.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 44463
   :PG.Title: Red and White
   :PG.Released: 2013-12-18
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Emily Sarah Holt
   :DC.Title: Red and White
              A Tale of the Wars of the Roses
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1882
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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RED AND WHITE
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      :alt: "Nan!" broke from her father's lips, in tones more eloquent than a volume would have been.  "Little Nan!" "I would I were your little Nan again," she said.  "We were happy then, my Lord—at least I was."

      "Nan!" broke from her father's lips, in tones more eloquent than a volume would have been.  "Little Nan!" "I would I were your little Nan again," she said.  "We were happy then, my Lord—at least I was."  P. `140`_.

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      *Red and White*

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      *A Tale of
      The Wars of the Roses*

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      BY

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      EMILY SARAH HOLT

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      AUTHOR OF "THE WHITE ROSE OF LANGLEY," ETC.

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      |  "If loving hearts were never lonely,
      |    If all they wish might always be,
      |  Accepting what they look for only,
      |    They might be glad, but not in Thee."
      |                              —ANNA L. WARING.

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      *NEW EDITION*

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      LONDON
      JOHN F. SHAW AND CO.
      48 PATERNOSTER ROW
      1882

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   PREFACE.

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It is a proverbial truth that thunderstorms
clear the air.  And it would seem as
though that eventful and terrible period
of English history, known as the Wars of the
Roses, had cleared the political air for the coming
Reformation.  How little those who took part in
it realised the time to follow!  To the men of that
day it was either a wrestle for personal fame, or a
passionate enthusiasm for the establishment of Right.
To the women with whom it was not the latter,
it must have been a meaningless agony—a passion
with no visible end, and with no conceivable moral
purpose.  Alas for him who loses his faith in the
providence of God, for the key of the world has
dropped out of his hand.  And happy are they who
can calmly walk on in the dark by the side of the
Father, it may be feeling the atmosphere painfully
oppressive, yet willing to wait His time, and
knowing that when they come forth into the light of the
Golden City, they will be satisfied with it.

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   CONTENTS.

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   CHAP.

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I.  `THE FLEDGLINGS LEAVE THE NEST`_
II.  `LILIES AMONG THE THORNS`_
III.  `FLIGHT`_
IV.  `SCENE-SHIFTING`_
V.  `HIS LITTLE NAN`_
VI.  `THE MIST ON EASTER DAY`_
VII.  `THE LAST BATTLE OF THE RIVAL ROSES`_
VIII.  `THE END OF A WEDDING-DAY`_
IX.  `DRAWING NEARER`_
X.  `AT THE PARCHMENT-MAKER'S`_
XI.  `A LAST INTERVIEW`_
XII.  `IDONIA UNDERSTANDS`_
XIII.  `THE LAST OF THE SILVER RING`_

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`HISTORICAL APPENDIX`_

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.. _`THE FLEDGLINGS LEAVE THE NEST`:

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   RED AND WHITE.

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   CHAPTER I.

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   THE FLEDGLINGS LEAVE THE NEST.

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   |  "Ah, God will never let us plant
   |    Our tent-poles in the sand,
   |  But ever, e'er the blossom buds,
   |    We hear the dread command,—
   |  'Arise and get thee hence away,
   |    Unto another land.'"

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"Frid!" said little Dorathie in a whisper.

Frid held up a hushing finger with a smile.

"Frid!" came again; in a tone which showed that
tears were not very far from Dorathie's blue eyes.

Frid's hand was held out in reply, and little
Dorathie, understanding the gesture, sidled along
the window-seat until she reached her sister in the
opposite corner.  There, nestled up close to
Frideswide, and held fast by her arm, Dorathie put the
melancholy question which was troubling her repose.

"Frid, be you going hence?—verily going?"

The answering nod was a decided affirmative.

"But both of you?—both thee and Agnes?"

Another silent, uncompromising nod from Frideswide.

"O Frid, I shall be all alone!  Whatever must I do?"

And the tears came running from the blue eyes.

"Serve my Lady my grandmother," Frideswide
whispered back.

"But that is—only—being useful," sobbed
Dorathie, "and I—want to—be happy."

"Being useful is being happy," said her sister.

"I would being happy were being useful," was
Dorathie's lugubrious answer.  "They never go
together—not with me."

"So do they alway with me," replied Frideswide.

"Oh, thou!  Thou art a woman grown," said
Dorathie with a pout.

"Right an old woman," said Frideswide with a
sparkle of fun in her eyes, for she was not quite
twenty.  Dorathie was only eight, and in her
estimation Frideswide had attained a venerable
age.  "But list, Doll!  My Lady calleth thee."

Dorathie's sobs had attracted the notice of one of
the four grown-up persons assembled round the fire.
They were two ladies and two gentlemen, and the
relations which they bore to Dorathie were father,
mother, grandmother, and grand-uncle.

It was her grandmother who had called her—the
handsome stately old lady who sat in a carved oak
chair on the further side of the fire.  Her hair was
silvery white, but her eyes, though sunken, were
lively, flashing dark eyes still.

Dorathie slipped down from the window-seat,
crossed the large room, and stood before her
grandmother with clasped hands and a deferential bob.
She was not much afraid of a scolding, for she rarely
had one from that quarter: still, in the days when
girls were expected to be silent statues in the august
presence of their elders, she might reasonably have
feared for the result of her whispered colloquy with
Frideswide.

"What ails my little Doll?" gently asked the old
lady.

"An't please your good Ladyship, you said Frid
and Annis[#] should both go away hence."

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[#] Annis, or more correctly Anneyse, is the old French form of
Agnes, and appears to have been used in the Middle Ages, in
England, as an affectionate diminutive.  Some have supposed
Annis to be a variety of Anne, and have therefore concluded that
Anne and Agnes were considered the same name.  This, I think,
is a mistake.  Annas is the Scottish spelling.

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"We did, my little maid.  Is our Doll very sorry
therefor?"

"I shall be all alone!" sobbed Dorathie.

"'All alone!'" repeated her grandmother with
a smile, which was pitying and a little sympathetic.
"Little Doll, there be fourteen in this house beside
Frideswide and Agnes."

"But they are none of them *them*!" said Dorathie.

"Aye.  There is the rub," answered her grandmother.
"But, little maid, we all have to come
to that some time."

"'Tis as well to begin early, Doll," said her uncle.

"Please it you, Uncle Maurice," replied Dorathie,
rubbing the tears out of her eyes with her small
hands, "I'd rather begin late!"

Her father laughed.  "Folks must needs go forth
into the world, Doll," said he.  "Thou mayest
have to do the like thine own self some day."

"Shall I so?" asked Dorathie, opening her eyes
wide.  "Then, an' it like your good Lordship, may
I go where Frid and Annis shall be?"

"Thou wilt very like go with Frid or Annis, it
we can compass it," replied her father; "but they
will not be together, Doll."

"Not together!" cried Dorathie in a tone of
disappointed surprise.

"Nay: Frideswide goeth to my good Lady of
Warwick at Middleham; and Agnes to London
town, to serve my Lady's Grace of Exeter in her
chamber."

"Then they'll be as unhappy as me!" said Dorathie,
with a very sorrowful shake of her head.  "I
thought they were going to be happy."

"They shall be merry as crickets!" answered her
father.  "My Lady of Warwick hath two young
ladies her daughters, and keepeth four maidens in
her bower; and my Lady's Grace of Exeter hath
likewise a daughter, and keepeth other four maids
to wait of her.  They are little like to be lonely."

Her grandmother understood the child's feeling,
but her father did not.  And Dorathie was dimly
conscious that it was so.  She dropped another
courtesy, and crept back to Frideswide in the
window-seat,—not comforted at all.  There they
sat and listened to the conversation of their elders
round the fire.  Frideswide was sewing busily, but
Dorathie's hands were idle.

The season was early autumn, and the trees
outside were just beginning to show the yellow leaf
here and there.  The window in which the two
girls sat, a wide oriel, opened on a narrow
courtyard, in front of which lay a garden of tolerable
size, wherein pinks, late roses, and other flowers
were bowing their heads to the cool breeze of the
Yorkshire wolds.  The court-yard was paved with
large round stones, not pleasant to walk on, and
causing no small clatter from the hoofs of the
horses.  A low parapet wall divided it from the
garden, which was approached by three steps, thus
making the court into a wide terrace.  Beyond the
garden, a crenellated wall some twelve feet high
shut out the prospect.

What it shut out beside the prospect was a great
deal, of which little was known to Frideswide, and
much less to Dorathie.  They lived at a period of
which we, sheltered in a country which has not
known war for two hundred years, can barely form
an adequate idea.  For fourteen years—namely,
since Frideswide was five years old, and longer than
Dorathie's life—England had been torn asunder by
civil warfare.  Nor was it over yet.  The turbulent
past had been sad enough, but the worst was yet
to come.

Never, since the cessation of the Heptarchy, had
a more terrible time been seen than the Wars of the
Roses.  In this struggle above all others, family
convictions were divided, and family love rent
asunder.  Father and son, brother and brother,
uncle and nephew, constantly took opposite sides:
and every warrior on each side was absolutely sure
that all shadow of right lay with his candidate, and
that the "rebel and adversary" of his chosen monarch
had not an inch of ground to stand on.

Nor was the question of right so clear and
indisputable as in this nineteenth century we are apt to
think.  To our eyes, regarding the matter in the
light of modern law, it appears certain that Edward
IV. was the rightful heir of the crown, and that
there was no room for dispute in the matter.  But
the real point in dispute was the very important
one, what the law of succession really was.  Was
it any bar that Edward claimed through a female?
The succession of all the kings from the Empress
Maud might be fairly held to settle this item in
Edward's favour.  But the real difficulty, which
lay beyond, was not so easily solved.

Very little understood at present is the law of
non-representation, the old "custom of England,"
which was also the custom of Artois, and several
other provinces.  According to this law, if a son of
the king should predecease his father, leaving issue,
that issue was barred from the throne.  They were
not to be allowed to represent their dead father.
The right of succession passed at once to the next
son of the monarch.

Several of our kings tried to alter this law, but
it was so dear to the hearts of the English people
that up to 1377 they invariably failed.  The most
notable instance is that of Richard I., who tried hard
to secure the succession of Arthur, the son of his
deceased brother Geoffrey, in preference to his
youngest brother John.  But the "custom of
England" was too strong for him: and though John
was personally neither liked nor respected by any
one, England preferred his rule to making a change
in her laws.

It was Edward III. who succeeded in making
the alteration.  His eldest son, the famed Black
Prince, had died leaving a son behind him, and the
old King strongly desired to secure the peaceable
succession of his grandson.  He succeeded, partly
because of the popularity of the deceased Prince,
partly on account of the unpopularity of the next
heir, but chiefly because the next heir himself was
willing to assist in the alteration.  His reward for
this self-abnegation is that modern writers are
perpetually accusing him of unbridled ambition, and
of a desire to snatch the crown from that nephew
who would assuredly never have worn it had he
withheld his consent.

But though John of Gaunt was perfectly willing
to be subject instead of sovereign, his son Henry
did not share his feelings.  He always considered
that he had been tricked out of his rights: and
he never forgave his father for consenting to the
change.  After sundry futile attempts to eject his
cousin from the throne, he at last succeeded in
effecting his purpose.  The succession returned to
the right line according to the old "custom of
England"; and since King Richard II., for whom
it had been altered, left no issue, matters might
have gone on quietly enough had it been suffered
to remain there.

They were quiet enough until the death of
Henry V.  But a long minority of the sovereign
has nearly always been a misfortune to the
country: and the longest of all minorities was that of
Henry VI., who was only eight months old when
he came to the throne.  Then began a restless
and weary struggle for power among the nobles,
and especially the three uncles of the baby King.
The details of the struggle itself belong to general
history: but there are one or two points
concerning which it will be best to make such
remarks as are necessary at once, in order to save
explanations which would otherwise be constantly
recurring.

King Henry was remarkably devoid of relatives,
and the nearest he had were not of his own rank.
He was the only child of his father, and on the
father's side his only living connections beside
distant cousins were an uncle—Humphrey Duke of
Gloucester—and a grand-uncle—Cardinal Beaufort—both
of whom were, though different from each
other, equally diverse from the King in
temperament and aim.  On the mother's side he had two
half-brothers and a sister, with whom he was scarcely
allowed to associate at all.  He wanted a wife: and
he took the means to obtain one which in his day
princes usually took.  He sent artists to the various
courts of Europe, to bring to him portraits of the
unmarried Princesses.  King Henry's truth-loving
nature comes out in the instructions given to these
artists.  They were to be careful not to flatter any
of the royal ladies, but to draw their portraits just
as they were.  Of the miniatures thus brought to
him, the King's fancy was attracted by the lovely
face of a beautiful blonde of sixteen—the Princess
Marguerite of Anjou, second daughter of René, the
dispossessed King of Naples.  An embassy, at the
head of which was William Duke of Suffolk, was
sent over to demand, and if accepted, to bring home
the young Princess.

The girl-Queen found herself a very lonely
creature, flung into the midst of discordant elements.
She loved her husband, as she afterwards showed
beyond question, and she must have felt deep
respect for his pure, gentle, truthful, saintly soul.
Yet, excellent as he was, he was no adviser for her.
It was simply impossible for her brilliant intellect
and brave heart to lean upon his dulled brain and
timid nature.  How could he, with the uttermost
will to aid her, help his young wife to keep out of
snares laid for her which he could not even see, or
counsel her to beware of false friends whose
falsehood he never so much as suspected?  Is it any
wonder that Marguerite in this sore emergency
turned to Suffolk, her first friend, a man almost old
enough to be her grandfather, with a wise head and
a tender heart, and thoroughly desirous to do his
duty?  Poor, innocent girl! she paid dearly for it.
One word of cruel, contemptuous surmise dropped
from the lips of a young nobleman,—who very
possibly had wished the fair young Queen to make
him her chief adviser—and all over the land, as
with wings, the wicked falsehood sped, till there
was no possibility of undoing the evil, and
Marguerite woke up in horror to find her name
defamed, and her innocent friendship with Suffolk
believed to be criminal.  She did not discover
for some time who was the author of this cruel
slander: but when she did, she never forgave
Warwick.

There is not the shadow of probability that it was
true.  Suffolk was about fifty years of age[#] when
Marguerite was married, and he had been for nearly
fifteen years the husband of one of the loveliest
women in England, to whom he was passionately
attached.  His character is shown further by the
farewell letter written to his son,[#] one of the most
touching and pious farewell letters ever penned by
man.

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[#] He was born at Cotton, in Suffolk,
and baptized in that church
on "The Feast of St. Michael in Monte Tumba" [Oct. 16] 1396.
(*Prob. Ætatit Willielmi Ducis Suffolk*, 5 H. V. 63.)

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[#] Published among the Paston Letters.

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But now another and a more serious complication
was added to those already existing.  The
dispossessed heir of the elder branch, Richard Duke of
York, had much to forgive the House of Lancaster.
He had the memory of a murdered father and a
long-imprisoned mother ever fresh before him.  His
claim was only through the female line, as the son
of a daughter of the son of a daughter of Lionel
Duke of Clarence, the second son of Edward
III. who attained manhood, and who had predeceased
his father.  In respect of the male line, he was
descended from a younger brother[#] of the grandfather
of Henry VI.  It was therefore only as the
representative of Duke Lionel that he could put forward
any claim at all.  But Richard was not good at
forgiving.  And when, as if for the purpose of further
entangling matters, and suggesting to Richard the
very idea which he afterwards carried into action,
Henry VI. was seized with an attack of that
temporary insanity which he inherited from his maternal
grandfather, Richard, as his next male relative, was
placed in the position of Regent: a state of things
so entirely suited to his wishes that when, the King
having recovered, he was summoned to resign his
charge, Richard coolly expressed his perfect satisfaction
with the position of governor, and his intention
to remain such, since he considered himself to be, as
heir general of Duke Lionel, much more rightfully
King of England than the cousin who had displaced him.

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[#] Edmund Duke of York.

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The first sensation of Henry VI., on hearing this
calm assertion of Richard, was simply one of
unbounded amazement.

"My grandfather," said he, "held the crown for
twelve years, and my father for ten, and I have
held it for twenty-three: and all that time you and
your fathers have kept silence, and not one word of
this have I ever heard before.  What mean you, fair
cousin, to prefer such a claim against the Lord's
Anointed?"

It was not quite the fact that Richard's fathers
had kept absolute silence, since his uncle, Edmund
Earl of March, had been put forward as a claimant
for the throne, just fifty years before:[#] but in all
probability the King was entirely justified in stating
that the idea was new to him.  It is not likely that
those about him from infancy would have allowed
him to become familiar with it, since his delicate sense
of right and justice was—in their eyes—the most
tiresome thing about him.  But the question was
not in his hands for decision.  Had it been so, no
man would ever have heard of the Wars of the
Roses.  King Henry "had no sense of honour,"
which probably means that ambition, self-seeking,
and aggressiveness were feelings utterly unknown to
him.  "Yea, let him take all," would have been
the language of his lips and heart, so long as he had
left to him a quiet home in some green nook of
England, the wife and child whom he dearly loved,
a few books, and peace.  At times God's providence
decrees peace as the lot of such men.  At other
rimes it seems to be the one thing with which they
must not be trusted.  They are tossed perpetually on
the waves of this troublesome world, "emptied from
vessel to vessel," never suffered to rest.  This last
was the destiny of Henry VI.  For him, it was the
way home to the Land of Peace, where there is no
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying.  For four
hundred years his spirit has dwelt in the eternal
peace of Paradise; God has comforted him for ever.

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[#] A full account of this transaction
will be found in "The White
Rose of Langley."

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It was an unfortunate thing for Richard of York
that he had married a woman who acted toward his
ambitious aspirations not as a bridle, but as a spur.
Cicely Neville, surnamed from her great beauty The
Rose of Raby, was a woman who, like two of her
descendants, would have "died to-morrow to be a
queen to-day," and would have preferred "to eat
dry bread at a king's table, rather than feast at the
board of an elector."[#]  Of all members of the royal
family of England, this lady is to my knowledge the
only one who ever styled herself in her own charters
"the right high and right excellent Princesse."  The
Rose of Raby was not the only title given her.  To
the vulgar in the neighbourhood where her youth
was spent she was also known as Proud Cis.  And
every act of her life tends to show the truth of the
title.

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[#] The words first quoted were spoken by Anne Princess of
Orange, eldest daughter of George II.;
the latter by Elizabeth
Queen of Bohemia, eldest daughter of James I.

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It was at the battle of St. Albans—the first fought
between the rival Roses—that Dorathie's grandfather
had been killed; the husband of the stately
old lady who remained head of the household at
Lovell Tower.  His barony descended to his only
daughter Margery, who, after a good deal of
hesitation among rival suitors who greatly admired her
title and fortune, had gradually awoke to the
discovery that she liked nobody quite so well as her
old friend John Marston, though he was nearly
twice her age, and a widower with three children.
So on him, with the full consent of her mother, she
bestowed hand and heart, title and fortune; the
former being in his eyes, alone of all her lovers,
more valuable than the latter.  In her right he
became Lord Marnell of Lymington, for until a
comparatively recent period the title of a peeress in
her own right was held to become the property of
her husband as absolutely as her goods, and was
conferred by courtesy, as a matter of necessity, upon
any second wife whom he might marry.  Two more
children—Dorathie and Ralph—were added to the
family: but only the former now survived.  It will
thus be seen that Frideswide and Agnes were
half-sisters of Dorathie.  The other member of the
family not yet introduced was Walter, the eldest
son.  He was at present a young squire in the
household of Queen Marguerite.

Every soul at Lovell Tower was passionately
Lancastrian.  To them Henry VI. was The King,
and Edward IV. was "the rebel."  In the house of
the next knight, half a mile away, the conditions
were reversed: and the two families, who had been
old and firm friends, now passed each other on the
road with no notice whatever.  Very painful was
this state of things to the Lady Idonia, the only
sister of four brothers thus placed at variance.  Her
two younger brothers, Maurice and William, were
still on good terms with her, for they were
Lancastrians like herself.  But the Carew family was one
of those which the political earthquake had
shattered, and Hugh and Thomas were determined
Yorkists.  It was the sadder—or should have
been,—since the younger Lady Marnell had been
educated under the roof of her Uncle Hugh, during the
prolonged residence of her parents at the Court of
Scotland.  Fortunately or unfortunately, Uncle
Hugh and Aunt Mabel had contrived to impress
themselves on the mind of young Margery in no
other character than that of live barricades against
the accomplishment of all her wishes.  To be
otherwise than on speaking terms with them, therefore,
was a much smaller calamity to Margery than to
her mother.  The Lady Idonia used to sigh heavily
when their names were mentioned.  Yet to keep
up the friendship would have been no easy matter.
Hugh Carew was granite where his convictions were
concerned; and not content with following them
himself, he insisted on imposing them on every body
who came near him.  It would have been in his
eyes a matter of principle not to allow his sister or
his niece to speak of "the King" or "the rebel,"
without letting them see that he wilfully misunderstood
the allusion.  Idonia merely sighed ever this
piece of perversity, while yet their intercourse
remained unbroken: but Margery was apt to flare up
and make an open breach of the peace.  It certainly
was trying, when she spoke of the King (meaning
Henry VI.) as in Scotland, to be reminded in a
cold, precise tone, slightly astonished, that she had
unaccountably forgotten that His Highness was at
Westminster.  It is not therefore to be wondered
at, if Margery felt the open hostility rather a relief
than a burden, while her mother grieved over it in
secret.

"'Tis strange gear," the Lady Idonia would
sometimes say, "that men cannot think alike."

"Nay, fair Sister, why should they so?" was her
brother William's answer.  "This were tame world if
no man saw by his own eyes, but all after a pattern."

"That were well, Ida," replied the graver Maurice,
"could all men see through God's eyes."

"Aye, and who shall dare say how He looketh
on these matters?" rejoined William.

"Know we not that?" said Maurice.  "'The
righteous Lord delighteth in righteousness; His
countenance beholdeth equity.'"[#]

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[#] Psalm xi. 8.

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"On which side is the equity?" asked his brother
with a shrug of his shoulders.  "Somewhat scant
on both, as methinks.  My Lords of Warwick and
Somerset are scarce they which, before giving battle,
should look through a speculation glass[#] to find the
righteousness of the matter."

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[#] Magnifier.

.. vspace:: 2

"Perhaps it were hardly so small as to need the
same," was Maurice's dry answer.

"Nay, fair Uncle William, but I cry you mercy!"
broke in Margery.  "It seems me you be but
half-hearted toward our good King.  Surely his, and
none other, is the cause of right and justice."

"Gramercy, Madge!  I am well assured I never
said they lay with that rebel," returned her uncle,
laughing.

"Methinks," said Maurice quietly, "that King
David was the wisest, which committed his cause
unto God.  Never, truly, had king so clear and
perfect title as he.  But we find not that he laid
siege to King Saul, in order to come by it the
sooner."

"Dear heart! prithee go tell that to the Queen,"
said William, still laughing.  "Such reasoning were
right after the King's heart."

"The Queen fights not for herself," responded
Maurice.  "It is easier to trust our own lot in
God's hands, than the lot of them we love most.
But mind ye not, Will and Ida, what our Philip
were wont to say—'They that God keepeth be the
best kept'?"

William made no reply.  He was silenced by the
allusion to the dead brother, on whom the Carews
looked much as those around them did upon the
saints.

The interval between the battles of St. Albans
and Wakefield—five years and a half—had changed
most of the *dramatis personæ*, but had not in any
degree altered the sanguinary character of the
struggle.  Richard Duke of York was gone—killed
at Wakefield: Suffolk was gone, a victim to
popular fury.  King Henry and Queen Marguerite
were still the prominent figures on the Lancastrian
side, joined now by their son Prince Edward.  On
the York side were the three sons of Duke
Richard,—Edward, George, and Richard, whose ages when
the story opens were twenty-eight, nineteen, and
seventeen.  Which of these three young men
possessed the worst character it is difficult to judge,
though that evil eminence is popularly assigned to
Richard.  Edward was an incorrigible libertine;
not a bad organiser, nor devoid of personal bravery,
though it usually appeared by fits and starts.  He
could do a generous action, but he was irremediably
lazy, and far weaker in character than either of his
brothers.  One redeeming point he had—his
personal love for his blood relations.  But it was not
pure love, for much selfishness was mixed with it.
Perhaps really the worst of the three was George,
for he was not merely an ingrained self-seeker, but
also false to the heart's core.  No atom of trust
could ever be placed in him.  The most solemn
oath taken to-day was no guarantee whatever
against his breaking through every engagement
to-morrow.  The Dutchman's maxim, "Every man
for mineself," was the motto of George's life.  Each
of the brothers spent his life in sowing seeds of
misery, and in each case the grain came to
perfection: though most of the harvest of George and
Richard was reaped by themselves, while Edward's
was left for his innocent sons to gather.

It may reasonably be asked why Warwick is
counted among the Lancastrians, when to a great
extent Edward owed his throne to him, and he had
been a consistent Yorkist for years.  It is
because, at the period when the story opens,
Warwick thought proper so to account himself.  King
Henry, never able to see through a schemer or
a traitor, had complacently welcomed him back
to his allegiance: Queen Marguerite, who saw
through him to the furthest inch, and held him in
unmitigated abhorrence, felt that he was necessary
at this moment to her husband's cause, and locking
her own feelings hard within her, allowed it to be
supposed that she was able to trust him, and kept
sharp watch over every movement.

It has already been said that the decision for
peace or war was not left in the hands of King
Henry.  The woman who sat by his side on the
throne was no longer the timid, lonely dove of their
early married life.  Marguerite of Anjou was now a
woman of middle age, and a mother whose very
soul was wrapped around that bright-haired boy
who alone shared her heart with his father.  Could
she but have looked forward a few years, and have
seen that for that darling son war meant an early
and bloody end, she might have been more ready to
acquiesce in King Henry's preference for an obscure
but peaceful life.  What she saw was something
very different.  How was she to know that the
golden vision which rose so radiantly before her
entranced eyes was but a mirage of the desert, and
that the silver stream which seemed to spread so
invitingly before her would only mock her parched
lips with burning sand?

The fatal choice was made for war, and the war
had now been raging for fourteen years.  The
wheel of Fortune had turned rapidly and
capriciously, but York had on the whole been
uppermost.  To the majority of ordinary Englishmen
who cared at least as much for peace and prosperity
as politics, "the King" had meant Edward
IV. since 1461.  England at that weary hour cared
more for rest than she cared to know who gave it to
her.  Edward, on his part, had "indulged himself
in ease and pleasure"[#]—which was what he most
valued—and might have continued to do so if he
had kept on good terms with Warwick.  For let
Edward or Henry be termed the King, it was
Warwick who "had all Englond at his bedyng,"
and the man who offended this master of kings
was not likely to be king much longer.  Edward
had sent Warwick to France to negotiate for his
marriage to Bona of Savoy, the Queen's sister, and
while the envoy was away, the master fell into the
toils of the fair face and golden hair and sweet
purring ways of the Lady Grey of Groby.  As Edward
had passed his life on the easy principle of never
denying himself any thing, he acted consistently in
marrying the lady.  Considering how few ever do
so, he had probably not realised that this easy
principle is apt to turn in later life into the sharpest of
scourges.  Warwick came home in a furious
passion, and carried his power, influence, and army
instantly over to the side of Lancaster.  No man
likes being made to "look small," and least of all
could it be brooked by a man of Warwick's
character and position.  Edward paid very dearly for
his golden-haired bride, and whether the purchase
was worth the amount it cost may be considered
extremely doubtful.  Elizabeth Grey was not like
Marguerite of Anjou, a far-seeing, self-less,
large-hearted woman.  Her mental horizon was
exceedingly minute.  She was chiefly concerned, like the
creature she most resembled, to obtain the warmest
spot of the hearthrug for herself.  Very delightful
to stroke and pet when all goes well, such
quadrupeds—and such women—are capable of becoming
extremely uncomfortable companions in certain
combinations of circumstances.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Comines.

.. vspace:: 2

Edward was not the only person who paid that
heavy bill which he ran up with so light a heart.
Only one small instalment of it was discharged by
him.  A heavier one was due from Queen Elizabeth,
wrung out through long years of anguish and
desolation: another from their innocent boys,
discharged in their life's blood.  The least amount,
perhaps, was exacted from the most undeserving
sharer in the penalty—that young Warwickshire
girl who was Edward's real wife by canon law, and
whose strong love proved equal to the fiery ordeal
of saving his honour and ensuring what seemed his
happiness at the cost of all her own.  It cost her
life as well.  Edward had the cruelty and baseness
to call her into court to deny their marriage.  He
knew her well enough to dare to do it.  And she
came, calm and self-restrained, and perjured her
soul because she thought it would make him happier
and save his good name.  Hers was of no moment.
Then she passed out of sight, and the overstrained
string snapped, and nothing was left to vex the
triumphant monarch.  Only God saw a nameless
green grave in a country churchyard.  And when
He comes to make inquisition for blood, when every
thing that was hidden shall be known, I think it
will be found that He did not forget Elizabeth Lucy.

Yet Edward did not escape quite without reproach.
One person endeavoured to prevent this sin and
shame, and it was a very unlikely person.  The voice
of Proud Cis was the only one raised against it, and
her interference, futile though it was, is the best
action of her life.  From the far north Edward
received the passionate reproaches of his mother for
this dastardly action.  They did not deter him from
its accomplishment: but let the fact be remembered
to Cicely's honour.[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Some writers have disputed,
and more have ignored, these
miserable transactions.
Surely the interference of Cicely, and the
language of Comines,
who was a personal acquaintance of the royal
family, may fairly be held to prove the point.

.. vspace:: 2

Two months before the story begins, Warwick
had taken advantage of some quarrel between
Edward and his brother George of Clarence to allure
the latter to the Lancastrian cause.  He offered him
an enormous bribe to come over, being his elder
daughter Isabel, with one half of her mother's vast
inheritance.  It must not be forgotten that all
Warwick's titles were derived from females.  He
was Earl of Salisbury in succession to his mother,
and Earl of Warwick only by courtesy, in right of
his wife.  His two daughters, Isabel and Anne,
were his only children, and the richest heiresses in
the kingdom.  They were both extremely beautiful
girls, but Isabel was considered the lovelier.  Clarence,
who kept neither a heart nor a conscience, was
ready to do any thing, good, bad, or indifferent,
which promised to promote his own advancement
in this world.  He accepted Warwick's offer; and
was now therefore in arms against his brother, and
a member of Warwick's household at Middleham
Castle, of which household Frideswide Marston was
about to form an item.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`LILIES AMONG THE THORNS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER II.


.. class:: center medium bold

   LILIES AMONG THE THORNS.

.. vspace:: 1

"Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."—WORDSWORTH.

.. vspace:: 2

"Aye, perchance that may serve.  What
cost it by the yard?"

*That* was a piece of superb purple
satin, which the tailor was holding up for
inspection, in the best way to catch the light.

"Five nobles, an' it please my Lady."

Five nobles amounted to one pound thirteen and
fourpence, and was the price of the very best
quality.  It is not easy to reduce it into modern
value, since authorities are disagreed on the multiple
required.  Some would go as high as sixteen times
the value, while others would reduce it to five.  Mv
own opinion inclines to the highest number.

"And wherewith wouldst line it, good Whityngham?"

"With velvet, Madam?" suggested the tailor
interrogatively.

"Aye.  Let it be black."

"At your Ladyship's pleasure."

"And I will have the cloak well furred with
Irish fox.  Is my broched[#] cloth of gold gown
made ready?"

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Figured.

.. vspace:: 2

"Madam, it shall be meet for your Ladyship's
wearing to-morrow."

"Well, see thou fail me not, for I would have
it for our Lady Day in harvest.—Well, Avice
Hilton, what wouldst?"

Avice Hilton, who was a young lady of about
eighteen years, had been waiting the pleasure of
her mistress for some minutes.

"An't like you, Madam, your new chamberer
that shall be, is now come."

"The Lord Marnell his daughter?"

"She, Madam."

"Hath she eaten aught?"

"Aye, Madam, in the hall."

"Good.  Bring her hither."

Frideswide Marston was not a timid or nervous
girl by any means, but her heart beat somewhat
faster as Avice Hilton introduced her to the
presence of the Countess of Warwick, the woman
who had more of the reality of queenship than
either of those ladies whom the partisans of the
rival Roses termed the Queen.

She saw a pleasant upper chamber, about twenty
feet square, whose windows looked over the beautiful
vale of Wensleydale.  It was hung with tapestry
on which scenes from the Quest of the Sangraal
were delineated.  At the lower end three young
ladies were busily at work of various kinds: on the
daïs, or raised step at the further end, nearest the
windows, stood the tailor with his roll of satin over
his arm, and two ladies were seated, the elder in a
chair of carved wood, the younger in a more
elaborate one inlaid with ivory.  In those days
people did not take the seat they found most
comfortable, but were carefully restricted to a certain
fashion of chair, according to delicate gradations
of rank.  Frideswide, being a well-educated young
person, as education went in the fifteenth century,
had no difficulty in perceiving that she was in the
presence of the Countess of Warwick and her
daughter, the bride of the royal Clarence.

The Countess of Warwick was a rather
slightly-made woman, but tall, with a long pale face,
haggard features bearing traces of great former beauty,
and a particularly prominent pair of blue eyes.[#]  As
is often the case with persons who exhibit the
last-named feature, she was at no loss for language.
She was the daughter, and now the only surviving
child, of that Earl of Warwick who had held a
conspicuous place in the burning of the Maid of
Orleans, and of Isabel, heiress of Le Despenser.
All the old prestige and associations of the House of
Warwick centred in her, not her husband.  How
far her influence over him may have been for good
or evil, is not an easy question.  What evidence
there is, is mostly negative, and tends to show that
the Countess Anne exercised but little influence of
any kind, and was of a type likely to be more
concerned about the burning of the marchpane in her
own oven, than about the burning of a city at some
distance.  If this be so, she is much to be pitied:
for of the seed of future misery which Warwick sowed,
the heaviest portion of the harvest was reaped by
her and by the best and dearest of her daughters.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] All the members of the Warwick family,
and also those of the
royal family, are described so far as is
practicable from contemporary portraits.

.. vspace:: 2

The young Duchess of Clarence, who was in her
nineteenth year, was a woman cast in another
mould.  She resembled her father in character, and
her mother in features: but she was more
beautiful than the Countess had ever been, and was
accounted "the finest young lady in England."  She
was fair, with blue eyes and shining light hair,
over which she wore the new head-dress, which
consisted of a most elaborate erection of wire-work,
surmounted by a veil of transparent gauze, so that
the hair, for many years concealed, was left fully visible.

Head-dresses were now, and for a long time had
been, the most important portion of the female
costume.  The variety was nearly as astounding as
the size.  Hearts, horns, crowns, and steeples, were
all represented: and a full-dressed lady, in all her
paraphernalia, was a formidable object both as to
cost and dimensions.

Frideswide found herself put through a lively fire
of interrogatories by the Countess, who might have
been projecting the writing of memoirs of the whole
Marnell family, to judge from the minute and
numerous details into which she descended.  The
Duchess sat generally a silent listener, but
occasionally interjected a query.  At last the Countess
looked across the room, and summoned Avice.

"There, take the new maid to you, and show
her what shall be her duty," said she.  "See that
she wants for nought, and say to Bonham 'tis my
desire she be set a-work."

Frideswide followed Avice to the further end of
the room, where she was introduced to her
remaining fellow-chamberers as Theobalda Salvin and
Eleanor Farley.  Beyond them, and hitherto
concealed by a chair, she suddenly perceived a fourth
person, in the shape of a little old lady, so very
little as to be almost a dwarf, with the cheeriest and
brightest of faces.

"Mother Bonham," said Avice, "'tis my Lady's
good pleasure you set Mistress Frideswide a-work."

"Well, my lass, there's no pleasure in idlesse,"
was the answer.  "See you here, my maid: would
you rather a white seam, or some matter of
broidery?"

Frideswide, whose tastes inclined her rather to the
useful than the ornamental, chose the plain work,
and sitting down among the chamberers, was soon
as busy as any of them.

Mother Bonham was the most important person
at Middleham Castle, in the sense that without her
every thing would have gone furthest wrong.  She
was "mother," or official chaperone, to the chamberers,
which accounted for the title bestowed on her;
she was general housekeeper to the Countess; she
had been nurse and governess to the young ladies;
and she was adviser in general to all the younger
inmates of the house.  She was as great a hand
at proverbs as Sancho Panza himself: she mixed
marvellous puddings and concocted unimaginable
cakes; she drew patterns for embroidery, told
stories of all kinds, nursed every body who was ill
(which often included prescribing for them), praised
every body who did well, smiled on, at, and through
every thing that happened to her.  Only one thing
there was, as Eleanor confided to Frideswide, which
Mother Bonham could not do.  She was totally
incapable of scolding!  The most severe thing she
ever said was a solemn proverb, prefaced by both
Christian and surname of the offender.  The use of
both names instantly informed a chamberer that
she had fallen under Mother Bonham's grave
displeasure.  But so dearly loved was the little old
lady that except in strong emergencies, this was
quite enough to recall the person addressed to a
sense of her delinquencies.

Frideswide was rather amused to find that she had
again to run the gauntlet of inquiries concerning her
antecedents from the chamberers.  She certainly had
never talked so much about herself and her relatives,
as she did that first afternoon of her stay at
Middleham Castle.  The fire of interrogations had slightly
slackened, when a door opened in the wall behind
the tapestry, and pushing aside the latter, a girl of
fifteen came forward and sat down by Mother Bonham,
who moved some embroidery from a carved chair to
make room for her.  The chair taken, and the style
of her dress, sufficiently pointed her out as one of
the Earl's daughters.

Though strongly resembling her mother and
sister in colour and features, the expression of her
face was entirely different from either.  The piquancy
of the elder sister was wholly absent in the younger,
and was replaced by a mixture of gentleness and
dignity.  Very queenly she was—not in the false sense
of pride, of which there was none about her: but in
the true sense of that innate kingliness of soul which
can tolerate nothing evil, and can stoop to nothing
mean.  A lily among thorns was sweet Anne Neville.
And the thorns sprang up, and choked it.  She
stood now just

   |  "Where the brook and river meet,
   |  Womanhood and childhood fleet"—

but in the path to be pursued a turn as yet hid the
river from view, and she who was so soon to be
borne down it could see nothing of the roaring cascade
and the black pool beneath, where the young life
was to be crushed out, and the fair soul to be set
free.  As Frideswide glanced at her, where she sat
with her head slightly bent over the broidery, and a
sunbeam lighting up her shining hair, she thought
no face so attractive had ever yet crossed her path
in life.

"Tib, draw thou the curtain across," said Mother
Bonham.  "The sun cometh too hot on my Lady
Anne, I reckon."

Theobalda obeyed in silence, while Lady Anne
looked up and smiled thanks.

"Tib is the best to do it," remarked Eleanor,
laughing a little, "for she is highest of all us.  I do
believe she should mete to twice of you, Mother."

"'Good stuff's lapped up in little parcels,' Nell,"
was Mother Bonham's good-tempered answer.

Conversation flagged after this.  Perhaps work
went on the better for it.  Supper was announced
in an hour, which was served in the hall, Frideswide,
as the newest arrival, being seated last of the
chamberers, and next to the Earl's squires.  She
found her neighbour decidedly communicative.
From him she learned that the Countess was not
ill to please, which was more than could be said for
my Lady of Clarence; but my Lady Anne was the
sweetest maid in the world.  As to my Lord,—with
a little shrug of the squire's shoulders—why,
he was in his element in the midst of a battle,
and not anywhere else.  Rather just a little
queer-tempered—you had to find out in a morning
whether he had got out of bed on the right side or
the wrong.  In the former case, he could be very
pleasant indeed: but in the latter—well, least said
was soonest mended.

Frideswide looked up at the potent nobleman
thus described to her.  She saw a man of moderate
height and breadth, with strong features, a florid
complexion, rather dark hair and eyes, and a very
quick, lively, intelligent expression.  His limbs were
well-knit and in good proportion, giving the idea of
great muscular strength.  It may be added, though
Frideswide of course could only learn this by degrees,
that Warwick was an extremely clever man, with
that sort of serpentine cleverness which regards any
means as sanctified by the end proposed; full of
physical courage, but looking upon tenderness and
compassion as contemptible weaknesses only fit for a
woman, and indicative of the consummate inferiority
of her sex.  He was one of those men in whose eyes
a good woman is simply a woman who has hitherto
found no opportunity of being otherwise.  When
the opportunity comes in her way, she must be
expected to take advantage of it, as a matter of
course.  Clear-sighted as Warwick was in some
matters, he was strangely obtuse in others.

A good deal of further information Frideswide
heard from her next neighbour, who told her that
his name was John Wright.[#]  He informed her that
the King (by whom he meant Henry VI.) was in
the Tower of London, a prisoner in the hands of
"Edward that rebel," who was not permitted by
zealous Lancastrians to enjoy even his ancestral title
of Duke of York.  The Queen was abroad, seeking
fresh help, and intending to take the first good
opportunity afterwards to land in England.  The
Prince of Wales was with her.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Name historical, character imaginary.

.. vspace:: 2

As for "that rebel," he of course was enjoying
himself to the utmost, residing in the palaces and
squandering the finances which did not belong to
him: and as for "that witch his wife," Mr. Wright
was ready to believe anything of her—by which of
course he meant, anything the reverse of complimentary.

That Edward was squandering money, whether it
were his own or not, was only too true.  Never lived
man in whose hands money melted in a more
instantaneous manner.  During that very summer,
he had spent on dress materials and "other
necessaries" upwards of twelve hundred pounds, and on
jewellery and goldsmiths' work £744, inclusive of a
gold collar which cost £34.[#]  Nor as we shall
presently see, had his extravagance reached its highest
point.  No King of England ever spent like him.
The degree to which he surpassed all his predecessors
in this point was an enormous one.  By most
contemporary chroniclers, Richard II. is accused of
having been a shocking waster of money:[#] but the
Issue Rolls of Richard II. reveal a state of things
which is economy itself when compared with those
of Edward IV.  Moreover, Richard's extravagance,
such as it was, was mainly in presents to other
persons: but what Edward spent was on his beloved self.
This was the more noticeable, as Henry VI. had not
been at all given to spending money; and Queen
Marguerite, while lavish enough in her charities,
was singularly frugal in respect of her wardrobe.
As for Edward's Queen, her lord and master, as his
Issue Rolls bear witness, took care she had not much to
spend.  May not this exhaustion of the royal treasury
under the brothers of York, account to some extent
for the parsimony of which Henry VII. is accused?

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Issue Roll, Michis. 9 Edw. IV.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] A supposition not at all borne out by his Issue Rolls.

.. vspace:: 2

After supper the hall was cleared for dancing.
Then followed vespers in the Castle chapel,
rear-supper, a little general conversation, cups of wine
handed round, and the Countess retired to her
oratory, and the Earl to his closet.  Last came the
Countess's *coucher*, at which three of the chamberers
were expected to be present, one being told off to
assist the Lady Anne.  The Duchess of Clarence
had her separate household.  Frideswide found
herself summoned to the Countess's chamber, where
Theobalda instructed her in her duties, which were
simply those of a lady's maid.  The chamberera
were then free to seek their own beds.

It was not until the next morning that
Frideswide saw the Duke of Clarence, who had been
absent from the supper-table.  He was the least
good-looking of the handsome royal brothers.  "A
great alms-giver and a great builder" is the character
given of him by the retainer of the House of
Warwick: but a more skilful hand than his, a hundred
years later, sketched a far truer portrait.

"False, fleeting, faithless Clarence!"

With the Duke came two other persons—the
brothers of Warwick, John Lord Montague and George
Archbishop of York.  They were about as much
given to tergiversation as their better-known brother,
with the proviso that in their innermost hearts they
were a shade more determinately Yorkist than he.
Montague in particular was remarkable for his power
of versatility.  His personal convictions were in favour
of Edward, but the least offence given to him by his
chosen master was enough to make him veer round
like a weathercock to the opposite quarter.  At the
present moment some such annoyance was rankling
in his narrow mind, and he was therefore just in a
fit state to lend an ear to the persuasive representations
of his brother of Warwick.  The marvel of
the matter is how these three crafty, changeable,
unprincipled men contrived to trust each other.

During two previous years, Warwick had been
dexterously drawing his net around his brothers.
But now matters were almost ripe for action.  For
the whole of the autumn he had kept quiet and
matured his plans.  His reverend brother was quite
as ready to his hand as the secular one.  Any thing
which involved a plot or a tumult seems to have
been to the taste of this gentleman, who in seeking
holy orders had certainly not taken the course for
which nature intended him.

