THE SUBTLE CRAFT OF RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER.
It was some weeks after the defeat of Sir Geoffrey Gates, and Edward
was at Shene, with his gay court. Reclined at length within a
pavilion placed before a cool fountain, in the royal gardens, and
surrounded by his favourites, the king listened indolently to the
music of his minstrels, and sleeked the plumage of his favourite
falcon, perched upon his wrist. And scarcely would it have been
possible to recognize in that lazy voluptuary the dauntless soldier,
before whose lance, as deer before the hound, had so lately fled, at
bloody Erpingham, the chivalry of the Lancastrian Rose; but remote
from the pavilion, and in one of the deserted bowling alleys, Prince
Richard and Lord Montagu walked apart, in earnest conversation. The
last of these noble personages had remained inactive during these
disturbances, and Edward had not seemed to entertain any suspicion of
his participation in the anger and revenge of Warwick. The king took
from him, it is true, the lands and earldom of Northumberland, and
restored them to the Percy, but he had accompanied this act with
gracious excuses, alleging the necessity of conciliating the head of
an illustrious House, which had formally entered into allegiance to
the dynasty of York, and bestowed upon his early favourite, in
compensation, the dignity of marquis. [Montagu said bitterly of this
new dignity, "He takes from me the Earldom and domains of
Northumberland, and makes me a Marquis, with a pie's nest to maintain
it withal."--STOWE: Edward IV.--Warkworth Chronicle.] The politic
king, in thus depriving Montagu of the wealth and the retainers of the
Percy, reduced him, as a younger brother, to a comparative poverty and
insignificance, which left him dependent on Edward's favour, and
deprived him, as he thought, of the power of active mischief; at the
same time more than ever he insisted on Montagu's society, and
summoning his attendance at the court, kept his movements in watchful
surveillance.
"Nay, my lord," said Richard, pursuing with much unction the
conversation he had commenced, "you wrong me much, Holy Paul be my
witness, if you doubt the deep sorrow I feel at the unhappy events
which have led to the severance of my kinsmen! England seems to me to
have lost its smile in losing the glory of Earl Warwick's presence,
and Clarence is my brother, and was my friend; and thou knowest,
Montagu, thou knowest, how dear to my heart was the hope to win for my
wife and lady the gentle Anne."
"Prince," said Montagu, abruptly, "though the pride of Warwick and the
honour of our House may have forbidden the public revelation of the
cause which fired my brother to rebellion, thou, at least, art privy
to a secret--"
"Cease!" exclaimed Richard, in great emotion, probably sincere, for
his face grew livid, and its muscles were nervously convulsed. "I
would not have that remembrance stirred from its dark repose. I would
fain forget a brother's hasty frenzy, in the belief of his lasting
penitence." He paused and turned his face, gasped for breath, and
resumed: "The cause justified the father; it had justified me in the
father's cause, had Warwick listened to my suit, and given me the
right to deem insult to his daughter injury to myself."
"And if, my prince," returned Montagu, looking round him, and in a
subdued whisper, "if yet the hand of Lady Anne were pledged to you?"
"Tempt me not, tempt me not!" cried the prince, crossing himself.
Montagu continued,--
"Our cause, I mean Lord Warwick's cause, is not lost, as the king
deems it."
"Proceed," said Richard, casting down his eyes, while his countenance
settled back into its thoughtful calm.
"I mean," renewed Montagu, "that in my brother's flight, his retainers
were taken by surprise. In vain the king would confiscate his lands,
--he cannot confiscate men's hearts. If Warwick to-morrow set his
armed heel upon the soil, trowest thou, sagacious and clear-judging
prince, that the strife which would follow would be but another field
of Losecote? [The battle of Erpingham, so popularly called, in
contempt of the rebel lions runaways.] Thou hast heard of the honours
with which King Louis has received the earl. Will that king grudge
him ships and moneys? And meanwhile, thinkest thou that his favourers
sleep?"
"But if he land, Montagu," said Richard, who seemed to listen with an
attention that awoke all the hopes of Montagu, coveting so powerful an
ally--"if he land, and make open war on Edward--we must say the word
boldly--what intent can he proclaim? It is not enough to say King
Edward shall not reign; the earl must say also what king England
should elect!"
