Penshurst Castle in the Time of Sir Philip Sidney

The spectators, however, seemed well satisfied, to judge by their huzzas and cheers which hailed the victor in every passage of arms – cheers in which little Ambrose, from his vantage ground, heartily joined.

At last it was over, and the throng came out of the field, the victor bearing on the point of his tilting pole a crown made of gilded leaves, which was a good deal battered, and had been competed for by these village knights on several former occasions.

Like the challenge cups and shields of a later time, these trophies were held as the property of the conqueror, till, perhaps, at a future trial, he was vanquished, and then the crown passed into the keeping of another victor.

Mary Gifford thanked the man, who had been so kind to her boy, with one of her sweetest smiles, and Ambrose, at her bidding, said, —

'Thank you, kind sir, for letting me see the show. I'd like to see the game of bowls now where all the folk are going.'

'No, no, Ambrose! you have had enough. We must go home, and you must get to bed early, for your little legs must be tired.'

'Tired! I'd never be tired of seeing horses gallop and prance. Only, I long to be astride of one, as I was of Mr Philip Sidney's.'

Mother and son pursued their way up the hill, Ambrose going over the events of the day in childish fashion – wanting no reply, nor even attention from his mother, while she was thinking over the different ways in matters of religion of those who called themselves Christians.

These Sunday sports were denounced by some as sinful – and a sign of return to the thraldom of Popery from which the kingdom had been delivered; others saw in them no harm, if they did not actually countenance them by their presence; while others, like herself, had many misgivings as to the desirability of turning the day of rest into a day of merry-making, more, perhaps, from personal taste and personal feeling than from principle.

When Mary Gifford reached Ford Manor, she found it deserted, and only one old serving-man keeping guard. The mistress had gone with the rest of the household to a prayer and praise meeting, held in the barn belonging to a neighbouring yeoman, two miles away; and he only hoped, he said, that she might return in a sweeter temper than she went. She had rated him and scolded all round till she had scarce a breath left in her.

The old man was, like all the other servants, devoted to the gentle lady who had gone out from her home a fair young girl, and had returned a sad widow with her only child, overshadowed by a great trouble, the particulars of which no one knew.

The rest of that Sabbath day was quiet and peaceful.

Mary read from Tyndale's version of the Testament her favourite chapter from the Epistle of St John, and the love of which it told seemed to fill her with confidence and descend dove-like upon her boy's turbulent young heart.

He was in his softest, tenderest mood, and, as Mary pressed him close to her side, she felt comforted, and said to herself, —

'While I have my boy, I can bear all things, with God's help.'

Mary Gifford was up long before sunrise the next morning, and, calling Ambrose, she bid him come out with her and see if the shepherd had brought in a lamb which had wandered away from the fold on the previous day. The shepherd had been afraid to tell his mistress of the loss, and Mary had promised to keep it from her till he had made yet another search; and then, if indeed it was hopeless, she would try to soften Mistress Forrester's anger against him.

'We may perchance meet him with the news that he has found the lamb, and then there will be no need to let grannie know that it had been lost,' she said.

It was a dull morning, and the clouds lay low in a leaden sky, while a mist was hovering over the hills and blurring out the landscape.

The larks were soon lost to sight as they soared overhead, singing faintly as they rose; the rooks gave prolonged and melancholy caws as they took their early flight, and the cocks crowed querulously in the yard, while now and then there was a pitiful bleat from the old ewe which had lost her lamb.

In the intervals of sound, the stillness was more profound, and there was a sense of oppression hanging over everything, which even Ambrose felt.

The moor stretched away in the haze, which gave the hillocks of gorse and heather and the slight eminences of the open ground an unnatural size.

Every moment Mary hoped to see the shepherd's well-known figure looming before her in the mist with the lamb in his arms, but no shepherd appeared.

'We must turn our steps back again, Ambrose. Perhaps the shepherd has gone down into the valley, and it is chill and damp for you to be out longer; when the sun gets up it will be warmer.'

She had scarcely spoken, when a figure appeared through the haze, like every other object, looking unnaturally large.

'Quick, Ambrose,' she said, 'quick!' and, seizing the child's hand, she began to run at her utmost speed along the sheep-path towards the stile leading into the Manor grounds, near the farmyard.