The four chamberers of the Countess of Warwick
slept in one room, into which opened the smaller
one of Mother Bonham.  The furniture of the
chamber consisted of two beds, large square ones
with a tester, or head, the one having curtains of
verder, or tapestry, and the other of dark crimson
say, which was a coarse silk chiefly used in
upholstery.  In the first bed slept Eleanor and Theobalda,
in the second Frideswide and Avice.  The remaining
articles were a large chest at the bottom of each
bed, with a division across it, each young lady
having a half to herself; a chair, two stools, and a
fire-fork.  Wardrobes were then kept in a separate
chamber; while dressing-tables and washstands were
luxuries of the future.  There was a mirror fixed to
the wall, almost too high to see—a position adopted
for the discouragement of personal vanity: while
every morning a bowl of water and a towel (to serve
all four) was brought up by a slip-shod girl, one
of half-a-dozen who did the dirtiest work of the house.

One evening in November, after the lights were
out, and Mother Bonham and Theobalda were peacefully
asleep, while Eleanor was perpetrating a sound
so nearly akin to snoring that her fastidious taste
would have been shocked had she known it, Frideswide,
whose eyes were disinclined to close, heard a
soft whisper from Avice beside her.

"Are you waking?"

"Oh aye," she said in a similar tone, and turning
round towards Avice to hear the better what she
wished to say.

"Your father, if I err not, is the Lord Marnell,
that dwelleth at Lovell Tower, on the wolds?"

"Aye so," said Frideswide.

"Were you loth I should know of what kin you
be to the Lady Margery, that died, an old man's life
past, on Tower Hill?"

It was no wonder if Frideswide held her breath
for a moment, and listened whether all the rest were
safely asleep.  The reference to a Lollard and a
martyr, in the past of any family, had been safe
enough during the latter half of Henry VI.'s reign,
but it had already been pretty plainly shown not to
be equally wise in that of Edward IV.

"Look you," she said, after that momentary
pause, "it is my step-dame, not my father, that is
verily a Marnell.  The lady whom you wot of was
her grandame—to wit, her father's mother."

"Of no kin to you, then?" asked Avice, in a
tone in which Frideswide fancied she heard a shade
of disappointment.

"Nay, that can I not rightly say," was the
reply: "for Dame Agnes Lovell, the Lady's mother,
which was by birth a Greenhalgh, was sister unto
Mistress Ladreyne Clitheroe, whose daughter Maud
was my grandmother.  So you shall see we are
near of kin."

A cousin thrice removed would not now be
thought a very near relation; but in past times
much more was made of "kindly blood" than at
present.

Avice did not answer, and Frideswide, having
recovered her courage, spoke up boldly.  For a
hundred years her ancestors had been of the Lollard
faith, and she was far more disposed to glory in the
fact than to be ashamed of it.

"Wherefore?  Are you of that learning?"

"Hush, gramercy!" cried Avice under her breath.

"Wherefore?" asked Frideswide again.

"Dear heart, if any should o'erhear us!"
explained Avice.  "Know you not that 'tis a
dangerous matter to speak thereof?"

"It may be worse to let be," answered Frideswide
thoughtfully.  She was thinking of a story of
twenty years ago, which she had heard most sorrowfully
told by the lips of the Lady Idonia, how she had
at one time fallen away for fear, and had never
forgotten her defection nor forgiven herself.

"Ah, Frideswide," said Avice earnestly, "you
speak like to her that had dwelt in a sure place, and
knew nought of the world on the outside.  Look
you, matters be no more as they were these twenty-five
years back.  So long as the King were in power
and of good wit, never man were ill-used for
speaking Lollardy, for he never would have creature
harmed in his realm an' he wist it, by his good-will.
Have you ne'er heard how he bade remove down
from the Micklegate at York the one quarter of a
traitor there set, saying he would ne'er see Christian
thus cruelly used for his sake?  But the rebel is
made of other metal.  Heard you not of one Will
Balowe, that was burned on Tower Hill scarce three
years gone, for that he would not make confession
to no priest, but only unto God, and had (said they)
no conscience in eating of flesh during Lent?  Both
he and his wife had been afore abjured, so that he
was a lapsed man.  There were no burnings whenso
as King Henry were in power.  Nor know you not,
about the same time, some pixes were stole for the
silver, and one of them that stale them was heard
for to say that he had a dainty morsel to his supper,
for he had eaten nine gods—to wit, the hosts that
were in the boxes?  There is more Lollardy about
the realm than ever afore, trust me: but 'tis not
so safe to speak thereof as when you and I were
childre."

"Methinks," said Frideswide thoughtfully, "they
were little credit unto Lollardy that should steal a
pix for the silver."

"There be men enough will make cloaks of new
virtue to cover up old sins," was the answer of
Avice.

"You wot more hereof than I, as I may well see,"
said Frideswide.

"Aye, I have seen and heard, and I can reckon
so much as twice two," replied Avice drily.  "Look
you, I have been with my Lady but half a year, and
I came to her from London town, where I served
my Lady of Exeter.  So I saw and heard much,
and I have not an ill memory."

"Pray you, tell me somewhat touching that my
Lady of Exeter," said Frideswide.  "My sister is
but now entered of her chamber, and I would fain
wit what manner of mistress she shall have."

"Pray for her!" was the reply.

"Against what?" demanded Frideswide with
considerable uneasiness.

"'Shield us fro the foule thing,'" quoted Avice,
under her breath.

"But, dear heart, what mean you?" returned
Frideswide, rising on her elbow in her eager desire
to comprehend these mysterious hints.  "Is it my
Lady of Exeter, or her Lord, or his squires, or where
and what shall it be that is thus foul and fearful?"

"Her Lord?—*No*," was the earnest answer.

"Herself?" repeated Frideswide.

"She and her Lord," said Avice, in a low, sad
tone, "have not dwelt of one house these seven
years.  He, as you must wot, is of the King's side,
and she (which is sister to the rebel) brake with him
shortly after the war began.  There were sore
discontents betwixt them, for two years or more ere
they parted for good: but now they never meet.
His lands be all confiscate and granted to her, and
he is the man that shall never win one penny of
them at her hands.  I think she alway hated
him—they were wed being childre—but certes she hates
him now.  In all my life never saw I in one house
so much of God, and so much of the Devil.  But
the Lord campeth round about them that fear Him.
There is an angel in the house, as your sister will
early find to her comfort.  There are devils too."

"And her Lady is of them?" asked Frideswide.

"She is not the angel," drily responded Avice.

"And her Lord?"—said Frideswide.

"Ah, he is sore to be pitied," answered Avice in
a compassionate tone.  "May-be he is not wholly
an angel neither: yet methinks there is much in
him that is good; and he might have been a better
man—had she been a better woman.  The first sin
is an easy matter, but it is hard most times to see
whither it will lead."

"Be any here well-affectioned toward Lollardy?"
suddenly asked Frideswide.

"Only one, to my knowing."

"And that is?"—

"Mother Bonham.

"Avice Hilton!" came at this moment in clear
tones from the closet.

"I cry you mercy, Mother!" was the natural reply.

"Days for talk, nights for sleep," said the old
lady sententiously.

With simply a "Good night, Frideswide," Avice
turned on her pillow, and no more was said.

This revelation by no means conduced to
Frideswide's happiness.  She was uneasy about Agnes,
whom she knew to be a girl who would say little,
but suffer keenly.  Yet what could she do?—beyond
taking Avice's counsel, and praying for her.

The idea of writing, either to her father or sister,
did not occur to Frideswide.  Letters were serious
affairs in those days, more especially to women:
and though Frideswide had learned to write, which
was not too common an accomplishment in ladies,
yet it was to her a very laborious and tedious
business, requiring some decided reason to induce so
great an effort.  While there were at that time a
sufficient number of women who could write, yet
not to have acquired the art was considered no
disgrace to a woman of any rank.  In that interesting
contemporaneous poem, "The Song of the Lady
Bessy," we find the daughter of Edward IV. assuring
Lord Stanley that there is no need to send for a
scribe to write his important private letters, for she
could write as well as any scrivener.

   |  "You shall not need none such to call,
   |    Good Father Stanley—hearken to me,
   |  What my father, King Edward, that King royal,
   |    Did for my sister, my Lady Welles,[#] and me:
   |  He sent for a scrivener to lusty London,
   |    He was the best in that citie;
   |  He taught us both to write and read full soon—
   |    If it please you, full soon you shall see—
   |  Lauded be God, I had such speed
   |    That I can write as well as he,
   |  Both English and also French,
   |    And also Spanish, if you had need."[#]

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.. class:: noindent small

[#] The Princess Cicely.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Humphrey Brereton, Lord Stanley's squire, and the writer of
the poem, was present at the conference, and we may therefore
take him to record the exact statements made by the Princess
Elizabeth.

.. vspace:: 2

Certainly, the black-letter hand was one requiring
far more effort and pains than the modern running
or Italian hand.  The caligraphy of the Lady Bessy
(afterwards Queen Elizabeth of York) which has
descended to posterity, would lead to the melancholy
conclusion that if she wrote as well as the best
scriveners in London, the productions of inferior
penmen must have been illegible indeed.  It really
is the case; for of all periods in English history
(alas, excepting the present century!) the worst
writing is found in that which runs from the close
of the Wars of the Roses to the latter part of the
reign of Elizabeth.  A document dating from the
reign of King John is like copper-plate in
comparison with the atrocious scrawls of some writers
of the Reformation period.

Before that year was ended, Pope Paul thought
proper to confer upon Louis XI. of France the title
of "Most Christian King."  It was no sooner heard
of than it was gleefully seized by Edward IV., under
his character of *soi-disant* King of France.  We
may also conclude that Proud Cis snatched at it
with considerable self-gratulation, since a charter of
hers, dated in this very year, adds it to her titles.
She styles herself "the excellent Princess, mother
of the Most Christian Prince, our Lord and son,
Edward, and lately wife of the most excellent Prince
Richard, by right King of England and of France,
and Lord of Ireland."[#]  Further than this, even
Cicely's ambition dared not to venture; yet it seems
almost surprising that she did not step across the
very little gulf which lay between all these
high-sounding epithets and the one which would have
involved them all—the coveted name of Queen.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Close Roll, 9 Edw. IV.

.. vspace:: 2

During this year, another daughter was born to
Edward and Elizabeth.  They had three
now—Elizabeth, Mary, and Cicely—but no son.  The
eldest daughter, however, was treated as Princess of
Wales in her own right.  She is always styled
"the Lady Princess"—a title which, until the accession
of the Stuarts, appertained alone to the Princess
of Wales, whether she were daughter or daughter-in-law
of the monarch.  The King's daughters,
apart from this, were simply addressed as "Lady."  The
Princess had her own separate household, and
judging from the amount of money spent upon her,
was rather better provided for than the Queen.

Another occurrence was taking place this year,
of no moment to any but the parties immediately
concerned, yet which might have had very considerable
influence on the future history of England.
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, had a boy of
thirteen as his ward, the nephew of Henry VI.,
whom at that time it was desirable for his own sake
to keep as much in obscurity as possible.  This was
Henry Tudor, the young Earl of Richmond, whose
mother was next heir to the Crown after the
descendants of Henry IV.  The Earl, who liked his
young ward, lent a kindly ear to his pleading when
a love-story came before him.  He was not
altogether sorry to find that he could provide for the
eldest of his very numerous family by betrothing her
to the young Earl.  Very young they both were;
but boys and girls came early to the front, and
blossomed rapidly into men and women in the time
of the rival Roses.  So the Earl of Richmond was
formally affianced to the Lady Maud Herbert, in
anticipation of a marriage which was never to
be.  Would it have been better if it had been?
Humanly speaking, the course of English history
would assuredly have been different.  For Maud
Herbert was a woman of strong character, and did
not faint in the weary march, as Elizabeth Lucy
had done.  But one thing is certain: that the
change for the worse which came over the character
of Henry of Richmond dates from the time of his
parting from Maud Herbert.  He went into exile;
and she wedded the Earl of Northumberland, years
before his triumphant return to wear the crown of
England.  Which of the two was to blame must be
left an open question.  Perhaps it was not either:
for Maud's marriage was not improbably forced
upon her, and Henry could not have returned to
claim her without the most reckless risk of life.
His marriage with "the Lady Princess" gave peace
to England, but he died a lonely, unloved man,
grown miserly and callous,—no longer the graceful
and gallant Richmond of those early years when he
and Maud had lived and loved at Pembroke Castle.





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.. _`FLIGHT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III.


.. class:: center medium bold

   FLIGHT.

..

   |  "My barque is wafted to the strand
   |    By breath Divine:
   |  And on the helm there rests a hand
   |    Other than mine."
   |                    —DEAN ALFORD.

.. vspace:: 2

The Lady Idonia sat writing at a small table
in the hall of Lovell Tower.  She was the
best writer in the family—which does not
by any means imply extraordinary fluency of diction
or rapidity of penmanship.  The letters grew slowly
under her hand, and she frequently paused to look
out of the window and think.  What lay on the
desk before her was the following unfinished letter.


"Jh'u.[#]

"MY NOWEN[#] DERE CHYLDE,

Thys shal be to give you to wyt, wt[#] all
louyng comendac'ons from all us, that wee well
fare, and do hope in God that you be the same.
And we have not yett herde so much as one word
from yr sistar.  Matters here bee reasonable quyett
at this present, onlie that Doratie has broke y'
powdre box of siluer, in good sooth a misaduenture
and noe malice, wch shall be wel amended ere yow
com home.  The dun cowe hath a calfe of hir
veraye coloure.  And Lyard Carlile[#] and all the
dogges fare wel.  Maistres Henley hir littel lad
lyethe sicke of a fevare, but the leech reckoneth he
shal doe well.  Dorathie ys merrie, and gode withal.
Yr father thynkes to buy som pigges ayenst Xmas.[#]
We shal bee fayn to here of yr newes, the rather if
you can give us any tydynges of such as you wot
of,[#] how they be now in men's reckonings, and if
thei be lyke to fare wel or noe.  The gode Lorde of
his mercie kepe us all, and make vs to bee hys trew
seruantes.  Annis, I wold haue you, when
conueniencie serue, to sende mee from London towne viij
ells gode clothe of skarlette for a goune for yr moder,
and so moche of greene kersay as shall be a goun
for Doratie: and dowlas to lyne the same, and silke
frenge to guard the skarlett goun, and fur of rabetts
to guard ye grene: alsoe siluer botons iij dozen, and
black botons vj dosen and halfe.  And sende ye same
well packed vp to the Goldene Lyon by Powles,[#] to
ye name of Maister Anthanie Milborne, yt is a frend
of mye broder Will, and cometh into Yorksh: thys
nexte monethe.  And let him that berethe ye same
aske of ye sayd Maister Anthanie for a token[#] yt he
hath of mee for yow.  Annis, wee trust in God
yt yow shal be a discrete mayd and gode, and obedyent
to yowr maistres, and kyndlie wt yr fellowes.[#]
And above al, my dere harte, kepe yow ye fayth
yt ve have ben learned, nor let not anie man beguile
you therof."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] A contraction of Jesus, commonly used at the head of a letter
by pious persons.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Mine own.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] With.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The name of a horse.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Against Christmas.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The Lollards.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] St Paul's Cathedral.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Present.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Fellow-chamberers.

.. vspace:: 2

The pen had been laid down at this point, and
left so long that the ink was dry.  The Lady Idonia
was speaking now to Another than Agnes,

"O Lord, keep the child!" went up from her
inmost heart.  "Suffer the unfaithful handmaid to
plead with Thee, that the faithful one may be
preserved in the faith.  I may give her wrong cautions—I
may fancy dangers that will not assault her, and
be blind to those that will.  Thou, who seest the
end from the beginning, hold the child up, and
suffer her not, for any pains nor fears, to fall from
Thee!"

She roused herself at last, and finished her letter.

.. vspace:: 2

"And so, with all louyng comendac'ons from al
vs, I commend yow to God.

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

"Yr louyng grandame to my litel powar,
   "IDONIA MARNELL.

.. vspace:: 1

"Writyn at Louell Towre, this Wensday."

.. vspace:: 2

The letter was delivered by Mr. William Carew
to a retainer of the Earl of Warwick, who was also
one of his friends, and from whom he had understood
that the Earl meant to go southwards before the
week was over.

The plot was ripe at last.  Warwick left Middleham
with the first dawn of 1470, and arrived in
London without any suspicion of his proceedings
being excited at Court.  He left his brothers behind
him in the north, with strict injunctions to George
to keep John out of mischief.  They were very
necessary.  Unfortunately (from Warwick's point
of view) just at that juncture King Edward took it
into his head to create Lord Montague's little son
George a Duke—a title then shared by very few
who were not Princes of the Blood—with the object
of marrying him to the Princess Elizabeth, and thus
making him, in case Edward himself left no son,
virtually the future King.  This high advancement
for his boy sorely tried Montague's new-born
Lancastrian proclivities.  He swung like a pendulum
between the royal rivals: and all the efforts of his
brother George were needed to prevent him from
going off to Edward, and of course, revealing the plot
in which Warwick was now engaged.  One thing
which had annoyed Warwick was the discovery,
real or fancied, that his influence with Edward was
less powerful than of old.  But he went to work
darkly, as was his wont.  He was greatly assisted
in his proceedings by the fact that he held Edward's
commission to raise troops for his service in the
north, and no suspicion would therefore be excited
by his gathering an army around him.[#]  When he
arrived in London, he reported himself at the Palace,
and a long interview followed in Westminster Hall
between Edward, Clarence, and Warwick.  They
parted "worse friends than they met,"[#] but Edward
still does not appear to have suspected that Warwick
was actually plotting against him, or he would
hardly have let him go so calmly.  Edward had left
for Canterbury, and Warwick and Clarence
prepared to return northwards and continue their
amusement.  Before leaving London, Clarence
dispatched Sir John Clare to Lord Welles and his son
Sir Robert, desiring them to "be ready with all the
fellowship they could, whenever he should send
word; but to tarry and not stir till my Lord of
Warwick were come again from London, for fear of
his destruction."[#]  In the mean time they
assiduously spread a report that "the King was coming
down with great power to Lincolnshire, and his
judges should sit, and hang and draw great numbers
of the commons."[#]  Of course this disposed the
commons to rally round Warwick, who represented
himself in the light of a protector from the
impending terrors.  He sent messenger after messenger to
bid Sir Robert Welles be of good comfort, and go
forward, promising to meet him at Leicester on
the twelfth of February with nineteen thousand
men.[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] A very varied tale is told of Warwick's capturing Edward in his
bed at Wolvey in 1469, and sending him prisoner to Middleham,
whence he effected his escape in a romantic manner.  The accounts
given are contradictory, the story of the escape is disbelieved by
Carte, and intimations on the Rolls seem to show that the King had
never left Westminster; I therefore have thought it wiser to ignore
this episode entirely beyond the present mention of it.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Sandford.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Confession of Sir Robert Welles, Harl. Ms. 283, fol. 2.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Confession of Sir Robert Welles, Harl. Ms. 283, fol. 2.

.. vspace:: 2

Clarence, meanwhile, was playing his own little
game, independently of his father-in-law.  His
messengers had private orders to "move the host,
that at such time as the matter should come near the
point of battle, they should call upon my Lord of
Clarence to be King, and destroy the King that so
was about to destroy them and all the realm."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Confession of Sir Robert Welles, Harl. Ms. 283, fol. 2.

.. vspace:: 2

Meanwhile, Edward continued his favours to
Montague—not because he trusted, but really
because he suspected him, and was anxious to ensure
his fidelity.  A few days only after the meeting of
Warwick and Welles, he granted to John, Earl of
Northumberland and Baron Montague, the manors
of Tiverton, Plympton, Okehampton, and many
others in Devonshire,[#] being a portion of the
confiscated lands of the Courtenays, Earls of Devon.
Perhaps this timely gift prevented Montague from
openly siding with Warwick until a later date: but
he was not particularly grateful for it, since he
contemptuously termed it "a 'pie's nest," and plainly
intimated that it was not so much as might have
been expected.  However, for the present, he held
aloof from the actual struggle.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Rot. Pat., 9 Edw. IV, Part 2.  The earldom of Morthumberland
was not immediately restored to the Percys on their submission
in the previous October.  A writer in the Paston Letters dates
their restoration Mar. 25, 1470.

.. vspace:: 2

That was close at hand.  Some rumour of the
transactions with Welles must have reached Edward,
for he sent a peremptory order to Lord Welles to
come to him.  It was obeyed; and the old man
was then commanded to write a letter to his son,
charging him instantly to forsake Warwick and to
join his father.  The command was accompanied by
a hint that the writer's head would be the forfeit of
his failure.  Sir Robert, who seems to have been of
an obstinate temper, since we are told that he knew
his power was too weak to grapple with Edward,
refused to obey, and moved southward to give
battle.  Edward kept his word, and the father's life
paid for the son's imprudence.  Then he marched
northwards, and the two armies met at Stamford,
on a place afterwards known as Loosecoat Field.
Welles had no chance against the overwhelming
superiority of Edward's forces, and Warwick was
not there.  Sir Robert was taken, and beheaded at
Doncaster on the 13th of March.  Hearing that
Warwick was encamped about twenty miles from
Doncaster, Edward went on to the latter town.  The
next morning, March 20, "at nine of the bell,"
Edward took the field at Estrefield, and Warwick met
him.  "Never were seen in England so many goodly
men, and so well arranged."  But no sooner did
Warwick and Clarence perceive that fortune was
against them than they fled the field, and went to
seek succour from Lord Stanley.  They halted first
at a little town, so obscure that it was necessary to
say that it was in Lancashire, as otherwise few
would have known whereabouts Manchester might
be.  Thence they sent messengers to Lathom, but
my Lord Stanley, most cautious of men, showed
them little favour.  "And so men say they went
northward, and thence, men deem, to London."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Paston Letters.

.. vspace:: 2

Perceiving that his chief adversaries had escaped
him, Edward stopped pursuit of their troops, and
went on to York.  He and his men had probably
had thirsty work, for we learn that "York was
drunk dry when the King was there."[#]  He was
wise enough to send to Middleham for Lord
Montague.  When that trustworthy gentleman appeared,
it was to be created Marquis Montague, the
earldom of Northumberland being now taken from him
and restored to its rightful owner.  It might have
been supposed that an earl would scarcely deem it a
deplorable occurrence that he should be made a
marquis: but my gracious Lord of Montague was
evidently in an exceedingly bad temper.  He
growled and grumbled as if he were a deeply injured
man,—managing, however, to keep up a contented
face in the presence of his master, who appears
to have fancied that he had secured Montague's
fidelity.  Never were there more men than at that
time who were able to "smile, and smile, and be
a villain": and all the Warwick brothers were
certainly of the number.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Paston Letters.

.. vspace:: 2

From York was issued a long and curious
proclamation, in which Edward showed that he had at
last fully realised that Warwick and Clarence were
his open enemies.  If the words of Edward were to
be relied on to the exclusion of his deeds, it would
certainly be supposed that he was a man of the
tenderest and most affectionate nature.  In this
respect he somewhat resembled his predecessor, Henry
III.  Both could use very touching language—which
the actions of both sorely contradicted.  In
this document the tone taken by Edward is that of
a well-deserving man who had been injured in his
deepest affections.  He sets forth that "the King
granted to George Duke of Clarence and Richard
Earl of Warwick his pardon general for all offences
before Christmas last," trusting thereby to have
caused them to have "shewed unto him their naturall
loue, ligeance, and duetee," for which purpose he
had authorised them to assemble his subjects in
certain shires.  "Yet the said Duke and Earl,
unnaturally, unkindly, and truly intending his
destruction and the subversion of the kingdom, ... and
to make the said Duke king of this the said realm,
against God's law, man's law, all reason, and
conscience, dissimuled with his said Highness."  Their
proceedings are then detailed, as deposed in the
confessions of Sir Robert Welles and others,
concluding with their flight "with all their fellaship
into Lancastreshire, so as his said Highness with his
hoste for lack of vitayll might not follow."  Notwithstanding
all these offences, "our sovereign Lord
considered the nighness of blood,[#] and tender love
which he hath aforetime borne to them, and was
therefore loth to have lost them if they would have
submitted them to his grace."  Having disobeyed
the writs which allowed them to present themselves,
under promise of pardon, up to the 28th of March,
the Duke and Earl are now solemnly proclaimed
rebels, to whom loyal subjects of King Edward are
to give no aid, favour, nor assistance, with meat,
drink, money, or otherwise, but are to take them
and bring them to the King, upon pain of death
and forfeiture.  The reward announced for the
capture of either is £100 in land by the year, to the
captor and his heirs, or £1000 in ready money, at
his election.  The capture of any knight of their
following is to be rewarded by £20 in land or a
hundred marks in cash; and of a squire, £10 in
land or forty in money.[#]

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.. class:: noindent small

[#] The Countess of Warwick was Edward's second cousin, and
the Earl his third cousin.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Close Roll, 10 Edw. IV.; dated York, March 24, 1470.

.. vspace:: 2

The day after this proclamation, Montague
received his marquis's coronet, and was, in appearance
at least, one of the most faithful subjects of
King Edward.  The news he brought on his return
to Middleham caused no little excitement there.
The Countess ordered instant preparations for
departure.  Some of the household were left behind at
Middleham: some were suffered to return to their
friends, among whom were Theobalda and Eleanor.
The only ladies she took with her, beside her
daughters, were Mother Bonham, Frideswide, and
Avice.  There was also a dresser, or lady's maid,
and a scullion-girl.

About midnight, when the ladies were trying to
get a little sleep before their early journey on the
morrow, the porter was awoke by small pebbles
thrown up at his window.

"Who goes there?" he inquired, opening the
casement about an inch.

"It is I, John Wright," answered the familiar
voice of the young squire.  "Pray thee, good
Thomas, be hasteful and let me in privily, with all
silence, for I bring word from my Lord unto my Lady."

The porter cautiously unbarred the small wicket,
and Wright stepped inside.  He did not wait to
satisfy the porter's curiosity, but sped across the
court-yard, and by means of a key which he carried,
let himself into the tower which contained the
apartments of the Countess.  A minute later, he
was softly rapping at the outer door of her rooms,
and Mother Bonham admitted him.

The Countess sent for him at once to her
bedside.  She guessed that his message was one of
imminent import.

"Noble Lady," said Wright, with a low courtesy—for
the courtesy was a gentleman's reverence in
those days,—"behold here my Lord's token, who
greets you well by me, and desires you to come
unto him, and my young ladies withal, at Dartmouth,
in Devon, so speedily and secretly as you may."

He held forth a diamond ring, which the Countess
recognised as one usually worn by her husband,
and not sent as a token except on occasions of
serious moment.  She sent Mother Bonham at once
to communicate the news to her daughters, and to
desire them to be ready to set forth two hours
earlier than the time originally fixed.  Her idea had
been to seek the Earl at Warwick Castle, though
she hoped to receive more exact news before her
departure.  But she deemed it quite as well that
that very reliable person, the Marquis Montague,
should be left in a little uncertainty touching her
departure.  She had already taken advantage of a
conveniently smoky chimney to move the Marquis
into a tower which did not overlook her own.
She now gave further orders that the horses were
to be in waiting outside the Castle, on the grass, so
as to avoid noise, and in a position where they could
not be seen from Montague's windows.  At two
o'clock, wrapped in long travelling cloaks, and
wearing list slippers, the ladies crept out of the
Castle into the fresh April night air, and mounted
their horses in silence.  Sir John Clare rode before
the Countess, Sir Walter Wretill before the Duchess
of Clarence, and John Wright before the Lady
Anne.  Slowly and silently, at first, the procession
filed off from the Castle, not breaking into a trot
till they thought themselves beyond sight and
hearing.  The Archbishop (just then to be trusted) was
keeping watch over his brother, and with him
Warwick's servant, Philip Strangeways, who was
to follow an hour later, in order to gallop on and
warn the ladies if any pursuit were attempted.

Once out of Wensleydale, and joined by Philip,
the journey changed into a rapid flight.  They
travelled by night.  They were afraid of being
pursued, not only on their own account, but on
that of Warwick, to whose locality theirs would
give a clue, as it would instantly be surmised that
they were going to join him.  They kept as much
as possible to the bye-ways and moor roads, which
were less frequented, and also less capable of
ambush, than the high roads: but they could not
keep altogether out of human sight and hearing.
Many a cottager woke up in the dark to hear a rush
of horses, and to see the flash of the lanterns as the
fugitives fled past.  It was a wretched journey,
especially for the Duchess, who was by no means in
health to stand it.  But the Duchess had a spirit
which carried her above all pain and languor.  She
would have no halts made for her.  She entertained
a strong dislike and fear of Edward personally, and
if report spoke truly, not without good reason.

Before Dartmouth was reached, Frideswide Marston
had most heartily wished herself, a score of
times at least, within the safe shelter of Lovell
Tower.  Oh, if she could wake up from this hurried
snatch of sleep under an elderbush, to find herself
in that little white bed in the turret chamber, with
Dorathie's head beside her on the pillow!  It seemed
to Frideswide as if, that wish granted, she could
never complain of any thing again.

Along the wild hill-passes of "the back-bone of
England," winding round the Peak, keeping clear of
Stafford Castle, where the Yorkist Duke of
Buckingham had his home, skirting Shropshire and
Hereford, taking the ferry over the Severn, down through
Somerset, avoiding alike the uncivilised neighbourhood
of Exmoor, where bandits loved to congregate,
and the too civilised neighbourhood of Exeter, they
came into those safer parts of Devon where the
exiled Courtenays were lords of the hearts, though
they had lost the lands,—where once more "the
King" was Henry VI., and his adherents would
meet with honour and help.  Near Totness they
were met by William Newark, Warwick's nuncio,
who conducted them to boats moored in the river
awaiting them.  It was a great relief to change
their weary saddles for the boats in which they
dropped down the lovely Dart, and found Warwick's
fleet, of eighty ships, ready to weigh anchor the
moment they arrived, lying off Kingswear.

The voyage, however, had not been long before
they discovered that the saddles had been the safer
mode of conveyance.  The wind, though low, was
not unfavourable: but they had scarcely passed
Portland when they were met by the very enemy
from whom they were endeavouring to escape.  As
they rounded the little peninsula, ships of war stood
before them, with King Edward's standard and Lord
Rivers' pennon flying from the masthead.

An evil augury for Warwick was that pennon.
With any weaker commander, the fleet would have
obeyed its Lord High Admiral, as Warwick had
been created a year before.  But Lord Rivers was a
conscientious man of one idea, and he thoroughly
believed in Edward's right.  The ships joined battle,
and the ladies of course were kept below.

Oh for that little white bed and Dorathie!

Never till then had Frideswide Marston looked
death in the face, and never after that day could she
be as she had been, again.

Warwick was a less honest and true-hearted man
than Rivers, but he was also a better general.  The
battle was short and sharp, but the victory remained
in the hands of Warwick.  His ships got safely
away, but they were not by any means out of their
troubles.  It seemed as though both God and man
were against them that night.  Before they could
reach Beachy Head, there came on them a terrific
tempest, and they were tossed up and down in the
Channel like toys of the storm.  To add to all
other distresses, the Duchess of Clarence, whose
mental energy had hitherto borne her through her
physical sufferings, sank beneath them at last, and
became alarmingly ill.  It was not until the
morning of the fourth day that they found themselves off
Calais, and a few hours before, the Duchess had
given birth to a child which had not survived the
event many minutes.  But Calais was Warwick's
old home; he had been Governor of the town for
years.  Here, at least, he might hope for rest and
aid.

They cast anchor under shelter of Cape Grisnez,
and sent John Wright ashore in a little boat to
notify to Vauclere, Warwick's deputy in command,
that his master was about to land.

Warwick himself paced the quarter-deck
impatiently.  What were those sluggards ashore doing,
that his own state barge was not sent off at once to
land the ladies?  Why did Vauclere not appear,
cap in hand, to express his satisfaction at the return
of his master?  When at last he saw his squire
return alone, Warwick's patience, never very
extensive, failed him utterly.

"What means all this?" he roared in a passion.

"My Lord," shouted John Wright back from
the boat, "Messire de Vauclere begs your Lordship
will not essay a landing, for the townsmen will not
receive you."

"Not receive *me*!" cried the Earl in amazement.
"Me, their own Governor!  Lad, didst hear aright?
Is Vauclere beside himself?"

"In good sooth, nay, my Lord, and he is sore
aggrieved to have no better welcome for your
Lordship than so.  'Tis the townsmen, not he, as he
bade me for to say, and he earnestly desires your
Lordship to make for some other French port."

Warwick could hardly believe his ears.

"But surely," he answered in a rather crestfallen
tone, "they will never refuse to receive my Lady
Duchess?  Have you told Vauclere in what case
she now is?"

"My Lord, I told him all things: and he replied
that he was sore troubled it should so fall out, but
he had no power.  He hath, howbeit, sent two
flagons of wine for Her Grace."

"No power!" repeated the Earl.  "Wherefore
then is he there?  Leave me but land in safety, and
Messire de Vauclere, and my masters the townsmen,
shall soon behold if I have any power or no!  No
power, quotha!  Well! better luck next time.  Get
you up, lad, and bring the wine, for 'tis sore needed.
Bid the shipmaster stand southward.  Were we in
better case, they should find their ears tingle ere
they were much older!  Messire de Vauclere shall
one day hear my name again, or I much mistake!"

And away strode the Earl wrathfully, to communicate
the disappointing news to his suffering ladies.

Southwards, for two days more, they slowly sailed.
The storm was over, and the wind had dropped
almost to a calm.  But at the end of two days, with
much difficulty, the vessel containing the Earl and
his family was run into the mouth of the Seine,
and between Harfleur and Honfleur they landed on
the soil of Normandy.

In France the scene was changed.  Louis XI. had
been pleased to take up the Lancastrian cause—the
cause of the King who had of old, as a child,
been made the rival of Louis's father, and whose
troops had been so ignominiously driven out of
France by the Maid.  In France, therefore,
Warwick was received with honour and material help.
Every provision was made for the wearied ladies
at Valognes, where they took up their temporary
abode: but for some weeks nothing would tempt
Warwick from Honfleur—not even the remonstrances
of his friend the Duke of Burgundy, who
sent to entreat him to come to his Court.  One
important point was wanting—Queen Marguerite
would make no move towards conciliation.  In vain
King Louis assured her that Warwick's help was
absolutely essential to the Lancastrian cause.  The
Queen might have welcomed him, but the cruel
defamation of her name the woman knew not how
to forgive.  She only relented after long importunity,
and then on the stern condition that in the
presence of the Kings of France and Naples, Warwick
should solemnly retract all his accusations, and
beg her pardon for his infamous falsehoods.  She
also insisted on this retractation being published
in England.  Finding that no better terms could
be obtained from his insulted sovereign, Warwick
was compelled to eat this most unpalatable piece
of humble-pie with what appetite he might.  He
waited on the Queen at Angers, where he begged
her pardon on his knees, and formally unsaid all the
imputations which he had made upon her character.
Even then all present could see that Marguerite
found it a very bitter task to receive her enemy into
favour.  After this humiliating scene, the Earl
rejoined his ladies, and some weeks later they
travelled together to the Castle of Amboise, where
their royal hosts were then residing.

The Castle of Amboise stands on one of those
natural platforms of rock which in and about
Touraine gem the vale of the Loire; the little town
clustering at its foot, between it and the river, while
the Palace towers above all.  Were it not for them,
the scenery would be as flat as the sea.  But wherever
they stand up there is a little oasis of beauty, for
they are generally clad in verdure, as well as
crowned with some picturesque edifice of the Middle Ages.

It was after dark when the barge which bore the
fugitives was moored at Amboise.  Royal footmen
stood on each side of the landing-stage, bearing large
torches, and royal ushers handed the ladies from the
barge, and led them into the Castle.  As Frideswide
was modestly following her mistress, the last of the
group, rather to her surprise, a hand was offered her,
and a voice asked her in English if she were not
very tired.

Frideswide looked up into the pleasant face of a
man of some thirty years of age, who wore the
royal livery of England.  Livery, it must be
remembered, was not at that time any badge of servitude;
all the King's equerries, household officers, and
gentlemen ushers, wore his livery.  This man was
of fine proportions, had bright, dark, intelligent eyes,
and wore—what few then did—a long beard and
moustache.  There was a kind, friendly expression
in his face which made Frideswide feel at her ease.
She answered the sympathising inquiry by a
smiling affirmative.

"Well, here may you find good rest," said he.
"At the least, after all these stairs be clomb, which
I fear shall yet weary you somewhat.  Shall we, of
your good pleasure, make acquaintance?  I am the
Queen's henchman."

"Master Combe?" asked Frideswide, looking up.

"John Combe, and your servant," said he.
"Truly a lowly name—it could scarce be shorter—but
it hath serven me these thirty years, and yet
shall, if it please God."

The name was no unknown sound to Frideswide
Marston, for John Combe had been Queen Marguerite's
personal attendant—equerry, secretary,
confidant, friend—ever since that dark and evil day
when, stung by Warwick's cruel stab in the dark,
the beautiful young Queen, to avoid all ground for
evil surmisings, had selected a boy of fourteen to
ride before her.  Truest of the true had John
Combe proved to his royal lady.  He was low
down, indeed, in her household—no peerage ever
adorned his name, nor order glittered on his
breast—but there was not a man about her whom
Marguerite would have trusted as she trusted him.  His
feeling towards her was one of reverential
tenderness—the sentiment of a devotee towards his chosen
saint.  In fact, it was John Combe's nature to look
out for, to protect, to love, whatever he found in
need of it.  "The man who wanted him was the
man he wanted."  A timid, shrinking girl, who
looked frightened and uncomfortable, would have
won John Combe's notice, though a dozen
luxuriously-appointed beauties were fluttering about him
in vain.  What had originally attracted him to
Marguerite herself was not the beauty nor the
Queen, but the lonely, helpless, calumniated woman.

The world holds a few John Combes.  Would
there were more!

The long stretch of stairs came to an end at last,
and John Combe led Frideswide into the private
closet of Queen Marguerite.  It was the first time
she had ever seen the royal lady who to her was the
incarnation of every thing that was fair and noble.
While the Queen was occupied with the Countess
and her daughters, Frideswide had time to look
at her.

Marguerite of Anjou was now just forty years of
age, but she still retained, in every item but one,
that wonderful beauty which had won her the
reputation of the loveliest woman in Europe.  The
once brilliant complexion was dimmed and faded by
long years of anxiety and privation.  But the
graceful figure, lithe and slender, was not changed—the
gracious bearing was no less fascinating than of
old—the blue eyes were bright and sparkling still, and
the golden hair held its own without a silver thread.
She received the Countess with the affectionate
concern of an old friend who was sorry for her recent
suffering, and her daughters with motherly kindness.
Perhaps there was just a shade more of it for
the Lady Anne than her sister.  But Anne was the
younger, and was at that moment looking the more
wearied of the two.  Then the Queen turned to the
suite, greeted Mother Bonham as she might have
done her own old nurse, and gave her hand to kiss
to Frideswide and Avice.  The Earl, who had been
first to wait on King Louis, made his appearance
last.  Marguerite received him with cold civility,
very different from her manner to the ladies.  But
she condescended to converse with him on political
affairs, though it was in a grave and distant style.
Marguerite showed to most advantage when she
spoke, for then her face lighted up, her eyes were
animated, and her natural vivacity made itself
apparent.  Let her be silent, and the face grew grave
and sad, as she had good cause to be.

Before much of this political converse had gone
on, the Queen, by a motion of her hand, summoned
John Combe, who, whatever he might be doing,
always seemed to keep one eye upon every act and
gesture of his royal mistress.  She desired him to
call the Lady de Vivonne, and a plump, lively,
gesticulating Frenchwoman accordingly sailed into the
room.  To her care the Queen committed the ladies
who had accepted her hospitality, desiring her to see
that they wanted for nothing: and the Lady de
Vivonne carried them off to the apartments already
prepared for them.  Here were several other women,
both French and English, who busied themselves in
offering help.  One of the latter, a girl of about
their own age, devoted herself to Frideswide and
Avice.

"Gramercy, my damsels, but you must be
a-weary!" said she.  "I wis I was when we hither
came.  You shall yet have seen none, as I reckon,
save our own Queen?"

"None at all," answered Avice.  "I would right
fain see my Lord Prince."

"And the King and Queen of France—be they
here?" said Frideswide.

"They be so," replied Christian, as they found
the girl was named: "but, gramercy! they be not
much to look at."

"Ill-favoured both?"

Christian pulled an affirmative face.  She was
evidently ready to continue the conversation to any
extent; but both the chamberers were so tired that
when their duties were over, they were only too
thankful to lie down in bed.  Only, before they
dropped asleep, Frideswide said,—

"What shall be the next move?"

"God wot," said Avice, gravely.

"Know you if the Queen hath or no any leaning
toward our doctrine?"

"Hush, prithee!  I cannot tell, in any wise.
The King is good man and holy—men say, holy as
any saint.  The Queen, I have heard, is a great
almsgiver—or so were, when she had alms to give.
Poor lady! now 'tis well nigh come to asking alms,
with her."

"Poor lady!" echoed Frideswide.

And then they went to sleep.





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   CHAPTER IV.


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   SCENE-SHIFTING.

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"What a world this is!—a cur of a world, which fawns on its
master, and bites the beggar.  Ha, ha! it fawns on me now, for
the beggar has bought the cur."—EDWARD, EARL LYTTON.

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A brilliant spring morning greeted Frideswide's
eyes when she opened her curtains
in the little turret-room at Amboise where
the chamberers were lodged.  Avice was still asleep,
but Frideswide, hearing sounds of life without, and
fearing it might be late, roused her, and they dressed
quickly, and hastened to the Countess's rooms.
They found that lady refreshed by her night's rest,
and in the highest spirits.  From the sanguine tone
of her conversation, it might have been supposed
that the conquest of England was only a thing to
ask and have.  They would soon be back at
Warwick or Middleham,—there could not be the least
doubt of it: King Henry would be restored amid
the acclamations of a delighted and loyal people,
that rebel would have his head cut off, and all would
be smooth as a looking-glass, and sweet as a bouquet
of roses, for ever thenceforward.

It was not Frideswide's place to utter a word.
But in her heart she thought that she had no wish
to return to Middleham.  Were it in her power to
return to Lovell Tower, that would have been a
different matter.

The process of dressing over, the ladies descended
to Queen Marguerite's drawing-room, there to wait
till the chapel bell rang for matins.  The Queen
herself appeared in a few minutes, and gave them a
kindly greeting.  She was accompanied by a youth
of seventeen years, in whom it was easy to recognise
the Prince of Wales.

Edward Prince of Wales was "only the child of
his mother."  Neither in person nor character did
he bear any resemblance to the King.  He was tall
for his age, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and superlatively
handsome.  His beauty, nevertheless, was of rather
too feminine a cast—though there was no shade of
weakness in his character, unless too great a
tendency to fiery rashness be considered in that light.

It may be said that the Prince did not enter the
room unattended.  A little allegorical person
accompanied him, Cupid by name, who is said to take
great delight in the making of mischief and the
breaking of hearts.  In this instance he certainly
came for the latter pursuit.  Well would it have
been for Warwick's youngest and sweetest daughter
if the electric spark had not been shot that day from
heart to heart, which was to end in so soon making
her a widow indeed, with a heart which could throb
no more to any human love.

The King of France was now on his way to the
chapel, as a loud ringing of bells and a
trumpet-blast informed every body within hearing.  Queen
Marguerite marshalled her guests, giving her own
hand to Clarence, the Prince conducting the Duchess.
In pairs they slowly filed down the stairs of the
tower, and crossed the court-yard to the chapel, where
the English Queen and Prince sat in the royal
traverse, the former on the right hand of King Louis,
and the latter on the left of Queen Carlotta.

Frideswide felt quite ready to echo Christian's
opinion that neither King nor Queen of France
was much worth looking at.  King Louis had strong
and by no means beautiful features, and he stooped
in the shoulders to an extent which approached an
appearance of deformity.  The Queen's features
were more regular, but her face had a horse-like
length, and every thing about her was on a large and
rather coarse scale.  From the constant glances of
fear cast by the Queen upon her husband, Frideswide
readily guessed that her married life was not a
happy one.  In truth, poor Carlotta's brains had
been frightened out of her.  She was not naturally
at all deficient in intellectual power: but eighteen
years spent under the influence of unceasing terror
had so completely broken her spirit and crushed her
capacities of all kinds, that Carlotta was now a
simple nonentity—good to sit, clad in robes and
jewels, at a pageant, but in all other respects,
outside her children's nursery, good for nothing at all.

After matins, breakfast was served in the Queen's
drawing-room.  Breakfast was only now beginning
to be considered a social meal.  Hitherto it had been
much what afternoon tea is now—a light repast, to
which people came or not as they chose, and chiefly
affected by women and invalids.  It had, therefore,
mainly consisted of bread or cakes.  Now fish
and meat made their appearance in addition, and
also the acceptable novelty of butter—novel, that is
to say, in its new form of bread and butter.  It had
long been used in cooking: but about this time it
permanently took the place of dripping as a relish to
bread.  Wine, ale, and milk, were the beverages used.

