
the heathen side. At one wild Thing, far up in the
Dovrefjeld, of a very heathen temper, there was
much of that ; not to be quenched by King Olaf at
the moment ; so that it had to be adjourned till the
morrow, and again till the next day. Here are some
traits of it, much abridged from Snorro (who gives a
highly punctual account), which vividly represent
Olaf's posture and manner of proceeding in such
intricacies.

The chief Ironbeard on this occasion was one Gud-
brand, a very rugged peasant ; who, says Snorro, was
like a king in that district. Some days before, King
Olaf, intending a religious Thing in those deeply
heathen parts, with alternative of Christianity or con-
flagration, is reported, on looking down into the
valley and the beautiful village of Loar standing
there, to have said wistfully, "What a pity it is
that so beautiful a village should be burnt ! " Olaf

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 113

sent out his message-token all the same, however,
and met Gudbrand and an immense assemblage,
whose humour towards him was uncompliant to a
high degree indeed. Judge by this preliminary
speech of Gudbrand to his Thing-people, while Olaf
was not yet arrived, but only advancing, hardly got
to Breeden on the other side of the hill: "A man
has come to Loar who is called Olaf," said Gudbrand,
" and will force upon us another faith than we had
before, and will break in pieces all our Gods. He
says he has a much greater and more powerful God ;
and it is wonderful that the earth does not burst
asunder under him, or that our God lets him go about
unpunished when he dares to talk such things. I
know this for certain, that if we carry Thor, who has
always stood by us, out of our Temple that is standing
upon this farm, Olaf 's God will melt away, and he
and his men be made nothing as soon as Thor looks
upon them." Whereupon the Bonders all shouted
as one man, " Yea ! "

Which tremendous message they even forwarded
to Olaf, by Gudbrand' s younger son at the head of
700 armed men; but did not terrify Olaf with it,

114 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

who, on the contrary, drew np his troops, rode him-
self at the head of them, and began a speech to the
Bonders, in which he invited them to adopt Chris-
tianity, as the one true faith for mortals.

Far from consenting to this, the Bonders raised
a general shout, smiting at the same time their
shields with their weapons ; but Olaf 's men advancing
on them swiftly, and flinging spears, they turned and
ran, leaving Gudbrand's son behind, a prisoner, to
whom Olaf gave his life: "Go home now to thy
father, and tell him I mean to be with him soon."

The son goes accordingly, and advises his father
not to face Olaf; but Gudbrand angrily replies:
"Ha, coward! I see thou, too, art taken by the
folly that man is going about with " ; and is resolved
to fight. That night, however, Gudbrand has a most
remarkable Dream, or Yision, — A Man surrounded
by light, bringing great terror with him, who warns
Gudbrand against doing battle with Olaf. " If thou
dost, thou and all thy people will fall ; wolves will
drag away thee and thine, ravens will tear thee in
stripes ! " And lo, in telling this to Thord Potbelly,
a sturdy neighbour of his and henchman in the

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 115

Thing, it is found that to Thord also has come the

self-same terrible Apparition ! Better propose truce

to Olaf (who seems to have these dreadful Ghostly

Powers on his side), and the holding of a Thing, to

discuss matters between us. Thing assembles, on a

day of heavy rain. Being all seated, uprises King

Olaf, and informs them : " The people of Lesso, Loar,

and Vaage, have accepted Christianity, and broken

down their idol-houses : they believe now in the True

God, who has made heaven and earth, and knows

all things "; and sits down again without more

words.

1 Gudbrand replies, " We know nothing about him

'of whom thou speakest. Dost thou call him God,

I whom neither thou nor anyone else can see ? But

1 we have a God who can be seen every day, although

f he is not out to-day because the weather is wet ;

f and he will appear to thee terrible and very grand ;

' and I expect that fear will mix with thy very blood

'when he comes into the Thing. But since thou

1 sayest thy God is so great, let him make it so that

'to-morrow we have a cloudy day, but without rain,

' and then let us meet again."

i2

116 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

' The king accordingly returned home to his lodging,
'taking Gudbrand's son as a hostage; but he gave
r them a man as hostage in exchange. In the even-
1 ing the king asked Gudbrand's son what their God
' was like ? He replied that he bore the likeness of
'Thor; had a hammer in his hand; was of great
' size, but hollow within ; and had a high stand, upon
1 which he stood when he was out. " Neither gold
' nor silver are wanting about him, and every day he
' receives four cakes of bread, besides meat." They
! then went to bed ; but the king watched all night in
' prayer. When day dawned the king went to mass ;
' then to table, and from thence to the Thing. The
' weather was such as Gudbrand desired. Now the
'Bishop stood up in his choir-robes, with bishop's
' coif on his head, and bishop's crosier in his hand.
' He spoke to the Bonders of the true faith, told the
'many wonderful acts of God, and concluded his
' speech well.

' Thord Potbelly replies, " Many things we are told
' of by this learned man with the staff in his hand,
' crooked at the top like a ram's horn. But since you
'say, comrades, that your God is so powerful, and

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 117

! can do so many wonders, tell him to make it clear
'sunshine to-morrow forenoon, and then we shall
' meet here again, and do one of two things, — either
* agree with you about this business, or fight you."
1 And they separated for the day.'

Over night the king instructed Kolbein the Strong,
an immense fellow, the same who killed Gunhild's
two brothers, that he, Kolbein, must stand next him
to-morrow ; people must go down to where the ships
of the Bonders lay, and punctually bore holes in
every one of them; item, to the farms where their
horses were, and punctually unhalter the whole of
them, and let them loose: all which was done.
Snorro continues :

' Now the king was in prayer all night, beseeching
' God of his goodness and mercy to release him from
' evil. When mass was ended, and morning was
f grey, the king went to the Thing. When he came
■ thither, some Bonders had already arrived, and they
' saw a great crowd coming along, and bearing among
' them a huge man's image, glancing with gold and
' silver. When the Bonders who were at the Thing
4 saw it, they started up, and bowed themselves down

118 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

'before the ugly idol. Thereupon it was set down
' upon the Thing field ; and on the one side of it sat
'the Bonders, and on the other the King and his
' people.

1 Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said, " Where
1 now, king, is thy God ? I think he will now carry
\ his head lower ; and neither thou, nor the man with
' the horn, sitting beside thee there, whom thou callest
'Bishop, are so bold to-day as on the former days.
s For now our God, who rules over all, is come, and
' looks on you with an angry eye ; and now I see
f well enough that you are terrified, and scarcely dare
' raise your eyes. Throw away now all your opposi-
'tion, and believe in the God who has your fate
' wholly in his hands."

\ The king now whispers to Kolbein the Strong,
' without the Bonders perceiving it, " If it come so
' in the course of my speech that the Bonders look
\ another way than towards their idol, strike him as
' hard as thou canst with thy club."

' The king then stood up and spoke : " Much hast
'thou talked to us this morning, and greatly hast
' thou wondered that thou canst not see our God ;

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 119

' but we expect that he will soon come to us. Thou
'wouldst frighten us with thy God, who is both

* blind and deaf, and cannot even move about without
1 being carried; but now I expect it will be but a
1 short time before he meets his fate : for turn your
' eyes towards the east, — behold our God advancing
1 in great light."

1 The sun was rising, and all turned to look. At
' that moment Kolbein gave their God a stroke, so
' that he quite burst asunder ; and there ran out of
<him mice as big almost as cats, and reptiles and
1 adders. The Bonders were so terrified that some
i fled to their ships ; but when they sprang out upon
' them the ships filled with water, and could not get
1 away. Others ran to their horses but could not
' find them. The king then ordered the Bonders to
' be called together, saying he wanted to speak with
'them, on which the Bonders came back, and the

* Thing was again seated.

* The king rose up and said, " I do not understand
1 what your noise and running mean. You yourselves
' see what your God can do, — the idol you adorned
'with gold and silver, and brought meat aud pro-

120 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

' visions to. You see now that the protecting powers,
' who used and got good of all that, were the mice
' and adders, the reptiles and lizards ; and surely they
' do ill who trust to such, and will not abandon this
1 folly. Take now your gold and ornaments that are
' lying strewed on the grass, and give them to your
' wives and daughters, but never hang them hereafter
'upon stocks and stones. Here are two conditions
'between us to choose upon: either accept Chris-
' tianity, or fight this very day, and the victory be to
' them to whom the God we worship gives it."

' Then Dale Gudbrand stood up and said, " We
' have sustained great damage upon our God ; but
' since he will not help us, we will believe in the God
' whom thou believest in."

'Then all received Christianity. The Bishop
'baptised Gudbrand and his son. King Olaf and
' Bishop Sigurd left behind them teachers ; and they
' who met as enemies parted as friends. And after-
' wards Gudbrand built a church in the valley.'*

Olaf was by no means an unmerciful man, — much
the reverse where he saw good cause. There was a
* Snorro, ii pp. 156-161.

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 121

wicked old King Raerik, for example, one of those
five kinglets whom, with their bits of armaments,
Olaf by stratagem had surrounded one night, and at
once bagged and subjected when morning rose, all of
them consenting ; all of them except this Raerik,
whom Olaf, as the readiest sure course, took home
with him ; blinded, and kept in his own house ; find-
ing there was no alternative but that or death to the
obstinate old dog, who was a kind of distant cousin
withal, and could not conscientiously be killed.
Stone-blind old Raerik was not always in murderous
humour. Indeed, for most part he wore a placid,
conciliatory aspect, and said shrewd amusing things ;
but had thrice over tried, with amazing cunning of
contrivance, though stone-blind, to thrust a dagger
into Olaf, and the last time had all but succeeded.
So that, as Olaf still refused to have him killed, it
had become a problem what was to be done with
him. Olaf 's good humour, as well as his quiet, ready
sense and practicality, are manifested in his final
settlement of this Raerik problem. Olaf's laugh, I
can perceive, was not so loud as Tryggveson's, but
equally hearty, coming from the bright mind of him !

122 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Besides blind Kserik, Olaf had in his household
one Thorarin, an Icelander ; a remarkably ugly man,
says Snorro, but a far-travelled, shrewdly observant,
loyal-minded, and good-humoured person, whom Olaf
liked to talk with. ' Eemarkably ugly/ says Snorro,
' especially in his hands and feet, which were large
' and ill-shaped to a degree.' One morning Thorarin,
who, with other trusted ones, slept in Olaf 's apart-
ment, was lazily dozing and yawning, and had
stretched one of his feet out of the bed before the king
awoke. The foot was still there when Olaf did open
his bright eyes, which instantly lighted on this foot.

" Well, here is a foot," says Olaf, gaily, " which
one seldom sees the match of; I durst venture there
is not another so ugly in this city of Nidaros."

"Hah, king!" said Thorarin, "there are few things
one cannot match if one seek long and take pains.
I would bet, with thy permission, King, to find an
uglier."

" Done ! " cried Olaf. Upon which Thorarin
stretched out the other foot.

" A still [uglier," cried Lhe ; " for it has lost the
little toe."

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 123

" Ho, ho ! " said Olaf ; but it is I who have gained
the bet. The less of an ugly thing the less ugly, not
the more ! "

Loyal Thorarin respectfully submitted.

" What is to be my penalty, then ? The king it is
that must decide."

"To take me that wicked old Rserik to Leif
Ericson in Greenland."

"Which the Icelander did ; leaving two vacant
seats henceforth at Olaf 's table. Leif Ericson, son of
Erie discoverer of America, quietly managed Raerik
henceforth ; sent him to Iceland, — I think to father
Eric himself ; certainly to some safe hand there, in
whose house, or in some still quieter neighbouring
lodging, at his own choice, old Eserik spent the last
three years of his life in a perfectly quiescent
manner.

Olaf's struggles in the matter of religion had
actually settled that question in Norway. By these
rough melliods of his, whatever we may think of
them, Heathenism had got itself smashed dead ; and
was no more heard of in that country. Olaf himself
was evidently a highly devout and pious man ; — who-

124 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

soever is born with Olaf 's temper now will still find,
as Olaf did, new and infinite field for it! Christianity
in Norway had the like fertility as in other countries;
or even rose to a higher, and what Dahlmann thinks,
exuberant pitch, in the course of the two centuries
which followed that of Olaf. Him all testimony re-
presents to us as a most righteous no less than
most religious king. Continually vigilant, just,
and rigorous was Olaf's administration of the
laws ; repression of robbery, punishment of injustice,
stern repayment of evil-doers, wherever he could lay
hold of them.

Among the Bonder or opulent class, and indeed
everywhere, for the poor too can be sinners and need
punishment, Olaf had, by this course of conduct,
naturally made enemies. His severity so visible to
all, and the justice and infinite beneficence of it so
invisible except to a very few. But, at any rate, his
reign for the first ten years was victorious ; and might
have been so to the end, had it not been intersected,
and interfered with, by King Knut in his far bigger
orbit and current of affairs and interests. Knut's
English affairs and Danish being all settled to his

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 125

mind, he seems, especially after that year of pilgrim-
age to Borne, and association with the Pontiffs and
Kaisers of the world on that occasion, to have turned
his more particular attention upon Norway, and the
claims he himself had there. Jarl Hakon, too,
sister's son of Knut, and always well seen hy him,
had long heen husy in this direction, much forgetful
of that oath to Olaf when his harge got canted over
by the cable of two capstans, and his life was given
him, not without conditions altogether !

About the year 1026 there arrived two splendid
persons out of England, bearing King Knut the
Great's letter and seal, with a message, likely enough
to be far from welcome to Olaf. For some days Olaf
refused to see them or their letter, shrewdly guessing
what the purport would be. "Which indeed was couched
in mild language, but of sharp meaning enough : a
notice to King Olaf, namely, That Norway was
properly, by just heritage, Knut the Great's ; and
that Olaf must become the great Knut's liegeman,
and pay tribute to him, or worse would follow. King
Olaf, listening to these two splendid persons and their
letter, in indignant silence till they quite ended,

126 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

made answer : " I nave heard say, by old accounts
there are, that King Gorm of Denmark" (Blue-
tooth's father, Knut's great-grandfather) "was con-
sidered but a small king ; having Denmark only and
few people to rule over. But the kings who suc-
ceeded him thought that insufficient for them ; and it
has since come so far that King Knut rules over both
Denmark and England, and has conquered for him-
self a part of Scotland. And now he claims also my
paternal bit of heritage ; cannot be contented without
that too. Does he wish to rule over all the countries
of the North? Can he eat up all the kale in
England itself, this Knut the Great ? He shall do
that, and reduce his England to a desert, before I lay
my head in his hands, or show him any other kind
of vassalage. And so I bid you tell him these my
words : I will defend Norway with battle-axe and
sword as long as life is given me, and will pay tax to
no man for my kingdom." Words which naturally
irritated Knut to a high degree.

Next year accordingly (year 1027), tenth or eleventh
year of Olaf 's reign, there came bad rumours out of
England : That Knut was equipping an immense

KEIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 127

army, — land-army, and such a fleet as had never
sailed before ; Knut's own ship in it, — a Gold Dragon
with no fewer than sixty benches of oars. Olaf and
Onund King of Sweden, whose sister he had married,
well guessed whither this armament was bound. They
were friends withal, they recognised their common
peril in this imminence ; and had, in repeated con-
sultations, taken measures the best that their united
skill (which I find was mainly Olaf's, but loyally
accepted by the other) could suggest. It was in this
year that Olaf (with his Swedish king assisting) did
his grand feat upon Knut in Lymfjord of Jutland,
which was already spoken of. The special circum
stances of which were these :

Knut's big armament arriving on the Jutish coasts
too late in the season, and the coast country lying all
plundered into temporary wreck by the two Norse
kings, who shrank away on sight of Knut, there was
nothing could be done upon them by Knut this year,
— or, if anything, what ? Knut's ships ran into Lym-
fjord, the safe-sheltered frith, or intricate long straggle
of friths and straits, which almost cuts Jutland in two
in that region; and lay safe, idly rocking on the

128 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

waters there, uncertain what to do farther. At last
he steered in his big ship and some others, deeper into
the interior of Lymf jord, deeper and deeper onwards
to the mouth of a big river called the Helge (Helge~aa,
the Holy River, not discoverable in my poor maps,
but certainly enough still existing and still flowing
somewhere among those intricate straits and friths),
towards the bottom of which Helge river, lay, in some
safe nook, the small combined Swedish and Norse
fleet, under the charge of Onund, the Swedish king,
while at the top or source, which is a biggish moun-
tain lake, King Olaf had been doing considerable
engineering works, well suited to such an occasion,
and was now ready at a moment's notice. Knut's
fleet having idly taken station here, notice from the
Swedish king was instantly sent; instantly Olaf's
well-engineered flood-gates were thrown open ; from
the swollen lake a huge deluge of water was let loose ;
Olaf himself with all his people hastening down to
join his Swedish friend, and get on board in time ;
Helge river all the while alongside of him, with ever-
increasing roar, and wider-spreading deluge, hasten-
ing down the steeps in the night watches. So that,

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 129

along with Olaf, or some way ahead of him, came
immeasurable roaring waste of waters upon Knut's
negligent fleet ; shattered, broke and stranded many
of his ships, and was within a trifle of destroying the
Golden Dragon herself, with Knut on board. Olaf
and Onund, we need not say, were promptly there in
person, doing their very best; the railings of the
Golden Dragon, however, were too high for their little
ships ; and Jarl Ulf, husband of Knut's sister, at the
top of his speed, courageously intervening, spoiled
their stratagem, and saved Knut from this very
dangerous pass.

Knut did nothing more this winter. The two
Norse kings, quite unequal to attack such an arma-
ment, except by ambush and engineering, sailed
away ; again plundering at discretion on the Danish
coast ; carrying into Sweden great booties and many
prisoners ; but obliged to lie fixed all winter ; and
indeed to leave their fleets there for a series of
winters, — Knut's fleet, posted at Elsinore on both
sides of the Sound, rendering all egress from the
Baltic impossible, except at his pleasure. Ulf,&
opportune deliverance of his royal brother-in-law did

ISO EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

not much bestead poor Ulf himself. He had been
in disfavour before, pardoned with difficulty, by Queen
Emma's intercession ; an ambitious, officious, pushing,
stirring, and, both in England and Denmark, almost
dangerous man ; and this conspicuous accidental merit
only awoke new jealousy in Knut. Knut, finding
nothing pass the Sound worth much blockading, went
ashore; 'and the day before Michaelmas/ says
Snorro, 'rode with a great retinue to Roeskilde.'
Snorro continues his tragic narrative of what befell
there :

'There Knut's brother-in-law, Jarl Ulf, had pre-
' pared a great feast for him. The Jarl was the most
'agreeable of hosts; but the King was silent and
'sullen. The Jarl talked to him in every way to
' make him cheerful, and brought forward everything
' he could think of to amuse him ; but the King
' remained stern, and speaking little. At last the Jarl
' proposed a game of chess, which he agreed to. A
' chess-board was produced, and they played together.
' Jarl Ulf was hasty in temper, stiff, and in nothing
« yielding ; but everything he managed went on well
'in his hands: and he was a great warrior, about

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 131

' whom there are many stories. He was the most

* powerful man in Denmark next to the King. Jarl
1 Ulf's sister, Gyda, was married to Jarl Gudin (God-
' win) Ulfhadson ; and their sons were, Harald King
1 of England, and Jarl Tosti, Jarl "Walthiof, Jarl

* Mauro-Kaare, and Jarl Svein. Gyda was the name
1 of their daughter, who was married to the English
'King Edward, the Good (whom we call the Con-
'fessor).

' When they had played a while, the King made a

* false move ; on which the Jarl took a knight from
1 him ; but the King set the piece on the board again,
1 and told the Jarl to make another move. But the
' Jarl flew angry, tumbled the chess-board over, rose,
4 and went away. The King said, " Run thy ways,
1 Ulf the Fearful." The Jarl turned round at the

* door and said, " Thou wouldst have run farther at
1 Helge river hadst thou been left to battle there.
1 Thou didst not call me Ulf the Fearful when I
1 hastened to thy help while the Swedes were beating
' thee like a dog." The Jarl then went out, and went
' to bed.

1 The following morning, while the King was put-

K 2

132 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

' ting on his clothes, he said to his footboy, " Go thou
' to Jarl Ulf and kill him." The lad went, was away
' a while, and then came back. The King said,
'"Hast thou killed the Jarl?" "I did not kill
' him, for he was gone to St. Lucius's church." There
' was a man called Ivar the White, a Norwegian by
' birth, who was the King's courtman and chamber-
1 lain. The King said to him, " Gro thou and kill
' the Jarl." Ivar went to the church, and in at the
'choir, and thrust his sword through the Jarl, who
' died on the spot. Then Ivar went to the King, with
' the bloody sword in his hand.

'The King said, "Hast thou killed the Jarl?"
' " I have killed him," said he. " Thou hast done
' well," answered the King.' *

From a man who built so many churches (one on
each battle-field where he had fought, to say nothing
of the others), and who had in him such depths of
real devotion and other fine cosmic quality, this does
seem rather strong ! But it is characteristic, withal, —
of the man, and perhaps of the times still more. In
any case, it is an event worth noting, the slain Jarl
* Snorro, ii. pp. 252-3.

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 133

Ulf and his connections being of importance in the
history of Denmark and of England also. Ulf 's wife
was Astrid, sister of Knut, and their only child was
Svein, styled afterwards ' Svein Estrithson ' ('Astrid-
son') when he became noted in the world, — at this
time a beardless youth, who, on the back of this
tragedy, fled hastily to Sweden, where were friends of
Ulf. After some ten years' eclipse there, Knut and
both his sons being now dead, Svein reappeared in
Denmark under a new and eminent figure, 'Jarl of
Denmark,' highest Liegeman to the then sovereign
there. Broke his oath to said sovereign, declared
himself, Svein Estrithson, to be real King of Den-
mark; and, after much preliminary trouble, and
many beatings and disastrous flights to and fro,
became in effect such, — to the wonder of mankind ;
for he had not had one victory to cheer him on, or
any good luck or merit that one sees, except that of
surviving longer than some others. Nevertheless he
came to be the Restorer, so-called, of Danish inde-
pendence ; sole remaining representative of Knut (or
Knut's sister), of Fork-beard, Blue-tooth, and Old
Oorm ; and ancestor of all the subsequent kings of

134 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Denmark for some 400 years ; himself coming, as we
see, only by the Distaff side, all of the Sword or male
side having died so soon. Early death, it has been
observed, was the Great Knut's allotment, and all his
posterity's as well ; — fatal limit (had there been no
others, which we see there were) to his becoming
' Charlemagne of the North ' in any considerable
degree ! Jarl Ulf, as we have seen, had a sister,
Gyda by name, wife to Earl Godwin (* Gudin Ulf-
nadsson/ as Snorro calls him) a very memorable
Englishman, whose son and hers, King Harald,
Harold in English books, is the memorablest of all.
These things ought to be better known to English
antiquaries, and will perhaps be alluded to again.

This pretty little victory or affront, gained over
Knut in Lymfjord, was among the last successes of
Olaf against that mighty man. Olaf, the skilful
captain he was, need not have despaired to defend his
Norway against Knut and all the world. But he
learned henceforth, month by month ever more
tragically, that his own people, seeing softer prospects
under Knut; and in particular that the chiefs of
them, industriously bribed by Knut for years past, had

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 135

fallen away from him ; and that his means of defence
were gone. Next summer, Knut's grand fleet sailed,
unopposed, along the coast of Norway; Ruut sum-
moning a Thing every here and there, and in all of
them meeting nothing hut sky-high acclamation and
acceptance. Olaf, with some twelve little ships, all
he now had, lay quiet in some safe fjord, near
Lindenaes, what we now call the Naze, behind some
little solitary isles on the south-east of Norway there ;
till triumphant Knut had streamed home again.
Home to England again: ' Sovereign of Norway' now,
with nephew Hakon appointed Jarl and Yice-regent
under him ! This was the news Olaf met on venturing
out ; and that his worst anticipations were not beyond
the sad truth. All, or almost all, the chief Bonders
and men of weight in Norway had declared against
him, and stood with triumphant Knut.