The child looked behind to see what had frightened his mother.

'It's the big black man!' he said.

But Mary made no answer. She ran on, regardless of hillocks and big stones – heedless of her steps, and thinking only of her pursuer.

Presently her foot caught in a tangle of heather, and she fell heavily, as she was running at full speed, and struck her head against some sharp stones lying in a heap at the edge of the track, which could hardly be called a path.

'Mother! mother!' Ambrose called; and in another moment a hand was laid on his shoulder – a strong hand, with a grasp which the child felt it was hopeless to resist. 'Mother! mother!'

The cry of distress might well have softened the hardest heart; but men like Ambrose Gifford are not troubled with what is commonly understood by a heart. He spoke, however, in gentle tones.

'My poor child, your mother is much hurt. We must seek for the aid of a surgeon. We must get help to carry her home. Come with me, and we will soon get help.'

'No, no; I will not leave my mother,' Ambrose said, throwing himself on the ground by her side. 'Why doesn't she speak or move? Mother!'

Alas! there was no answer; and a little red stream trickling down from a wound on the forehead frightened Ambrose still more.

'It is blood!' he cried, with the natural shrinking which children always show when their own fingers are cut. 'It is blood! Oh, mother!'

But Ambrose was now quietly lifted in a pair of strong arms, and the words spoken in his ear, —

'We must seek help; we will get a surgeon. Your mother will die if we do not get help, boy. Hush! If you cry out your mother may hear, and you will distress her. Hush!'

Poor little Ambrose now subsided into a low wail of agony as he felt himself borne along.

'Where are you going, sir? Set me down, set me down.'

'We go for help for your mother. Let that suffice.'

Ambrose now made a renewed struggle for freedom. It was the last; he felt something put over his face, so that he could neither see where he was going nor utter another cry; he only knew he was being carried off by this strange man he knew not where, and that he had left his mother lying pale and still, with that terrible red stream trickling from her forehead, on the hillock of heather on the moor.

It is said, and perhaps with truth, that the bitterest hate is felt by the sinner against the sufferer for his sin. This hatred was in Ambrose Gifford's heart, and was the primary cause of his thus forcibly taking from the wife whom he had so cruelly betrayed, the child who was so infinitely precious to her.

Ambrose Gifford had, no doubt, by subtle casuistry persuaded himself that he was doing good to the boy. He would be educated by the Jesuits, with whom he had cast in his lot; he would be trained as a son of the Catholic Church, and by this he hoped to gain favour, and strike off a few years of purgatorial fire for his past sins!

He had confessed and done penance for the disgraceful acts of which he had been guilty, and he had been received into the refuge the Roman Church was ready to offer to him.

At this time she was making every effort to strengthen her outposts, and to prepare for the struggle which at any moment she might be called upon to make to regain her coveted ascendency in England.

The seminary founded at Douay by a certain Dr Allen, a fine scholar, who was educated at Oxford, was much resorted to by persecuted Catholics who sought a refuge there. Or by men like Ambrose Gifford, who, obliged to leave the country under the shadow of a crime committed, were glad to throw themselves into the arms ready to receive them, and, as they would have expressed it, find pardon and peace by fasting and penance in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Doubtless, the great majority of those who gathered at Douay at this time were devout and persecuted members of the Church, from the bondage of which Elizabeth had delivered her country, with the hearty approbation of her loyal subjects.

But, black sheep like Ambrose Gifford went thither to be washed and outwardly reformed; and he, being a man of considerable ability and shrewdness, had after a time of probation been despatched to England to beat up recruits and to bring back word how the Catholic cause was prospering there.

He had, therefore, every reason to wish to take with him his own boy, whose fine physique and noble air he had noted with pride as he had, unseen, watched him for the last few weeks when haunting the neighbourhood like an evil spirit.

He would do him credit, and reward all the pains taken to educate him and bring him up as a good Catholic.

The motives which prompted him to this were mixed, and revenge against his wife was perhaps the dominant feeling. She loved that boy better than anything on earth; she would bring him up in the faith of the Reformed Church, and teach him, probably, to hate his father.

He would, at any rate, get possession of this her idol, and punish her for the words she had spoken to him by the porch of the farm, on that summer evening now more than two weeks ago.