Never, perhaps, to the same extent as at this
time, did the staff of life appear under so many
different forms.  The more delicate kinds were
termed simnel and *pain de main*: wassel was the best
kind of common bread; cocket was a spongy loaf
of cheaper flour; maslin was made of wheat mixed
with oats and barley.  Griddle-cakes were peculiar
to Wales and the counties bordering thereon.
Spice-bread was plum-cake in all varieties of
richness.  There was also brown bread, and Christmas
bread, which last was made of fine flour, milk, and
eggs.  Manchet bread, which was of high class,
seems to have borne its distinctive name rather in
reference to shape than to material, and probably
resembled a Yorkshire tea-cake.[#]  There were beside
all these, rolls, biscuits and cakes of all sorts,
maccaroons, gingerbread, and marchpane—a sweet cake
of the maccaroon type.

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[#] This is the explanation usually given by antiquaries; but in
Lancashire, within living memory, a manchet was a small square
loaf of very white bread.  Some writers make manchet (afterwards
termed *chet* bread) the name of the simnel loaf; this is perhaps
the true explanation.

.. vspace:: 2

After breakfast, Queen Marguerite proceeded to
business.  She held a long sitting of her council—for
the King being a prisoner, she was virtually
and unavoidably the Lancastrian Sovereign.  The
Prince was yet too young to assume this position,
though circumstances had forced him to the front
so early that his intellect was beyond his years.
He had inherited nothing of the mental weakness
of his father.

The council consisted of the Prince, Warwick,
Clarence, Oxford, Jaspar Tudor Earl of Pembroke
(brother of King Henry by the mother's side),
Walter Lyhart Bishop of Norwich (the Queen's
Confessor), Ralph Mackarell, her Chancellor, and
several gentlemen of less note who were in the
Queen's suite.  The only ladies admitted in
attendance on the Queen were the Countess of Warwick
and the Lady de Vivonne, the latter of whom
understood no English.  Any thing of serious
consequence could therefore be said in that tongue.

English had now almost entirely taken the place
so many centuries held by French as the Court
language, and there is very little difference between
the English of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
During the reign of Elizabeth a polishing process
was slowly progressing, which has never
ceased,—though how far all changes in this respect
are improvements, may reasonably be open to
question.

The idea of a new campaign was now mooted.
Marguerite was sure of help from King Louis.  The
Duke of Burgundy was a more doubtful ally, who
vacillated between the rivals as inclination or policy
led him, and who was at that time recently married
to the youngest sister of Edward IV., and yet
entertaining and pensioning a number of the Lancastrian
fugitive nobles.  Just now the Red Rose was in the
ascendant at his Court.  His personal liking for
Edward was doubtful, and his fear and dislike of
Warwick were not doubtful.  Two of the most
prominent Lancastrian nobles, the Dukes of Exeter
and Somerset, both of whom were at his Court, did
their utmost to incline him in their own direction,
and the result was that he openly offered his
assistance to Queen Marguerite, while he privately sent
underhand information to Edward of all her plans
so far as they were known to him.  This, at least,
is generally believed.  It is, nevertheless, very
possible, that the Duchess Margaret may be really
responsible for much of her lord's apparent
treachery.  She was a woman to whose soul conspiracy
and scheming were as the breath of life.

The preparations for the campaign were quietly
maturing as the summer advanced.  It was arranged
that Warwick was to precede the Queen, landing
about September, and she was to follow with more
troops, two months later.  But in the mean time it
was desirable that some means should be found to
make the interests of Warwick identical with those
of King Henry.  No one knew better than Marguerite
that Warwick's fidelity was an article that
had its price, and that he might be expected to serve
any cause just so long as that cause served him.  He
was perpetually at see-saw, and a very little
additional pressure at either end would hoist or depress
him in an instant.  The fact of his daughter's
marriage to Clarence made him more dubious than ever.
True, Clarence himself was at the present moment
a Lancastrian: but how long would he remain so?
He was even less to be trusted of the two: for while
solid advantage was required to weigh with
Warwick, caprice was enough at any time to sway the
actions of Clarence.  Something, therefore, must be
done to provide a make-weight for Warwick's family
connection with Edward: and while the Queen was
considering how it could be done, King Louis made a
suggestion to her which showed the best way to do it.

Human hearts will break through all state trappings,
and will insist on being heard even through
the roar of revolution.  The young Prince of Wales,
barely seventeen, had fallen passionately in love
with the Lady Anne Neville, Warwick's youngest
daughter, who was a year younger than himself.
But people were grown up at that age in the
eventful fifteenth century, which acted like a hot-bed
upon the intellect and judgment of its children.
That the Prince should marry the Lady Anne
Neville was politically most devoutly to be wished:
it was ardently desired by both the parties most
concerned, by Warwick himself, and by every body
but the one person into whose hands the matter had
to come for decision.  But so well were the feelings
of Queen Marguerite known to all around her, that
no one but the King of France himself dared to
suggest to her the marriage of her son with
Warwick's daughter.  And when suggested, the proposal
was at first received by the Queen with a blaze of
indignation.  The wrath was all for Warwick,—certainly
not for the innocent Anne, whom she
loved dearly for her own sake.

"What!" cried the Queen passionately, "does
he ask to marry his daughter to the son of the
woman he traduced?  The wounds that he has
inflicted on me will bleed till the day of judgment."[#]

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[#] These are the Queen's own words.

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King Louis had need of all his craft and cajolery
(in both which he was an adept when he chose) to
bring the insulted woman to what he considered
reason.  Perhaps, after all, she yielded rather to the
pleading eyes of her darling than to any political
argument.  But she did yield: and usually, when
Marguerite resolved to do any thing, she did it
graciously.

The marriage of the Prince of Wales and the
Lady Anne was celebrated in the chapel of Amboise,
in July or August, 1470.  It was attended by the
usual ludicrous stratagems on the part of King
Louis, who loved grand pageants only less than he
detested paying bills for them.  Accordingly, when
hangings were to be put up, he bought new velvet
for those parts where they could be seen, and made
old serve wherever they could not.  On the present
occasion, His Majesty had new robes made for
himself and the Queen, but the fronts only were of
previously unused material,—for, as the King very truly
observed, "when we are sitting in the traverse in
chapel, who will see the backs of our clothes?"  On
this economical principle, the gold trimmings on
Queen Carlotta's dress were gold in front, but at
the back tinsel was employed.  A splendid diamond
served as a button to fasten the ostrich feather in
His Majesty's hat (which was of a round form
turned up with fur, like a tall "pork-pie" hat), but
the velvet of which the back portion was composed
was creased and worn, and the back fur had been
cut from an old cloak of the Queen's.

Queen Marguerite practised her economies in
another fashion.  Economy was far more necessary
to her than to Louis, for she literally lived upon
alms: but when she found velvet beyond her purse,
she dressed herself in honest camlet, or, had it come
to that, in uncompromising serge.  In truth,
Marguerite was too high-souled to measure a man's
worth by that of his clothes.  In velvet or in serge,
she was still the Queen of England.  By a little
pinching, in this instance, velvet was obtained for
the bridegroom's dress: but there was not enough
for the Queen also, and she therefore appeared
contentedly in sendal, which cost less, nor was she so
mean a soul as to feel one pang in doing so.
Warwick, who acquired wealth not as he ought, but as
he could, had cash enough, and exhibited the fact
by showering jewellery on the bride.

The ceremony over, congratulations were offered
in abundance, and all the suite knelt to kiss the
hand of the Princess.  It was the general opinion
that a splendid future lay before the young pair,—how
could it be otherwise?  They were already
dowered with rank, beauty, intellect, and devoted
love.  What did they lack except wealth and
success, which the approaching campaign would
undoubtedly confer on them?  O blind eyes, which
saw not the Angel of Death stand with folded wings
behind the bridegroom!—which read not the scroll,
written within and without, with desolation, and
mourning, and woe, to be crushed into those few and
evil years which were the portion of the bride!  Woe
unto them that laughed now, for they should weep!

The remainder of the summer was busily filled
with preparations for the approaching campaign.
On an early day in September, the Duke of Clarence,
and the Earls of Warwick and Oxford, took leave of
the ladies, and with banners flying, at the head of a
mercenary host, set out for England.

"God guard you, my Lady!" said Warwick,
with his last kiss to his wife.  "Farewell, my pretty
ones!" to his daughters.  "Only a short farewell.
We meet at Westminster, two months hence, if
His will be."

It was not.  Never again were they to see his face.

Queen Marguerite did not remain long at
Amboise after Warwick's departure.  She removed to
Paris, to be nearer the scene of action, accompanied
by the Prince and Princess, the Countess of Warwick,
the Countess of Wiltshire, and the rest of her
ladies.  A very comical story is told of the husband
of this Countess of Wiltshire at the battle of
St. Albans, where, says the sly old chronicler, "the said
James set the King's banner again an house end,
and fought manly with the heels, for he was afeared
of losing of beauty, for he was named the fairest
knight of this land."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Gregory's Chronicle.

.. vspace:: 2

On the thirteenth of September, Warwick and
his army landed at Plymouth, some at Dartmouth
and Exmouth.  The Duke of Burgundy tried in
vain to intercept him, his vessels being scattered by
a great storm through which Warwick passed safely.
Burgundy, however, sent word to Edward of the
port and time of Warwick's choice: but Edward
was on a hunting expedition, and, true to his
character, he left matters to look out for themselves.
A man of no foresight, vigilance, nor strength of
character, but capable of sudden rushes of violent
bravery, it was Edward's habit to trust to the chapter
of circumstances, which hitherto had usually turned
in his favour.  Moreover, he had in this instance a
secret source of hopefulness, of which Warwick was
not aware.  Private overtures had been going on
between him and Clarence, by means of a lady in
the household of the Duchess, whom Edward had
sent over primed with instructions.  Ostensibly she
came, of her own accord, to join her mistress, and her
*rôle* of envoy was never suspected, for "she was no
fool, nor loquacious."[#]  Beyond this, Edward placed
trust in Warwick's brothers, of whose fidelity he felt
no doubt.  The past was apparently forgotten.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Comines.—Who this ambassadress was is not known.

.. vspace:: 2

Warwick had not landed a week when he found
the whole country pouring in to aid him.  He set
his face towards Bristol, where he had left his heavy
baggage when he fled to France.  Here he was well
received; and after three days spent in collecting
forces, he marched upon Nottingham at the head of
sixty thousand men.

King Edward was now at Lynn, in a fortified
house, to which there was no access except by one
bridge.  He had "begun to look about him" when
he heard of Warwick's approach, but he does not
appear to have done much beyond it.[#]  As he sat at
dinner, news was brought to him that his trusted
partisan, the Marquis Montague, had mounted his
horse, and was crying, along with others, "God save
King Henry!"  Edward treated the first rumour as
mere nonsense: but when it was repeated, and Lord
Rivers shook his head with the remark that "things
did not look well," Edward despatched Lord Hastings
to see if it were true.  He returned with the
news that it was less than the truth.  Nearly the
whole army had deserted to Warwick, as represented
by his brother Montague.  If Edward meant
to save himself at all, he must escape now.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Several chroniclers state that Edward fled from Nottingham
to Lynn when he heard of Warwick's coming: but no hint of this
movement is given by Comines, who tells us that he received his
version of the narrative from Edward's own lips.

.. vspace:: 2

At anchor off Lynn lay one English and two
Dutch ships, ready to sail, having come laden with
provisions for Edward's army.  He hastily
summoned such of his nobles as were faithful to him,
and about seven hundred of the army, and fled
on board one of the Dutch ships.  Lord Hastings
stayed behind to give a piece of deceitful advice to
his men—namely, that they should join Warwick,
but retain their allegiance to King Edward and
himself—and then followed his master.  So hurried was
the flight that Edward had no money, and no
clothes but those he wore, and a cloak "lined with
beautiful martens," which he had probably caught
up in departing.  The three ships sailed away from
Lynn with all the speed they could make, and the
day, which had opened on the tenth year of Edward
IV., closed on the forty-ninth of Henry VI.

Once more—and though he knew it not, for the
last time—Warwick "had all England at his
bidding."  He was king in all but name, for King
Henry still lay a prisoner in the Tower, and Queen
Marguerite was in France.  Warwick sent off Sir
John Clare with hasty triumphant despatches to the
Queen, and himself marched on London.

Of course the news of his coming reached the
capital before him, and the citizens turned out to
greet their favourite.  Warwick's popularity with
them is said to have been due to three causes: first,
he flattered them; secondly, he allowed them to
engage in any acts of piracy they pleased with
impunity; and lastly, he took care to be always
heavily in debt to various citizens.[#]  It became
therefore the interest of London that Warwick
should triumph.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Comines.

.. vspace:: 2

Warwick's first act was to march on the Tower,
and summon it to surrender.  The terrified
Constable delivered his keys to the Lord Mayor, who
opened the gates for Warwick.  Jaspar Earl of
Pembroke and John Earl of Oxford entered with
him.  They went straight to the chamber in which
the King was confined, and found that simple-minded
man calmly reading his Psalter, and not more
disturbed by the tumult than to look up and
say,—"Pray you, Master Gaoler, what noise is this
without?"

But Henry's tone changed the next instant, and
the prisoner became the king.

"Ha! my Lord of Warwick here!—and Jaspar—my
dear brother!" and he gave him his hand
affectionately.  "My Lord of Oxford—God give
you good morrow all!  What means this?"

Warwick knelt at the feet of the King.

"It means, my Lord, that God hath saved King Henry."

And from all around rose the chorus.  The King
gazed from one to another as though he scarcely
believed the evidence of his senses.

"Where are my wife and son?" was his next query.

"At Paris, my Lord, and soon to come hither, if
God be serven."

"And the Earl of March?"

This was Edward's proper title in the eyes of a
Lancastrian.

"Fled, my Lord,—fled the realm: and his wife is
in sanctuary with her childre."

It would not have been Henry VI. if he had not
answered, "Poor souls!"

"All is o'er of the rebellion," broke in Oxford,
always fiery and rash: "all is o'er, your Highness;
and we pray you give us leave to conduct you to
your own lodging."

"Nay," said the King, kneeling down at the
table; "tarry till I have thanked God."

Then, the rest kneeling around bareheaded, he
poured forth a fervent thanksgiving.  Very simple
as this man was in worldly wisdom, he was eloquent
when he spoke to God.  Then they took from him
the prison garb, and attired him in royal robes, and
led him to "the King's lodgings" in the White Tower.

Here a singular ceremony took place.  Warwick
and his colleagues were not content with merely
restoring King Henry, but deemed it a better
safeguard to give him the additional advantage of
popular election.  Accordingly they held a formal
*plébiscite*—of whom composed we are not told,—whether
simply of the little group of Lancastrian
nobles, or of their army of four thousand men, or
generally of the citizens of London.  This process
completed, the King was set on horseback, and
conducted to the Bishop of London's palace.

But Warwick soon discovered that he had an
account to settle with his intensely discontented
son-in-law.  The deposition of Edward, in the eyes of
Clarence, was not at all equivalent to the restoration
of Henry.  He had been ready enough to displace
his brother, but his intention—which Warwick had
frustrated—had been to set himself, not Henry, on
the vacant throne.  Clarence was in a very sulky
temper, and required a tiresome amount of
smoothing.  This desirable end was at last accomplished;
and having been joined by his excellent brother, the
Archbishop of York, who was always constant to
one side—the winning one—Warwick proceeded to
get up a splendid procession to St. Paul's Cathedral,
which King Henry entered in state on the thirteenth
of October.  He wore his crown, and Warwick
carried his train, while Oxford bore the sword before
him.  After the procession, Edward of March was
solemnly proclaimed a usurper through London.

Meanwhile, Edward, deserted and destitute,
chased by Esterlings across the sea, ran his vessel
into Alkmaar, and landed, accompanied by his
brother Richard and his few faithful adherents.  He
had no money to pay the captain, and he gave him
all that he had, his fur-lined cloak.  The Lord of
Gruthuse, Governor of Holland for the Duke of
Burgundy, received the fugitives kindly, provided
them with clothing, and conducted them to the
Hague, whence Edward sent a messenger to the
Duke to notify his arrival.  This news was by no
means a source of pleasure to that royal trimmer,
Duke Charles, whose endeavours to keep in with
both parties are as amusing to readers of history as
they were troublesome to himself.  He did, however,
grant to his brother-in-law a pension of five hundred
crowns per month; but he gave him little encouragement
to come on to his court, whither Edward
nevertheless proceeded at once, as soon as he had
money to do so.  When Edward presented himself
at St. Pol, where the Court was then residing, the
poor Duke was in a ludicrous state of indecision.
On his one hand was his wife Margaret, to whom
he was really attached, as he showed by marrying
her as soon as he became his own master—his father
having set his face against the marriage for political
reasons: on the other side, the Lancastrian Dukes
of Exeter and Somerset, who had resided for some
years at his Court, and were his chosen friends.
On both sides, as it seemed, was his own interest.
At last he contrived to find a way out of the
difficulty, which, as usual in such circumstances, was a
crooked one.  He publicly proclaimed his intention
of giving no assistance to Edward, and forbade any
of his subjects to enlist with him: while privately
he presented him with fifty thousand florins, and
quietly made ready at Ter Veere four or five large
ships of his own navy, and fourteen more hired from
the Esterlings, or merchants of the Hanse Towns.

These preparations of course took time; and
during that time Queen Marguerite would have
been energetically working in England, had she
found it possible.  But winds and waves were against
her.  She came down to the French coast in
November, as had been agreed with Warwick: but
she could go no further.  In an agony of
impatience and longing, she was compelled to waste
at Harfleur time more precious than jewels.  Her
husband wanted her, in every sense of the word.
The Lancastrian party, deprived of her, was a body
without a soul.  Even Warwick, clever man as he
was, and little love as was lost between him and
her, condescended to express a wish for the Queen's
presence.

On the fourth of November, 1470, while things
were in this condition, a little life began in the
sanctuary at Westminster, which was to end, fifteen
years later, as sorrowfully as it had opened, in the
Tower of London.  The long wished for son of
Edward IV. came at last.  But the news does not
seem to have lightened the discouraged hearts of the
Yorkists.  Before the month was over, Sir Richard
Widville, Queen Elizabeth's own brother, had made
his submission to King Henry.

The King was residing, quietly enough, at
Westminster Palace, which he never quitted during his
short tenure of power.  Large grants were made to
the three Warwick brothers; and Henry, who could
not conceive the idea of any body playing him false,
seems to have placed himself entirely in their hands.
His sagacious wife would have taken a truer view of
the situation.  But she was a virtual prisoner on
the French coast, bound there by the winds and
waves of God.

Warwick was created afresh Lord High Admiral
of England, Ireland, and Aquitaine, with enormous
powers: Clarence was made Viceroy of Ireland,
and letters patent granted enabling him to do any
thing he chose.  The whole tone of the grants
shows them to have really proceeded from the
persons to whom they were ostensibly made, and in
whose hands the King was an innocent toy, skilfully
moved at pleasure.  O for the wise head and the
true heart of his one real friend!—of her who loved
*him* first, and the crown and sceptre second.  There
were other friends, true in a sense: but to them the
crown was the point of importance, and Henry was
interesting merely as the man who ought to be
wearing it.

One of these last was with him—his brother
Jaspar,—and early in February, another fought his
way to his side.  The winds and waves, soon to
have so dire a message for him, yielded now to the
eager importunity of Exeter.  The sight of Edward
at the Court of Burgundy was more than his
Lancastrian heart could bear.  The bitter cruelty which
he had received at the hands of Edward's sister, his
own wife, came back upon him too vividly to be
endured.  Half driven by the one reason, half drawn
by the other, he hastily left St. Pol, and journeyed
across France to the port where Queen Marguerite
waited for a fair wind from the east.  And then it
was that Frideswide Marston first saw the face
which she should never forget again.

Henry Duke of Exeter was a Holand, but not
one of the handsome Holands of Kent, who were
characterised by their lofty height, their stately
carriage, and their magnificent beauty.  His
grandfather, John de Holand, the first Duke of Exeter,
had stepped out of the family ranks in respect of
personal appearance, being a short, dark-haired man,
with pendulous cheeks and no good looks of any
kind.  Duke Henry had improved upon this
pattern, having inherited some of the attractiveness of
his beautiful grandmother, the Princess Elizabeth of
Lancaster.  Two Holand qualities were his, derived
from his grandfather—the fiery fervour and the
silver tongue.  From both sides of his ancestry
came his impulsive bravery; from the Plantagenet
side his chivalrous generosity, his delicate courtesy:
from all, the unswerving loyalty and faithfulness
which formed the most prominent feature of his
character.  Yet they were joined by that shrinking
from pain, and that despondent hopelessness, which
an eminent psychologist tells us are manly, not
womanly characteristics, inconsistently mingled with
weakness of a type much more feminine than
masculine.  A strangely complex and inconsistent
character was this: a brave man who never feared
disgrace nor death; a true man, who would have
died with his hand upon his banner and his face to
the foe; a man with distinct convictions, and
courage to avow them—yet a weak man.  A voice that
he loved would lead him in the teeth of his own
convictions, though a voice that he did not love could
not make him swerve for an instant.  In this respect
he was unlike all his family,—most of all unlike his
bluff and cruel father, the last act of whose life had
been the invention of the rack, long popularly known
in England as "The Duke of Exeter's daughter."

In a popular ballad of the day, wherein the state
is described under the figure of a ship, Exeter is
selected as the lantern at the mast-head.  The idea
was doubtless originally taken from his badge—the
fiery cresset set aloft upon the pole—yet it was
equally true to the fervent, devoted, transparent
character of the man.

   |  "The ship hath closèd hym a lyght
   |  To kepe her course in way of ryght,
   |  A fyrè cressant that bernethe bryght,
   |      With fawte was never spyed.
   |  That good lyght that is so clere
   |  Call Y the Duke of Exceter,
   |  Whos name in trouthè shyned clere,
   |      His worship spryngethe wyde."
   |

The memory of the wife at whose hands he had
endured what few husbands would have borne,
much less have pardoned, was to Exeter one of
unmixed pain and bitterness.  It could scarcely be
said that he had loved her.  He had liked her, and
he would have loved her with very little encouragement.
But so far from encouraging the affection,
she had smothered it in its cradle.  She gave him
no chance to love her.  Repulsed and mortified,
his heart—to which love of something was an
absolute necessity—had turned to their one child, the
fair-haired little daughter who resembled her mother
in face, but her father in character.  For her sake he
had borne all this suffering inflicted by her mother;
for her sake he had continued to live in the same
house with his wife, long after her company had
become intolerable.  Nay, not to be parted from
Anne, he had done, and would have done, almost
any thing required from him.  They were parted
now.  The Duchess knew her daughter's power
over her husband, and she therefore insisted on
keeping the daughter by her side.  She might
become a useful tool some day, if she received proper
training, which her mother meant to give her.

All that Exeter knew was that the only creature
whom he loved, and who loved him, was in the
hands of enemies who would try hard to make her
hate him.  She was his one comfort in all the world,
and she was kept away from him.  This was the
bitterest drop in his bitter cup—and his wife meant
it to be so.  Few men had suffered in the Wars of
the Roses as he had.  To-day in prison, and
to-morrow in sanctuary; forsaken by his own soldiers,
reduced to beg his bread barefooted until the Duke
of Burgundy took compassion upon him, robbed of
every penny of his inheritance by the woman who
had sworn in God's presence to love and cherish
him—all these painful memories were less to Exeter
than the cruel separation from his only child.  Deep
down in his heart, scarcely confessed even to himself,
was the hope that would break out of that passionate
longing for her.  If he could cross the Channel,
if he could get to London, perhaps, some day, at a
window or through the curtains of a litter, he might
catch a glimpse of Anne.  Even a wilder hope than
this he cherished; for it might be possible to bribe
one of his own servants to obtain for him a secret
and stolen interview with his own child.  But
would he ever find his child again?  He might see
the Lady Anne de Holand: but would she be the
little Nan that he had left years ago—the little Nan
that used to climb upon his knee and kiss him and
tell him that she "loved him so"?  Better to keep
that sweet remembrance undimmed, though it called
up such hopeless yearning, than to meet a cold,
haughty maiden who would courtesy to him and
call him "my gracious Lord," and take the first
opportunity of getting away from him.  That
would be to lose his darling indeed, in a far worse
sense than he had lost her now.

It was not for Frideswide Marston to read all
this.  But she saw the weary, wistful look in the
dark eyes, and she wondered whence it came.

How Exeter contrived to do what the Queen
could not do, and make his way to England, has
not been explained.  We only know that he did it,
and that on the fourteenth of February, 1471, he
rode into London—where King Henry VI. reigned
in the Palace of Westminster, where Queen Elizabeth
Widville pined in the Sanctuary, and where the
Duchess Anne of Exeter held royal state at
Coldharbour—safe from both rival Roses, for what
Lancastrian would harm the wife of his King's most
faithful councillor, and what Yorkist would dare to
touch the favourite sister of his sovereign?

In anticipation of the Duke's journey, Queen
Marguerite had kindly suggested that any of the
suite who wished to do so might send letters by him.
Frideswide, who was longing for communication
with home, undertook the tremendous task of
writing both to her father and sister.  The Duke
turned over the letters which were put into his
hands, and paused suddenly when he came to the
one addressed to his own home.

"Who writ this?" he asked of John Combe,
who had brought the letters to him.

Combe glanced at the address—"*To the hands of
Mistress Agnes Marston, at Coldharbour, in the City
of London, le these delivered.*"

"I reckon, my gracious Lord, it shall be Mistress
Frideswide Marston, that is of my Lady of
Warwick's following."

"Pray you, desire Mistress Frideswide to come
hither, for I would fain have speech of her."

She came, and stood courtesying within the
doorway.

"Come nigh, I pray you, Mistress," said the
Duke, "and tell me, is this fair dame of your kin?"

He held up her letter to Agnes, as he spoke.

"An' it like you, aye, my gracious Lord: it is
my sister, that is chamberer unto your Lady."

The Duke looked thoughtfully at the letter.

"Think not my words strange," said he, "but
answer me, if this your good sister be of gent and
pitying kind?"

"That is she, right surely."

"One that should do a kind deed for a man in
need, an' it fell in her way?"

"I am assured of that, my gracious Lord."

"Then pray you, Mistress Frideswide, do me so
much grace as to write outside your letter, that you
do beseech her, for the love of you, to grant that
the bearer thereof shall ask of her."

Frideswide looked, as she felt, astonished.

"Mistress Frideswide," said the Duke sadly, "you
are here, as I, cut off from home and friends.  But
you have hope to return thither when God will, and
I have none.  My maid, I have one only child, that
is the very jewel of my heart, and they keep her
from me.  (He did not say who "they" were.)  If
you will do so much for me, I will myself deliver
your letter, an' it may be compassed, and pray
your good sister to let me have a word with my
darling."

Frideswide Marston looked up into the sad earnest
eyes, and then, without another word, stooped down
and added the request to her letter.  There was
more wet on the cover than ink, when she had done.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HIS LITTLE NAN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V.


.. class:: center medium bold

   HIS LITTLE NAN.

.. 

   |  "Some feelings are to mortals given
   |  With less of earth in them than Heaven;
   |  And if there be a human tear
   |  From passion's dross refined and clear,
   |  A tear so limpid and so meek
   |  It would not stain an angel's cheek,
   |  'Tis that which pious fathers shed
   |  Upon a duteous daughter's head."
   |                      —SIR WALTER SCOTT.

.. vspace:: 2

"Be sure, Jane, to tell Valentine that I will
have my gown of motley velvet ready
for my wearing on the morrow; and
bid him set silver buttons thereto—and good
plenty."

"Please it your Grace, Master Valentine did
desire of me that I should say unto you that he
could not make ready the gown of motley as
to-morrow, nor afore Thursday come."

"Could not?"  The Duchess of Exeter's chiselled
eyebrows were slightly raised.  "Could not?  But
he must."

"Please it your Grace, thus said he."

"Tell him it skills not[#] what he can.  I say he
shall."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Matters not.

.. vspace:: 2

"Then belike there shall be more tailors had?"

"I care not how it be done, so it cost no money."

"But, an't like your Grace, the tailors will not
work without money: and unless more be had,
Master Valentine can never, his own self—without
he sit up all night, nor scarce then—make an end
of your Grace's gown by to-morrow."

"Let him sit up, then.  Good lack! what ado is
here over a sely[#] tailor!"

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Simple, mean.

.. vspace:: 2

"Your Grace mindeth, maybe, that you were set
to have the murrey[#] gown by next Sunday?—and
both two cannot be done."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Plum-coloured.

.. vspace:: 2

"Cannot! always at *cannot*!  Hold thine idle
tongue.  Of course it can be done if I will have
it so."

"Doubtless, Madam, if it please your Grace to
pay more tailors."

"I will pay nobody.  Ye will clean ruin me
amongst you.  "'Twas but yesterday I paid four
thousand marks to a Lombard for jewelling.  Ye
would leave me never a cross[#] in my purse."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Penny, divided by a cross that it might
be easily broken into fourthings=farthings.

.. vspace:: 2

"Then, an' it please your Grace, what is to be
done?" demanded the practical Jane, who was one
of the four chamberers of the Duchess.

"Gramercy, maid, burden not me withal!" testily
exclaimed her royal mistress.  "Go and ask at
Dame Elizabeth Darcy, an' thou wist not what to
do.  I tell thee, the motley must be made ready for
to-morrow, and the murrey by Sunday next: and
how it shall be is no business of mine, so it cost not
money.  *It shall be*.  See to it."

Poor Jane, who felt herself ordered to do the
impossible, made one more faint struggle with
destiny.

"It should not like your Grace to bear that gown
to-morrow?"

"This?" returned the Duchess contemptuously,
glancing down at her dress, which was of dark blue
satin, heavily trimmed with minever.  "'Tis not
fit to be seen.  Hast lost thy wit?  I tell thee, I
must have a decent gown to put on.  That idle
Valentine hath left me never a one in my
wardrobe.  He is the laziest tyke that ever set
needle."

"Please it your Grace, there is the broched[#] cloth
of silver"——

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Figured.

.. vspace:: 2

"'Tis all frayed at the bottom.  I warrant he
hath not hemmed it anew."

"And the tawny velvet"——

"The which yon rascal Fulk spilt a glass of
malmsey o'er.  Tell Dame Elizabeth it must be
docked of his wages."

"And the changeable[#] green velvet"——

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] We retain changeable silk, under the name of shot silk;
but changeable velvet is lost.

.. vspace:: 2

"With a rent across the front breadth as wide as
mine arm, and none of you idle hussies hath thought
to mend it."

"And the russet figury velvet"——

"All the pile worn off—as shabby as can be."

"And the crimson and blue damask, and the
purple tartaryn,[#] and the mustredevilers,[#] and"——

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] A kind of satinette, or satin Turk.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] A cloth, of which the name was derived either
from *moitié de
velours*, or from being manufactured at Villars.

.. vspace:: 2

"Go thy ways for an impudent ne'er-do-well!  I
tell thee I will have those two gowns—I *will have*
them!  Let me hear no more of thy foolery."

And away marched the Duchess, and left poor
Jane standing in the middle of the room.

"It shall cost Master Valentine his place an' he
do it not," muttered she to herself.  "And he
cannot do it—'tis not possible in the time."

"Then, were I Master Valentine, catch me
essaying to compass it!" said a voice beside her.

"Dear heart, Marion! wouldst lose thy place?"

"I would lose this place, and be rare thankful to
do it," responded the girl addressed as Marion, who
was another of the chamberers.  "I oft-times wish
we were as the meynie,[#] and could be hence if we
would."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Household servants.

.. vspace:: 2

The expression of Jane's face indicated that she
thought such a sentiment treasonable.

"What with her Grace, and what with Tamzine,
it is not a dog's life we lead!" continued Marion.
"If the thing lay in mine hands, you should see,
but I would wed the first man that asked me, just
to be out of it."

"So might you be worser off than now," suggested
Jane.

"Could not!" said Marion expressively.

Jane shook her head as if she thought that very
questionable.

"Men be queer matter," said she.  "Now you
can make out a woman."

"Good lack! think you making out is all?"
replied Marion.  "She is easy enough to make
out, is Her Grace.  So is Tamzine.  But I love their
company never a whit the more for that.  Gramercy,
there goeth my Lady's handbell!  I must away."

.. vspace:: 2

In an upper room in the same house two other
girls were sitting.  One, who sat at work in the
window-seat, was so like Frideswide that we can
easily guess her to be Agnes Marston.  She was a
little quieter than her sister in manner, and a shade
less good-looking.

The other girl sat in a large, handsome, curule
chair, with an illuminated manuscript open on the
table before her.  Her face was a remarkable one.
Her figure was extremely slender, thin almost to
emaciation: but more striking than this was the
wan white face, where two hectic spots burned in
the hollow cheeks, and the large dark blue eyes
seemed of unnatural size and brilliance.  A
long-drawn sigh made Agnes look up.

"Your Ladyship is weary, methinks," she said.

"I may well be thus," was the answer, as the
head was leaned on the thin hand.  "I was doing
that which would weary an angel, for I was trying
to understand God."

"How, dear my Lady?"

The white-faced girl lifted her head, and let her
eyes meet those of Agnes.

"It were to no good to speak in riddles," she
said.  "Agnes, you have dwelt in this house a full
year, and you know the sorrows thereof as well as
I.  Specially, you know my sorrows—you know
that I live a life wherein there is nothing to make
the present happy, and the future is all full of a
great dread.  There is only one in all the world
that loves me, and I cannot go to him: and one
that I love not, and that loves not me, is about to be
forced upon me whether I will or no.  Why should
I try to hide these things from you?  You know
them all.  In all the whole world that is, and in
the life that is to be, there is not one ray of
sunlight for me.  Do you marvel, Agnes, if life looks
black to mine eyes?  Are you one of those surface
seers, that reckon a woman should be comforted for
a breaking heart by a necklace of pearl, and that
she is a fool to weep for a lost friend if she have
a new gown of crimson velvet?"

"No, indeed, Lady mine."

"Aye me!" sighed the Lady Anne.  "If I had
but been a carpenter's child, or of a gardener——that
I could have welcomed him back at eve from
his daily work, and kept his hearth bright, and
might have loved and been loved!  I could have
done without the pearls and the velvet, Agnes.
But I have them: and they be poor exchange for
the other."

"Things will change one of these days, sweet my
Lady.  ''Tis a long lane has no turning.'"

"It has been a long one, and there be eight years
now since it turned last.  Eight years, Agnes—more
than half my life!  And folks think it strange
that I care.  They looked for me, it should seem,
to set mine heart on gewgaws, and to think more
of the bidding to a dance than of the loss of a
father.  If I could see an end to it, I might take
less thought.  But I can behold no turn coming
save one, and that is for the worser."

Agnes knew that this allusion was to her
approaching marriage.  Certainly that was no
source of congratulation.  In the eyes of the
waiting-woman no less than the mistress, the
handsome young Baron of Groby, Thomas Grey,
the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth, who had been
chosen as the future husband of the Lady Anne de
Holand, was not a man to be regarded with any
other sentiment than repugnance.  Agnes had seen
him kick his dog out of the way, and never look
whether he had hurt it, when the poor little
spaniel, unaware of its master's mood, had
presumed to request his attention when he was not
disposed to give it.

"There is only one comfort thereanent.  I shall,
may-be, never live to be wedded."

"Dear my Lady, pray you"——

"Does it look likely, Agnes?" said Lady Anne
with a quiet smile,—scarcely a sad one this time.

The tears came to Agnes's eyes.  She could not
say that it did.

"No," resumed Lady Anne, after a short pause,
and in a low voice, "I never loved any thing yet
that did not either die or go away from me."

"Except Jesus Christ," said Agnes softly.  She
knew that she was safe in saying it—that however
the black clouds might hide the Sun of Righteousness,
He had risen, with healing in His wings,
upon the young lonely heart beside her.

"Except Jesus Christ," echoed the girl reverently.
"And yet—O Agnes, does He not know how hard
it is to see nothing? to have nothing at all that
one can feel and touch, and clasp close to the heart?
He had friends in this life—even He, the Man of
Sorrows, was not quite without them."

"Yet they all forsook Him, and fled."

"Aye.  That was worse.  But they came back again."

There were tears behind the voice.

"Dear my Lady, what causeth you be thus
sorrowful this even?"

She broke down when that was asked.  Pushing
away the book, she bent her head down on her
clasped hands on the table, and sobbed as though
her heart would break.

"Oh, it is all so dark!" she sobbed.  "If we
might have gone to Heaven together, and have had
each other there!  Why are we kept parted?
Agnes, I hate these signs of mine high estate,
which seem as if they came betwixt me and
him—betwixt me and peace.  If I had not been King
Edward's niece—Oh, if this awful war had never
begun!"

Agnes had dropped her work, and sat looking out
of the window.  She did not know what to say.
Well enough she knew that religious platitudes
would do no good here.  The Lady Anne was
nearer God than she was, but just now she was in
the dark.  She had dropped the conscious holding
of the Father's hand, and she felt like a lost child
left out in the cold.  Agnes did not realise that
much of her depression was physical; but she did
feel the necessity for offering some cheerful
diversion to her thoughts.

"Dear my Lady, pray you, think on pleasanter gear."

"Wilt find it for me, Agnes?"

That was not an easy task.  Agnes hesitated.
But in a few moments more the sorrowing girl had
found it for herself.

"I suppose," she said more quietly, "I must lift
up mine eyes unto the hills, above all the turns in
the long road.  We shall be together one day, and
with God.  I shall not be long first.  And set
down at Christ's feet in the light of the Golden City,
I count it shall not seem long to wait for him."

The child was coming back into the light.
Physically, the burst of tears had relieved her.

"And yet, after all," she said, "I shall miss him,
till he comes.  One cannot love one instead of
another, even if God be that One.  And to love
once is to love for ever."

"You can tell the Lord so, dear my Lady."

Lady Anne looked up with an expression of
child-like trust and simplicity in her eyes.

"Agnes, I am always telling Him."

"And is He not, then, always hearing you?"

Light came into the sad blue eyes.

"Aye, He must be always hearing.  I thank thee."

The door opened, and Marion came in.

"Agnes, here is—O my Lady, I cry you mercy.
I wist not you were hither."

"Make an end, Marion," said Lady Anne, with a smile.

"Under your Ladyship's pleasure.—Agnes, here
is one that would have speech of you.  He hath
brought a letter, if I err not, and for some cause
is desirous to deliver the same into your own hand."

"Go and see to it, Agnes," said Lady Anne
kindly: and Agnes left the room, and descended a
long flight of stairs to the base court, where the
stranger awaited her.

The stranger!  Ah, what a stranger he felt,
standing there in the meanest part of his own
house, among strange menials to whom his face was
unknown, for whom his voice had no authority.
Did he think of Another who was Lord and Master
of all, and who came unto His own, and His own
received Him not?

"You would speak with Agnes Marston, my
master?" said a gentle voice close to him.  "I
am she."

The Duke turned quickly.  He wore a long
cloak, and a hat which could be pulled down so as
to hide his face.  For any eyes to recognise him
would probably be fatal to his errand.  Yet the
sensation of utter isolation was oppressive,
notwithstanding that.

"Gentle Mistress," said he, in a tone and manner
which instantly revealed to Agnes that her visitor
was of her own rank or above it, "I bring you a
letter from Mistress Frideswide Marston, in France,
and I pray you of your courtesy to give heed to
that which is writ on the outside thereof."

Agnes held the letter up to the lamp, and read—

"Good Sister, I do beseech you to do that which
this bearer shall request of you; and herein fail you
not, for the love of me."

"My sister desires me that I will do what you
shall ask," she said.  "What ask you?"

"May I ask it with fewer ears by?" returned the
Duke in a low tone.

Agnes nodded.  That was a request only too
intelligible in the fifteenth century.  She took him
aside to a small chamber where no other person was
at that moment.

"Now, Master, your will with me?"

"I am the Duke of Exeter," he said simply.
"And I pray you, Mistress Agnes, as you ever
loved any human soul, that you will win for me
privy speech of the only one that loveth me—the
Lady Anne, my daughter."

Agnes looked up, and saw the yearning, passionate
hunger in the poor father's eyes.  She saw
nothing more for a minute.

"Sir," she said then, "if I do it not, be assured
that it shall be only because I can no way
compass it."

"God go with you!" was the reply.

Agnes hastened back to the room where she had
left Lady Anne alone with Marion, and heard to
her dismay the sharp tones of the Duchess as she
came near the door.

"Heard any ever the like!" cried Her Royal
Highness.  "'An' it please me!'  I do you plainly
to wit, my dainty mistress, that it doth not please
me.  I will have thee come down and speak with
Master Grey.  And I will have thee don a better
gown for it, belike.—Agnes Marston, go this minute
and lay out the Lady Anne's gown of purple
velvet.—And go thou and don it.  Dost hear?"

Lady Anne said no more, but her whole face
betrayed intense dislike to the task imposed upon
her, when she caught the eye of Agnes.  The
language of the eye was well understood at that
time, when the language of the lips was often
dangerous.  Lady Anne saw in an instant that Agnes
knew of some reason why she had better leave the
room, and she followed her without another word.

Meanwhile the Duke of Exeter stood below, waiting
to know the result of his appeal.  Could Agnes
convey it at all? and if she did, would Anne come?
Last and saddest question of all, if she came, would
it be the child he knew, altered of course in person,
but unchanged in heart?  At last he could keep
still no longer.  Plantagenet blood was in his veins,
and it was a habit of all the race, when suffering
from mental excitement, to pace up and down like
caged tigers.  He had sufficient excuse in the cold
of a February evening, and he yielded to the
impulse, pausing at every sound to listen—till the
door was flung open suddenly, and a tall, slight
maiden, robed in violet velvet and decked with
jewels, dashed into the room, and flung herself into
his arms with a burst of passionate tears.  Enough!
Enough for the father's heart!  His little Nan had
come back to him.

When the first wave had broken, he lifted the
young head with one hand, and looked long and
tenderly on the beloved face.  And at the first
glance his heart sank down, lower than it had ever been.

Come, but not to stay.  Bound on a longer
journey than from England to France—than from earth
to stars.  He held his darling close clasped in his
arms, but it was probably for the last time.  Verily
for her the Bridegroom waited, but the bridal was
not of earth.

.. _`140`:

"Nan!" broke from the father's lips, in tones
more eloquent than a volume would have been.
"Little Nan!"

"I would I were your little Nan again," she said.
"We were happy then, my Lord—at least I was."

"I never was," was the sad answer.  "I only
came near enough to see that I could have been.
If it had been God's will!"

"It will be, my Lord," replied Anne, brightly.
"'*Satiabor cum apparuerit gloria tua*.[#]'"

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Psalm xvii. 15.

.. vspace:: 2

"Dost know, little Nan, that thou didst learn
that Psalm at mine instance?  But when will it be,
my darling?—when?  It is such a long dark night
without thee."

Yet as he said the words, the thought smote him
to the heart,—Not long, not long for one of them!

"When God's will is," she responded simply.
"We must wait, my Lord.  Oh, this awful war! had
it never begun!"

She did not realise that they were parted by any
but political reasons—mournful necessities, which
might come to an end some time.  It was better
she should not.

"Little Nan," said the Duke, "I love not 'my
Lord' from thy lips.  Call me Father."

The request was an unusual one.  But she
looked up and responded as he wished, with tears
glistening in the violet eyes.

"You will come and see me again, Father?"

"I will come and see thee again," he echoed—well
knowing, as he spoke, that the interview was
not likely to be held on the earthly side of the
cold river.  But surely he would meet her again;
and it would be he that should come to her.  There
would be room in the halls above, and no need
to employ a third person, nor to use secrecy and
stratagem in order to meet.  Up from the core of his
soul went the passionate cry, "Let us go together!
Make no tarrying, O my God!"  He knew now at
least, if he had never known it before, that there was
to be no paradise for him outside the Paradise of God.

"My Lady!" said the rather nervous voice of
Agnes at the door.  "I cry you verily mercy,
but—Her Grace is calling for you."

None of them dared to disregard that summons.

One more last embrace!  One more last look!
From the Duke's eyes

   |  "No tears fell, but a gaze fixed, long,
   |    That memory might print the face
   |    On the heart's ever-vacant space
   |  With a sun-finger, sharp and strong."
   |

His very soul seemed to dissolve itself upon her
head as he gave her the last blessing.  She tore
herself away, and stumbling with tear-blinded eyes
over her velvet train, went up to receive a sharp
scolding for loitering from the Duchess, and some
very cold ceremonial speeches from her affianced.

