Читать книгу Red and White: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses - Emily Sarah Holt - Страница 7

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"Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."—WORDSWORTH.

"Aye, perchance that may serve. What cost it by the yard?"

That was a piece of superb purple satin, which the tailor was holding up for inspection, in the best way to catch the light.

"Five nobles, an' it please my Lady."

Five nobles amounted to one pound thirteen and fourpence, and was the price of the very best quality. It is not easy to reduce it into modern value, since authorities are disagreed on the multiple required. Some would go as high as sixteen times the value, while others would reduce it to five. Mv own opinion inclines to the highest number.

"And wherewith wouldst line it, good Whityngham?"

"With velvet, Madam?" suggested the tailor interrogatively.

"Aye. Let it be black."

"At your Ladyship's pleasure."

"And I will have the cloak well furred with Irish fox. Is my broched[#] cloth of gold gown made ready?"

[#] Figured.

"Madam, it shall be meet for your Ladyship's wearing to-morrow."

"Well, see thou fail me not, for I would have it for our Lady Day in harvest.—Well, Avice Hilton, what wouldst?"

Avice Hilton, who was a young lady of about eighteen years, had been waiting the pleasure of her mistress for some minutes.

"An't like you, Madam, your new chamberer that shall be, is now come."

"The Lord Marnell his daughter?"

"She, Madam."

"Hath she eaten aught?"

"Aye, Madam, in the hall."

"Good. Bring her hither."

Frideswide Marston was not a timid or nervous girl by any means, but her heart beat somewhat faster as Avice Hilton introduced her to the presence of the Countess of Warwick, the woman who had more of the reality of queenship than either of those ladies whom the partisans of the rival Roses termed the Queen.

She saw a pleasant upper chamber, about twenty feet square, whose windows looked over the beautiful vale of Wensleydale. It was hung with tapestry on which scenes from the Quest of the Sangraal were delineated. At the lower end three young ladies were busily at work of various kinds: on the daïs, or raised step at the further end, nearest the windows, stood the tailor with his roll of satin over his arm, and two ladies were seated, the elder in a chair of carved wood, the younger in a more elaborate one inlaid with ivory. In those days people did not take the seat they found most comfortable, but were carefully restricted to a certain fashion of chair, according to delicate gradations of rank. Frideswide, being a well-educated young person, as education went in the fifteenth century, had no difficulty in perceiving that she was in the presence of the Countess of Warwick and her daughter, the bride of the royal Clarence.

The Countess of Warwick was a rather slightly-made woman, but tall, with a long pale face, haggard features bearing traces of great former beauty, and a particularly prominent pair of blue eyes.[#] As is often the case with persons who exhibit the last-named feature, she was at no loss for language. She was the daughter, and now the only surviving child, of that Earl of Warwick who had held a conspicuous place in the burning of the Maid of Orleans, and of Isabel, heiress of Le Despenser. All the old prestige and associations of the House of Warwick centred in her, not her husband. How far her influence over him may have been for good or evil, is not an easy question. What evidence there is, is mostly negative, and tends to show that the Countess Anne exercised but little influence of any kind, and was of a type likely to be more concerned about the burning of the marchpane in her own oven, than about the burning of a city at some distance. If this be so, she is much to be pitied: for of the seed of future misery which Warwick sowed, the heaviest portion of the harvest was reaped by her and by the best and dearest of her daughters.

[#] All the members of the Warwick family, and also those of the royal family, are described so far as is practicable from contemporary portraits.

The young Duchess of Clarence, who was in her nineteenth year, was a woman cast in another mould. She resembled her father in character, and her mother in features: but she was more beautiful than the Countess had ever been, and was accounted "the finest young lady in England." She was fair, with blue eyes and shining light hair, over which she wore the new head-dress, which consisted of a most elaborate erection of wire-work, surmounted by a veil of transparent gauze, so that the hair, for many years concealed, was left fully visible.

Head-dresses were now, and for a long time had been, the most important portion of the female costume. The variety was nearly as astounding as the size. Hearts, horns, crowns, and steeples, were all represented: and a full-dressed lady, in all her paraphernalia, was a formidable object both as to cost and dimensions.

