Landlord Edmund
Some three centuries or so had elapsed since _Beodric's-worth_*
became St. Edmund's _Stow,_ St. Edmund's _Town_ and Monastery,
before Jocelin entered himself a Novice there. 'It was,' says
he, 'the year after the Flemings were defeated at Fornham St.
Genevieve.'
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* Dryasdust puzzles and pokes for some biography of this Beodric;
and repugns to consider him a mere East-Anglian Person of
Condition, not in need of a biography,--whose [script] _weorth_
or _worth,_ that is to say, _Growth,_ Increase, or as we should
now name it, _Estate,_ that same Hamlet and wood Mansion, now St.
Edmund's Bury, originally was. For, adds our erudite Friend, the
Saxon [script], equivalent to the German _werden,_ means to
_grow,_ to _become;_ traces of which old vocable are still found
in the North-country dialects, as, 'What is _word_ of him?
meaning 'What is become of him?' and the like. Nay we in modern
English still say, 'Woe _worth_ the hour' (Woe _befall_ the
hour), and speak of the _'Weird_ Sisters;' not to mention the
innumerable other names of places still ending in _weorth_ or
_worth._ And indeed, our common noun _worth,_ in the sense of
_value,_ does not this mean simply, What a thing has _grown_ to,
What a man has _grown_ to, How much he amounts to,--by the
Threadneedle-street standard or another!
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Much passes away into oblivion: this glorious victory over
the Flemings at Fornham has, at the present date, greatly
dimmed itself out of the minds of men. A victory and battle
nevertheless it was, in its time: some thrice-renowned Earl of
Leicester, not of the De Montfort breed, (as may be read in
Philosophical and other Histories, could any human memory retain
such things,) had quarreled with his sovereign, Henry Second of
the name; had been worsted, it is like, and maltreated, and
obliged to fly to foreign parts; but had rallied there into new
vigour; and so, in the year 1173, returns across the German Sea
with a vengeful army of Flemings. Returns, to the coast of
Suffolk; to Framlingham Castle, where he is welcomed; westward
towards St. Edmundsbury and Fornham Church, where he is met by
the constituted authorities with _posse comitatus;_ and swiftly
cut in pieces, he and his, or laid by the heels; on the right
bank of the obscure river Lark,--as traces still existing
will verify.
For the river Lark, though not very discoverably, still runs or
stagnates in that country; and the battle-ground is there;
serving at present as a pleasure-ground to his Grace of
Newcastle. Copper pennies of Henry II are still found there;--
rotted out from the pouches of poor slain soldiers, who had not
had _time_ to buy liquor with them. In the river Lark itself was
fished up, within man's memory, an antique gold ring; which fond
Dilettantism can almost believe may have been the very ring
Countess Leicester threw away, in her flight, into that same Lark
river or ditch.* Nay, few years ago, in tearing out an enormous
superannuated ash-tree, now grown quite corpulent, bursten,
superfluous, but long a fixture in the soil, and not to be
dislodged without revolution,--there was laid bare, under its
roots, 'a circular mound of skeletons wonderfully complete,' all
radiating from a centre, faces upwards, feet inwards; a
'radiation' not of Light, but of the Nether Darkness rather; and
evidently the fruit of battle; for 'many of the heads were
cleft, or had arrow-holes in them. The Battle of Fornham,
therefore, is a fact, though a forgotten one; no less obscure
than undeniable,--like so many other facts.
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*Lyttelton's _History of Henry II._ (2nd Edition), v. 169, &c.
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Like the St. Edmund's Monastery itself! Who can doubt, after
what we have said, that there was a Monastery here at one time?
No doubt at all there was a Monastery here; no doubt, some three
centuries prior to this Fornham Battle, there dwelt a man in
these parts, of the name of Edmund, King, Landlord, Duke or
whatever his title was, of the Eastern Counties;--and a very
singular man and landlord he must have been.
For his tenants, it would appear, did not complain of him in the
least; his labourers did not think of burning his wheatstacks,
breaking into his game-preserves; very far the reverse of all
that. Clear evidence, satisfactory even to my friend Dryasdust,
exists that, on the contrary, they honoured, loved, admired this
ancient Landlord to a quite astonishing degree,--and indeed at
last to an immeasurable and inexpressible degree; for, finding
no limits or utterable words for their sense of his worth, they
took to beatifying and adoring him! 'Infinite admiration,' we
are taught, 'means worship.'