All was over.  There was nothing left for that
desolate man.  Nothing to which he could look
forward!  There had been just that one hope, and
it was gone.  Nothing was left now to hope or fear.

He had come on foot and unattended, in order
to avoid recognition.  Mechanically he turned to
the river stairs, called a boat, and was rowed up
to Westminster.  As he wearily mounted the
Palace stairs, the Earl of Pembroke met him.

"Ah, my very good Lord of Exeter!  Whither away?"

"I know not, and care less."

"Gramercy! what aileth you this starlight even?"

"Is it starlight?" and the Duke lifted his eyes
to the glowing heavens, clear in the frosty
atmosphere.  "I had not observed it."

"Good lack! you must be in the blues to-night.
More shame for you!  Here is nought but making
ready for the Queen, whom my Lord of Warwick
rideth for to meet as to-morrow.  'Tis thought
the wind may give her leave to come across to-night."

"I do desire it, right heartily."

"Heigh-ho! do you desire anything right heartily,
with that face?" said Earl Jaspar, laughing.
"Come, my good Lord, what aileth you?"

"My Lord, I cry you mercy, for I wis well I
am not merry company.  I have this night spoken,
as I think, a long farewell to mine only child.  Let
me pass, I pray you, till I can be more like my
fellows, and come into your company without
spoiling your mirth—if I ever can."

Jaspar stood looking at his friend with eyes of
utter want of comprehension.  Exeter "spoke to
him who never had a child," and who, moreover,
had but little sympathy with human sorrow.  It
was inconceivable to Jaspar why a man should
bring his private sorrows into his political rejoicings,
while to Exeter the difficulty would have been to
allow the political joy to temper the private sorrow.
Nor was Warwick a whit more sympathising.
To weep for a woman, or anything that concerned
one, was his emblem for masculine weakness of
the extremest type.  Exeter passed on, and sought
refuge in his own chamber, where he lay down,
but did not sleep, that night.

But when, the next morning, he presented
himself as usual in the presence-chamber, he found
that the Palace of Westminster held one Christ-like
heart—a heart more at home in the house of
mourning than in the house of feasting,—

   |  "A heart at leisure from itself,
   |  To soothe and sympathise."
   |

Through the score of eager, triumphant faces
in the presence-chamber, the face upon which grief
was written was instantly visible to those eyes
which were worth so little for earthly foresight,
and were so rich toward God.

"My Lord of Exeter!  The King calls for you."

The King himself was that day at his happiest—with
the last earthly happiness which he was ever
to know.  He was at home again—and his was
a nature which clung to accustomed things; and
he was expecting the daily arrival of his wife and
son, when—as he and every body believed—all
would again flow smoothly, and they would live
happily ever after.  But Henry was one of those
rare souls who cannot be happy till they have
made others so.

"I pray you, come this way, my good Lord,"
said the King.  "There is trouble in your eyes.
Is it aught I may remedy?"

"I thank your Highness heartily; but I fear not.
There be evils that none save the King of kings
may deal withal."

Exeter had not meant to say another word.  But
in five minutes—he scarcely knew how—he found
himself telling the whole story of his sorrow to the
tender soul which shone in those royal eyes.

"I need not tell you, my good Lord," said the
gentle comforter, "that he were an ill soldier that
should lie down to sleep ere the battle were won.
It will not be long ere the battle is over.  It seems
to me at times"—and the dark eyes grew dreamy,
as they were very wont to do—"as if it were only
such a little while!  And then God shall give us
back to each other.  We have only to wait for Him."

"My Lord, I cry your Highness mercy, but it
looks to me this night a very, very long while."

The King smiled on his godson.  The spiritual
relationship between them made it only natural
that the one should offer instruction and comfort
to the other.  He said, "*Unus dies apud Dominum
sicut mille anni, et mille anni sicut dies unus*."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 2 Peter iii. 8.

.. vspace:: 2

"Ah, Sire!" said Exeter sadly, "the one day
for Him, but for us the thousand years."

The response came quickly.  "'*Ego vobiscum
sum omnibus dielus*.'"[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Matt. xxviii. 20.

.. vspace:: 2

"We cannot see our Lord, Sire."

"He can see us."

"True: yet, my gracious Lord"——

"My son," said the King tenderly, "He hath
written down a word of set purpose for thee.
'*Quomodo miseretur pater jiliorum, misertus est
Dominus timentibus se*.'  Muse thou thereon, and
God lead thee into His peace."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Psalm ciii. 13.

.. vspace:: 2

He had said enough, for the Word of God in
his lips had reached the heart of the mourner.  It
was nothing new—it had been sung in Exeter's
hearing a hundred times—but it came this time
with power.  Did God feel for him just as he felt
for that one darling child over whom he was
yearning and lamenting?  It said just that.  What right
had he to water it down, and make it mean
something vague and metaphysical?  At last he had
found the man who understood him.  The King
was a father himself, and a very loving one.  And
had he not at last found the God who understood
him?—who was indeed his Father, who loved him
as he loved his little Nan?

Yes, it would be only a little while.  Ah, how
little for him who spoke!  Three short months,
into which was to be poured an ocean of living
agony, and then he should see God, and be at
peace for ever.  And to him who heard, only a
little longer.  He had but to wait for God.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MIST ON EASTER DAY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE MIST ON EASTER DAY.

..

   |        "Such a day,
   |  An old man sees but once in all his time."
   |                                  —EDWIN ARNOLD.

.. vspace:: 2

In vain the "King-Maker" waited at Dover
for the Queen.  The west wind which
had fallen a little in London, and thus
excited their hopes, set in with more violence than
before, and Marguerite, notwithstanding her agony
of impatience, was bound hopelessly at Harfleur.

But though winds and waves fought against the
coming of her who was so sorely needed, they
seemed powerless to deter him against whose return
all Lancastrians were praying.  Backed by the
secret machinations of the Duke of Burgundy,
Edward embarked at Ter Veere on the second of
March: and after twelve days' tossing, landed at
Ravenspur on the fourteenth of that month.  Did
it strike him as a parallel coincidence that under
the same circumstances, and at the same place,
seventy years before, Henry of Lancaster had landed,
softly announcing to the populace that he had no
designs upon the Crown, and came only to recover
his own inheritance?  Probably it did, for he
imitated his predecessor's tactics in every particular.
He came only to secure his duchy of York, as he
sweetly assured the people of Holderness when they
opposed his landing.  Surely they would allow him
to proceed to his own property—to his own city?
He was the truest subject King Henry had, nor
would he ever have been otherwise but for the
inciting of that wicked Earl of Warwick.  He
stuck the ostrich feather in his cap—the badge
of Prince Edward,—and solemnly swore eternal
allegiance to King Henry.  The honest folks in
Holderness were completely won by this fine-spoken
man.  They fell back, and let him ride on
to York.

But York was held by a Clifford,—sternest of
all families adherent to the House of Lancaster.
It was the head of that House—the "Bloody
Clifford,"—who, just ten years before, had gleefully
cut off the head of Edward's father, had crowned it
with a paper crown, and set it high on Micklegate
Bar.  He, too, had stabbed young Rutland—the
best of the York brothers—in cold blood after the
battle of Wakefield.  As Edward came up to York,
the ghastly heads upon Micklegate Bar, the
foremost of which was his own father's, seemed to be
the only friends to welcome him.  But though
Edward could assume sentiment exquisitely, when
he expected it to pay, he was not in reality much
under its influence.  There was no softening at his
heart when he rode up to Micklegate, and sounded
his horn for a parley, and proudly desired York to
open her gates to her Duke.  The old Lord Clifford
would have known better than to rest any faith on
the fair words of the Rose of Rouen.  But his
kinsman Mr. Thomas was not so wary.  He
consented to a parley.  And when Edward, at the
close of his eloquent and well-studied speech, ended
by flinging up the ostrich-feathered cap into the
air, with the loyal cry of "A, King Harry!  A,
King and Prince Edward!" the Governor and
citizens of York were won.  Beguiled, not
conquered, they offered to let him pass southward on
condition that he would swear his allegiance.
Edward, Jesuit to the core, was ready to swear
any thing.  Had they promised to escort him to
London with an army on condition of his swearing
to restore the worship of Jupiter, the probability is
that he would have accepted the oath with graceful
complacency.  Micklegate was thrown open, and
Edward with his band passed through, and marched
towards London.

The reconquest of England was an easier matter
to Edward of York than it had been to Henry of
Lancaster.  Three months had elapsed between the
landing and coronation of the former; one was
enough for the latter.  There were traitors in the
Lancastrian camp, whose hearts were always ready
to desert, and who only required to hear that
Edward had landed to induce an immediate and
public declaration in his behalf.  Foremost of these
was the heavily perjured Clarence, with whom his
sister of Burgundy had been secretly tampering.
Edward was now at the head of a very small band,
consisting of nine hundred English and three
hundred Flemings.  With him were his faithful
friend Lord Hastings, Lord Say, and a few more
distinguished persons.  But by the time he came
to Nottingham, Sir William Stanley and Sir
William Norris had joined him with four hundred
more; and with men slowly coming in to him
along the line of march, he arrived at Leicester.
Here was Warwick waiting for him.  A battle was
imminent, when letters from Clarence reached
Warwick, stating that he was on his way from London
to join him, and begging him not to fight until he
came.  Warwick committed the fatal blunder of
compliance.  Humanly speaking, had he engaged in
battle at once, the probability is that Edward would
have been easily driven out of England.

It was not until the 25th of March that the
news of Edward's landing reached London.  The
language of the grant of Tutbury and many other
manors to Clarence on the 23rd, intimates that no
such information had reached King Henry on that
day.  But on Lady Day a proclamation was issued
appointing Clarence, Warwick, and others, to
gather the King's subjects and to defend the
kingdom, "against our enemies and adversaries
of Flanders, Burgundy, and other parts, by the
excitation, procuration, and inducement of our
great adversary and rebel, Edward, of late the false,
traitorous, and usurping occupant of our crown
and dignity."[#]  Two days later, the young Prince
of Wales was created Viceroy of England against
"Edward our rebel, who, with subjects of Burgundy
and Flanders, has landed in the north."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Patent Roll, 49 Hen. VI.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Patent Roll, 49 Hen. VI.

.. vspace:: 2

This is the only occasion on which the language
used by, or in the name of, Henry VI. departs from
the calm dignity which characterises it on all others
in making mention of Edward IV.  Edward can
never allude to Henry without a spiteful addition
of "late in dede and nat of ryght King:"[#] but
Henry's allusions to Edward are always content
with, "Edward IV., late *de facto* King of
England."  There is a kind of feverish spite about
Edward's notices of his rival, which is exchanged
for quiet matter-of-fact in his rival's notices of him.
It is easy to see that Henry had the better
title—because he makes so little fuss over it!

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Ib., 9 Edw. IV. and many others.

.. vspace:: 2

Late on the evening of the 10th of April, George
Neville, Archbishop of York, sat writing in the
Bishop of London's Palace.  To this place the
Court had been removed, under the impression that
the City would be easier to defend than the less
protected town of Westminster.  In an adjoining
chamber King Henry slept the quiet sleep of the
just, with his Latin Psalter[#] lying on the table
beside his bed.  The Archbishop had paused in his
writing, and was thinking deeply, his head resting
on his hand; "when a slight sound caused him to
lift his eyes, and he looked up into the unexpected
face of Master John Shorter, sometime varlet of the
chamber to King Edward IV.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] This Latin Psalter, originally
the property of Richard II., and
afterwards of Henry VI., is now
in the British Museum (Cott. MS., Domit.,
A., xvii.), a beautifully illuminated and most
interesting volume.

.. vspace:: 2

"Whence camest thou?" was the astonished query.

"Out of the street," said Shorter, drily.

"To what end?"

"To tell your Lordship a thing."

"What thing?  Prithee, have on with thy
matters, and be done.  I am busy."

"Your Grace may yet be busier, when King
Edward cometh."

"My Lady Saint Mary!  What mean you?"

"I left him, my Lord, on the hither side of Herts."

"Gramercy!  When?"

"This morrow at day-break."

"Is he on his way to London town?"

"Certes, my Lord."

The Archbishop's face might have furnished, not
one, but several studies for a painter, as successive
and diverse emotions swept across it.  Foremost
was the true Neville sentiment—How will this
affect *me*?  He was silent for a moment,
pondering that deeply interesting question.

"Did he send thee to me?"

"He did so, my good Lord."

"What would he have of me?"

Shorter came close to the desk, and quietly laid
down before the Archbishop a parchment to which
a seal was affixed.  It was a document, couched in
highly flattering terms, addressed by Edward, by
the Grace of God King of England and France, and
Lord of Ireland, to his dearly beloved and faithful,
the Most Reverend Father in God, George, by
Divine permission Archbishop of York, conveying
his royal pardon to the said Archbishop, for all
treasons, felonies, and offences whatsoever, committed
before the thirteenth day of April, 1471.  In other
words, the Archbishop was pardoned beforehand for
the sins of the three days next ensuing.  Some
people might have felt puzzled as to the ulterior
meaning of such a document.  Not so Archbishop
Neville.  He comprehended to perfection that he
was expected to purchase that parchment, by some
tremendous act of service still to be performed, and
requiring official forgiveness from the *de facto*
sovereign.

"What would he?"

An expressive pantomime from Shorter pointed
first to the door of King Henry's chamber, then to
a bunch of keys which lay on the desk, and lastly
to the prelate himself.  The latter pursed up his
lips for a moment.

"Rather ugly work!" he muttered, as if to himself.

"Necessity," shortly suggested the messenger.

"Where?" was the equally short answer.

"Here.  There is, of course, one unconvenient
matter."

The Archbishop looked up for explanation.

"That all suspiciousness may be diverted from
your Grace, it shall be needful to arrest you with
the other."

A nod of intelligence from the Archbishop.

"Your captivity shall be matter but of a few days."

The prelate nodded again.

"Go you back to His Highness?"

"I have first to speak with Master Recorder,
which hath promised me the key of Aldersgate."

"Ha!—when shall this matter be?"

"Maundy Thursday, in the even.  'The better
day, the better deed.'"

The Archbishop received the wicked proverb with
a grim smile.  "Very good: I undertake it."

"I thank your Grace for my master.  God give
you good even."

"The peace of Christ be upon you!  Amen."

Which benediction really meant the expression of
a wish that the diabolical bargain just concluded
might not be successful, for surely the last thing
likely to come upon its actors was the peace of
Christ.

Another sort of peace they had.  The City was
perfectly calm, and its guardians utterly unsuspicious,
when on the following night, Mr. Urswick,
the Recorder of London, came down with a few
more to Aldersgate, and quietly let in about a dozen
men who were waiting outside.  They were wrapped
in long cloaks, in which they muffled their faces;
and, accompanied by Urswick, they took their way
to the Bishop's Palace.  Behind the postern door
the Archbishop's servant was waiting, and they
were allowed to enter as silently as possible.

Upstairs, in the royal chamber, King Henry sat
with that devout prelate who has been already
mentioned.  They had been discussing political matters
for a short time, and then the King, turning to a
subject more congenial to himself, had requested
the Archbishop's opinion as to the meaning of a
passage in the Psalms.  Both by intuition and
education, George Neville was about as well fitted
to judge of the meaning of King David as a snail to
decide the intentions of an eagle.  But he was a
priest; therefore of course he must be competent to
expound Scripture.  The prelate began glibly to
explain that of which he had not the remotest idea,
and the King meekly to receive instruction on a
subject with which he was far better acquainted
than his instructor.  The notion that he could be
better than any body in any possible sense, outside
the mere fact of social position, never occurred to
the mind of King Henry, one of the humblest
Christians that ever breathed.

A slight click of the door-lock made the prelate
look up.  The King was too much interested in
his subject, and his head was bent over the Psalter.
In the doorway stood the Recorder of London, and
several others were dimly visible behind him.  The
traitor knew that the hour of his treachery had
come.

"What is this?" he exclaimed, with well feigned
astonishment.  "Master Urswick, who be these
with you?  The blessed saints be about us!
Treachery, my gracious Lord, treachery!  Here is my
Lord of March!"

Aye, treachery enough!  Henry lifted his head,
rose, and confronted Edward with a steady gaze as
he came forward boldly into the room.

They stood fronting each other, the two Kings,
the cousins and rivals, each of whom saw in the
other an unprincipled usurper.  Only, in the one
case, the conviction was a calm certainty that the
thing was so, and in the other a feverish
determination that it must and should be.

"What dost thou here in my place, thou rebel?"
was the insolent demand of Edward, who had sworn
many an oath of allegiance to the man whom he
addressed.

"I am here in mine own, as God wot," was the
dignified reply.  "What would you with me?"

Edward turned to his followers without deigning
a reply.  "Take the rebel," said he, "and this
priest with him."

The Archbishop, with well counterfeited terror,
began to implore mercy.  The King asked none,
nor did he waste another word on Edward.  He
lifted his calm dark eyes heavenward, and merely
said, to the sole Friend who was with him, "*Fiat
voluntas Tua!*"

An hour later, he was once more secured in his
old dungeon in the Tower.

The gates of London were thrown open, and the
northern army of Edward poured into the City.
The Sanctuary was visited, and the Countess of
March and her infant son, now suddenly become
the Queen and the Prince, were installed in
Westminster Palace with fitting ceremony.  The reign
of Henry VI. was over, and the eleventh year of
Edward IV. had begun.

The restored monarch was grace and graciousness
to all around him.  While he took care to
propitiate and make friends of those who had hitherto
been enemies, Edward did not, like his descendant
Charles II., commit the fatal mistake of overlooking
and neglecting to reward his friends.  He gave
away twenty tuns of wine (not forgetting to spend
some £2800 on himself), replaced his old officers
in their respective state positions, and made up for
the forced abstinence and shabbiness of his recent
life by buying a new service of plate, ordering
twenty-one gold collars (doubtless for presents to his
friends who had proved faithful in adversity),
purchasing horses, and providing six new and gorgeous
garments—a robe of tawny satin, a doublet of
purple satin, two jackets of cloth of gold, and two
"habits" of black damask and crimson velvet—for
his wardrobe.  He further expended in alms the
munificent sum of £3 3*s*. 4*d*.  The Queen does
not appear to have required any new clothes, since
provisions and wood are alone bought for her.[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Issue Roll, Easter term, 11 Edw. IV.

.. vspace:: 2

So quietly had this mighty reversion of state
affairs been effected, that the citizens of London
were unconscious that any thing was happening
until they saw the army of Edward IV. marching
along their streets.  Then, of course, it was too late
to express an adverse opinion, had they wished to
do so.

The necessary imprisonment of that honourable
man, Archbishop Neville, extended only to a few
days.  He was received into favour on the day to
which his pardon reached, but was not released from
the Tower until a little later.

And then, when it was too late, the wind
changed.  Three times had Queen Marguerite set
forth from Harfleur, and three times was she driven
back on the French coast.  Now, just when all was
over which her coming might have prevented, on
the 24th of March, she was able to embark, and she
landed at Weymouth on Saturday night, the 13th
of April, which was Easter Eve.  Can we come to
any conclusion but that of the contemporary
letter-writer, that "God hath showed Himself
marvellously like Him that made us all, and can undo
again when Him list?"  It was not immediately
upon landing that the mournful news of her
husband's capture and deposition met her.  The news
was to be far worse before it should reach her.  She
proceeded inland about thirteen miles, as far as the
Abbey of Cerne, and there awaited the ceremonies
of Easter.  The Prince was with her—unconscious
of his proclamation as Viceroy of England, as well
as of the downfall of all his hopes—the Princess,
and their respective suites.

While Marguerite and her companions knelt at
mass that Easter morning in the chancel of Cerne
Abbey, with the last hope springing in their hearts
which they were ever to know, scenes very unbefitting
Easter-tide were taking place in and near the
metropolis.

No sooner had Warwick heard of the return of
Edward than he came dashing down from the
north, and with Exeter,[#] Somerset, Montague,
Oxford, and forty thousand men, marched to take
the field at Barnet.  Exeter and Somerset wished to
wait until the Prince should come up, as they had
heard of his landing: but this Warwick refused to
do.  He was doubtful of the good faith of Somerset,
who had ere this shown himself remarkably devoid
of that quality; to which motive on Warwick's
part Comines adds another—"the hatred he bore to
Queen Marguerite."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Where and when Exeter had joined Warwick we have no
information.  It is only known that he was
in London on the 14th
of February, and that he came with Warwick from the north on
the 13th of April.

.. vspace:: 2

As soon as Edward heard of Warwick's approach,
he and his brother of Gloucester went out to meet
him.  They took with them carefully one person
whom they might have been expected to leave behind.
This was King Henry.  Was there in the minds of
the royal brothers of York any sinister intention of
exposing their rival to the fate of Uriah the Hittite?
Had Henry fallen, perchance by a stray shot from
his own side, would the pair have mournfully and
hypocritically condoled with each other on the
fact that "the sword devoureth one as well as another?"

The little town of Barnet was occupied by
Edward, Warwick remaining on the plain without.

Late on that Saturday night, without any
previous despatch of a herald, as was usual, to
request an interview, the Duke of Clarence,
encamped on Gladmore Heath, received a visit from
his brother of Gloucester.  They held a long
conversation; after which Clarence returned with
Gloucester to the town, and humbly implored
pardon from his brother Edward.  He was likely
to be welcomed and forgiven, for he brought with
him twelve thousand men.  This little business
arranged, Clarence sent a message to Warwick,
informing him of the very interesting occurrence
which had just taken place, and offering to make
peace for him also.  The envoy returned with an
answer from Warwick which breathed scorn in
every syllable.

"I choose rather," said the King-Maker, "to be
consistent with myself than to follow the example
of thy perfidy!"

The night was now wearing towards morning—the
morning of Easter Sunday.  But no sun
danced, nor even shone, upon that awful Easter
Day.  At four o'clock in the morning the armies
met, but in so thick a mist that no man could see
the banner of his feudal lord.  Since the battle of
Mortimer's Cross, where three mock suns had been
considered a happy augury, Edward had borne as
his badge a sun with rays: and the Earl of Oxford's
men, mistaking this sun for the star of the Veres,
made the blunder of the Midianites, and turned
their arms against each other.  They engaged with
Warwick's men, and a cry of "Treachery!" was
raised by both sides.  Oxford fled, carrying with
him eight hundred men.  At this juncture
Montague (another "honourable man"), who had been
in private correspondence with Edward ever since
he landed, thought it time to turn coat, and did
so literally, donning Edward's livery under cover of
the mist.  But some of Warwick's men caught a
glimpse of the hated blue and murrey, and falling
upon Montague, exacted the penalty of his treachery
in his life.  Warwick saw that the field was lost.
Montague was dead; Exeter was not to be found;
Oxford had fled the field.  He mounted his horse,
and tried to make his own escape through the
intricacies of a neighbouring wood.  Even here
fate met him in the persons of two of Edward's
men, who after a short sharp struggle, unhorsed
and slew the foremost man of their age—the man
who, more or less, for twenty years had had all
England at his bidding.

It was now four o'clock in the afternoon.  King
Edward—king in a sense he had never been till
then,—as the first regal act of his restoration, took
his revenge upon the commons of England for
their Lancastrian proclivities.  Hitherto, following
the ancient humane custom peculiar to this country
(a source of considerable astonishment to French
generals), after a battle, Edward had been
accustomed to mount his horse, and cry loudly over the
field, "Quarter for the commons!"  The nobles
and gentry of the defeated side were of course put
to the sword.  But at Barnet Edward forsook his
usual custom.  He mounted, indeed, but he left
the commons quarterless to the fury of his soldiers,
and he spurred fast to London.

That evening, after Edward had entered his
metropolis in triumph, King Henry was brought,
attired in a long gown of blue velvet, from the fatal
field of Gladmore Heath, to that silent dungeon in
the Tower which he had occupied so long that it
must have borne almost a homelike look to him,
and which he was never to leave again, except for
the better Home above.

When the military grave-diggers came to bury
the dead, they found lying on Gladmore Heath the
body of the Duke of Exeter.  He had fought
manfully, and had fallen at seven o'clock, since which
time he had lain insensible on the field.  They took
him at first for dead: but on careful consideration
they came to the conclusion that life was not quite
extinct.  The party of workers were either
Lancastrians, or they were for their time inexplicably
tolerant and humane.  Instead of stamping out
the little spark of life, they respected it, and carried
the Duke to the house of one Ruthland, an old
servant of his own, who nursed his master back
to that life which was worth so little to him.  He
was then, on the 26th of May, carried a prisoner
to Westminster, where he was allowed the service
of a chaplain, cook, page, and varlet, with three
servants to wait on them.  He was detained in
this captivity until the fifteenth of September.[#]  Six
shillings and eightpence per week were allowed
for the Duke's board, two shillings for the
chaplain, twenty pence each for the cook, page, and
varlet, and sixteen pence each for the inferior
domestics.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Issue Roll, Easter term, 11 Edw. IV.—Rymer is apparently
under a mistake in stating that Exeter fled to Westminster
Sanctuary, about two months after Barnet.
The language of the Roll
is decisive that Exeter was a prisoner,
and not in sanctuary, between
the dates named.

.. vspace:: 2

King Henry was rather better treated.  Dispute
his title as he might, Edward provided for him as
for a captive prince.  About half-a-crown per
day was allowed for his "diet;" but a strong
guard of thirty-six persons, afterwards gradually
reduced to eleven, was thought necessary for his
safe keeping.

The corpses of Warwick and Montague were
exposed to popular view, with uncovered faces,
in St. Paul's Cathedral, for four days: and
on the eighteenth of April they were laid with
their Montacute fathers in the church at Bisham.
The day after their funeral, the royal pardon was
renewed to their brother the Archbishop.  His
offence was that of "taking oath to Harry our great
adversary, as to his Sovereign Lord, and to Margaret,
calling her Queen, which if a French woman born,
and daughter to him that is extreme adversary and
mortal enemy to all this our land and people," and
"assembling unto him numbers of French men
beside other traitors and rebels."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Close Roll, 11 Edw. IV.

.. vspace:: 2

Considering that Edward himself had married
the daughter of a French lady, had negotiated
previously for his marriage with an Italian Princess,
and had reconquered England with the assistance
of Flemings, this taunt upon Queen Marguerite's
foreign extraction and alien troops is rather amusing,
and marked with as much consistency as usually
characterised his actions.  What poor King René
of Naples had done, to be singled out beyond all
other persons as the special adversary to the
English land and people, may reasonably be
questioned, particularly by those who know his quiet,
rather lazy, artistic disposition.  But people in a
passion, and people trying to impress others with a
conviction, are not in all cases consistent and
truthful.

On the 27th of April a solemn proclamation was
issued by name of "the King's rebels and
traitors."  The announcement of the names was not made
with particular courtesy.  They were "Margaret
(with no other distinctive appellation); Edward,
her son; Henry, late Duke of Exeter (whose wife
continued to be styled Duchess); Edmund Beaufort,
calling himself Duke of Somerset; John, Earl of
Oxford; John Courtenay, calling himself Earl of
Devon; William late Viscount Beaumont; John
Beaufort and Hugh Courtenay, knights."  It was
solemnly commanded that none should "give them
help, favour, or succour, on pain of death and
forfeiture of all held of us: we calling Almighty
God to record that it shall be against our will and
intent."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Close Roll, 11 Edw. IV.

.. vspace:: 2

Did it ever strike the man who dictated these
words, that God Almighty had kept a record
concerning him, and did he ever think what his feelings
would be, when that record was read out before
men and angels?  The Nemesis for the sins of
Henry IV. was descending with dire vengeance on
the House of Lancaster.  But did he imagine that
the House of York should escape the judgment of
God—that the Jehu who had been raised up to
destroy the innocent sons of Ahab, should be
permitted to walk with impunity in the sins of
Jeroboam?





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LAST BATTLE OF THE RIVAL ROSES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LAST BATTLE OF THE RIVAL ROSES.

..

   |  "May this be borne?  How much of agony
   |  Hath the heart room for?"
   |                        —FELICIA HEMANS.

.. vspace:: 2

One enemy remained for Edward IV. to
vanquish, and it was a woman: a woman
whose hand he had kissed upon the knee,
and whom his Queen had served in her chamber.
So long as husband and son were left to fight for,
so long Marguerite of Anjou was irrepressible and
invincible.  When they were not, the complete
indifference of despair with which she let the sceptre
drop from her hand, proved that it was not it
which she had loved, but them.

Yet the dreadful news which met her at Cerne
Abbey for one moment overwhelmed the eager and
resolute spirit.  King Henry was once more a
captive, and Warwick—who united the strange
characters of her worst enemy in private, and her
sole reliable friend in public—could be neither
enemy nor friend any more for ever.  The bright
head was bowed down, and tears, such as Marguerite
was rarely seen to shed, came rushing from
her eyes.

"Oh, let us give it up!" she cried.  "Edward,
let us go back to France, and give up the struggle!"

"I cry you mercy, Madame my mother!" was
the ringing answer of the Prince.  "Never, while
another battle may retrieve all!  Look, I pray
you—have we not yet the Duke of Somerset"——

"Not to be trusted," said Marguerite, under her
breath.

"And my Lord of Oxford"——

"Who fled from us at Barnet."

"And my Lord of Devon"——

"Well, yes—I think *he* may be."

The Prince dropped on one knee, and clasped his
mother's hand in his.

"And, sweet Mother, have you not *me*?"

The Queen clasped her darling in her arms, and
bent her fair head low upon his darker locks.

"*Mon chéri, mon mignon!*" she cried tenderly,
in her own language, not often used now, for
English had become almost the mother-tongue to
the woman who had been Queen of England since
she was a maiden of sixteen years.  "Aye, my
streak of sunlight, I have thee!—and never will I
let thine inheritance calmly fall into the hands of
thine enemies!  Come, let us be up and doing.
When, on the day of mine espousals, I set the Rose
of England in my bosom, did I not know that I
must wear it with all its thorns?"[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The last sentence is in the actual words
of the Queen, though
not spoken on this occasion.

.. vspace:: 2

The momentary sensation of irresolute hopelessness
was passed, and Marguerite was herself again.
She held a council of war, at which it was decided
that they should march on the western provinces,
which were more loyal than the midland wherein
Warwick had held sway, or the northern of which
Edward was Duke.  The ladies were to be left
behind in sanctuary, except the one or two in
personal attendance on the Queen, who knew well
enough that whoever might constitute the body of
the Lancastrian party, she was and had always been
its soul: and that however her forces might acquit
themselves with her, they were not likely to do well
without her.  The Countess of Warwick, with her
daughter of Clarence and their suites, had crossed
the Channel separately from the Queen, and had
taken refuge at Beaulieu Abbey.  But nothing
would tempt the young Princess of Wales to join
them.  Whether in life or in death, where her
heart's lord was, there also would she be.

The Countess of Devon, in attendance on the
Queen, and Lady Katherine Vaux, in waiting on
the Princess, were the sole women who
accompanied the army.  From Bath they marched on to
Bristol, intending to join the Earl of Pembroke,
Jaspar Tudor, who was coming from Gloucester
with his men.  But when the Queen's army
attempted to pass the Severn, they found themselves
intercepted by the men of Gloucester, who urged
their necessary "obeissance to their Duke."  Marguerite
turned aside, and went on to Tewkesbury.

Perhaps few places in England are less changed
than Tewkesbury from the appearance they
presented in the fifteenth century.  Not only the grand
old Abbey (alas! restored), but the Bell Inn within
a stone's throw, the old winding High Street and
its hostelry the Bear, are very little altered in
outward seeming from what they were on that night of
the third of May, when Marguerite of Anjou drew
up her troops in "the Bloody Field" outside the
town.  Edward was at Tewkesbury in person,
awaiting what either side felt instinctively would
be the last and decisive battle in the Wars of
the Roses.

Early the next morning, the Prince of Wales,
who was to command the army, took leave of the
royal ladies.

Clasp him close, poor mother! cling to him,
young wife!  You will do it never, never any more.
It was no act of the Prince, whether of commission
or omission, that lost the day.  Victory hung
yet in the balance, when Somerset, traitor to his
last breath, fled from his young gallant master,
followed by Hugh Courtenay: and from that
moment the field was King Edward's.

The Prince was taken.  The craven Somerset
fled to the sanctuary of a church, and he was
followed by Humphrey Audley (who had York
blood in his veins), Henry de Ros, James Gower,
the Prince's standard-bearer, and many more.  But
Prince Edward, most valuable prisoner of all, was
taken before the conqueror in his royal pavilion.
What followed is well known,—King Edward's
contemptuous query—

"How camest thou, young man, to bear sword
against me?"

It was met by Prince Edward's defiant reply—

"I came to recover my father's kingdom, and
mine own inheritance, out of the hands of them
that had no right to hold it."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Only the opening words of this speech
are commonly quoted.

.. vspace:: 2

Some chroniclers say that Edward dashed his
gauntleted hand in the face of his young cousin.
Others assert that he merely flung a sign to those
around him.  Either action was well understood.
Hastings, the King's faithful servant, and Thomas
Grey, his step-son, the affianced of Anne of Exeter,
hurried Prince Edward out of his presence to the
next tent, where the Dukes of Clarence and
Gloucester were standing.  There they flung him down.
One cry of pitiful appeal rang through the evening
air—"Clarence!  *Brother!*" but Clarence stood deaf
and motionless.  Gloucester was equally still, but
from a very different motive.  Then came a second
and a lower moan—"*Jesu, Doming!*"  That was
heard.  Another instant, and they had no more that
they could do.  Edward Plantagenet was with God.

Not that night did Marguerite of Anjou learn all
the awful news in store for her.  She heard—from
the gentle lips of John Combe—that her army was
routed, and the day lost: heard it, with the young
Princess by her side, seated in that charette in which
it had been so difficult to keep her, for she suspected
already that fate was going against her, and she was
scarcely restrained from mounting her horse, and
taking the command of her troops.  The one worst
item—the loss of her boy—did not reach her then.
But what she did hear made her sink down in the
charette, "half-dead."

Those about the Queen—very few they were—felt
the necessity of doing for her what she was not
in a position to do for herself.  They hurried the
royal ladies away from their dangerous place to a
little religious house outside Tewkesbury, where
they entered them in sanctuary.  Alas for their
innocence, if they expected Edward of York to keep
promises or reverence sanctuary!  At that moment
he was presenting himself with drawn sword at the
door of the church where so many of the Lancastrian
nobles had taken refuge.  All honour be to the
brave priest who, pix in hand, resolutely barred
the victor's entrance, until he had given a solemn
promise of pardon to the fugitives.  Alas for the
fugitives, that they trusted it!  All might have
escaped, but trusting to that honour of which
Edward knew so little, they remained in their
asylum until the Monday, when they were marched
out and beheaded before the door.  Somerset richly
deserved his fate: but this cannot be said of many
others.  Even Humphrey Audley was not spared,
though King Edward and he were second cousins.[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] He was the younger son of Alianora de Holand,
Lady Audley, daughter of Constance of York,
King Edward's grand-aunt.

.. vspace:: 2

Notwithstanding all his specious words, ties of
blood, no less than those of gratitude, weighed as
nothing with Edward of York when a man stood
in his way.

There was a long funeral procession that day in
Tewkesbury Abbey.  The Duke of Somerset, as we
are told by his herald, who was present, was buried
"before the image of Saint Jame at an autar in
ye said monastery churche on the northe parte."[#]  But
it was in the very midst of the church, just
under the tower, that they laid the flower of the
Red Rose, "the gallant-springing young Plantagenet,"
who in the endeavour to recover his father's
kingdom had sacrificed himself.  The rest were
buried in one great grave, dug close to that of the
Prince in the nave of the Abbey.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Harl. MS. 545.—This tomb was removed
at a later date, and
is now on the south side of the chancel.

.. vspace:: 2

The next step on the part of Edward was to
capture the two hapless ladies who had taken refuge
in the little nunnery.  Sir William Stanley—an
old enemy of the Queen—was sent to do this; and
he is said to have behaved as brutally as he well
could, and in particular to have broken to the
bereaved mother the news of her boy's death in the
most inhuman manner.  Driven almost to frenzy
by the suddenness and anguish of the blow,
Marguerite broke forth into passionate execrations upon
Edward and all his posterity, which Stanley had the
cruelty to repeat to the conqueror, when, on the
11th of May, he brought his prisoners to Coventry.
The royal mourners were conveyed southwards together,
captives in the victorious train of the Rose
of Rouen.

One more attempt, however, was to be made in
the Lancastrian cause, like the last expiring gleam
of a candle ere it dies out.  The Governors of
Calais, Sir Walter Wretill and Sir Geoffrey Gates,
despatched the brave, if somewhat rash, Thomas
Fauconbridge "to raise Kent, and deliver King
Henry from the Tower."  It was only a dying
flash, but it roused the Yorkists to instant action.
Lord Rivers was sent down to Kent and Lord
Bourchier to Essex by the Council; Lord Dudley,
with a hundred soldiers, was put in charge of the
Tower, where defensive works were cast up in
haste in less than a week; Lord Hastings was
despatched to supersede the Governor of Calais, and
Lord Pembroke sent to South Wales "to capture
rebels, and reduce the King's castles to his
obedience."  The citizens of London, that unknown
and difficult quantity, were complimented by the
gift of two tuns of red wine, "expended on them
after the conflict at Mile-end against the rebels."[#]  For
the safe custody of Rochester Castle, a squire
of the body was sent down, by name Thomas
St. Leger, of whom we shall hear again.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Issue Roll, Easter term, 11 Edw. IV.
This Roll is one of the
most interesting state papers ever penned.

.. vspace:: 2

The insurrection was quashed.  But how many
more might arise?  It was no doubt extremely
inconvenient to be perpetually in risk of another;
and Henry VI. had still friends enough to make
Edward's throne a very uneasy seat.  So long as
the Lancaster King lived, the York King would
have a thorny time of it.  There was only one way
to end the difficulty: and there was one man who
was ready to take it.

On the twenty-first of May, King Edward,
accompanied by his brother of Gloucester, and
carrying his captives in his victorious train, made
his triumphal entry into the City of London.  The
Queen and Princess were lodged in the Tower.
They were now under the same roof as King Henry.
If any ray of hope ever entered Marguerite's heart
after Tewkesbury, it must have been that night, at
the thought of a possible meeting with the husband
from whom she had been parted for six weary
years.  She may well have imagined that fate had
done its worst, and no further sorrows could yet be
in reserve for her.  But the worst had only begun
to come.  Whether it were that night or a few
days later,—within one week from her imprisonment
in the Tower, Marguerite of Anjou was a widow.

When and how did Henry VI. die?  The how
has often been disputed: but the when has
generally been considered less doubtful.  The popular
belief for centuries was that, weary of the continual
risk and fear, Gloucester went to the Tower on
that same night of his arrival in London, and with
one stroke of his dagger ended the Wars of the
Roses, and the sorrows of Henry of Lancaster.
The courtier Comines writes cautiously: Henry
was killed by Gloucester, "if what was told me be
true."  Had he in his heart believed it untrue,
would he have thus mentioned it?  One dry old
chronicler remarks that Henry died on the
twenty-first of May, "the Duke of Gloucester and his men
being in the Tower that night."  Stow says that
his body was carried to St. Paul's in an open coffin
on the 22nd.  Stow, Sandford, Baker, and Mezeray
have no doubt of the murder.  It was not until the
last century that it was ever questioned, and then
by writers who were desirous to whitewash the
decidedly black character of Richard III.  But so
far as I know, no one has ever noticed on either
side the singular fact recorded on the Issue Roll,
that Henry did not die on the twenty-first at all.
There may have been some reason—now perhaps
inscrutable—why Edward wished to convince the
public that Henry did die on that day: but his own
Roll, meant for no eyes but those of safe persons,
unquestionably indicates that Henry was living until
the 27th of May, six days later.  His "diet" is
charged until the latter day.  There may have been
some show of reason, as putting a stop to all future
trouble, why the public should believe Henry to be
dead when he was not: but what possible cause
could there be for entering on the Roll a false
statement with the object of showing Henry to be
alive when he was really dead?  The question of
course arises, whose was the body exposed to view
in St. Paul's on the twenty-second?—even if we
put aside the sensational item that the corpse bled
wherever it rested, on account of the presence of
the murderer as chief mourner.  The Roll above
mentioned, which gives the expenses of Henry's
funeral, makes no mention of the day of burial.
Perhaps the difficulty is best left unsolved, with
just one statement—that Gloucester was perfectly
capable of the crime laid to his charge: and that
the main point of circumstantial evidence in
determining the question, is to decide whether
Gloucester was or was not at the Tower on the 27th
of May.

The strongest evidence known to me in
Gloucester's favour is the assertion of Fleetwood,
adopted by the usually careful and accurate Carte,
that Henry was found dead, probably of apoplexy,
on the night of the twenty-first of May.  This
was of course the York version of facts.  But if, as
has been shown, the date is conclusively disproved
by the testimony of the Issue Roll, may not the
circumstances be equally far from true?  It was so
exceedingly in the interest of Edward that Henry
should die just at that moment, that the suspicion
of his death having been humanly assisted will
never be removed as long as the world lasts.

Very little expense attended the funeral of the
dead.  Twenty ells of linen cloth, wax, and spices,
were provided; two men only carried torches (the
number usually corresponding with the years of
the deceased); a few soldiers of Calais watched
the corpse; and to five orders of friars a pittance
was given for masses, wretched indeed when
compared with the usual outlay.  The whole cost was
under £43—just the price that King Edward
paid about the same date for a crimson velvet
jacket.

There is nothing but pure fancy as the source
of the scene imagined by our greatest dramatist,
wherein Gloucester makes love to the young
Princess of Wales when she officiates as chief
mourner at King Henry's funeral.  The poor
Princess was an outlaw and a prisoner in the Tower
at that moment, and assuredly never held any such
position, any more than she lent willing ear,
whether first or last, to any such words.

The body of King Henry was buried at Chertsey
Abbey, where it rested until Gloucester himself
was King, when, on the 12th of August, 1484,
it was finally removed to his birthplace, Windsor.

Many days had not elapsed after the funeral
of the dead King, when London was startled with
the news that the Princess of Wales was missing.
How she had made good her escape no man knew:
that she was no longer a prisoner in the Tower was
the one thing certain.  Princess, indeed, no one
now called her.  As her father's daughter, she was
still the Lady Anne: and this title now replaced
the royal one.  The first idea was that she had
taken refuge at Beaulieu with her mother; but
this was soon found to be a mistake.  The Countess
of Warwick was still in sanctuary, though her
elder daughter, the Duchess of Clarence, had
departed at once to take her proper place at Court
as King Edward's sister-in-law: and from her
honorary imprisonment poor Lady Warwick was
inditing pitiful letters to every person whom she
thought likely to have any influence with King
Edward, in the hope of procuring her pardon.  She
addressed herself to every member of the royal
family in turn; and she notes as a special grievance
in the petition she presently offered to the King,
that "in the absence of clerkes, she hath wretyn
l'res with her owne hand."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Cott. MS. Jul. B. xii., fol. 317.

.. vspace:: 2

Bitterly she complains that the King had sent
letters to the Abbot of Beaulieu, on account of
some "synester informacion to his said Highness
made," with orders to keep her in strict prison,
which was a deep grief to her.  She pleads her
sore poverty, being cut off from all enjoyment of
her jointure and dower of the earldom of Salisbury,
and also from her own Despenser lands and earldom
of Warwick: and lastly, she represents that she has
no opportunity of putting her case into the hands
of any solicitor, nor, if she had, is there one that
would dare to undertake it.

Edward paid little attention to this sad appeal.
Clarence had his brother's ear: and Clarence had
set his mind upon one thing,—to hand down to his
children the vast Warwick inheritance, undivided.
In order to do this, he grudged his mother-in-law
every unnecessary penny: and he determined that
so far as in him lay, his sister-in-law, the Princess
of Wales, should never marry again.  There was
much danger of this calamity: not because of any
wish to that effect on the part of the girl-widow,
whose heart was buried for ever in the nave of
Tewkesbury Abbey, and whose sole ambition was
to creep out of sight and hearing of the hard, cold
world, into some quiet corner, where she could wait
undisturbed until God called her to rejoin her dead.
The danger arose not from her, but from the Duke
of Gloucester.  From his early boyhood, Richard
of York had loved Anne Neville; or rather, to put
it more accurately, he loved himself, and he found
in Anne Neville a plaything the possession of which
was necessary to his happiness.  That he did not
love her, he plainly showed by his actions.  Had
he done so, he would have let her alone, which was
all the grace she asked at his hands.  But
Gloucester, like most human beings, looked upon love
and persecution as exchangeable terms.  He wanted
Anne Neville: whether she wanted him was a point
quite unnecessary to take into the account.  And
Anne did not want him.  On the contrary, she
intensely disliked him.  It was not possible for her
to compare to his advantage such a man as this,
whose soul was ten times more crooked than his
body, with her tender, brave, gallant young
Plantagenet, whose death

   |      "had made all earth and heaven
   |  One vaulted grave to her."
   |

It was not his disadvantages of person which
made Anne shrink from Gloucester like a bird from
a snake.  Had the characters been exchanged,
matters might have been very different.