Ambrose Gifford had deceived Mary from the first, professing to be a Protestant while it served his purpose to win favour in the household of the Earl of Leicester, but in reality he was a Catholic, and only waited the turn of the tide to declare himself. He led a bad, immoral life, and it was scarcely more than two years after her marriage that Mary Gifford's eyes were opened to the true character of the man who had won her in her inexperienced girlhood by his handsome person – in which the boy resembled him – his suave manner, and his passionate protestations of devotion to her.

Many women have had a like bitter lesson to learn, but perhaps few have felt as Mary did, humbled in the very dust, when she awoke to the reality of her position, that the love offered her had been unworthy the name, and that she had been betrayed and deceived by a man who, as soon as the first glamour of his passion was over, showed himself in his true colours, and expected her to take his conduct as a matter of course, leaving her free, as he basely insinuated, to console herself as she liked with other admirers.

To the absolutely pure woman this was the final death-blow of all hope for the future, and all peace in the present. Mary fled to her old home with her boy, and soon after heard the report that her husband had been killed in a fray, and that if he had lived he would have been arrested and condemned for the secret attack made on his victim, and also as a disguised Catholic supposed to be in league with those who were then plotting against the life of the Queen.

About a year before this time, a gentleman of the Earl of Leicester's household, when at Penshurst, had told Mary Gifford that Ambrose Gifford was alive – that he had escaped to join the Jesuits at Douay, and was employed by them as one of their most shrewd and able emissaries. From that moment her peace of mind was gone, and the change that had come over her had been apparent to everyone.

The sadness in her sweet face deepened, and a melancholy oppressed her, except, indeed, when with her boy, who was a source of unfailing delight, mingled with fear, lest she should lose him, by his father's machinations.

It was not till fully half-an-hour after Ambrose had been carried away, that the shepherd, with his staff in his hand and the lost lamb thrown over his shoulder, came to the place where Mary was lying.

She had recovered consciousness, but was quite unable to move. Besides the cut on her forehead, she had sprained her ankle, and the attempt to rise had given her such agony that she had fallen back again.

'Ay, then! lack-a-day, Mistress Gifford,' the shepherd said, 'how did this come about. Dear heart alive! you look like a ghost.'

'I have fallen,' gasped Mary. 'But where is my boy – where is Ambrose? Get me tidings of him, I pray you, good Jenkyns.'

'Lord! I must get help for you before I think of the boy. He has run home, I dare to say, the young urchin; he is safe enough.'

'No, no,' Mary said. 'Oh! Jenkyns, for the love of Heaven, hasten to find my boy, or I shall die of grief.'

The worthy shepherd needed no further entreaty. He hastened away, taking the stile with a great stride, and, going up to the back door of the house, he called Mistress Forrester to come as quick as she could, for there was trouble on the moor.

Mistress Forrester was at this moment engaged in superintending the feeding of a couple of fine young pigs, which had been bought in Tunbridge a few days before. Her skirts were tucked up to her waist, and she had a large hood over her head, which added to her grotesque appearance.

'Another lamb lost? I protest, Jenkyns, if you go on losing lambs after this fashion you may find somebody else's lambs to lose, and leave mine alone. A little more barleymeal in that trough, Ned – the porkers must be well fed if I am to make a profit of 'em and not a loss.'

'Hearken, Madam Forrester,' Jenkyns said, 'the lamb is safe, but Mistress Gifford is lying yonder more dead than alive. Ned, there! come and help me to lift her home – and where's the boy, eh?'

'What boy?' Mrs Forrester asked sharply.

'Mistress Gifford's son,' Jenkyns said, 'his mother is crying out for him amain, poor soul! She is in a bad case – you'd best look after her, there's blood running down from a cut on her forehead. Here!' calling to one of the women, 'here, if the Mistress won't come, you'd best do so – and bring a pitcher of water with you, for she is like to swoon, by the looks of her.'

'You mind your own business, Amice,' Mistress Forrester said, as she smoothed down her coarse homespun skirt, and settled the hood on her head. 'You bide where you are, and see the poultry are fed, as she who ought to have fed 'em isn't here.'

