The Last of the Barons — Complete

At the sight of the delicate beauty, the self-possessed expression, the courtly dress, the noble air of Sibyll, Nicholas Alwyn recoiled and turned pale; he no longer marvelled at her rejection of Marmaduke, and he started at the remembrance of the bold thoughts which he had dared himself to indulge.

The girl smiled at the young man’s confusion.

“It is not prosperity that spoils the heart,” she said touchingly, “unless it be mean indeed. Thou rememberest, Master Alwyn, that when God tried His saint, it was by adversity and affliction.”

“May thy trial in these last be over,” answered Alwyn; “but the humble must console their state by thinking that the great have their trials too; and, as our homely adage hath it, ‘That is not always good in the maw which is sweet in the mouth.’ Thou seest much of my gentle foster-brother, Mistress Sibyll?”

“But in the court dances, Master Alwyn; for most of the hours in which my lady duchess needs me not are spent here. Oh, my father hopes great things! and now at last fame dawns upon him.”

“I rejoice to hear it, mistress; and so, having paid ye both my homage, I take my leave, praying that I may visit you from time to time, if it be only to consult this worshipful master touching certain improvements in the horologe, in which his mathematics can doubtless instruct me. Farewell. I have some jewels to show to the Lady of Bonville.”

“The Lady of Bonville!” repeated Sibyll, changing colour; “she is a dame of notable loveliness.”

“So men say,—and mated to a foolish lord; but scandal, which spares few, breathes not on her,—rare praise for a court dame. Few Houses can have the boast of Lord Warwick’s,—‘that all the men are without fear, and all the women without stain.’”

“It is said,” observed Sibyll, looking down, “that my Lord Hastings once much affectioned the Lady Bonville. Hast thou heard such gossip?”

“Surely, yes; in the city we hear all the tales of the court; for many a courtier, following King Edward’s exemplar, dines with the citizen to-day, that he may borrow gold from the citizen to-morrow. Surely, yes; and hence, they say, the small love the wise Hastings bears to the stout earl.”

“How runs the tale? Be seated, Master Alwyn.”

“Marry, thus: when William Hastings was but a squire, and much favoured by Richard, Duke of York, he lifted his eyes to the Lady Katherine Nevile, sister to the Earl of Warwick, and in beauty and in dower, as in birth, a mate for a king’s son.”

“And, doubtless, the Lady Katherine returned his love?”

“So it is said, maiden; and the Earl of Salisbury her father and Lord Warwick her brother discovered the secret, and swore that no new man (the stout earl’s favourite word of contempt), though he were made a duke, should give to an upstart posterity the quarterings of Montagu and Nevile. Marry, Mistress Sibyll, there is a north country and pithy proverb, ‘Happy is the man whose father went to the devil.’ Had some old Hastings been a robber and extortioner, and left to brave William the heirship of his wickedness in lordships and lands, Lord Warwick had not called him ‘a new man.’ Master Hastings was dragged, like a serf’s son, before the earl on his dais; and be sure he was rated soundly, for his bold blood was up, and he defied the earl, as a gentleman born, to single battle. Then the earl’s followers would have fallen on him; and in those days, under King Henry, he who bearded a baron in his hall must have a troop at his back, or was like to have a rope round his neck; but the earl (for the lion is not as fierce as they paint him) came down from his dais, and said, ‘Man, I like thy spirit, and I myself will dub thee knight that I may pick up thy glove and give thee battle.’”

“And they fought? Brave Hastings!”

“No. For whether the Duke of York forbade it, or whether the Lady Katherine would not hear of such strife between fere and frere, I know not; but Duke Richard sent Hastings to Ireland, and, a month after, the Lady Katherine married Lord Bonville’s son and heir,—so, at least, tell the gossips and sing the ballad-mongers. Men add that Lord Hastings still loves the dame, though, certes, he knows how to console himself.”

“Loves her! Nay, nay,—I trove not,” answered Sibyll, in a low voice, and with a curl of her dewy lip.

At this moment the door opened gently and Lord Hastings himself entered. He came in with the familiarity of one accustomed to the place.

“And how fares the grand secret, Master Warner? Sweet mistress! thou seemest lovelier to me in this dark chamber than outshining all in the galliard. Ha! Master Alwyn, I owe thee many thanks for making me know first the rare arts of this fair emblazoner. Move me yon stool, good Alwyn.”

