Penshurst Castle in the Time of Sir Philip Sidney

'He showed great tenderness and care for Lady Frances, dreading lest she should be harmed by her constant attendance on him.

'Sweet and gentle lady! I have had the privilege of waiting on her from time to time, and of giving her what poor comfort lay in my power.

'After the settlement of his worldly affairs, Sir Philip asked to have the last ode he wrote chanted to him, but begged that all the stray leaves of the Arcadia should be gathered together and burned. He said that it was but vanity and the story of earthly loves, and he did not care to have it outlive him.

'My uncle was with him when he begged Sir Robert to leave him, for his grief could not be controlled. While the sufferer showed strength in suppressing sorrow, the strong man showed weakness in expressing it.

'Much more will be made known of these twenty-five days following the wound which caused our loss.

'For myself, I write these scanty and imperfect details for my own comfort, in knowing that they will be, in a sad sort, a comfort to you, dear sister, and, I might humbly hope, to your lady also.

'My uncle, praying by Sir Philip's side, after he had addressed his farewell to his brother, seeing him lie back on the pillow as if unconscious, said, "Sir, if you hear what I say, let us by some means know if you have inward joy and consolation of God."

'Immediately his hand, which had been thought powerless, was raised, and a clear token given to those who stood by that his understanding had not failed him.

'Once more, when asked the same question, he raised his hands with joined palms and fingers pointing upwards as in prayer – and so departed.

'I wrote so far, and now I have been with my boy watching the removal of all that is mortal of this great and noble one from Arnhem to Flushing, convoyed to the water's edge by twelve hundred English soldiers, trailing their swords and muskets in the dust, while solemn music played.

'The surgeons have embalmed the poor, worn body, and the Earl of Leicester has commanded that it be taken to England for burial.

'"Mother," my boy said, as he clasped my hand tightly in his, as the barge which bore the coffin away vanished in the mist hanging over the river, "mother, why doth God take hence a brave and noble knight, and leave so many who are evil and do evil instead of good?"

'How can I answer questions like to this? I could only say to my son, "There is no answer. Now we only see as in a mirror darkly; at length we shall see clearer in the Light of God, and His ways are ever just."

'Dear sister, it is strange to have the hunger of my heart satisfied by God's gift to me of my boy from the very gates of death, and yet to have that same heart oppressed with sorrow for those who are left to mourn for the brave and noble one who is passed out of our sight. Yet is that same heart full of thankfulness that I have recovered my child. It is not all satisfaction with him. Every day I have to pray that much that he has learned in the Jesuit school should be unlearned. Yet, God forbid I should be slow to acknowledge that in some things Ambrose has been trained well – in obedience, and the putting aside of self, and the mortification of appetite. Yes, I feel that in this discipline he may have reaped a benefit which with me he might have missed. But, oh! Lucy, there are moments when I long with heart-sick longing for my joyous, if wilful child, who, on a fair spring evening long ago, sat astride on Sir Philip's horse, and had for his one wish to be such another brave and noble gentleman!

'Methinks this wish is gaining strength, and that the strange repression of all natural feeling which I sometimes notice, may vanish 'neath the brighter shining of love – God's love and his mother's.

'You would scarce believe, could you see Ambrose, that he – so tall and thin, with quiet and restrained movements and seldom smiling mouth – could be the little torment of Ford Place! Four years have told on my boy, like thrice that number, and belike the terrible ravages of the fever may have taken something of his youthful spring away.

'He is tender and gentle to me, but there is reserve.

'On one subject we can exchange but few words; you will know what that subject is. From the little I can gather, I think his father was not unkind to him; and far be it from me to forget the parting words, when the soul was standing ready to take its flight into the unseen world. But oh! my sister, how wide the gulf set between him, for whom the whole world, I may say, wears mourning garb to-day – for foreign countries mourn no less than England – how wide, I say, is the gulf set between that noble life and his, of whom I dare not write, scarce dare to think.

'Yet God's mercy is infinite in Christ Jesus, and the gulf, which looks so wide to us, may be bridged over by that same infinite mercy.

'God grant it.

