William's Niðing Proclamation.
The second English muster.
It perhaps did not tend to the moral improvement
of William Rufus to find himself thus shamefully deceived
by one so near of kin to himself, so high in
ecclesiastical rank. At the moment the treachery of
Odo stirred him up to greater efforts. Rochester should
be won, though it might need the whole strength of
the kingdom to win it. But the King saw that it
was only by English hands that it could be won. He
gathered around him his English followers, and by their
advice put out a proclamation in ancient form bidding
all men, French and English, from port and from upland,
to come with all speed to the royal muster, if they
would not be branded with the shameful name of Nithing.
That name, the name which had been fixed, as
the lowest badge of infamy, on the murderer Swegen,[1]
was a name under which no Englishman could live;
and it seems to have been held that strangers settled
on English ground would have put on enough of English
feeling to be stirred in the like sort by the fear of
having such a mark set upon them. What the Frenchmen
did we are not told; but the fyrd of England
answered loyally to the call of a King who thus knew
how to appeal to the most deep-set feelings and traditions
of Englishmen.[2] Men came in crowds to King. . . . Anglos suos appellat; jubet ut
compatriotas advocent ad obsidionem venire, nisi si qui velint sub nomine
Niðing, quod nequam sonat, remanere. Angli, qui nihil miserius putarent
quam hujusce vocabuli dedecore aduri, catervatim ad regem confluunt, et
invincibilem exercitum faciunt." This leaves out the fact that the proclamation
was addressed both to French and English. The words of the
Chronicle are express; "Ða se cyng undergeat þat þing, þa ferde he æfter
mid þam here þe he þær hæfde, and sende ofer eall Englalande, and bead þæt
ælc man þe wære unniðing sceolde cuman to him, Frencisce and Englisce,
of porte and of uppelande." We can hardly doubt that we have here the
actual words of the proclamation. It must not be forgotten that, by the
law of the Conqueror, Frenchmen who had settled in King Eadward's day
were counted as English. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 620.]