As the goldsmith obeyed, he glanced from Hastings to the blushing face and heaving bosom of Sibyll, and a deep and exquisite pang shot through his heart. It was not jealousy alone; it was anxiety, compassion, terror. The powerful Hastings, the ambitious lord, the accomplished libertine—what a fate for poor Sibyll, if for such a man the cheek blushed and the bosom heaved!

“Well, Master Warner,” resumed Hastings, “thou art still silent as to thy progress.”

The philosopher uttered an impatient groan. “Ah, I comprehend. The goldmaker must not speak of his craft before the goldsmith. Good Alwyn, thou mayest retire. All arts have their mysteries.”

Alwyn, with a sombre brow, moved to the door.

“In sooth,” he said, “I have overtarried, good my lord. The Lady Bonville will chide me; for she is of no patient temper.”

“Bridle thy tongue, artisan, and begone!” said Hastings, with unusual haughtiness and petulance.

“I stung him there,” muttered Alwyn, as he withdrew. “Oh, fool that I was to—nay, I thought it never, I did but dream it. What wonder we traders hate these silken lords! They reap, we sow; they trifle, we toil; they steal with soft words into the hearts which—Oh, Marmaduke, thou art right-right!—Stout men sit not down to weep beneath the willow. But she—the poor maiden—she looked so haughty and so happy. This is early May; will she wear that look when the autumn leaves are strewn?”

CHAPTER V. THE WOODVILLE INTRIGUE PROSPERS.—MONTAGU CONFERS WITH HASTINGS, VISITS THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, AND IS MET ON THE ROAD BY A STRANGE PERSONAGE

And now the one topic at the court of King Edward IV. was the expected arrival of Anthony of Burgundy, Count de la Roche, bastard brother of Charolois, afterwards, as Duke of Burgundy, so famous as Charles the Bold. Few, indeed, out of the immediate circle of the Duchess of Bedford’s confidants regarded the visit of this illustrious foreigner as connected with any object beyond the avowed one of chivalrous encounter with Anthony Woodville, the fulfilment of a challenge given by the latter two years before, at the time of the queen’s coronation. The origin of this challenge, Anthony Woodville Lord Scales has himself explained in a letter to the bastard, still extant, and of which an extract may be seen in the popular and delightful biographies of Miss Strickland. [Queens of England, vol. iii. p. 380] It seems that, on the Wednesday before Easter Day, 1465, as Sir Anthony was speaking to his royal sister, “on his knees,” all the ladies of the court gathered round him, and bound to his left knee a band of gold adorned with stones fashioned into the letters S. S. (souvenance or remembrance), and to this band was suspended an enamelled “Forget-me-not.” “And one of the ladies said that ‘he ought to take a step fitting for the times.’” This step was denoted by a letter on vellum, bound with a gold thread, placed in his cap; and having obtained the king’s permission to bring the adventure of the flower of souvenance to a conclusion, the gallant Anthony forwarded the articles and the enamelled flower to the Bastard of Burgundy, beseeching him to touch the latter with his knightly hand, in token of his accepting the challenge. The Count de la Roche did so, but was not sent by his brother amongst the knights whom Charolois despatched to England, and the combat had been suspended to the present time.

But now the intriguing Rivers and his duchess gladly availed themselves of so fair a pretext for introducing to Edward the able brother of Warwick’s enemy and the French prince’s rival, Charles of Burgundy; and Anthony Woodville, too gentle and knightly a person to have abetted their cunning projects in any mode less chivalrous, willingly consented to revive a challenge in honour of the ladies of England.

The only one amongst the courtiers who seemed dissatisfied with the meditated visit of the doughty Burgundian champion was the Lord Montagu. This penetrating and experienced personage was not to be duped by an affectation of that chivalry which, however natural at the court of Edward III., was no longer in unison with the more intriguing and ambitious times over which presided the luxurious husband of Elizabeth Woodville. He had noticed of late, with suspicion, that Edward had held several councils with the anti-Nevile faction, from which he himself was excluded. The king, who heretofore had delighted in his companionship, had shown him marks of coldness and estrangement; and there was an exulting malice in the looks of the Duchess of Bedford, which augured some approaching triumph over the great family which the Woodvilles so openly laboured to supplant. One day, as Marmaduke was loitering in the courtyard of the Tower, laughing and jesting with his friends, Lord Montagu, issuing from the king’s closet, passed him with a hurried step and a thoughtful brow. This haughty brother of the Earl of Warwick had so far attended to the recommendation of the latter, that he had with some courtesy excused himself to Marmaduke for his language in the archery-ground, and had subsequently, when seeing him in attendance on the king, honoured him with a stately nod, or a brief “Good morrow, young kinsman.” But as his eye now rested on Marmaduke, while the group vailed their bonnets to the powerful courtier, he called him forth, with a familiar smile he had never before assumed, and drawing him apart, and leaning on his shoulder, much to the envy of the standers by, he said caressingly,—

