Читать книгу Prince and Heretic - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 10

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After the third day of tourney had completed the marriage festivities, the Prince of Orange, his bride, and their train—swelled now by Anne's attendants—set out for Brussels.

Vanderlinden was among the magnificent assembly who wished them God-speed, and he found occasion to hand Rénée le Meung a charm in the shape of the figure seven cut in jade and set with little studs of gold. This would, he said, keep her from harm while she resided in Brussels, for seven was the lucky number of that city which was under the direct influence of the seven planets, and owned seven churches, seven gates, and seven senators.

Rénée thanked him with tears in her eyes and a sad smile on her lips as she turned to leave the land that had been a refuge, even if in exile, and set her face towards her own country which was so full of peril for her and contained unutterable memories.

Already, from those in the Prince's train and from such Saxons as had been in Brussels, she had heard much of the state of affairs in the Low Countries. The Inquisition, which the late Emperor had established in the Netherlands, had always been resisted, notably in Brabant (into two of the provinces it had never been introduced), with such effect that, though an avowed heretic (as was Rénée's father) was certain to be apprehended, yet many who were not of the orthodox faith had managed to live quietly and unmolested. Now, however, it was being enforced with great severity by Philip's orders and Granvelle's warm support, and the chief Inquisitor, Peter Titelmann, was performing his office with the ruthlessness and cruelty of Torquemada himself.

Every one even suspected of heresy, anyone who did not bow low enough when the Host passed, anyone who read the Bible or ventured to criticize the priests or preach any contrary doctrines, was at once seized by Titelmann, accused before his secret Tribunal from which there was no appeal, tortured to force a confession, and finally put to death in the most horrid fashion the monks could devise.

Already this monstrous tyranny was spreading over the Low Countries with a combined force and power impossible to resist, the religious force of the Pope, the secular force of the King behind it. Already Titelmann, Granvelle, the Regent, the King, were rejoicing that they were tearing up by the roots the seed that Martin Luther had planted; already some of the most splendid and prosperous towns in Europe were being devastated with executions, fines, confiscations, and the spectacle of tortured men, women, and children flung living into the flames with Marot's hymns on their lips and the light of undiminished faith in their eyes.

And this was only the beginning.

There was no length to which the King was not prepared to go to re-establish the pure Catholic faith in his dominions. He was willing to depopulate cities, render barren the countryside, ruin the trade from which he drew so handsome a revenue, force into revolt the people who had been his father's faithful subjects—in brief, to utterly destroy and scatter one of the bravest, most prosperous, most intelligent, most thrifty nations of Europe rather than see them tainted with the doctrines of Luther or Calvin.

And to this resolve Cardinal Granvelle gave his enthusiastic support.

Rénée heard enough of the prelate to realize that he was nearly as dreaded and disliked as Titelmann himself, and that to him was ascribed the enforcing of the Inquisition and the creation of the hated new bishoprics by which the supremacy of the true faith was to be enforced and the organization of the Inquisition maintained. It was from the creation of these bishoprics and his own elevation to the See of Mechlin and then to the Cardinal's Hat, that the growth of the breach between Anthony Perrenot and his one-time patron, the Prince of Orange, might be traced; and Rénée learnt that William, together with Lamoral Egmont, Prince of Gravern and Stadtholder of Artois and Flanders (abetted by Philip de Montmorency, Count Hoorne, then at the Spanish Court), had actually written a letter to Philip protesting against the increasing insolence and presumption of the Cardinal, and that the King on receiving the message had warmly defended Granvelle, and so abused Count Hoorne that that nobleman had hardly been able, from wrath and amazement, to leave the royal presence. These circumstances, which were common talk in the Netherlands, and rousing immense interest and speculation, caused Rénée to regard her new master with added curiosity, with a growing respect; from the first moment she had seen him she had felt his charm, now she began to surmise his power.

Along the journey she marked his patience, gentleness, and courtesy with Anne's unreasonable jealous affection, peevish tempers, and fits of hysteric gloom. Some of the other women laughed at so much softness, but Rénée admired this gentleness in one whom she knew could be masterful and believed could be fierce, but it had the effect of rousing her former half-compassionate indifference towards Anne into active dislike.

Never had the sickly bad-tempered girl seemed so hateful to Rénée as she did now when plaguing the husband she professed to adore, chattering over her coming triumphs in Brussels, and boasting of her new rank and dignities. She seemed to see in the magnificent and tumultuous scene on to which she was about to enter only a stage on which to display her own enormous vanity, and her infinite petty questions and speculations as to her position in relation to the Regent and the ladies of her Court fatigued Rénée almost beyond endurance, for the waiting-woman's mind was full of the great problems now agitating her native country, and of the coming struggle between Prince and Cardinal, of which Anne was so entirely in ignorance.

When they reached the beautiful plains of Brabant, and the hill-built capital, Anne fell ill from the excess of her own spleen and passions, and it was on a litter that she was carried into her husband's gorgeous home on the heights of Brussels.

This was an establishment that filled Rénée with astonishment, and was indeed much more splendid then even the Saxon Princess had ever expected.

