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Oh, I could give you a hundred instances, both ancient and modern, of this unseemly propensity of our illustrious race, though I will only trouble you with a few more ancient ones; they not only nicknamed Regner, but his sons also, who were all kings, and distinguished men; one, whose name was Biorn, they nicknamed Ironsides; another, Sigurd, Snake in the Eye; another, White Sark, or White Shirt I wonder they did not tall him Dirty Shirt; and Ivarr, another, who was king of Northumberland, they called Beinlausi, or the Legless, because he was spindle-shanked, had no sap in his bones, and consequently no children.
They didn't call you the matchless Hurler, because, by doing so, they would have paid you a compliment, but Hull over the Head Jack, as much as to say that after all you were a scrub; so, in ancient time, instead of calling Regner the great conqueror, the Nation Tamer, they surnamed him Lodbrog, which signifies Rough or Hairy Breeks lod or loddin signifying rough or hairy; and instead of complimenting Halgerdr, the wife of Gunnar of Hlitharend, the great champion of Iceland, upon her majestic presence, by calling her Halgerdr, the stately or tall; what must they do but term her Ha-brokr, or Highbreeks, it being the fashion in old times for Northern ladies to wear breeks, or breeches, which English ladies of the present day never think of doing; and just, as of old, they called Halgerdr Long-breeks, so this very day a fellow of Horncastle called, in my hearing, our noble-looking Hungarian friend here, Long-stockings.
Speaking both languages, he was attached neither to the French nor to the German party, but was ready to pass from one to the other according to the interest of his policy, which was merely to preserve his own independence. Régner differed entirely from the other nobles of the Empire, such as the dukes of Saxony, Bavaria, etc., inasmuch as he did not represent any ethnographic group.
Ogier, Hastings, Regner, and Sigefroi conducted them sometimes to the mouths of the Seine, sometimes to the mouths of the Loire, and finally to those of the Garonne. It is even asserted that Hastings entered the Mediterranean and ascended the Rhone to Avignon; but this is, to say the least, doubtful. The strength of their fleets is not known: the largest seems to have been of three hundred sail.
On one side of the Scheldt, an enfeebled and divided nobility struggled against a powerful suzerain; on the other, a powerless suzerain was vainly attempting to assert his authority over one of his most overbearing vassals. There is, however, one characteristic which the house of Régner and that of the Flemish counts had in common.
"We fought with swords," says King Regner, in a beautiful ode composed by himself, in memory of the deeds of his former days, "that day wherein I saw ten thousand of my foes rolling in the dust, near a promontory of England. A dew of blood distilled from our swords. The arrows which flew in search of the helmets, bellowed through the air. The pleasure of that day was truly exquisite.
The descendants of Régner Long Neck nevertheless remained powerful, owing, partly, to the marriage of Régner V of Hainault with a daughter of Hugh Capet, and to the marriage of Lambert of Louvain to the daughter of Duke Charles.
The second, which was far more important, was led by a native lord, Régner Long Neck, son of one of Lotharius's daughters, who possessed vast domains in Hainault, the Ardennes, the Liége country and on the lower Meuse that is to say, on both sides of the language frontier.
MAIS en connaissant votre condition naturelle, usez des moyens qui lui sont propres, et ne pretendez pas regner par une autre voie que par celle qui vous fait roi.* PASCAL. * "But in understanding your natural condition, use the means which are proper to it; and pretend not to govern by any other way than by that which constitutes you governor."
Régner of Hainault, nephew of Gislebert, had been exiled by Bruno, the Carolingian dynasty was supplanted in France by the Capetian, and its last representatives, Duke Charles and his son, lay buried side by side in Maestricht.
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