'This with my humble, dutiful sympathy to your dear lady, the Countess of Pembroke, for whom no poor words of man can be of comfort, from your loving sister,

Mary Gifford.

'Post Scriptum.– Master Humphrey Ratcliffe has proved a true friend to me, and to my boy. To him, under God, I owe my child's restoration to health, and to me.

'He is away with that solemn and sorrowful train I saw embark for Flushing, nor do I know when he will return.

M. G.'

'At Penshurst, in the month of February 1586, – For you, my dear sister Mary, I will write some account of the sorrowful pageant, from witnessing which I have lately returned to Penshurst with my dear and sorely-stricken mistress, and all words would fail me to tell you how heavy is her grief, and how nobly she has borne herself under its weight.

'Four long and weary months have these been since the news of Sir Philip's death came to cast a dark shadow over this country. Much there has been to harass those who are intimately connected with him. Of these troubles I need not write. The swift following of Sir Philip's death on that of his honoured father, Sir Henry Sidney, caused mighty difficulties as to the carrying out of that last will and testament in which he so nobly desired to have every creditor satisfied, and justice done.

'But, sure, no man had ever a more generous and worthy father-in-law than Sir Philip possessed in Sir Francis Walsingham. All honour be to him for the zeal and care he has shown in the settlement of what seemed at the first insurmountable mountains of difficulties.

'Of these it does not become me to speak, rather of that day, Thursday last past, when I was witness of the great ceremony of burying all that was mortal of him for whom Queen and peasant weep.

'Mary! you can scarce picture to yourself the sight which I looked on from a casement by the side of my dear mistress. All the long train of mourners taken from every class, the uplifted standard with the Cross of St George, the esquires and gentlemen in their long cloaks of mourning garb, these were a wondrous spectacle. In the long train was Sir Philip's war horse, led by a footman and ridden by a little page bearing a broken lance, followed by another horse, like the first, richly caparisoned, ridden by a boy holding a battle-axe reversed. All this I say I gazed at as a show, and my mistress, like myself, was tearless. I could not believe, nay, I could not think of our hero as connected with this pageant. Nay, nor with that coffin, shrouded in black velvet, carried by seven yeomen, and the pall borne by those gentlemen who loved him best, his dearest friends, Sir Fulke Greville, Sir Edward Dyer, Edward Watson, and Thomas Dudley.

'Next came the two brothers, Sir Robert – now Lord of Penshurst – chief mourner, and behind, poor Mr Thomas Sidney, who was so bowed down with grief that he could scarce support himself.

'Earls and nobles, headed by my Lord of Leicester, came after; and the gentlemen from the Low Countries, of whom you will have heard, and all the great city folk – Lord Mayor and Sheriffs – bringing up the rear.

'My dear mistress and I, with many other ladies of her household, having watched the long train pass us from the Minories, were conveyed by back ways to St Paul's, and, from a seat appointed us and other wives of nobles and their gentlewomen, we were present at the last scene.

'It was when the coffin, beautifully adorned with escutcheons, was placed on a bier prepared for it, that my mistress said, in a low voice, heard by me – perhaps by me only, —

'"Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur."

'These words were the motto on the coffin, and they were the words on which the preacher tried to enforce his lesson.

'Up to the moment when the double volley was fired, telling us within the church that the body rested in peace, there had been profound stillness.

'Then the murmur of a multitude sorrowing and sighing, broke upon the ear; and yet, beyond those whispered words, my lady had not made any sign.

'Now she laid her hand in mine and said, —

'"Let us go and see where they have laid him."

'I gave notice to the gentlemen in attendance that this was my lady's desire. We had to wait yet for a long space; the throng, so closely packed, must needs disperse.

'At length way was made for us, and we stood by the open grave together – my mistress, whose life had been bound up in her noble brother's, and I, to whom he had been, from my childhood's days to the present, the hero to whose excellence none could approach – a sun before whose shining other lights grew dim.

'Do not judge me hardly! Nay, Mary, you of all others will not do this. My love for him was sacred, and I looked for no return; but let none grudge it to me, for it drew me ever upwards, and, as I humbly pray, will still do so till I see him in the other life, whither he has gone.