Frideswide found herself put through a lively fire of interrogatories by the Countess, who might have been projecting the writing of memoirs of the whole Marnell family, to judge from the minute and numerous details into which she descended. The Duchess sat generally a silent listener, but occasionally interjected a query. At last the Countess looked across the room, and summoned Avice.

"There, take the new maid to you, and show her what shall be her duty," said she. "See that she wants for nought, and say to Bonham 'tis my desire she be set a-work."

Frideswide followed Avice to the further end of the room, where she was introduced to her remaining fellow-chamberers as Theobalda Salvin and Eleanor Farley. Beyond them, and hitherto concealed by a chair, she suddenly perceived a fourth person, in the shape of a little old lady, so very little as to be almost a dwarf, with the cheeriest and brightest of faces.

"Mother Bonham," said Avice, "'tis my Lady's good pleasure you set Mistress Frideswide a-work."

"Well, my lass, there's no pleasure in idlesse," was the answer. "See you here, my maid: would you rather a white seam, or some matter of broidery?"

Frideswide, whose tastes inclined her rather to the useful than the ornamental, chose the plain work, and sitting down among the chamberers, was soon as busy as any of them.

Mother Bonham was the most important person at Middleham Castle, in the sense that without her every thing would have gone furthest wrong. She was "mother," or official chaperone, to the chamberers, which accounted for the title bestowed on her; she was general housekeeper to the Countess; she had been nurse and governess to the young ladies; and she was adviser in general to all the younger inmates of the house. She was as great a hand at proverbs as Sancho Panza himself: she mixed marvellous puddings and concocted unimaginable cakes; she drew patterns for embroidery, told stories of all kinds, nursed every body who was ill (which often included prescribing for them), praised every body who did well, smiled on, at, and through every thing that happened to her. Only one thing there was, as Eleanor confided to Frideswide, which Mother Bonham could not do. She was totally incapable of scolding! The most severe thing she ever said was a solemn proverb, prefaced by both Christian and surname of the offender. The use of both names instantly informed a chamberer that she had fallen under Mother Bonham's grave displeasure. But so dearly loved was the little old lady that except in strong emergencies, this was quite enough to recall the person addressed to a sense of her delinquencies.

Frideswide was rather amused to find that she had again to run the gauntlet of inquiries concerning her antecedents from the chamberers. She certainly had never talked so much about herself and her relatives, as she did that first afternoon of her stay at Middleham Castle. The fire of interrogations had slightly slackened, when a door opened in the wall behind the tapestry, and pushing aside the latter, a girl of fifteen came forward and sat down by Mother Bonham, who moved some embroidery from a carved chair to make room for her. The chair taken, and the style of her dress, sufficiently pointed her out as one of the Earl's daughters.

Though strongly resembling her mother and sister in colour and features, the expression of her face was entirely different from either. The piquancy of the elder sister was wholly absent in the younger, and was replaced by a mixture of gentleness and dignity. Very queenly she was—not in the false sense of pride, of which there was none about her: but in the true sense of that innate kingliness of soul which can tolerate nothing evil, and can stoop to nothing mean. A lily among thorns was sweet Anne Neville. And the thorns sprang up, and choked it. She stood now just

"Where the brook and river meet,

Womanhood and childhood fleet"—

but in the path to be pursued a turn as yet hid the river from view, and she who was so soon to be borne down it could see nothing of the roaring cascade and the black pool beneath, where the young life was to be crushed out, and the fair soul to be set free. As Frideswide glanced at her, where she sat with her head slightly bent over the broidery, and a sunbeam lighting up her shining hair, she thought no face so attractive had ever yet crossed her path in life.

"Tib, draw thou the curtain across," said Mother Bonham. "The sun cometh too hot on my Lady Anne, I reckon."

Theobalda obeyed in silence, while Lady Anne looked up and smiled thanks.

"Tib is the best to do it," remarked Eleanor, laughing a little, "for she is highest of all us. I do believe she should mete to twice of you, Mother."

"'Good stuff's lapped up in little parcels,' Nell," was Mother Bonham's good-tempered answer.

