CHAPTER XI.
HOW THE HOLLANDERS TOOK HEREWARD FOR A MAGICIAN.
Of this weary Holland war which dragged itself on, campaign aftercampaign, for several years, what need to tell? There was, doubtless,the due amount of murder, plunder, burning, and worse; and the finalevent was certain from the beginning. It was a struggle betweencivilized and disciplined men, armed to the teeth, well furnished withships and military engines, against poor simple folk in "felt coatsstiffened with tar or turpentine, or in very short jackets of hide,"says the chronicler, "who fought by threes, two with a crooked lanceand three darts each, and between them a man with a sword or an axe,who held his shield before those two;--a very great multitude, but incomposition utterly undisciplined," who came down to the sea-coast, withcarts and wagons, to carry off the spoils of the Flemings, and bade themall surrender at discretion, and go home again after giving up CountRobert and Hereward, with the "tribunes of the brigades," to be put todeath, as valiant South Sea islanders might have done; and then foundthemselves as sheep to the slaughter before the cunning Hereward, whomthey esteemed a magician on account of his craft and his invulnerablearmor.
So at least says Leofric's paraphrast, who tells long, confused storiesof battles and campaigns, some of them without due regard to chronology;for it is certain that the brave Frisians could not on Robert's firstlanding have "feared lest they should be conquered by foreigners, asthey had heard the English were by the French," because that event hadnot then happened.
And so much for the war among the Meres of Scheldt.