'Throughout all this pageantry and symbols of woe which I have tried to bring before you, my dear sister, I felt only that these signs of the great grief of the whole realm were yet but vain, vain, vain.

'As in a vision, I was fain to see beyond the blackness of funeral pomp, the exceeding beauty of his soul, who, when he lay a-dying, said he had fixed his thoughts on these eternal beauties, which cheered his decaying spirits, and helped him to take possession of the immortal inheritance given to him by, and in Christ.

'"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; blessed be those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

'I have finished the task I set myself to do for your edification, dearest sister. Methought I could scarce get through it for tears, but these did not flow at my will. Not till this morning, when I betook myself to the park, where all around are signs of a springing new life, and memories of Sir Philip in every part, did these tears I speak of have their free way. All things wakening into life, buds swelling on the stately trees he loved; birds singing, for the time to pair is come; dew sparkling like the lustre of precious stones on every twig and blade of grass, daisies with golden eyes peeping up between. Life, life, everywhere quickening life, and he who loved life, and to see good days, can walk no more in the old dear paths of his home, which he trod with so graceful and alert a step, his smile like the sunshine lying on the gate of the President's Court, under which he that went out on the November morning in all the glory of his young manhood, shall pass in no more for ever.

'As I thought of seeing him thus, with the light on his bright hair and glistening armour, as he took his infant child in his arms and bade her farewell, I wept, not bitter tears, but those God sends to us as a blessing when the heart desires some ease of its burden.

'It may be that you will care to read what I have written to the boy Ambrose. Bid him from me to remember his old desire to be such another brave and goodly knight as Sir Philip Sidney, and strive to follow him in all loyal service to his God, his Queen, and his kindred.

'I am thinking often, Mary, of your return to this country. Will it never come to pass? You told me in your letter in which you gave me those particulars of Sir Philip's death, that I should scarce believe that Ambrose was the child I knew at the old home of Ford Place. And scarce will you believe, when we meet, as meet I pray we shall, I am the same Lucy of days past. Ever since that time of your grief and sickness, I have changed. I look back with something which is akin to pity on the vain child who thought fine clothes and array the likest to enhance the fair face and form which maybe God has given me. Ay, Mary, I have learned better now. I should have been a dullard, in sooth, had I not learned much in the companionship graciously granted me by my honoured mistress. To be near her is an education, and she has been pleased in many ways to instruct me, not only in the needlecraft and tapestry work in which she excels, but also in opening for me the gates of knowledge, and in rehearsing in my ear the beautiful words of Scripture, and the Psalms in verse, as well as the poems of Mr Spenser, and, chiefest of all, of those works in prose and verse which Sir Philip has left behind. Sure, these will never die, and will tell those who come after us what we possessed and lost!

'Yet, after all, as my mistress saith again and yet again, it was not by all his deeds of valour and his gifts of learning that he stands so high forever amongst men. No, nor not by his death and the selfless act which men are speaking of on all sides, as he lay in the first agony of his sore wound on the battlefield of Zutphen. Not by these only will his name live, but by his life, which, for purity and faith, virtue and godliness, loyalty and truth, may be said to be without peer in this age of which he was so fair an ornament.

'I dare not say more, lest even you charge me with rhapsody.

'I rest, dear Mary, in all loving and tender affection, your sister,

Lucy Forrester.

'To my honoured sister, Mary Gifford, at the house of Master Gifford, in Arnhem, February 1586. From Penshurst Place, in the county of Kent.'

CHAPTER XVI

FOUR YEARS LATER – 1590

'My true love hath my heart and I have his,By just exchange, one for the other given.I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;There never was a better bargain driven.His heart in me keeps me and him in one,My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;He loves my heart, for once it was his own,I cherish his, because in me it bides.'

The sound of these words by Sir Philip Sidney, sung in a sweet melodious voice, was borne upon the summer air of a fair June evening in the year 1590.

It came through the open casement from the raised seat of the parlour at Hillbrow, where once Mistress Ratcliffe had sat at her spinning-wheel, casting her watchful eyes from time to time upon the square of turf lying between the house and the entrance gate, lest any of her maidens should be gossiping instead of working.

Mistress Ratcliffe had spun her last thread of flax more than a year ago, and another mistress reigned in her place in the old house upon the crest of the hill above Penshurst.