Olaf, with his twelve poor ships, steered vigorously
along the coast to collect money and force, — if such
could now anywhere be had. He himself was
resolute to hold out, and try. * Sailing swiftly with
a fair wind, morning cloudy with some showers/ he
passed the coast of Jedderen, which was Erling

136 EAKLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Skjalgson's country, when he got sure notice of an
endless multitude of ships, war-ships, armed merchant
ships, all kinds of shipping-craft, down to fishermen's
boats, just getting under way against him, under the
command of Erling Skjalgson, — the powerfullest of
his subjects, once much a friend of Olaf 's, but now
gone against him to this length, thanks to Olaf's
severity of justice, and Knut's abundance in gold and
promises for years back. To that complexion had
it come with Erling ; sailing with this immense
assemblage of the naval people and populace of Nor-
way to seize King Olaf, and bring him to the great
Knut dead or alive.

Erling had a grand new ship of his own, which far
outsailed the general miscellany of rebel ships, and
was visibly fast gaining distance on Olaf himself, —
who well understood what Erling's puzzle was, be-
tween the tail of his game (the miscellany of rebel
ships, namely) that could not come up, and the head
or general prize of the game which was crowding all
sail to get away; and Olaf took advantage of the
same. " Lower your sails ! " said Olaf to his men
(though we must go slower). " Ho you, we have

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 137

lost sight of them ! " said Erling to his, and put on
all his speed ; Olaf going, soon after this, altogether
invisible,— behind a little ' island that he knew of,
whence into a certain fiord or bay (Bay of Fungen
on the maps), which he thought would suit him.
" Halt here, and get out your arms," said Olaf, and
had not to wait long till Erling came bounding in,
past the rocky promontoiy, and with astonishment
beheld Olaf's ^fleet of twelve with their battle-axes
and their grappling-irons all in perfect readiness.
These fell on him, the unready Erling, simultaneous,
like a cluster of angry bees ; and in a few minutes
cleared his ship of men altogether, except Erling
himself. Nobody asked his life, nor probably would
have got it if he had. Only Erling still stood erect
on a high place on the poop, fiercely defensive, and
very difficult to get at. 'Could not be reached at
all/ says Snorro, * except by spears or arrows, and
these he warded off with untiring dexterity ; no man
in Norway, it was said, had ever defended himself so
long alone against many/ — an almost invincible
Erling, had his cause been good. Olaf himself
noticed Erling's behaviour, and said to him, from the

138 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

foredeck below, " Thou hast turned against me to-
day, Erling." " The eagles fight breast to breast/'
answers he. This was a speech of the king's to
Erling once long ago, while they stood fighting, not
as now, but side by side. The king, with some
transient thought of possibility going through his
head, rejoins, "Wilt thou surrender, Erling ?"
" That will I," answered ,he ; took the helmet off his
head ; laid down sword and shield ; and went forward
to the forecastle deck. The king pricked, I think not
very harshly, into Erling's chin or beard with the
point of his battle-axe, saying, " I must mark thee as
traitor to thy Sovereign, though/ ' Whereupon one
of the bystanders, Aslak Fitiaskalle, stupidly and
fiercely burst up ; smote Erling on the head with his
axe ; so that it struck fast in his brain and was
instantly the death of Erling. " Ill-luck attend thee
for that stroke ; thou hast struck Norway out of my
hand by it ! " cried the king to Aslak ; but forgave
the poor fellow, who had done it meaning well. The
insurrectionary Bonder fleet arriving soon after, as if
for certain victory, was struck with astonishment at
this Erling catastrophe ; and being now without any

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 139

leader of authority, made not the least attempt at
battle ; but, full of discouragement and consternation,
thankfully allowed Olaf to sail away on his north-
ward voyage, at discretion ; and themselves went off
lamenting, with Erling's dead body.

This small victory was the last that Olaf had over
his many enemies at present. He sailed along, still
northward, day after day; several important people
joined him ; but the news from landward grew daily
more ominous : Bonders busily arming to rear of him ;
and ahead, Hakon still more busily at Trondhjem,
now near by, " — and he will end thy days, King, if
he have strength enough ! " Olaf paused ; sent
scouts to a hill-top : " Hakon's armament visible
enough, and under way hitherward, about the Isle of
Bjarno, yonder ! " Soon after, Olaf himself saw the
Bonder armament of twenty-five ships, from the
southward, sail past in the distance to join that of
Hakon; and, worse still, his own ships, one and
another (seven in all), were slipping off on a like
errand ! He made for the Fiord of Fodrar, mouth of
the rugged strath called Valdai, — which I think still
knows Olaf, and has now an ' Olaf 's Highway,' where,

140 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

nine centuries ago, it scarcely had a path. Olaf en-
tered this fiord, had his land-tent set up, and a cross
beside it, on the small level green behind the promon-
tory there. Finding that his twelve poor ships were
now reduced to five, against a world all risen upon
him, he could not but see and admit to himself that
there was no chance left ; and that he must withdraw
across the mountains and wait for a better time.

His journey through that wild country, in these
forlorn and straitened circumstances, has a mournful
dignity and homely pathos, as described by Snorro :
how he drew up his five poor ships upon the beach,
packed all their furniture away, and with his hundred
or so of attendants and their journey-baggage, under
guidance of some friendly Bonder, rode up into the
desert and foot of the mountains ; scaled, after three
days' effort (as if by miracle, thought his attendants
and thought Suorro), the well-nigh precipitous slope
that led across, — never without miraculous aid from
Heaven and Olaf, could baggage-waggons have as-
cended that path ! In short, How he fared along,
beset by difficulties and the mournfullest thoughts ;
but patiently persisted, stedfastly trusted in God ; and

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 141

was fixed to return, and by God's help try again. An
evidently very pious and devout man ; a good man
struggling with adversity, such as the gods, we may
still imagine with the ancients, do look down upon as
their noblest sight.

He got to Sweden, to the court of his brother-in-
law ; kindly and nobly enough received there, though
gradually, perhaps, ill-seen by the now authorities of
Norway. So that, before long, he quitted Sweden;
left his queen there with her only daughter, his and
hers, the only child they had ; he himself had an only
son, ' by a bondwoman,' Magnus by name, who came
to great things afterwards ; of whom, and of which,
by and by. "With this bright little boy, and a
selected escort of attendants, he moved away to
Eussia, to King Jarroslav; where he might wait
secure against all risk of hurting kind friends by his
presence. He seems to have been an exile altogether
some two years, — such is one's vague notion ; for
there is no chronology in Snorro or his Sagas, and
one is reduced to guessing and inferring. He had
reigned over Norway, reckoning from the first days of
his landing there to those last of his leaving it across

142 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

the Dovrefjeld, about fifteen years, ten of them
shiningly victorious.

The news from Norway were naturally agitating to
King Olaf ; and, in the fluctuation of events there,
his purposes and prospects varied much. He some-
times thought of pilgriming to Jerusalem, and a
henceforth exclusively religious life; but for most
part his pious thoughts themselves gravitated towards
Norway, and a stroke for his old place and task there,
which he steadily considered to have been committed
to him by God. Norway, by the rumours, was
evidently not at rest. Jarl Hakon, under the high
patronage of his uncle, had lasted there but a little
while. I know not that his government was especially
unpopular, nor whether he himself much remembered
his broken oath. It appears, however, he had left in
England a beautiful bride; and considering farther
that in England only could bridal ornaments and
other wedding outfit of a sufficiently royal kind be
found, he set sail thither, to fetch her and them him-
self. One evening of wildish-looking weather he was
seen about the north-east corner of the Pentland
Frith ; the night rose to be tempestuous ; Hakon or

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 143

any timber of his fleet was never seen more. Had all
gone down, — broken oaths, bridal hopes, and all else ;
mouse and man, — into the roaring waters. There
was no farther Opposition-line ; the like of which had
lasted ever since old heathen Hakon Jarl, down to
this his grandson Hakon's^ms in the Pentland Frith.
"With this Hakon's disappearance it now disappeared.

Indeed Knut himself, though of an empire sud-
denly so great, was but a temporary phenomenon.
Fate had decided that the grand and wise Knut was
to be short-lived ; and to leave nothing as successors
but an ineffectual young Harald Harefoot, who soon
perished, and a still stupider fiercely-drinking Harda-
Knut, who rushed down of apoplexy (here in London
City, as I guess), with the goblet at his mouth, drink-
ing health and happiness at a wedding-feast, also
before long.

Hakon having vanished in this dark way, there
ensued a pause, both on Knut's part and on Nor-
way's. Pause or interregnum of some months, till it
became certain, first, whether Hakon were actually
dead, secondly, till Norway, and especially till King
Knut himself, could decide what to do. Knut, to the

144 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

deep disappointment, which had to keep itself silent,
of three or four chief Norway men, named none of
these three or four Jarl of Norway ; but bethought
him of a certain Svein, a bastard son of his own, —
who, and almost still more his English mother, much
desired a career in the world fitter for him, thought
they indignantly, than that of captain over Jomsburg,
where alone the father had been able to provide for
him hitherto. Svein was sent to Norway as king or
vice-king for Father Knut ; and along with him his
fond and vehement mother. Neither of whom gained
any favour from the Norse people by the kind of
management they ultimately came to show.

Olaf on news of this change, and such uncertainty
prevailing everywhere in Norway as to the future
course of things, — whether Svein would come, as was
rumoured of at last, and be able to maintain himself
if he did, — thought there might be something in it of
a chance for himself and his rights. And, after
lengthened hesitation, much prayer, pious invocation,
and consideration, decided to go and try it. The
final grain that had turned the balance, it appears,
was a half- waking morning dream, or almost ocular

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 145

vision he had of his glorious cousin Olaf Tryggveson,
who severely admonished, exhorted, and encouraged
him ; and disappeared grandly, just in the instant of
Olaf 's awakening ; so that Olaf almost fancied he
had seen the very figure of him, as it melted into air.
" Let us on, let us on ! " thought Olaf always after
that. He left his son, not in Russia, but in Sweden
with the Queen, who proved very good and carefully
helpful in wise ways to him : — in Russia Olaf had
now nothing more to do but give his grateful adieus,
and get ready.

His march towards Sweden, and from that towards
Norway and the passes of the mountains, down
Va^rdal, towards Stickelstad, and the crisis that
awaited, is beautifully depicted by Snorro. It has,
all of it, the description (and we see clearly, the fact
itself had), a kind of pathetic grandeur, simplicity,
and rude nobleness; something Epic or Homeric,
without the metre or the singing of Homer, but with
all the sincerity, rugged truth to nature, and much
more of piety, devoutness, reverence for what is for-
ever High in this Universe, than meets us in those
old Greek Ballad-mongers. Singularly visual all of

146 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

it, too, brought home in every particular to one's
imagination, so that it stands out almost as a thing
one actually saw.

Olaf had about three thousand men with him;
gathered mostly as he fared along through Norway.
Four hundred, raised by one Dag, a kinsman whom
he had found in Sweden and persuaded to come with
him, marched usually in a separate body ; and were,
or might have been, rather an important element.
Learning that the Bonders were all arming, especially
in Trondhjem country, Olaf streamed down towards
them in the closest order he could. By no means very
close, subsistence even for three thousand being diffi-
cult in such a country. His speech was almost always
free and cheerful, though his thoughts always natu-
rally were of a high and earnest, almost sacred tone ;
devout above all. Stickelstad, a small poor hamlet
still standing where the valley ends, was seen by Olaf,
and tacitly by the Bonders as well, to be the natural
place for offering battle. There Olaf issued out from
the hills one morning : drew himself up according to
the best rules of Norse tactics, — rules of little com-
plexity, but perspicuously true to the facts. I think

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 147

he had a clear open ground still rather raised above
the plain in front ; he could see how the Bonder army
had not yet quite arrived, but was pouring forward,
in spontaneous rows or groups, copiously by every
path. This was thought to be the biggest army that
ever met in Norway ; ' certainly not much fewer than
'a hundred times a hundred men/ according to
Snorro ; great Bonders several of them, small
Bonders very many, — all of willing mind, animated
with a hot sense of intolerable injuries. * King Olaf
'had punished great and small with equal rigour,'
says Snorro ; ' which appeared to the chief people of
'the country too severe; and animosity rose to the
' highest when they lost relatives by the King's just
1 sentence, although they were in reality guilty. He
1 again would rather renounce his dignity than omit
' righteous judgment. The accusation against him, of
* being stingy with his money was not just, for he was
1 a most generous man towards his friends. But that
1 alone was the cause of the discontent raised against
' him, that he appeared hard and severe in his retri-
' butions. Besides, King Knut offered large sums of
' money, and the great chiefs were corrupted by this,

L 2

148 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

' and by his offering them greater dignities than they
'had possessed before.' On these grounds, against
the intolerable man, great and small were now pouring
along by every path.

Olaf perceived it would still be some time before
the Border army was in rank. His own Dag of
Sweden, too, was not yet come up ; he was to have
the right banner ; king Olaf 's own being the middle
or grand one ; some other person the third or left
banner. All which being perfectly ranked and
settled, according to the best rules, and waiting only
the arrival of Dag, Olaf bade his men sit down, and
freshen themselves with a little rest. There were
religious services gone through : a matins- worship such
as there have been few ; sternly earnest to the heart
of it, and deep as death and eternity, at least on
Olaf's own part. For the rest Thormod sang a stave
of the fiercest Skaldic poetry that was in him ; all the
army straightway sang it in chorus with fiery mind.
The Bonder of the nearest farm came up, to tell Olaf
that he also wished to fight for him. u Thanks to
thee ; but don't," said Olaf; " stay at home rather,
that the wounded may have some shelter." To this

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 149

Bonder, Olaf delivered all the money he had, with
solemn order to lay out the whole of it in masses and
prayers for the souls of such of his enemies as fell.
" Such of thy enemies, King ? " " Yes, surely," said
Olaf, "my friends will all either conquer, or go
whither I also am going."

At last the Bonder army too was got ranked;
three commanders, one of them with a kind of loose
chief command, having settled to take charge of it ;
and began to shake itself towards actual advance.
Olaf, in the meanwhile, had laid his head on the
knees of Finn Arneson, his trustiest man, and fallen
fast asleep. Finn's brother, Kalf Arneson, once a
warm friend of Olaf, was chief of the three com-
manders on the opposite side. Finn and he addressed
angry speech to one another from the opposite ranks,
when they came near enough. Finn, seeing the
enemy fairly approach, stirred Olaf from his sleep.
" Oh, why hast thou wakened me from such a
dream ? " said Olaf, in a deeply solemn tone. " What
dream was it, then ? " asked Finn. " I dreamt that
there rose a ladder here reaching up to very Heaven/''
said Olaf; "I had climbed and climbed, and got to-

150 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

the very last step, and should have entered there
hadst thou given me another moment." "King, I
doubt thou' are fey; I do not quite like that dream."

The actual fight began about one of the clock in a
most bright last day of July, and was very fierce and
hot, especially on the part of Olaf s men, who shook
the others back a little, though fierce enough they
too; and had Dag been on the ground, which he
wasn't yet, it was thought victory might have been
won. Soon after battle joined, the sky grew of a
ghastly brass or copper colour, darker and darker, till
thick night involved all things; and did not clear
away again till battle was near ending. Dag, with
his four hundred, arrived in the darkness, and made
a furious charge, what was afterwards, in the speech
of the people, called 'Dag's storm/ Which had
nearly prevailed, but could not quite ; victory again
inclining to the so vastly larger party. It is uncer-
tain still how the matter would have gone ; for Olaf
himself was now fighting with his own hand, and
doing deadly execution on his busiest enemies to
right and to left. But one of these chief rebels,
Thorer Hund (thought to have learnt magic from the

REIGN OF KING OLA.F THE SAINT. 151

Laplanders, whom he long traded with, and made
money by), mysteriously would not fall for Olaf's
best strokes. Best strokes brought only dust from
the (enchanted) deer-skin coat of the fellow, to Olaf's
surprise, — when another of the rebel chiefs rushed
forward, struck Olaf with his battle-axe, a wild slash-
ing wound, and miserably broke his thigh, so that he
staggered or was supported back to the nearest stone ;
and there sat down, lamentably calling on God to
help him in this bad hour. Another rebel of note
(the name of him long memorable in Norway) slashed
or stabbed Olaf a second time, as did then a third.
Upon which the noble Olaf sank dead ; and forever
quitted this doghole of a world,— little worthy of such^*
men as Olaf, one sometimes thinks. But that too is
a mistake, and even an important one, should we
persist in it.

With Olaf's death the sky cleared again. Battle,
now near done, ended with complete victory to the
rebels, and next to no pursuit or result, except the
death of Olaf; everybody hastening home, as soon
as the big Duel had decided itself. Olaf's body was
secretly carried, after dark, to some out-house on the

152 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

farm near the spot; whither a poor blind beggar
creeping in for shelter that very evening, was miracu-
lously restored to sight. And, truly with a notable,
almost miraculous, speed, the feelings of all Norway
for King Olaf changed themselves, and were turned
upside down, ' within a year/ or almost within a day.
Superlative example of Extindus amabitur idem,
Not 'Olaf the Thick-set' any longer, but ' Olaf the
Blessed ' or Saint, now clearly in Heaven ; such the
name and character of him from that time to this.
Two churches dedicated to him (out of four that once
stood) stand in London at this moment. And the
miracles that have been done there, not to speak of
Norway and Christendom elsewhere, in his name,
were numerous and great for long centuries after-
wards. Visibly a Saint Olaf ever since ; and, in-
deed, in Bollandus or elsewhere, I have seldom met
with better stuff to make a Saint of, or a true World-
Hero in all good senses.

Speaking of the London Olaf Churches, I should
have added that from one of these the thrice-famous
Tooley Street gets its name, — where those Three
Tailors, addressing Parliament and the Universe,

REIGN OF KING OLAF THE SAINT. 153

sublimely styled themselves, ""We, the People of
England." Saint Olave Street, Saint Oley Street,
Stooley Street, Tooley Street ; such are the metamor-
phoses of human fame in the world !

The battle-day of Stickelstad, King Olaf s death-
day, is generally believed to have been Wednesday,
July 31, 1033. But on investigation, it turns out
that there was no total eclipse of the sun visible in
Norway that year ; though three years before, there
was one; but on the 29th instead of the 31st. So
that the exact date still remains uncertain ; Dahl-
mann, the latest critic, inclining for 1030, and its
indisputable eclipse.*

* Saxon Chronicle says expressly, under a.d. 1030 : ' In this
year King Olaf was slain in Norway by his own people, and was
afterwards sainted.'

CHAPTER XL

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS.

St. Olaf is the highest of these Norway Kings, and
is the last that much attracts us. For this reason, if
a reason were not superfluous, we might here end our
poor reminiscences of those dim Sovereigns. But we
will, nevertheless, for the sake of their connection
with hits of English History, still hastily mention the
names of one or two who follow, and who throw a
momentary gleam of life and illumination on events
and epochs that have fallen so extinct among ourselves
at present, though once they were so momentous and
memorahle.

The new King Svein from Jomshurg, Knut's
natural son, had no success in Norway, nor seems to
have deserved any. His English mother and he were
found to be grasping, oppressive persons ; and awoke,
almost from the instant that Olaf was suppressed and

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 155

crushed away from Norway into Heaven, universal
odium more and more in that country. Well-
deservedly, as still appears ; for their taxings and ex-
tortions of malt, of herring, of meal, smithwork and
every article taxable in Norway, were extreme ; and
their service to the country otherwise nearly imper-
ceptible. In brief their one basis there was the power
of Knut the Great ; and that, like all earthly things,
was liable to sudden collapse, — and- it suffered such
in a notable degree. King Knut, hardly yet of middle
age, and the greatest King in the then world, died at
Shaftesbury, in 1035, as Dahlmann thinks,* — leaving
two legitimate sons and a busy, intriguing widow
(Norman Emma, widow of Ethelred the Unready),
mother of the younger of these two ; neither of whom
proved to have any talent or any continuance. In
spite of Emma's utmost efforts, Harald, the elder son
of Knut, not hers, got England for his kingdom ;
Emma and her Harda-Knut had to be content with
Denmark, and go thither, much against their will.

* Saxon Chronicle says : '1035. In this year died King Cnut.
... He departed at Shaftesbury, November 12, and they conveyed
him thence to Winchester, and there buried him. '

156 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Harald in England, — light-going little figure like his
father before him, — got the name of Harefoot here ;
aid might have done good work among his now
orderly and settled people ; but he died almost within
year and day ; and has left no trace among us, except
that of ' Harefoot/ from his swift mode of walking.
Emma and her Harda-Knut now returned joyful to
England. But the violent, idle and drunken Harda-
Knut did no good there; and, happily for England
and him, soon suddenly ended, by stroke of apoplexy
at a marriage festival, as mentioned above. In Den-
mark he had done still less good. And indeed, under
him, in a year or two, the grand imperial edifice,
laboriously built by Knut's valour and wisdom, had
already tumbled all to the ground, in a most un-
expected and remarkable way. As we are now to
indicate with all brevity.

S vein's tyrannies in Norway had wrought such fruit
that, within the four years after Olaf 's death, the chief
men in Norway, the very slayers of King Olaf, Kalf
Arneson at the head of them, met secretly once or
twice; and unanimously agreed that Kalf Arneson
must go to Sweden, or to Russia itself; seek young

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 157

Magnus, son of Olaf, home : excellent Magnus, to be
king over all Norway and them, instead of this in-
tolerable Svein. Which was at once done, — Magnus
brought home in a kind of triumph, all Norway wait-
ing for him. Intolerable Svein had already been
rebelled against : some years before this, a certain
young Tryggve out of Ireland, authentic son of Olaf
Tryggveson and of that fine Irish Princess who chose
him in his low habiliments and low estate, and took
him over to her own Green Island, — this royal young
Tryggve Olafson had invaded the usurper Svein, in a
fierce, valiant and determined manner ; and though
with too small a party, showed excellent fight for
some time; till Svein, zealously bestirring himself,
' managed to get him beaten and killed. But that was
a couple of years ago ; the party still too small, not
including one and all as now ! Svein, without stroke
of sword this time, moved off towards Denmark ;
never showing face in Norway again. His drunken
brother, Harda-Knut, received him brother-like ; even
gave him some territory to rule over and subsist upon.
But he lived only a short while ; was gone before Harda-
Knut himself ; and we will mention him no more.

