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He had gradually extended his own domain in French-speaking territory and had dislodged the English from every stronghold except Guisnes and Calais. Under him France was regaining her prestige. Charles had much to lose, therefore, in joining the undertaking urged by Philip and he was wholly unwilling to risk it.
The castle of Guisnes stood just within the English border, the meeting between the two monarchs being fixed at the line of separation of the two kingdoms. The palace we have described, erected for the habitation of King Henry and his suite, had been designed and ordered by Cardinal Wolsey, to whose skill in pageantry the management of this great festival had been consigned.
The Dukes of Normandy, Burgundy, and Bourbon, the Counts of Alencon, Eu, and Guisnes, and many other French nobles, prepared to lead an army into the field to support Charles, and the king added a body of 3000 Genoese mercenaries in his pay. "Knowing the storm that was preparing to break upon him, De Montford put every town and castle in a state of defence.
What are you at?" roared he, after his knights. "Spread off the road, and keep your line, as I told you, and don't override each other! Curse the hot-headed fools! The Normans will scatter them like sparrows. Run on, men-at-arms, to stop the French if we are broken. And don't forget Guisnes field and the horses' legs. Now, King, are you come to life yet?"
Then at those knights he rode, and slew them every one; and mounted that wounded knight on his own horse and led him across the field, though the archers shot sore at him from the wall. And when the press of knights rode at him, his Danish men got between them and the castle, and made a stand to cover him. Then the Guisnes knights rode at them scornfully, crying,
I went as far as Tournehem, a castle near to Guisnes, and then dared not proceed because I found people fleeing for fear of the English who were devastating the country.... Never before had I needed a safe-conduct for the English are very honourable. All this seemed very strange to me for I had never seen these mutations in the world."
And the hapless Hoibricht found himself chained and fettered, and sent off to Hereward's tent, under the custody of Martin Lightfoot. "The next day," says the chronicler, "the Count of Guisnes, stupefied with grief at the loss of his nephew, sent the due honor and service to his prince, besides gifts and hostages." And so ended the troubles of Baldwin, and Eustace of Guisnes
If Torfrida could have foreseen, and foreseen, and foreseen why, if she were true woman, she would have done exactly what she did, and taken the bitter with the sweet, the unknown with the known, as we all must do in life, unless we wish to live and die alone. It has been shown how the Count of Guisnes had been a thorn in the side of Baldwin of Lille, and how that thorn was drawn out by Hereward.
Froude did not always correct his proofs with mechanical accuracy, and this gave Freeman an advantage of which he was not slow to avail himself. "Mr. Froude," he says in The Saturday Review for the 30th of January, 1864, "talks of a French attack on Guienne, evidently meaning Guisnes. It is hardly possible that this can be a misprint."
At the moment of Hereward's arrival, he was troubled with a lesser thorn, the Count of Guisnes, who would not pay him up certain dues, and otherwise acknowledge his sovereignty. Therefore when the chatelain of St.
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