As the last words of the song were sung, and only the lingering chords of the viol were heard, making a low, sweet refrain, a man who had been listening unseen to the music under the porch, with its heavy overhanging shield of carved stone, now came to the open window, which, though raised some feet above the terrace walk beneath, was not so high but that his head appeared on a level with the wide ledge of the casement.

Lucy was unconscious of his presence till he said, —

'I would fain hear that song again, Lucy.'

'Nay,' she said with a smile; 'once is enough.'

'Did you think of me as you sang?' he asked.

'Perhaps,' she said, with something of her old spirit. 'Perhaps; but you must know there is another who hath my heart. I have been singing him to sleep, and I pray you do not come in with a heavy tramp of your big boots and wake him. He has been fractious to-day. Speak softly,' she said, as George exclaimed, —

'The young rascal! I warrant you have near broken your back carrying him to and fro.'

'My back is not so easy to break; but, George, when will the travellers come. I have made all things ready these two days and more.'

'They may arrive any moment now,' George said, and then his bright handsome face disappeared from the window, and in another moment he had come as quietly as was possible for him, into the sunny parlour, now beautified by silken drapery, worked by Lucy's clever fingers, and sweet with the fragrance of flowers in the beau-pot on the hearth and fresh rushes on the floor.

In a large wooden cradle lay his first-born son – named in memory of one whom neither husband nor wife could ever forget – Philip. The child was small and delicate, and Lucy had tasted not only the sweets of motherhood, but its cares.

Yet little Philip was very fair to look upon. He had the refined features of his mother, and though his cheeks wanted something of the roundness and rosiness of healthful infancy, he was, in his parents' eyes, as near perfection as first-born children are ever apt to be thought!

George paused by the cradle, which was raised on high rockers, and, bending over it, said, —

'He is sound asleep now,' just touching the little hand lying outside the coverlet with his great fingers as gently as his mother could have done.

'I won't be jealous of him, eh, Lucy? He is mine as well as yours, sweetheart.'

'That is a truism,' Lucy said. 'Now, come into the window-seat and talk low – if you must talk – and let us watch for those who are, I pray God, drawing near.'

George unfastened his leather pouch which was slung over his shoulder, and put the bow and quiver against the corner of the bay window.

Then he threw his huge form at his wife's feet on the dais, and said, —

'Do not be too eager for their coming, sweetheart. I half dread their entrance into this house, which, perchance may disturb our bliss.'

'Fie for shame!' Lucy replied, 'as if Mary could ever be aught but a joy and a blessing. I am ready to blush for you, George.'

'They will be grand folk, grander than we are, that is, than I am! Humphrey knighted, and Mary Dame Ratcliffe. Then there is the boy! I am not sure as to the boy. I confess I fear the early training of the Jesuits may have left a mark on him.'

'Now, I will listen to no more growlings, George,' his wife said, laying her small fair hand on the thick masses of her husband's hair, and smoothing it from his forehead. 'You will please to give the coming guests a hearty welcome, and be proud to call them brother, sister, and nephew.'

'Nay,' George said. 'Ambrose is no nephew of mine!'

'To think of such folly, when, but a minute agone, you said what is mine is yours. Ambrose is my nephew, I'd have you to remember, sir.'

'As you will, sweet wife! as you will; but, Lucy, when you see Humphrey ride up with a train of gentlemen, it may be, and my lady with her gentlewomen, will you not be sorry that you left everything to be the wife of a country yeoman, who is unversed in fine doings, and can give you so little?'

'You give me all I want,' Lucy said; and this time, as she smoothed back the rebellious curls, she bent and kissed the broad brow which they shaded. 'You give me all I want,' she repeated – 'your heart!'

Soon there was a sound of horses' feet, and, with an exclamation, 'Here at last!' George went to the gate to receive the guests, and Lucy hurried to the porch.

'The noise and bustle may rouse little Philip,' she said to one of her maids; 'watch in the parlour till I return.'

In another moment Humphrey had grasped his brother's hand, and, turning, lifted his wife from the pillion on which she had ridden with her son.