158 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY

Magnus was a fine bright young feltaw, and proved
a valiant, wise, and successful King, known among his
people as Magnus the Good. He was only natural
son of King Olaf ; but that made little difference in
those times and there. His strange-looking, unex-
pected Latin name he got in this way : Alf hild, his
mother, a slave through ill-luck of war, though nobly
born, was seen to be in a hopeful way ; and it was
known in the King's house how intimately Olaf was
connected with that occurrence, and how much he
loved this 'King's serving-maid,' as she was com-
monly designated. Alfhild was brought to bed late
at night; and all the world, especially King Olaf,
was asleep ; Olaf 's strict rule, then and always, being,
don't awaken me : — seemingly a man sensitive about
his sleep. The child was a boy, of rather weakly
aspect; no important person present, except Sigvat,
the King's Icelandic Skald, who happened to be still
awake ; and the Bishop of Norway, who, I suppose,
had been sent for in hurry. " What is to be done ? "
said the Bishop, " here is an infant in pressing need
of baptism ; and we know not what the name is : go,
Sigvat, awaken the King, and ask." " I dare not for

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 159

my life," answered Sigvat ; " King's orders are rigor-
ous on that point." " But if the child die unbaptised,"
said the Bishop shuddering ; too certain, he and every-
body, where the child would go in that case ! " I will
myself give him a name," said Sigvat, with a desperate
concentration of all his faculties ; " he shall be name-
sake of the greatest of mankind, — imperial Carolus
Magnus ; let us call the infant Magnus ! " King Olaf,
on the morrow, asked rather sharply how Sigvat had
dared take such a liberty ; but excused Sigvat, seeing
what the perilous alternative was. And Magnus, by
such accident, this boy was called; and he, not
another, is the prime origin and introducer of that
name Magnus, which occurs rather frequently, not
among the Norman Kings only, but by and by among
the Danish and Swedish; and, among the Scandi-
navian populations, appears to be rather frequent to
this day.

Magnus, a youth of great spirit, whose own, and
standing at his beck, all Norway now was, immediately
smote home on Denmark; desirous naturally of
vengeance for what it had done to Norway, and the
sacred kindred of Magnus. Denmark, its great Knut

160 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

gone, and nothing but a drunken Harda-Knut,
fugitive Svein and Co., there in his stead, was become
a weak dislocated Country. And Magnus plundered
in it, burnt it, beat it, as often as he pleased ; Harda-
Knut struggling what he could to make resistance or
reprisals, but never once getting any victory over
Magnus. Magnus, I perceive, was, like his Father,
a skilful as well as valiant fighter by sea and land ;
Magnus, with good battalions, and probably backed
by immediate alliance with Heaven and St. Olaf, as
was then the general belief or surmise about him,
could not easily be beaten. And the truth is, he
never was, by Harda-Knut or any other. Harda-
Knut's last transaction with him was, To make a firm
Peace and even Family-treaty sanctioned by all the
grandees of both countries, who did indeed mainly
themselves make it ; their two Kings assenting : That
there should be perpetual Peace, and no thought of
war more, between Denmark and Norway ; and that,
if either of the Kings died childless while the other
was reigning, the other should succeed him in both
Kingdoms. A magnificent arrangement, such as has
several times been made in the world's history ; but

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 161

which in this instance, what is very singular, took
actual effect ; drunken Harda-Knut dying so speedily,
and Magnus being the man he was. One would like
to give the date of this remarkable Treaty ; but cannot
with precision. Guess somewhere about 1040 : *
actual fruition of it came to Magnus, beyond question,
in 1042, when Harda-Knut drank that wassail bowl
at the wedding in Lambeth, and fell down dead ;
which in the Saxon Chronicle is dated 3rd June of
that year. Magnus at once went to Denmark on
hearing this event; was joyfully received by the head
men there, who indeed, with their fellows in Norway,
had been main contrivers of the Treaty ; both
Countries longing for mutual peace, and the end of
such incessant broils.

Magnus was triumphantly received as King in
Denmark. The only unfortunate thing was, that
Svein Estrithson, the exile son of Ulf, Knut's Brother-
in-law, whom Knut, as we saw, had summarily killed
twelve years before, emerged from his exile in Sweden
in a flattering form ; and proposed that Magnus
should make him Jarl of Denmark, and general

* Munch gives the date 1038 (ii. 840), Adam of Bremen 1040.

M

162 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

administrator there, in his own stead. To which the
sanguine Magnus, in spite of advice to the contrary,
insisted on acceding. "Too powerful a Jarl," said
Einar Tamberskelver — the same Einar whose bow
was heard to break in Olaf Tryggveson's last battle
(" Norway breaking from thy hand, King ! "), who
had now become Magnus's chief man, and had long
been among the highest chiefs in Norway ; ? too
powerful a Jarl," said Einar earnestly. But Magnus
disregarded it ; and a troublesome experience had to
teach him that it was true. In about a year, crafty
Svein, bringing ends to meet, got himself declared
King of Denmark for his own behoof, instead of Jarl
for another's : and had to be beaten and driven out
by Magnus. Beaten every year ; but almost always
returned next year, for a new beating, — almost, though
not altogether; having at length got one dreadful
smashing-down and half-killing, which held him quiet
a while, — so long as Magnus lived. Nay in the end,
he made good his point, as if by mere patience in
being beaten; and did become King himself, and
progenitor of all the Kings that followed. King Svein
Estrithson; so-called from Astrid or Estrith, his

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 163

mother, the great Knut's sister, daughter of Svein
Forkbeard by that amazing Sigrid the Proud, who
burnt those two ineligible suitors of hers both at once,
and got a switch on the face from Olaf Tryggveson,
which proved the death of that high man.

But all this fine fortune of the often beaten
Estrithson was posterior to Magnus's death ; who
never would have suffered it, had he been alive.
Magnus was a mighty fighter; a fiery man; very
proud and positive, among other qualities, and had
such luck as was never seen before. Luck invariably
good, said everybody ; never once was beaten, — which
proves, continued everybody, that his Father Olaf
and the miraculous power of Heaven were with him
always. Magnus, I believe, did put down a great
deal of anarchy in those countries. One of his earliest
enterprises was to abolish Jomsburg, and trample out
that nest of pirates. Which he managed so completely
that Jomsburg remained a mere reminiscence thence-
forth ; and its place is not now known to any mortal.

One perverse thing did at last turn up in the course

of Magnus : a new Claimant for the Crown of Norway

m2

164 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

and lie a formidable person withal. This was Harald,
half-brother of the late Saint Olaf ; uncle or half-
uncle, therefore, of Magnus himself. Indisputable
son of the Saint's mother by St. Olaf 's step-father,
who was himself descended straight from Harald
Haarfagr. This new Harald was already much heard
of in the world. As an ardent Boy of fifteen he had
fought at King Olaf 's side at Stickelstad ; would not
be admonished by the Saint to go away. Got smitten
down there, not killed; was smuggled away that
night from the field by friendly help ; got cured of
his wounds, forwarded to Russia, where he grew to
man's estate, under bright auspices and successes.
Fell in love with the Russian Princess, but could not
get her to wife ; went off thereupon to Constantinople
as Vceringer (Life- Guardsman of the Greek Kaiser) ;
became Chief Captain of the Yseringers, invincible
champion of the poor Kaisers that then were, and
filled all the East with the shine and noise of his
exploits. An authentic Waring or Baring, such the
surname we now have derived from these people ; who
were an important institution in those Greek countries
for several ages : Yajringer Life-Guard, consisting

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTIIKIiS. 165

Norsemen, with sometimes a few English among them.
Harald had innumerable adventures, nearly always
successful, sing the Skalds; gained a great deal of
wealth, gold ornaments, and gold coin ; had even
Queen Zoo (so they sing, though falsely) enamoured
of him at one time ; and was himself a Skald of
eminence ; some of whose verses, by no means the
worst of their kind, remain to this day.

This character of Waring much distinguishes
Harald to me ; the only Vaeringer of whom I could
ever get the least biography, true or half-true. It
seems the Greek History-books but indifferently
correspond with these Saga records ; and scholars say
there could have been no considerable romance be-
tween Zoe and him, Zoe at that date being 60 years
of age ! Harald's own lays say nothing of any Zoe,
but are still full of longing for his Eussian Princess
far away.

At last, what with Zoes, what with Greek per-
versities and perfidies, and troubles that could not
fail, he determined on quitting Greece; packed up
his immensities of wealth in succinct shape, and
actually returned to Russia, where new honours

166 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

and favours awaited him from old friends, and
especially, if I mistake not, the hand of that adorable
Princess, crown of all his wishes for the time being.
Before long, however, he decided farther to look
after his Norway Eoyal heritages ; and, for that
purpose, sailed in force to the Jarl or quasi-King of
Denmark, the often-beaten Svein, who was now in
Sweden on his usual winter exile after beating. Svein
and he had evidently interests in common. Svein was
charmed to see him, — so warlike, glorious and re-
nowned a man, with masses of money about him, too.
Svein did by and by become treacherous ; and even
attempted, one night, to assassinate Harald in his
bed on board ship : but Harald, vigilant of Svein, and
a man of quick and sure insight, had providently gone
to sleep elsewhere, leaving a log instead of himself
among the blankets. In which log, next morning,
treacherous Svein's battle-axe was found deeply stick-
ing ; and could not be removed without difficulty ! But
this was after Harald and King Magnus himself had
begun treating; with the fairest prospects, — which
this of the Svein battle-axe naturally tended to
forward, as it altogether ended the other co-partnery.

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 167

Magnus, on first hearing of Vaeringer Harald and
his intentions, made instant equipment, and deter-
mination to fight his uttermost against the same.
But wise persons of influence round him, as did the
like sort round Yseringer Harald, earnestly advised
compromise and peaceable agreement. Which, soon
after that of Svein's noctural battle-axe, was the
course adopted ; and, to the joy of all parties, did
prove a successful solution. Magnus agreed to part
his kingdom with Uncle Harald ; uncle parting his
treasures, or uniting them with Magnus's poverty.
Each was to be an independent king, but they were
to govern in common; Magnus rather presiding.
He, to sit, for example in the High Seat alone;
King Harald opposite him in a seat not quite so
high, though if a stranger King came on a visit, both
the Norse Kings were to sit in the High Seat. With
various other punctilious regulations ; which the fiery
Magnus was extremely strict with ; rendering the
mutual relation a very dangerous one, had not both
the Kings been honest men, and Harald a much
more prudent and tolerant one than Magnus.
They, on the whole, never had any weighty quarrel,

168 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

thanks now and then rather to Harald than to
Magnus. Magnus too was very noble; and Harald,
with his wide experience and greater length of years,
carefully held his heat of temper well covered in.

Prior to Uncle Harald' s coming, Magnus had dis-
tinguished himself as a Lawgiver. His Code of
Laws for the Trondhjem Province was considered a
pretty piece of legislation; and in subsequent times
got the name of Grey -goose (Gragas) ; one of the
wonderfullest names ever given to a wise Book.
Some say it came from the grey colour of the parch-
ment, some give other incredible origins; the last
guess I have heard is, that the name merely denotes
antiquity ; the witty name in Norway, for a man
growing old having been, in those times, that he was
now ' becoming a grey-goose.' Very fantastic indeed ;
certain, however, that Grey-goose is the name of that
venerable Law Book; nay, there is another, still
more famous, belonging to Iceland, and not far from
a century younger, the Iceland Grey-goose. The
Norway one is perhaps of date about 1037, the other
of about 1118; peace be with them both! Or, if
anybody is inclined to such matters let him go to

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 10!)

Dahlmann, for the amplest information and such
minuteness of detail as might almost enable him
to be an Advocate, with Silk Gown, in any Court
depending on these Grey-geese.

Magnus did not live long. He had a dream
one night of his Father Olaf's coming to him in
shining presence, and announcing, That a magnificent
fortune and world-great renown was now possible for
him ; but that perhaps it was his duty to refuse it ;
in which case his earthly life would be short. "Which
way wilt thou do, then ? " said the shining presence.
" Thou shalt decide for me, Father, thou, not I ! "
and told his Uncle Harald on the morrow, adding that
he thought he should now soon die ; which proved to
be the fact. The magnificent fortune, so questionable
otherwise, has reference, no doubt, to the Conquest of
England ; to which country Magnus, as rightful and
actual King of Denmark, as well as undisputed heir
to drunken Harda-Knut, by treaty long ago, had
now some evident claim. The enterprise itself
was reserved to the patient, gay and prudent Uncle
Harald ; and to him it did prove fatal, — and merely
paved the way for Another, luckier, not likelier !

170 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Svein Estrithson, always beaten during Magnus's
life, by and by got an agreement from the prudent
Harald to be King of Denmark, then ; and end these
wearisome and ineffectual brabbles ; Harald having
other work to do. But in the autumn of 1066, Tosti,
a younger son of our English Earl Godwin, came to
S vein's court with a most important announcement ;
namely, that King Edward the Confessor, so-called,
was dead, and that Harold, as the English write it,
his eldest brother would give him, Tosti, no sufficient
share in the kingship. Which state of matters, if
Svein would go ahead with him to rectify it, would
be greatly to the advantage of Svein. Svein, taught
by many beatings, was too wise for this proposal ;
refused Tosti, who indignantly stepped over into
Norway, and proposed it to King Harald there.
Svein really had acquired considerable teaching, I
should guess, from his much beating and hard ex-
perience in the world ; one finds him afterwards the
esteemed friend of the famous Historian Adam of
Bremen, who reports various wise humanities, and
pleasant discoursings with Svein Estrithson.

As for Harald Hardrade, * Harald the Hard

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS, 171

or Severe/ as he was now called, Tosti's proposal
awakened in him all his old Vacringer ambitions and
cupidities into blazing vehemence. He zealously
consented; and at once, with his whole strength
embarked in the adventure. Fitted out two hundred
ships, and the biggest army he could carry in them ;
and sailed with Tosti towards the dangerous Promised
Land. Got into the Tyne, and took booty ; got into
the Humber, thence into the Ouse; easily subdued
any opposition the official people or their populations
could make ; victoriously scattered these, victoriously
took the City of York in a day ; and even got himself
homaged there, 'King of Northumberland/ as per
covenant, — Tosti proving honourable, — Tosti and he
going with faithful strict copartnery, and all things
looking prosperous and glorious. Except only (an
important exception ! ) that they learnt for certain,
English Harold was advancing with all his strength ;
and, in a measurable space of hours, unless care were
taken, would be in York himself. Harald and Tosti
hastened off to seize the post of Stamford Bridge on
Derwent Eiver, six or seven miles east of York City,
and there bar this dangerous advent. Their own

172 EAllLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

ships lay not far off in Ouse Hiver, in case of the
worst. The battle that ensued the next day, Septem-
ber 20, 1066, is forever memorable in English history.
Snorro gives vividly enough his view of it from the
Icelandic side: A ring of stalwart Norsemen, close
ranked, with their steel tools in hand; English
Harold's Army, mostly cavalry, prancing and prick-
ing all around ; trying to find or make some opening
in that ring. For a long time trying in vain, till at
length, getting them enticed to burst out somewhere
in pursuit, they quickly turned round, and quickly
made an end of that matter. Snorro represents English
Harold, with a first party of these horse coming up,
and, with preliminary salutations, asking if Tosti were
there, and if Harald were ; making generous proposals
to Tosti ; but, in regard to Harald and what share of
England was to be his, answering Tosti with the words,
" Seven feet of English earth, or more if he require it,
for a grave." Upon which Tosti, like an honourable
man and copartner, said, " No, never ; let us fight you
rather till we all die." " Who is this that spoke to
you ? " inquired Harald, when the cavaliers had with-
drawn. "My brother Harold," answers Tosti, which

MAGNUS THE GOOD AND OTHERS. 173

looks rather like a Saga, but may be historical after
all. Snorro's history of the battle is intelligible only
after you have premised to it, what he never hints at,
that the scene was on the east side of the bridge and
of the Derwent ; the great struggle for the bridge, one
at last finds, was after the fall of Harald ; and to the
English Chroniclers, said struggle, which was abun-
dantly severe, is all they know of the battle.

Enraged at that breaking loose of his steel ring of
infantry, Norse Harald blazed up into true Norse fury,
all the old Yseringer and Berserkir rage awakening in
him; sprang forth into the front of the fight, and
mauled and cut and smashed down, on both hands of
him, everything he met, irresistible by any horse or
man, till an arrow cut him through the windpipe, and
laid him low forever. That was the end of King
Harald and of his workings in this world. The cir-
cumstance that he was a "Waring or Bariug, and had
smitten to pieces so many Oriental cohorts or crowds,
and had made love- verses (kind of iron madrigals) to
his Russian Princess, and caught the fancy of ques-
tionable Greek queens, and had amassed such heaps
of money, while poor nephew Magnus had only one

174 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

gold ring (which had heen his father's, and even his
father's mother's, as Uncle Harald noticed), and
nothing more whatever of that precious metal to com-
hine with Harald's treasures : — all this is new to me,
naturally no hint of it in any English hook ; and lends
some gleam of romantic splendour to that dim business
of Stamford Bridge, now fallen so dull and torpid to
most English minds, transcendently important as it
once was to all Englishmen. Adam of Bremen says,
the English got as much gold plunder from Harald's
people as was a heavy burden for twelve men ; * a
thing evidently impossible, which nobody need try
to believe. Young Olaf, Harald's son, age about
sixteen, steering down the Ouse at the top of his speed,
escaped home to Norway with all his ships, and sub-
sequently reigned there with Magnus, his brother.
Harald's body did lie in English earth for about a
year; but was then brought to Norway for burial.
He needed more than seven feet of grave, say some ;
Laing, interpreting Snorro's measurements, makes
Harald eight feet in stature, — I do hope, with some
;s!

* Camden, Rapin, &c. quote.

CHAPTER XII.

OLAF THE TRANQUIL, MAGNUS BAREFOOT, AND SIGURD
THE CRUSADER.

The new King Olaf, his brother Magnus having
soon died, bore rule in Norway for some five-and-
twenty years. Rule soft and gentle, not like his
father's, and inclining rather to improvement in
the arts and elegancies than to anything severe or
dangerously laborious. A slim-built, witty-talking,
popular and pretty man, with uncommonly bright
eyes, and hair like floss silk : they called him Olaf
Kyrre (the Tranquil or Easy-going).

The ceremonials of the palace were much improved
by him. Palace still continued to be built of huge
logs pyramidally sloping upwards, with fireplace in
the middle of the floor, and no egress for smoke or
ingress for light except right overhead, which, in bad
weather, you could shut, or all but shut, with a lid.

17(5 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

Lid originally made of mere opaque board, but
changed latterly into a light frame, covered (glazed,
so to speak) with entrails of animals, clarified into
something of pellucidity. All this Olaf, I hope, fur-
ther perfected, as he did the placing of the court
ladies, court officials, and the like ; but I doubt if the
luxury of a glass window were ever known to him, or
a cup to drink from that was not made of metal or
horn. In fact it is chiefly for his son's sake I men-
tion him here ; and with the son, too, I have little
real concern, but only a kind of fantastic.

This son bears the name of Magnus Barfod (Bare-
foot, or Bareleg) ; and if you ask why so, the answer
is : He was used to appear in the streets of Nidaros
(Trondhjem) now and then in complete Scotch High-
land dress. Authentic tartan plaid and philibeg, at
that epoch, — to the wonder of Trondhjem and us !
The truth is, he had a mighty fancy for those Hebrides
and other Scotch possessions of his; and seeing
England now quite impossible, eagerly speculated on
some conquest in Ireland as next best. He did, in
fact, go diligently voyaging and inspecting among

OLAF, MAGNUS, AND SIGURD. 177

those Orkney and Iiebridian Isles ; putting everything
straight there, appointing stringent authorities, jarls, —
nay, a king, ' Kingdom of the Suderoer ' (Southern
Isles, now called Sodor), — and, as first king, Sigurd,
his pretty little boy of nine years. All which done,
and some quarrel with Sweden fought out, he seri-
ously applied himself to visiting in a still more em-
phatic manner; namely, to invading, with his best
skill and strength, the considerable virtual or actual
kingdom he had in Ireland, intending fully to enlarge
it to the utmost limits of the Island if possible. He
got prosperously into Dublin (guess a.d. 1102). Con-
siderable authority he already had, even among those
poor Irish Kings, or kinglets, in their glibs and yellow
saffron gowns ; still more, I suppose, among the nu-
merous Norse Principalities there. 'King Murdog,
[ King of Ireland/ says the Chronicle of Man, ' had
j obliged himself, every Yule day, to take a pair of
* shoes, hang them over his shoulder, as your servant
t does on a journey, and walk across his court, at bid-
' ding and in presence of, Magnus Barcfoot's messen-
' ger, by way of homage to the said King.* Murdog
on this greater occasion did whatever homage could be

178 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

required of him ; but that, though comfortable, was
far from satisfying the great King's ambitious mind.
The great King left Murdog ; left his own Dublin ;
marched off westward on a general conquest of Ireland.
Marched easily victorious for a time ; and got, some
say, into the wilds of Connaught, but there saw him-
self beset by ambuscades and wild Irish countenances
intent on mischief; and had, on the sudden, to draw
up for battle ; — place, I regret to say, altogether un-
discoverable to me ; known only that it was boggy in
the extreme. Certain enough, too certain and evident,
Magnus Barefoot, searching eagerly, could find no
firm footing there ; nor, fighting furiously up to the
knees or deeper, any result but honourable death!
Date is confidently marked ' 24 August 1103/— as if
people knew the very day of the month. The natives
did humanely give King Magnus Christian burial.
The remnants of his force, without further molestation,
found their ships on the Coast of Ulster ; and sailed
home, — without conquest of Ireland ; nay perhaps,
leaving royal Murdog disposed to be relieved of his
procession with the pair of shoes.

Magnus Barefoot left three sons, all kings at once,

OLAF, MAGNUS, AND SIGURD. 179

reigning peaceably together. But to us, at present,
the only noteworthy one of them was Sigurd ; who,
finding nothing special to do at home, left his brothers to
manage for him, and went off on a far Voyage, which
has rendered him distinguishable in the crowd.
Voyage through the Straits of Gibraltar, on to
Jerusalem, thence to Constantinople; and so home
through Russia, shining with such renown as filled all
Norway for the time being. A King called Sigurd
Jorsalafarer (Jerusakmer) or Sigurd the Crusader
henceforth. His voyage had been only partially of
the Viking type; in general it was of the Royal-
Progress kind rather ; Vikingism only intervening in
cases of incivility or the like. His reception in the
Courts of Portugal, Spain, Sicily, Italy, had been
honourable and sumptuous. The King of Jerusalem
broke out into utmost splendour and effusion at sight
of such a pilgrim ; and Constantinople did its highest
honours to such a Prince of Vaeringers. And the
truth is, Sigurd intrinsically was a wise, able and
prudent man ; who, surviving both his brothers,
reigned a good while alone in a solid and successful

way. He shows features of an original, independ-

h 2

180 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

ent-thinking man ; something of ruggedly strong, sin-
cere and honest, with peculiarities that are amiable
and even pathetic in the character and temperament
of him ; as certainly, the course of life he took was of
his own choosing, and peculiar enough. He happens
furthermore to he, what he least of all could have
chosen or expected, the last of the Haarfagr Genealogy
that had any success, or much deserved any, in this
world. The last of the Haarfagrs, or as good as the
last ! So that, singular to say, it is in reality, for
one thing only that Sigurd, after all his crusadings
and wonderful adventures, is memorable to us here :
the advent of an Irish gentleman called ' Gylle
Krist' (Gil-christ, Servant of Christ), who, — not
over welcome, I should think, but (unconsciously)
big with the above result, — appeared in Norway,
while King Sigurd was supreme. Let us explain a
little.