Conversation flagged after this. Perhaps work went on the better for it. Supper was announced in an hour, which was served in the hall, Frideswide, as the newest arrival, being seated last of the chamberers, and next to the Earl's squires. She found her neighbour decidedly communicative. From him she learned that the Countess was not ill to please, which was more than could be said for my Lady of Clarence; but my Lady Anne was the sweetest maid in the world. As to my Lord,—with a little shrug of the squire's shoulders—why, he was in his element in the midst of a battle, and not anywhere else. Rather just a little queer-tempered—you had to find out in a morning whether he had got out of bed on the right side or the wrong. In the former case, he could be very pleasant indeed: but in the latter—well, least said was soonest mended.

Frideswide looked up at the potent nobleman thus described to her. She saw a man of moderate height and breadth, with strong features, a florid complexion, rather dark hair and eyes, and a very quick, lively, intelligent expression. His limbs were well-knit and in good proportion, giving the idea of great muscular strength. It may be added, though Frideswide of course could only learn this by degrees, that Warwick was an extremely clever man, with that sort of serpentine cleverness which regards any means as sanctified by the end proposed; full of physical courage, but looking upon tenderness and compassion as contemptible weaknesses only fit for a woman, and indicative of the consummate inferiority of her sex. He was one of those men in whose eyes a good woman is simply a woman who has hitherto found no opportunity of being otherwise. When the opportunity comes in her way, she must be expected to take advantage of it, as a matter of course. Clear-sighted as Warwick was in some matters, he was strangely obtuse in others.

A good deal of further information Frideswide heard from her next neighbour, who told her that his name was John Wright.[#] He informed her that the King (by whom he meant Henry VI.) was in the Tower of London, a prisoner in the hands of "Edward that rebel," who was not permitted by zealous Lancastrians to enjoy even his ancestral title of Duke of York. The Queen was abroad, seeking fresh help, and intending to take the first good opportunity afterwards to land in England. The Prince of Wales was with her.

[#] Name historical, character imaginary.

As for "that rebel," he of course was enjoying himself to the utmost, residing in the palaces and squandering the finances which did not belong to him: and as for "that witch his wife," Mr. Wright was ready to believe anything of her—by which of course he meant, anything the reverse of complimentary.

That Edward was squandering money, whether it were his own or not, was only too true. Never lived man in whose hands money melted in a more instantaneous manner. During that very summer, he had spent on dress materials and "other necessaries" upwards of twelve hundred pounds, and on jewellery and goldsmiths' work £744, inclusive of a gold collar which cost £34.[#] Nor as we shall presently see, had his extravagance reached its highest point. No King of England ever spent like him. The degree to which he surpassed all his predecessors in this point was an enormous one. By most contemporary chroniclers, Richard II. is accused of having been a shocking waster of money:[#] but the Issue Rolls of Richard II. reveal a state of things which is economy itself when compared with those of Edward IV. Moreover, Richard's extravagance, such as it was, was mainly in presents to other persons: but what Edward spent was on his beloved self. This was the more noticeable, as Henry VI. had not been at all given to spending money; and Queen Marguerite, while lavish enough in her charities, was singularly frugal in respect of her wardrobe. As for Edward's Queen, her lord and master, as his Issue Rolls bear witness, took care she had not much to spend. May not this exhaustion of the royal treasury under the brothers of York, account to some extent for the parsimony of which Henry VII. is accused?

[#] Issue Roll, Michis. 9 Edw. IV.

[#] A supposition not at all borne out by his Issue Rolls.

After supper the hall was cleared for dancing. Then followed vespers in the Castle chapel, rear-supper, a little general conversation, cups of wine handed round, and the Countess retired to her oratory, and the Earl to his closet. Last came the Countess's coucher, at which three of the chamberers were expected to be present, one being told off to assist the Lady Anne. The Duchess of Clarence had her separate household. Frideswide found herself summoned to the Countess's chamber, where Theobalda instructed her in her duties, which were simply those of a lady's maid. The chamberera were then free to seek their own beds.

It was not until the next morning that Frideswide saw the Duke of Clarence, who had been absent from the supper-table. He was the least good-looking of the handsome royal brothers. "A great alms-giver and a great builder" is the character given of him by the retainer of the House of Warwick: but a more skilful hand than his, a hundred years later, sketched a far truer portrait.

"False, fleeting, faithless Clarence!"

