Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century

During the year which followed these haps mine aunt died, and Mr. Congleton sold his house in Ely Place, and took a small one in Gray's Inn Lane, near to Mr. Wells's and Mr. Lacy's. It had no garden, nor the many conveniences the other did afford; but neither Muriel nor myself did lament the change, for the vicinity of these good friends did supply the place of other advantages; and it also liked me more, whilst Basil lived in poverty abroad, to inhabit a less sumptuous abode than heretofore, and dispense with accustomed luxuries. Of Hubert I could hear but scanty tidings at that time – only that he had either lost or resigned his place at court? Mr. Hodgson was told by one who had been his servant that he had been reconciled; others said he did lead a very disordered life, and haunted bad persons. The truth or falsity of these statements I could not then discern; but methinks, from what I have since learnt, both might be partly true; for he became subject to fits of gloom, and so discomfortable a remorse as almost unsettled his reason; and then, at other times, plunged into worldly excesses for to drown thoughts of the past. He was frightened, I ween, or leastways distrustful of the society of good men, but consorted with Catholics of somewhat desperate character and fortunes, and such as dealt in plots and treasonable schemes.

Father Campion's arrest for a very different cause – albeit his enemies did seek to attach to him the name traitor – occurred this year at Mrs. Yates's house in Worcestershire, and consternated the hearts of all recusants; but when he came to London, and speech was had of him by many amongst them which gained access to him in prison, and reported to others his great courage and joyfulness in the midst of suffering, then, methinks, a contagious spirit spread amongst Catholics, and conversions followed which changed despondency into rejoicing. But I will not here set down the manner of his trial, nor the wonderful marks of patience and constancy which he showed under torments and rackings, nor his interview with her majesty at my lord Leicester's house, nor the heroic patience of his death; for others with better knowledge thereof, and pens more able for to do it, have written this martyr's life and glorious end. But I will rather relate such events as took place, as it were, under mine own eye, and which are not, I ween, so extensively known. And first, I will speak of a conversation I held at that time with a person then a stranger, and therefore of no great significancy when it occurred, but which later did assume a sudden importance, when it became linked with succeeding events.

One day that I was visiting at Lady Ingoldsby's, where Polly and her husband had come for to spend a few weeks, and much company was going in and out, the faces and names of which were new to me, some gentlemen came there whose dress attracted notice from the French fashion thereof. One of them was a young man of very comely appearance and pleasant manners, albeit critical persons might have judged somewhat of' the bravado belonged to his attitudes and speeches, but withal tempered with so much gentleness and courtesy, that no sooner had the eye and mind taken note of the defect than the judgment was repented of. What in one of less attractive face and behavior should have displeased, in this youth did not offend. It was my hap to sit beside him at supper, which lasted a long time; and as his behavior was very polite, I freely conversed with him, and found him to be English, though from long residence abroad his tongue had acquired a foreign trick. When I told him I had thought he was a Frenchman, he laughed, and said if the French did ever try to land in England, they should find him to be a very Englishman for to fight against them; but in the matter of dinners and beds, and the liking of a dear sunny sky over above a dim cloudy one, he did confess himself to be so much of a traitor as to prefer France to England, and he could not abide the smoke of coal fires which are used in this country.

"And what say you, sir," I answered, "to the new form of smoke which Sir Walter Raleigh hath introduced since his return from the late discovered land of Virginia?"

He said he had learnt the use of it in France, and must needs confess he found it to be very pleasant. Monsieur Nicot had brought some seeds of tobacco into France, and so much liking did her majesty Queen Catharine conceive for this practice of smoking, that the new plant went by the name of the queen's herb. "It is not gentlemen alone who do use a pipe in France," he said, "but ladies also. What doth the fair sex in England think on it?"

"I have heard," I answered, "that her majesty herself did try for to smoke, but presently gave it up, for that it made her sick. Her highness is also reported to have lost a wager concerning that same smoking of tobacco."

"What did her grace bet?" the gentleman asked.