This Gylle Krist, the unconsciously fatal indi-
vidual, who ' spoke Norse imperfectly,' declared him-
self to be the natural son of whilom Magnus Bare-
foot ; born to him there while engaged in that unfor-
tunate 'Conquest of Ireland.' "Here is my mother

OLAF, MAGNUS, AND SIGURD. 181

come with me," said Gilchrist, " who declares my real
baptismal name to have been Harald, given me by
that great King; and who will carry the red-hot
ploughshares or do any reasonable ordeal in testimony
of these facts. I am King Sigurd's veritable half-
brother : what will King Sigurd think it fair to do
with me ? " Sigurd clearly seems to have believed
the man to be speaking truth ; and indeed nobody to
have doubted but he was. Sigurd said, " Honourable
sustenance shalt thou have from me here. But,
under pain of extirpation, swear that, neither in my
time, nor in that of my young son Magnus, wilt thou
ever claim any share in this Government." Gylle
swore ; and punctually kept his promise during
Sigurd's reign. But during Magnus's, he con-
spicuously broke it ; and, in result, through many
reigns, and during three or four generations after-
wards, produced unspeakable contentions, massa-
crings, confusions in the country he had adopted.
There are reckoned, from the time of Sigurd's death
(a.d. 1130), about a hundred years of civil war : no
king allowed to distinguish himself by a solid reign of
well-doing, or by any continuing reign at all, — some-

182 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

times as many as four kings simultaneously fighting ;
— and in Norway, from sire to son, nothing but
sanguinary anarchy, disaster and bewilderment; a
Country sinking steadily as if towards absolute ruin.
Of all which frightful misery and discord Irish Gylle,
styled afterwards King Harald Gylle, was, by ill
destiny and otherwise, the visible origin : an illegiti-
mate Irish Haarfagr who proved to be his own de-
struction, and that of the Haarfagr kindred altogether !

Sigurd himself seems always to have rather favoured
Gylle, who was a cheerful, shrewd, patient, witty and
effective fellow; and had at first much quizzing to
endure, from the younger kind, on account of his
Irish way of speaking Norse, and for other reasons.
One evening, for example, while the drink was going
round, Gylle mentioned that the Irish had a wonder-
ful talent of swift running, and that there were
among them people who could keep up with the
swiftest horse. At which, especially from young
Magnus, there were peals of laughter ; and a declara-
tion from the latter that Gylle and he would have it
tried to-morrow morning ! Gylle in vain urged that

OLAF, MAGNUS, AND SRJl 183

lie had not himself professed to be so swift a runner
as to keep up with the Prince's horses ; but only that
there were men in Ireland who could. Magnus was
positive ; and, early next morning, Gylle had to be
on the ground ; and the race, naturally under heavy
bet, actually went off. Gylle started parallel to
Magnus's stirrup ; ran like a very roe, and was clearly
ahead at the goal. " Unfair," said Magnus ; " thou
must have had hold of my stirrup-leather, and helped
thyself along; we must try it again." Gylle ran
behind the horse this second time ; then at the end,
sprang forward ; and again was fairly in ahead.
"Thou must have held by the tail," said Magnus;
" not by fair running was this possible ; we must try
a third time ! " Gylle started ahead of Magnus and
his horse, this third time ; kept ahead with increasing
distance, Magnus galloping his very best ; and reached
the goal more palpably foremost than ever. So that
Magnus had to pay his bet, and other damage and
humiliation. And got from his father, who heard of
it soon afterwards, scoffing rebuke as a silly fellow,
who did not know the worth of men but only the
clothes and rank of them, and well deserved what he

184 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

had got from Gylle. All the time King Sigurd lived,
Gylle seems to have had good recognition and protec-
tion from that famous man ; and, indeed, to have
gained favour all round, by his quiet social demeanour
and the qualities he shewed.

CHAPTER XIII.

MAGNUS THE BLIND, HARALD GYLLE, AND MUTUAL
EXTINCTION OF THE HAARFAGRS.

On Sigurd the Crusader's death, Magnus naturally
came to the throne ; Gylle keeping silence and a
cheerful face for the time. But it was not long till
claim arose on Gylle's part, till war and fight arose
between Magnus and him, till the skilful, popular,
ever- active and shifty Gylle had entirely beaten
Magnus ; put out his eyes ; mutilated the poor body
of him in a horrid and unnameable manner, and shut
him up in a convent as out of the game henceforth.
There in his dark misery Magnus lived now as a
monk ; called ■ Magnus the Blind " by those Norse
populations ; King Harald Gylle reigning victoriously
in his stead. But this also was only for a time.
There arose avenging kinsfolk of Magnus, who had
no Irish accent in their Norse, and were themselves

186 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

eager enough to bear rule in their native country.
By one of these, a terribly strong-handed, fighting,
violent, and regardless fellow, who also was a Bastard
of Magnus Barefoot's, and had been made a Priest,
but liked it unbearably ill, and had broken loose from
it into the wildest courses at home and abroad ; so
that his current name got to be ' Slembi-diakn,' Slim
or 111 Deacon, under which he is much noised of in
Snorro and the Sagas: by this Slim-Deacon, Gylle
was put an end to (murdered by night, drunk in his
sleep) ; and poor blind Magnus was brought out, and
again set to act as King, or King's Cloak, in hopes
Gylle's posterity would never rise to victory more.
But Gylle's posterity did, to victory and also to
defeat, and were the death of Magnus and of Slim-
Deacon too, in a frightful way; and all got their own
death by and by in a ditto. In brief, these two
kindreds (reckoned to be authentic enough Haarfagr
people, both kinds of them) proved now to have
become a veritable crop of dragon's teeth; who
mutually fought, plotted, struggled, as if it had been
their life's business; never ended fighting, and
seldom long intermitted it, till they had exterminated

MAGNUS THE BLIND AND HARALD GYLLE. 187

one another, and did at last all rest in death. One
of these later Gylle temporary Kings I remember by
the name of Harald Herdebred, Harald with the
Broad Shoulders. The very last of them I think was
Harald Mund (Harald with the Wry-Mouth), who
gave rise to two Impostors, pretending to be Sons of
his, a good while after the poor Wry-Mouth itself and
all its troublesome belongings were quietly under-
ground. What Norway suffered during that sad
century may be imagined.

CHAPTER XIY.

SVERRIR AND DESCENDANTS, TO HAKON THE OLD.

The end of it was, or rather the first abatement,
and beginning of the end, That, when all this had
gone on ever worsening for some forty years or so,
one Sverrir (a.d. 1177), at the head of an armed mob
of poor people called Birkebeins, came upon the scene.
A strange enough figure in History, this Sverrir and
his Birkebeins ! At first a mere mockery and dismal
laughing-stock to the enlightened Norway public.
Nevertheless by unheard of fighting, hungering, exer-
tion and endurance, Sverrir, after ten years of such
a death- wrestle against men and things, got himself
accepted as King ; and by wonderful expenditure of
ingenuity, common cunning, unctuous Parliamentary
Eloquence or almost Popular Preaching, and (it must
bo owned) general human faculty and valour (or
value) in the overclouded and distorted state, did

SVERRIR AND DESCENDANTS, TO HAKON. 189

victoriously continue such. And founded a New
Dynasty in Norway, which ended only with Norway's
separate existence, after near three hundred years.

This Sverrir called himself a Son of Harald Wry-
Mouth ; hut was in reality the son of ^a poor Comb-
maker in some little town of Norway ; nothing heard
of Sonship to Wry-Mouth till after good success
otherwise. His Birkebeins (that is to say, Birchlegs ;
the poor rebellious wretches having taken to the
woods; and been obliged, besides their intolerable
scarcity of food, to thatch their bodies from the cold
with whatever covering could be got, and their legs
especially with birch bark ; sad species of fleecy
hosiery ; whence their nickname), — his Birkebeins I
guess always to have been a kind of Norse Jacquerie :
desperate rising of thralls and indigent people, driven
mad by their unendurable sufferings and famishings,
— theirs the deepest stratum of misery, and the
densest and heaviest, in this the general misery of
Norway, which had lasted towards the third genera-
tion and looked as if it would last forever : — where-
upon they had risen proclaiming, in this furious dumb
manner, ^^intelligible except to Heaven, that the

190 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

same could not, nor would not be endured any-
longer ! And, by their Sverrir, strange to say, they
did attain a kind of permanent success ; and, from
being a dismal laughing-stock in Norway, came to be
important, and for a time all-important there. Their
opposition nicknames, ' Baglers (from Bagall, baculus,
bishop's staff; Bishop Nicholas being chief Leader)/
' Gold-legs/ and the like obscure terms (for there was
still a considerable course of counter-fighting ahead,
and especially of counter-nick-naming), I take to
have meant in Norse prengurement seven centuries
ago, ' bloated Aristocracy,' * tyrannous Bourgeoisie,'
— till, in the next century, these rents were closed
again ! —

King Sverrir, not himself bred to comb-making,
had, in his fifth year, gone to an uncle, Bishop in
the Faroe Islands ; and got some considerable educa-
tion from him, with a view to Priesthood on the part
of Sverrir. But, hot liking that career, Sverrir had
fled and smuggled himself over to the Birkebeins;
who, noticing the learned tongue, and other
miraculous qualities of the man, proposed to make
him Captain of them; and even threatened to kill

SVERRIR AND DESCENDANTS, TO HAKON. 191

him if lie would not accept, — which thus at the
sword's point, as Sverrir says, he was obliged to do.
It was after this that he thought of becoming son of
Wry-Mouth and other higher things.

His Birkebeins and he had certainly a talent of
campaigning which has hardly ever been equalled.
They fought like devils against any odds of number ;
and before battle they have been known to march six
days together without food, except, perhaps, the inner
barks of trees, and in such clothing and shoeing as
mere birch bark : — at one time, somewhere in the
Dovrefjeld, there was serious counsel held among
them whether they should not all, as one man,
leap down into the frozen gulphs and precipices, or at
once massacre one another wholly, and so finish.
Of their conduct in battle, fiercer than that of Bare-
sarks, where was there ever seen the parallel ? In
truth they are a dim strange object to one, in that
black time ; wondrously bringing light into it withal ;
and proved to be, under such unexpected circum-
stances, the beginning of better days !

Of Sverrir's public speeches there still exist au-
thentic specimens ; wonderful indeed, and much cha-

192 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

racteristic of such a Sverrir. A comb-maker King,
• evidently meaning several good and solid things ; and
effecting them too, athwart such an element of Nor-
wegian chaos- come- again. His descendants and suc-
cessors were a comparatively respectable kin. The
last and greatest of them I shall mention is Hakon
VII., or Hakon the Old ; whose fame is still lively
among us, from the Battle of Largs at least.

CHAPTER XV.

HAKON THE OLD AT LARGS.

In the Norse annals our famous Battle of Largs

makes small figure, or almost none at all among

Hakon's battles and feats. They do say indeed,

these Norse annalists, that the King of Scotland,

Alexander III. (who had such a fate among the

crags about Kinghorn in time coming), -was very

anxious to purchase from King Hakon his sovereignty

of the Western Isles; but that Hakon pointedly

refused ; and at length, being again importuned and

bothered on the business, decided on giving a refusal

that could not be mistaken. Decided, namely, to go

with a big expedition, and look thoroughly into that

wing of his Dominions ; where no doubt much has

fallen awry since Magnus Barefoot's grand visit

thither, and seems to be inviting the cupidity of bad

neighbours! "All this we will put right again,"

o

194 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

thinks Hakon, "and gird it up into a safe and de-
fensive posture." Hakon sailed accordingly, with a
strong fleet; adjusting and rectifying among his
Hebrides as he went long, and landing withal on
the Scotch coast to plunder and punish as he thought
fit. The Scots say he had claimed of them Arran,
Bute, and the Two Cumbraes ("given my ancestors
by Donald Bain," said Hakon, to the amazement of
the Scots) " as part of the Sudoer " (Southern Isles) :
— so far from selling that fine kingdom ! — and that it
was after taking both Arran and Bute that he made
his descent at Largs.

Of Largs there is no mention whatever in Norse
books. But beyond any doubt, such is the other
evidence, Hakon did land there ; land and fight, not
conquering, probably rather beaten; and very cer-
tainly 'retiring to his ships,' as in either case he
behoved to do ! It is further certain he was dread-
fully maltreated by the weather on those wild coasts ;
and altogether credible, as the Scotch records bear,
that he was so at Largs very specially. The Norse
Records or Sagas say merely, he lost many of his
ships by the tempests, and many of his men by land

HAKON THE OLD AT LARGS. 195

fighting in various parts, — tacitly including Largs,
no doubt, which was the last of these misfortunes to
him. 'In the battle here he lost 15,000 men, say
the Scots, we 5,000 ' ! Divide these numbers by ten,
and the excellently brief and lucid Scottish summary
by Buchanan may be taken as the approximately
true and exact.* Date of the battle is a.d. 1263.

To this day, on a little plain to the south of the
village, now town, of Largs, in Ayrshire, there are
seen stone cairns and monumental heaps, and, until
within a century ago, one huge, solitary, upright
stone; still mutely testifying to a battle there, —
altogether clearly, to this battle of King Hakon's;
who by the Norse records, too, was in these neigh-
bourhoods at that same date, and evidently in an
aggressive, high kind of humour. For ' while his
) ships and army were doubling the Mull of Cantire,
'he had his own boat set on wheels, and therein,
'splendidly enough, had himself drawn across the
I Promontory at a flatter part,' no doubt with horns
sounding, banners waving. "All to the left of me
is mine and Norway's," exclaimed Hakon in his

* Buchanani Hist., i. 130.

o 2

19G EAKLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

triumphant boat progress, which such disasters soon
followed.

Hakon gathered his wrecks together, and sorrow-
fully made for Orkney. It is possible enough, as
our Guide Books now say, he may have gone by
Ion a, Mull, and the narrow seas inside of Skye ; and
that the Kyle-Akin, favourably known to sea-bathers
in that region, may actually mean the Kyle (narrow
strait) of Hakon, where Hakon may have dropped
anchor, and rested for a little while in smooth water
and beautiful environment, safe from equinoctial
storms. But poor Hakon's heart was now broken.
He went to Orkney ; died there in the winter ; never
beholding Norway more.

He it was who got Iceland, which had been a
Republic for four centuries, united to his kingdom of
Norway : a long and intricate operation, — much pre-
sided over by our Snorro Sturleson, so often quoted
here, who indeed lost his -life (by assassination from
his sons-in-law) and out of great wealth sank at
once into poverty of zero, — one midnight in his own
cellar, in the course of that bad business. Hakon

HAKON THE OLD AT LAR(iS. 197

was a groat Politician in his time ; and succeeded in
many things before he lost Largs. Snorro's death
by murder had happened about twenty years before
Hakon's by broken heart. He is called Hakon the
Old, though one finds his age was but fifty-nine,
probably a longish life for a Norway King. Snorro's
narrative ceases when Snorro himself was born ; that
is to say, at the threshold of King Sverrir ; of whose
exploits and doubtful birth it is guessed by some that
Snorro willingly forbore to speak in the hearing of
such a Hakon.

CHAPTER XYI.

EPILOGUE.

Haarfagr's kindred lasted some three centuries
in. Norway; Sverrir's lasted into its third century
there ; how long after this, among the neighbouring
kinships, I did not enquire. For, by regal affinities,
consanguinities, and unexpected chances and changes,
the three Scandinavian kingdoms fell all peaceably
together under Queen Margaret, of the Calmar Union
(a.d. 1397) ; and Norway, incorporated now with
Denmark, needed no more kings.

The History of these Haarfagrs has awakened in
me many thoughts : Of Despotism and Democracy,
arbitrary government by one, and self-government
(which means no government, or anarchy) by all;
of Dictatorship with many faults, and Universal
Suffrage with little possibility of any virtue. For
the contrast between Olaf Tryggveson and a Uni-

EPILOGUE. 190

versal-Suffragc Parliament or an ' Imperial ' Copper
Captain has, in these nine centuries, grown to be very
great. And the eternal Providence that guides all
this, and produces alike these entities with their
epochs, is not its course still through the great deep ?
Docs not it still speak to us, if we have cars ? Here,
clothed in stormy enough passions and instincts, un-
conscious of any aim hut their own satisfaction, is
the blessed beginning of Human Order, Eegulation,
and real Government ; there, clothed in a highly
different, but again suitable garniture of passions,
instincts, and equally unconscious as to real aim, is
the accursed-looking ending (temporary ending) of
Order, Regulation, and Government; — very dismal
to the sane onlooker for the time being ; not dismal
to him otherwise, his hope, too, being stedfast ! But
here, at any rate, in this poor Norse theatre, one
looks with interest on the first transformation^
so mysterious and abstruse, of human Chaos into
something of articulate Cosmos ; witnesses the
wild and strange birth-pangs of Human Society,
and reflects that without something similar (little
as men expect such now), no Cosmos of human

200 • EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

society ever was got into existence, nor can ever
again be.

The violences, fightings, crimes — ah yes, these
seldom fail, and they are very lamentable. But
always, too, among those old populations, there was
one saving element; the now want of which, espe-
cially the unlamented want, transcends all lamenta-
tion. Here is one of those strange, piercing, winged-
words of Ruskin, which has in it a terrible truth for
us in these epochs now come :

' My friends, the follies of modern Liberalism, many
' and great though they be, are practically summed in
' this denial or neglect of the quality and intrinsic
' value of things. Its rectangular beatitudes, and
' spherical benevolences, — theology of universal indul-
1 gence, and jurisprudence which will hang no rogues,
' mean, one and all of them, in the root, incapacity of
1 discerning, or refusal to discern, worth and unworth
1 in anything, and least of all in man ; whereas Nature
' and Heaven command you, at your peril, to discern
' worth from unworth in everything, and most of all
'in man. Your main problem is that ancient and
* trite one, " Who is best man ? " and the Fates for-

EPILOGUE. 20]

'give much, — forgive the wildest, fiercest, cruellest
1 experiments, — if fairly made for the determination
' of that. Theft and hloodguiltiness are not pleasing
•in their sight; yet the favouring powers of the
'spiritual and material world will confirm to you
1 your stolen goods, and their noblest voices applaud

* the lifting of your spear, and rehearse the sculpture
' of your shield, if only your robbing and slaying have

* been in fair arbitrament of that question, " Who is
1 best man ? " But if you refuse such enquiry, and
' maintain every man for his neighbour's match, — if
1 you give vote to the simple and liberty to the vile,
' the powers of those spiritual and material worlds in
' due time present you inevitably with the same pro-
' blem, soluble now only wrong side upwards ; and
1 your robbing and slaying must be done then to find
i out, " Who is worst man ? n Which, in so wide an
' order of merit, is, indeed, not easy ; but a complete
' Tammany Ring, and lowest circle in the Inferno of

* Worst, you arc sure to find, and to be governed by.' *

All readers will admit that there was something

* Fors Clavigcra, Letter XIV. pp. 8-10.

202 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY.

naturally royal in these Haarfagr Kings. A wildly
great kind of kindred ; counts in it two Heroes of a
high, or almost highest, type : the first two Olafs,
Tryggveson and the Saint. And the view of them,
withal, as we chance to have it, I have often thought,
how essentially Homeric it was: — indeed what is
' Homer ' himself hut the Rhapsody of five centuries
of Greek Skalds and wandering Ballad-singers, done
(i.e. i stitched together ') hy somebody more musical
than Snorro was ? Olaf Tryggveson and Olaf Saint-
please me quite as well in their prosaic form ; offering-
me the truth of them as if seen in their real linea-
ments hy some marvellous opening (through the art
of Snorro) across the black strata of the ages. Two
high, almost among the highest sons of Nature, seen
as they veritably were ; fairly comparable or superior
to god-like Achilleus, goddess-wounding Dioinedcs,
much more to the two Atreidai, Regulators of the
Peoples.

I have also thought often what a Book might be
made of Snorro, did there but arise a man furnished
with due literary insight, and indefatigable diligence \
who, faithfully acquainting himself with the topo-

EPILOGUE. 203

graphy, the monumental relics and illustrative actuali-
ties of Norway, carefully scanning the best testimonies
as to place and time which that country can still give
him, carefully the best collateral records and chrono-
logies of other countries, and who, himself possessing
the highest faculty of a Poet, could, abridging, arrang-
ing, elucidating, reduce Snorro to a polished Cosmic-
state, unweariedly purging away his much chaotic-
matter ! A modern ' highest kind of Poet/ capable
of unlimited slavish labour withal ; — who, I fear, is
not soon to be expected in this world, or likely to find
his task in the Hcimskringla if he did appear here.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

THE

POETEAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

I.
Theodore Beza, in the beginning of the year
1580, published at Geneva a well-printed, clearly
expressed, and on the whole considerate and honest
little Volume, in the Latin tongue, purporting to be
' Icones, that is to say, true Portraits, of men illus-
* trious in the Reformation of Religion and Restora-
1 tion of Learning : ' * Volume of perhaps 250 pages,
but in fact not numerically paged at all, which is
sometimes described as 4to, but is in reality 8vo

* Icones, id est Verve Imagines, Virorum clod rind simul et piehi.tr
■illustrium, quorum pracipuc minislerio partim bonarum Litcrarum
stuclia sunt restituta, partim vera Religio in variis Orbis Christ in ui
rcgionibus, nostra patrumquc memorid fuit instaurata : odditis
coraudem vitccd: operce descriptionibus, quibus adiectcc sunt nonnulhr
pictures quas Emblcmata vocant. Theodoro Bezd Auctore. — Geneva.
Apud Joanncm Laonium. M.D.LXXX.

210 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

rather, though expanded by the ample margin into
something of a square form. It is dedicated to King
James VI. of Scotland ; then a small rather watery
boy hardly yet fourteen, but the chief Protestant
King then extant ; the first Icon of all being that of
James himself. The Dedication has nothing the
least of fulsome or even panegyrical ; and is in fact
not so much a Dedication as a longish preface, ex-
planatory of Beza's impulse towards publishing such
a book, namely, the delight he himself has in con-
templating the face of any heroic friend of Letters
and of true Religion; and defending himself withal,
to us superfluously enough, against any imputation
of idolatry or image-worship, which scrupulous critics
might cast upon him, since surely painting and en-
graving are permissible to mankind ; and that, for
the rest, these Icons are by no means to be introduced
into God's House, but kept as private furniture in
your own. The only praise he bestows on James is
the indisputable one that he is head of a most Pro-
testant nation; that he is known to have fine and
most promising faculties; which may God bring to
perfection, to the benefit of his own and many nations ;

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 211

of which there is the better hope, as he is in the
meanwhile under the tuition of two superlative men,
Dominus Georgius Buchananus, the facile prmoeps
in various literary respects, and Dominus Petrus
Junius (or Jonck, as it is elsewhere called, meaning
1 Young/) also a man of distinguished merits.

The Royal Icon, which stands on the outside, and
precedes the Dedication, is naturally the first of all :
fit ornament to the vestibule of the whole work —
a half ridiculous half pathetic protecting genius, of
whom this (overleaf) is the exact figure.

Some Four Score other personages follow ; of per-
sonages four score, but of Icons only Thirty-eight;
Beza, who clearly had a proper wish to secure true
portraits, not having at his command any further
supply ; so that in forty- three cases there is a mere
frame of a wood-cut, with nothing but the name of
the individual who should have filled it, given.