With the Duke came two other persons—the brothers of Warwick, John Lord Montague and George Archbishop of York. They were about as much given to tergiversation as their better-known brother, with the proviso that in their innermost hearts they were a shade more determinately Yorkist than he. Montague in particular was remarkable for his power of versatility. His personal convictions were in favour of Edward, but the least offence given to him by his chosen master was enough to make him veer round like a weathercock to the opposite quarter. At the present moment some such annoyance was rankling in his narrow mind, and he was therefore just in a fit state to lend an ear to the persuasive representations of his brother of Warwick. The marvel of the matter is how these three crafty, changeable, unprincipled men contrived to trust each other.

During two previous years, Warwick had been dexterously drawing his net around his brothers. But now matters were almost ripe for action. For the whole of the autumn he had kept quiet and matured his plans. His reverend brother was quite as ready to his hand as the secular one. Any thing which involved a plot or a tumult seems to have been to the taste of this gentleman, who in seeking holy orders had certainly not taken the course for which nature intended him.

The four chamberers of the Countess of Warwick slept in one room, into which opened the smaller one of Mother Bonham. The furniture of the chamber consisted of two beds, large square ones with a tester, or head, the one having curtains of verder, or tapestry, and the other of dark crimson say, which was a coarse silk chiefly used in upholstery. In the first bed slept Eleanor and Theobalda, in the second Frideswide and Avice. The remaining articles were a large chest at the bottom of each bed, with a division across it, each young lady having a half to herself; a chair, two stools, and a fire-fork. Wardrobes were then kept in a separate chamber; while dressing-tables and washstands were luxuries of the future. There was a mirror fixed to the wall, almost too high to see—a position adopted for the discouragement of personal vanity: while every morning a bowl of water and a towel (to serve all four) was brought up by a slip-shod girl, one of half-a-dozen who did the dirtiest work of the house.

One evening in November, after the lights were out, and Mother Bonham and Theobalda were peacefully asleep, while Eleanor was perpetrating a sound so nearly akin to snoring that her fastidious taste would have been shocked had she known it, Frideswide, whose eyes were disinclined to close, heard a soft whisper from Avice beside her.

"Are you waking?"

"Oh aye," she said in a similar tone, and turning round towards Avice to hear the better what she wished to say.

"Your father, if I err not, is the Lord Marnell, that dwelleth at Lovell Tower, on the wolds?"

"Aye so," said Frideswide.

"Were you loth I should know of what kin you be to the Lady Margery, that died, an old man's life past, on Tower Hill?"

It was no wonder if Frideswide held her breath for a moment, and listened whether all the rest were safely asleep. The reference to a Lollard and a martyr, in the past of any family, had been safe enough during the latter half of Henry VI.'s reign, but it had already been pretty plainly shown not to be equally wise in that of Edward IV.

"Look you," she said, after that momentary pause, "it is my step-dame, not my father, that is verily a Marnell. The lady whom you wot of was her grandame—to wit, her father's mother."

"Of no kin to you, then?" asked Avice, in a tone in which Frideswide fancied she heard a shade of disappointment.

"Nay, that can I not rightly say," was the reply: "for Dame Agnes Lovell, the Lady's mother, which was by birth a Greenhalgh, was sister unto Mistress Ladreyne Clitheroe, whose daughter Maud was my grandmother. So you shall see we are near of kin."

A cousin thrice removed would not now be thought a very near relation; but in past times much more was made of "kindly blood" than at present.

Avice did not answer, and Frideswide, having recovered her courage, spoke up boldly. For a hundred years her ancestors had been of the Lollard faith, and she was far more disposed to glory in the fact than to be ashamed of it.

"Wherefore? Are you of that learning?"

"Hush, gramercy!" cried Avice under her breath.

"Wherefore?" asked Frideswide again.

"Dear heart, if any should o'erhear us!" explained Avice. "Know you not that 'tis a dangerous matter to speak thereof?"

"It may be worse to let be," answered Frideswide thoughtfully. She was thinking of a story of twenty years ago, which she had heard most sorrowfully told by the lips of the Lady Idonia, how she had at one time fallen away for fear, and had never forgotten her defection nor forgiven herself.