'Nor ever will be again, mayhap,' said Jenkyns wrathfully. 'Come on, Ned, it will take two to bear her home, poor thing. Don't let the boy see her till we've washed her face – blood always scares children.'

'I daresay it's a scratch,' Mistress Forrester said, as she filled a pewter pot with water, and followed the shepherd and Ned to the place where Mary lay.

Even Mistress Forrester was moved to pity as she looked down on her stepdaughter's face, and heard her murmur.

'Ambrose! my boy! He is stolen from me. Oh! for pity's sake, find him.'

'Stolen! stolen! not a bit of it,' Mistress Forrester said. 'I warrant he is a-bed and asleep, for he is seldom up till sunrise.'

'He was with me,' Mary gasped, 'he was with me, when I fell. I was running from him– and – he has stolen him from me.'

'Dear sake! who would care to steal a child? There, there, you are light-headed. Drink a drop of water, and we'll get you home and a-bed. I'll plaister the cut with lily leaves and vinegar, and I warrant you'll be well in a trice.'

They moistened Mary's lips with water, and Jenkyns sprinkled her forehead; and then Jenkyns, with Ned's help, raised Mary from the ground and carried her towards the house.

A cry of suppressed agony told of the pain movement caused her, and Mistress Forrester said, —

'Where's the pain, Mary? Sure you haven't broke your leg?'

But Mary could not reply. A deadly faintness almost deprived her of the power of speaking.

As they passed through the yard the lamb, which Jenkyns had set down there when he passed through, came trotting towards him, the long thick tail vibrating like a pendulum as it bleated piteously for its mother.

Mary turned her large sorrowful eyes upon it, and whispered, —

'The lost lamb is found. Let it go to its mother. Oh! kind people, find – find my boy, and bring him back to me – to me, his mother.'

By this time there was great excitement amongst the people employed on the farm, and a knot of men and maidens were standing by the back door, regardless of their mistress's anger that they should dare to idle away a few minutes of the morning.

'Back to your work, you fools!' she said. 'Do you think to do any good by staring like a parcel of idiots at Mistress Gifford. Ask the Lord to help her to bear her pain, and go and bring her boy to her, Amice.'

But no one had seen the child that morning, and Amice declared he was not in the house.

They carried Mary to her chamber, and laid her down on the low truckle bed, the shepherd moving as gently as he could, and doing his best to prevent her from suffering.

But placing her on the bed again wrung from her a bitter cry, and Jenkyns said, —

'You must e'en get a surgeon to her, Mistress, for I believe she is sorely hurt.'

'A surgeon! And, prithee, where am I to find one?'

'As luck will have it,' Jenkyns said, 'Master Burt from Tunbridge puts up at the hostel every Monday in Penshurst.'

'Send Ned down into the village and fetch him, then,' Mistress Forrester said, who was now really frightened at Mary's ghastly face, which was convulsed with pain. 'Send quick! I can deal with the cut on her forehead, but I can't set a broken limb.'

'Stop!' Mary cried, as Jenkyns was leaving the room to despatch Ned on his errand. 'Stop!' Then with a great effort she raised herself to speak in an audible voice. 'Hearken! My boy was stolen from me by a tall man in a long black cloak. Search the country, search, and, oh! if you can, find him.'

This effort was too much for her, and as poor Jenkyns bent down to catch the feeble halting words, Mary fell back in a deep swoon again, and was, for another brief space, mercifully unconscious of both bodily and mental agony. Hers was literally the stroke which, by the suddenness of the blow, deadens the present sense of pain; that was to come later, and the loss of her boy would bring with it the relief of tears when others had dried theirs and accepted with calmness the inevitable.

CHAPTER VIII

DEFEAT

'In one thing only failing of the best —That he was not as happy as the rest.'Edmund Spenser.

The court of Queen Elizabeth was well used to witness splendid shows and passages-of-arms, masques, and other entertainments organised by the noblemen chiefly, to whose houses – like Kenilworth – the Queen was often pleased to make long visits.

The Queen always expected to be amused, and those who wished to court her favour took care that no pains should be wanting on their part to please her. Indeed, the courtiers vied with each other in their efforts to win the greatest praise from their sovereign lady, who dearly liked to be entertained in some novel manner.