Situated in the most beautiful part of the ornate and rich city, and amid the residences of other great nobles, the Nassau palace formed a fitting scene for the festivals, the hospitality, the pageants provided by one of the most wealthy and generous Princes in Europe.

The turreted and gabled mansion, crowned by a tower or belfry, and built in the most elaborate style of Gothic art, stood in fine gardens filled with statues, fountains, pleasant walks, exotic shrubs, summer-houses, and fishponds, all laid out at great expense and lavishly maintained.

The rooms, halls, galleries, and cabinets were most handsomely and luxuriously furnished with all the famous rich splendour of the Netherlands; tapestries, hangings, pictures by the most renowned artists; carpets, rugs, objects from the East and the Indies; all the ornate beauty that taste could desire and wealth execute, distinguished the dwelling of the Prince of Orange.

The household, with stewards, secretaries, clerks, musicians, chaplains, falconers, huntsmen, gardeners, cooks, valets, pages, servants, and now augmented by Anne's women, amounted to over a thousand persons, and one of the most lavish and famous features of the establishment was the perpetual banquet kept in one of the halls, from which extravagant hospitality was indiscriminately extended to all comers at any hour of the day and night. The dishes, fruits, confectionery, and wines were constantly replenished, but never removed.

In this household, beside which that of the Elector was simple indeed, Rénée felt herself utterly alien and overwhelmed; but during the first days of her residence there, while in attendance on Anne's nervous illness, she observed, as closely as she was able, him who had already so excited her curiosity, namely, the Prince.

She found he was good-tempered with all, loved by all, extravagant, reckless of his own interests, and very much the master.

From her high window, round which the pigeons flew, she would wait for a glimpse of those who came to wait on him: Egmont, the Stadtholder of Artois and Flanders, as magnificent a lord as William himself, and of almost as proud and ancient descent; Count Hoorne, another great seigneur, but a sombre and gloomy man; Brederode, handsome, reckless, usually inflamed with wine; Count Hoorne's brother, the Seigneur de Montigny; and De la Marck, the Seigneur de Lumey,

And Rénée soon perceived that these great nobles were all animated with one object, and that object hatred of Cardinal Granvelle.

How far the Prince was heading these malcontents she could not tell; she noticed that though he was so gay, and appeared so open, he was not reckless in speech, and she divined that he was reserved and prudent in all serious matters; she believed, too, that his position was difficult, even perilous. If so, certainly his new wife contributed nothing to soothe either difficulties or perils; indeed, her behaviour would have hampered any man. In her vanity and arrogance she was ungracious to his friends; she quarrelled with Egmont's wife, who was the sister of the Elector Palatine, on the question of precedence; and she chose to consider herself injured because the Regent kept her waiting when she first went to pay her duty.

But though she was behaving like a fretful child, she could not fail to be an important pawn in the great game that was beginning to be played in the Netherlands, and Rénée wondered who would try to rouse her to a sense of her position, for at present she was showing capricious favour to the Cardinal's party by patronizing the wives of his creatures, Aerschot and Barlaymont.

The warning, or advice, came most unexpectedly from Sabina of Bavaria, Countess of Egmont, Princess of Gravern—the lady whose only previous acquaintance with Anne had been haughty disputes as to their order of precedency.

But Egmont's wife was not the woman to endanger her husband's interests by feminine vanities; she came personally to offer her friendship to Anne and to instil the good counsel the Saxon Princess so sorely needed.

Anne, though tolerably flattered at the visit, received her rival with the haughtiness she deemed due to her station, retaining with her Rénée and a little German girl who waited on her, and barely rising when the Countess (she was generally known, as was her husband, by her prouder title of Egmont) entered her presence.

Rénée had been told by her mistress that Sabina of Bavaria was an old woman, ill-favoured, but the waiting-woman found that the Countess was as splendid as Anne was mean, as courtly as Anne was rude, as fascinating as Anne was unattractive. After the first few moments of commonplace compliments, it was plain that the Princess of Orange did not know how to behave; she sat in the window-seat eating nuts, which she held in the lap of her brilliant blue satin gown, and the shells of which she cast from her window.

The Countess of Egmont, leaning back in her dark chair, her delicate tired face framed in the high rich ruff, her soft hair threaded with pearls, in all graceful, composed, and gracious, surveyed the Princess through half-closed long eyes and, seeing that all subtlety would be wasted on Anne, came directly to the point.

"Your Highness has already some knowledge of how matters stand in Brussels?" she asked.

"None at all," replied Anne flippantly.

"Naturally Your Highness has had little opportunity," said the Countess pleasantly. "I have been some while at the Court and can enlighten you on some particulars."

"It is best for ladies not to meddle in these matters," remarked Anne.

"Truly, we women play a poor small part in these great affairs," smiled the other lady. "None the less we may be of some use and help. You have observed the great discontent there is against Cardinal Granvelle, how all the seigneurs are against him, especially your lord and mine?"

"The Prince does not talk business with me," said Anne.

The Countess bit her pretty lip.

"I speak as a sister of a Protestant to a Protestant," she continued. "Your ladies are of the Reformed Faith?" she added, glancing at Rénée and the other girl.