Very singular,--could we discover it! What Edmund's specific
duties were; above all, what his method of discharging them with
such results was, would surely be interesting to know; but are
_not_ very discoverable now. His Life has become a poetic, nay a
religious _Mythus;_ though, undeniably enough, it was once a
prose Fact, as our poor lives are; and even a very rugged
unmanageable one. This landlord Edmund did go about in leather
shoes, with _femoralia_ and bodycoat of some sort on him; and
daily had his breakfast to procure; and daily had contradictory
speeches, and most contradictory facts not a few, to reconcile
with himself. No man becomes a Saint in his sleep. Edmund, for
instance, instead of _reconciling_ those same contradictory facts
and speeches to himself; which means _subduing,_ and, in a
manlike and godlike manner, conquering them to himself,--might
have merely thrown new contention into them, new unwisdom into
them, and so been conquered _by_ them; much the commoner case!
In that way he had proved no 'Saint,' or Divine-looking Man, but
a mere Sinner, and unfortunate, blameable, more or less Diabolic-
looking man! No landlord Edmund becomes infinitely admirable in
his sleep.
With what degree of wholesome rigour his rents were collected we
hear not. Still less by what methods he preserved his game,
whether by 'bushing' or how,--and if the partridge-seasons were
'excellent,' or were indifferent. Neither do we ascertain what
kind of Corn-bill he passed, or wisely-adjusted Sliding-scale:--
but indeed there were few spinners in those days; and the
nuisance of spinning, and other dusty labour, was not yet so
glaring a one.
How then, it may be asked, did this Edmund rise into favour;
become to such astonishing extent a recognised Farmer's Friend?
Really, except it were by doing justly and loving mercy, to an
unprecedented extent, one does not know. The man, it would seem,
'had walked,' as they say, 'humbly with God;' humbly and
valiantly with God; struggling to make the Earth heavenly, as he
could: instead of walking sumptuously and pridefully with
Mammon, leaving the Earth to grow hellish as it liked. Not
sumptuously with Mammon? How then could he 'encourage trade,'--
cause Howel and James, and many wine-merchants to bless him, and
the tailor's heart (though in a very short-sighted manner) to
sing for joy? Much in this Edmund's Life is mysterious.
That he could, on occasion, do what he liked with his own is,
meanwhile, evident enough. Certain Heathen Physical-Force Ultra-
Chartists, 'Danes' as they were then called, coming into his
territory with their 'five points,' or rather with their five-
and-twenty thousand _points_ and edges too, of pikes namely and
battleaxes; and proposing mere Heathenism, confiscation,
spoliation, and fire and sword,--Edmund answered that he would
oppose to the utmost such savagery. They took him prisoner;
again required his sanction to said proposals. Edmund again
refused. Cannot we kill you? cried they.--Cannot I die? answered
he. My life, I think, is my own to do what I like with! And he
died, under barbarous tortures, refusing to the last breath; and
the Ultra-Chartist Danes _lost_ their propositions;--and went
with their 'points' and other apparatus, as is supposed, to the
Devil, the Father of them. Some say, indeed, these Danes were
not Ultra-Chartists, but Ultra-Tories, demanding to reap where
they had not sown, and live in this world without working, though
all the world should starve for it; which likewise seems a
possible hypothesis. Be what they might, they went, as we say,
to the Devil; and Edmund doing what he liked with his own, the
Earth was got cleared of them.
Another version is, that Edmund on this and the like occasions
stood by his order; the oldest, and indeed only true order of
Nobility known under the stars, that of just Men and Sons of God,
in opposition to Unjust and Sons of Belial,--which latter indeed
are _second_-oldest, but yet a very unvenerable order. This,
truly, seems the likeliest hypothesis of all. Names and
appearances alter so strangely, in some half-score centuries;
and all fluctuates chameleon-like, taking now this hue, now that.
Thus much is very plain, and does not change hue: Landlord
Edmund was seen and felt by all men to have done verily a man's
part in this life-pilgrimage of his; and benedictions, and
outflowing love and admiration from the universal heart, were his
meed. Well-done! Well-done! cried the hearts of all men. They
raised his slain and martyred body; washed its wounds with fast-
flowing universal tears; tears of endless pity, and yet of a
sacred joy and triumph. The beautifullest kind of tears,--indeed
perhaps the beautifullest kind of thing: like a sky all flashing
diamonds and prismatic radiance; all weeping, yet shone on by
the everlasting Sun:--and _this_ is not a sky, it is a Soul and
living Face! Nothing liker the _Temple of the Highest,_ bright
with some real effulgence of the Highest, is seen in this world.