These being the circumstances of the case, Anne
had lent a willing ear to the overtures of Clarence,
who sent her secret messages during her imprisonment,
offering to deliver her from the Tower and
keep her in hiding from Gloucester.  His object
was to prevent her from requiring her share of the
Warwick lands: hers was to get rid of persecution
from a man whom she hated.  Both being agreed
upon the means, however they might differ in the
object, Clarence contrived to steal Anne out of the
Tower, and secreted her in a very romantic manner.
The Princess of Wales was actually placed in service,
as a cook, in "a mean house" in the City of
London.  So thoroughly was she concealed, that nearly
two years elapsed before the indefatigable Gloucester
succeeded in discovering the place of her retreat.

King Edward appears to have been at this time
in a most gracious frame of mind, which he evinced
by scattering pardons and honours broadcast on all
sides.  Fauconbridge, the latest insurrectionist in
favour of the House of Lancaster, was not only
pardoned, but made Vice-Admiral.  Bishop Waynflete,
Lord St. John, and even the Earl of Oxford,
were taken into favour.  The poor Countess, his
mother, who was Warwick's sister, was left in such
poverty for some time that she was reduced to earn
her bread by her needle, until Edward was pleased
to awake to the fact of her existence, and to grant
her a pension of £100 per annum.  The Duke of
Gloucester was created Lord High Chamberlain,
the Earl of Wiltshire Chief Butler, and the Earl of
Essex Treasurer of the Exchequer.  The castles of
Middleham and Sheriff Hutton—possessions of
Warwick—were granted to Gloucester, who had
always been Edward's favourite brother, notwithstanding
the anger of Clarence at this poaching on
his preserves.  The King also granted all the lands
of John Lord Lovell, deceased, to his sister the
Princess Elizabeth and her husband, John Duke of
Suffolk, son of the famous Duke who had been the
counsellor of Queen Marguerite.  This was a stroke
of policy, for Suffolk was a Lancastrian.  But now
that Henry VI. and his son were dead, numbers of
Lancastrians came in and offered themselves as
henceforward loyal subjects of Edward IV., who
had now in their eyes become the rightful King.
Thomas Earl of Ormonde led the van: and he was
followed by Jaspar Earl of Pembroke, the late King's
half-brother, by the Duke of Exeter from his
prison, various members of the Courtenay and
Clifford families, and among others, not least, by
Margaret Duchess of Somerset, the mother of the
only person living who could on any pretence of
right dispute the crown with Edward.  This was
Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, heiress
of the Beauforts, and widow of Edmund Tudor, the
elder but deceased half-brother of King Henry.  The
Beauforts, who were the illegitimate children of
John of Gaunt by Katherine Swynford, the lady
who afterwards became his third wife, had been
formally legitimated in 1397, by a patent which
distinctly pronounced them capable of succeeding,
to all "honours, dignities, positions, and offices,
public and private, whether permanent or
temporary, and to all feudalities and nobilities, by
whatsoever name known, whether dukedom, princedom,
earldom, barony, or other fief, mediately or
immediately held of us ... as if they had been born in
lawful wedlock."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Patent Roll, 20 Ric. II., Part 2.

.. vspace:: 2

This language undoubtedly qualified the Beauforts
for the royal succession, and was meant to do so:[#]
but at the time the patent was drawn up, there was
little reasonable probability of any such event, for
not only the reigning Sovereign, but the whole
House of Lancaster, lay between them and the
throne.  But now that the royal family was reduced
to the children of Richard Duke of York, and the
heiress of the Beauforts, Edward IV. was very
naturally jealous of the latter.  Under the old law,
she stood before him; and it was therefore necessary
for his peace that some bar should be provided to
her further advance.  This was the more desirable,
since she had a son, a clever youth of fifteen years,
concerning whom an anecdote, very awkward for
Edward, was in circulation among the populace.
Five years[#] before this, Jaspar Tudor, going into
Wales, where young Richmond was residing with
Lord Pembroke, had brought him back with him,
and presented him to King Henry.  The King was
reported to have said, laying his hand on the boy's
head as he spoke,—

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The qualifying words "the royal dignity excepted,"
are over-lined, in blacker ink and in a later hand
than the original entry.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] This is the date usually given;
but an earlier one is more
likely to be true, since in 1466 King Henry
was a prisoner.

.. vspace:: 2

"Much striving there is between us; but this is
he to whom both we and our adversaries must
submit."

There can be little doubt that Henry regarded
his young nephew as his heir presumptive, a fact
which in itself was likely to rouse Edward's jealousy
against the boy: and even now a popular reaction
was beginning in favour of the deceased King,
which took the form of reverence for the sanctity
of his life, and disposition to believe in his powers
of prediction.  The last item was rather helped
than hindered by his predisposition to insanity, for
in the Middle Ages a man with impaired intellect,
in whatever form, was always regarded as one with
whom God held direct communication.  The particular
form of madness which had afflicted King
Henry, and which was characterised not by any
kind of passion or violence, but by silence and
dreaminess—an apparent absence of the soul from
the body—was especially looked upon as indicative
of inspiration.  King Henry's own account of these
attacks of aberration was that they were simply a
blank to him, and that he had not the slightest
idea of any thing that had taken place.  It may be
that to a man of his tender, sensitive, affectionate
nature, placed as he was in these dreadful
circumstances, these seasons, resting both mind and body,
were God's greatest mercy.  At this early date
after Henry's death, a strong wish for his canonisation
had already arisen.  Had those who aspired to
canonise him after death been a little more friendly
to him in life, it would have been a state of things
much more to his advantage.  But this is human
nature.  We worry our friend into his grave, and
then we call him poor dear So-and-so, and wear his
portrait in a locket.

All these facts tended to make Edward's throne
an uneasy seat, and caused him to be very anxious
to get hold of young Richmond.  His grandmother,
the Duchess of Somerset, had returned to her
allegiance: but his mother, the Countess of
Richmond and Wiltshire, made no sign.  His uncle
Jaspar was watching over the boy; and no sooner
did he hear that Edward was endeavouring to
discover him, than he fled with him across the
Channel, and delivered him into the safe keeping
of the Duke of Bretagne.

Seeing that his dangerous rival had escaped his
hands, Edward thought it desirable to assure
himself of the fidelity of his nobles to his son.  The
little child of eight months old was created Prince
of Wales, Duke of Lancaster, and Earl of
Cornwall; and on the 3rd of July, in "the Parliament
Chamber" at Westminster, the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal swore allegiance to him.[#]  Among those
who took this oath is specially named, third on the
list, his uncle of Gloucester.  An entire household
was appointed for the baby Prince—Chancellor,
Seneschal, and Chamberlain.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Close Roll, 11 Edw. IV.

.. vspace:: 2

On the 27th of August, a patent of pardon was
issued for five Lancastrians.  Three were men of
no note.  The others were described as "Henry,
calling himself Duke of Exeter," and "Jaspar
Owen, calling himself Earl of Pembroke."[#]  It was
not, however, for three weeks after this, that Exeter
was suffered to leave his prison.  He came out to
find such a pestilence raging all over the country
as had not been known in England for many years—scarcely
since the "black death" in the reign of
Edward III.  No borough town in England was
free.  King and Queen went on pilgrimage to
Canterbury as an expiation for the sins which had
caused it.  But, as a set-off to this humiliation, the
personal expenses of King Edward for this
half-year—the bloodiest period of his reign—amounted
to a sum which no previous King of England had
ever approached.  The details of this expenditure,
from April to September, 1471, will be found in
the Appendix.  They throw more light on the
King's character than pages of description.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Patent Roll, 11 Edw. IV., Part I.—The
scribe probably omitted
a word, and meant to describe the son of Owen
Tudor as Jaspar ap Owen.

.. vspace:: 2

Perhaps, had Edward—and it may be more than
he—carefully studied his account-book, it might
have given him some intimation of the quarter
wherein those sins lay for which he rode to
Canterbury to do penance.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE END OF A WEDDING-DAY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE END OF A WEDDING-DAY

..

   |  "Aye, there's a blank at my right hand
   |  That ne'er can be made up to me."
   |                            —HOGG.

.. vspace:: 2

"And how goes it with the fair Grisacres,
Sellinger?"

The question was asked by King
Edward IV., who was lounging in an attitude of
lazy ease on a "day-bed," the ancestor of the
modern sofa.  His Majesty's life was spent in
alternations between taking his ease in the very easiest
of ways, and fits of fiery bravery when occasion
called them forth.  The gentleman addressed was
Master Thomas St. Leger, a squire of the body, to
whom Edward had granted the marriage of Jane
Grisacres, one of the chamberers of his sister of
Exeter.  This meant that the young lady was an
heiress, and that the gentleman was at liberty either
to marry her himself, or to make merchandise of her
to some other person.  The inclinations of the lady
were not considered.  Her sole opportunity, therefore,
if she did not admire her master, lay in making
herself so extremely disagreeable to him that he
might prefer to sell her.

"I humbly thank your Highness, all goes rarely
well," replied St. Leger, with a courtesy.

St. Leger was a good-looking man of some five
and twenty years, with light hair, which, in accordance
with fashion, he wore very long, and cut quite
straight all round.

"That is well.  I would fain do thee some grace
for thy service," said Edward, rising, and calling
another of his squires to attend him, he lounged out
of the room.

King Edward IV. was the handsomest man of his
age.  "A more beautiful person," says Comines,
"never did mine eyes behold."  He was very tall,—six
feet three inches—of extremely fair complexion,
light brown hair, and blue eyes—true Plantagenet
colours: but he grew corpulent in his later years—a
blemish which at this time had not begun to appear.
Like most persons at that period, he wore his hair very
long, but neither beard, whiskers, nor moustache.

   |      "What though the face be fair,
   |      What though the eye be bright,
   |  What though the rare and flowing hair
   |      Vie with the rich sunlight,—
   |  If the soul which of all should the fairest be,
   |  If the soul which must last through eternity
   |      Be a dark and unholy thing?"
   |

And certainly, in Edward's case, the beauty of
the outward man was very far from corresponding
with the inner man of the heart.

A rather peculiar smile curled the lip of the
squire after the King's departure.

"His Highness would fain do me some grace—would
he so?" he inquired half aloud, and to
all appearance addressing himself to a fly which
was marching up the diamond-shaped panes of the
window.  "What should he say, trow, an' he wist
of the grace which another thinks to do me?"

The same evening saw Mr. St. Leger a visitor at
Coldharbour, for the purpose of carrying on that
wooing which was now beginning to be thought
decorous even in these cases where the lady was
not free to refuse—though, of course, capable of
omission if preferred.  Half an hour he spent with
Mistress Jane Grisacres in the hall—a half-hour
which was a weary weight to him, and a moment
of enchantment to her, for—alas for poor Jane
Grisacres!—she loved the handsome suitor who cared
so little about her.  This business well over, Mr. St. Leger
slipped out of the hall, and passed lightly up
a spiral staircase, to do his real wooing in another
chamber, to a lady who had double the beauty, and
ten times the position, but not one per cent. of the
heart, of poor Jane Grisacres.

Men and women do not leap, but grow, into
monsters of iniquity.  Dionysius the Tyrant, Pope
Alexander the Sixth, Judge Jeffries, and Robespierre,
were all innocent babies once.  The heart not yet
hardened in sin shrinks back from the first touch of
what it recognises as evil, with the cry, "Is thy
servant a dog, that he should do this thing?"[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] These words have passed into an English proverb, and are
here used in their current sense:
but it should be remembered that
in that sense they are not a Scriptural
quotation, the key-note
word being omitted from the sentence.
Hazael really said, "Thy
servant the dog, shall he do this great
thing?"  In other words,
Is so mean a creature as I to attain
to so high a position as you
intimate?  His feeling, therefore,
was not righteous indignation,
but rather rapturous astonishment.

.. vspace:: 2

But when the evil is not recognised, how then?
There is no shrinking from Satan when he comes to
us clad in the robes of an angel of light.  One of
the most skilful touches of the wonderful tinker is
that passage where Christian and Hopeful admit
that they were forewarned to beware of the Flatterer.
"But we did not imagine (said they) that this
fine-spoken man had been he."

When the Lady Anne of York, in her innocent
girlhood, scarcely more than a child, stood at the
altar with Henry Duke of Exeter, she would
probably have repulsed with indignant horror the
prophet who should have told her that ere twenty
years were over, she would fling overboard, careless
what fate he met, the husband who would have
loved her if she had given him leave, for the sake of
a young man who was merely attracted by her
beauty, rank, and wealth.  She was ready to do it
now.  Beginning by simply amusing herself with
the young squire, then regarding him as a friend,
she had reached a point at which she was willing
to abnegate rank, and sacrifice even her hoarded
wealth, sooner than part with him.  The matter
was easily managed.  A Princess would find it no
hard matter to obtain a divorce.  Of course the
King must be amused with some other reason than
the true one, as he might not fancy a marriage
between his sister and his servant.  But it was easy
enough to take him in, by a little virtuous indignation
about the wicked Lancastrian proclivities of the
Duke, which made it utterly impracticable for the
Duchess ever to bear him again.  Edward's own
constancy was not so remarkable that he could
afford to be severe upon Anne.

And what of the delicate maiden whose one tie
to life was that father who was thus to be cast away
and left to his fate?  Her mother did not find it
convenient to consider her.  She was to be married
to Thomas Grey.  If she did not like him, worse
luck!  What more could be said?  She must put
up with her fate, as others had done before her.

It did, however, strike the Duchess that it might
be as well to get her daughter's marriage over
before her own.  The divorce could take place any
time—the sooner the better.  She had already
induced her royal brother to make sundry small
grants of minor offices and inexpensive manors to
St. Leger: and His Majesty was just now very
busy—partly occupied in settling political
difficulties, and partly in recruiting his recent heavy
exertions.  Among the former were a quantity of
pardons to Lancastrians who had submitted
themselves—among whom was a mercer of London, by
name William Caxton, whose thoughts were busy
on the setting up of that quiet little printing-press
at Westminster which was to revolutionise the
world; the removal of Clarence from Court (where
he was eternally quarrelling with Gloucester) by
creating him Viceroy of Ireland; the re-arrest of
Archbishop Neville, under cover of a friendly visit
from the King, who gleefully appropriated his
£20,000 worth of personalty, and broke up his
mitre to make a crown for himself.  Edward was
still worried on the subject of Richmond, whom he
was trying hard to induce to come to England,
alleging as his sole object the desire to restore his
dear young kinsman to his forfeited inheritance:
but the Duke of Burgundy—with whom Richmond
had now taken refuge—at the last moment stopped
the negotiations, on hearing from the proverbial
little bird that what Edward really wanted with his
dear young kinsman was to show him the same
civility which Herod did to John the Baptist.
King Edward's recourse, under these accumulated
annoyances, for rest and refreshment, was as usual
to a sylvan recreation which was a mixture of picnic
and hunting tour, gorgeous pavilions being pitched
for that galaxy of Court ladies without whom life
would in his eyes have been a howling wilderness.

The Duchess of Exeter and her daughter were
among the royal guests.  The flirtation between the
former and Mr. St. Leger was thereby considerably
promoted: while the aversion of the Lady Anne
for Mr. Thomas Grey was very far from lessened.
The Duchess, however, pushed on the settlements
and preparations: and soon after the King's return
to Westminster, both events were ready to
happen.  The divorce came first.  On the twelfth of
November, 1472, the marriage of the Duke and
Duchess of Exeter was dissolved by Papal bull:
and in the following January, the Lady Anne de
Holand was made to give her hand—*not* with her
heart in it—to the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth.

On the evening before this sacrifice was offered
at the shrine of politics and propriety, the Lady
Anne, and several of her mother's chamberers, were
gathered at Coldharbour.  The bride had been
trying on her wedding-dress, which Jane Grisacres
and Marion Rothwell were carefully folding up.
It was of rich crimson velvet, heavily furred with
ermine, and was almost too great a weight for
the slight shoulders which drooped beneath it.
Suddenly there was an exclamation from Jane.

"Help us, holy Mary!  If I have not lost my locket!"

"Dear heart!" responded Marion.  "Look and
see if it have not catched in my Lady's gown."

The search was made, but without success.

"Woe is me!  I had liefer have lost all mine
having rather than yon locket," lamented Jane.

"I know wherefore," suggested the teazing
Tamzine, in that tantalising style which is always
meant to provoke a request for further explanation:
and Marion, who was not devoid of curiosity,
responded as Tamzine intended she should.

"Wherefore?  The saints be about us!  Had she
not yon locket for a token of Master Sellinger?  *I*
know!" announced Miss Thomasine, in a tone
which called the colour into Jane's face.

The last-named young lady was still hunting for
her lost treasure, in likely and unlikely places, with
a running accompaniment of remarks addressed to
nobody, such as are usual in similar cases.

"I am assured I put it on this morrow!—Dear,
dear, but to think of it!—Where can it be?—I
have looked every whither!—Had ever poor maid
such an ill loss?"

"It had his hair in it, I warrant you," said
Marion, not ill-naturedly—she was not an
ill-natured girl—but with that spice of enjoyable
excitement at the least adventure or misadventure,
which gave Rochefoucauld the occasion to observe
that there is something exhilarating in the
misfortunes of our friends.

"Not it, forsooth!" said Tamzine.  "Master
Sellinger is not he that should lay violent hands
of his greatest treasure to please a woman."

"Is his hair his greatest treasure?" laughed
Marion.

"Trust me!" was Tamzine's sententious response.
"Have you ne'er beheld him shake it with yon
delicate turn of his head that he hath?  Why, he
beareth it a good inch longer than any other in the
Court."

"Good lack! the man is a very popinjay,"[#] said
Marion.  "He might be a maid, with his
pouncet-box and his pomanders."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Parrot.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The pomander, now becoming old-fashioned, was a ball of
sweet-scented drugs enclosed in a network of metal, which was
held in the warm hand to call out its fragrance: the pouncet box
had taken its place, and was filled with sweet powder.

.. vspace:: 2

"And his little mirror stuck of a little poke[#]
of his doublet—have you ne'er watched him pull
it forth when he counted him unseen?"


[#] Pocket is the diminutive of poke.


"Nay, verily! but doth he so?  That passeth!"[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Surpasses belief.

.. vspace:: 2

"Use your eyes," said Tamzine.  "Jane, sweet
chuck, give up searching for a needle of a bottle of
hay.  The cat hath it, I'll be bound, or some animal
belike."

In which Miss Tamzine was not so far wrong,
seeing that the missing article lay in her own
pocket.

"Cats eat no lockets, trow," said Marion.

"Nay, but I cannot," answered Jane in a distressed
voice.  "I had never yet heavier loss in all
my life."

"Good sooth, your life must have been a merry
one," said Tamzine.

"I have lost father and mother," added Marion.
"Somewhat passing a locket, belike."

"I have lost worser than that," said the cynical
Tamzine, "for I had eleven hundred pound put
out to usury, and he that had it paid me ne'er
a plack."

"Dear heart! how came that?" said Marion.

"Father Nokes said it came of the temptation of
Satan, and the evilness of men's hearts," was the
demure reply of Tamzine.

"What was your worst loss, Agnes?" asked Marion.

Agnes had to think.  "I scarce can tell," said
she.  "I were o'er young when my mother died
to feel any loss."

"What happy maids be ye!" came softly from
Lady Anne, who had listened hitherto without
joining.  "Dear damsels, I pray you to thank
God that the worsest loss ye know is the loss of
death."

"Can there be a worser, Madam?"

"Aye, Marion, there be losses in life far
wofuller."

"Your Ladyship scarce speaks from your own
knowledge, methinks."

"Aye, but I do!" answered the bride sadly.
"We may lose our living, in a sorer fashion than
our dead.  The dead can go no further from us
than they be: and the day cometh when we shall
go to them.  But the living may go further away
from us till they never come back again: aye, and
worser—for they may go further and further from
God till they never come back to Him.  And who
shall measure the loss of a lost life?—who shall
measure the loss of a lost soul?"

"Cheery talk for a bride of her wedding-eve!"
muttered Marion, not for Lady Anne to hear.

Nor did she hear it.  She sat by the table, resting
her head upon her hand, and her thoughts evidently
far away.  Probably they were either on the life
that lay before her, or on the father whom she
might never see again.

"Oh dear!" exclaimed poor Jane, standing up
from the cramped position in which she had been
hunting for the missing locket.  "I must give it up
till daylight come.  Our sweet Lady grant it be not
truly lost!"

"Not a bit of it," said Tamzine peremptorily:
and reasonably enough, since she knew where
it was.

"I will help you look for it to-morrow," said
Agnes kindly.

"Truly, I am beholden to you," replied Jane.
"I would give a gold half-angel to know where
it were."

"Give it me," said Tamzine, holding out her
hand.  "I am going to-morrow even to see the
White Witch of Bermondsey."

"Wait and see if the locket be found afore the
even," wisely suggested Marion.

"Won't be," said Tamzine.

Jane, whose chief failing was being too easily led,
paid over the five shillings to Tamzine without
taking Marion's advice.

"We must be early abed, maids," said Lady
Anne, rising, with a weary air.  "We must needs
be stirring early, and 'tis now so late the night shall
not be long."

She turned away from them, to go to her own
chamber, with a hollow cough which smote painfully
on Agnes Marston's heart.

"Not long!" she said to herself, in another sense.
"No, dear, gentle, suffering maiden—the night will
not be long!"

The next morning rose brilliantly clear, and
cruelly cold.  There was a keen frost, and a keener
east wind: but it was *de rigueur* that the bride must
wear no covering on her head except a coronal of
gems.  She bore herself royally, with no sign of
the outward sufferings which were consuming her
life, any more than of the inward anguish which
was gnawing at her heart.  The marriage took place
at Greenwich Palace, after a freezing voyage: and
the bride was given away by her royal uncle.  All
the chamberers of course were present, and so were
the people of England, represented by as many as
could squeeze into the Palace chapel.  Men and
women of all ranks were there: but only two pairs
of eyes noticed one man, muffled in a thick cloak
as if he felt the cold, who stood back in the furthest
corner.  Agnes thought she could guess who he
was; and she contrived to leave the chapel by the
door close to which he stood.  As she passed him
in the crush, the Duke slipped a scrap of paper into
her hand, with a significant look.  Agnes hid it
hastily, for it was not for a long time that she dared
to examine it.  There was a grand banquet to be
gone through, and a series of dances and games in
the Palace hall; and hours were over before Agnes
could without notice slip away from the dancers,
and in the recess of a window where no eyes saw
her, unfold the Duke's missive.

"I would fain speak with you," it ran.  "Dare
you come alone to the waterside, without the little
postern, as soon as the dark falleth?  Risk nothing:
but if you can come, you shall find me there."

It was growing dusk already.  Agnes listened for
a moment to the sounds of mirth which came
surging from the hall.  No one would miss her
there.  She tied a hood over her head, and ran
down to the little postern.  True to his
appointment, the Duke was walking slowly up and down,
muffled in his cloak.

"May Christ bless you, my good damsel!" he
said warmly, as Agnes made her appearance.  "I
do heartily trust that no ill shall hap to you for this
grace.  Now tell me quickly, for I would not keep
you to your harm—what manner of man is this
Master Grey?  Since he were babe have I never seen
him.  What is in him?—what hath he done?"

Ah, Agnes knew of one thing he had done, which
so far as in her lay must be kept from the ears of
Anne's father for ever.  Could she look up into
those mournful, longing eyes, and tell him that the
man into whose hands his one darling had fallen
was one of the murderers of Prince Edward?  She
cast her eyes downwards, and played nervously with
her chatelaine.

"Methinks, my gracious Lord, not much hath
been yet known of the young gentleman."

"Perchance, not much," answered the Duke
quietly: "yet something, my gentle maid, which
you would fain not tell me."

Agnes took refuge in the smaller of the two evil
actions of which she knew Grey to be guilty.  The
smaller—yet showing, as straws show how the wind
blows, that he was capable of the greater.

"I have seen him not o'er good to his dog,"
said she.  "But I know not much of his conditions."

The Duke sighed.  "Doth my little maid love
him?" he asked.  "Was she willing to wed with him?"

It was an unusual idea for that time, and would
scarcely have been asked but by an exceptionally
tender-hearted parent.  Agnes shook her head.

"O my darling, my darling!  My little white dove!"

"My Lord," said Agnes tremulously, "it will not
be for long."

"I know it.  And then—I shall have nothing
left to live for."

Agnes Marston was one of those shy, undemonstrative,
yet deeply-feeling natures, to whom talking
of any thing they feel deeply is all but impossible.
The fervent souls who wear their hearts upon their
sleeves never comprehend a nature like this.  They
always think them cold, impassive, unfeeling.  Yet
such have shown themselves capable of martyr
death: and they beyond all others can live the
martyr life.[#] The most suffering life, and the most
saintly, is the life that has no outlet except towards
God.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] I would fain take this opportunity of protesting against a very
common misapprehension (as it appears to me) of a passage of
Scripture, by which hearts have been made sad which I believe
God would not have made sad.  How often the fervent nature
condemns the shy and silent with "Out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaketh."  If the latter cannot speak, it is
assumed, it is because it cannot feel,
or is only half-hearted; if love
be in your heart, it must come out of your lips: Christ says so!
But does Christ say so?  Let the context be carefully examined,
and it will be found that Christ says, not that whatever is felt in
the heart will come out of the mouth—but that whatever does
come out of the mouth must first have originated in the heart.  I
venture to submit that this passage does not deal with the
counter-proposition at all:
and that between the two there is as much
difference as between saying all one thinks, and meaning all one
says.

.. vspace:: 2

As she stood there by the river, listening to the
soft lapping of the water against the bank, Agnes
felt as though she could have given any thing to
comfort that desolate man.  Yet what could she say
that might comfort him?  To quote God's Word,
for a woman, and especially in English, would put
herself in jeopardy: but she did not mind that, if it
would do him any good.  Agnes did not realise that
the Duke had been educated by a Lollard stepmother,
herself the daughter of a martyr of Jesus Christ.

"'*Youre liif is hidde with Crist in God*.'"  She
made the quotation very tremblingly.  Amazed
indeed she was at the style of its reception.  The
Duke's hand fell softly on her head as if in blessing,
and—most astonishing of all—the quotation went on.

"'*For whanne Crist schal apere youre liif, thanne
also ye schuln apere with him in glorie...  Where
is not male and female, ... larlarus and scita, bonde
man and fre man; but alle thingis and in alle
thingis Crist*.'  I thank you, heartily, my good
maid.  Aye, and methinks it runneth next,—'*As
the Lord forgaf to you, so also ye*.'  It is well.  I
count that shall last us both for this little while.
'*Alle thingis and in alle thingis, Crist*.'"

Agnes was silent.  She had taken a text: if her
hearer would preach the sermon to himself, it was
far better than any comment on her part.

"I scarce looked to find one of that sort in
Coldharbour now," said the Duke, with a smile which
made him but look the sadder.  "But you must
have a care, Mistress Agnes.  We be no longer
under King Henry, that would not see a Christian
man nor woman ill-usen.  Yet I would fain, whenso
you find safe chance, that you should speak such
words to my little maid as you have spoken to me
to-night.  She cannot remember her grandmother,
that should have learned them to her, as she did
to me."

"My gracious Lord, the Lady Anne wist thereof
far more and better than I."

The light came to the Duke's eyes, for the first
time that sorrowful night.

"Then we shall meet again," he said.  "Not
long—no, not long!  God keep you, Mistress
Agnes, and give you, for this little while,—give all
of us—to have, '*alle thingis and in alle thingis,
Crist*.'"

Once more, light and warm, his hand rested on
her head: and the next moment he was gone.  She
stood still and silent, with the feeling of that hand
upon her head—of that last word in her ear.  It
was as if Christ Himself had blessed her.  A sense
of deep peace sank into Agnes Marston's heart.
The little while to be spent on this side the cold
river seemed so very little, and the golden gates of
Paradise so very near.  She would never forget
those words—never forget that tone—"*alle thingis,
and in alle thingis, Crist*."

"Agnes!  Agnes Marston!  Where art, hussy?
Dost look for thy betters to waste their breath
a-bawling of thee?  Art any better than thou
shouldst be, a-chattering to strange men at postern
doors?  Come in this minute, for shame of thy face,
and tell me who is thy gallant.  Some penny-go-quick
pot-loving companion, I'll be bound.  Come
hither, I say!"

Oh, what a revulsion it was!  But Agnes did
not hesitate a moment.  Her conscience was clean
as snow.  She ran up the spiral staircase, and
found herself in the awful, because angry, presence
of the Mistress of the Household, Lady Elizabeth
Darcy.

"Come up to the light, and let me look at thee!"

Agnes stood the scrutiny without flinching.

"Now then—with whom wert thou talking
yonder?"

"Please it you, Madam, with a gentleman whose
daughter is a maid of my cognisance, and he,
knowing the same, did desire to have some speech of me
touching her."

"Yonder's a jolly hearing!  Get thy tale up
better another time.  Wherefore should such meet
thee after dark, behind posterns?  He should have
come up to the hall, and desired speech of thee
like an honest man.  Now then, tell me another
story, and let it be the true one, this time."

"Madam, I have spoken truth.  An' I tell your
Ladyship any other tale, it must needs be false."

The two pairs of eyes met, and the Lady Elizabeth's
fell first.

"Holy Mary! but thou art a brazen piece of
goods as ever I saw!  Come with me to thy Lady.
She must be told of this."

Agnes followed silently.  Wild horses should not
drag that secret from her keeping.

The Duchess of Exeter—who had just divorced
her own husband in order to marry another man—was
inexpressibly horrified at the moral turpitude
of Agnes Marston.  Was she to allow of such
scandals in her house?  No, indeed!  The only
atonement that Agnes could make was to declare
then and there the name and business of her
companion.  The Duchess was doubtful whether, after
any disclosures or expressions of penitence, she
would be justified in overlooking the matter.

Agnes kept silence.  She had repeated her explanation,
and she held to it as the simple truth: but
not another word would she utter.

"Wilt not even say thou art sorry?" demanded
Lady Darcy, who, now that the Duchess had taken
up the matter so warmly, was herself cooling down.

Sorry! would she ever be sorry, all her life long,
for what had passed in those few minutes?

"No, Madam.  I am not sorry."

"Nor ashamed?"

"Nor ashamed, in any wise."  And Agnes lifted
her clear, honest eyes to her examiners.

"Verily, this passes!" cried the Duchess.  "Dost
look to tarry any longer in mine house, thou
good-for-nought?"

"At your pleasure, Madam."

"Then thou mayest write to my Lord Marnell,
and tell him I send him back a thing that is no
better than she should be."

Agnes, whose sense of the ludicrous was very
delicate, thought she would be quite safe in making
that report.

"I'll have thy sister in the stead of thee.  She
is a well-looking maid enough, and of good
conditions.  I saw her this last week, when she that
was Queen Margaret was sent from Windsor to
Wallingford."

Agnes felt quietly amused.  It was Frideswide
who had been the Duke's first friend, not she.  He
would be no worse by the exchange—whatever
she might be.

"Dost hear, hussy?"

"Aye, Madam, an't like you."

"Then begone!"

And so—for Agnes Marston—closed the Lady
Anne's wedding-day.

She went quietly enough upstairs to the room
shared by the chamberers of the Duchess.  For a
moment she stopped at the summit, with her hand
on the banister.  A sharp pain was shooting
through her heart, but whence and what it was she
did not know herself.

"What does it matter?" she said to herself,
looking out of the window at the starry night.
"Only such a little while!  '*Alle thingis, and in alle
thingis, Crist!*'"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DRAWING NEARER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   DRAWING NEARER.

..

   |  "A bowing, burdened head,
   |    That only asks to rest
   |  Unquestioning, upon
   |    A loving breast."

.. vspace:: 2

The Duchess carried her point, and packed
off Agnes in disgrace within a week of
the offence.  She had the grace to see
that there was some escort for the friendless girl
on her journey home.  A small party of travellers
were on their way to the north—consisting of three
gentlemen, one of whom was accompanied by his
wife and daughters.  Agnes received a frigid
intimation that she was to make one of this party,
and must be ready to start in four days.  Mr. Banaster,
the married gentleman, lived in Lancashire,
whither he was returning, and would take
charge of Agnes as far as Sheffield, where, if her
friends did not meet her, she must be content to
go forward to York with the two younger men
whose destination it was.  Agnes inwardly hoped
that somebody would meet her: but it was a
difficult matter to let them know.  She wrote to her
father, and contrived to send the letter by a post
who was going to York with letters from the Duke
of Gloucester: but whether it would reach Lovell
Tower before herself was an open question.  She
humbly requested to know the names of the other
gentlemen, in a faint hope that they might possibly
be acquaintances.  Lady Darcy informed her, in
her coldest manner, that one of them was a
Yorkshire squire, Master Rotherham by name: as for
the other, his name was Combe, and whence he
might come, she neither knew nor cared.  Wherein
my Lady Darcy was guilty of saying the thing
that is not, since she was perfectly well aware that
Master John Combe was of old time Queen
Marguerite's henchman, and she had, under
different circumstances, appeared to be very good
friends with him.  Both names were strange to
Agnes.  She had one more request to make—for
an interview with Frideswide ere she set out.
Lady Darcy hesitated, but finally granted the
request, though she made a great favour of
doing so.

During the last few months, Frideswide's movements
had been regulated by political necessities.
Thirty-seven days was the limit beyond which no
person could claim the privilege of sanctuary at the
cost of the house: and to reside in sanctuary at a
man's own expense was a ruinous proceeding.  It
was therefore impossible to Frideswide to remain
with the Countess of Warwick: and she had no
money to provide for herself; yet, being unindicted,
she was not a prisoner, and could not expect to be
kept at the royal cost.  In these uncomfortable
circumstances, she had availed herself of an
opportunity which few girls would have accepted.  A
small, though extremely diminished suite had to be
provided for the imprisoned Queen, and Frideswide
had thankfully received permission to share her
captivity.  A fervent Lancastrian, she reverenced
Marguerite from the core of her heart.  Beyond
the one change to her own home, any change from
that service would be unwelcome.

The unwelcome change was at hand.  The
Duchess of Exeter had petitioned her brother for
Frideswide Marston, and no choice was allowed
the latter.  One evening in January, Queen
Marguerite's gaoler entered her bower, as he politely
termed it—she called it her dungeon—in Wallingford
Castle.  As gaolers went in those days, Sir
Thomas Thwaytes was fairly civil to his illustrious
captive.

"Dame," said he, "please you, take your leave
of Mistress Marston, whom it is His Highness'
gracious pleasure to command otherwhere."

Frideswide turned rather pale, as was but natural.
Her first idea was that the alteration had reference
to her mistress rather than herself.  But Sir Thomas
soon undeceived her.  Her sister was going home;
and Frideswide was to take her place with my Lady
of Exeter.  Every fibre of Frideswide's heart and
nerves revolted at the very name.  Take service
under the woman who had ruined the life of that
man with the soft sad eyes, for whose miserable
story her compassion had been intensely awakened!
But Frideswide had no choice.  And then the
thought flashed upon her that perhaps she might
serve him there.  At least she could do what Agnes
had done, and help him, if he should seek it, to
obtain private interviews with his daughter.

Queen Marguerite took an affectionate leave of
her young attendant.  She gave her a token, or
gift, in the form of a table-book—one of those little
ivory books, turning on a pivot, for memoranda,
which have lasted in the same form for many a
century.  This one was among the few relics of her
lost estate, and was mounted in gold, and set with
turquoises.  It was also fitted with a silver pen.[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Silver pens are considerably more ancient
than either steel or gold.

.. vspace:: 2

The next morning Frideswide left Wallingford,
in charge of one Simon Quyxley, an officer of the
garrison, who was going on pilgrimage to
Canterbury, and meant to stay a few weeks with his
friends in London on his way thither.  He delivered
Frideswide at Coldharbour; and before she well
set her foot inside the house, she found herself in
the arms of her sister Agnes.

Fortunately for the sisters, the Duchess was
spending the evening at Court, and they were free
to be alone together if they chose.  Agnes hurried
Frideswide upstairs to the maidens' chamber, which
was at that moment empty, and each rapidly poured
her story into the ear of the other—a process which
left Agnes comforted, and Frideswide indignant.

"Tarry here I must," said the latter: "but trust
me, Annis, so far as lieth in my good will, 'tis for
his sake, not hers."

"And thou wilt serve our gracious Lord to thine
uttermost, dear heart?" urged Agnes earnestly.

"Trust me, but I will!" was the reply.  "And
who be thy travelling fellows, sweeting?"

Agnes told her.  The names of Messrs. Banaster
and Rotherham were received without any comment;
but no sooner had she said, "Master Combe," than
Frideswide's eyes were lifted with light in them,
and a slight flush crept over her brow.

"Master John Combe—not he?  He that was
the Queen's henchman?"

There was no Queen but Marguerite to the
apprehension of Frideswide Marston.

"Aye, the very same," said Agnes.  "Dost know him?"

Frideswide's hood wanted a good deal of settling
just at that moment.

"Ay," said she, rather shortly.  "Thou wilt not
journey ill if Master Combe look to thy comfort.
And maybe it shall be none the worser for thee if
thou tell him thy name is Marston."

Agnes quietly drew her own conclusions, but she
asked no questions.  She found, moreover, during
the journey, that Master John Combe was
undoubtedly an agreeable travelling companion, doing
his utmost to make others comfortable: and that
when she had once informed him that she was the
sister of Frideswide Marston, he appeared to know
as much as she did herself about her home, her
relatives, and all that concerned her.  About
Frideswide herself he said very little: but Agnes
soon perceived that to talk of her was the surest
means of engrossing Master Combe's attention.

Sheffield was reached at last, and Agnes found
to her regret that no one from Lovell Tower
awaited her.  She went on to York with the two
young gentlemen, with much less reluctance than
she had anticipated: for though she was indifferent
to Master Rotherham, she had come to have a
very sisterly feeling towards John Combe.  It was
odd that John Combe's way from York should lie
exactly past Lovell Tower: but of course, very
convenient for Agnes.  Master Rotherham also offered
to attend her thither; but Agnes civilly declined
his offer as giving him unnecessary trouble.  It was
late on a Saturday evening in January that Agnes
and John Combe reached Lovell Tower at last.

The family were seated in the hall, where a large
fire of thick oaken logs was blazing, and the
men-servants were bringing in the boards and trestles
for rear-supper, the last meal of the day.  Fixed
tables in the centre of a room were unknown to
our medieval ancestors, though they were common
enough with the Romans, and even with the Anglo-Saxons.
They had leaf-tables, attached to the wall;
and wealthy persons indulged in small round or
square tables on three feet: but to a much later
period than this, the setting of tables for meals
included the erection of the table, a mere wide
board set upon trestles.  We use phrases derived
from this practice when we speak of setting a table,
or of an hospitable board.  Over this was laid a fine
damask tablecloth, and the silver *nef*, or ship, was
placed in the middle.  This was a large salt-cellar,
used as the barometer of rank.  The family and
their guests sat above the salt; the servants below
it.  Silver plates and cups were set for the former,
wooden trenchers and earthen mugs for the latter.
To each person was given a knife and spoon: forks
were not invented except for spices, and were never
used to eat with.  A clean damask napkin, and a
basin of water, were carried round before and after
every meal: but as neither was changed in the
process, the condition in which both reached the lower
end of the board is better left undescribed.
Fastidiousness was out of place in such circumstances,
particularly when husband and wife still ate from
the same plate, and for a host to share his plate
with his guest was the highest honour he could do
him.  Yet our ancestors' rules of etiquette show
that they were fastidious in their way.  Ladies and
gentlemen are therein recommended not to wipe
their fingers on the tablecloth, to refrain from all
attentions to nose and hair during meals, to lick
their spoons clean before putting them into the
dish—special spoons for helping were never thought
of—and above all things, not to feed their dogs from
the table.

Saturday evening being a vigil, the supper consisted
of salt ling and haddock, baked eels, galantine,
eggs prepared in different ways, and various tarts
and creams.  Wassel bread was set above the salt,
maslin below.

The Lady Idonia sat in a large carved chair near
the fire.  Lord Marnell, who had only just entered,
and had had a day's hard riding, had thrown
himself on a settle near, with the air of a tired man
who was glad to come back to home comforts.

The settle itself would have been hard comfort, but
a well-to-do house in those days never ran short of
cushions, and his Lordship lay on half a dozen.
The Lady Margery was flitting about the table,
looking to the ways of her household, and Dorathie
was extremely busy on a strip of tapestry.  The
baked eels were just coming in at the door, when
the clear notes of a horn rang outside the gate.  It
was accompanied—as that sound always was—by a
nervous start from Idonia.

Dorathie never could understand why her
grandmother always seemed alarmed when a horn sounded.
She was too young to be told that before she was
born, two horns had so sounded, one of which had
brought to Idonia the news of her widowhood, and
the other had heralded the arrival of persecutors for
the faith.  For the momentary defection on her
part which followed the latter, Idonia's pardon
might be registered in Heaven, but she had never
forgiven herself.  Was it any wonder if the sound
of a horn brought back to her shrinking heart both
those awful memories?

"Guests, I ween!" said Lord Marnell, not altering
his position on the settle, where he lay with
both arms thrown back and beneath his head.

"Dear heart, who shall they be, trow?" responded
his wife.

The slip of tapestry dropped from the fingers of
Dorathie, who had rushed to the door, and was
peering through the crack to make such discoveries
as she could.

"Doll!  Dorathie!  Doll, I say!" cried the
scandalised Lady Marnell to her curiosity-stricken
heiress.  "Come back this minute!  Where be thy
manners?"

Dorathie's obedience, rather than her manners,
produced a reluctant retreat from the door.  The
gate was heard to open and shut, the clatter of
horses came into the paved court-yard, there was
the sound of a little bustle and several voices
without, and then through the door one voice that all
recognised with exclamations of pleasure, the rather
because it was one of the last which they expected
to hear.

"Agnes, sweet heart!"

"Annis, my dear maid!"

"O Annis, hast come back?—*hast* come back!"

Lord Marnell was up in an instant, his wife
warmly embracing her step-daughter, and Dorathie
clinging to her as though she had not seen her for a
life-time.  Agnes returned the greetings as warmly
as they were given, and when all the kisses and
blessings were over, presented John Combe.

There was a cordial welcome for Queen Marguerite's
henchman at Lovell Tower, and he was of
course desired to remain there as long as it suited
his convenience.  Any thing less would have been
very rude in the eyes of the fifteenth century.
Agnes had a shrewd suspicion that Lovell Tower
was the real destination of the guest, and that
before he left that place he would find that a little
private conversation with Lord Marnell was the
thing that suited his convenience.  She was not
mistaken.  Before John Combe had stayed a
fortnight at Lovell Tower, Agnes and Dorathie were
informed by their mother that they were henceforward
to regard that gentleman in the light of a
brother-in-law elect.  Agnes received with a quiet
smile the communication which she had been
expecting; Dorathie with ecstatic excitement an
idea entirely new to her.

"But"—she suddenly exclaimed, ceasing her
transports—"will Frid have to go away, or stay
away?  Won't she come home?"

"She will come home first, surely," answered her
mother, "for she will be wed from hence: afterward,
Master Combe hath some desire to dwell in
this vicinage, though if it shall be compassed I yet
know not."

"Oh, how jolly should that be!" cried Dorathie,
"to have Frid but a step off, and run in and out!"

Lady Margery laughed.  "A good step, I take it,
my little maid.  Howbeit, I trust thou mayest have
thy wish."

It was on that very evening that Maurice Carew,
who had been to York on business, came in with an
important piece of news.  The Princess of Wales
was found.  Found, by the man whom she most
dreaded, in the guise of a cookmaid, at a "mean
house" in the City of London,—dragged out from
her seclusion, and placed under the care of her
uncle, Archbishop Neville, with permission to hold
intercourse with Queen Marguerite,—the only
kindness that could be done to that lonely, widowed,
orphan girl.  Of all the quarrels that had ever taken
place between Clarence and Gloucester, the worst
ensued upon this point.  The royal family went to
Shene on the sixteenth of February "to pardon,"
but little pardon was in the hearts of the brothers,
who were quarrelling all the way.  The King, with
whom Gloucester was always the favourite, tried to
persuade Clarence to more amiability: but all the
concession that could be wrung from the latter
was—

"He may well have my Lady my sister-in-law,
but she and my wife shall part no livelihood!"