"Why, she was one day," I replied, "inquiring very exactly of the various virtues of this herb, and Sir Walter did assure her that no one understood them better than himself, for he was so well acquainted with all its qualities, that he could even tell her majesty the weight of the smoke of every pipeful he consumed. Her highness upon this said, 'Monsieur Traveller, you do go too far in putting on me the license which is allowed to such as return from foreign parts;' and she laid a wager of many pieces of gold he should not be able to prove his words. So he weighed in her presence the tobacco before he put it into his pipe, and the ashes after he had consumed it, and convinced her majesty that the deficiency did proceed from the evaporation thereof. So then she paid the bet, and merrily told him 'that she knew of many persons who had turned their gold into smoke, but he was the first who had turned smoke into gold.'"

The young gentleman being amused at this story, I likewise told him of Sir Walter's hap when he first returned to England, and was staying in a friend's house: how a servant coming into his chamber with a tankard of ale and nutmeg toast, and seeing him for the first time with a lighted pipe in his mouth puffing forth clouds of smoke, flung the ale in his face for to extinguish the internal conflagration, and then running down the stairs alarmed the family with dismal cries that the good knight was on fire, and would be burnt into ashes before they could come to his aid.

My unknown companion laughed, and said he had once on his travels been taken for a sorcerer, so readily doth ignorance imagine wonders. "Near unto Metz, in France," quoth he, "I fell among thieves. My money I had quilted within my doublet, which they took from me, howsoever leaving me the rest of my apparel, wherein I do acknowledge their courtesy, since thieves give all they take not; but twenty-five French crowns, for the worst event, I had lapped in cloth, and whereupon did wind divers-colored threads, wherein I sticked needles, as if I had been so good a husband as to mend mine own clothes. Messieurs the thieves were not so frugal to take my ball to mend their hose, but did tread it under their feet. I picked it up with some spark of joy, and I and my guide (he very sad, because he despaired of my ability to pay him his hire) went forward to Chalons, where he brought me to a poor ale-house, and when I expostulated, he replied that stately inns were not for men who had never a penny in their purses; but I told him that I looked for comfort in that case more from gentlemen than clowns; whereupon he, sighing, obeyed me, and with a dejected and fearful countenance brought me to the chief inn, where he ceased not to bewail my misery as if it had been the burning of Troy; till the host, despairing of my ability to pay him, began to look disdainfully on me. The next morning, when, he being to return home, I paid him his hire, which he neither asked nor expected, and likewise mine host for lodgings and supper, he began to talk like one mad for joy, and professed I could not have had one penny except I were an alchemist or had a familiar spirit."

I thanked the young gentleman for this entertaining anecdote, and asked him if France was not a very disquieted country, and nothing in it but wars and fighting.

"Yea," he answered; "but men fight there so merrily, that it appears more a pastime than aught else. Not always so, howsoever. When Frenchman meets Frenchman in the fair fields of Provence, and those of the League and those of the Religion – God confound the first and bless the last! – engage in battle, such encounters ensue as have not their match for fierceness in the world. By my troth, the sight of dead bodies doth not ordinarily move me; but the valley of Allemagne on the day of the great Huguenot victory was a sight the like of which I would not choose to look on again, an I could help it."

"Were you, then, present at that combat, sir?" I asked.

"Yea," he replied; "I was at that time with Lesdiguières, the Protestant general, whom I had known at La Rochelle, and beshrew me if a more valiant soldier doth live, or a worthier soul in a stalwart frame. I was standing by his side when Tourves the butcher came for to urge him, with his three hundred men, to ride over the field and slay the wounded papists. 'No, sir,' quoth the general, 'I fight men, but hunt them not down.' The dead were heaped many feet thick on the plain, and the horses of the Huguenots waded to their haunches in blood. Those of the Religion were mad at the death of the Baron of Allemagne, the general of their southern churches, brave castellane, who, when the fight was done, took off his helmet for to cool his burning forehead; and lo, a shot sent him straight into eternity."

"The Catholics were then wholly routed?" I asked.