"Ah, Frideswide," said Avice earnestly, "you speak like to her that had dwelt in a sure place, and knew nought of the world on the outside. Look you, matters be no more as they were these twenty-five years back. So long as the King were in power and of good wit, never man were ill-used for speaking Lollardy, for he never would have creature harmed in his realm an' he wist it, by his good-will. Have you ne'er heard how he bade remove down from the Micklegate at York the one quarter of a traitor there set, saying he would ne'er see Christian thus cruelly used for his sake? But the rebel is made of other metal. Heard you not of one Will Balowe, that was burned on Tower Hill scarce three years gone, for that he would not make confession to no priest, but only unto God, and had (said they) no conscience in eating of flesh during Lent? Both he and his wife had been afore abjured, so that he was a lapsed man. There were no burnings whenso as King Henry were in power. Nor know you not, about the same time, some pixes were stole for the silver, and one of them that stale them was heard for to say that he had a dainty morsel to his supper, for he had eaten nine gods—to wit, the hosts that were in the boxes? There is more Lollardy about the realm than ever afore, trust me: but 'tis not so safe to speak thereof as when you and I were childre."

"Methinks," said Frideswide thoughtfully, "they were little credit unto Lollardy that should steal a pix for the silver."

"There be men enough will make cloaks of new virtue to cover up old sins," was the answer of Avice.

"You wot more hereof than I, as I may well see," said Frideswide.

"Aye, I have seen and heard, and I can reckon so much as twice two," replied Avice drily. "Look you, I have been with my Lady but half a year, and I came to her from London town, where I served my Lady of Exeter. So I saw and heard much, and I have not an ill memory."

"Pray you, tell me somewhat touching that my Lady of Exeter," said Frideswide. "My sister is but now entered of her chamber, and I would fain wit what manner of mistress she shall have."

"Pray for her!" was the reply.

"Against what?" demanded Frideswide with considerable uneasiness.

"'Shield us fro the foule thing,'" quoted Avice, under her breath.

"But, dear heart, what mean you?" returned Frideswide, rising on her elbow in her eager desire to comprehend these mysterious hints. "Is it my Lady of Exeter, or her Lord, or his squires, or where and what shall it be that is thus foul and fearful?"

"Her Lord?—No," was the earnest answer.

"Herself?" repeated Frideswide.

"She and her Lord," said Avice, in a low, sad tone, "have not dwelt of one house these seven years. He, as you must wot, is of the King's side, and she (which is sister to the rebel) brake with him shortly after the war began. There were sore discontents betwixt them, for two years or more ere they parted for good: but now they never meet. His lands be all confiscate and granted to her, and he is the man that shall never win one penny of them at her hands. I think she alway hated him—they were wed being childre—but certes she hates him now. In all my life never saw I in one house so much of God, and so much of the Devil. But the Lord campeth round about them that fear Him. There is an angel in the house, as your sister will early find to her comfort. There are devils too."

"And her Lady is of them?" asked Frideswide.

"She is not the angel," drily responded Avice.

"And her Lord?"—said Frideswide.

"Ah, he is sore to be pitied," answered Avice in a compassionate tone. "May-be he is not wholly an angel neither: yet methinks there is much in him that is good; and he might have been a better man—had she been a better woman. The first sin is an easy matter, but it is hard most times to see whither it will lead."

"Be any here well-affectioned toward Lollardy?" suddenly asked Frideswide.

"Only one, to my knowing."

"And that is?"—

"Mother Bonham.

"Avice Hilton!" came at this moment in clear tones from the closet.

"I cry you mercy, Mother!" was the natural reply.

"Days for talk, nights for sleep," said the old lady sententiously.

With simply a "Good night, Frideswide," Avice turned on her pillow, and no more was said.

This revelation by no means conduced to Frideswide's happiness. She was uneasy about Agnes, whom she knew to be a girl who would say little, but suffer keenly. Yet what could she do?—beyond taking Avice's counsel, and praying for her.

The idea of writing, either to her father or sister, did not occur to Frideswide. Letters were serious affairs in those days, more especially to women: and though Frideswide had learned to write, which was not too common an accomplishment in ladies, yet it was to her a very laborious and tedious business, requiring some decided reason to induce so great an effort. While there were at that time a sufficient number of women who could write, yet not to have acquired the art was considered no disgrace to a woman of any rank. In that interesting contemporaneous poem, "The Song of the Lady Bessy," we find the daughter of Edward IV. assuring Lord Stanley that there is no need to send for a scribe to write his important private letters, for she could write as well as any scrivener.