“Dear kinsman Guy—”

“Marmaduke, please you, my lord.”

“Dear kinsman Marmaduke, my brother esteems you for your father’s sake. And, sooth to say, the Neviles are not so numerous in court as they were. Business and state matters have made me see too seldom those whom I would most affect. Wilt thou ride with me to the More Park? I would present thee to my brother the archbishop.”

“If the king would graciously hold me excused.”

“The king, sir! when I—I forgot,” said Montagu, checking himself—“oh, as to that, the king stirs not out to-day! He hath with him a score of tailors and armourers in high council on the coming festivities. I will warrant thy release; and here comes Hastings, who shall confirm it.”

“Fair my lord!”—as at that moment Hastings emerged from the little postern that gave egress from the apartments occupied by the alchemist of the Duchess of Bedford—“wilt thou be pleased, in thy capacity of chamberlain, to sanction my cousin in a day’s absence? I would confer with him on family matters.”

“Certes, a small favour to so deserving a youth. I will see to his deputy.”

“A word with you, Hastings,” said Montagu, thoughtfully, and he drew aside his fellow courtier: “what thinkest thou of this Burgundy bastard’s visit?”

“That it has given a peacock’s strut to the popinjay Anthony Woodville.”

“Would that were all!” returned Montagu. “But the very moment that Warwick is negotiating with Louis of France, this interchange of courtesies with Louis’s deadly foe, the Count of Charolois, is out of season.”

“Nay, take it not so gravely,—a mere pastime.”

“Hastings, thou knowest better. But thou art no friend of my great brother.”

“Small cause have I to be so,” answered Hastings, with a quivering lip. “To him and your father I owe as deep a curse as ever fell on the heart of man. I have lived to be above even Lord Warwick’s insult. Yet young, I stand amongst the warriors and peers of England with a crest as haught and a scutcheon as stainless as the best. I have drunk deep of the world’s pleasures. I command, as I list, the world’s gaudy pomps, and I tell thee, that all my success in life countervails not the agony of the hour when all the bloom and loveliness of the earth faded into winter, and the only woman I ever loved was sacrificed to her brother’s pride.”

The large drops stood on the pale brow of the fortunate noble as he thus spoke, and his hollow voice affected even the worldly Montagu.

“Tush, Hastings!” said Montagu, kindly; “these are but a young man’s idle memories. Are we not all fated, in our early years, to love in vain?—even I married not the maiden I thought the fairest, and held the dearest. For the rest, bethink thee,—thou wert then but a simple squire.”

“But of as ancient and pure a blood as ever rolled its fiery essence through a Norman’s veins.”

“It may be so; but old Houses, when impoverished, are cheaply held. And thou must confess thou wert then no mate for Katherine. Now, indeed, it were different; now a Nevile might be proud to call Hastings brother.”

“I know it,” said Hastings, proudly,—“I know it, lord; and why? Because I have gold, and land, and the king’s love, and can say, as the Centurion, to my fellow-man, ‘Do this, and he doeth it;’ and yet I tell thee, Lord Montagu, that I am less worthy now the love of beauty, the right hand of fellowship from a noble spirit, than I was then, when—the simple squire—my heart full of truth and loyalty, with lips that had never lied, with a soul never polluted by unworthy pleasures or mean intrigues, I felt that Katherine Nevile should never blush to own her fere and plighted lord in William de Hastings. Let this pass, let it pass! You call me no friend to Warwick. True! but I am a friend to the king he has served, and the land of my birth to which he has given peace; and therefore, not till Warwick desert Edward, not till he wake the land again to broil and strife, will I mingle in the plots of those who seek his downfall. If in my office and stated rank I am compelled to countenance the pageant of this mock tournament, and seem to honour the coming of the Count de la Roche, I will at least stand aloof and free from all attempt to apply a gaudy pageant to a dangerous policy; and on this pledge, Montagu, I give you my knightly hand.”