"Oh yes," said the Princess, roused at last, "but I assure Your Grace that we shall give no trouble. I have promised to live Catholicly, and I will keep my word."

"I did not mean to speak of that," returned the Countess gently, "only to say that his princely Highness, your husband, has always been considered too lenient to those of the Reformed Faith, has always Count Louis with him, and continually others of his relations who are Lutheran, and this has been used as a handle against him by the Cardinalists, and will be even more so now that he has a Protestant wife."

"And what is the upshot of this speech?" asked Anne, hardly pretending to disguise her impatience.

Egmont's wife replied with the serene grandeur that was so infinitely patient.

"To explain I must weary Your Highness with some business. Cardinal Granvelle is already endeavouring to enforce the Inquisition in the Netherlands—some hundreds have already suffered under his instigation. Now the late Emperor, and the Queen Mary, the late Regent, did promise this should not be, and to break those oaths is against the conscience of many good Catholics and of most of the great lords, save only Aerschot, Barlaymont, and Meghem, who fawn on the Cardinal; but Granvelle wishes to enforce the edicts issued by the late Emperor against heretics, and this the seigneurs consider a fatal course. So there is a powerful party against this priest, and a letter has already been writ to the King against him."

"I hear he is very upstart and of low birth," remarked Anne, who was incapable of grasping the wide aspects of the question put before her.

"That is no matter," smiled Sabina; "he is favourite at Madrid. And he rules the Netherlands, not Madame Parma."

"I heard the Seigneur Brederode speak of him the other day," said Anne, with an affected laugh. "He made some fine jests on him! He said he wore those fox-tails in his cap as a memory of the old fox, as he called Granvelle, and frequented the masks in a Cardinal's gown to do His Eminence a spite!"

"The Seigneur Brederode is reckless," returned the Countess gravely, "and does us little good."

"Oh, I think he is amusing," said Anne perversely. "He told me some fine stories of the Cardinal," and she laughed coarsely.

Sabina knit her brows.

"Beware of laughing at the Seigneur Brederode's tales," she said. "I tell you his pastimes are dangerous."

Anne shrugged her shoulders as she replied—

"What has your princely Grace to say at the end of this?"

Egmont's wife flushed; she was not used to the rudeness she was so patiently enduring from this ill-bred girl.

"I wish Your Highness to be one of us," she said, "to help us. To be ductile, circumspect, to submit to the Regent—to give no confidences to Aerschot's wife.

"She is my husband's kinswoman," interrupted Anne.

"She is of the Cardinal's party," flashed the Countess, "and they are none of them to be trusted. I appeal to you," she added with dignity, "to stand by us, who are standing by those of your faith. I tell you, King Philip is only waiting for the decision of the Council at Trent to force all his subjects into conformity with the ancient faith—yea, even at the price of depopulating the Netherlands. I tell you no liberty, no charter, no privilege will be safe, nay, not 'the joyous entry' itself, and we must all turn into persecutors—scourgers in Granvelle's hand—or be ruined."

Anne was now a little frightened; she dimly wondered what her own position would be if all these fearful edicts against heretics were enforced.

"What can I do?" she asked foolishly.

"Bear yourself discreetly flatter the Regent, eschew the Cardinalists—do not encourage Seigneur Brederode."

"I am sure no one takes any notice of what I do," returned Anne. In her heart she was sorry she was not an orthodox Catholic; the sufferings of fellow-heretics did not move her in the least, but she was alarmed at the thought of being involved in any of their misfortunes.

"The actions of the daughter of the Prince who forced the Peace of Passau from the late Caesar must always be important."

Anne was flattered at this; she was always inordinately proud of her famous father, while not sympathizing in the least with the principles or the actions that had made him glorious.

"I will do what I can in the matters you tell me of," she said, "but it was never my husband's wish that I should be troubled with grave business of any kind."

Sabina took this ungracious concession as the utmost she was likely to get; she rose, feeling that the whole interview had been rather useless.

Anne rose too, and as she stood, the bright cruel light of the window over her, the other woman noted afresh how crooked she was, how sickly, how plain, and was sorry.

And over Anne's shoulder she glanced into the gardens which showed through the open casement, and saw the Prince playing tennis in the sunlit court; his gay spirits, his splendid health, his pleasant handsomeness formed a bitter contrast with his wife. The Countess, with the generosity of the woman who has everything, felt sorry indeed for this woman who had nothing but a position she could not hold, and a husband she could not please.

The ladies parted, and Anne called for wine and sugar, mixed herself a sweet drink, and presently fell into a flushed sleep in the window-seat. She was still asleep when the Prince came up from his game.

He looked at her in silence, rather sternly, rejected Rénée's offer to wake her, and went away.

The waiting-woman kept her distasteful vigil during the rest of the long sunny afternoon. The little German girl crept away; the sounds of the palace came dimly through the shut doors, without the pigeons flew to and fro with a sharp flap of wings, and Rénée sat motionless with locked hands and compressed lips, her mind and soul in the struggle between Granvelle who stood for the tyranny of Philip and the power of Rome, and the great nobles who stood for the liberty of the Netherlands and the protection of the wretched heretics.