"You shall not need none such to call,

Good Father Stanley—hearken to me,

What my father, King Edward, that King royal,

Did for my sister, my Lady Welles,[#] and me:

He sent for a scrivener to lusty London,

He was the best in that citie;

He taught us both to write and read full soon—

If it please you, full soon you shall see—

Lauded be God, I had such speed

That I can write as well as he,

Both English and also French,

And also Spanish, if you had need."[#]

[#] The Princess Cicely.

[#] Humphrey Brereton, Lord Stanley's squire, and the writer of the poem, was present at the conference, and we may therefore take him to record the exact statements made by the Princess Elizabeth.

Certainly, the black-letter hand was one requiring far more effort and pains than the modern running or Italian hand. The caligraphy of the Lady Bessy (afterwards Queen Elizabeth of York) which has descended to posterity, would lead to the melancholy conclusion that if she wrote as well as the best scriveners in London, the productions of inferior penmen must have been illegible indeed. It really is the case; for of all periods in English history (alas, excepting the present century!) the worst writing is found in that which runs from the close of the Wars of the Roses to the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth. A document dating from the reign of King John is like copper-plate in comparison with the atrocious scrawls of some writers of the Reformation period.

Before that year was ended, Pope Paul thought proper to confer upon Louis XI. of France the title of "Most Christian King." It was no sooner heard of than it was gleefully seized by Edward IV., under his character of soi-disant King of France. We may also conclude that Proud Cis snatched at it with considerable self-gratulation, since a charter of hers, dated in this very year, adds it to her titles. She styles herself "the excellent Princess, mother of the Most Christian Prince, our Lord and son, Edward, and lately wife of the most excellent Prince Richard, by right King of England and of France, and Lord of Ireland."[#] Further than this, even Cicely's ambition dared not to venture; yet it seems almost surprising that she did not step across the very little gulf which lay between all these high-sounding epithets and the one which would have involved them all—the coveted name of Queen.

[#] Close Roll, 9 Edw. IV.

During this year, another daughter was born to Edward and Elizabeth. They had three now—Elizabeth, Mary, and Cicely—but no son. The eldest daughter, however, was treated as Princess of Wales in her own right. She is always styled "the Lady Princess"—a title which, until the accession of the Stuarts, appertained alone to the Princess of Wales, whether she were daughter or daughter-in-law of the monarch. The King's daughters, apart from this, were simply addressed as "Lady." The Princess had her own separate household, and judging from the amount of money spent upon her, was rather better provided for than the Queen.

Another occurrence was taking place this year, of no moment to any but the parties immediately concerned, yet which might have had very considerable influence on the future history of England. William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, had a boy of thirteen as his ward, the nephew of Henry VI., whom at that time it was desirable for his own sake to keep as much in obscurity as possible. This was Henry Tudor, the young Earl of Richmond, whose mother was next heir to the Crown after the descendants of Henry IV. The Earl, who liked his young ward, lent a kindly ear to his pleading when a love-story came before him. He was not altogether sorry to find that he could provide for the eldest of his very numerous family by betrothing her to the young Earl. Very young they both were; but boys and girls came early to the front, and blossomed rapidly into men and women in the time of the rival Roses. So the Earl of Richmond was formally affianced to the Lady Maud Herbert, in anticipation of a marriage which was never to be. Would it have been better if it had been? Humanly speaking, the course of English history would assuredly have been different. For Maud Herbert was a woman of strong character, and did not faint in the weary march, as Elizabeth Lucy had done. But one thing is certain: that the change for the worse which came over the character of Henry of Richmond dates from the time of his parting from Maud Herbert. He went into exile; and she wedded the Earl of Northumberland, years before his triumphant return to wear the crown of England. Which of the two was to blame must be left an open question. Perhaps it was not either: for Maud's marriage was not improbably forced upon her, and Henry could not have returned to claim her without the most reckless risk of life. His marriage with "the Lady Princess" gave peace to England, but he died a lonely, unloved man, grown miserly and callous,—no longer the graceful and gallant Richmond of those early years when he and Maud had lived and loved at Pembroke Castle.