A certain French translator of the Book, who
made his appearance next year, Simon Goulart, a
French friend, fellow preacher, and distinguished co-
presbyter of Beza's, of whom there will be much
farther mention soon, seems to have been better

p 2

212

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

supplied than Beza with engravings. He has added
from his own resources Eleven new Icons ; many of

them better than the average of Beza's, and of
special importance some of them; for example that

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 21.']

of Wickliffe, the deep-lying tap-root of the whole
tree ; to want whose Portrait and have nothing but
a name to offer was surely a want indeed. Goulart's
Wickliffe gratifies one not a little ; and to the open-
minded reader who has any turn for physiognomic
inquiries is very interesting ; a most substantial and
effective looking man; easily conceivable as Wick-
liffe, though, as in my own case, one never saw a
portrait of him before; a solid, broad-browed, massive-
headed man; strong nose, slightly aquiline, beard
of practical length and opulent growth; evidently
a thoughtful, cheerful, faithful and resolute man ;
to whom indeed a very great work was appointed
in this world ; that of inaugurating the new Reforma-
tion and new epoch in Europe, with results that
have been immense, not yet completed but expanding
in our own day with an astonishing, almost alarming
swiftness of development. This is among the shortest
of all the Icon articles or written commentaries in
Beza's Work. We translate it entire, as a specimen
of Beza's well-meant, but too often vague, and mostly
inane performance in these enterprises ; which to the
most zealous reader of his own time could leave so

214 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

little of distinct information, and to most readers of
our own, none at all; the result little more than
interjectional, a pious emotion towards Heaven and
the individual mentioned ; result very vague indeed.

Wickliffe. — 'Let this, England, be thy greatest
' honour forever that thou didst produce John Wick-
'liffe (albeit thou hast since somewhat stained that
' honour) ; the first after so many years that dared to de-
' clare war against the Roman Harlot, who audaciously
' mocked the Kings of Europe, intoxicated with her
' strong drink. This effort was so successful that ever
' since that Wicked One has been mortally wounded
1 by the blow which Wickliffe by the sword of the
1 Word of God dealt to her. And although for a time
' the wound appeared' to be closed, since then it has
* always burst open again ; and finally, by the grace
' of God, remains incurable. Nothing was wanting
' to thee, excellent champion, except the martyr's
' crown ; which not being able to obtain in thy
' life, thou didst receive forty years after thy death,
' when thy bones were burnt to powder by Antichrist ;
\ who by that single act of wickedness has forever

THE POItTBAITS OF JOHN KNOX. lil.">

'branded himself with the stamp of cruelty, and
'has acquired for thee a glory so much the more
4 splendid.

' John Wickliffe flourished in the year 1372. He
'died after diverse combats, in the year 1387. His
' bones were burnt at Oxford in the year 1410.'

No not at Oxford, but at Lutterworth in Leicester-
shire, as old Fuller memorably tells us: 'Such the
' spleen of the Council of Constance,' says he, ' they
' not only cursed his memory, as dying an obstinate
1 heretic, but ordered that his bones (with this charit-
' able caution, " if it/' the body, " may be discerned
' from the bodies of other faithful people,") be taken
' out of the ground and thrown far off from any
' Christian burial. In obedience hereunto, Richard
'Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, Diocesan of Luttcr-
' worth, sent his officers (vultures with a quick-sight
' scent at a dead carcase) to ungrave him accordingly.
'To Lutterworth they come, Sumner, Commissary
' Official, Chancellor, Proctors, Doctors, and the
' servants (so that the remnant of the body would not
hold out a bone against so many hands), take what
' was left out of the grave and burnt them to ashes,

*v"

216 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

' and cast them into Swift, a neighbouring brook
' running hard by. Thus this brook hath conveyed
' his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into
' the narrow Seas, and they into the main Ocean.
' And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of
'his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world
* over.'*

Beza's selection of subjects to figure in this book of
Icons is by no means of fanatically exclusive, or even
straitlaced character. Erasmus, a tolerably good
portrait, and a mild, laudatory, gentle and apologetic
account of the man, is one of his figures. The
Printers, Etiennc, Froben, for their eximious services
in the cause of good letters, bonarnm Utcrarum ; nay
King Francis I. is introduced in gallant beaver and
plume, with his surely very considerable failings well
veiled in shadow, and hardly anything but eulogy, on
the score of his beneficences to the Paris University,
— and probably withal of the primitive fact that he
was Beza's King. 'Sham Bishops, pseudo-episcopi,'
1 cruel murderers of God's messengers,' ' servants of
Satan/ and the like hard terms are indeed never
* Fuller's CJnirch History, Section ii. Book iv.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 217

wanting ; but on the whole a gentle and quiet frame
of mind is traceable in Beza throughout ; — and one
almost has the suspicion that, especially as his stock
both of Icons and of facts is so poor, one considerable
subsidiary motive to the publication may have been
the Forty Emblems, 'picture quae Emblemata tocant,'
pretty little engravings, and sprightly Latin verse,
which follow on these poor prose Icons ; and testify to
all the intelligent world that Beza's fine poetic vein is
still flowing, and without the much- censured erotic, or
other impure elements, which caused so much scandal
in his younger days.

About the middle of the Book turns up a brief,
vague eulogy of the lleformation iu Scotland, with
only two characters introduced ; Patrick Hamilton,
the Scottish proto-martyr, as second in the list ; and,
in frank disregard of the chronology, as first and
leading figure, ' Johannes Cnoxus Giffordiensis Scotus * ;
and to the surprise of every reader acquainted with
the character of Knox, as written indelibly, and in
detail, in his words and actions legible to this day, the
following strange Icon ; very difficult indeed to accept
as a bodily physiognomy of the man you have elsewhere

218

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

got an image of for yourself, by industrious study of
these same.

IOANNES CNOXVS-

Surely quite a surprising individual to have kindled
all Scotland, within few years, almost within few

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 219

months into perhaps the noblest flame of sacred
human zeal, and brave determination to believe only
what it found completely believable, and to defy the
whole world and the devil at its back, in unsubduable
defence of the same. Here is a gentleman seemingly
of a quite eupeptic, not to say stolid and thoughtless
frame of mind ; much at his ease in Zion, and content
to take things as they come, if only they will let him
digest his victuals, and sleep in a whole skin. Knox,
. you can well perceive, in all his writings and in all
his way of life, was emphatically of Scottish build ;
eminently a national specimen ; in fact what we
might denominate the most Scottish of Scots, and to
this day typical of all the qualities which belong
nationally to the very choicest Scotsmen we have
known, or had clear record of: utmost sharpness of
discernment and discrimination, courage enough, and,
what is still better, no particular consciousness of
courage, but a readiness in all simplicity to do and
dare whatsoever is commanded by the inward voice of
native manhood ; on the whole a beautiful and simple
but complete incompatibility with whatever is false in
word or conduct; inexorable contempt and detestation

220 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

of what in modern speech is called humbug. Nothing
hypocritical, foolish or untrue can find harbour in this
man ; a pure, and mainly silent, tenderness of affection
is in him, touches of genial humour are not wanting
under his severe austerity ; an occasional growl of
sarcastic indignation against malfeasance, falsity, and
stupidity; indeed secretly an extensive fund of that
disposition, kept mainly silent, though inwardly in
daily exercise ; a most clear-cut, hardy, distinct and
effective man ; fearing God and without any other
fear. Of all this you in vain search for the smallest
trace in this poor Icon of Beza's. No feature of a
Scottish man traceable there, nor indeed, you would
say, of any man at all ; an entirely insipid, expression-
less individuality, more like the wooden Figure-head
of a ship than a living and working man ; highly un-
acceptable to every physiognomic reader and knower
of Johannes Cnoxus Giffordiensis Scotus.

Under these circumstances it is not a surprise, and
is almost a consolation, to find that Beza has as little
knowledge of Knox's biography as of his natural face.
Nothing here, or hardly anything but a blotch of
ignorant confusion- The year of Knox's birth is

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. SJ21

unknown to Beza, the place very indistinctly known.
Beza reports him to have studied with great distinc-
tion under John Major at St. Andrews; the fact
heing that he was one winter under Major at Glasgow,
but never under Major at St. Andrews, nor ever a
university student elsewhere at all ; that his admired
neological prelections at St. Andrews are a creature of
the fancy ; and in short that Beza's account of that
early period is mere haze and ignorant hallucination.
Having received the order of priesthood, thinks Beza,
he set to lecturing in a so valiantly neological tone
in Edinburgh and elsewhere that Cardinal Beaton
could no longer stand it ; but truculently summoned
him to appear in Edinburgh on a given day, and give
account of himself; whereupon Knox, evading the
claws of this man-eater, secretly took himself away
' to Hamcstonum? — a town or city unknown to geo-
graphers, ancient or modern, but which, according to
Beza, was then and there the one refuge of the pious,
unicum tunc piorum asylum. Towards this refuge
Cardinal Beaton thereupon sent assassins (entirely
imaginary), who would for certain have cut off Knox
in his early spring, had not God's providence com-

222 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

mended him to the care of ' Langudrius, a principal
nohleman in Scotland/ by whom his precious life was
preserved. This town of ' Hamestonum, sole refuge of
the pious,' and this protective ■ Langudrius, a prin-
cipal nobleman/ are extremely wonderful to the
reader ; and only after a little study do you discover
that 'Langudrius, a principal nobleman' is simply
the Laird of Langniddry, and that ' Hamestonum ' the
city of refuge is Cockburn the Laird of Ormistons ;
both of whom had Sons in want of education ; three
in all, two of Langniddry's and one of Ormiston's,
who, especially the first, had been lucky enough to
secure John Knox's services as tutor ! The rest of
the narrative is almost equally absurd, or only saved
from being so by its emptiness and vagueness ; and
the one certain fact we come upon is that of Knox's
taking leave of his congregation, and shortly after-
wards ordaining in their presence his successor, chosen
by them and him, followed by his death in fifteen
days, dates all accurately given ; on which latter
point, what is curious to consider, Beza must have
had exact information, not mere rumour.

From all this we might infer that Beza had never

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 223

personally had the least acquaintance with Knox,
never in all likelihood seen him with eyes; which
latter on strict examination of the many accurate par-
ticulars to he found in the Lives of Beza, and espe-
cially in Bayle's multifarious details about him, comes
to' seem your legitimate conclusion. Knox's journeys
to Geneva, and his two several residences, as preacher
to the Church of the English Exiles there, do not
coincide with Bcza's contemporary likelihoods ; nor
does Beza seem to have been a person whom Knox
would have cared to seek out. Beza was at Lau-
sanne, teaching Greek, and not known otherwise than
as a much- censured, fashionable young Frenchman
and too erotic Poet ; nothing of theological had yet
come from him, — except, while Knox was far off,
the questionable Apology for Calvin's burning of
Servetus, which cannot have had much charm for
Knox, a man by no means fond of public burning
as an argument in matters of human belief, rather
the reverse by all symptoms we can trace in him.
During Knox's last and most important ministration
in Geneva, Beza, still officially Professor of Greek
at Lausanne, was on an intricate mission from the

224 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

French Huguenots to the Protestant Princes of Ger-
many, and did not come to settle in Geneva till
Spring 1559, several months after Knox had per-
manently left it.

Directly after finishing his Book, Beza naturally
forwarded a copy to Edinburgh, to the little patron
Sovereign there ; probably with no writing in it ;
there being such a comfortable Dedication and Fron-
tispiece to the Book, but along with it a short letter
to Buchanan, the little King's Head-tutor, of which
happily there is a copy still preserved to us, and
ready translated, as follows :

' Behold, my dear Buchanan, a notable instance of
'double extravagance in a single act; affording an
' illustration of the characteristic phrenzy of poets, —
'provided you admit me to a participation of that
' title. I have been guilty of trifling with a serious
*■ subject, and have dedicated my trifles to a king. If
'with your usual politeness, and in consideration
'of our ancient friendship, you should undertake to
' excuse both these circumstances to the King, I trust
' the matter will have a fortunate issue : but if you
' refuse, I shall be disappointed in my expectations.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 225

' The scope of this little work, such as it is, you will

* learn from the preface ; namely that the King, when
\ he shall be aware of the high expectations which he
\ has excited in all the Churches, may at the same
'time, delighted with those various and excellent
1 examples, become more and more familiar with his

* duty. Of this Work I likewise send a copy to you,
' that is, owls to Athens ; and request you to -accept
'it as a token of my regard. My late Paraphrase
' of the Psalms, if it has reached your country, will
'I hope inspire you with the design of reprinting
'your own, to the great advantage of the Church:
'and, believe me, it is not so much myself as the
'whole Church that entreats you to accelerate this
'scheme. Farewell, excellent man. May the Lord
'Jesus bless your hoary hairs more and more, and
' long preserve you for our sake. — Geneva, March the
'sixteenth, 1580.'*

What Buchanan or the King thought of this Book,
especially of the two Icons, Johannes Cnoxus and the
little silver Pepper-box of a King, we have not any-

* Buchanani Epistolce, p. 28. Translated by Dr. Irving, Life
and Writings of George Buchanan (Edinburgh, 1807), p. 184.

Q

226 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

where the slightest intimation. But one little fact,
due to the indefatigable scrutiny and great knowledge
of Mr. David Laing, seems worthy of notice. This is
an excerpt from the Scottish Royal Treasurer's ac-
counts, of date, Junij 1581 (one of the volumes not
yet printed) :

' Itim> To Adrianc Yaensoun, Fleming painter, for
' twa picturis painted be him, and send ' (sent) ' to
' Theodorus Besa, conforme to ane precept as the
1 samin producit upon compt beris 8/ 10s ' (14s. 2d.
sterling).

The Itmi and Adrians indicate a clerk of great
ignorance. In Painters' Dictionaries there is no such
name as Vaensoun; but there is a famous enough
Vansomer, or even family or clan of Yansomers,
natives of Antwerp ; one of whom, Paulus Vansomer,
is well known to have painted with great acceptance
at King James's Court in England (from 1606 to
1620). He died here in 1621 ; and is buried in St-
Martin's-in-the-Fields : Eximius pictor. It is barely
possible this ' Fleming painter ' may have been some
individual of these Vansomers ; but of course the fact
can never be ascertained. Much more interesting

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 227

would it be to know what Theodorus Beza made of
the ' twa picturis ' when they reached him at Geneva ;
and where, if at all in rerum naturd, they now are !
All we can guess, if there be any possibility of con-
jecturing so much in the vague is, That these twa
picturis might be portraits of His Majesty and
Johannes Cnoxus by an artist of some real ability,
intended as a silent protest against the Beza Pepper-
box and Figure-head, in case the Icones ever came to
a second edition ; which it never did.

Unknown to his Scottish Majesty, and before the
* Adrianc Yaensoun ' pictures got under way, or at
least before they were paid for, Monsieur Simon Gou-
lart had got out his French translation of Beza's
Book ; and with sufficient emphasis contradicted one
of the above two Icons, that of ' Jean Cnoxe de Gif-
ford en Ecosse/ the alone important of the two.
Goulart had come to Geneva some eight or nine years
before; was at this time Beza's esteemed colleague
and co-presbyter, ultimately Beza's successor in the
chief clerical position at Geneva ; a man already distin-
guished in the world ; ' wrote twenty-one books/ then
of lively acceptance in the theological or literary world,

Q2

228 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

though now fallen dim enough to mankind. Goulart's
Book had the same publisher as Beza's last year, —
Apnd Joannem Laonium ; and contains a kind of pre-
face or rather postscript, for it is introduced at the end
of the Icons, and before his translation of the Em-
blems, which latter, as will be seen, he takes no notice
of; nor in regard to the Icons is there a word said of
the eleven new woodcuts, for most part of superior
quality, which Goulart had furnished to his illustrious
friend; but only some apology for the straggle of
French verses, which he has been at the pains to in-
troduce in his own zealous person at the end of many
of the Icons. As the piece is short, and may slightly
illustrate the relations of Author and Translator, we
give it here entire :

' An Lectenr.
' Bu consentement deM. Theodore de Besze,fay tra-

* duit ce livre, le plus fidelement qiCil m'a este p>ossible.
i An reste, apres la description des personnes ilhtstres
'J'ai adjonste quelques vers frangais a cliacun, expri-
' mant comme J'ai pen les epigrammes Latins de Vautexir
1 Id oil Us se sont rencontrez, et foumissant les antres

* vers de ma rude invention : ce qiiefay voulu vousfaire

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 229

* entendre, afin qxCon riimputast d Vauteur choses qu'il
1 east pen, agencer trop mieux sans comparison, ft le

* temps lui eust perm-is ce /aire, et si son esprit eust cn-
1 cline a y mettre la main.1

Goulart's treatment of his, Beza's, original is of the
most conscientious exactitude ; the translation every-
where correct to a comma ; true everywhere to Beza's
meaning, and wherever possible, giving a touch of new
lucidity ; he uses the same woodcuts that Beza did,
plus only his own eleven, of which, as already said,
there is no mention or hint. In one instance, and not
in any other, has an evident misfortune befallen him,
in the person of his printer ; the printer had two wood-
cuts to introduce ; one of Jean Diaze, — a tragic Spanish
Protestant, fratricidally murdered at ISTeuburg in the
Oberpfalz, 1546, — the other of Melchior Wolmar, an
early German friend and loved intimate of Beza's,
from whom Beza, at Orleans, had learned Greek : the
two Icons in outline have a certain vague similarity,
which had deceived the too hasty printer of Goulurt,
who, after inserting Beza's Icon of Diaze, again inserts
it, instead of Wolmar. This is the one mistake or

230 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

palpable oversight discoverable in Goulart's accurately
conscientious labour, which everywhere else repro-
duces Beza as in a clear mirror. But there is one
other variation, not, as seems to us, by mere oversight
of printer or pressman, but by clear intention on the
part of Goulart, which is of the highest interest to our
readers : the notable fact, namely, that Goulart has,
of his own head, silently altogether withdrawn the
Johannes Cnoxus of Beza, and substituted for it this
now adjoined Icon, one of his own eleven, which has
no relation or resemblance whatever to the Beza like-
ness, or to any other ever known of Knox. A portrait
recognisably not of Knox at all ; but of William Tyn-
dale translator -of the Bible, a fellow exile of Knox's
at Geneva ; which is found repeated in all manner of
collections, and is now everywhere accepted as Tyn-
dale's likeness !

This surely is a wonderful transaction on the part
of conscientious, hero-worshipping Goulart towards
his hero Beza ; and indeed will seem to most persons
to be explicable only on the vague hypothesis that
some old or middle-aged inhabitant of Geneva, who
had there sometimes transiently seen Knox, twenty-

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 231

one years ago (Knox had left Geneva in January
1559, and, preaching to a group of poor English

JEAN CNOX DE GIFTORD

EN ESCOSSE

exiles, probably was never very conspicuous there),
had testified to Beza or to Goulart that the Beza
Figure-head was by no means a likeness of Knox ;

232 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

which, fatal information, on enquiry, had been con-
firmed into clear proof in the negative, and that Beza
and Goulart had thereupon become convinced, and
Goulart, with Beza, taking a fresh, and again unfor-
tunate departure, had agreed that here was the real
Dromio, and had silently inserted William Tyndale
accordingly. This is only a vague hypothesis, for
why did not the old or middle-aged inhabitant of
Geneva testify with equal certainty that the Tyndale
woodcut was just as little a likeness of Knox, and
check Goulart and Beza in their new unfortunate
adventure ? But to us the conclusion, which is not
hypothetical at all, must surely be that neither Beza
nor Goulart had any knowledge whatever of the real
physiognomy or figure of Johannes Cnoxus, and in all
subsequent researches on that subject are to be con-
sidered mutually annihilative ; and any testimony they
could give mere zero, and of no account at all.

This, however, was by no means the result which
actually followed. Twenty-two years after this of
Beza (1602), a Dutch Theologian, one Yerheiden,
whose knowledge of theological Icons was probably
much more distinct than Bcza's, published at the

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 233

Hague a folio entitled Praestant'uim aliquot Thcolo-
gornm fyc. Effigies, in which Knox figures in the
following new form ; done, as the signature bears, by
Hondius, an Engraver of known merit, but cognizant
seemingly of Beza's Book only, and quite ignorant of
Goulart's translation and its Tyndale Knox; who
presents us, to our surprise, on this occasion, with the
portrait given over leaf ; considerably more alive and
credible as a human being than Beza's Figure-head ;
and bearing on it the monogram of Hondius ; so that
at least its authorship is indisputable.

This, as the reader sees, represents to us a much
more effective-looking man in matters of reformation
or vigorous action ; in fact it has a kind of brow-
beating or almost bullying aspect ; a decidedly self-
sufficient man, but with no trace of feature in him
that physiognomically can remind us of Knox. The
river of beard flowing from it is grander than that in
the Figure-head, and the Book there, with its right-
hand reminding you of a tied-up bundle of carrots
supporting a kind of loose little volume, are both
charitably withdrawn. This woodcut, it appears,
pleased the late Sir David Wilkje best of all the

234 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

Portraits he had seen, and was copied or imitated by

him in that notable Picture of his, ' Knox preaching

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 235

I before Queen Mary/ — one of the most impossible
pictures ever painted by a man of such indubitable
genius, including therein, piety, enthusiasm, and vera-
city,— in brief the probably intolerablest figure that
exists of Knox; and from one of the noblest of Scottish
painters the least expected. Such by accident was the
honour done tollondius's impossible Knox; not to our
advantage, but the contrary. All artists agree at once
that this of Hondius is nothing other than an improved
reproduction of the old Beza Figure-head ; the face is
turned to the other side, but the features are pre-
served, so far as adding some air at least of animal
life would permit ; the costume, carefully including
the little patch of ruffles under the jaw, is repro-
duced ; and in brief the conclusion is that Hondius or
Verheiden had no doubt but the Beza portrait,
though very dead and boiled-looking, had been essen-
tially like ; and needed only a little kindling up from
its boiled condition to be satisfactory to the reader.
Goulart's French Translation of Beza, and the substi-
tution of the Tyndale figure there, as we have said,
seems to be unknown to Verheiden and his Hondius ;
indeed Verheiden's library, once furnished with a

236 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

Beza, having no use for a poor Interpretation. In
fact we should rather guess the success of Goulart in
foreign parts, remote from Geneva and its reading
population, to have been inconsiderable ; at least in
Scotland and England, where no mention of it or
allusion to it is made, and where the Book at this
day is fallen extremely scarce in comparison with
Beza's ; no copy to be found in the British Museum,
and dealers in old books testifying that it is of extreme
rarity ; and would now bring, said one experienced-
looking old man, perhaps twenty, guineas. Beza's
boiled Figure-head appears to have been regarded as
the one canonical Knox, and the legitimate function
of every limner of Knox to be that of Hondius, the
reproduction of the Beza Figure-head, with such im-
provements and in vigor ations as Ins own best judgment
or happiest fancy might suggest. Of the Goulart
substitution of Tyndale for Knox, there seems to have
been no notice or remembrance anywhere, or if any,
then only a private censure and suppression of the
Goulart and his Tyndale. Meanwhile, such is the
. wild chaos of the history of bad prints, the whirligig
of time did bring about its revenge upon poor Beza.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 237

In Les Portraits des Rommes Illustres qui ont le plus
contribue au Retablissement des belles lettres et de la
vraye Religion (A Geneve, 1673), the woodcut of Knox
is contentedly given, as Goulart gave it in his French
Translation ; and for that of Beza himself the boiled
Figure-head, which Beza denominated Knox ! The
little silver Pepper-box is likewise given again there
as portrait of Jacobus VI., — Jacobus who had, in the
meantime, grown to full stature, and died some fifty
years ago. For not in nature, but only in some chaos
thrice confounded, with Egyptian darkness superadded,
is there to be found any history comparable to that of
old bad prints. For example, of that disastrous old
Figure-head, produced to view by Beza, who or what
did draw it, when or from what authority, if any,
except that evidently some human being did, and pre-
sumably from some original or other, must remain for-
ever a mystery. In a large Granger, fifty or sixty big
folios, and their thousands of prints, I have seen a
summary collection, of the latter part of Elizabeth's
reign, of some fourteen or fifteen Heroes of the
Reformation, Knox among them ; all flung down in
the form of big circular blotch, like the opened eggs

238 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHX KNOX.

for an omelet, and among these fourteen or fifteen
egg-yolks, hardly two of which you could determine
even what they wished to resemble.