"Yea," he answered; "mowed down like grass in the hay-harvest. De Vins, however, escaped. He thought to have had a cheap victory over those of the Religion; but the saints in heaven, to whom he trusted, never told him that Lesdiguières on the one side and d'Allemagne on the other were hastening to the rescue, nor that his Italian horsemen should fail him in his need. So, albeit the papists fought like devils, as they are, his pride got a fall, which well-nigh killed him. He was riding frantically back into the fray for to get himself slain, when St. Cannat seized his bridle, and called him a coward, so I have heard, to dare for to die when his scattered troops had need of him; and so carried him off the field. D'Oraison, Janson, Pontmez, hotly pursued them, but in vain; and all the Protestant leaders, except Lesdiguières, returned that night to the castle of Allemagne for to bury the baron."

A sort of shiver passed through the young gentleman's frame as he uttered these last words.

"A sad burial you then witnessed?" I said.

"I pray God," he answered, "never to witness another such."

"What was the horror of it?" I asked.

"Would you hear it?" he inquired.

"Yea," I said, "most willingly; for methinks I see what you describe."

Then he: "If it be so, peradventure you may not thank me for this describing; for I warrant you it was a fearful sight. I had lost mine horse, and so was forced to spend the night at the castle. When it grew dark I followed the officers, which, with a great store of the men, also descended into the vault, which was garnished all round with white and warlike sculptured forms on tombstones, most grim in their aspect; and amidst those stone imager, grim and motionless, the soldiers ranged themselves, still covered with blood and dust, and leaning on their halberds. In the midst was the uncovered coffin of the baron, his livid visage exposed to view – menacing even in death. Torches threw a fitful, red-colored light over the scene. A minister which accompanied the army stood and preached at the coffin's head, and when he had ended his sermon, sang in a loud voice, in French verse, the psalm which doth begin,

  'Du fond de ma pensée,  Du fond de tous enuuis,  A tol s'est adressé  Ma clamear jour et nult.'

When this singing began two soldiers led up to the tomb a man with bound hands and ghastly pale face, and, when the verse ended, shot him through the head. The corpse fell upon the ground, and the singing began anew. Twelve times this did happen, till my head waxed giddy and I became faint. I was led out of that vault with the horrible singing pursuing me, as if I should never cease to hear it."

"Oh, 'tis fearful," I exclaimed, "that men can do such deeds, and the while have God's name on their lips."

"The massacre of St. Bartholomew," he answered, "hath driven those of the Religion mad against the papists."

"But, sir," I asked, "is it not true that six thousand Catholics in Languedoc had been murthered in cold blood, and a store of them in other places, before that massacre?"

"May I be so," he answered in a careless tone. "The shedding of blood, except in a battle or lawful duel, I abhor; but verily I do hate papists with as great a hate as any Huguenot in France, and most of all those in this country – a set of knavish traitors, which would dethrone the queen and sell the realm to the Spaniards."

I could not but sigh at these words, for in this young man's countenance a quality of goodness did appear which made me grieve that he should utter these unkind words touching Catholics. But I dared not for to utter my thinking or disprove his accusations, for, being ignorant of his name, I had a reasonable fear of being ensnared into some talk which should show me to be a papist, and he should prove to be a spy. But patience failed me when, after speaking of the clear light of the gospel which England enjoyed, and to lament that in Ireland none are found of the natives to have cast off the Roman religion, he said:

"I ween this doth not proceed from their constancy in religion, but rather from the lenity of Protestants, which think that the conscience must not be forced, and seek rather to touch and persuade than to oblige by fire and sword, like those of the south, who persecute their own subjects differing from them in religion."

"Sir," I exclaimed, "this is a strange thing indeed, that Protestants do lay a claim to so great mildness in their dealings with recusants, and yet such strenuous laws against such are framed that they do live in fear of their lives, and are daily fined and tormented for their profession."

"How so?" he said, quickly. "No papist hath been burnt in this country."

"No, sir," I answered; "but a store of them have been hanged and cut to pieces whilst yet alive."

"Nay, nay," he cried, "not for their religion, but for their many treason."

"Sir," I answered, "their religion is made treason by unjust laws, and then punished with the penalties of treason; and they die for no other cause than their faith, by the same token that each of those which have perished on the scaffold had his life offered to him if so he would torn Protestant."

In the heat of this argument I had forgot prudence; and some unkindly ears and eyes were attending to my speech, which this young stranger perceiving, he changed the subject of discourse – I ween with a charitable intent – and merrily exclaimed, "Now I have this day transgressed a wise resolve."