“It suffices,” answered Montagu, pressing the hand extended to him. “But the other day I heard the king’s dissour tell him a tale of some tyrant, who silently showed a curious questioner how to govern a land, by cutting down, with his staff, the heads of the tallest poppies; and the Duchess of Bedford turned to me, and asked, ‘What says a Nevile to the application?’ ‘Faith, lady,’ said I, ‘the Nevile poppies have oak stems.’ Believe me, Hastings, these Woodvilles may grieve and wrong and affront Lord Warwick, but woe to all the pigmy goaders when the lion turns at bay!”

With this solemn menace, Montagu quitted Hastings, and passed on, leaning upon Marmaduke, and with a gloomy brow.

At the gate of the palace waited the Lord Montagu’s palfrey and his retinue of twenty squires and thirty grooms. “Mount, Master Marmaduke, and take thy choice among these steeds, for we shall ride alone. There is no Nevile amongst these gentlemen.” Marmaduke obeyed. The earl dismissed his retinue, and in little more than ten minutes,—so different, then, was the extent of the metropolis,—the noble and the squire were amidst the open fields.

They had gone several miles at a brisk trot before the earl opened his lips, and then, slackening his pace, he said abruptly, “How dost thou like the king? Speak out, youth; there are no eavesdroppers here.”

“He is a most gracious master and a most winning gentleman.”

“He is both,” said Montagu, with a touch of emotion that surprised Marmaduke; “and no man can come near without loving him. And yet, Marmaduke (is that thy name?)—yet whether it be weakness or falseness, no man can be sure of his king’s favour from day to day. We Neviles must hold fast to each other. Not a stick should be lost if the fagot is to remain unbroken. What say you?” and the earl’s keen eye turned sharply on the young man.

“I say, my lord, that the Earl of Warwick was to me patron, lord, and father, when I entered yon city a friendless orphan; and that, though I covet honours, and love pleasure, and would be loth to lift finger or speak word against King Edward, yet were that princely lord—the head of mine House—an outcast and a beggar, by his side I would wander, for his bread I would beg.”

“Young man,” exclaimed Montagu, “from this hour I admit thee to my heart! Give me thy hand. Beggar and outcast?—No! If the storm come, the meaner birds take to shelter, the eagle remains solitary in heaven!” So saying, he relapsed into silence, and put spurs to his steed. Towards the decline of day they drew near to the favourite palace of the Archbishop of York. There the features of the country presented a more cultivated aspect than it had hitherto worn. For at that period the lands of the churchmen were infinitely in advance of those of the laity in the elementary arts of husbandry, partly because the ecclesiastic proprietors had greater capital at their command, partly because their superior learning had taught them to avail themselves, in some measure, of the instructions of the Latin writers. Still the prevailing characteristic of the scenery was pasture land,—immense tracts of common supported flocks of sheep; the fragrance of new-mown hay breathed sweet from many a sunny field. In the rear stretched woods of Druid growth; and in the narrow lanes, that led to unfrequent farms and homesteads, built almost entirely either of wood or (more primitive still) of mud and clay, profuse weeds, brambles, and wild-flowers almost concealed the narrow pathway, never intended for cart or wagon, and arrested the slow path of the ragged horse bearing the scanty produce of acres to yard or mill. But though to the eye of an economist or philanthropist broad England now, with its variegated agriculture, its wide roads, its white-walled villas, and numerous towns, may present a more smiling countenance, to the early lover of Nature, fresh from the child-like age of poetry and romance, the rich and lovely verdure which gave to our mother-country the name of “Green England;” its wild woods and covert alleys, proffering adventure to fancy; its tranquil heaths, studded with peaceful flocks, and vocal, from time to time, with the rude scrannel of the shepherd,—had a charm which we can understand alone by the luxurious reading of our elder writers. For the country itself ministered to that mingled fancy and contemplation which the stirring and ambitious life of towns and civilization has in much banished from our later literature.