O, if all Yankee-land follow a small good 'Schnuspel the
distinguished Novelist' with blazing torches, dinner-invitations,
universal hep-hep-hurrah, feeling that he, though small, is
something; how might all Angle-land once follow a hero-martyr
and great true Son of Heaven! It is the very joy of man's heart
to admire, where he can; nothing so lifts him from all his mean
imprisonments, were it but for moments, as true admiration. Thus
it has been said, 'all men, especially all women, are born
worshipers;' and will worship, if it be but possible. Possible
to worship a Something, even a small one; not so possible a mere
loud-blaring Nothing! What sight is more pathetic than that of
poor multitudes of persons met to gaze at King's Progresses,'
Lord Mayor's Shews, and other gilt-gingerbread phenomena of the
worshipful sort, in these times; each so eager to worship;
each, with a dim fatal sense of disappointment, finding that he
cannot rightly here! These be thy gods, O Israel? And thou art
so _willing_ to worship,--poor Israel!
In this manner, however, did the men of the Eastern Counties take
up the slain body of their Edmund, where it lay cast forth in the
village of Hoxne; seek out the severed head, and reverently
reunite the same. They embalmed him with myrrh and sweet spices,
with love, pity, and all high and awful thoughts; consecrating
him with a very storm of melodious adoring admiration, and sun-
dyed showers of tears;--joyfully, yet with awe (as all deep joy
has something of the awful in it), commemorating his noble deeds
and godlike walk and conversation while on Earth. Till, at
length, the very Pope and Cardinals at Rome were forced to hear
of it; and they, summing up as correctly as they well could,
with _Advocatus-Diaboli_ pleadings and their other forms of
process, the general verdict of mankind, declared: That he had,
in very fact, led a hero's life in this world; and being now
_gone,_ was gone as they conceived to God above, and reaping his
reward _there._ Such, they said, was the best judgment they
could form of the case;--and truly not a bad judgment.
Acquiesced in, zealously adopted, with full assent of 'private
judgment,' by all mortals.
The rest of St. Edmund's history, for the reader sees he has now
become a _Saint,_ is easily conceivable. Pious munificence
provided him a _loculus,_ a _feretrum_ or shrine; built for him
a wooden chapel, a stone temple, ever widening and growing by new
pious gifts;--such the overflowing heart feels it a blessedness
to solace itself by giving. St. Edmund's Shrine glitters now
with diamond flowerages, with a plating of wrought gold. The
wooden chapel, as we say, has become a stone temple. Stately
masonries, longdrawn arches, cloisters, sounding aisles buttress
it, begirdle it far and wide. Regimented companies of men, of
whom our Jocelin is one, devote themselves, in every generation,
to meditate here on man's Nobleness and Awfulness, and celebrate
and shew forth the same, as they best can,--thinking they will do
it better here, in presence of God the Maker, and of the so Awful
and so Noble made by Him. In one word, St. Edmund's Body has
raised a Monastery round it. To such length, in such manner, has
the Spirit of the Time visibly taken body, and crystallised
itself here. New gifts, houses, farms, _katalla_*--come ever in.
King Knut, whom men call Canute, whom the Ocean-tide would not be
forbidden to wet,--we heard already of this wise King, with his
crown and gifts; but of many others, Kings, Queens, wise men and
noble loyal women, let Dryasdust and divine Silence be the
record! Beodric's-Worth has become St. Edmund's _Bury;_--and
lasts visible to this hour. All this that thou now seest, and
namest Bury Town, is properly the Funeral Monument of Saint or
Landlord Edmund. The present respectable Mayor of Bury may be
said, like a Fakeer (little as he thinks of it), to have his
dwelling in the extensive, many-sculptured Tombstone of St.
Edmund; in one of the brick niches thereof dwells the present
respectable Mayor of Bury.
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* Goods, properties; what we now call _chattels,_ and still more
singularly _cattle,_ says my erudite friend!
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Certain Times do crystallise themselves in a magnificent manner;
and others, perhaps, are like to do it in rather a shabby one!--
But Richard Arkwright too will have his Monument, a thousand
years hence: all Lancashire and Yorkshire, and how many other
shires and countries, with their machineries and industries, for
his monument! A true _pyr_amid or _'flame_-mountain,' flaming
with steam fires and useful labour over wide continents, usefully
towards the Stars, to a certain height;--how much grander than
your foolish Cheops Pyramids or Sakhara clay ones! Let us withal
be hopeful, be content or patient.