In other words, Clarence did not care how soon
the Princess married, so long as she remained a
portionless bride, and the Warwick property was left
undivided to his children.  To do Gloucester
credit—the rather since little credit can be done him—he
does not seem to have been anxious about the
property at that time.  It was Anne herself whom he
wanted: and he was astute enough to see that if he
once got hold of her, the property could be agitated
for at leisure.

Not many days after this news had been a nine
days' wonder, Lady Darcy informed Frideswide that
my Lady Anne Grey had petitioned her mother for
her, and she was to be transferred to her service.
Frideswide was exceedingly pleased, the rather
because she could thus serve the Duke far better than
at Coldharbour.  She had heard something of Lady
Anne from Agnes: but she was hardly prepared
for the thin white face and burning eyes which
struck to her heart when she saw her new mistress.
She might keep in her service as long as Lady
Anne should live, and not defer her wedding.  The
interview in the presence of the Duchess was very
short, and question and answer were brief on both
sides.  But the engagement was effected, and Lord
Marnell was fully satisfied with the transfer.  He
was glad, he said, to win both his poor doves from
the clutches of that kite of a woman.  Had
Frideswide remained at Coldharbour, he would have
hastened her marriage in order to get her away.
Now there was no need to do it.

The first night that Frideswide spent in her new
home, she was required to attend her young lady
at her *coucher*.  Mr. Grey was not at home; he
rarely was so.  Noble ladies never had the privilege
of a room to themselves in the Middle Ages.
When their husbands were away, and often when
they were not, a female attendant must occupy the
pallet bed, which ran on castors underneath the
state bed, and was pulled out when required.
Frideswide found herself appointed to the pallet
bed this first night—an unusual promotion, since
it argued some amount of attachment and confidence
on the part of the mistress.  The *coucher* was
very silent, the only remarks made having reference
to the business in hand.  But when Frideswide,
having finished her duties, had hastily undressed and
lain down, the silence was broken.

"Frideswide, art thou in Agnes' secrets?"

"That is somewhat more than I can answer, my
Lady.  I wis a thing or twain of hers."

"Did she ever speak unto thee of—of my Lord
my father?"

"I think it was I that spake to her," answered
Frideswide, softly.

"Hast thou seen him?"  The tone was painfully eager.

"My Lady, may I speak out?"

"That is it I would have thee do."

"Doth your Ladyship mind a certain even in
winter that his Lordship came to Coldharbour, and,
as I think, had speech of yourself?"

"Mind it?  Yes, and shall while my life lasts!"

"My Lady, his Lordship had ere that been
tarrying with the Queen at Harfleur, and he was
pleased to require of me a letter to my sister the
which should serve him as a passport to your
Ladyship's presence."

"He came hither by thy means, Frideswide?"

"Mine and hers, my Lady."

"Which of you knows him better?"

"Methinks, I, by much, Madam."

"Frideswide, art thou willing to be his true
friend and mine?"

"Trust me, my Lady."

"Which Rose dost thou wear?"

A delicate question to answer, when the questioner
was a daughter of the House of York!  But
Frideswide Marston never hesitated.

"The Red, Madam, from my cradle; and shall
so do to my coffin."

"So do I," said Lady Anne, quietly, "down in
mine heart, Frideswide.  He wears it; and what
he is, I am.  Ah, would I could pass further!—'Where
thou goest, I will go, and where thou
lodgest, I will lodge.'  I had asked God no more.
Yet at the least, his people can be my people, as
his God is my God.  And may-be, when he dies,
if not where, then may I die and be buried."

"My Lady, you are young to count on dying."

"It seems long since I counted on living," she
said in a low voice.  "Life is not worth much,
Frideswide."

Frideswide knew too much to ask why.  But she
knew that for her, under similar circumstances,
life would have gone on; and she wondered
whether her physical nature were stronger than
that of Lady Anne, or her moral nature more
blunt and hard.

"I mind," said Lady Anne, in the same tone,
"once hearing my Lady of Clarence my aunt to
say that none save weak folks brake their hearts.
I reckon I must be weak.  For mine is broken.
I misdoubt if it were ever otherwise than weak
and easily shattered.  It has not taken much to
break it.  Thou mayest despise me if thou wilt."

"None less, Madam!  It would be impossible."

"Would it?" she answered, rather wistfully.
"Yet methinks thy nature is far stronger than mine.
The blows which have crushed me into a poor
handful of dust should have rebounded from thee
with scarce a bruise.  I can see it in thy face; and
thy sister is like thee."

"It may be so, my Lady.  But I take it, He
told us to pity the weak, who is a God so strong
and patient, and who was crucified through
weakness for our sakes.  Is it not in His strength we
can do all things?"

"Dost thou know Him, Frideswide?"

"Aye so, my Lady."

"Then thou wilt be a comfort to me—in what is
coming.  It will not be long, Frideswide.  Dost
thou know that?"

Frideswide's voice was very low and tender as she
said, "Ay, my Lady.  I think it will not be long."  She
had more hardihood than Agnes, and spoke out
her thoughts instead of feeling them in silence.

"And I shall be glad," said Lady Anne gently.
"Only I hope my father may not be long after me.
Though we have met of late but so seldom, yet I
know the world will seem darker and colder to him
when I am gone out of it.  I am all he has save
God; and he is all that I have."

Frideswide's eyes were wet; but she made no reply.

"I used to have a fair dream once—too fair to
be true.  I reckoned that we might have dwelt
together, he and I, in some quiet cot in a green glade,
where no strangers should come near us, and none
seek to take us from each other.  But—it was not
to be."

"Not here, Madam.  Yet will it not be—hereafter?"

"I feel as though I knew little of what will be
hereafter.  It will be as God wills; and His will is
good.  I lack rest sorely—so does my father: and
we miss each other very, very much.  I suppose our
Lord can give us what we need; and as to how,
and when, and where—He will know.  We have
only to wait.  Only—I am so weary!"

And she turned on her pillow with a heavy sigh.
Weary of life and all that was in it—and she only
just eighteen!  Frideswide would have given much
to comfort her: but she did not know what to say.

"Our Lord was weary Himself," she said at last.

"Aye, and the memory should rest me.  But it
doth not so.  I seem to have sunk beneath all
that—down into the great depths where no words can
reach me.  Only His own voice, when He shall
come and lay His hand upon me, and say, 'Arise,
and come away.'  I reckon I shall be strong enough
to rise up then.  Now, I only want to lie and wait
for it.  Frideswide, dost thou know what gladness
feels like?  It is so long sithence I have felt it, that
I can barely remember."

"Yes, Madam, I know it well."

"And I do not, save in flashes," said Lady Anne
again in that wistful tone.  "I marvel how it will
come to me.  I suppose it will come."

She spoke as if she thought it hardly possible.

"Madam, saith not the Psalmist, 'Thou hast put
gladness in mine heart?'  Methinks that is God's
gift as much as grace or mercy."

"Then I will ask Him to put it there," she said,
with that childlike simplicity which was a part of
her character.  "Frideswide, methinks it shall be
another way of saying to Him, 'Lord, let me die!'"

And Frideswide knew it was so.

"My maid," said the mistress after a moment's
pause, "who was it led thee into the ways of God?"

Frideswide could hardly tell.  It had always been
so, as it seemed to her.  She could barely
remember her mother; but first her aunt, and then her
stepmother, and always her father, had brought her
up in the Lollard faith since her world began.  But
friends, after all, however faithful and loving, can
only lead us into the Court of Israel: the Lord of
the Temple must draw aside the veil, and admit His
priests Himself into the holy place.

"I can tell thee who it was that led me," resumed
Lady Anne, "and let it cheer thee, my maid, to do
God's work on them that thou hast opportunity
to reach.  It was one that I cannot in any wise
remember—my Lady my grandmother.  She was
sometime the Lady Anne de Montacute, a daughter
of my Lord of Salisbury that died for King Richard
at Cirencester: and she bred up first my father, and
after, me, in that which she had learned from her
father.  I cannot recall her face, essay it as I may:
but her doctrine abides with me.  'Tis true, I might
have minded it less had not my father kept me
thereto belike: for the which reason, may-be, it hath
alway seemed me that to love him and to love God
went together.  They were diverse sides of the same
medal.  I might say that either came of itself, as I
learned the other.  Once on a time I seemed to
come at God through him: and now—I can come
at him only through God.  And the day when I
shall have both, Frideswide, will be the day when I
shall know what like it is to feel glad.  But, O my
God, was there no other way to bring it?—was
there no other way!"

"'There are delights in Thy right hand unto the
end,'"[#] softly quoted Frideswide.  "And, dear my
Lady, surely they will be the sweetest unto them
that had the fewest delights here below."

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[#] Psalm xvi. 10.

.. vspace:: 2

The answer came in another quotation from the
same Book.  "'I am poor and needy; the Lord is
mine help.  My helper and my deliverer art Thou:
tarry not, O my God!'"[#]

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[#] Psalm xi. 17.

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.. _`AT THE PARCHMENT-MAKER'S`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X.


.. class:: center medium bold

   AT THE PARCHMENT-MAKER'S.

..

   |  "My life hath been a search for Thee,
   |    'Mid thorns left red with Thy dear blood;
   |  In many a dark Gethsemane
   |    I seemed to stand where Thou hadst stood:
   |  And, scorned in this world's judgment-place,
   |  At times, through tears, to catch Thy face."
   |                                —ROBERT, EARL LYTTON.

.. vspace:: 2

The shadow was falling very low on the
sun-dial in a small back yard looking into the
fields to the north of Chicken Lane, which
crossed the Fleet River, one end abutting upon
Lither Lane (running northwards from Holborn)
and the other entering Smithfield at its
north-western corner.  Over the sundial for a moment
bent a youth of some twenty years or more, clad in
a buff jerkin and working apron.  His face was
remarkable for the extremely good-humoured expression
of the lips, and for the perfect frankness of the
clear, honest eyes.  Having satisfied himself as to
the time of day, he re-entered the house by the
back-door, which led him into a low, narrow room,
fitted with a long table and sundry benches.  Here
half-a-dozen men and boys were at work, some
engaged in preparing skins for use by scraping off
the hair, some arrived at the further stages of
straining or bleaching, some at the concluding
point of cutting the parallelograms of parchment,
the manufacture of which was manifestly their trade.

"Put up work, lads'" said the young man, as
he came in, in a tone which showed him,
notwithstanding his youth, to be the master.  "The
'prentice-lads may be gone.  I have more ado yet
with Dick and Robin."

He was obeyed with that alacrity which usually
finds its way into the cessation of work more readily
than into its commencement, and one of the men,
with the three apprentices, shouldered their tools
and departed, exchanging "God be wi' you!" with
the rest.  When they were gone, and the two men
remaining had gathered their tools into baskets, one
of them said,—

"Monition to-night, Master?"

"Even so, Dick.  Come you both into the kitchen."

The two men nodded, and followed their master
into a small but cheerful kitchen, where a large fire
blazed in the wide chimney.  In a wooden chair in
the chimney corner, propped up by cushions, sat a
silver-haired old woman, and a girl in the chimney
corner at work, while an elder girl and a
middle-aged woman were arranging forms as though some
gathering of persons was expected.

"Time, Jack?" said the old woman.

"Aye so, Mother," returned he cheerily, setting
to work with the forms.

He called her mother, for none other had he ever
known: but the old woman was really the
grandmother of the young man and the girls.  The
middle-aged woman was their one servant.

"There!" said Jack at length, glancing over the
forms when the arrangement was finished.  "Me
reckoneth those shall be so many as we are like to
have need."

"Who be a-coming, Jack?"

"No more than custom is, Mother—without Will
Sterys bring yon friend of his that he spake of
t'other night.  Very like he may."

"Who shall he be?"

"I wot not, Mother: only Will said he was one
safe to be trusted."

Before the words were well out of Jack's lips, a
low knock came on the house-door—a peculiar
knock; three little taps, a pause, two more.

"Here they come," said Jack, and darted to the door.

A somewhat motley assemblage dropped in by
twos and threes.  Here came a lame man on
crutches; a blind man led by a girl; two wan,
tired-looking women; a very old man, bent nearly
double; another woman; a young man in his
prime.  All, however, had as yet one peculiarity—they
were dressed in a style which indicated that
many of the good things of this life had not come
in their way.  There was a pause while they spoke
kind greetings to the family and each other: and
then, at another low knock, Jack let in first one
man, and a minute afterwards, two more.  All the
guests expected had evidently now arrived, for Jack
bolted the door and returned to the kitchen.

The man who came by himself, first of the
concluding three, proved to be a monk of the Order of
St. Austin: a man of about thirty, spare and active,
with keen dark eyes which looked as if they saw
every thing at once.  Coming in with uplifted hand
in the traditional attitude of blessing, and "Christ's
peace be on all here!" he took his stand at a small
table, and unfastened from his girdle one of those
leather books bound with a projecting end and a
knot, for the purpose of being carried in that
manner.  This he set down on the table, and waited
a moment for the other two to appear.

These last arrivals were both wrapped in cloaks,
as though they were anxious not to be recognised.
The first, throwing his cloak off, showed that he was
dressed in livery, in a style peculiar to the latter half
of the Middle Ages.  He wore a tabard, or loose
short coat, something like a smock-frock in shape,
but only reaching to the hips; with wide sleeves
which ended at the elbow.  The right half of this
coat was blue; the left half blue and red in
stripes, with yellow fleurs-de-lis worked on the blue
stripes.  On his left arm, just below the shoulder,
was embroidered a silver cresset filled with red and
yellow flames.  In days when every servant bore
his master's badge, and every body knew whose
badge it was, no one could doubt for a moment
whence this man came.  The fiery cresset, borne
aloft on the silvered pole, was the familiar badge of
the De Holands, Dukes of Exeter.

The second man laid his cloak aside more slowly.
But when he did so, he revealed a costume
indicating a very high rung on the social ladder.  That
gold chain and those slashed sleeves marked an
esquire at the lowest; the gilt spurs could be worn
by none under a knight; and the peculiar cut of
the cloak revealed to the initiated that he who bore
it must be a peer of the realm.  It was no wonder
if Jack and his grandmother felt slightly nervous
when they discovered that the friend whom Master
William Sterys—himself the grandest person they
knew—had asked leave to bring, was no other than
his noble master, Henry Duke of Exeter.

There was one person in the room, however, who
was not in the least affected by the discovery.
This was the Austin Friar who was about to
conduct the little conventicle.  He felt, as one long
after him expressed it, that he had always one
Hearer of such supreme distinction, that the rank
of all the remainder faded into nothingness.  Now
he said simply, before the others had time to recover
themselves,—"Let us pray."

They knelt down on the brick floor—peer, and
parchment-maker, and poor—and the voice of the
Austin Friar rose in prayer.

"Lord, Thou art made a refuge to us, from
generation to generation!"

Oldest of all Psalms, that has been and will be
the Psalm of the wilderness Church for ever.  First
sung in the desert, there is in it a breathing of desert
air, a perpetual reminiscence of those who had no
city to dwell in, but who sought one to come.
These who prayed it that night were all
desert-dwellers: and no one of them felt the journey so
weary, or the wilderness air so keen, as that one
handsomely robed worshipper with the gold chain
about his neck, whom one or two of the poorer
ones were almost unconsciously envying, and
imagining that he had never breathed the air, nor
felt a second's weariness from the journey.

   |  "His thoughts they scanned not: but I ween
   |  That could their import have been seen,
   |  The meanest groom in all the hall
   |  That e'er tied courser to a stall,
   |  Would scarce have wished to be their prey,
   |  For Lutterward and Fountenay."[#]

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.. class:: noindent small

[#] Scott's Marmion.

.. vspace:: 2

After the prayer came the monition.  There was
no singing.  The voice of the spiritual singer was
silent during the corrupt ages of the Church.
Britons and Anglo-Saxons had sung hymns freely:
but one after another the voices were hushed, and
no new ones rose.  Except in her authorised
services, and to words chosen by herself, the Church
frowned upon sacred music.  This was especially
remarkable, in an age when the popular love for
secular music was at a height to which, in England
at least, it has never risen since.  It was reserved
for Martin Luther to unlock the sealed spring, and
let the frozen waters dash downwards in a joyous
cataract.

The text was taken from the fifty-fifth Psalm,[#]
"There is no mutation to them, and they fear not
God."  The preacher touched lightly, first, on the
changes and chances of this mortal life.  In the
eyes of inexperienced youth, change is a glad thing,
for it is always expected to be for the better, and it
accords with that eager restlessness which is the
natural feeling of youthful minds.  But when
middle age is reached, and when men have known
trouble, change ceases to be so welcome.  It may
be good still: we are not so ready to take it for
granted that it must be.  And when old age is
come, or when men have lived through much
sorrow, we become afraid of all change, and averse
to it.  What we desire then is not change and
variety; it is rest and peace.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Verse 19.

.. vspace:: 2

"Brethren," said the monk in that low, quiet
voice of his, which yet was so distinct that it
penetrated every corner, "this is a world of change,
wherein we ourselves are the most changeable
of all things.  There is only one Man that changeth
not, who is the same to-day, and yesterday, and to
all the ages.  There is only one Land where is no
autumn.  Change is not needed there, for all is
perfect.  But here, no mutation signifieth no
betterment.  It is the nature of earthly things to
become worser: it is the nature of heavenly things
to grow fairer, purer, better.  And here, were there
no worser changes in things around us, there would
be no better change in things within us.  Nay! but
all we be apt to think the very contrary.  Oh! saith
one, if I had not lost mine having—if I had
not lost my children—if I were but better off, with
no fear of losing the same, then I would live to
God.  Brethren, if ye cannot live to God in the
place where He has set you, ye will never do the
same in the place where you set yourselves.

"Think you, in spiritual things, no change is
death.  Growth is life.  While a plant liveth, it
must needs grow and bud and put forth leaves.
Let that cease, and what say you at once?  The
plant is dead.

"Look, I pray you, what the prophet saith of
Moab.  Quoth he, 'Moab hath prospered from his
youth up, and hath rested on the dregs of him:
nor hath he been poured from bowl to bowl,
and hath not gone a-journeying: wherefore his
taste abideth in him, and his scent is not changed.'[#]  And
what saith God unto His people that had gone
far from Him—'Wherefore should ye be stricken more?'[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Jer. xlviii. 11, Vulgate.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Isaiah i. 5.

.. vspace:: 2

"These late years, brethren, have been changeful
ones.  Verily we have been poured from bowl to
bowl.  Are we the better for it?  How many of
us be resting on our dregs?  How many of us be
choked up, and bringing no fruit to perfection?
Fruit, may-be: the plant is not dead; but poor,
little, stunted fruits, half blasted before they be
grown.  Note, I pray you, in that our Lord's
parable which methinks ye know, touching the
sower and his seed, He saith the fruit is choked,
not only by deceitfulness of riches, but by cares of
this life as well.  Beware how ye move God to
shake you out of slumber!  Keep yourselves
awake: so shall He not need to wake you with
sudden terror.  There is scarce a fearfuller passage
in all His Word than this: 'Because I desired to
cleanse thee, and thou art not cleansed from thy
filthiness, therefore cleansed shalt thou not be,
until I have caused Mine indignation to rest upon
thee.'[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Ezek. xxiv. 13.

.. vspace:: 2

"But ye whom the Lord hath poured from bowl
to bowl, thank Him if the dregs be left behind.
This is His purpose, that ye should be partakers of
His holiness.  Grudge not if ye be poured, even
with violence, so long as thereby ye are purified.
Look you, the dregs must be got rid of.  'Blessed
are the clean in heart: for they shall see God.'[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Matt v. 8

.. vspace:: 2

"But ere I go further, friends, I must cast up a
fence, that ye stray not on wrong paths.  Herein
is the weakness of mortal man, and of the
tongues of men.  One emblem showeth but one
side of the matter.  If we would show all sides,
we must have so many emblems as there be sides
to show.

"Our Lord saith, 'Be ye perfect.'[#]  Yet perfect
we cannot be.  To the very last day of life, the
dregs will be left in the wine so long as it abideth
in earthly vessels.  There be three kinds of
perfectness, brethren: the perfectness of imputation,
which is Christ's work done for us; this we have
of Him.  'Perfect in His comeliness, which He
hath put on us.'[#]  This we have now, on earth.
But this is not wrought in us, much less by us:
it is wrought for us.  The second fashion of
perfectness is the perfectness of a sincere heart and
a single eye.  This we must see to, each man for
himself.  This it is to which our Lord pointeth us
when He saith, Be perfect.  This it is which is
said of David and other, that their hearts were
perfect with the Lord.  But that whereof I speak
now is neither of these, but the third fashion of
perfectness; to wit, the perfectness of a soul
hallowed unto God, and set apart for Him.  This is
not done for us, like the first manner; nor by us,
like the second manner; but in us, by the power
of the Holy Ghost.  This is the cleansing out of
these dregs, which shall leave the wine pure
and meet for the King's use.  And this, though
it be begun the very moment the heart turneth
unto God, will never be ended till we stand before
Him in glory.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Matt v. 48.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Ezek. xvi. 14.

.. vspace:: 2

"Doth one of you say in his heart, How can I
tell what be dregs?  Well, oft-times we cannot.
We be apt to mistake therein.  But He can.
Pray Him to purge you from your dregs, and
then let Him take what He will.  Lord, give to
us what we need!  But look you, it must be what
He seeth you to need, not what ye see.

"Brethren, let us thank God that in His infinite
perfectness He changeth not.  Let us thank Him
also that He is changing us, into the likeness of
that perfectness.  Let us thank Him that the
day is at hand when we shall need no further
mutation, but shall be with Him, and shall be
like Him, for ever."

Then the Friar read from his leather book a
portion of the Gospel of St. John in Wycliffe's
version: offered another short prayer: blessed his
hearers, and departed with rapid steps, like a
man who had much work to do, and but little
time to do it.

One by one, the little congregation took leave
of host and hostess, and passed out into the fresh
night air.  But the Duke of Exeter sat on: and
William Sterys waited his Lord's pleasure.  When
all were gone, the noble guest rose.

"May I pray you of your name, good master?"
he said to Jack.

"Truly, my gracious Lord, it might be bettered.
I am but a Goose, at your Lordship's bidding—John
Goose, an' it like you."

"I would fain wit, good Master Goose, if you
do ever lodge any in your house?  Is there a
spare chamber that you were willing to let out
to any?"

John's eyes went to his grandmother for a reply.

"Well-a-day!" murmured the old woman, apparently
rather staggered by the suddenness of the
proposition, and requiring some time to consider
it.  "I scarce can tell.  There is the chamber
o'er here, that might be cleared forth, and the
gear set in the porch-chamber.  Yet mefeareth, did
we our best, it should scarce be meet for any
servant of such as your gracious Lordship."

"I ask it not for my servant; I want it for
myself," said the Duke quietly.

Poor Mrs. Goose looked dumb-foundered, as she felt.

"My gracious Lord, so poor a lodging as we
could"—— began John Goose.

"Nay, Master Goose, but my need is to lie hid.
I desire to be where men shall not think lightly
to look for me.  And I seek an house whereon
God's peace cometh.  Moreover, I would gladly
hear more of Father Alcock's monitions."

"My Lord," said the old woman with some
dignity, "if that be what your Lordship seeks,
you shall find it here.  You be not the first peer
of England that hath lain hid in this house.  Sixty
years gone, when he that was sometime mine
husband was a little lad, for divers weeks concealed
in this house was Sir John Oldcastle, sometime
Lord Cobham, that died for Christ's sake and
the Gospel's.  If it content your Lordship to
be as well—nay, better lodged than he was, come."

"Abundantly, good Mother!" said the Duke.
"And was that true man in the chamber where
ye would put me?"

"Nay, my Lord, he had worser lodging than you
shall find.—Jack, light a candle, and show his
Lordship where my Lord Cobham lay."

John obeyed, and the Duke followed him, out of
the kitchen and through the workshop, into a large
closet in the wall of the latter room.  Clearing
away an armful of skins from the latter, John
slipped back a sliding panel, by some mechanism
known to himself, and disclosed a small, dark,
dusty room, a little larger than the closet into
which it opened, and furnished only with a
leaf-table and a stool.

"Here, as I have heard," said John, "his Lordship
lay during the day: and at night, when work
was over, he came forth into the chamber which
your Lordship shall have, and there he commonly
sat a-writing till late into the night.  Once, when
a party came that 'twas thought might know the
chamber, his Lordship donned an apron and a
jerkin, and was set to work in the shop.  'Tis
said," added John with a merry laugh, "he spoiled
a skin thereby: but my grandfather recked not,
but would have it set by as a precious thing, and
'twas so kept, some years."

"And did the men at work here never hear him?"

"Nay, I reckon they made too much noise themselves.
Only one that was next unto him when he
was in the shop said after unto my grandsire that
he had taken a raw hand a-work, which should be
some cost to train," said John, laughing.

"That can I conceive," replied the Duke, with
a smile.  "Well, Master Goose, so you and yours
be willing, I will gladly engage this chamber.  For
the hire, charge you what is meet."

The whole transaction was so unwonted that the
Duke really did not know what to offer.

"Oh, my gracious Lord, we shall find no bones
in that matter," returned John Goose, metaphorically.
"I will leave that to Mother, seeing the
charge shall be hers and my sisters'.  Mefeareth,
howbeit, that our rude cookery shall little content
your good Lordship."

"Bread and water would content me," answered
the Duke, "so your cookery is little like to fail."

There were at this time as many delicate
gradations of rank in cooking as in costume.  Peers
were entitled to five dishes at a meal; gentlemen to
three, and meaner persons to two, exclusive of
pottage.  The distinctions of bread have been
already mentioned.  The daily provision made for
the household of the Duke of Clarence is on record,
and it reads almost like the details of an army
commissariat.  For a man who was accustomed to
a provision of two oxen, twelve sheep, twelve pigs,
and thirty-six barrels of fish—with a great many
other things—as the daily consumption of his
household, to come down to the style of living of a
small tradesman, was a descent indeed.  Trade was
then held in very low estimation, even a first-class
merchant being reckoned below a gentleman's
servant.  The supply customary for such a house
as that of John Goose, was bread and dripping for
breakfast, with ale to drink; one dish of meat,
with a vegetable and bread, for dinner; the same
for supper on grand occasions, perhaps with a
pudding or pie in addition; but in all ordinary
cases, the supper was brown bread and buttermilk.
Only one thing, therefore, could more have
astonished old Mrs. Goose than the Duke's expressed
indifference on this point; and that would have
been to find that he was willing to sleep on a
mattress.  Down beds for the upper ten—mattresses
for the common folks—was the arrangement in the
fifteenth century.  I said, only one thing; but there
was indeed a lower depth even than this, which to
see would have reduced Mrs. Goose to the furthest
point of amazement.  Had the Duke—for any
purpose short of disguise—made his appearance
with a long cloak, a buff jerkin, a fustian
doublet, and neither gloves nor rings, she would
almost have thought the world was coming to an end.

It was, therefore, as may be conjectured, with
some trepidation, that Mrs. Goose ventured to
superintend her grand-daughters, Joan and Cicely,
in the preparation of the room destined for so
superior an occupant.  The estimation in which a
Brahmin of the highest caste is held by a Pariah is
alone to be compared with the feelings wherewith
Mrs. Goose regarded her lodger elect.  She was
deeply concerned to remember that the Duke would
be accustomed to sleep on cambric sheets, and to
eat from gold plate, while she had nothing better to
offer him than blankets in the first place, and
wooden trenchers in the second.  But she was far
from realising that, during many years now, the
Duke had been accustomed to sleep on whatever
he could get to sleep on; and that a good meal
served on a wooden trencher was luxury to a man
who had begged his bread for months in exile.  The
cloth of Rennes and the gold plate which were
the proper adjuncts of his rank had receded into
the far distance, behind the long years of want
and pain which Providence had decreed for him.

"Eh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Goose, surveying
her preparations when complete, with her head
on one side, as if that would assist her sight.
"Gramercy, but it shall be a come-down for the
like of him!"

"'Tis the best we can do, Mother," said
Cicely.  "And 'somewhat is better than nought.'"

"Eh, good lack, but 'tis a small somewhat!"
returned the old woman.  "Why, I trow he shall
have washed him in silver basins set with turkey
stones,[#] and drank out of cups of gold all bordered
with pearls."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Turquoise.

.. vspace:: 2

"Mighty discomfortous, in good sooth!" said
Cicely.  "I would liefer have a good cow's horn
any day.  It should hold the drink every whit as
well, and be a deal smoother to take in your lips."

"And, dear heart! how shall we find to our
hands aught fit for such an one to drink?  Why,
the meanest matter that hath passed his lips, I
warrant you, shall be Malmsey or claret wine at
sixpence the gallon.[#]  And I doubt not he hath ate
pike[#] and marmalade every day to his dinner; aye,
peacocks and rice, too."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] A high price at this time; threepence
or fourpence a gallon
was the cost of ordinary wine.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Pike was now the most costly fish
in the market, being ten
times the value of cod and turbot.
Marmalade was about two
shillings or half-a-crown the pound;
peacocks, about three shillings
each, were reserved for the nobility;
rice was very scarce and dear.

.. vspace:: 2

"Well, then," rejoined Cicely, "it shall be a
change for him to come down to cod and bacon.
I dare reckon he never tasted them."

A few days later, Mrs. Goose made a deprecatory
remark of the same kind to the Duke himself.  It
was met with a smile which was a blending of
sadness and amusement, and an assurance that for
eighteen mouths of his life he had never dined at
all, and could therefore easily afford to put up with
inexpensive fare now.  Mrs. Goose was struck to
silence—until she reached the kitchen, when she
made up for it in notes of exclamation.

The life passed by the Duke in his retirement
was very quiet.  He had brought with him a
collection of books which struck the unaccustomed eyes
of his hosts with the magnitude of a public library.
But John, who was used to make quiet observation
of all that passed under his eyes, noticed that one
after another of these was gradually laid aside upon
the shelf and left unused, until the number was
reduced to two, which continued in daily
employment.  He was curious to know what they were:
but as he could not read, it was of no use to open
them.  At last, one day when Father Alcock came,
and the Duke was out, John brought the two
books to the Friar, and asked to be told what they were.

"The Confessions of St. Austin, my son,"
answered the monk, opening the one that came
first: "an holy volume, and good."

"And this, Father?" pursued John, offering the other.

"A better, my son, for it is the best of all—the
true Word of God, that liveth and abideth for ever.
Here be the Psalms of David, and the New Testament,
bound in one, and in the Latin tongue."

John put the volumes back in his lodger's room
with a feeling of satisfaction.  It gratified him also
to see how regularly the Duke attended the weekly
"monition."  In all other respects, the lodger made
little impression on the household, and less on the
world outside.  He dressed as an ordinary
gentleman: and as soon as he had ceased to be a nine
days' wonder to the Joans and Megs of the
neighbourhood, nobody took further notice of him.
John Goose found him a very silent man, who dealt
chiefly in matter-of-fact when he spoke at all, and
sometimes heaved sighs which went to his young
host's tender heart.  No one ever came to see him
but his servant Will Sterys: and he kept indoors
until the dusk had fallen.  And so the days
went on.





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.. _`A LAST INTERVIEW`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A LAST INTERVIEW.

..

   |  "Now all these things are over,—yes, all thy pretty ways,
   |  Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy snatches of old lays:
   |  And none will grieve when I go forth, nor smile when I return,
   |  Nor watch beside the old man's bed, nor weep upon his urn."
   |                                                  —LORD MACAULAY.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

The two youthful Annes of the royal House
at this period, who were nearly of an
age, were very similar in character in
all points but one.  Both the Princess of Wales
and Lady Anne Grey were gentle, amiable, refined,
and gifted with deep affections: but the one was
strong, and the other weak.  For the strong
nature was carved out a heavy cross.  For the
weak one, there was a light structure appointed,
which so crushed down her feeble frame, that
it was as oppressive to her as the greater burden
to her cousin.

The sorrows of the one were close to their
ending, while those of the other had little more
than begun.  Treated at first with apparent
kindness and lenity—placed in the keeping of her uncle,
and suffered to visit her beloved mother-in-law,—the
Princess of Wales maintained so dauntless a
front, and so unswerving a resolution, that
Gloucester saw plainly that to wait for any change in
her would be to wait for ever.  No earthly
consideration would ever make her willingly wed with
him.  So, as she refused to change front, he
changed his.  One dark evening in the March of
1473;[#] the Princess was removed from her place
of detention by a band of armed men.  Whither
she knew not, until she found herself, to her
amazement, in the lighted aisles of Westminster Abbey,
with robed priests awaiting her in the chancel,
and the Duke of Gloucester, in gorgeous array,
standing before the altar.  Then the full
perception of the gulf of misery in which she was to
be plunged rushed upon Anne Neville.  She tried
to fly, but the armed men held her down.  She
poured out passionate protests—she refused to utter
the words prescribed by the service—she screamed
in agony for the help that was not to come.
Every thing she did which a lonely, captive girl
could do, to show that this detested marriage was
accompanied by no good-will and no consent of
hers.  But she might as well have cried to the
stone pillars, or have fled for refuge to the dead
kings lying around her.  The priests went on with
their ceremonies, the choir sang calmly, the
bridegroom performed his part of the service, the ring
was forced on her finger, and Richard Plantagenet
and Anne Neville were pronounced man and wife,
in the name of that God who looked silently
down upon the iniquitous scene, and seemed as
though He had forgotten the girl who cried in
vain even to Him for mercy.  With how much
more truth may that dying appeal which has
echoed through a hundred years be made, not
to liberty, but to the God of all truth and
righteousness,—"What crimes are committed in
Thy name!"  It may have been,—nay, if she
were His, it must have been,—that eleven years
later, when Anne Neville's spirit returned to the
God who gave it, she found that His mercy
towards her was better than the mercy she
desired of Him, and that but for that painful
and weary beating of the gold, the vessel would
have been unfit for its place in the sanctuary
above.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The exact date cannot be ascertained,
but circumstances point
to this period.

.. vspace:: 2

But meanwhile to Anne Grey the mercy came.
The period of her married life, to which she had
looked forward with so much dread, proved the
least painful time of her life.  Not because
Mr. Thomas Grey was any better than she had
expected to find him, but because, after the first
week, he relieved her of his company almost
entirely.  Affection for her he had none.  So long,
therefore, as the duties prescribed by civility
and custom were properly performed, he had no
scruple about leaving her to herself—which was
exactly what she most desired.

One troublesome item remained, for no separate
residence had been provided for the young pair,
and Mr. Grey continued to occupy his old apartments
in the Palace of his royal stepfather.  This
was the last place where Lady Anne could have
wished to be.  To her uncle she felt no dislike,
for he had always shown his best side to her, and
her pure and simple nature was incapable of
entering into the darker features of his character.
Towards the Queen her feeling was a curious
mixture of affection and misgiving.  The soft
caresses and tender words could not be resented,
nor even coldly received, yet they were unavoidably
provocative of an under-current of doubt as
concerned their whole-heartedness.

"The lady did protest too much."

With the children Lady Anne was at home,
especially with that grave-eyed boy in whom
much of her own temperament was reproduced.

It had not been intended that the young pair
should reside in the Palace.  The King fully
meant to provide them with a separate abode:
but one of his practical rules being never to do
to-day that which could be put off till to-morrow,
the provision remained unmade, and day after
day followed its fellow to the silent chambers of
the past.

The chief difficulty of Lady Anne's married life
concerned her father.  If it had been scarcely
possible to receive him at Coldharbour, to do it at
Westminster was absolutely impossible.  But it
might be comparatively easy to meet elsewhere,
could she ascertain where he might be met.  The
Duke had as much difficulty in communicating
with her as she with him.  But

   |  "Under floods that are deepest
   |    Which Neptune obey,
   |  Over rocks that are steepest,
   |    Love will find out the way"—

and here also love found it out, though it was not
until three months had elapsed since the marriage,
and their time for meeting was growing very short.
They met again only twice—once under the wing
of the Lady Douglas, the Duke's half-sister; and
once by appointment at a draper's shop in Lombard
Street.  And each time the father saw with a pang
that the end drew nearer, and that the likelihood
was that the next meeting would be in the Garden
of God.  He let her go very reluctantly the last time.

"Somewhat tells me," he whispered to his sole
friend and companion, William Sterys, "that this
shall be the last time."

"Dear my Lord," was the sympathising answer,
"can you not look on to the next time?"

The Duke understood him.  "*Domine, ne
moreris!*" broke passionately from his lips.

After that last parting the white rosebud
withered quickly.  She passed away when the
summer began, fading with the May-flowers.  The
last word upon her lips was "Father!"  Was she
thinking of the earthly or the heavenly Father?
Perhaps of both.  She was safe now in the keeping
of the Father of spirits: and the one earthly creature
whom she loved would join her before long.

The Duchess of Exeter showed little feeling on
the death of her daughter; scarcely more than
Mr. Grey, who looked on an invalid wife as a nuisance
which he felt glad to have removed.  It had been
unfortunately necessary to marry her in order to
obtain her vast inheritance; and it was an
additional grievance that she left no child behind her
to give him a continued lien upon the estates.
However, better luck next time.  He could now
secure a lady with good health and lively spirits,
of a disposition akin to his own: and of course the
larger purse she had, the better.  He soon found
her, in the person of Cicely Bonvile, heiress to
both parents, and a girl who suited his taste
infinitely better than the heiress of Exeter had
ever done.  Decency was respected by a proper
mourning of twelve months: and in the July of
the following year, Mr. Grey repaired his loss to
his entire satisfaction.

The mother was longer in repairing hers.  She
had considered herself a most ill-used woman,
through the necessity for delaying her marriage
until after her daughter's death.  There were two
reasons for this.  The Duchess knew that public
opinion would cry shame upon her for marrying
while her own and only child was standing face to
face with death: and little as she cared for public
opinion in general, in this instance she could not
afford to disregard it.  Her marriage with
Mr. St. Leger—a mere squire in her brother's
service—would at any time bring upon her as much obloquy
as she cared to brave: and it was not desirable
to increase it by choosing such a time.  Moreover,
there remained a further and very awkward
consideration, that King Edward might be
irremediably offended: and while the adverse verdict
of public opinion represented a mere loss of
character—an article not of very high value in the
eyes of the Duchess—the adverse verdict of her
royal brother might represent a very substantial
loss of gold and silver, which was a far more
serious matter.  She had never dared to unfold her
intentions to Edward; nor did she mean to do so
until she had secured her prize.  And as Mr. St. Leger,
in losing his master's favour, would have
lost even more than the royal lady, he was quite as
willing as herself to keep the project secret.
However unwillingly or impatiently, she was
accordingly bound to wait.

It seemed, therefore, as though no creature
mourned for Anne Grey beyond a few of her
dependants.  The gulf had opened, and the fair,
gentle, loving girl had disappeared from sight:
and then it had closed again, and the world was
dancing over it, and she was forgotten as though
she had not been.  Frideswide Marston was one of
those few who wore mourning for her in their
hearts.  She had lived in her household only for
three months, but she had been her immediate
and favourite attendant, and had learned to love
her.  Now that phase of life was over, and
Frideswide was preparing to return home.  There
was a good deal of shopping to be done first,
for Frideswide meant to bring her trousseau from
London; and accompanied by one of Lady Anne's
ushers, she went to and fro to West Chepe,
where the mercers and haberdashers congregated;
Guthrum's Lane (afterwards corrupted to Gutter
Lane) where the goldsmiths dwelt; Lombard
Street, the habitat of drapers; St. Mary Axe,
where the furriers were found; and Cordwainer
Street, where the shoemakers lived.  Of course
she visited Paternoster Row for a new rosary
and copies of the Psalter and Gospels in Latin;
purchased a pair of pattens in Pattens Lane; and,
as the most acceptable present she could carry to
her stepmother, bought a sugar-loaf, weighing
twenty pounds, price twenty-six shillings and
eightpence, from the druggist in Soper's Lane.  A
handsome piece of scarlet cloth—the most esteemed
material for a dress[#]—was also procured for Lady
Margery, at a cost of eight shillings the yard: and
twelve yards—a very handsome quantity—of black
satin of Bruges, to make a gown for the Lady
Idonia.  For her father she provided a hat in the
newest fashion, small, round, edged with fur, and
adorned with a single ostrich feather, small but
full, which was fastened by a jewelled button.
Ladies never wore feathers in the fifteenth century.
The present for Agnes was a gold chain, which
cost two pounds; and—a far more precious
article—a silver cramp-ring which cost nothing.  But
it had been solemnly consecrated, as was done
every year, by her on whom Frideswide looked as
the rightful and only Queen of England; and no
one who wore it could possibly be troubled with
cramp.  For a ring which owed its value to the
touch of "Dame Bessy Grey," Frideswide would
not have paid a halfpenny, nor would Agnes have
deigned to soil her fingers by wearing it.  What
she should bring for Dorathie was a matter of
severe reflection to Frideswide.  She would have
liked a parrot: but parrots were not only rare and
costly, but scarcely portable articles.  A mirror
would not find favour with the authorities, as
likely to foster vanity in the immature mind of
youth.  Her final choice was a silver girdle-clasp
and a primer.  The latter was not a book from
which to learn reading, as we should suppose, but
rather a collection of elegant extracts, chiefly of a
religious cast.  Primers varied in price from about
a shilling to fifteen shillings, according to size
and binding; and were put forth by authority,
containing such things as were considered proper
for the people to know.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Writing about this time, Lady Fasten
assures her husband that
she would prefer his return home
to a new gown, "yea, though it
were of scarlet."

.. vspace:: 2

Frideswide's purchases were at last complete,
and her bags packed.  Comparatively few boxes
were used, when all luggage had to be carried on
the backs of mules or galloways.  She was to leave
London on the first of June, escorted as far as
St. Albans by one of her late Lady's ushers.  Here
she was pretty sure to fall in with a train of
pilgrims to Newark or Whitby, or possibly with a
convoy of merchants going to York.  On the last
evening, it occurred to her that she might as well
take with her a few ells of fringe to trim the
dresses, as they would pack in no great compass,
and would doubtless be of better quality than such
as could easily be procured at Lovell Tower.
Calling the usher to attend her, she went out to
the nearest mercer's in West Chepe.  The fringe
was soon bought, and she was turning homewards,
when her attention was roused by a young man
who kept walking close behind them.  Taking
the bull by the horns, Frideswide said at once,—

"Would you have speech of us, Master?"

"If your name be Marston, that would I," was
the answer: "but pray you go a little farther, for
we shall come anon to a dark passage where there
is more conveniency for talk."

Guessing in an instant that the young man was
entrusted with some message for her ear only,
Frideswide followed his directions, when he
said,—

"Mistress, there is one would speak with you
ere you leave London—one that you knew of old
time."

"Man or woman?"

"Man."

"What manner of man?"  Frideswide was cautious.

"A cresset-bearer."

No further explanation was required.  The
Duke of Exeter wished for an interview.

"Go to: where shall it be?"

"At my house, an' it like you."

"May it be done this even?  for I should set
forth on my journey by morning light."

"It can be done this minute, an' you will come
with me."

"Is it far?—and who be you?"

"I am a parchment-maker, of Smithfield, and
a Goose by name and nature," said the young man
with a smile.

"By name, may-be," replied Frideswide, with an
answering smile: "methinks scarce by nature,
else had not your master and mine trusted you
with such an errand.  But have you no token for me?"

"Ay, one of gold forged in the King's mint.—'*Alle
thingis, and in alle thingis, Crist*.'"

There could be no further question to a Lollard
mind of the trustworthiness of the Duke's
messenger.  Frideswide came out of the dark passage,
and dismissed her usher, giving him her parcels to
take back with him.

"This worthy master will see me home, and
I have ado with him first," she said.  "Now,
pray you, Master Goose, if your name be so, lead on."

Silently Frideswide followed her guide up to
Aldersgate, through Little Britain,—where of old
time stood the town mansion of the Counts of
Bretagne, who through several centuries were
Earls of Richmond—across Smithfield, and paused
before a small house at the north-west corner of
that open space.  Mr. Goose unlocked the door by
a key from his pocket, and led Frideswide up a
very narrow staircase, into a small room fitted as
a sitting-room.  Leaving her there, he disappeared
for a moment; and the next minute, a stately step
crossed the chamber, and the Duke stood before her.

It was rather more than two years since they
had met, but Frideswide was unprepared to find him
so sadly changed.  He looked rather as if twenty
years than two had passed over him.  Yet only in
his forty-fourth year, he had the appearance of
broken-down, premature old age: and every tone
of his voice was like a moan of pain.

"Mistress Frideswide, I have heard, in this my
retreat, that which hath broken mine heart.  Tell
me, is it true?"

Frideswide did not ask what he meant.  She
knew that only too well.

"My Lord, it is true indeed.  Our sweet young
Lady went her way to God, on Sunday se'nnight in
the even."

"On whose soul Jesu have mercy!" broke almost
mechanically from the lips of the desolate father.

"Amen!" responded Frideswide.