For the last century or so, by far the most famed
and trusted of Scottish Knox Portraits has been that
in the possession of the Torphichen family, at Calder
House, some twelve or more miles from Edinburgh.
This Picture was public here in the Portrait Exhibi-
tion in 1869, and a photograph or attempt at photo-
graph was taken of it, but with little success, the
colours having mostly grown so black. By the great
kindness of the now Lord Torphichen, the Picture
was, with prompt and conspicuous courtesy, which I
shall not soon forget, sent up again for inspection here,
and examination by artistic judges ; and was accord-
ingly so examined and inspected by several persons of
eminence in that department; all of whom were,
almost at first sight, unanimous in pronouncing it to
be a picture of no artistic merit ; — impossible to
ascribe it to any nameable painter, having no style or
worth in it, as a painting ; guessable to be perhaps
under a century old, and very clearly an improved

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 239

copy from the Beza Figure-head. Of course no pho-
tographing was attempted on our part ; but along with
it there had been most obligingly sent a copy of the
late Mr. Penny of Calder's engraving ; a most meri-
torious and exact performance, of which no copy was
discoverable in the London shops, though, at Mr.
Graves's and elsewhere, were found one or two others
of much inferior exactitude to Mr. Penny's engraving :
— of this a photograph was taken, which, in the form
of woodcut, is on the next page subjoined.

This Torphichen Picture is essentially like the Beza
woodcut, though there has been a strenuous attempt
on the part of the hopelessly incompetent Painter to
improve upon it, successful chiefly in the matter of the
bunch of carrots, which is rendered almost like a
human hand ; for the rest its original at once declares
itself, were it only by the loose book held in said hand ;
by the form of the nose and the twirl of ruffles under
the left cheek ; clearly a bad picture, done in oil, some
generations ago, for which the Beza Figure-head
served as model, accidentally raised to pictorial
sovereignty by the vox populi of Scotland. On the
back of the canvas, in clear, strong hand, by all ap-

THE TORPHICHEN PORTRAIT.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 241

pearance less than a century old, are written these
words : ' Rev. Mr. John Knox. The first sacrament
' of the Supper given in Scotland after the Reforma-
1 tion, was dispensed by him in this hall.' A state-
ment, it appears, which is clearly erroneous, if that
were of much moment. The Picture as a guide to the
real likeness of Knox was judged by us to offer no help
whatever ; but does surely testify the Protestant zeal
of some departed Lord Torphichen ; and indeed it is
not improbable that the conspicuous fidelity of that
noble house in all its branches to Knox and his
Reformation, from first to last, through all his and its
perils and struggles, has been the chief cause of its
singular currency in Scotland, in the later generation
or two. Certain the picture is a poor and altogether
commonplace reproduction of the Beza Figure-head ;
and has nevertheless, as I am assured by judgments
better than my own, been the progenitor of all, or
nearly all, the incredible Knoxes, the name of which
is now legion. Nearly all, I said, not quite all, for
one or two set up to be originals, not said by whom,
and seem to partake more of the Hondius type ; having
a sullen or sulky expression superadded to the self-

242 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

sufficiency and copious river of beard, bestowed by
Hondius.

The so-called original Knox, still in Glasgow Uni-
versity, is thus described to me by a friendly Scottish
artist, Mr. Eobert Tait, Queen Anne Street, of good
faculties and opportunities in such things, as of doubt-
ful derivation from the Beza Icon, though engraved
and recommended as such by Pinkerton, and as being
an 'altogether weak and foolish head/ From the
same artist I also learn that the bronze figure in the
monument at Glasgow is a visible derivative from
Beza, through Torphichen. And in brief this poor
Figure-head has produced, and is still producing,
through various venters, a quite Protean pecns of
incredible portraits of Knox ; — the latest of note,
generally known, is M'Crie's frontispiece to the Life
of Knox, and probably the most widely spread in our
generation that given in Chambers's Biographical
Dictionary. A current portrait, I suppose, of the last
century, although there is no date on it, ' in the pos-
' session of Miss Knox of Edinburgh, painted by De
' Vos,' has some air of generic difference, but is evi-
dently of filiality to Hondius or Torphichen withal ;

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 243

and as to its being painted by De Vos, there is no trace
of that left visible, nor of Miss Knox, the once pro-
prietress ; not to add, that there is a whole clan of
Dutch De Voses, and no Christian name for the Miss
Knox one. Another picture not without impressive-
ness has still its original in ^Holyrood House ; and is
thought to be of some merit and of a different clan
from the Torphichen ; but with a pair of compasses in
the hand of it, instead of a Bible ; and indeed has
been discovered by Mr. Laing to be the portrait of an
architect or master-builder, and to be connected merely
with the aedilities, not with the theologies of Holyrood
House. A much stranger ■ original Picture of Knox '
is still to be found in Hamilton Palace, but it repre-
sents unfortunately, not the Prophet of the Eeforma-
tion, but to all appearance the professional Merry
Andrew of that family. — Another artist friend of great
distinction, Mr. J. E. Boehm, sculptor, sums up his
first set of experiences, which have since been carried
to such lengths and depths, in these words, dated
January 28, 1874 :

1 I called to thank you for the loan of John Knox's
' portrait' (Engraving of the Somcrville, of which

R 2

244 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

there will be speech enough by-and-by), * and to beg
' you to do me the favour of looking at the sketches
' which I have modelled, and to give me your valu-
? able opinion about them. — I have just been to the
6 British Museum, and have seen engravings after
'four pictures of John Knox. The only one which
'looks done from nature, and a really characteristic
' portrait is that of which you have a print. It is I
'find from a picture "in the possession of Lord
' Somerville." Two more, which are very like each
* other in quality, and in quantity of beard and gar-
' ments, are, one in the possession of a Miss Knox of
' Edinburgh (painted by De Vos), the other at Calder
'House (Lord Torphichen's). The fourth, which is
' very bad, wherein he is represented laughing like a
' "Hofnarr" is from a painting in Hamilton Palace ;
' but cannot possibly have been the John Knox, as he
4 has a turned-up nose and looks funny.'

But enough now, and more than enough of the
soul-confusing spectacle of Proteus driving all his
monstrous flock, product of chaos, to view the lofty
mountains and the sane minds of men.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 245

II.

Will the reader consent, at this stage of our little
enterprise, to a few notices or excerpts direct from
Knox himself ; from his own writings and actions :
perhaps it may be possible from these, even on the
I part of outsiders and strangers to Knox, to catch some
glimpses of his inward physiognomy, though all
credible traces of his outward or bodily lineaments
appear hitherto to have fallen impossible. Here is a
small touch of mirth on the part of Knox, 'from whom
we are accustomed to expect very opposite things. It
is the report of a Sermon by one Arth, a Black or
Gray Friar of the St. Andrews neighbourhood, seem-
ingly a jocular person, though not without serious
ideas : Sermon, which was a discourse on ' Cursing '
(Clerical Excommunication), a thing the priests were
wonderfully given to at that time, had been preached
first in Dundee, and had got for poor Arth from cer-
tain jackmen of the Bishop of Brechin, instead of
applause, some hustling and even cuffing, followed by
menaces and threatened tribulation from the Bishop
himself ; till Arth got permission to deliver his sermon

246 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

again in the Kirk of St. Andrews to a distinguished
audience ; who voted the purport and substance of it
to be essentially true and justifiable. Here, at second
hand, is Knox's summary of the discourse, written
many years after.

' The theme ' {text) l of his sermon was " Yeritie is

* the strongest of all things." His discourse of Curs-
'ing was, That if it were rightly used, it was the
' most fearful thing upon the face of the earth ; for

* it was the very separation of man from God ; but
' that it should not be used rashly and for every light
' cause, but only against open and incorrigible sinners.
' But now (said he) the avarice of priests and the
1 ignorance of their office, has caused it altogether to
' be vilipended ; for the priest (said he) whose duty
1 and office is to pray for the people, stands up on
' Sunday and cries, "Ane has tynt a spurtil M (lost a
'porridge stick). "There is ane flail stolen from them
' beyond the burn." " The goodwife of the other side
'of the gate has tynt a horn spune" (lost a horn
1 spoon). " God's maleson and mine I give to them
f that knows of this gear and restores it not." How
■f the people mocked their cursing, he farther told a

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. L'47

' merry tale ; how, after a sermon he had made at

' Dumfermling, he came to a house where g<

1 were drinking their Sunday's penny, and he, being

* dry, asked drink. " Yes, Father, (said one of the

* gossips) ye shall have drink ; but ye maun first
' resolve ane doubt which is risen among us, to wit,
1 what servant will serve a man best on least ex-
' penses." " The good Angel (said I), who is man's

* keeper, who makes greatest service without ex-
4 penses." " Tush (said the gossip), we mean no so
1 high matters : we mean, what honest man will do
1 greatest service for least expenses ? " And while I
' was musing (said the Friar) what that should mean,
1 he said, " I see, Father, that the greatest clerks arc
' not the wisest men. Know ye not how the Bishops

* and their officials serve us husbandmen ? Will they
' not give to us a letter of Cursing for a plack," (sag,

* farthing English), "to last for a year, to curse all
' that look ower our dyke ? and that keeps our corn
' better nor the sleeping boy that will have three shil-
4 lings of fee, a sark and a pair of shoon " (shirt and
'pair of shoes) "in the year. And therefore, if their
1 cursing dow " (avail) " anything, we hold the Bishops

248 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

' best-cheap servants in that respect that are within
y the realm." ' *

Knox never heard this discourse himself ; far away
he, from Arth and St. Andrews at that time. But he
has contrived to make out of it and the circumstances
surrounding, a little picture of old Scotch life, bright
and real looking, as if by Teniers or Ostade.

Knox's first concern with anything of Public His-
tory in Scotland or elsewhere, and this as yet quite
private and noted only by himself, is his faithful com-
panionship of the noble martyr Wishart, in the final
days of his sore pilgrimage and battle in this world.
Wishart had been driven out of Scotland, while still
quite young, for his heretical proceedings ; and had
sought refuge in England ; had gained great love for
his fine character and qualities, especially during his
stay, of a year or more, in Cambridge University, as

* The Works of John Knox, collected and edited by David Laing
(the first complete, and perfectly annotated Edition ever given : a
highly meritorious, and, considering all the difficulties, intrinsic
and accidental, even a heroic Performance ; for which all Scotland,
and in a sense all the world, is debtor to Mr. Laing) ; 6 vols. Edin-
burgh, 1846-64 : i. p. 37 ct seq.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 249

one of his most ardent friends and disciples there,
Emery Tylney, still copiously testifies, in what is now
the principal record and extant biography of Wishart,
— still preserved in Foxe's Martyrology.

In consequence of the encouraging prospects that
had risen in Scotland, Wishart returned thither in
1546, and began preaching, at last publicly, in the
streets of Dundee, with great acceptance from the
better part of the population there. Perils and loud
menacings from official quarters were not wanting;
finally Wishart had moved to other safer places of
opportunity ; thence back to Dundee, where pestilence
was raging; and there, on impulse of his own con-
science only, had ' planted himself between the living
and the dead/ and been to many a terrestrial help
and comfort, — not to speak of a celestial. The pest
abating at Dundee, he went to East Lothian; and
there, with Haddington for head-quarters, and some
principal gentry, especially the Lairds of Langniddry
and Ormiston, protecting and encouraging, and beyond
all others with John Knox, tutor to these gentlemen's
sons, attending him, with the liveliest appreciation
and most admiring sympathy, — indeed acting, it

250 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

would seem, as Captain of his Body-guard. For it is
marked as a fact that the monstrous Cardinal Beaton
had in this case appointed a specific assassin, a devil-
serving Priest, to track Wishart diligently in these
journeyings about of his, which were often nocturnal
and opportune for such a thing, and, the sooner the
better, do him to death ; and on the one clear glimpse
allowed us of Knox, it was he that carried the * two-
handed sword' provided for Wishart's safety against
such chances. This assassin project against Wishart
is probably the origin of Beza's notion about Beaton's
intention to assassinate Knox ; who was at this time
far below the notice of such a high mightiness, and in
all probability had never been heard of by him.
Knox had been privately a most studious, thoughtful,
and intelligent man for long years, but was hitherto,
though now in his forty-first year, known only as
tutor to the three sons of Langniddry and Ormiston
(' Langudrius and Hamestonum ') ; and did evidently
carry the two-handed sword, on the last occasion on
which it could have availed in poor Wishart's case.

Knox's account of Wishart, written down hastily
twenty years after, in his History of the Reformation,

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 251

is full of a noble, heartfelt, we might call it holy
sympathy, — pious and pure in a high degree. The
noble and zealous Wishart, ' at the end of the Holy
dayis of Yule/ 1546, came to Haddington, full of
hope that the great tidings he was preaching would
find a fervour of acceptance from the people there ;
but Wishart's disappointment, during the three days
and nights that this visit lasted, was mournfully
great. The first day the audience was considerable
(what Knox calls 'reasonable'), but nothing like what
had been expected, and formerly usual to "Wishart
in that kirk on such occasions. The second day it
was worse, and the third ' so sclender, that many
wondered/ The fact was that the Earl of Bothwell,
the afterwards so famous and infamous, at this time
High Sheriff of the County of Haddington, and
already a stirring questionable gentleman of ambi-
dexterous ways, had been busy, privately intimating
from his great Cardinal, that it might be dangerous
to hear Wishart and his preachings; and that
prudent people would do well to stay away. The
second night Wishart had lodged at Lethington, with
Maitland, father of the afterwards notable Secretary

252 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

Lethington (a pleasant little twinkle of interest to
secular readers) ; and the elder Lethington, though
not himself a declared Protestant, had been hospitably
good and gracious to Wishart.

The third day he was again appointed to preach ;
but, says Knox, * before his passing to the sermon
' there came to him a boy with ane letter from the
'West land/ — Ayr and the other zealous shires in
that quarter, in which he had already been preaching,
— l saying that the gentlemen there could not keep
1 diet with him at Edinburgh, as they had formerly
* agreed ' (Hope that there might have been some
Bond or engagement for mutual protection on the
part of these Western Gentlemen suddenly falling
vain for poor Wishart). Wishart's spirits were
naturally in deep depression at this news, and at such
a silence of the old zeal all round him; — all the
world seeming to forsake him, and only the Cardinal's
assassin tracking him with continual menace of death.
He called for Knox, 'who had awaited upon him
' carefully from the time he came to Lothian ; with
' whom he began to enter in purpose ' (to enter on
discourse) , f that he wearied of the world ; for

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 25 :)

'he perceived that men began to weary of God/
Knox, 'wondering that he desired to keep any
' purpose before Sermon (for that was never his
'accustomed use before), said, "Sir, the time of

* Sermon approaches : I will leave you for the present
f to your meditation " ; and so took the letter foresaid,
? and left him. The said Maister George spaced up
J and down behind the high altar more than half an

* hour : his very countenance and visage declared the
j grief and alteration of his mind. At last he passed
'to the pulpit, but the auditure was small. He
'should have begun to have entreated the Second
j Table of the Law ; but thereof in that sermon, he
'spake very little, but began on this manner: "0
' Lord how long shall it be, that thy holy word shall
'be despised, and men shall not regard their own
I salvation. I have heard of thee, Haddington, that
' in thee would have been at ane vain Clerk Play n
1 {Mystery Play) " two or three thousand people ; and
\ now to hear the messenger of the Eternal God, of
j all thy town or parish, can not be numbered a
j hundred persons. Sore and fearful shall the plagues

* be that shall ensue this thy contempt : with fire and

254 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

' sword thou shalt be plagued; yea, thou Haddington,
' in special, strangers shall possess thee, and you the
' present inhabitants shall either in bondage serve
' your enemies or else ye shall be chased from your
1 own habitation, and that because ye have not known,
1 nor will not know, the time of God's merciful visita-
'tion." In such vehemency, and threatenings con-
' tinued that servant of God near an hour and a half,
1 in the which he declared all the plagues that ensued,
' as plainly as after ' {afterwards) ' our eyes saw them
' performed. In the end he said, " I have forgotten
' myself and the matter that I should have entreated;
1 but let these my last words as concerning public
' preaching, remain in your minds, till that God send
' you new comfort." Thereafter he made a short
1 paraphase upon the Second Table of the Law, with
' an exhortation to patience, to the fear of God, and
' unto the works of mercy ; and so put end, as it
' were, making his last testament.' *

The same night on "Wishart's departing from Had-
dington, * he took his good night, as it were forever of
' all his acquaintance,' says Knox, ' especially from
* Works of Knox, i. pp. 137-8.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 255

■ Hew Douglas of Langniddry. John Knox pressing
* to have gone with him, he said, " Nay, return to
' your bairnes " ( pupils) ; " and God bless you. One
f is sufficient for one sacrifice." And so he caused a
'twa-handed sword (which commonly was carried
' with the said Maister George) be taken from the said
' John Knox, who, albeit unwillingly, obeyed, and
f returned with Hew Douglas to Langniddry,' — never
to see his face more. 'Maister George, having to
i accompany him, the Laird of Ormeston, John San-
' dilands of Caldar younger ' [Ancestor of the noio
Lords Torphichen) ' the Laird of Brounstoun and
' others, with their servants, passed upon foot (for it
' was a vehement frost) to Ormeston.'

In a couple of hours after, Bothwell, with an armed
party, surrounded Ormeston; got Wishart delivered
to him, upon solemn pledge of his oath and of his
honour that no harm should be done him ; and that
if the Cardinal should threaten any harm against
Wishart, he, Bothwell, would with his whole strength,
and of his own power, redeliver him safe in this place.
Whereupon, without battle or struggle, he was per-
mitted to depart with Wishart; delivered him

256 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

straightway to the Cardinal, — who was expressly-
waiting in the neighbourhood, and at once rolled off
with him to Edinburgh Castle, soon after to the
Castle of St. Andrews (to the grim old oubliette d la
Louis XL, still visible there) ; and, in a month more
to death by the gallows and by fire. This was one of
the first still conspicuous foul deeds of Patrick Hep-
burn, Earl of Both well, in this world, who in his time
did so many. The memory of all this had naturally
in Knox's mind a high and mournful beauty, all the
rest of his life. Wishart came to St. Andrews in the
end of January 1546, and was mercilessly put to
death there on the first of March following.

Connected unexpectedly with the tragic end of
Wishart, and in singular contrast to it, here is
another excerpt, illustrating another side of Knox's
mind. It describes a fight between the Crozier-
bearers of Dunbar Archbishop of Glasgow and of
Cardinal Beaton.

'The Cardinal was known proud; and Dumbar,
1 Archbishop of Glasgow, was known a glorious fool ;
' and yet because sometimes he was called the King's
'Maister' [had been tutor to James V.), 'he was

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 257

4 chancellor of Scotland. The Cardinal comes even
' this same year, in the end of harvest, to Glasgow ;
'upon what purpose we omit. But while they

* remain together, the one in the town, and the other
' in the Castle, question rises for hearing of their
f croces ' (croziers). * The Cardinal alledged, hy reason

* of his Cardinalship, and that he was Legatus Natns
'and Primate within Scotland in the Kingdom of

* Antichrist, that he should have the pre-eminence,
f and that his croce should not only go before, hut
f that also, it should only be borne wheresoever he
'was. Good Gukstoun Glaikstour' (Gowkston Mad-
ster) ' the foresaid Archbishop, lacked no reasons, as
' he thought, for maintenance of his glorie : He was
! ane Archbishop in his own diocese, and in his awn
' Cathedral seat and Church, and therefore aught to

* give place to no man : the power of the Cardinal
' was but begged from Eome, and appertained but to
'his own person, and not to his bishoprick; for it
' might be that his successor should not be Cardinal.
{ But his dignity was annexed with his office, and did
'appertain to all that ever should be Bishops of
4 Glasgow. Howsoever these doubts were resolved by

258 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

' the doctors of divinity of both the Prelates, yet the
'decision was as ye shall hear. Coming forth (or
' going in, all is one), at the queir-door ' {choir-door)
1 of Glasgow Kirk begins a striving for state betwixt

* the two croce-bearers, so that from glooming they
1 come to shouldering ; from shouldering they go to
' buffets, and from dry blaws by neffis and neffelling,'
( fists and fisticuffing) ; ' and then for charity's sake,
4 they cry Dispersit dedit pauperibus ; and assay which
' of the croces was finest metal, which staff was
'strongest, and which bearer could best defend his

* maister's pre-eminence, and that there should be no-
' superiority in that behalf, to the ground goes both
' the croces. And then began no little fray, but yet

* a merry game ; for rockets ' {rochets) ' were rent,
1 tippets were torn, crowns were knapped ' {cracked),
' and side ' {long) ' gowns micht have been seen wan-
' tonly wag from the one wall to the other. — Many of

* them lacked beards and that was the more pity ;
'and therefore could not buckle other* {each other)
'by the byrse* {bristles, — hair or beard), 'as bold
' men would have done. But fy on the jackmen that
' did not their duty ; for had the one part of them

THE PORTRIATS OF JOHN KNOX. 259

'rencountered the other, then had all gone richt.
'But the sanctuary, we suppose, saved the lives of
' many. How merilie soever this be written, it was
'bitter bourding' (mirth) 'to the Cardinal and his
' court. It was more than irregularity ; yea it micht
' weel have been judged lease-majesty to the son of
' perdition, the Pape's awn person ; and yet the other
'in his folly, as proud as a pacock, would let the
' Cardinal know that he was Bishop when the other
' was but Beaton before he gat Abirbrothok ' (Abbacy
of Arbroath in 1523, twenty-two years ago, from his
uncle, — uncle retaining half of the revenues).*

This happened on the 4th June 1545 ; and seemed
to have planted perpetual enmity between these two
Church dignitaries ; and yet, before the end of Feb-
ruary following, — Pope's Legate Beaton being in
immediate need of Eight Revd. Gowkston's signature
for the burning of martyr Wishart at St. Andrews, —
these two servants of His Infernal Majesty were
brought to a cordial reconcilement, and brotherhood
in doing their fathers will; no less a miracle, says
Knox, than ' took place at the accusation and death

* Works of Knox, i. pp. 145-7.

s 2

260 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

'of Jesus Christ, when Pilate and Herod, who
'before were enemies, were made friends by con-
' senting of them both to Christ's condemnation ;
' sole distinction being that Pilate and Herod
'were brethren in the estate called Temporal, and
' these two, of whom we now speak, were brethren
' (sons of the same father, the Devil) in the Estate
' Ecclesiastical.'

It was on the 1st March 1546 that the noble
and gentle Wishart met his death; in the last
days of February that Archbishop Gowkston recon-
ciled himself to co-operate with Pilate Beaton Legaius
Natus : — three months hence that the said Pilate
Beaton, amazing Hinge of the Church, was stolen in
upon in his now well-nigh impregnable castle of St.
Andrews, and met his stern quietus. " I am a priest,
I am a priest : fy, fy : all is gone ! " were the last
words he spoke. Knox's narrative of all this is of a
most perfect historical perspicuity and business-like
brevity ; and omitting no particular, neither that of
buxom 'Marion Ogilvy' and her peculiar services,
nor that of Melvin, the final swordsman, who ' stroke
'him twyse or thrise through with a stog-sweard,'

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 261

after his notable rebuke to Lesley and him for their
unseemly choler * He carefully abstains from any
hint of criticism pro or contra on the grim transaction ;
though one sees evidently that the inward feeling was
that of deliverance from a hideous night- mare, press-
ing on the soul of Knox and the eternal interests of
Scotland.