This visit of the French Ambassadors to London, headed by Francis de Bourbon, was considered a very important event. It was supposed that Elizabeth was really in earnest about the marriage with the Duke of Anjou, whose cause these Frenchmen had been commissioned by their Sovereign to plead. They were also to have a careful eye to his interests in the treaty they were to make with so shrewd a maiden lady as the Queen of England, who was known always to have the great question of money prominently before her in all her negotiations, matrimonial and otherwise.

The Earl of Arundel, Lord Windsor, Philip Sidney and Fulke Greville undertook to impress the visitors with a magnificent display worthy of the occasion which brought them to London.

In the tilt-yard at Whitehall, nearest to the Queen's windows, a 'Fortress of Perfect Beauty' was erected, and the four knights were to win it by force of arms.

All that the ingenuity of the artificers of the time could do was done. The Fortress of Beauty was made of canvas stretched on wooden poles, gaily painted with many quaint devices, and wreathed about with evergreens and garlands, which were suspended from the roof. It was erected on an artificial mound; and, as the day drew near, those who had to control the admission of the hundreds who clamoured to be allowed to be spectators of the tournament, were at their wit's end to gratify the aspirants for good places.

The ladies about the Court were, of course, well provided with seats in the temporary booths erected round the tilt-yard, and the Countess of Pembroke and her following of gentlewomen in attendance occupied a prominent position. Lady Mary Sidney and her youngest son, Thomas, were also present. Robert was in his brother's train. Lady Rich, blazing with diamonds, was the admired of many eyes – upon whose young, fair face might be seen the trace of that unsatisfied longing and discontent with her lot, for which the splendour of her jewels and richness of the lace of her embroidered bodice were but a poor compensation. Amongst Lady Pembroke's attendants there was one to whom all the show had the charm of novelty.

Lucy Forrester could scarcely believe that she was actually to be a witness of all the magnificence of which she had dreamed on the hillside above Penshurst. Her young heart throbbed with triumph as she saw Mistress Ratcliffe and Dorothy vainly struggling to gain admittance at one of the entrances, and at last, hustled and jostled, only allowed to stand on the steps of one of the booths by Humphrey's help, who was awaiting the signal from Philip's chief esquire to go and prepare his horse for the passage-of-arms.

Lucy had gone through some troubles that morning with Mistress Crawley, whom she did not find easy to please at any time, and who, seeing Lucy was in favour with the Countess of Pembroke, did her best to prevent her from taking too exalted a view of her own merits.

She had ordered that Lucy, as the youngest of the bower-women, should take a back bench in the booth, where it was difficult to see or to be seen, but Lady Pembroke had over-ruled this by saying, —

'There is room for all in the front row, good Crawley. Suffer Mistress Lucy to come forward.'

And then Lucy, beaming with delight, had a full view of the fortress, and found herself placed exactly opposite the window at which the Queen was to sit with her favourites to watch the show.

'Tell me, I pray you, the name of that grand lady whose jewels are flashing in the sunshine?'

Lucy said this to her companion, who bid her sit as close as she could, and not squeeze her hoop, and take care not to lean over the edge of the booth so as to obstruct her own view of the people who were rapidly filling up the seats.

'And forsooth, Mistress Forrester, you must not speak in a loud voice. It's country-bred manners to do so.'

Lucy pouted, but was presently consoled by a smile from Philip Sidney, who came across the yard to exchange a word with his sister, and to ask if his young brother was able to get a good view.

Lucy was much elated by that recognition, and her companion said in a low voice, —

'You ask who yonder lady is? Watch, now, and I'll tell you.' For Philip had, in returning, stopped before the booth where Lady Rich sat, and she had bent forward to speak to him. Only a few words passed, but when Philip had moved away there was a change in Lady Rich's face, and the lines of discontent and the restless glance of her dark eyes, seeking for admiration, were exchanged for a satisfied smile, which had something also of sadness in it.

'That lady is Lord Rich's wife, and Mr Sidney's love. He will never look with favour on anyone besides. The pity of it! And,' she added in a low voice, 'the shame too!'

'But, hush!' as Lucy was about to respond. 'We may be heard, and that would anger my lady, who has no cause to love my Lady Rich, and would not care to hear her spoken of in the same breath as Mr Sidney.'