"Was he with her?" demanded the Duke almost
fiercely.  He had neither affection nor respect for
"Tom Grey," as his Lancastrian instincts
contemptuously termed him.

"Master Grey?  No."

Frideswide did not tell the Duke, though she
knew it, that the young gentleman in question was
playing bowls at Lambeth.

"My Lady her mother was, I count?"

Frideswide was thankful that she could truthfully
say that the Duchess had been in her daughter's
apartments on the night of her death.  She had
just looked in for ten minutes.  She would have
been glad to say no more: but the Duke's queries
were persistent.  He put one after another till he
knew all she could tell him: and then, folding his
arms upon the table, he laid his head upon them,
and a low moan of bitter pain broke from him.

For some minutes there was dead silence in the
little chamber.  At length the Duke spoke.

"If only a man might die when he would!  The
sun is gone down, and there be no stars for me."

"Nay, my gracious Lord, I cry you mercy!"
said Frideswide gently.  "The sun is but gone
behind a cloud, for our Lord Jesu Christ is the sun
of His people.  It is the star which has set.  The
sun is there as aforetime."

"Then the cloud is sore thick, for I see no light."

"Not now, my Lord.  It will break forth again."

"Is that so sure?" said the Duke, mournfully.
"Ah, you are young and hopeful; to you the birds
always chant 'To-morrow.'  But I—I am a man
old before his time, and hope is gone from me."

"Christ is not, my Lord."

"Mistress Frideswide," was the earnest answer,
"wit you what it is to stretch forth numb hands
into the darkness, and not find them taken?—to feel
none other hands meeting yours?"

"So long as the numbness is but in mine hands,
my Lord, I know not that it signifieth much.
They may be taken, yet be too numb to feel it.
Truly, I am but a poor maid and a young, and of
little wit: some doctor of the Church could aid your
Lordship, but not I.  Yet if I might speak one
word, it should be,—dear my Lord, if our Lord
have gripped hold of your Lordship, will it matter
whether your hands have hold of Him or no?
They be safe borne, methinks, whom Christ
carrieth."

"Yet if one feel not the carrying—only a sense
of falling down, down, into a pit whereto is no
bottom"——

"My gracious Lord, can that be if you have
trusted our Lord to carry you?  Shall your feeling
be put in enmity to His word?  Have you come to
Him? for if so, you give Him the lie to say He
hath cast you out."

The Duke rose.  "My maid," he said, "there be
times when it looks to mine eyes as though mine
whole life had been but one mighty blunder, and
one great sin."

"Be it so, my Lord.  Is Christ strong enough to
bear it?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Is He reluctant to bear it?"

"I dare not say so much."

"Then, my Lord, what wait you for?"

"I have no strength to give it to Him."

"Have you any need?  If a burden lay at my
feet that I could not lift, and my brother stood by,
think you I should tarry to ask him to bear it for
me till I could lift it up and give it to him?  Is He
that carried our sins away upon His cross become
so weak that He cannot bear our sorrows now?  If
He can hold heaven and earth, verily He can hold
you and me."

"Amen!" said the Duke softly.  "Mistress
Frideswide, we may never set eyes again each on
other: and you and your sister have been true
friends to me.  Pray you, do me so much pleasure
as to wear this gold chain for my sake.  I would
I had a better gift to mine hand, but a man
that hath spent half his life in exile, and hath his
lands proscribed, is not he that can make rich gifts."

"My Lord, a far smaller matter should be more
than enough to pleasure your handmaid.  I thank
your good Lordship right heartily."

"And what shall I send unto Mistress Annis?"
said the Duke thoughtfully, as he turned over some
dozen of jewels and trinkets, which were all now left
to him of his once splendid fortune.  "I would not
by my good-will she were had in oblivion, for she
was very good unto me, more than once or twice.
What say you, Mistress Frideswide, should like
her best of these?"

Frideswide glanced rapidly over the articles indicated.

"I am somewhat afeared to pick and choose,
under your Lordship's allowance: for that which
may seem the least precious matter unto a stranger,
may be the dearest thing in all the treasure-house
to him that ought[#] it."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Owned.

.. vspace:: 2

"Nay, go to," replied the Duke.  "There is
nought dear to me now, save a ring my Nan
once gave me—and I put not that on my list of
tokens."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Gifts.

.. vspace:: 2

Thus invited, Frideswide picked out a plain silver
ring, set with the badge of the fiery cresset in minute
rubies.  "This, methinks, should like her, if your
Lordship set no store thereby."

"Certes, none at all: yet this is poor matter."

"It is enough, my gracious Lord, and I thank
you right heartily for my sister."

"Tell her, I pray you, Mistress Frideswide, that
the last words we spake each to other be the parting
message of love[#] that I shall send her,—and may
God give me to find it true for myself, as I pray she
may for her."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Then a word used generally in the sense
of friendship or kindliness.

.. vspace:: 2

"What were they, an' it like your Lordship?"

"They were the words I told Jack Goose to give
you as token of his trustworthiness, the which I
thought should bring quickly one of our doctrine.
'*Alle thingis, and in all thingis, Crist*.'"

"May you so find it, my gracious Lord!"

The Duke gave her his hand at parting—an
unusual condescension from his position to hers.
Frideswide bent low, and kissed the hand of him
whom she was no longer to call master, and whose
face she would never see any more.

John Goose took her home with a lantern.  As
they threaded their way along St. Martin's Lane,
which led from Aldersgate to St. Paul's Churchyard,
he said to her,—

"Pray you, my mistress, is aught heard at this
time of any ado against them of our doctrine?"

"In good sooth I trust not, Master Goose," was
the reply.  "I have nought heard of any such
matter.  Eh, good lack! it should be hard for some
to be staunch, if so were!"

"I count it should be hard to them that had it to
do for themselves," said John Goose.

"How mean you, my master?"

"Look you, I told you afore I was a Goose by
name and nature," said the youth with a merry
laugh.  "So being, I know well I have no wits to
cope with my learned masters the doctors of the
Church.  Herein I must needs betake me wholly
unto my Master.  He will give me the endurance,
if He send me the need to endure.  And that which
cometh down from Heaven is like to be better than
aught a man hath of his own."

"Then look you for troubles, Master Goose?"

"I look for nought, Mistress.  My Master doth
the work for me, and I take mine ease.  So merry
is Christ's service."

"It should be little ease that you should take at
the stake, methinks," said Frideswide with a shake
of her head.  "Verily, methinks it were past all
endurance."

"For Him, or for me?" significantly asked John Goose.

"It were over hard for you," said Frideswide to
the second question, meeting the first with a
deprecatory smile.

"Nay, my Mistress.  The enduring was with
Him that bare the wrath of God for me: surely not
with me that do but bear a few earthly pains for
Him.  At the least, if it should please Him to call
me to that honour."

"Would you covet it, Master Goose?"

"Mistress, I am Christ's servant.  Is it for the
servant to admonish the Master of the work
whereunto He shall set him?"

"But the suffering should be your own!"

"Nay!  When I bid my journeyman get a-work,
he doth it at my charges, not his own."

"Yet you must needs feel it, Master Goose?"

They had reached the gate of Coldharbour.  John
Goose swung the lantern into his left hand, and
unlatched the outer gate for Frideswide, calling for
the porter as he did so.

"Mistress, if our dear Lord list to have me to His
presence without an hair of mine head singed, think
you He could compass it, or no?"

"Most certainly!"

"Farewell; and God be with you!"

And the smile with which he took leave of her,
she remembered later.

Early the next morning, Frideswide left
Coldharbour and London: and she left them readily
enough.  Her sojourn in the south had been
productive of any thing rather than pleasure.  Now
she was journeying home to all she loved; and of
course hope told a flattering tale, and she expected
to live happily ever after her arrival at Lovell Tower.
Her journey was pleasant and prosperous: and she
reached York on the evening of the eighth of June,
in company with a party of whom one portion were
bound for that city, and another for Beverley
Minster.

As Frideswide entered the hotel at York, to her
surprise she found an old friend leaning against
the sidepost of the door.

"Why, Mistress Marston, is it you?" said
he, starting up.

"Why, Master Strangeways! whence came you?"

"Truly, at the heels of my good Lady, that
is but now out of Beverley Sanctuary, and goeth
northward under convoy of Sir James Tyrell."

"Whither?"

"That shall we see when we be there," returned
Mr. Strangeways, jovially, as though such a
journey were the pleasantest amusement in the
world.

"Is it of the King's Grace's pleasure?"

"Who is the King's Grace?" returned Mr. Strangeways,
putting his hands in his pockets, with
as little concern about possible spies or enemies
as though he had lived in the nineteenth century.

"'When we be at Rome, we do as Rome
doth,'" quoted Frideswide, with a smile.  Not
only had her ears become accustomed to the
term as applied to Edward, but, like many
Lancastrians, she considered that the regal right had
now become vested in the House of York.  Mr. Philip
Strangeways, on the contrary, held politics
of so very red a dye that the young Earl of
Richmond was his King.  "You know, Master
Philip," concluded she.

"I know more than I profit by, mayhap.
Howbeit, your question tarrieth his answer.  Nay,
'tis not Merry Ned this time.  'Tis Crookback
Dickon.  His soul is not as straight as his body.
Now I marvel," said Mr. Strangeways, reflectively,
"if that companion reckoneth he is going to
Heaven.  I'll lay you a broad shilling he so doth."

"What did he, my Master?"

"Kicked my Lady up into Yorkshire, when she
fled to that her dearworthy[#] son, and begged him
of his protection.  And ne'er a plack[#] in her
pocket withal.  I do pray the blessed saints to give
him his deserts, and I rather count they will."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Beloved.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Coin.

.. vspace:: 2

"Dear heart! but sure he would not thus
evil entreat his own mother-in-law?"

This innocent query seemed to cause Mr. Philip
Strangeways inextinguishable amusement.

"Be men so fond of their mothers-in-law?"
said he.  "He is, take my word for it: for both
he and his brother have set down the foot that
never a penny shall my old Lady finger that
their fingers can keep from her.  She hath scarce
more gowns than backs, nor more hoods than
heads; and as to her botews,[#] I took them myself
to the cobbler this morrow to be patched.  Be
thankful, Mistress Marston, that you have lighted
on your feet like a cat, and are well out of an
ill service."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Boots.

.. vspace:: 2

"Eh, dear heart! but my poor Lady—I am
sorry for her!"

"So am I," said Philip, suddenly dropping his
mask of light nonchalance, and becoming another
man.  "So am I, Mistress Marston: and trust
me, I am worser than sorry for the Lady Anne,
that is wed against her will and allowing to the
man she hated most.  Eh, well!  God be lauded
in all His works!"

And Philip turned into the inn, without
vouchsafing any explanation of the manner in which
he meant his words to be taken.

His news was only too true.  The poor Countess
of Warwick, the richest heiress in England, had
been stripped of every penny of her vast inheritance
by the rapacious greed of her own sons-in-law.
Their cruel and wicked deed was formally
sanctioned by Act of Parliament about a year
later—May 9th, 1474—by which statute it was decreed
that George Duke of Clarence and Isabel his wife,
and Richard Duke of Gloucester and Anne his
wife, were to have and hold all possessions of the
said Countess "as if she were naturally dede, and
the said Countess is to be barrable, barred, and
excluded as well of all jointours, dower, actions,
executions, right, title, and interesse, of, in, and
for all honours, lordships, castles, manors, etc.,
as were at any time the said Earl's her husband:"
and "the said dukes and their said wives may make
partition of all the premisses."[#]  More sweeping
language could scarcely be.  No notice was taken
of poor Lady Warwick's piteous allegation of
"noon offence by her doon," nor of her fervent
assurance that she had "duly kept her fidelity and
ligeance, and obeyed the King's commandments."  Naboth's
title to his vineyard, even though Divine,
was accounted of small matter, so long as King
Ahab wanted it for a garden of herbs.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Patent Roll, 14 Edw. IV.

.. vspace:: 2

How Lady Warwick lived through the next
twelve years is not recorded.  We only know that
she had nothing to live on.  Perhaps, like
Warwick's sister, his widow kept herself alive by means
of her needle, deeming herself happy when she
could buy a few yards of serge for a new dress,
while her daughters were decked with pearls and
diamonds, and trailed velvet and ermine trains
over palace floors.  One of the daughters at least
was not to blame.  The Duchess Anne of Gloucester
was as helpless in her palace as her destitute
mother in her northern refuge.  Gloucester kept
her in watch and ward as closely as if she had
been his prisoner, which in fact she was: for the
first three years of her hated marriage were spent
in perpetual efforts to escape its cruel toils.  The
Act of Parliament just quoted contains the
significant entry that if a divorce shall take place
between Gloucester and Anne, he shall nevertheless
continue to enjoy her property as if she were still
his wife, so long as he "doo his effectuell diligence
and continuell deuoir by all conuenient and
laufull meanes to be lawfully maried to the said
Anne."  No words could have shown more plainly
that the caged bird was constantly working at
the fastenings of the cage, and that the jailer
was afraid lest it should compass its end some time.

Less than this can be said for Isabel of Clarence.
She was in no durance, and her influence over her
husband was great.  She was, in fact, the only
person who was permanently able to do any thing
with Clarence.  It is difficult to believe that if
she had chosen to exert herself, some small pension
at least—which would have made all the difference
between comfort and care—should not have been
conferred on her lonely and destitute mother.
But she did it not.  Are we justified in assuming
that it was by more than fortuitous coincidence or
the action of sanitary laws, that her days were
not long in the land?

"God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IDONIA UNDERSTANDS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   IDONIA UNDERSTANDS.

..

   |  "But hush!  What is the utmost that I would?
   |  To give my life to God is all I could:
   |  And this may be the way He wills to take—
   |  This daily death may be for God's own sake;
   |  He gave, and took.  So let my soul be still."
   |                              —ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.

.. vspace:: 2

At Lovell Tower, things were going as
merry as marriage-bells could make them.
About six weeks after her return home,
Frideswide Marston became the wife of John
Combe.  They were to live, for the present, with
Lord Marnell, until it should be seen what would
happen further.  There was a pretty little estate
in Devonshire, named Combe Abbas, which
belonged of right to Queen Marguerite's henchman:
but of course, so long as King Edward lived, no
deprived Lancastrian could expect to recover his
lands.  What might happen in the next reign,
when men's minds might be supposed to have
cooled down, and the throne to be assured to the
House of York, was another matter.

Frideswide had delivered the Duke's message
and token to her sister.  They were so quietly
received by Agnes, almost in silence, that
Frideswide was afraid that she felt disappointed at
receiving so small a gift.

"Thou seest, dear heart," said she, apologetically,
"there is so little left to his Lordship that
methought it were ill done to choose any choice
thing: and moreover I counted thou shouldst
better love a matter whereon was his badge than
something greater that had it not.  That speaketh
for himself, from whom he came."

"Thou hast done well, and I thank thee,"
was the reply, as Agnes lifted her eyes for a
moment.

Could Frideswide have read the eyes, her impression
would have been different.  The language of
her sister's inmost heart was—"Do you understand
me no better than that?"  From that day, the
silver ring with its ruby sparks was always to be
seen on Agnes Marston's hand.

The year 1473 was drawing to a close, when
Walter Marston came home from London.  His
life had been an eventful one.  From the
household of Queen Marguerite he had passed to that
of the Duke of Burgundy, shortly before his sister's
arrival in France.  Thence, returning to King
Henry, he had fought at Barnet and Tewkesbury,
had remained long a prisoner, had received pardon,
and was now a knight in the household of the
Earl of Oxford.  Often very near Frideswide, he
had never actually met her.  Now he came home
on a month's leave, and as it was six years since
any of his relatives had seen him, the occasion
was a festive one indeed.

"But how big thou art!—and what a beard hast
thou!" exclaimed Dorathie.

"I am not by the half as much bigger as thou,"
laughed Walter.  "Why, I left thee a little chick
all over down, and here thou art a proper young
damsel."

"And what news abroad, Wat?" said his father.

"No great matter, my Lord, to my knowledge.
'Tis said the Venetians have won the Isle of Cyprus,
that lieth off the coast of the Holy Land: and
likewise that, I know not well how, they of Genoa have
lost a certain land[#] that lieth beyond the Grand
Turk.  Here at home, the King goeth to build a
new chapel to his Castle of Windsor.  You shall
have heard, I reckon, of the young Lady of
Clarence[#] that was born some weeks gone?  I
mind not aught else of any moment, without you
would hear of a poor Lollard of late brent upon
Tower Hill."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The Crimea.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Margaret Countess of Salisbury.

.. vspace:: 2

"The Lord may reckon that of more moment than
all the rest, Wat," said the Lady Idonia, gravely.

"Truly so, Madam."

"Was he of any note, lad?"

"In no wise, my Lord: a parchment-maker, as
I heard, that dwelt without the City."

"Of what name?" asked Frideswide, quickly.

"Why, 'twas a queer name," said her brother.
"One John Goose, they told me.  A young man,
I heard—scarce elder than I."

"Aye me!  Had he it to do for himself?"
murmured Frideswide in an unsteady voice.

"What sayest, sweeting?"

"Prithee, Wat, tell me all thou wist of the
inwards[#] thereof."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Details.

.. vspace:: 2

"Well, that is not much.  He was delivered
afore dinner to Master Sheriff, to put in execution
the same afternoon; who had him home to his
house, and gave him great exhortation that he
should reny[#] his false errors, quoth he: but—as I
heard from one that was by—all that Goose would
say was to desire that he might have meat, for he
was sore hungered.  Then Master Sheriff
commanded him meat, whereof he ate as though he had
ailed nothing: and quo' he, 'I eat now a good and
competent dinner, for I shall pass a little sharp
shower ere I go to supper.'  Then, when he had
dined, he required to be shortly led to execution;
and so, as I heard it, merrily and with good cheer
took his death."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Recant.

.. vspace:: 2

"Then his Lord gave him the endurance,—laud
be to His name!" said Frideswide.  "I knew him,
Walter, though I talked with him but once.  He
did at that time lodge my gracious Lord of Exeter,
and his house was that whereat I last spake with
my Lord."

"Thou hast well said, good sister: for thou
shalt speak with my Lord of Exeter no more."

"Walter!—Woe is me! is my Lord dead?"

It was from Frideswide the cry came.  There
was no sound from Agnes.  Only the Lady Idonia,
who happened to be looking at her, saw her
needlework stand suddenly still.

"'Tis a few weeks gone, Frid," said Walter,
kindly.  "Dear heart, I am sorry if I started thee.
I thought he had been little more than a name to
either of you."

"How died he, and where?  Do tell me all."

"Nay, good sister, for how he died must we
remit to God.  But for where, it was in the waves
of the sea—the British Channel, betwixt Calais
and Dover.  His body was washed up on the
sands of Dover, and was there found by the fishers,
a dead corpse, stripped of all."

"But was he drowned, Wat?  My poor master!"

"The Lord wot, dear heart.  The matter had
the look of a shipwreck, but no boat was found.
If he so were wrecked, or fell from the cliff of
misadventure, or—well, whatso it were—who shall
tell thee?  The sea hath given up her dead, but
blabbeth none of their secrets."

This is all that was ever known of the death of
Henry Duke of Exeter.  The days of his mourning
were ended: but how they closed—whether by
accident, or shipwreck, or by the worse violence
which Walter would not suggest openly—only
his God and Father knows.

A few tears stole from Frideswide's eyes.  She
had felt for her noble master very deep compassion.

"On whose soul God have mercy!" she said
with an accent of tender regret.  "He hath his
little Nan at the last.—Annis! art thou not sorry
at all?"

The last words were spoken rather reproachfully.

"I am sorry," said Agnes.  But she said it in
tones that sounded even and hard: and leaving
her work on the settle where she had been sitting,
she rose and quitted the room.

"Well!" said Frideswide, looking after her.
"Verily, I am astonied.  I had thought Annis
should be well-nigh as sorry as I for our poor
master."

"Folks can be sorry, Frideswide, though they
say it not," quietly answered the Lady Idonia.

But in her heart she was saying,—"O blind
eyes, that can see no further than that!  Agnes
is an hundred times more sorry than Frideswide—so
sorry that she can speak of it to none but God."

In the early winter of this year, the baby Prince
of Wales, just three years old, was placed under the
care of governors spiritual and temporal.  His uncle
Lord Rivers was the latter, and the Bishop of
Rochester the former.  King Edward's language,
in the decrees which record these appointments, is
worth quoting, not only as a specimen of the
English of his day, but on account of its inherent
singularity.  The one entry commences thus:—

"How be it euery child in his yong age ought
to be brought vp in vertue and cunnyng,[#] to
then-tent that he might delite therin and contynue in
the same, and soo consequently deserue the merites
of euerlasting blisse, and in this world to be
therfore the more eureux[#] and fortunat, yit nathelesse
such persoones as god hath called to the
pre-eminent astate of princes, and to succede thair
progenitours in thestate of Regalte ought more
singulerly and more diligently to be enfourmed
and instructed in cunnyng and vertu," etc.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Knowledge.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Heureux=happy.

.. vspace:: 2

The second decree asserts that—

"We, considering the great bounte of our lord
god, whom it hath pleased to send unto us our
first begoten son, hole[#] and furnysshed in nature, to
succeed us in our Realmes of England and France,
and lordship of Ireland, for the which we thank
most humbly his infynyte magnificens, purpose by
his grace so to purvey for his precieux sonde[#] and
yefte[#] and our most desired tresour our seid first
begoten son, that he shall be so virtuously,
cunningly, and knyghtly brought up, for to serue
Almighty God cristenly and deuoutly, as accordeth
to his dute, and to leue and precede in the world
honourably, after his estate and dignite."[#]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Whole.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The lost noun of the verb to send.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Gift.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Patent Roll. 13 Edw. IV.

.. vspace:: 2

The child thus belauded with a flourish of court
trumpets was of utterly different character to both
parents.  He had neither his father's ease-loving
selfishness, nor his mother's sly cajolery.  The
shadow of the sanctuary wherein his eyes first saw
the light seemed to lie upon his soul for ever.
Grave and shrewd far beyond his years, yet at
the same time of child-like transparency, his
character was one that might have become a
rare blessing to England.  He lived in the
constant, calm expectation of early death.  When
his little brother, who was "joyous and witty,
nimble, and ever ready for dances and games"—true
son of Edward IV.—besought the elder to
learn to dance, the young Prince's grave reply
was, "It would be better for us to learn to die."  It
seems as though in him, perhaps alone of all
his family, there was some good thing found
towards the Lord God of Israel.  "His soul
pleased the Lord: therefore He hasted to take him
away from among the wicked."

The King was still supremely blind concerning
the matrimonial intentions of his sister of Exeter,
and continued to lavish favours on St. Leger.  He
and the Queen were at this time interested in the
approaching second marriage of Thomas Grey, with
Cicely Bonvile, which took place immediately on
the expiration of the year of mourning for his dead
wife.  In the same month, on a summer evening,
and in the private chapel at Coldharbour, with only
two or three witnesses, the Princess Anne, Duchess
of Exeter, bestowed her hand upon Mr. St. Leger,
and—the deed irrevocably done—sent information
of it to her royal brother.  It was characteristically
received.  Edward did not see the slightest occasion
to put himself out.  Anne could do as she liked, he
said, as he lounged on his sofa.  She liked to please
herself, and so did he.  After all, Sellenger was not
a bad fellow, nor an ill-looking one.  "What ho!
Bid the minstrels strike up there!"  And settling
himself comfortably among his cushions, His Majesty
prepared to listen to the music.

But there was one person at Coldharbour who
received the information very differently.

The news that her suitor was married to her
mistress came upon Jane Grisacres like a thunderbolt.
Her love had been so blind that the bare possibility
of such a thing had never occurred to her for an
instant.  She heard the terrible tidings suddenly, with
nothing to soften the blow: and with a sharp cry of
astounded anguish, she fell into Marion Rothwell's
arms in a dead swoon.  The Duchess, who was
herself present, merely glanced at the white face, and
in a tone which was calmly contemptuous,
commanded that somebody should carry yon poor dolt
to her bed.  Tamzine, silent for once, came forward
and helped Marion to lift the dead weight of poor
Jane, and to bear her away from the sight of the
mistress to whom her stricken face was a reproach.
But the reproach was felt by the Duchess only as
she might have regarded a dead fly in her pot of
scented ointment.  Pick out the intrusive nuisance,
throw it away, and then all would be well again.
What did a smothered fly, or a broken heart, signify
to the royal bride who had obtained her own wishes?

Not long after that event, Master Rotherham,
who had been the fellow-traveller of Agnes on her
journey home, paid a visit at Lovell Tower, and at
his own request was closeted with Lord Marnell for
some time.  For so much time, indeed, that Lady
Margery became rather impatient, and expressed it
as she sat and span.

"Dear heart! what would yonder man with my
Lord?  I had so much to ask him!  I want to know
when he will have the calf killed, and how much
lime we shall take in for the meadow.  Will he ne'er
have done?  What can the companion be after, trow?"

"Thou alway wert a bat, Madge," said her
mother, calmly.  "He is after Annis."

"Eh, good lack!" returned the daughter.  "I
marvel where he dwelleth, and if it be far away."

"Shall my Lord covenant with him, I marvel?"
said Frideswide, looking up from her embroidery-frame.

Agnes was not in the room.

"Not ere he ask our counsel, methinks," replied
Lady Idonia.  "At the least I hope not."

"I will read him a lecture an' he do!" said Lady
Margery, laughing.

"Hush!" was her mother's quick check.  "Hold
your peace afore the maid."

For Agnes was just entering, and she came and
sat down to her sewing.  Another half-hour passed
almost in silence.  At its close, Lord Marnell came
to the door and called out John Combe, who was
seated with a book in the recess of the window.
With a few low-toned words he sent him off
somewhere, and came forward into the hall himself.

"Well, my Lady," said he, rubbing his hands
with the air of a man very well satisfied with his
morning's work, "and what think you is Master
Rotherham come about?"

"You were best tell us, my Lord," answered his
wife, prudently declining to commit herself.

"Of a truth I am well pleased," returned he.
"I have heard much good of the young gentleman:
and he hath a fair estate, and spendeth well-nigh
two hundred pound by the year; and true to the
Red is he, and a good fellow belike, as I do believe.
He would make his wife jointure of sixty pound by
the year, and an house—not so ill, eh?"

"Has he a wife?" demanded Lady Margery rather slily.

"Nay, for that he came hither," said her husband,
laughing complacently.

"Dear heart, but Doll is o'er young to be wed
yet—think you not so, my Lord?" responded she,
with an affectation of innocent simplicity.

"Doll!" cried Lord Marnell.  "Gramercy,
what would the woman be at?  Doll! she is
but a babe in the cradle.  'Tis Annis he would
have—where be thine eyes, Madge?"

Lady Margery's laugh revealed her joke.

"Oh! good heart, thou wert but a-mocking, I
see.—Well, my maid, how likest the matter?"  And
he turned to Agnes.

He expected to see a blush, a smile, and to
hear a few faltered words of satisfaction with his
arrangement.  But no one of them answered him.
Instead of these, what he did hear was perhaps
the last speech he ever expected from the lips of
Agnes Marston.

"Good my Lord, I thank you for your care.
But if it may stand with your pleasure, pray you,
give me leave to be a nun."

"A what!" came in accents of astonished dismay
from her father, and the expression of
satisfaction died out of his face in an instant.

"Annis!" exclaimed her stepmother.

"Gramercy!" said Frideswide.

Lady Idonia said nothing.  She sat and watched
the quiet, pale face, with its set lips, and the
far-away look in the eyes which were gazing from
the window.

"If you please, my Lord," repeated Agnes
calmly.  "That is my desire."

"And what in all this world hath moved thee
to desire the same?"

"I have so done of some time," was the reply,
in the same quiet tone.

"Lack-a-day, maid!  How long time?"

A faint flush rose to the white brow, and dying
away, left it whiter than ever.  But she was
spared an answer.

"Give the maid her way, Jack," said a voice
hitherto silent.  "She hath well spoken."

"Truly, fair Mother, but I thought it ill spoken,"
said Lord Marnell, in a puzzled tone, turning to
face the Lady Idonia.  "I never looked to see
one of my little maids in cloister—not by my
good-will."

"Then thou hadst best bring thy good-will
thereto, Jack.—Frideswide and Annis, give us
leave, dear hearts."

The young ladies retired obediently.  No sooner
had the door closed on them than Lady Margery
said, with a mixture of perplexity and eagerness,—

"Pray you, sweet Madam, give us to wit your
meaning.  It seems me you see further into this
matter than either my Lord or I."

"'Tis little enough I see," added her husband.
"Verily, I counted it rare good fortune for the
lass.  Here is a good man, that loveth her, and
offers her jointure of sixty pound by the year—"

"For thee, Madge," resumed her mother calmly,
"thou always wert a bat, as I have aforetime told
thee.  As to Jack here, men be rarely aught else
where women be concerned.  Let the maid be,
dear hearts.  I tell you, she has well said."

"But what doth it all mean?" asked Lord
Marnell, impatiently.

"I go not about to tell Annis' secrets—more
in especial when she hath not confided them to
me," replied the Lady Idonia drily.  "Only this
I say to you both—withered hearts make the best
nuns, and the worst wives.  God, not you, hath
made a nun of Annis.  Let her obey His voice."

"Dear heart, I would ne'er think to hinder it!"
returned her father, in a voice of much regret.
"But what means your Ladyship?  How gat
she her heart withered, poor wretch?"

"The babe that shall cry for the moon is
commonly disappointed, Jack.  I do but tell thee,
Agnes Marston will never wed with any—and it
were to his hurt an' she so did.  Aye, and to her
own belike.  Enough said."

Nor was another word on that subject to be
extracted from the Dowager.  But Master
Rotherham received a kindly dismissal, and it was
generally understood from that hour that Agnes
was to be a nun.  Should this strike the reader
as a strange thing, it must be remembered that
the Lollard views on the subject of monasticism
were scarcely at all in advance of the Roman, and
that the time had not come when any woman
who did not wish to be a wife could be otherwise
than a nun.  There did exist the rare phenomenon
of an old bachelor; but an old maid, out of the
cloister, was unknown before the Reformation.

The same evening, when she came up to her
chamber, which Agnes shared with her, Lady
Idonia sat down by the window, and remained
there for a time, looking out upon the summer
night.  Agnes, who usually helped her to undress,
was bidden to "hie her abed, and tarry not."  She
obeyed; but the old lady sat still, long after
Agnes was asleep, or at any rate seemed to be so.
Each of the two was under the impression that
she knew the other's train of thought, and had
kept her own a profound secret.  In truth, the
thoughts of Agnes were much better understood
by the Dowager than the reverse.  Quarter after
quarter of an hour dripped heavily from the
water-clock in the corner, yet the Lady Idonia
sat still in the carved oaken chair.  And,

   |  "Her great heart through all the faultful past
   |  Went sorrowing."
   |

At last she turned her head towards the sleeper.
Agnes lay with her cheek pillowed on one hand,
and from that hand, close by the cheek, the ruby
cresset of the Duke's ring sparkled in the lamp-light.

"Poor child!" said the heart of the Lady
Idonia, though her lips were silent.  "I can guess
what that ruby cresset is to thee.  To him, of
course, it was nothing, beyond a kindly wish to
give pleasure to an inferior who had shown a
kindly feeling towards him.  But out of thy life
all possibility of wedlock died upon Dover sands,
fifteen months ago.  Not that *that* was ever
possible—poor child!  Didst thou fancy, babe,
that thou wert about to touch the stars?  God
grant, for thy sake, that it was not so!"

It was not so.  Never, for one moment, had
Agnes Marston dreamed of that impossible thing.
Her love had never calculated on a return.  It
had only grown out of the necessity of love to
give itself; and her heart had passed out of
her keeping before she had known that it was gone.

Idonia was right, also, in guessing that the
Duke had never entertained the faintest suspicion
of the deep wealth of self-sacrificing love hidden
under that quiet manner and silent face.  His
one venture in the matrimonial lottery had been
so utter a blank that the very idea of trying
another had never occurred to him, and, had it
been suggested, would probably have been dismissed
with a shudder.

"And so—" the thoughts of the watcher went
on—"'so He leadeth them unto the haven of
their desire.'  *So*!  Ah, how many devious,
winding paths there are, which lead up to the door of
life!  One He leads through pain, another through
sorrow: one by loneliness and absence of human
love, another by the happiness of a satisfied heart,
a third through the shards of broken idols.  Not
often the second of those three: much oftener
the first or the last.  But through all the paths He
brings us to the one Gate—through all the
wilderness journeying, to the one City.  He who has
paid for us the price of His own life cannot afford
to lose us.  And then, 'when we have forded the
Jordan, with the ark of the Lord borne before us, we
eat of the fruit of the Land of Canaan that year.'"

Far back into the past years ran the "inner
eye,"—back to a stately woman in robes of white,
with long black hair flowing behind her.  The
years seemed obliterated, and Idonia Marnell stood
in a turret-chamber of the Palace of Holyrood,
with the mournful music of Marjory Douglas'
voice sounding in her ears.

"It cannot be much longer for me now," she
said to herself in conclusion.  "She has been
comforted these thirty years; and I am nigh
fourscore.  But for thee, poor little Agnes!—the
wilderness may be long yet: and unless I mistake,
for thee also it will be 'the wilderness all the
way.'  So the ark of the Lord go before thee, it is well.
He will lead thee no whither but into the Holy Land."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LAST OF THE SILVER RING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LAST OF THE SILVER RING.

..

   |  "Past the pearl-gates, through the golden—
   |    When we meet His face who died,
   |  Each want full filled, new and olden,
   |    We, too, shall be satisfied."

.. vspace:: 2

King Edward quitted England on the
twentieth of June, 1475, for a personal
interview with the King of France.  At
this interview an agreement was entered into
between the monarchs for the ransom of the royal
widow who for four years had been pining out her
life in English prisons.  What moved that
inscrutable mortal, King Louis, to lay down twenty
thousand crowns in hard cash for the ransom of
Marguerite, is one of those puzzles in psychology
which must ever remain perplexities.  It is true
that her father, King René, was pressing him hard—as
hard as it lay in his dreamy artist nature: and
it is also true that Louis was urged—or at any rate
professed to be so—by considerations of the
outraged dignity of his own family, to which Marguerite
belonged, through her continued imprisonment—a
statement which might be true—and by feelings
of compassion for a helpless woman—an assertion
which hardly can be so.  One of the last men to
be moved by sentiments of pity, particularly towards
a woman, was surely Louis XI.

King Edward was more consistent with himself.
He took care to have the money in his pocket
before he permitted Marguerite to escape his
fingers.  And, with that intense smallness of soul
which—with the exception of King John—was
most remarkable in him of all the Plantagenet
monarchs, he refused, in his diplomatic negotiations,
to bestow upon Marguerite the regal title.  Judging
from his diction, he was puzzled what to call her.
He hit at last upon her title as a Neapolitan
Princess, less than which it might seem impossible
to give her.  On the thirteenth of November, 1475,
Thomas Thwaytes, knight, received the royal
command to deliver "the most serene Lady Margaret,
daughter of the illustrious Prince King René,"
to Sir Thomas Montgomery; and the latter was
ordered to convey the said lady to "the most
serene Prince, Louis of France, our dearest
cousin."  The ingenious way in which King Louis is very
civilly described, without admitting his title to the
crown of France, is worth notice.  But when the
actual delivery came, it was found that a lower
indignity yet was possible for poor Marguerite.
She was required to sign a formal renunciation of
all rights and privileges in England which her
marriage-settlements had secured to her.  In this
document no title whatever was given to her.  She
was not even recognised as a foreign Princess.
The opening words described her as "Margaret,
sometime in England married."  The words would
have truly described every cottager's wife in the
kingdom who bore the name of Margaret—then
one of the commonest names in England.  But
when the insulting document was laid down before
the Queen, she calmly took up the pen and signed
it.  What did titles signify to her now?  There
was no husband, there was no son, whose rights
could be invaded, and whose feelings could be
outraged, by any renunciation of name or dignity on
her part.  She felt with Valentina of Orleans—"Rien
ne m' est plus: plus ne m' est rien!"  So
she quietly signed her regal "Marguerite,"[#] and by
her own act laid down that queenly title which had
been so heavy and blood-stained a burden.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] In signing English documents,
the Queen spelt her name "Margarete."

.. vspace:: 2

Queen Marguerite survived this action six years,
which she spent, so long as her father lived, with
him at the Castle of Reculée, near Angers, and
afterwards at Château Dampierre, near Saumur.
Her last years were burdened with the horrible
disease of leprosy,[#] supposed to have been caused by
intense grief.  It was on the twenty-fifth of August,
1482, at Château Dampierre, that she laid down
the weary weight of life, and as we would fain
believe and surely may be allowed to hope, went to
keep eternal holiday.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] What was meant by leprosy
in the Middle Ages is an unsettled
question.  It was evidently
a cutaneous disease of some kind, but
is generally supposed not
to have been identical with the oriental
leprosy of which we read in Scripture.

.. vspace:: 2

Perhaps, for her, there was no other way into the
Garden of God than through that great and
howling wilderness.  If it were so, how glad a sight
must the lights of home have been to that
storm-wearied voyager!

This interview between the two Kings had a
further pecuniary result—the payment during some
time of an annual sum of £11,000 by France to
England—a sum which the King of France was
careful to term a pension, and which the King of
England took equal care to call a tribute.  Edward
also made a further effort to obtain the young Earl
of Richmond, who was the fly in his ointment:
but that wary youth, learning the fact, took instant
sanctuary, and the effort was in vain.

The winter of 1475-6 opened with rejoicings for
the birth of the Princess Anne—perhaps the best
of the daughters of Edward IV.  She certainly
possessed two qualities enjoyed by few of the
others—lowliness and modesty.  The rejoicings
were increased a week after New Year's Day, when
a second royal Anne was born—the only child of
the Duchess of Exeter and Sir Thomas St. Leger.
She lived to become the stock of the Dukes of
Rutland: and she transmitted to them, not only
the property of her mother, but also lands on
which she had no equitable claim—those of the
hapless Duke of Exeter.  Had there been any
right feeling in the heart of his wretched widow,
she would have bequeathed those estates to the
last of the Holands of Exeter, his sister Anne,
Lady Douglas, and they would have descended to
her posterity, the Nevilles of Raby.  She did it
not: and she had little time to do it.  The baby
daughter had scarcely more than entered this
troublesome world, ere the soul was required of the
Princess Anne of Exeter.  She died on the twelfth
or fourteenth of January, 1476.  For her an awful
account waited at the judgment bar.

In the last month of that year, Isabel Duchess
of Clarence was summoned before the same Divine
tribunal.  Her death was a signal misfortune to her
husband.  Her influence had not been altogether
for good, by any means, yet such good as had
been in it was sorely missed.  Clarence had loved
her, and it is doubtful if he ever loved any other
creature.  After her death he became reckless
even beyond his former unscrupulous condition.
Gloucester kept his sinister eyes upon him, ready
to take advantage of the first political slip which he
might make.  It came two years after Isabel's
death.  Clarence, who had previously quarrelled
with his brother Edward, was present at a trial of
some old women on the charge of witchcraft, and
took the liberty of remonstrating with the judges
on too much haste in condemning the prisoners,
as it seemed to him, without sufficient evidence.
Gloucester took advantage of this circumstance.
He adroitly represented to the King that Clarence
had interfered with the course of justice, thus
taking upon himself a prerogative of the Crown:
that there was strong reason to think that he
contemplated a journey to Burgundy, with the
view of assisting the Duke, then in hostility to
King Edward: that he had many times tried to
supplant his brother.  The intensely superstitious
Edward was reminded of an old prediction that
"G. shall reign after E.,"—and did not George
begin with the fated letter?  So did Gloucester,
but of course my Lord Duke omitted that suggestion.
He succeeded in frightening Edward into a
panic.  Clarence was arrested, placed before the
Council, and condemned unheard.  He was
sentenced to be hanged: but at the intercession of
the Duchess Cicely, mother alike of the King and
of the criminal, the sentence was commuted to
imprisonment in the Tower.  Ten days later, in
his dungeon, Clarence was found dead, his head
hanging over an open butt of his favourite liquor,
malvoisie.  Hence arose the popular tradition that
he had been allowed to choose the manner of his
death, and that he had elected to be drowned in a
butt of malmsey.  In all probability the open butt
had been placed in his cell by order of the brother
who so well knew Clarence's weakness, and hoped
by this means to get rid of him without any
legal responsibility as to his end.  So perished the
false and faithless Clarence,—destroyed, like many
another, on a mere technical pretext, when on
other counts he had previously merited execution
a hundred times over.

The years went on, and after a very short illness,
Edward IV. passed to his own account.  After
him came the deluge.  Events succeeded one
another with startling rapidity.  Only for two
months was that grave and gentle boy styled
King Edward V.  Then came the sudden *coup
d' etat*, prepared for during many years, by which
Gloucester seized the crown, and shut up the
boy-King in prison.  The Queen and Princesses
once more fled to sanctuary; the old friends and
adherents of Edward, some of whom had sold their
very souls for the White Rose, were sacrificed on
the most trifling pretexts: and among them, the
best of them all, the upright and honourable
Rivers.  The boy-King and his brother were put
quietly out of the way.  The new King made a
progress throughout the country, from Windsor to
York, joined by the Queen at Warwick.  One of
those strange gleams of tenderness which now and
then flit across the conduct of Richard III., as
though for an instant he paused to listen to the
whispers of his better angel, induced him to spare
Anne Neville a royal progress which would have
led her through Tewkesbury.  At the close of the
year King Richard was at Westminster, firmly
seated on his blood-stained throne.  He might well
think, like the Spanish Regent, that he had not a
single enemy: for he had shot them all.  But he
forgot one, yet left on earth: and he forgot one
Other, who remaineth for ever in Heaven.

And then his Nemesis began to come upon him.
His one cherished child died "an unhappy death"
at Middleham Castle.  His wife, once if selfishly,
yet so passionately loved, faded away and died by
inches, surviving her boy just twelve months.  The
terrors of God overwhelmed him.  He was tormented
by perpetual apprehensions of conspiracy, and
distracted by nightly visions of horror.  And then
Richmond landed at Milford Haven, and the climax
came.  With that personal courage which was the
best item of his bad character, Richard rushed into
the field of Bosworth, "and, foremost fighting, fell."

So ended the male line of the White Rose.  The
Red was uppermost at last.  The struggle, with all
its untold agony, which had lasted through thirty
years, was over at length, and for ever.

Some tardy justice was done now.  To the poor
old Countess of Warwick, starving in the north,
her lands were given back, the iniquitous decree
which had deprived her of them being stigmatised,
as it deserved, as "against all reason, conscience,
and course of nature, and contrary to the law of
God and man."  But not only the pomps and
vanities of this wicked world, but also all covetous
desires of the same, had long ago faded from that
lonely and weary heart.  All whom she had loved
were in the grave, and her heirs were grandchildren
whom she had never known, whose father had been
her worst enemy, and who were abundantly provided
for without a rood of any land of hers.  Just a few
pounds while she lived, just a shelter to cover her
hoary head, was all that Anne Beauchamp craved
for the little rest of life.  She resigned all her
property the same year to the Crown, receiving in
exchange the manor of Sutton, in Warwickshire.
It was probably there that she died, full of years and
sorrows, in or shortly before 1493.

To "Dame Bessy Grey" the Nemesis came too.
It is customary to bestow great pity on the widow
of Edward IV.; and it is true that few women
have known more crushing sorrow than she.  But I
think it is too commonly forgotten how much she
had deserved it.  She was a most designing woman—the
truth was not in her: and she was pitiless to
the sorrows of others.  In her last years she retired
to Bermondsey Convent—of her own motion; not,
as has been represented, through coercion from her
son-in-law—and there she died, on the 7th or 8th
of June, 1493.

Except in the form of witnessing sorrows borne
by his friends, no Nemesis ever came to Thomas
Grey, now[#] Marquis of Dorset.  That form is, to
some natures, one of the very bitterest which pain
can take: to others it is absolutely painless.
Judging from what is known of his character, it may be
surmised that the misfortunes of his friends would
be a sorrow borne very philosophically by him.
Two years' exile, during the short reign of King
Richard, was the worst he had to bear for
himself—that is, in this life.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Created Apr. 18th, 1475.  He is said to have been
previously made Earl of Huntingdon,
Aug. 4, 1471—the second
title of the Duke of Exeter:
but I never found one instance when
he was so termed on the Rolls.