Knox individually had not the least concern with
this affair of Beaton, nor for eight or ten months
more did he personally come in contact with it at all.
But ever since the capture of Wishart, the position of
Knox at Langniddry had become insecure; and on
rumour after rumour of peril approaching, he had
been forced to wander about from one covert to
another, with his three pupils ; till at length their
two fathers had agreed that he should go with them
to the castle of St. Andrews, literally at that time the
one sure refuge ; siege of it by poor Arran, or the
Duke of Chatelherault as he afterwards became,
evidently languishing away into utter futility; and
the place itself being, what the late Cardinal fancied
he had made it, impregnable to any Scottish force.
* WorJcs of Knox, i. pp. 174-7.

262 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

He arrived there with his pupils 10 April 1547 ; and
was before long, against his will or expectation, drawn
into a height of notability in public affairs, from which
he never rested more while his life lasted, — two and
twenty years of such labours and perils as no other
Scottish man went through in that epoch, till death
set him free.

Beaton's body was already for the last nine or ten
months lying salted in the sea-tower oubliette, waiting
some kind of Christian burial. The 'Siege' had
dwindled into plain impotency of loose blockade, and
even to pretence of treaty on the Regent's part.
Knox and his pupils were in safety in castle and
town ; and Knox tells us that ' he began to exercise
'them' (his pupils) 'after his accustomed manner.
'Besides grammar, and other humane authors, he
'read unto them a catechism, account whereof he
* caused them give publicly in the parish Kirk of St.
' Andrews. He read moreover unto them the Evangel
' of John, proceeding where he left at his departing
' from Langniddry, where before his residence was ;
' and that Lecture he read in the chapel, within the
'castle at a certain hour. They of the place, but

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

' especially Maister Henry Balnaves and Joftft Hough,
'preacher, perceiving the manner of his doctrine,
* began earnestly to travail with him, that he would
1 take the preaching place upon him. But he utterly
'refused, alleging "That he would not ryne where
' God had not called him ; " meaning that he would
' do nothing without a lawful vocation.

'Whereupon they privily among themselves ad-
' vising, having with them in council Sir David Lind-
1 say of the Mount, they concluded that they would
' give a charge to the said John, and that publicly by
'the mouth of. their preacher.' Which accordingly
with all solemnity was done by the said Rough, after
an express sermon on the Election of Ministers, and
what power lay in the call of the congregation, how
small soever, upon any man discerned by them to
have in him the gifts of Gfod. John Rough, ' di-
' rected his words to the said John, charging him to
' refuse not the holy vocation of preaching, even as he
1 hoped to avoid God's heavy displeasure; and turning
' to the congregation, asked them " Was not this your
4 charge to me ? and do ye not approve this voca-
tion?" They answered "It was; and we approve

264 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

4 it." Whereat the said John, abashed, hurst forth
'in most abundant tears, and withdrew himself to
' his chamber. His countenance and behaviour, from
' that day till the day that he was compelled to pre-
'sent himself to the public place of preaching, did
' sufficiently declare the grief and trouble of his heart ;
' for no man saw any sign of mirth in him, neither
4 yet had he pleasure to accompany any man, many
4 days together.'

In its rude simplicity this surely is a notable pas-
sage in the history of such a man, and has a high and
noble meaning in it.

About two months after Knox's being called to the
ministry in this manner, a French fleet 'with an army
' the like whereof was never seen in that firth before,
'came within sight of St. Andrews/ — likely to make
short work of the Castle there ! To the, no doubt,
great relief of Arran and the Queen Dowager, who
all this while, had been much troubled by cries and
complaints from the Priests and Bishops. After some
days of siege, — 'the pest within the castle,' says
Knox, ' alarming some more than the French force

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 2G5

' without/ and none of the expected help from Eng-
land arriving, the besieged, on tho 31st July 1547,
surrendered St. Andrews Castle : prisoners to France,
high and low, but with shining promises of freedom
and good treatment there, which promises, however,
were not kept by the French ; for on reaching Rouen,
'the principal gentlemen, who looked for freedom,
'were dispersed and put in sundry prisons. Tho
' rest ' (Knox among them) ' were left in the gallics,
' and there miserable entreated/

There are two luminous little incidents connected
with this grim time, memorable to all. Knox de-
scribes, and, also, it is not doubted, is the hero of the
scene which follows :

'These that were in the gallies were threatened
' with torments, if they would not give reverence to
' the Mass (for at certain times the Mass was said in
i the galley, or else heard upon the shore, in presence
'of the forsaris' { for gats) ; 'but they could never
' make the poorest of that company to give reverence
' to that idol. Yea, when upon the Saturday at night,
' they sang their Salve Regina, the whole Scottishmen
' put on their caps, their hoods or such thing as they

266 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

' had to cover their heads ; and when, that others
' were compelled to kiss a paynted brod ' (board, bit of
wood) ' which they call Nostre Dame they were not
' pressed after once ; for this was the chance. Soon
' after the arrival at Nances ' {Nantes) ' their great
'Sake was sung, and a glorious painted Lady was
' brought in to be kissed, and among others, was pre-
' sented to one of the Scottishmen then chained. He
' gently said, " Trouble me not, such ane idole is
' accursed ; and therefore I will not touch it." The
' Patron and the Arguesyn ' (Argousin, Serjeant icho
commands the forgats) 'with two officers, having
'the chief charge of all such matters, said, "Thou
' shalt handle it " ; and so thejr violently thrust it to
1 his face, and put it betwixt his hands ; who seeing
' Lie extremity, took the idol and advisedly looking
' about, cast it in the river, and said, " Let our Lady
'now saif herself; she is licht aneuch ; let her learn
' to swim." After that was no Scottish man urged
'with that idolatry.' *

Within year and day the French galleys, — Knox
still chained in them, — reappeared in St. Andrews

* Works of Knox, i. p. 227.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 2G7

Bay, part of a mighty French fleet with 6,000 hard)',
experienced French soldiers, and their necessary
stores and furnitures, — come with full purpose to
repair the damages Protector Somerset had done by
Pinky Battle, and to pack the English well home ;
and, indeed, privately, to secure Scotland for them-
selves and their Guises, and keep it as an open
French road into England thenceforth. They first
tried Broughty Castle with a few shots, where the
English had left a garrison, which gave them due
return ; but without farther result there. Knox's
galley seems to have been lying not far from
Broughty ; Knox himself, with a notable ' Maister
James Balfour ' close by him ; utterly foredone in
body, and thought by his comrades to be dying,
when the following small, but noteworthy passage
occurred.

'The said Maister James and John Knox being
'intil one galley and being wondrous familiar with
'him* {Knox) 'would often times ask his judgment,
1 "If he thought that ever they should be delivered?"
\ Whose answer was ever, fra the day that they
\ entered in the gallayis, " That God wald deliver

268 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

1 them from that bondage, to his glorie, even in this
' lyef." And lying betwixt Dundee and St. Andrews,
' the second time that the gallayis returned to Scot-
' land, the said John being so extremely seak ' (sick)
'that few hoped his life, the said Maister James
' willed him to look to the land, and asked if he knew
* it ? Who answered, " Yes : I knaw it weel ; for I see
' the stepill " (steeple) " of that place, where God first
' in public opened my mouth to his glorie, and I am
' fully persuaded, how weak that ever I now appear,
' that I shall not depart this lyeff, till that my tongue
1 shall glorifie his godlie name in the same place."
' This reported the said Maister James, in presence of
1 many famous witness, many years before that ever
1 the said John set futt in Scotland, this last time to
1 preache/

Knox sat nineteen months, chained, as a galley
slave in this manner; or else, as at last for some
months, locked up in the prison of Rouen; and
of all his woes, dispiritments and intolerabilities, says
no word except the above 'miserable entreated/
But it seems hope shone in him in the thickest
darkness, refusing to go out at all. The remem-

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 269

brance of which private fact was naturally precious
and priceless all the rest of his life.

The actual successes of these 6,000 veteran French
were small compared with their expectations ; the
weary siege of Haddington, where Somerset had left
a garrison, not very wisely thought military critics,
they had endless difficulties with, and, but for the
pest among the townsfolk and garrison, were never
like to have succeeded in. The fleet however stood
gloriously out to sea ; and carried home a prize, they
themselves might reckon next to inestimable, — the
royal little Mary, age six, crowned five years ago
Queen of Scots, and now covenanted to wed the
Dauphin of France, and be brought up in that
-country, with immense advantage to the same. They
steered northward by the Pentland Firth, then round
by the Hebrides and West coast of Ireland, prosper-
ously through the summer seas; and by about the
end of July 1548, their jewel of a child was safe
in St. Germain-en-Laye : the brightest and bonniest
little Maid in all the world, — setting out, alas, towards
the blackest destiny ! —

Most of this winter Knox sat in the prison of

270 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

Rouen, busy commentating, prefacing and trimming
out a Book on Protestant Theology, by bis friend
Balnaves ; and anxiously expecting bis release from
this French slavery, which hope, by help of English
Ambassadors, and otherwise, did at length, after
manifold difficulties, find fulfilment.

In the spring of the next year, Knox, Balnaves of
Hallhill, Kirkcaldy of Grange, and the other exiles
of St. Andrews, found themselves safe in England,
under the gracious protection of King Edward VI. ;
Knox especially under that of Archbishop Cranmer,
who naturally at once discerned in him a valuable
missionary of the new Evangelical Doctrine ; and
immediately employed him to that end.

Knox remained in England some five years ; he
was first appointed, doubtless at Cranmer's instigation,
by the English Council, Preacher in Berwick and
neighbourhood ; thence, about a year after, in New-
castle. In 1551 he was made one of the Six
Chaplains to Edward, who were appointed to go
about all over England spreading abroad the reformed
faith, which the people were then so eager to hear
news of. His preaching was, by the serious part of

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 271

the community, received with thankful approbation ;
and he had made warm friends among that class ;
and naturally, also, given offence to the lukewarm
or half-and-half Protestants ; especially to Tonstall,
Bishop of Durham, for his too great detestation of the
Mass. To the Council, on the other hand, it is clear
that he rose in value ; giving always to them, when
summoned on such complaints, so clear and candid an
account of himself. In the third year of his abode in
England, 1552, he was offered by them the Bishopric of
Rochester ; but declined it, and, soon after, the living
of Allhallows, Bread Street, London, which also he
declined. On each of these occasions he was again
summoned by the King's Council to give his reasons ;
and again gave them, — Church in England not yet
sufficiently reformed ; too much of vestments and of
other Popish fooleries remaining ; bishops or pastors
without the due power to correct their flock which
every pastor ought to have ; — was again dismissed by
the Council, without censure, to continue in his
former employment, where, he said, his persuasion
was that he could be more useful than preaching in
London or presiding at Rochester.

272 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

Knox many times lovingly celebrates the young
Protestant King, and almost venerates him, as one
clearly sent of God for the benefit of these realms,
and of all good men there ; regarding his early death
as a heavy punishment for the sins of the people. It
was on the 6th July 1553 that Edward died ; and in
the course of that same year Knox with many other
Protestants, clergy and laity, had to leave England,
to avoid the too evident intentions of Bloody Mary,
so soon culminating in her fires of Smithfield and
marriage with Philip II. Knox seems to have
lingered to the very last ; his friends, he says, had to
beseech him with tears, almost to force him away.
He was leaving many that were dear to him, and to
whom he was dear ; amongst others Marjory Bowes,
who (by the earnest resolution of her mother) was
now betrothed to him; and his ulterior course was
as dark and desolate as it could well be. From
Dieppe, where he first landed on crossing the
Channel, he writes much of his heartfelt grief at
the dismal condition of affairs in England, truly
more afflicting than that of native Scotland itself;
and adds on one occasion, with a land of sparkle

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 273

of disdain, in reference to his own poor wants and
troubles :

1 1 will not mak you privy how rich I am, but off'
{from) ' London I departit with less money than ten
'groats; but God has since provided, and will

* provide, I doubt not, hereafter abundantly for this
1 life. Either the Queen's Majesty ' (of England) ' or

* some Treasurer will be XL pounds richer by me, for
1 so meikle lack I of duty of my patents* ' {year's salary
as Royal Chaplain). 'But that little troubles me.'

From Dieppe, in about a month, poor Knox wan-
dered forth, to look into the churches of Switzerland,
— French Huguenots, Good Samaritans, it is like,
lodging and furthering him through France. He was,
for about five months, Preacher at Frankfort-on-
Mayn, to a Church of English exiles there; from
which, by the violence of certain intrusive High-
Church parties, as we may style them, met by a great
and unexpected patience on the part of Knox, he felt
constrained to depart, — followed by the less ritual
portion of his auditory. He reached Geneva (April
1555) ; and, by aid of Calvin and the general willing
mind of the city magistrates, there was a spacious

274 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

(quondam Papist) Church conceded him ; where for
about three years, not continuous, but twice or oftener
interrupted by journeys to Dieppe, and, almost one
whole year, by a visit to Scotland, he, loyally aided
by one Goodman, an English colleague or assistant,
preached and administered to his pious and otherwise
forlorn Exiles, greatly to their comfort, as is still
evident. In Scotland (November 1555 — July 1556)
he laboured incessantly, kindling the general Pro-
testant mind into new zeal and new clearness of
resolve for action, when the time should come. He
had many private conferences in Edinburgh ; much
preaching, publicly in various towns, oftener privately,
in well-affected mansions of the aristocracy ; and saw
plainly the incipient filaments of what by and by
became so famous and so all-important, as the National
* Covenant ' and its ' Lords of the Congregation.' His
Marjory Bowes, in the meanwhile, he had wedded.
Marjory's pious mother and self were to be with him
henceforth, — over seas at Geneva, first of all. For
summons, in an earnest and even solemn tone, coming
to him from his congregation there, he at once pre-
pared to return ; quitted Scotland, he and his ; leaving

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 275

promise with his future Lords of the Congregation,
that on the instant of signal from them he would re-
appear there.

In 1557, the Scotch Protestant Lords did give
sign ; upon which Knox, with sorrowing but hopeful
heart, took leave of his congregation at Geneva ; but
was met, at Dieppe, by contrary message from
Scotland, to his sore grief and disappointment. As
Mr. Laing calculates, he occupied his forced leisure
there by writing his widely offensive First Blast
■against the monstrous Regiment of Women, — of which
strange book a word farther presently. Having
blown this wild First Blast, and still getting negatory
answers out of Scotland, he returned to Geneva and
his own poor church there ; and did not till January
1559, on brighter Scotch tidings coming, quit that
city,— straight for Scotland this time, the tug of war
now actually come. For the quarrel only a few days
after Knox's arrival blazed out into open conflagration,
at St. Johnston's {lioclie Perth), with the open fall of
Dagon and his temples there ; and no peace was pos-
sible henceforth till either Mary of Guise and her
Papist soldieries left Scotland or Christ's Congrega-

T 2

276 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

tion and their cause did. In about two years or less,
after manifold vicissitudes, it turned out that it was not
Knox and his cause, but Queen Regent Mary and hers
that had to go. After this Knox had at least no
more wanderings and journeyings abroad 'in sore
* trouble of heart, whither God knoweth ' ; though for
the twelve years that remained, there was at home
abundant labour and trouble, till death in 1572
delivered him.

With regard to his First Blast against the monstrous
Regiment of Women (to which there never was any-
Second, though that and even a Third were con-
fidently purposed by its author), it may certainly be
called the least 'successful' of all Knox's writings.
Offence, and that only, was what it gave to his silent
friends, much more to his loudly condemnatory
enemies, on its first appearance ; and often enough
afterwards it re-emerged upon him as a serious ob-
stacle in his affairs,— witness Queen Elizabeth, main-
stay of the Scottish Eeformation itself, who never
could forgive him for that Blast. And now, beyond
all <&£her writings of Knox, it is fallen obsolete both in
jgaann$r and in purport, to every modern mind. Un-

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 277

fortunately, too, for any literary reputation Knox may
have in this end of the Island, it is written not in
the Scottish, but in the common English dialect ; com-
pletely intelligible therefore to everybody : read by
many in that time ; and still likeliest to be the book
any English critic of Knox will have looked into, as
his chief original document about the man. It is
written with very great vehemency ; the excuse for
which, so far as it may really need excuse, is to be
found in the fact that it was written while the fires of
Smithfield were still blazing, on hest of Bloody Mary,
and not long after Mary of Guise had been raised
to the Regency of Scotland : maleficent Crowned
Women these two, covering poor England and poor
Scotland with mere ruin and horror, in Knox's judg-
ment,— and may we not still say to a considerable
extent in that of all candid persons since? The
Book is by no means without merit ; has in it various
little traits, unconsciously autobiographic and other,
which are illuminative and interesting. One ought
/ to add withal that Knox was no despiser of women ;
far the reverse in fact; his behaviour to good and
pious women is full of respect, and his tenderness, his

278 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

patient helpfulness in their sufferings and infirmities
(see the Letters to his Mother-in-law and others) are
beautifully conspicuous. For the rest his poor Book
testifies to many high intellectual qualities in Knox,
and especially to far more of learning than has ever
been ascribed to him, or is anywhere traceable in his
other writings. He proves his doctrine by extensive and
various reference, — to Aristotle, Justin, the Pandects,
the Digest, Tertullian, Ambrose, Augustin, Chrysostom,
Basil : there, and nowhere else in his books, have we
direct proof how studiously and profitably his early
years, up to the age of forty, must have been spent..
A man of much varied, diligent and solid reading
and enquiry, as we find him here ; a man of serious
and continual meditation we might already have
known him to be. By his sterling veracity, not of
word only, but of mind and of character, by his sharp-
ness of intellectual discernment, his power of expres-
sion, and above all by his depth of conviction and
honest burning zeal, one first clearly judges what a
preacher to the then earnest populations in Scotland
and England, thirsting for right knowledge, this Knox
must have been.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 279

It may surprise many a reader, if we designate
John Knox as a ' Man of Genius :' and truly it was
not with what we call ' Literature/ and its harmonies
and symmetries, addressed to man's Imagination, that
Knox was ever for an hour concerned; hut with
practical truths alone, addressed to man's inmost
Belief, with immutable Facts, accepted by him, if he
is of loyal heart, as the daily voices of the Eternal, —
even such in all degrees of them. It is, therefore, a
still higher title than * Man of Genius' that will
belong to Knox ; that of a heaven-inspired seer and
heroic leader of men. But by whatever name we call
it, Knox's spiritual endowment is of the most distin-
guished class ; intrinsically capable of whatever is
noblest in literature and in far higher things. His
Books, especially his History of the Beformation, if
well read, which unfortunately is not posssible for
everyone, and has grave preliminary difficulties for
even a Scottish reader, still more for an English one,
testify in parts of them to the finest qualities that
belong to a human intellect ; still more evidently to
those of the moral, emotional or sympathetic sort, or
that concern the religious side of man's soul. It is

280 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

really a loss to English and even to universal litera-
ture that Knox's hasty and strangely interesting, im-
pressive and peculiar Book, called the History of the
Reformation in Scotland, has not been rendered far
more extensively legible to serious mankind at large
than is hitherto the case.

There is in it, when you do get mastery of the
chaotic details and adherences, perpetually distracting
your attention from the main current of the Work,
and are able to read that, and leave the mountains
of annotation victoriously cut off, a really singular
degree of clearness, sharp just insight and perspi-
cacity, now and then of picturesqueness and visuality,
as if the thing were set before your eyes ; and every-
where a feeling of the most perfect credibility and
veracity : that is to say altogether, of Knox's high
qualities as an observer and narrator. His account
of every event he was present in is that of a well-
discerning eye-witness. Things he did not himself
see, but had reasonable cause and abundant means
to enquire into, — battles even and sieges are described
with something of a Homeric vigour and simplicity.
This man, you can discern, has seized the essential

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 281

elements of the phenomenon, and done a right por-
trait of it ; a man with an actually seeing eye. The
battle of Pinkie, for instance, nowhere do you gain, in
few words or in many, a clearer view of it : the battle
of Carberry Hill, not properly a fight, but a whole
day's waiting under mutual menace to fight, which
winds up the controversy of poor Mary with her Scot-
tish subjects, and cuts off her ruffian monster of a
Bothwell, and all the monstrosities cleaving to him,
forever from her eyes, is given with a like impressive
perspicuity.

The affair of Cupar Muir, which also is not a
battle, but a more or less unexpected meeting on the
ground for mortal duel, — especially unexpected on
the Queen Regent and her Frenchmen's part, — re-
mains memorable, as a thing one had seen, to every
reader of Knox. Not itself a fight, but the prologue
or foreshadow of all the fighting that followed. The
Queen Regent and her Frenchmen had marched in
triumphant humour out of Falkland, with their
artillery ahead, soon after midnight, trusting to find
at St. Andrews the two chief Lords of the Con-
gregation, the Earl of Argyle and Lord James (after-

282 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

wards Eegent Murray), with scarcely a hundred men
about them, — found suddenly that the hundred men,
by good industry over night, had risen to an army ;
and that the Congregation itself, under these two
Lords, was here, as if by tryst, at mid-distance ;
skilfully posted, and ready for battle either in
the way of cannon or of spear. Sudden halt of
the triumphant Falklanders in consequence; and
after that, a multifarious manoeuvring, circling,
and wheeling, now in clear light, now hidden in
clouds of mist; Scots standing steadfast on their
ground, and answering message-trumpets in an in-
flexible manner, till, after many hours, the thing had
to end in an ■ appointment,' truce, or offer of peace,
and a retreat to Falkland of the Queen Regent and
her Frenchmen, as from an enterprise unexpectedly
impossible. All this is, with luminous distinctness
and business-like simplicity and brevity, set forth by
Knox ; who hardly names himself at all ; and whose
personal conduct in the affair far excels in merit all
possible merit of description of it; this being pro-
bably to Knox the most agitating and perilous of all
the days of his life. The day was Monday, 11 June,

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 283

1559; yesterday, Sunday 10th, at St. Andrews,
whither Knox had hastened on summons, he preached
publicly in the Kirk there, mindful of his prophecy
from the French galleys, fifteen years ago, and re-
gardless of the truculent Hamilton, Archbishop and
still official ruler of the place ; who had informed
him the night before that if he should presume to
try such a thing, he (the truculent Archbishop) would
have him saluted with ' twelve culverings, the most
' part of which would land upon his nose.' The
fruit of which sermon had been the sudden flight to
Falkland over night of Eight Reverend Hamilton
(who is here again, much astonished, on Cupar
Muir this day), and the open declaration and arming
of St. Andrews town in favour of Knox and his
cause.

The Queen Regent, as was her wont, only half
kept her pacific treaty. Herself and her Frenchmen
did, indeed, retire wholly to the south side of the
Forth; quitting Fife altogether; but of all other
points there was a perfect neglect. Her garrison
refused to quit Perth, as per bargain, and needed
a blast or two of siege-artillery, and danger of speedy

284? THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

death, before they would withdraw; and a shrewd
suspicion had risen that she would seize Stirling
again, and keep the way open to return. This last
concern was of prime importance ; and all the more
pressing as the forces of the Congregation had nearly
all returned home. On this Stirling affair there is a
small anecdote, not yet entirely forgotten; which
rudely symbolises the spirit of the population at
that epoch, and is worth giving. The Ribbands of
St. Johnston is or was its popular title. Knox makes
no mention of it; but we quote from The Muse's
Threnodie, or rather from the Annotations to that
poor doggrel; which are by James Cant, and of
known authenticity.