"What resolve?" I said, glad also to retreat from dangerous subjects.

'"This," he answered: "that after my return I would sparingly, and not without entreaty, relate my journeys and observations."

"Then, sir," I replied, "methinks you have contrariwise observed it, for your observations have been short and pithy, and withal uttered at mine entreaty."

"Nothing," he said, "I so much fear as to resemble men – and many such I have myself known – who have scarce seen the lions of the Tower and the bears of Parish Garden, but they must engross all a table in talking of their adventures, as if they had passed the Pillars of Hercules. Nothing could be asked which they could not resolve of their own knowledge."

"Find you, sir," I said, "much variety in the manners of French people and those you see in this country?"

He smiled, and answered, "We must not be too nice observers of men and manners, and too easily praise foreign customs and despise our own – not so much that we may not offend others, as that we may not be ourselves offended by others. I will yield you an example. A Frenchman, being a curious observer of ceremonious compliments, when he hath saluted one, and began to entertain him with speech, if he chance to espy another man, with whom he hath very great business, yet will he not leave the first man without a solemn excuse. But an Englishman discoursing with any man – I mean in a house or chamber of presence, not merely in the street – if he spy another man with whom he hath occasion to speak, will suddenly, without any excuse, turn from the first man and go and converse with the other, and with like negligence will leave and take new men for discourse; which a Frenchman would take in ill part, as an argument of disrespect. This fashion, and many other like niceties and curiosities in use in one country, we must forget when we do pass into another. For lack of this prudence I have seen men on their return home tied to these foreign manners themselves, and finding that others observe not the like toward them, take everything for an injury, as if they were disrespected, and so are often enraged."

"What think you of the dress our ladies do wear?" I inquired of this young traveller.

He smiled, and answered:

"I like our young gentlewomen's gowns, and their aprons of fine linen, and their little hats of beaver; but why have they left wearing the French sleeves, borne out with hoops of whalebone, and the French hood of velvet, set with a border of gold buttons and pearls? Methinks English ladies are too fond of jewels and diamond rings. They scorn plain gold rings, I find, and chains of gold."

"Yea," I said, "ladies of rank wear only rich chains of pearl, and all their jewels must needs be oriental and precious. If any one doth choose to use a simple chain or a plain-set brooch, she is marked for wearing old-fashioned gear."

"This remindeth me," he said, "of a pleasant fable, that Jupiter sent a shower, wherein whosoever was wet became a fool, and that all the people were wet in this shower, excepting one philosopher, who kept his study; but in the evening coming forth into the market-place, and finding that all the people marked him as a fool, who was only wise, he was forced to pray for another shower, that he might become a fool, and so live quietly among fools rather than bear the envy of his wisdom."

With this pleasant story our conversation ended, for supper was over, and the young gentleman soon went away. I asked of many persons who he should be, but none could tell me. Polly, the next day, said he was a youth lately returned from France (which was only what I knew before), and that Sir Nicholas Throckmorton had written a letter to Lady Ingoldsby concerning him, but his name she had forgot. O what strange haps, more strange than any in books, do at times form the thread of a true history! what presentiments in some cases, what ignorance in others, beset us touching coming events!

The next pages will show the ground of these reflections.

CHAPTER XXV

One day that Mrs. Wells was somewhat disordered, and keeping her room, and I was sitting with her, her husband came to fetch me into the parlor to an old acquaintance, he said, who was very desirous for to see me. "Who is it?" I asked; but he would not tell me, only smiled; my foolish thinking supposed for one instant that it might be Basil he spoke of, but the first glance showed me a slight figure and pale countenance, very different to his whom my witless hopes had expected for to see, albeit without the least shadow of reason. I stood looking at this stranger in a hesitating manner, who perceiving I did not know him, held out his hand, and said,

"Has Mistress Constance forgotten her old playfellow?"

"Edmund Genings!" I exclaimed, suddenly guessing it to be him.

"Yea," he said, "your old friend Edmund."