.. vspace:: 2

Notwithstanding his disappointment concerning
Agnes, Master Rotherham kept up his acquaintance
with Lovell Tower.  He was present when she took
the veil at Godstow, in the summer of 1476; and
that she was not the only attraction he found in
the family was proved by the continuance of his
visits.  About three years after her profession,
Master Rotherham came to the conclusion, which
he communicated to Lord Marnell, that his grief
for the loss of Agnes would be considerably alleviated
if he might have her sister Dorathie.  Lord Marnell
hesitated: for Dorathie's social position, as heiress
presumptive to her mother's barony, was very
different from that of Agnes.  But he consulted the
elder ladies, and found Lady Margery of opinion
that a good, sensible man without title or large
property would be a much better husband for
Dorathie than a bad or foolish man who brought
her a coronet and a county.

"Say you not so, Madam?" she concluded, turning
to her mother.

The Lady Idonia's reply was to call Dorathie to
her.  She took her grand-daughter's face in both
hands, and looked tenderly at the rosy cheeks and
the pretty blue eyes, which were those neither of
father nor mother, but which reminded Idonia
Marnell, how often no one knew, of other blue
eyes which were dust now in the Abbey of St. Albans.

"Aye, Madge.  It will do," was the short but
distinct decision of the old lady.

So Dorathie Marston became Dorathie Rotherham,
and instead of departing to some strange
place with her husband, he came to live with her.

The years went on, until the autumn leaves of
1537 were carpeting the green sward, and the wind
was blowing keenly through the glades of
Woodstock, and waving the willows that congregate
round the Abbey of Godstow.  The period was
one which we look back upon as lively and
tumultuous: yet to the few aged men and women
who could look back further yet, to the terrible
days of the Roses, it seemed very quiet.  Matters
had changed greatly since that time.  The little
printing-press set up by William Caxton the
mercer in the Westminster Cloisters, had spread
its wide wings over all the land: and the monk
who, in his isolated courage, had posted his theses
on the door of the church at Wittemburg, had
spread his skirts over all the world.  Men talked
busily now on subjects which they had hardly
thought about, fifty years before.  Men, aye, and
women too, dared to think for themselves.  And
one of the earliest results of these phenomena was
the conclusion that the so-called religious houses
had generally ceased to be houses of religion, and
that the sooner they were done away with the
better.

The state of many of these religious houses was
of a kind that simply cannot be described.  In
them Satan and his angels reigned supreme.  But
there were a few—alas! they were very few—where
the vows were really kept, where learning still had
scope, and charity still held sway.  And of female
communities, the best of all these was the Abbey
of Godstow.

The smaller houses, of the value of three hundred
marks and under, were first suppressed.  The
larger, of which Godstow was one, followed later.
Undoubtedly the motives for this proceeding were
not pure and unmixed.  Every person who joined
in it was not actuated by exclusive regard for
morality, nor was everybody quite innocent of
some respect for those confiscated lands—not to
speak of silver vases, gemmed reliquaries, and gold
pieces—which, in the general up-breaking, might
fall in his direction.  Perhaps, when we have
satisfied ourselves that our own motives are on all
occasions absolutely unadulterated, we shall be in a
more advantageous position to cast stones at the
Reformers.

The suppression of the Abbey of Godstow was
close at hand, and the nuns had made arrangements
for the lives they meant to lead in future.
Such of them as had relatives living commonly
returned to them.  A few of the elder ones, who
had none, took refuge in the one or two convents
of their Order which were, reasonably and charitably,
allowed to remain until the death of the last
surviving member.  Those who married were very
few, and were decidedly independent of public
opinion.

On a small, but comfortable, pallet-bed in the
infirmary of the Abbey lay one nun who needed to
make no such provision for future life.  She had
received her invitation to the King's Palace, and
she lay waiting for His messengers to bring His
chariot for her.  She had other invitations too:
loving entreaties from the distant wolds of
Yorkshire, where Dorathie Rotherham, Baroness
Marnell of Lymington, herself an old woman of eighty
years, was longing to cheer the last days of her
aged and only sister; and scarcely less urgent
pressure from far Devonshire, where the Lady Combe,
of Combe Abbas, was affectionately desirous to
minister to her husband's saintly and venerable
aunt.  But none of all these moved Mother Agnes,
as she lay in the pallet-bed, waiting for the King's
messengers.  Life's fitful fever was over, and the
eventide had come.  For her there was a longer
journey, to a better home.

Outside the infirmary two nuns, an old woman
and a middle-aged one, were discussing some point
which evidently disturbed their serenity.

"Well, it must be, I count," said the younger,
who was the Abbess herself.  "I am sore afeared
it shall be diseaseful to Mother Agnes.  Good lack,
can they not do the King's gracious pleasure
without poking into every corner, and counting the
threads in every spider's web!  Howbeit—Well! go,
Sister Katherine, and say that my Lords the
King's Commissioners can ascend now.  But I
would have thee say to the chief of them, whoso it
be, that in the infirmary is a very aged and holy
sister that is nigh to death, and that I pray them
of their grace to tread in that chamber as quiet as
may be."

Sister Katherine departed on her errand, and the
Abbess went forward into the sick chamber.  A
few minutes later her messenger rejoined her.

"My Lords Commissioners speak very fair," said
she.  "I told the eldest gentleman as you bade me,
holy Mother: and he promiseth that only the three
chiefest of them shall come into this chamber,
and that they shall tread and speak so quiet as
may be."

"'Tis the best we may look for," responded the
Abbess: "but I would it were well over."

In about half an hour the footsteps were heard
approaching.  They roused the dying nun, who
had been in a dozing condition for some time.

"What is it, holy Mother?" she said nervously.

"Dear heart, 'tis but those weary companions,
the King's Highness' noble Commissioners, that
must needs see with their own evil eyes how many
candlesticks and phials of physic be of the
mantel-shelf," said the Abbess rather irritably.  "They
know their own business, trow: but verily I would
have thought, after reckoning every aglet[#] in the
treasury, and every stick of firewood in the yard,
they might have left us poor nuns be to drink our
senna in peace.  Dear heart, what work is here to
drive out an handful of old women into this wicked
world!  Well, well! we shall soon have done
therewith, most of us."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] The little silver ring which surrounds
lace-holes in boots, stays, &c.

.. vspace:: 2

She ceased her diatribe, for my Lords Commissioners
were entering, and standing up, gave
them her blessing—with how much sincerity she
was not careful to state.  The three gentlemen
bowed low to the mitred Abbess, and seemed half
alarmed at their own temerity.

"Methinks we need not tarry hither," said the
chief Commissioner.  "May-be, holy Sister"—addressing
Sister Katherine—"it should stand with
your conveniency, under leave of my Lady Abbess,
to take note of such furnishings as be in this
chamber, and we will accept the same.—Lead
forth, my Lord of Dorset."

Before this could be done, the further progress
of the Commissioners was intercepted by a weak
voice from the pallet bed.

"My Lord of Dorset!" said Mother Agnes faintly.

The youngest of the party, a fair-haired,
good-looking young man of about five-and-twenty,
paused and turned to her, as if the name belonged
to him.

"Pray you, of your grace, come one moment
hither," she said, speaking with some difficulty.

The young Marquis came forward at once, and
knelt by the bed of the dying nun, who looked
earnestly for some seconds into his face.

"What kin are you," she asked, "to sometime
Queen Elizabeth, whose son was Lord of Dorset?"

"That son was my father's father," answered
the young man.

"So long ago!" said the dying woman.
"Young Lord, 'tis but like yesterday that your
father's father was a young man like you.  'Past,
as a watch in the night!'"

Her eyes ran feebly over the handsome features,
the clear grey eyes, the nervous twitching of the
brow, the good-natured fulness of the lower lip,
the weak, vacillating indecision of the retreating
chin.  In those few seconds, she seemed to read
his character.

"The good Lord's grace be with thee!" said
the faint voice at last.  "Be thou strong in the
Lord, and in the power of His might!"

Did Henry Grey think of those words, twenty
years later, when after a life spent in bondage
through fear of death, God gave him grace to
break through the trammels of Satan, and to stand
bravely out upon Tower Hill to die for Him?

The Commissioners were gone, to the relief of
the Abbess, who muttered something as the door
closed after them, which was not the same form
of words as the benediction with which she had
greeted them.  The next moment she bent down
to listen to the weak tones of Mother Agnes.

"Holy Mother, may I crave a boon of you?"

"Surely, good my sister," said the testy yet
kind-hearted Abbess.

"Mother, among the gear that came hither with
me, must be in the treasury "—

Agnes paused for breath.

"Well, good sister?"

"A silver ring, set with little rubies in form of
a cresset."

"Aye.  What so?"

"Good Mother, of your grace, give me leave to
bear that ring upon my finger until I go hence."

The Abbess was sorely exercised by this request.
It must imply either strong vanity in the dying
nun, or else a most undue attachment to earthly
things.  Nay, probably, it meant what was still
worse—an attachment to earthly persons: a most
improper thing in a professed nun!  The Abbess
hesitated, but the woman's heart in her prevailed,
as she looked into the wistful, dying eyes.

"My sister, shall I do well if I say aye?  Thou
wist no holy nun must have affinity with the
world.  Who gave thee the ring?"

"One that hath been dust these sixty years."

"Well, well! be it so.  I trust thee, Sister
Agnes.  Only remember, thy thoughts should be
above, not below."

"Below is the dust only," said Agnes.  "What
I loved is above."

The old nun who kept the keys of the treasury
found the silver ring, and brought it to the Abbess.
A faint smile greeted the remembered token as it
was slipped on the thin hand.

"Remove it not, I pray," she said, "until I am
not here to care for it.  And now suffer me to
keep silence, for I would commune with God."

The hand that bore the ring was laid upon her
breast, with the other hand crossed over it.  Two
hours passed, and she never stirred.

"She must lack food now," whispered the Abbess
to Sister Katherine.

Sister Katherine shook her more experienced head.

"She will eat no more, save of the angels' manna."

That night, Sister Margaret unlocked the treasury,
and restored the ruby ring to its place.  Agnes
Marston cared for it no more.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HISTORICAL APPENDIX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   HISTORICAL APPENDIX.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium white-space-pre-line

I. THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER, AND ITS CONNECTION
WITH THE HOUSE OF TUDOR.

.. vspace:: 2

Catherine, sixth and youngest daughter of Charles
VI. King of France, and Isabeau of Bavaria, was
born at the Hôtel, de St. Pol, Paris, Oct. 27th, 1401;
and died at Bermondsey Abbey, London, Jan. 3rd,
1437.  She was buried in Westminster Abbey, after
many years of neglect, during which her corpse,
dried to the appearance of a mummy, had been
made a show to strangers.  Surnamed The Fair.
One historian tells us that she was a most devout
woman, perpetually at prayer: but the excessively
wayward, impulsive, selfish character of all her
actions during her queenly life points to the conclusion
that this refers exclusively to her later days: as
otherwise we should be impelled to the unwelcome
but unavoidable surmise that her prayers were
allowed to have very little effect upon her conduct.
She married—

(1) King Henry V. of England, eldest son of Henry
IV. and Mary Bohun: born at Monmouth,
Aug. 9th, 1387: married at Troyes Cathedral,
June 3rd, 1420: died at Vincennes, of fever,
Aug. 31st, 1432: buried in Westminster Abbey.

(2) Owain, surnamed Twdwr (often contemporaneously
spelt Tydier), son of Meredith ap Twdwr
and Margaret, daughter of David Vychan: born
at Snowdon, date unknown: wardrobe-keeper
to Queen Catherine, whom he married in 1428:
beheaded, after the battle of Mortimer's Cross,
at Hereford, Feb. 2nd, 1461: buried in Grey
Friars' Church, Hereford.

.. vspace:: 2

ISSUE OF CATHERINE OF FRANCE.  (A) By
Henry V.:—

1. HENRY VI., surnamed *The Holy*, born at
Windsor (in direct contravention of his father's
orders) Dec. 6th, 1421: deposed Mar. 4th,
1461; restored, Oct., 1470; again deposed,
Apr. 11th, 1471; died in the Tower, London,
May 21 [? 27th—see text], 1471: buried first
at Chertsey Abbey, afterwards in St. George's
Chapel, Windsor.

Though to some extent weak in intellect, and
subject, like his maternal grandfather, to
occasional attacks of mental aberration, Henry was, on
the testimony even of his enemies, one of the
best men that ever lived.  His strongest
asseveration was "Forsooth," at a time when it was
customary for men, and even women, to use profane
language in the freest manner.  He was "wholly
given to prayer, Scriptures, and alms-deeds."  A
Bishop who was his confessor for ten years, bore
witness that he had during that time, "never
confessed a mortal sin."  In person, Henry was
not handsome, having the large, strongly-marked
features of his Valois ancestors: but his hands and
feet were extraordinarily small; so much so that a
pair of his boots (still preserved) can only be worn
by a woman of slender proportions.  His hair and
eyes were dark brown.  He married—

MARGUERITE, second daughter of René of
Anjou, King of Naples, and Isabelle of
Lorraine: born at Pont à Mousson, Mar. 23rd,
1429, and baptized in Toul Cathedral:
married by proxy, in St. Martin's Church,
Tours, Apr. 10th [?], and in person at
Titchfield Abbey, Hants, Apr. 22nd, 1445: died
at Château Dampierre, near Saumur, in
Normandy, Aug. 25th, 1482: buried in
Angers Cathedral.  The hope expressed in
the text as to the Christian character of
Marguerite is not a mere baseless imagination.
There is evidence showing that in her later
years at least, she possessed and was familiar
with a French Bible: and in those days
persons did not, as a rule, read the Scriptures
in their own language as a mere matter of
form or custom.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   \(B) By Owain Twdwr:—

\2. Tacina (this singular name is authenticated by
occurring on the Patent Roll, 32 B. VI.)
born 1429-30, married Reginald, 7th Lord
Grey de Wilton, and left issue.

\3. Edmund, born at Hadham, 1431; created Earl
of Richmond, Mar. 6th, 1453; died Nov. 1-3,
1456; buried, first at Caermarthen, afterwards
at St. David's.  Married—

Margaret, only child and heiress of John
Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and Margaret
Baroness Beauchamp of Bletshoe: born at
Bletshoe, Apr. 1443: married, 1455:
[remarried (2) Henry Stafford, Earl of
Wiltshire, and (3) Thomas Stanley, Earl of
Derby]: died at Westminster, July 5th,
1509 [the date usually given is June 29th;
but her Inquisition gives July 5]: buried
in Westminster Abbey.  Generally known as
Margaret Countess of Richmond.  She is the
"Lady Margaret," whose name has been given
to professorships, lectures, streets, &c.

\4. JASPAR, born at Hatfield, about 1432: created
Earl of Pembroke, Nov. 23rd, 1452, and
Duke of Bedford Oct. 28th, 1485: died
Dec. 21st, 1495: bur. at Keynsham.  According to
some writers, his illegitimate daughter Helen
married William Gardiner, squire and citizen of
London, and was mother of Stephen Gardiner,
Bishop of Winchester.  He married (but left
no legitimate issue),

Katherine, daughter of Richard Earl Rivers
and Jaquette de St. Pol, and sister of Queen
Elizabeth Widville: married at Court, in
or before 1490-1.

\5. Owain, born at Westminster, about 1434; monk
in Westminster Abbey.

\6. Katherine, or Margaret, born and died 1436.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   ISSUE OF HENRY VI.:—

EDWARD, born at Westminster, Oct. 13th, 1453;
created Prince of Wales, Mar. 15th, 1454;
murdered after battle of Tewkesbury, on the
field, May 4th, 1471: buried in Tewkesbury
Abbey.  Married—

ANNE, second and youngest daughter of
Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury (and by
courtesy of Warwick) and Anne Beauchamp,
Countess of Warwick: born at Warwick
Castle, 1454: married at Amboise, July or
August, 1470: [re-married to King Richard
III.]: died of consumption, at Westminster
Palace, Mar. 16th, 1485: buried in
Westminster Abbey.  Some writers have
endeavoured to show that the ceremony at
Amboise was only a betrothal, and that the
actual marriage never took place.  The best
authors, however, are of the contrary opinion:
and the strongest evidence is afforded by the
language of Warwick's own henchman, John
Rous, who distinctly terms the Prince "*primus
maritus prenobilissimæ Dominæ Annæ*."

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   ISSUE OF EDMUND EARL OF RICHMOND:—

King HENRY VII., surnamed *Le Doyen des Rois*:
born at Pembroke Castle, July 26th, 1456: died
of gout, at Richmond, Apr. 22nd, 1509; buried
at Westminster.  An interesting portrait of
Henry VII. is drawn for us by Humphrey
Brereton, who on arriving at

   |  "Beggrames Abbey in Little Britain,
   |    Whereas the English Prince did lie,"

was obliged to inquire of the porter how he was
to recognise the Earl of Richmond, to whom
he brought letters and money from the Princess
Elizabeth.

   |  "He weareth a gown of velvet black,
   |    And it is cutted above the knee,
   |  With a long visage and pale and black—
   |    Thereby know that Prince may ye:
   |  A wart he hath (the porter said),
   |    A little alsoe above the chinn,
   |  His face is white, his wart is redd,
   |    No more than the head of a small pinn."
   |

King Henry VII. married—

Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV.
[See next section.]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   \II.  HOUSE OF YORK.

RICHARD Duke of York, only son of Richard of
Conisborough, Earl of Cambridge, and Anne
Mortimer: born Sept. 21st, 1410 (Inquisition) 1412
(Patent Roll): created Duke of York 1425: killed,
battle of Wakefield, Dec. 30th, 1460: buried first at
Pomfret, and afterwards at Fotheringay.  The only
known portrait of this Prince is in the "Neville
window" of Penrith Church: it exhibits him as
fair-complexioned and rather good-looking, wearing
a moustache and a small pointed beard.  He
married—

CICELY, fourth daughter of Ralph Neville, first
Earl of Westmoreland, and his second wife Joan
Beaufort: surnamed *Proud Cis*, and *The Rose
of Raby*: born probably at Raby, date unknown,
about 1418: married about 1437: died at
Berkhamsted Castle, May 31st, 1495: buried
at Fotheringay.  In the coffin of the Duchess,
tied round her neck with a silver ribbon, was
found "a pardon from Rome, which, penned in
a very fine Roman hand, was as fair and fresh
to be read as if it had been written but
yesterday."  Cicely's portrait will be found
with that of her husband in the church at
Penrith: she also is fair and handsome, her face
suggesting more embonpoint than his, and the
expression not quite free from that haughtiness
which might be expected from her character.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   THEIR ISSUE:—

\1. Henry, born about 1438, godson of Henry VI.;
died young.

\2. ANNE, born about 1439: married, (1) probably
in childhood, Henry de Holand, Duke of Exeter,
from whom she was divorced at her own suit,
Nov. 12th, 1472: (2) after the death of her
elder daughter, and while he was still a squire
(Inquisition), namely, after Feb. 3rd, 1474 (Patent
Roll), Thomas St. Leger, afterwards (before
Nov. 28th, 1475) knighted, and made Master
of the Hounds (Patent Roll; Harl. MS. 433):
died at birth of younger daughter, Jan. 12th, or
14th, 1476 (Inquisition): buried in St. George's
Chapel, Windsor, with second husband, who
survived her for at least five years.  Portrait, in
Sandford's Genealogical History of Kings of
England, is not suggestive of beauty.

\3. EDWARD IV., surnamed *The Rose of Rouen*:
born at Rouen, Apr. 29th, 1441; died at
Westminster Palace, Apr. 9th, 1483; buried
St. George's Chapel, Windsor.  News of his death
was received at York on the 7th, from which
it has been inferred that the date given by all
writers, the ninth, is a mistake; but the report
might be premature.  He married—

ELIZABETH, eldest daughter of Richard
Widville, Earl Rivers, and Jaquette de
St. Pol: born at Grafton Regis, probably about
1438: [married (1) about 1452, John Grey,
2nd Lord Grey of Groby]: married (2) at
Grafton Regis, May 1st, 1464; died at
Bermondsey Abbey, June 7th, 1492; buried in
St. George's Chapel, Windsor, on Whit
Sunday.

\4. Edmund, Earl of Rutland, born at Rouen, May
17th, 1443; murdered by Lord Clifford, after
battle of Wakefield, Dec. 31st, 1460; buried
first at Pomfret, afterwards Fotheringay.

\5. William, died young.

\6. John, died young.

\7. Humphrey, died young.

\8. Elizabeth, married, in or before 1463, John de
La Pole, Duke of Suffolk: died 1503.

\9. GEORGE, born at Dublin, probably 1450; created
Duke of Clarence, 1461, Earl of Warwick
and Salisbury, Mar. 25th, 1473: died in the
Tower of London, Feb. 18th, 1478: buried in
Tewkesbury Abbey.  Married—

ISABEL, elder daughter of Richard Neville,
Earl of Salisbury and (by courtesy) of
Warwick, and Anne Beauchamp, Countess
of Warwick: born at Warwick Castle,
Sept. 5th, 1451; married in Lady Church, Calais,
July 11th, 1469: died at Warwick Castle,
Dec. 16th, or 22nd, 1476; buried in
Tewkesbury Abbey.

\10. Thomas, born 1451; died young.

\11. RICHARD III., born at Fotheringay, Oct. 2nd,
1452, and as is said, with hair and teeth fully
grown: surnamed *Crookback*: created Duke of
Gloucester, 1461: killed on Bosworth Field,
Aug. 22nd, 1485; buried at Leicester.  He
had dark auburn hair, and dark blue eyes.
Married—

ANNE, widow of Edward Prince of Wales
[see last section]: married (by force, against
her own consent) in Westminster Abbey,
after Feb. 17th, 1472 (Paston Letters) and
before May 9th, 1474. (Patent Roll.) Miss
Strickland's suggested date, Mar. 30th, 1473,
is probably about the true one.  Portrait
in Rous Roll; another engraved in
Strickland's *Lives of the Queens*.

\12. Margaret, born 1453; married, at Damme, in
Flanders, July 3rd, 1468, Charles the Bold, Duke
of Burgundy: died at Malines, Nov. 28th, 1503:
buried at Malines.  Portrait engraved in Paston
Letters.

\13. Ursula, died young.

.. vspace:: 2

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   ISSUE OF EDWARD IV. AND ELIZABETH WIDVILLE:—

\1. Elizabeth, born at Westminster, Feb. 11th, 1466:
married to King Henry VII., Jan. 18th, 1486:
died in the Tower, Feb. 11th, 1503: buried at
Westminster.  Portrait engraved in Strickland's *Queens*.

\2. Mary, born at Windsor, Aug. 14th, 1466;
affianced, 1481, to Frederic I., King of
Denmark; died unmarried, at Greenwich, May
23rd, 1483: buried at Windsor.  Her coffin
was opened in 1817, when her corpse was
found in perfect preservation; the hair of
"exquisite pale gold," the eyes "a beautiful
blue, unclosed and bright."

\3. Cicely, born 1469: affianced, Dec. 26th, 1474,
to James IV. King of Scotland (broken off):
married (1) at Court, before Dec. 1487, John
Viscount Welles; (2) without royal licence,
between Feb. 1503 and Jan. 1504, Thomas
Kyme: died at Quarr Abbey, Isle of Wight,
Aug. 24th, 1507: buried at Quarr.

\4. EDWARD V., born in the Sanctuary, Westminster,
Nov. 4th, 1470: baptized in Westminster
Abbey; created Prince of Wales, July 1st,
1471; knighted Apr. 18th, 1475: murdered in
Tower of London, after July 6th [exact day
much disputed], 1483.  Supposed to have been
buried in Tower, and afterwards removed to
Westminster Abbey.

\5. Margaret, born Apr. 10th, and died Dec. 11th,
1472: buried in Westminster Abbey.

\6. Richard, born at Shrewsbury, May 28th, 1474,
and created Duke of York, same day: knighted
Apr. 18th, 1475: Earl of Nottingham, Earl
Marshal, Jan. 12th, 1477; Duke of Norfolk,
Feb. 6th, 1477: died and buried with eldest
brother.  (There seems to be very little doubt
that this is the truth, and that Perkin Warbeck
was an impostor.  It is, however, not
improbable that he was an illegitimate son of Edward
IV.)  Richard Duke of York married—

Anne, only child and heir of John Mowbray,
fifth and (of his family) last Duke of
Norfolk, and Elizabeth Talbot: born Dec. 10th,
1472, probably at Framlingham: married in
St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster,
Jan. 15th, 1477: died young, before her husband:
buried at Westminster.

\7. Anne, born at Westminster, Nov. 2nd, 1475:
married Feb. 4th, 1495, Thomas Howard, second
Duke of Norfolk: died between Nov. 22nd,
1510, and Feb. 1512: buried at Framlingham.

\8. George, Duke of Bedford: born at Windsor,
probably in 1477: died young, before 1482:
buried at Windsor.

\9. Katherine, born at Eltham, about Aug. or Sept.,
1479: married at Court, before Oct. 1495,
William Courtenay, Earl of Devon: vowed
widowhood, July 13th, 1511: died at Tiverton,
Nov. 15th, 1527; buried at Tiverton.

\10. Bridget, born at Eltham, Nov. 10th, 1480: nun
at Dartford, 1486-92: died at Dartford, 1517:
buried at Dartford.


(*By Elizabeth Lucy*, Edward IV. had two children—

\1. Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, born at Lille,
1462 and died in the Tower, Mar. 3rd, 1542,
leaving female issue: 2. Elizabeth, married to
Thomas Lumley, son of George, second Lord
Lumley, whom he predeceased; left issue.)

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   ISSUE OF GEORGE DUKE OF CLARENCE:—

\1. Child, born at sea, off Calais, Apr. 1470: died
at birth; buried at Calais.

\2. Margaret, born at Farley Castle, Aug. 14th,
1473: married at Court, before 1494, Sir
Richard Pole: created Countess of Salisbury (or
rather formally recognised as such by inheritance)
Oct. 14th, 1513: beheaded on Tower
Hill, May 27th, 1541: buried in the Tower.
Left issue.

\3. Edward, Earl of Warwick: born at Warwick
Castle, Feb. 21st, 1475: beheaded on Tower
Hill, Nov. 28th, 1499: buried at Bisham.

\4. Richard, born at Tewkesbury Abbey, Oct. 6th,
1476: died at Warwick Castle, Jan. 1st, 1477:
buried at Warwick.


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   ISSUE OF RICHARD III. AND ANNE:—

Edward, born at Middleham Castle, 1476 (Rous
Roll): created Earl of Salisbury 1477; Prince of
Wales, Aug. 24th, 1483: knighted Sept. 8th, 1483:
died at Middleham, "an unhappy death,"
Mar. 31st, 1484: buried at Middleham.

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   \III.  DE HOLAND OF EXETER.

John de Holand, second son (but eventual heir)
of John, first Duke of Exeter, and Elizabeth of
Lancaster (sister of Henry IV.): born Mar. 29th,
1396 (Inquisition): created Duke of Exeter, in
consequence of his father's attainder, 1443: beheaded
on Goodwin Sands, Aug. 5th, 1447; buried in
Church of St. Catherine by the Tower, London.
Inventor of the rack,[#] long called "the Duke of
Exeter's daughter."  Married—

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[#] I am anxious to correct here a mistake
into which I fell in
a note to the early editions of *Lettice Eden*,
where it is suggested
that the Duke of Exeter who invented the rack might have been
Henry himself.
The testimony of dates made that appear probable
which I have now ascertained
was certainly not the case: and the
characters of the two Dukes were
less known to me at that time.

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\(A) Anne, daughter of Edmund Earl of Stafford
and Princess Anne of Gloucester: widow of
Edmund Mortimer, last Earl of March: married
1439: died Sept. 20th or 24th, 1433 (Inquisition):
buried in Church of St. Katherine by the Tower.

\(B) Briatiz, natural daughter of D. Joam I.,
King of Portugal, and widow of Thomas 13th Earl
of Arundel: marriage licence dated Jan. 20th,
1433 (Patent Roll): died Oct. 23rd, 1439: buried
at Arundel.

\(C) Anne, daughter of John de Montacute, third
Earl of Salisbury, and Maud Francis: widow of (1)
Sir Richard Hankford, and (2) Sir John Fitzlewes:
died Nov. 28th, 1457 (Inquisition): buried in
Church of St. Katherine by the Tower.  There
are certain items of bequest, and peculiarities of
expression, by which Lollardism may always be
detected in the last will of any person: and the
testament of Anne Montacute bears a decidedly
Lollard tone, as beseemed her martyred father's
daughter.

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   His ISSUE.  By *Anne Stafford*:—

\1. HENRY, third and last Duke of Exeter: born
in the Tower, June 27th, 1430, and baptized
same day in St. Stephen's Chapel,
Westminster, his sponsors being King Henry
VI., Cardinal Beaufort, and his grandmother,
Princess Anne, Countess of Stafford
(Prob. Æt. 36 Hen. VI. 43): drowned, in sea
between Dover and Calais, body cast ashore
at Dover, date unknown, authorities differing
greatly: some give 1473, some 1474, some
1475.  He was very likely buried at Dover.
No portrait known.  He married—

ANNE, eldest sister of Edward IV.  [See
first section.]

\2. (*By Anne Montacute*.)  Anne, born 1440-1,
married (1) in infancy, before Feb. 5th, 1442
(*Patent Roll*) John, Lord Neville of Raby: he
died while she was still a child, 1451, and she
married (2) by Papal dispensation, about 1456,
his uncle, Sir John Neville: (3) 1473, James,
9th and last Earl Douglas: date of death
unknown: buried in Black Friars' Church, London.


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   ISSUE OF HENRY DUKE OF EXETER:—

ANNE, probably born about 1455: married
Thomas Grey of Groby, son of John Lord Grey
and Queen Elizabeth Widville.  Miss Strickland
says that the marriage took place at Greenwich, in
October, 1466, but gives no authority.  There may
have been a formal betrothal at that date, but the
exact date of the marriage is extremely doubtful.
On the one hand, the royal assent to the
marriage-settlements, which in all ordinary cases preceded
the marriage, is dated Jan. 4th, 1473 (Patent Roll,
12 Edw. IV., Part 2): yet mention is therein made
of Anne as the wife of Thomas Grey, which would
seem to indicate that the ceremony had already
taken place.  If Thomas Grey were really created
Earl of Huntingdon on the 4th of August, 1471,
the fact would imply a strong probability that he
was then married to Anne, or at least on the
immediate eve of marriage.  Lady Anne Grey was
dead on July 18th, 1474, when negotiations were
entered into for the second marriage of her husband
(Patent Roll, 12 Edw. IV., Part 2).  Portrait and
place of burial unknown; character imaginary.


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   \IV. NEVILLE OF WARWICK.

Richard Neville, eldest son of Ralph, first Earl
of Westmoreland, and his second wife Joan
Beaufort: born 1400, created Earl of Salisbury,
Feb. 1st, 1439: beheaded at Pomfret, Christmas, 1462:
buried at Bisham, Feb. 15th, 1463.  Married—

Alesia, eldest daughter and heir of Thomas de
Montacute, fourth Earl of Salisbury, and
Alianora de Holand: born 1407, married in
or before 1439; died 1463, buried at Bisham
Feb. 15th.

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   THEIR ISSUE:—

\1. Joan, married William Earl of Arundel after
Aug. 17th, 1438, when his marriage was
granted to her father (Patent Roll), and before
May 10th, 1459.

\2. Cicely, married, 1434, Henry Beauchamp, Duke
of Warwick: died July 28th, 1450.  (Dugdale
says that she married, secondly, 1448-9,
John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester: but this is
doubtful.)

\3. RICHARD, Earl of Warwick, surnamed the
*King-Maker*; killed at Barnet, Easter Sunday,
Apr. 14th, 1471; buried at Bisham.  Married—

ANNE, daughter and eventual heir of
Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and
his second wife Isabel Baroness Le Despenser:
born at Caversham, July 13th, 1429:
married 1434: died between 1490 and
Michaelmas 1493.

\4. Thomas, killed at Wakefield, and buried at
Bisham Feb. 15th, 1463.  Married (but left no
issue),

Maud, daughter and heir of Richard
Stanhope, knight: married after May 10th,
1459; died Aug. 30th, 1497: buried at
Tateshale.

\5. JOHN, born before May 14th, 1431 (Patent Roll),
created Earl of Northumberland on defection
of the Percys, and on resigning that title,
Marquis of Montague, Mar. 25th, 1470: killed
at Barnet, Apr. 14th, 1471: buried at Bisham.
Married—

Isabel, daughter and heir of Sir Edmund
Ingoldesthorp: married before July 19th,
1459 (Close Roll): [re-married Sir William
Norris of Yattenden]: died 1477, and buried
at Bisham.

\6. GEORGE, Bishop of Exeter Nov. 25th, 1455.
Lord Chancellor, 1460; Archbishop of York
consecrated June 17th, 1465: died 1476.

\7. Alesia, married, Henry Lord Fitzhugh: living
June 1st, 1475 (Patent Roll).

\8. Eleanor, married about 1459, Thomas Stanley,
first Earl of Derby: buried in Church of
St. James, Garlick-hithe.

\9. Ralph, died young.

\10. Katherine, married (1) after May 10th, 1459,
William Lord Bonvile (2) before July 18th,
1461 (Patent Roll) William Lord Hastings: died
in or after 1503: buried at Ashby-de-la-Zouche.
She was mother of Cicely Bonvile, second
wife of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset.

\11. Robert, died young.

\12. Margaret, married after 1458, John de Vere,
thirteenth Earl of Oxford: died after 1486;
buried at Earl's Colne.


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   ISSUE OF RICHARD EARL OF WARWICK:—

\1. ISABEL, Duchess of Clarence [see second section],

\2. ANNE, Princess of Wales and Queen [see second
section].


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   ISSUE OF JOHN MARQUIS MONTAGUE:—

\1. George, created Duke of Bedford, Jan. 5th,
1470, and affianced to Princess Elizabeth: died
minor, May 4th, 1483: buried at Sheriff Hutton.

\2. John, probably died young, and buried at Salston.

\3. Anne, married (1) Sir William Stonor (2)
... Fortescue: dead, Nov. 14th, 1494 (Inquisition).

\4. Elizabeth, married (1) Thomas Lord Scrope of
Masham (2) Sir Henry Wentworth: died Sept. 20th,
1517: buried Black Friars' Church, London.

\5. Margaret, married (1) before Nov. 14th, 1494
(Inquisition) Sir John Mortimer, (2) Robert
Downes, (3) in or before 1507, Charles Brandon
Duke of Suffolk: died Jan. 21st, 1528 (Inquisition).

\6. Lucy, married (1) before Nov. 14th, 1494
(Inquisition) Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam, (2) Sir
Anthony Browne; died at Bagshot, Mar. 25th,
1533, buried at Bisham, 31st. (Harl. MS. 897, fol. 76.)

\7. Isabel, aged 23, Nov. 14th, 1494 (Inquisition):
married, (1) Ranulph Dacre (2) before Nov
14th, 1494, William Huddlestone, Esq., (3)
Sir William Smith: died in or before 1516-7.

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   \V. EXPENDITURE OF EDWARD IV.

Only three of this King's Issue Rolls are extant for
the period covered by the story—for the Easter and
Michaelmas terms of 1469, and for the Easter term of
1471.  They are unpublished, and a few of the more
remarkable items can scarcely fail to be interesting.

For the Easter term (March to September) of
1469, the personal expenses of the King were—for
wardrobe (purchase of silk, cloth, &c.), £1231
16s. 3-1/2d.: and for jewels, £744 13s. 4d.: those of the
Queen, £209 7s.: of the "Lady Princess" (though
her "diet" and that of the chaplains is reckoned
together,) £100.  The expenses, board, and
safekeeping of Henry VI. are set down at £146 13s. 4d.
The keep of four lions, two in Spain, and two
in the Tower, costs £10.  £33 6s. 8d., divided
among three Orders of Friars, suffices for the royal
alms.

The account for the Michaelmas term contains
less worth noting.  We are, however, there told
that the annual allowance to the Queen, "considering
the great expense of Elizabeth and Mary our
daughters," was £400.  There are entries of £33
6s. 8d. for "the diet and custody of Henry Beauford
in the Tower"—namely, the Duke of Somerset—and
of £13 3s. 6d. for the clothing of Henry Percy,
also a prisoner in the Tower.

But never was a state paper penned of deeper
interest than the one Roll extant for 1471—for those
six months which included the battles of Barnet and
Tewkesbury, the murders of King Henry and his
son, the massacre (for it can be called by no lighter
term) of the Lancastrian nobles, and the imprisonment
of Queen Marguerite and the young Princess
of Wales.  The business-like entry on May 16th,—"To
the Lord King, in his chamber, at Tewkesbury,
fifty shillings"—strikes the reader with
something like a shudder, from the fearful contrast
between the scenes that were passing at Tewkesbury
and that fifty shillings squandered on some
frivolous pleasure.  The items of expenditure run as
follows:—

::

   Expenses of the Queen (one item
   including "the victualling of
   the Tower")  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    £177 18s. 3 1/2d.
   Plate, gold and silver . . . . . . . . .     223 15s. 4d.
   Jewellery and goldsmiths' work . . . . .      55  1s. 9d.
   Wardrobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    1905 14s. 6d.
   Armour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .       5  3s. 4d.
   Horse, a Spanish jennet  . . . . . . . .      10  0s. 0d.
   Travelling expenses  . . . . . . . . . .       9 19s. 0d.
   Wine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     197 13s. 0d.
   Paid to Florentine merchants . . . . . .    6266 13s. 4d.
   Household expenses . . . . . . . . . . .  26,536  9s. 0d.
   Expenses of the King's chamber
   (gifts, trinkets, bets, and all
   sundries)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    9456 10s.
   Divine service . . . . . . . . . . . . .      40
   Alms and oblations . . . . . . . . . . .       4  6s. 8d.
   
   Total  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  44,885 14s. 6 1/2d.

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There is a further entry of £135, paid for various
articles, of which jewels and medicine are alone
indicated; and also of £180 paid to Henry Lord
Grey, to discharge all the King's debts to him.

These are simply the private expenses, no
military nor state charges being quoted, except in the
one instance where the victualling of the Tower
and the Queen's expenses are entered together at
£124 10s., and it is impossible to say what
proportion of the sum referred to either.  The list
speaks for itself.


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   \VI. FICTITIOUS PERSONS.

Those introduced in this story are the members of
the Marnell and Carew families, the waiting-women
of the Countess of Warwick and Duchess of Exeter
(Mistress Grisacres excepted), and the relatives of
John Goose, who is himself a real person: Father
Alcock, Master Rotherham, and the Banasters.
The name and office of John Combe are historical.
The character ascribed to the Duke of Exeter is
historical in all but its religious aspect, where it is
probable only: that sketched for his daughter is
entirely fictitious.  That of Sir Thomas St. Leger
rests also to some extent on probabilities.  All other
historical persons are drawn from life.

The names of such individuals as figure in the
story are printed in small capitals in the Appendix
to assist identification.  Where authorities are given
within brackets for dates, either the dates are (to
my knowledge) hitherto unpublished, or they are
corrections from first-class authorities of incorrect
dates usually given.


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   \VII. THE OATH OF SUBMISSION.

It may interest some readers to see the exact terms
of the oath taken on a man's return to his allegiance,
as recorded upon the Close Roll for 1469.

"Sovereign Lord, I, Herry Percy, becom your
subgette and liegeman, and promyt to God and
you that hereafter of faith and trouth shall bear to
you, as to my sovereign liege lord, and to your
heirs, Kings of England, of life and limb and of
erthlye worship, for to live and die ayenst all
earthly people; and to you and to your commandments
I shall be obeisant, as God me help and his
holy evangelists."

For a man to swear this unconditional oath was
styled "putting himself in the King's mercy."


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   \VIII.  THOMAS GREY, MARQUIS OF DORSET.

While these pages were passing through the
press, I discovered an entry on the first part of the
Patent Roll for 1 Ric. III., which, if one quarter of
its statements be true, shows Dorset to have been
one of the vilest men that ever walked the earth.
One offence in particular, of which all the chroniclers
accuse Lord Hastings (a most unlikely man), is there
distinctly charged upon Dorset, while Hastings is
not even mentioned in connection with the subject.
The pardon issued on the coronation of Richard
III. excepted Dorset on the ground of his disgraceful
character.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   Stories of English Life.

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   BY EMILY S. HOLT.

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::

   A.D. 597

   I. Imogen:
   A TALE OF THE EARLY BRITISH CHURCH.


   A.D. 1066

   II. Behind the Veil:
   A STORY OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST.


   A.D. 1159

   III. One Snowy Night;
   OR, LONG AGO AT OXFORD.


   A.D. 1189

   IV. Lady Sybil's Choice:
   A TALE OF THE CRUSADES.


   A.D. 1214

   V. Earl Hubert's Daughter;
   OR, THE POLISHING OF THE PEARL.


   A.D. 1325

   VI. In all Time of our Tribulation:
   THE STORY OF PIERS GAVESTONE.


   A.D. 1350

   VII. The White Lady of Hazelwood:
   THE WARRIOR COUNTESS OF MONTFORT.


   A.D. 1352

   VIII. Countess Maud;
   OR, THE CHANGES OF THE WORLD.


   A.D. 1360

   IX. In Convent Walls:
   THE STORY OF THE DESPENSERS.


   A.D. 1377

   X. John De Wycliffe,
   AND WHAT HE DID FOR ENGLAND.


   A.D. 1384

   XI. The Lord Mayor:
   A TALK OF LONDON IN 1384.


   A.D. 1390

   XII. Under One Sceptre:
   THE STORY OF THE LORD OF THE MARCHES


   A.D. 1400

   XIII. The White Rose of Langley;
   OR, THE STORY OF CONSTANCE LE DESPENSER.


   A.D. 1400

   XIV. Mistress Margery:
   A TALE OF THE LOLLARDS.


   A.D. 1400

   XV. Margery's Son;
   OR, UNTIL HE FIND IT.


   A.D. 1470

   XVI. Red and White;
   OR, THE WARS OF THE ROSES.


   A.D. 1480

   XVII. The Tangled Web:
   A TALE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.


   A.D. 1515

   XVIII. The Harvest of Yesterday:
   A TALE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.


   A.D. 1530

   XIX. Lettice Eden;
   OR, THE LAMPS OF EARTH AND THE LIGHTS OF HEAVEN.


   A.D. 1535

   XX. Isoult Barry of Wynscote:
   A TALE OF TUDOR TIMES.


   A.D. 1544

   XXI. Through the Storm;
   OR, THE LORD'S PRISONERS.


   A.D. 1555

   XXII. Robin Tremayne:
   A TALE OF THE MARIAN PERSECUTION.


   A.D. 1556

   XXIII. All's Well;
   OR, ALICE'S VICTORY.


   A.D. 1556

   XXIV. The King's Daughters.
   HOW TWO GIRLS KEPT THE FAITH.


   A.D. 1569

   XXV. Sister Rose;
   OR, THE EVE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.


   A.D. 1579

   XXVI. Joyce Morrell's Harvest:
   A STORY OF THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.


   A.D. 1588

   XXVII. Clare Avery:
   A STORY OF THE SPANISH ARMADA.


   A.D. 1605

   XXVIII. It Might Have Been:
   THE STORY OF GUNPOWDER PLOT.


   A.D. 1635

   XXIX. Minster Lovel:
   A STORY OF THE DAYS OF LAUD.


   A.D. 1662

   XXX. Wearyholme;
   A STORY OF THE RESTORATION.


   A.D. 1712

   XXXI. The Maiden's Lodge;
   OR, THE DAYS OF QUEEN ANNE.


   A.D. 1745

   XXXII. Out in the Forty-five;
   OR, DUNCAN KEITH'S VOW.


   A.D. 1750

   XXXIII. Ashcliffe Hall:
   A TALE OF THE LAST CENTURY.


   XXXIV.  A.D. 1556

           For the Master's Sake;
           OR, THE DAYS OF QUEEN MARY.


           A.D. 1345

           The Well in the Desert.
           AN OLD LEGEND.


   XXXV.   A.D. 1559

           All for the Best;
           OR, BERNARD GILPIN'S MOTTO.


           A.D. 1560

           At the Grene Griffin:
           A TALE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.


   XXXVI.  A.D. 1270

           Our Little Lady;
           OR, SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO

           A.D. 1652

           Gold that Glitters;
           OR, THE MISTAKES OF JENNY LAVENDER.


   XXXVII.  A.D. 1290

            A Forgotten Hero:
            THE STORY OF ROGER DE MORTIMER.

            A.D. 1266

            Princess Adelaide:
            A STORY OF THE SIEGE OF KENILWORTH.


   XXXVIII.  1ST CENTURY.

             The Slave Girl of Pompeii.


             2ND CENTURY.

             The Way of the Cross.
             TALES OF THE EARLY CHURCH


   A.D. 870 to 1580

   XXXIX. Lights in the Darkness:
   BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.


   A.D. 1873

   XL. Verena.
   SAFE PATHS AND SLIPPERY BYE-WAYS.
   A Story of To-day.

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LONDON: JOHN F. SHAW AND CO.,

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48 PATERNOSTER ROW.

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