'Mary! Mary!' and Lucy ran swiftly to meet her sister, and held her in a long embrace.

A meeting after years of separation is always mingled with joy something akin to pain, and it was not till the first excitement of this reunion was over that the joy predominated.

Mary was greatly changed; her hair was white; and on her sweet face there were many lines of suffering. Lucy led her into the parlour, and she could only sink down upon the settle by her side, and hold her hand in hers, looking with wistful earnestness into her face.

'So fair still! and happy, dearest child!' Mary whispered in a low voice. 'Happy! and content?'

'Yes,' Lucy replied proudly. 'And you, Mary, you are happy now?'

'Blest with the tender care of my husband. Yes; but, Lucy, I bring him but a poor reward for all his patient love.'

'Nay, he does not think so, I'll warrant,' Lucy said. 'You will soon be well and hearty in your native air, and the colour will come back to your cheeks and the brightness to your eyes.'

'To rival yours, dear child! Nay, you forget how time, as well as sickness and sorrow, have left its mark on me.'

'And Ambrose?' Lucy asked. 'You have comfort in him?'

'Yes,' Mary said. 'Yes, but, dear heart, the vanished days of childhood return not. Ambrose is old for his sixteen years; and, although dear, dear as ever, I am prone to look back on those days at Ford Manor, when he was mine, all mine, before the severance from me changed him.'

'Sure he is not a Papist now?' Lucy said. 'I trust not.'

'Nay, he is not professedly a Papist, but the teaching of those four years sowed seed. Yet he loves me, and is a dutiful son to me, and to his – his new father. I ought to be satisfied.'

Little Philip now turned in his cradle, awoke by the entrance of the two brothers and Ambrose, who had been to the stables to see that the grooms and horses were well cared for.

Lucy raised Philip in her arms, and Mary said, —

'Ay! give him to me, sweet boy. See, Ambrose, here is your cousin; nay, I might say your brother, for it is a double tie between you.'

The tall stripling looked down on the little morsel of humanity with a puzzled expression.

'He is very small, methinks,' he said.

This roused Lucy's maternal vanity.

'Small, forsooth! Do you expect a babe of eight months to be a giant. He is big enow for my taste and his father's. Too big at times, I vow, for he is a weight to carry.'

Ambrose felt he had made a mistake, and hastened to add, —

'He has wondrous large eyes;' and then he bent over his mother and said, 'You should be resting in your own chamber, mother.'

'Yes; well spoken, my boy,' Humphrey said. 'Mary is not as hearty as I could desire,' he added, turning to George. 'Maybe Lucy will take her to her chamber, and forgive her if she does not come to sup in the hall.'

Lucy gave little Philip to his father, who held him in awkward fashion, till the nurse came to the rescue and soothed his faint wailing by the usual nonsense words of endearment which then, as now, nurses seem to consider the proper language in which to address babies.

When the two brothers were alone together that night, Humphrey said, —

'It is all prosperous and well with you now, George. You have got your heart's desire, and your fair lady looks fairer, ay, and happier than I ever saw her.'

'Ay, Humphrey, it is true. At times I wonder at my own good fortune. I had my fears that she would hanker after fine things and grand folk, but it is not so. She went with the boy to Wilton two months agone to visit the Countess of Pembroke, who holds her in a wonderful affection. The boy is her godson, and she has made him many fine gifts. I was fearful Lucy would find this home dull after a taste of her old life; but, Heaven bless her, when I lifted her from the horse with the child on her return, she kissed me and said, "I am right glad to get home again." I hope, Humphrey, all is well and prosperous with you also?'

'I may say yes as regards prosperity, beyond what I deserve. I have a place about the Court, under my Lord Essex, and I was knighted, as you know, for what they were pleased to call bravery in the Armada fight. After we lost that wise and noble gentleman, Sir Philip Sidney, everything went crooked under the Earl of Leicester, and Spain thought she was going to triumph and crush England with the Armada. But God defended the right, and the victory is ours. Spain is humbled now. Would to God Sir Philip Sidney had lived to see it and share the glory.'

George listened as his brother spoke, with flashing eyes, of the final discomfiture of Spain, and then noticed how his whole manner changed to softness and sadness, as he went on to say, —