The Earl of Argyle and the Lord James, who had
private intelligence on this matter, and were deeply
interested in it, but without force of their own, con-
trived to engage three hundred staunch townsmen
of Perth to march with them to Stirling on a given
night, and do the affair by stroke of hand. The
three hundred ranked themselves accordingly on the
appointed night (one of the last of June 1559); and
so fierce was their humour, they had each, instead of

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 285

the scarf or ribband which soldiers then wore round
their neck, tied an effective measure of rope, mutely
intimating, " If I flinch or falter, let me straightway
die the death of a dog." They were three hundred
these staunch Townsmen when they marched out
of Perth; but the country gathered to them from
right and from left, all through the meek twilight
of the summer night ; and, on reaching Stirling they
were five thousand strong. The gates of Stirling were
flung wide open, then strictly barricaded; and the
French marching thitherward out of Edinburgh,
had to wheel right about, faster than they came ;
and in fact retreat swiftly to Dunbar ; and there wait
reinforcement from beyond seas. This of the three
hundred Perth townsmen and their ropes was noised
of with due plaudits ; and, in calmer times, a rather
heavy-footed joke arose upon it, and became current ;
and men would say of such and such a scoundrel
worthy of the gallows, that he deserved a St.
Johnston's ribband. About a hundred years ago,
James Cant used to see, in the Town-clerk's office
at Perth, an old Picture of the March of these three
hundred with the ropes about their necks ; whether

286 THE PORTKAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

there still I have no account ; but rather guess the
negative.*

The siege of Leith, which followed hereupon, in all
its details, — especially the preface to it, that sudden
invasion of the Queen Regent and her Frenchmen
from Dunbar, forcing Knox and his Covenanted Lords
to take refuge in the ' Quarrel Holes ' (quarry holes),
on the Eastern flank of the Calton Hill, with Salis-
bury Crags overhanging it, what he elsewhere calls
'the Craigs of Edinburgh/ as their one defensible
post against their French enemies : this scene, which
lasted two nights and two days, till once the French
struck into Leith, and began fortifying, dwells deeply
impressed on Knox's memory and feelings.

Besides this perfect clearness, naivete and almost
unintentional picturesqueness, there are to be found
in Knox's swift-flowing History many other kinds of
' geniality,' and indeed of far higher excellences than
are wont to be included under that designation. The
grand Italian Dante is not more in earnest about this
inscrutable Immensity than Knox is. There is in

* The Muse's Threnodie, by Mr. H. Adamson (first printed in 1638),
edited, with annotations, by James Cant (Perth, 1774), pp. 126-7.

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 287

Knox throughout the spirit of an old Hebrew Pro-
phet, such as may have been in Moses in the Desert
at sight of the Burning Bush ; spirit almost alto-
gether unique among modern men, and along with all
this, in singular neighbourhood to it, a sympathy, a
veiled tenderness of heart, veiled, but deep and of
piercing vehemence, and withal even an inward gaiety
of soul, alive to the ridicule that dwells in whatever is
ridiculous, in fact a fine vein of humour, which is
wanting in Dante.

The interviews of Knox with the Queen are what
one would most like to produce to readers ; but un-
fortunately they are of a tone which, explain as we
might, not one reader in a thousand could be made
to sympathise with or do justice to in behalf of Knox.
The treatment which that young beautiful and high
Chief Personage in Scotland receives from the rigor-
ous Knox, would to most modern men, seem irre-
verent, cruel, almost barbarous. Here more than
elsewhere Knox proves himself, — here more than
anywhere bound to do it, — the Hebrew Prophet in
complete perfection ; refuses to soften any expression

288 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

or to call anything by its milder name, or in short for
one moment to forget that the Eternal God and His
Word are great, and that all else is little, or is
nothing; nay if it set itself against the Most High
and His Word, is the one frightful thing that this
world exhibits.

He is never in the least ill-tempered with Her
Majesty ; but she cannot move him from that fixed
centre of all his thoughts and actions : Do the will
of God, and tremble at nothing ; do against the will
of God, and know that, in the Immensity and the
Eternity around you, there is nothing but matter
of terror. Nothing can move Knox here or else-
where from that standing-ground ; no consideration
of Queen's sceptres and armies and authorities of men
is of any efficacy or dignity whatever in comparison ;
and becomes not beautiful but horrible, when it sets
itself against the Most High.

One Mass in Scotland, he more than once intimates,
is more terrible to him than all the military power
of France, or, as he expresses it, the landing of ten
thousand armed men in any part of this realm, would
be. The Mass is a daring and unspeakably frightful

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 289

pretence to worship God by methods not of God's
appointing ; open idolatry it is, in Knox's judgment ;
a mere invitation and invocation to the wrath of God
to fall upon and crush you. To a common, or even to
the most gifted and tolerant reader, in these modern
careless days, it is almost altogether impossible to
sympathise with Knox's horror, terror and detestation
of the poor old Hocuspocus (Hoc est Corpus) of a
Mass ; but to every candid reader it is evident that
Knox was under no mistake about it, on his own
ground, and that this is verily his authentic and con-
tinual feeling on the matter.

There are four or five dialogues of Knox with the
Queen, — sometimes in her own Palace at her own
request ; sometimes by summons of her Council ; but
in all these she is sure to come off not with victory,
but the reverse : and Knox to retire unmoved from
any point of interest to him. She will not come to
public sermon, under any Protestant (that . is, for her,
Heretical) Preacher. Knox, whom she invites once
or oftener to come privately to where she is, and
remonstrate with her, if he find her offend in any-
thing, cannot consent to run into backstairs of Courts,

290 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

cannot find that he is at liberty to pay visits in that
direction, or to consort with Princes at all. Mary
often enough bursts into tears, oftener than once into
passionate long-continued fits of weeping, — Knox
standing with mild and pitying visage, but without
the least hairsbreadth of recanting or recoiling ; wait-
ing till the fit pass, and then with all softness, but with
all inexorability, taking up his theme again. The high
and graceful young Queen, we can well see, had not
met, nor did meet, in this world with such a man.

The hardest-hearted reader cannot but be affected
with some pity, or think with other than softened
feelings of this illstarred, young, beautiful, graceful
and highly gifted human creature, planted down into
so unmanageable an environment. So beautiful a
being, so full of youth, of native grace and gift;
meaning of herself no harm to Scotland or to any-
body ; joyfully going her Progresses through her
dominions ; fond of hawking, hunting, music, literary
study ;* cheerfully accepting every gift that out-door

* 'The Queen readeth daily after her dinner, instructed by a
learned man, Mr. George Bowhanan, somewhat of Livy.' — Randolph
to Cecil, April 7, 1562 (cited in Irving's Life of Buchanan, p. 114).

THE PORTKAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 291

life, even in Scotland, can offer to its right joyous-
minded and ethereal young Queen. With irresistible
sympathy one is tempted to pity this poor Sister-
soul, involved in such a chaos of contradictions ; and
hurried down to tragical destruction by them. No
Clytemnestra or Medea, when one thinks of that last
scene in Fotheringay, is more essentially a theme of
tragedy. The tendency of all is to ask, ' What pecu-
liar harm did she ever mean to Scotland, or to any
Scottish man not already her enemy ? ' The answer
to which is, ' Alas, she meant no harm to Scotland ;
was perhaps loyally wishing the reverse ; but was she
not with her whole industry doing, or endeavouring
to do, the sum-total of all harm whatsoever that was
possible for Scotland, namely the covering it up in
Papist darkness, as in an accursed winding-sheet of
spiritual death eternal ?' — That, alas, is the dismally
true account of what she tended to, during her whole
life in Scotland or in England ; and there, with as
deep a tragic feeling as belongs to Clytemnestra,
Medea, or any other, we must leave her condemned.

The story of this great epoch is nowhere to be

u 2

292 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

found so impressively narrated as in this Book of
Knox's ; a hasty loose production, but grounded on
the completest knowledge, and with visible intention
of setting down faithfully both the imperfections of
poor fallible men, and the unspeakable mercies of
God to this poor realm of Scotland. And truly the
struggle in itself was great, nearly unique in that
section of European History ; and at this day stands
much in need of being far better known than it has
much chance of being to the present generation. I
suppose there is not now in the whole world a nobility
and population that would rise, for any imaginable
reason, into such a simple nobleness of resolution to
do battle for the highest cause against the powers
that be, as those Scottish nobles and their followers
at that time did. Bobertson's account, in spite of its
clearness, smooth regularity, and complete intelligibi-
lity down to the bottom of its own shallow depths, is
totally dark as to the deeper and interior meaning
of this great movement ; cold as ice to all that is
highest in the meaning of this phenomenon ; which
has proved the parent of endless blessing to Scotland
and to all Scotsmen. Robertson's fine gifts have

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 293

proved of no avail ; his sympathy with his subject
being almost null, and his aim mainly to be what
is called impartial, that is, to give no pain to any
prejudice, and to be intelligible on a first perusal.

Scottish Puritanism, well considered, seems to
me distinctly the noblest and completest form
that the grand Sixteenth Century Reformation any-
where assumed. We may say also that it has been
by far the most widely fruitful form ; for in the next
century it had produced English Cromwellian Puri-
tanism, with open Bible in one hand, drawn Sword in
the other, and victorious foot trampling on Romish
Babylon, that is to say irrevocably refusing to believe
what is not a Fact in God's Universe, but a mingled
mass of self-delusions and mendacities in the region of
Chimera. So that now we look for the effects of it
not in Scotland only, or in our small British Islands
only, but over wide seas, huge American conti-
nents and growing British Nations in every zone of
the earth. And, in brief, shall have to admit that
John Knox, the authentic Prometheus of all that, has
been a most distinguished Son of Adam, and had
probably a physiognomy worth looking at. We have

294 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

still one Portrait of him to produce, the Somerville
Portrait so-named, widely different from the Beza
Icon and its progeny ; and will therewith close.

III.
In 1836 the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, or the late Charles Knight in the name of
that, published an engraving of a Portrait which had
not before been heard of among the readers of Knox,
and which gave a new and greatly more credible
account of Knox's face and outward appearance.
This is what has since been called the Somerville Por-
trait of Knox ; of which Engraving a fac-simile is
here laid before the reader. In 1849 the same
Engraving was a second time published, in Knight's
Pictorial History of England. It was out of this
latter that I first obtained sight of it ; and as soon as
possible, had another copy of the Engraving framed
and hung up beside me ; believing that Mr. Knight,
or the Society he published for, had made the due
enquiries from the Somerville family, and found the
answers satisfactory; I myself nothing doubting to
accept it as the veritable Portrait of Knox. Copies

John Knox

THE SOMERVILLE PORTRAIT. LNCRAVED BY HOLL, 1 83 <

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 295

of this Engraving are often found in portfolios, but
seldom hung upon the walls of a study ; and I doubt
if it has ever had much circulation, especially among
the more serious readers of Knox. For my own
share, I. had unhesitatingly believed in it; and knew
not that anybody called it in question, till two or
three years ago, in the immense uproar which arose in
Scotland on the subject of a monument to Knox,
and the utter collapse it ended in, — evidently enough
not for want of money, to the unlimited amount of
millions, but of any plan that could be agreed on with
the slightest chance of feasibility. This raised an
enquiry as to the outward appearance of Knox, and
especially as to this Somerville Likeness, which I be-
lieved, and cannot but still believe, to be the only pro-
bable likeness of him, anywhere known to exist. Its
history, what can be recovered of it, is as follows.

On the death of the last Baron Somerville, some
three or four years ago, the Somerville Peerage, after
four centuries of duration, became extinct ; and this
Picture then passed into the possession of one of the
representatives of the family, the Hon. Mrs. Ralph
Smyth of Gaybrook, near Mullingar, Ireland. This

296 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

lady was a stranger to me ; but on being applied to,
kindly had a list of questions with reference to the
Knox Portrait, which were drawn up by an artist
friend, and sent to her, minutely answered ; and after-
wards, with a courtesy and graceful kindness, ever
since pleasant to think of, offered on her coming to
London to bring the Picture itself hither. All which
accordingly took effect ; and in sum, the Picture was
entrusted altogether to the keeping of these enquirers,
and stood for above three months patent to every kind
of examination, — until it was, by direction of its lady
owner, removed to the Loan Gallery of the South
Kensington Museum, where it still hangs. And in
effect it was inspected, in some cases with the greatest
minuteness, by the most distinguished Artists and
judges of art that could be found in London. On
certain points they were all agreed ; as for instance,
that it was a portrait in all probability like the man
intended to be represented ; that it was a roughly
executed work ; probably a copy ; certainly not of
earlier, most likely of later date, than Godfrey
Kneller's time ; that the head represented must have
belonged to a person of distinguished talent, character

THE PORTKAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 297

and qualities. For the rest, several of these gentle-
men objected to the costume as belonging to the
Puritan rather than to Knox's time ; concerning which
preliminary objection more anon, and again more.

Mr. Eobert Tait, a well-known Artist, of whom we
have already spoken, and who has taken great pains
in this matter, says :

' The Engraving from the Somerville Portrait is an
' unusually correct and successful representation of it,
' yet it conveys a higher impression than the picture
' itself does ; the features, especially the eyes and nose,

* are finer in form, and more firmly defined in the
i engraving than in the picture, while the bricky
' colour in the face of the latter and a somewhat
'glistening appearance in the skin give rather a
' sensual character to the head. These defects or pecu-
' liarities in the colour and surface are, however, pro-
'bablydue to repainting ; the Picture must have been
' a good deal retouched, when it was lined, some thirty

* or forty years ago ; and signs are not wanting of
' even earlier manipulation .... Some persons have
' said that the dress, especially the falling band, belongs
' to a later age than that of Knox, and is sufficient to

298 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

' invalidate the Portrait ; but such is not the case, for
' white collars or bands, of various shapes and sizes,
1 were in use in Knox's time, and are found in the

I portraits and frequently referred to, in the literature
' of Elizabeth's reign.'

The remark of Mr. Tait in reference to the some-
what unpleasant ' surface ' of the Somerville Picture
is clearly illustrated by looking at an excellent copy of
it, painted a few months ago by Mr. Samuel Laurence,
in which, although the likeness is accurately preserved,
the head has on account of the less oily ' surface ' of
the picture a much more refined appearance.*

* Since this was first printed, Mr. Laurence himself favours me
with the following remarks, which seem too good to be lost : . . .

I I wish the reason for my copying the Somerville Picture had been
1 given, viz., its being in a state of dilapidation and probable decay.
1 Entirely agreeing with your own impressions as to its represent-
' ing the individuality and character of the man, I undertook to
' make a copy that should, beside keeping the character, represent
' the condition of this Picture in its undamaged state. It is now
'not only "much cracked," but the half -tints are taken off, by
' some bad cleaner ; the gradations between the highest lights and
' the deepest shades wanting : hence the unpleasant look. I think
' it more than a matter of "surface." The very ground, a "bricky"
'red one, exposed, here and there; the effec f which upon the
' colours may be likened to a tune played upon a piano-forte that
'has missing keys . . . — Samuel Laurence (6, Wells Street,
' Oxford Street, March 30, 1875).'

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 299

At the top of the folio Book, which Knox holds
with his right-hand fingers, there are in the Picture,
though omitted in the engraving, certain letters, two
or three of them distinct, the others broken, scratchy
and altogether illegible. Out of these, various at-
tempts were made by several of us to decipher some
precise inscription ; but in all the languages we had,
nothing could be done in that way, till at length,
what might have happened earlier, the natural idea
suggested itself that in all likelihood the folio volume
was the Geneva Bible ; and that the half obliterated
letters were probably the heading of the page. Exa-
mination at the British Museum was at once made ;
of which, from a faithful inspector, this is the report :
' There are three folio editions, printed in Roman
'type of the Geneva Bible, 1560, '62, 70. The
' volume represented in the Picture, which also is in

* Roman, not in Black Letter, fairly resembles in a
' rough way the folio of 1562. Each page has two
' columns for the text, and a narrow stripe of com-
' mentary, or what is now called margin, in very small

* type along the edges, which is more copious and con-
' tinuous than in the original, but otherwise sum-

300 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

* ciently indicates itself. Headings at the top of the
' pages in larger type than that of the text. Each
' verse is separate, and the gaps at the ends of many
' of them are very like those seen in the Picture.'

I was informed by Mrs. Ralph Smyth that she
knew nothing more of the Picture than that it had, as
long as she could remember, always hung on the walls
of the Somerville town-house in Hill Street, Mayfair,
— but this Lady being still young in years, her recol-
lection does not carry us far back. One other light
point in her memory was, a tradition in the family
that it was brought into their possession by James,
the thirteenth Baron Somerville ; but all the Papers
connected with the family having been destroyed
some years ago by fire, in a solicitor's office in Lon-
don, there was no means either of verifying or contra-
dicting that tradition.

Of this James, thirteenth Lord Somerville, there is
the following pleasant and suggestive notice by Bos-
well, in his Life of Johnson :

' The late Lord Somerville, who saw much both of
' great and brilliant life, told me, that he had dined in
' company with Pope, and that after dinner the " little

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 301

'man," as he called him, drank his bottle of Bur-
' gundy, and was exceedingly gay and entertaining.'

And as a footnote Boswell adds :

' Let me here express my grateful remembrance of
' Lord Somerville's kindness to me, at a very early
1 period. He was the first person of high rank that
' took particular notice of me in the way most flatter-
' ing to a young man, fondly ambitious of being dis-
' tinguished for his literary talents ; and by the
' honour of his encouragement made me think well of
'.myself, and aspire to deserve it better. He had a
1 happy art of communicating his varied knowledge of
' the world, in short remarks and anecdotes, with a
' quiet pleasant gravity, that was exceedingly engag-
' ing. Never shall I forget the hours which I enjoyed
' with him at his apartments in the Eoyal Palace of
'Holyrood House, and at his seat near Edinburgh,
' which he himself had formed with an elegant
'taste.'*

The vague guess is that this James, thirteenth
Baron Somerville, had somewhere fallen in with an

* Boswell's Life of Johnson, Fitzgerald's edit. (London, 1874),
ii. p. 434.

302 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

excellent Portrait of Knox, seemingly by some distin-
guished Artist of Knox's time ; and had had a copy of
it painted, — presumably for his mansion of Drum, near
Edinburgh, long years perhaps before it came to
Mayfair.

Among scrutinizers here, it was early recollected
that there hung in the Royal Society's rooms an ex-
cellent Portrait of Buchanan, undisputedly painted by
Francis Porbus ; that Knox and Buchanan were
children of the same year (1505), and that both the
Portrait of Buchanan and that of Knox indicated for
the sitter an age of about sixty or more. So that one
preliminary doubt, Was there in Scotland, about
1565, an artist capable of such a Portrait as this of
Knox ? was completely abolished ; and the natural
enquiry arose, can any traces of affinity between these
two be discovered ?

The eminent Sculptor, Mr. J. E. Boehm, whose
judgment of painting and knowledge of the history,
styles and epochs of it, seemed to my poor laic mind
far beyond that of any other I had communed with,
directly visited, along with me, the Royal Society's
collection ; found in this Buchanan perceptible traces

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 303

of kinship with the Knox Portrait ; and visited there-
upon, and examined, with great minuteness, whatever
Porbuses we could hear of in London, or neighbour-
hood. And always, as was evident to me, with grow-
ing clearness of conviction that this Portrait of Knox
was a coarse and rapid, but effective, probably some-
what enlarged copy after Porbus, done to all appearance
in the above-named Baron Somerville's time ; that is,
before 1766. Mr. Boehm, with every new Porbus,
became more interested in this research ; and re-
gretted with me that so few Porbuses were attainable
here, and of these, several not by our Buchanan
Porbus, Francois Porbus, or Pourbus, called in our
dictionaries, le vieux, but by his son and by his father.
Last Autumn Mr. Boehm was rusticating in the
Netherlands. There he saw and examined many
Porbuses, and the following is the account which he
gives of his researches there :

* I will try, as best I can, to enumerate the reasons
' why I think that the Somerville Picture is a copy,
* and why a copy after Francis Porbus.

' That it is a copy done in the latter half of the last
4 century can be easily seen by the manner of paint-

304? THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

' ing, and by the mediums used, which produced a
' certain circular cracking throughout the picture,
' peculiar only to the paintings of that period. Its
1 being a little over the size of nature suggests that it
' was done after a smaller picture, as it is not probable
' that, had it been done from life, or from a life-sized
' head, the artist would have got into those propor-
' tions ; and most of the portraits by Porbus (as also
' by Holbein, Albrecht Diirer, the contemporary and
' previous masters) are a little under life-size, as the
'sitter would appear to the painter at a certain
' distance.

' The Somerville Picture at first reminded me more

* of Porbus than of any other painter of that time,
1 although I did not then know whether Porbus had
' ever been in England, as judging by the fact that he
' painted Knox's contemporary George Buchanan, we
' may now fairly suppose was the case. Last autumn
' at Bruges, Ghent, Brussels and Antwerp, I carefully
1 examined no less than forty portraits by Francis
' Porbus, le vicux. There are two pictures at Bruges
1 in each of which are sixteen portrait heads, carefully

* painted and well preserved, somewhat smaller than

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 3()5

• that of Buchanan ; and I can most vividly figure to
'myself that the original after which the said copy
' was painted, must have been like that and not other-
' wise ; indeed if I had found the original in a corner
4 of one of the galleries, my astonishment would have
1 been as small as my pleasure in apprising you of the
1 find would have been great. In some of these forty
' portraits the costumes, including the large white
' collar, which has been objected to, are very similar

* to John Knox's ; and in the whole of them there are
' traces in drawing, arrangement of light and shadow,
' conception of character, and all those qualities which
1 can never quite be drowned in a reproduction, and
' which are, it seems to me, clearly discerned in this
' copy, done by a free and swift hand, careful only to
' reproduce the likeness and general effect, and heed-
1 less of the delicate and . refined touch of the great
f master. — J. E. Boehm.'

Prom the well-known and highly estimated Mr.
Merritt of the National Gallery, who had not heard
of the Picture at all, nor of these multifarious re-
searches, but who on being applied to by a common
friend (for I have never had the pleasure of person-

306 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX.

ally knowing Mr. Merritt) kindly consented to go to'
the South. Kensington Museum, and examine the
Picture, — I receive, naturally with pleasure and
surprise, the following report :

* 54 Devonshire Street, Portland Place, W.
' 9 January 1875.

* After a careful inspection of the Portrait, I am

* bound to say that the signs of age are absent from
' the surface, and I should therefore conjecture that it

* is a copy of a portrait of the time of Francis Pourbus,
1 to whom we are indebted for the portrait of George
1 Buchanan, which I believe is in the possession of the
' Royal Society.

' My opinion is in favour of the Somerville Portrait

* being of Knox. Strongly marked features like those
'were not likely to be confounded with any other
■ man's. The world has a way of handing down the
' lineaments of great men. Records and tradition, as
1 experience has shown me, do their work in this re-
1 spect very effectively. — Henry Merritt.'

This is all the evidence we have to offer on the
Somerville Portrait. The preliminary objection in re-

THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 307

spect to costume, as we have seen, is without validity,
and may he classed, in House-of-Commons language,
as i frivolous and vexatious.' The Picture is not an
ideal, hut that of an actual man, or still more pre-
cisely, an actual Scottish ecclesiastical man. In point
of external evidence, unless the original turn up,
which is not impossible, though much improbable,
there can be none complete or final in regard to such
a matter ; but with internal evidence to some of us it
is replete, and beams brightly with it through every
pore. For my own share if it is not John Knox the
Scottish hero and evangelist of the sixteenth century,
I cannot conjecture who or what it is.

THE END.

BRADBURY, AGNEW, 6i CO., HUNTERS, WH11EFRIARS.

"—6 sect. APR 261g7g,

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4.60 The early kings of Norway

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