Even the thoughtful Montagu relaxed his brow as he gazed around, and he said to Marmaduke, in a gentle and subdued voice,—

“Methinks, young cousin, that in such scenes, those silly rhymes taught us in our childhood of the green woods and the summer cuckoos, of bold Robin and Maid Marian, ring back in our ears. Alas that this fair land should be so often dyed in the blood of her own children! Here, how the thought shrinks from broils and war,—civil war, war between brother and brother, son and father! In the city and the court, we forget others overmuch, from the too keen memory of ourselves.”

Scarcely had Montagu said these words, before there suddenly emerged from a bosky lane to the right a man mounted upon a powerful roan horse. His dress was that of a substantial franklin; a green surtout of broadcloth, over a tight vest of the same colour, left, to the admiration of a soldierly eye, an expanse of chest that might have vied with the mighty strength of Warwick himself. A cap, somewhat like a turban, fell in two ends over the left cheek, till they touched the shoulder, and the upper part of the visage was concealed by a half-vizard, not unfrequently worn out of doors with such head-gear, as a shade from the sun. Behind this person rode, on a horse equally powerful, a man of shorter stature, but scarcely less muscular a frame, clad in a leathern jerkin, curiously fastened with thongs, and wearing a steel bonnet, projecting far over the face.

The foremost of these strangers, coming thus unawares upon the courtiers, reined in his steed, and said in a clear, full voice, “Good evening to you, my masters. It is not often that these roads witness riders in silk and pile.”

“Friend,” quoth the Montagu, “may the peace we enjoy under the White Rose increase the number of all travellers through our land, whether in pile or russet!”

“Peace, sir!” returned the horseman, roughly,—“peace is no blessing to poor men, unless it bring something more than life,—the means to live in security and ease. Peace hath done nothing for the poor of England. Why, look you towards yon gray tower,—the owner is, forsooth, gentleman and knight; but yesterday he and his men broke open a yeoman’s house, carried off his wife and daughters to his tower, and refuseth to surrender them till ransomed by half the year’s produce on the yeoman’s farm.”

“A caitiff and illegal act,” said Montagu.

“Illegal! But the law will notice it not,—why should it? Unjust, if it punish the knight and dare not touch the king’s brother!”

“How, sir?”

“I say the king’s brother! Scarcely a month since, twenty-four persons under George Duke of Clarence entered by force a lady’s house, and seized her jewels and her money, upon some charge, God wot, of contriving mischief to the boy-duke. [See for this and other instances of the prevalent contempt of law in the reign of Edward IV., and, indeed, during the fifteenth century, the extracts from the Parliamentary Rolls, quoted by Sharon Turner, “History of England,” vol. iii. p. 399.] Are not the Commons ground by imposts for the queen’s kindred? Are not the king’s officers and purveyors licensed spoilers and rapiners? Are not the old chivalry banished for new upstarts? And in all this, is peace better than war?”

“Knowest thou not that these words are death, man?”

“Ay, in the city! but in the fields and waste thought is free. Frown not, my lord. Ah, I know you, and the time may come when the baron will act what the franklin speaks. What! think you I see not the signs of the storm? Are Warwick and Montagu more safe with Edward than they were with Henry? Look to thyself! Charolois will outwit King Louis, and ere the year be out, the young Margaret of England will be lady of your brave brother’s sternest foe!”

“And who art thou, knave?” cried Montagu, aghast, and laying his gloved hand on the bold prophet’s bridle.

“One who has sworn the fall of the House of York, and may live to fight, side by side, in that cause with Warwick; for Warwick, whatever be his faults, has an English heart, and loves the Commons.”

Montagu, uttering an exclamation of astonishment, relaxed hold of the franklin’s bridle; and the latter waved his hand, and spurring his steed across the wild chain of commons, disappeared with his follower.

“A sturdy traitor!” muttered the earl, following him with his eye. “One of the exiled Lancastrian lords, perchance. Strange how they pierce into our secrets! Heardst thou that fellow, Marmaduke?”

“Only in a few sentences, and those brought my hand to my dagger. But as thou madest no sign, I thought his grace the king could not be much injured by empty words.”

“True! and misfortune has ever a shrewish tongue.”

“An’ it please you, my lord,” quoth Marmaduke, “I have seen the man before, and it seemeth to me that he holds much power over the rascal rabble.” And here Marmaduke narrated the attack upon Warner’s house, and how it was frustrated by the intercession of Robin of Redesdale.

“Art thou sure it is the same man, for his face was masked?”