"Mr. Ironmonger is this reverend gentleman's name now-a-days," Mr. Wells said; and then we all three sat down, and by degrees in Edmund's present face I discerned the one I remembered in former years. The same kind and reflective aspect, the pallid hue, the upward-raised eye, now with less of searching in its gaze, but more, I ween, of yearning for an unearthly home.

"O dear and reverend sir," I said, "strange it doth seem indeed thus to address you, but God knoweth I thank him for the honor he hath done my old playmate in the calling of him unto his service in these perilous times."

"Yea," he answered, with emotion, "I do owe him much, which life itself should not be sufficient to repay."

"My good father," I said, "some time before his death gave me a token in a letter that you were in England. Where have you been all this time?"

"Tell us the manner of your landing," quoth Mr. Wells; "for this is the great ordeal which, once overpassed, lets you into the vineyard, for to work for one hour only sometimes, or else to bear many years the noontide heat and nipping frosts which laborers like unto yourself have to endure."

"Well," said Edmund, "ten months ago we took shipping at Honfleur, and, wind and weather being propitious, sailed along the coast of England, meaning to have landed in Essex; but for our sakes the master of the bark lingered, when we came in sight of land, until two hours within night, and being come near unto Scarborough, what should happen but that a boat with pirates or rovers in it comes out to surprise us, and shoots at us divers times with muskets! But we came by no harm; for the wind being then contrary, the master turned his ship and sailed back into the main sea, where in very foul weather we remained three days, and verily I thought to have then died of sea-sickness; which ailment should teach a man humility, if anything in this world can do it, stripping him as it does of all boastfulness of his own courage and strength, so that he would cry mercy if any should offer only to move him."

"Ah!" cried Mr. Wells, laughing, "Topcliffe should bethink himself of this new torment for papists, for to leave a man in this plight until he acknowledged the queen's supremacy should be an artful device of the devil."

"At last," quoth Mr. Genings, "we landed, with great peril to our lives, on the side of a high cliff near Whitby, in Yorkshire, and reached that town in the evening. Going into an inn to refresh ourselves, which I promise you we sorely needed, who should we meet with there but one Radcliff?"

"Ah! a noted pursuivant," cried Mr. Wells, "albeit not so topping a one as his chief."

"Ah!" I cried, "good Mr. Wells, that is but a poor pun, I promise you. A better one you must frame before night, or you will lose your reputation. The queen's last effort hath more merit in it than yours, who, when she was angry with her envoy to Spain, said, 'If her royal brother had sent her a goose-man,4 she had sent him in return a man-goose.'"

Mr. Genings smiled, and said:

"Well, this same Radcliff took an exact survey of us all, questioned us about our arrival in that place, whence we came, and whither we were going. We told him we were driven thither by the tempest, and at last, by evasive answers, satisfied him. Then we all went to the house of a Catholic gentleman in the neighborhood, which was within two or three miles of Whitby, and by him were directed some to one place, some to another, according to our own desires. Mr. Plasden and I kept together; but, for fear of suspicion, we determined at last to separate also, and singly to commit ourselves to the protection of God and his good angels. Soon after we had thus resolved, we came to two fair beaten was, the one leading north-east, the other south-east, and even then and there, it being in the night, we stopped and both fell down on our knees and made a short prayer together that God of his infinite mercy would vouchsafe to direct us, and send us both a peaceable passage into the thickest of his vineyard."

Here Mr. Genings paused, a little moved by the remembrance of that parting, but in a few minutes exclaimed:

"I have not seen that dear friend since, rising from our knees, we embraced each other with tears trickling down our cheeks; but the words he said to me then I shall never, methinks, forget. 'Seeing,' quoth, he, 'we must now part through fear of our enemies, and for greater security, farewell, sweet brother in Christ and most loving companion. God grant that, as we have been friends in one college and companions in one wearisome and dangerous journey, so we may have one merry meeting once again in this world, to our great comfort, if it shall please him, even amongst our greatest adversaries; and that as we undertake, for his love and holy name's sake, this course of life together, so he will of his infinite goodness and clemency make us partakers of one hope, one sentence, one death, and one reward. And also as we began, so may we end together in Christ Jesus.' So he; and then not being able to speak one word more for grief and tears, we departed in mutual silence; he directing his journey to London, where he was born, and I northward."