"Prince," answered Montagu, "before I reply to that question,
vouchsafe to hear my own hearty desire and wish. Though the king has
deeply wronged my brother, though he has despoiled me of the lands,
which were, peradventure, not too large a reward for twenty victories
in his cause, and restored them to the House that ever ranked amongst
the strongholds of his Lancastrian foe, yet often when I am most
resentful, the memory of my royal seigneur's past love and kindness
comes over me,--above all, the thought of the solemn contract between
his daughter and my son; and I feel (now the first heat of natural
anger at an insult offered to my niece is somewhat cooled) that if
Warwick did land, I could almost forget my brother for my king."
"Almost!" repeated Richard, smiling.
"I am plain with your Highness, and say but what I feel. I would even
now fain trust that, by your mediation, the king may be persuaded to
make such concessions and excuses as in truth would not misbeseem him,
to the father of Lady Anne, and his own kinsman; and that yet, ere it
be too late, I may be spared the bitter choice between the ties of
blood and my allegiance to the king."
"But failing this hope (which I devoutly share),--and Edward, it must
be owned, could scarcely trust to a letter,--still less to a
messenger, the confession of a crime,--failing this, and your brother
land, and I side with him for love of Anne, pledged to me as a bride,
--what king would he ask England to elect?"
"The Duke of Clarence loves you dearly, Lord Richard," replied
Montagu. "Knowest thou not how often he hath said, 'By sweet Saint
George, if Gloucester would join me, I would make Edward know we were
all one man's sons, who should be more preferred and promoted than
strangers of his wife's blood?'" [Hall.]
Richard's countenance for a moment evinced disappointment; but he said
dryly: "Then Warwick would propose that Clarence should be king?--and
the great barons and the honest burghers and the sturdy yeomen would,
you think, not stand aghast at the manifesto which declares, not that
the dynasty of York is corrupt and faulty, but that the younger son
should depose the elder,--that younger son, mark me! not only unknown
in war and green in council, but gay, giddy, vacillating; not subtle
of wit and resolute of deed, as he who so aspires should be!--Montagu,
a vain dream!"--Richard paused and then resumed, in a low tone, as to
himself, "Oh, not so--not so are kings cozened from their thrones! a
pretext must blind men,--say they are illegitimate, say they are too
young, too feeble, too anything, glide into their place, and then, not
war--not war. You slay them not,--they disappear!" The duke's face,
as he muttered, took a sinister and a dark expression, his eyes seemed
to gaze on space. Suddenly recovering himself as from a revery, he
turned, with his wonted sleek and gracious aspect, to the startled
Montagu, and said, "I was but quoting from Italian history, good my
lord,--wise lore, but terrible and murderous. Return we to the point.
Thou seest Clarence could not reign, and as well," added the prince,
with a slight sigh,--"as well or better (for, without vanity, I have
more of a king's mettle in me), might I--even I--aspire to my
brother's crown!" Here he paused, and glanced rapidly and keenly at
the marquis; but whether or not in these words he had sought to sound
Montagu, and that glance sufficed to show him it were bootless or
dangerous to speak more plainly, he resumed with an altered voice,
"Enough of this: Warwick will discover the idleness of such design;
and if he land, his trumpets must ring to a more kindling measure.
John Montagu, thinkest thou that Margaret of Anjou and the
Lancastrians will not rather win thy brother to their side? There is
the true danger to Edward,--none elsewhere."
"And if so?" said Montagu, watching his listener's countenance.
Richard started, and gnawed his lip. "Mark me," continued the
marquis, "I repeat that I would fain hope yet that Edward may appease
the earl; but if not, and, rather than rest dishonoured and aggrieved,
Warwick link himself with Lancaster, and thou join him as Anne's
betrothed and lord, what matters who the puppet on the throne?--we and
thou shall be the rulers; or, if thou reject," added the marquis,
artfully, as he supposed, exciting the jealousy of the duke, "Henry
has a son--a fair, and they say, a gallant prince--carefully tutored
in the knowledge of our English laws, and who my lord of Oxford,
somewhat in the confidence of the Lancastrians, assures me would
rejoice to forget old feuds, and call Warwick 'father,' and my niece
'Lady and Princess of Wales.'"
With all his dissimulation, Richard could ill conceal the emotions of
fear, of jealousy, of dismay, which these words excited.
"Lord Oxford!" he cried, stamping his foot. "Ha, John de Vere,
pestilent traitor, plottest thou thus? But we can yet seize thy
person, and will have thy head."
Alarmed at this burst, and suddenly made aware that he had laid his
breast too bare to the boy, whom he had thought to dazzle and seduce
to his designs, Montagu said falteringly, "But, my lord, our talk is
but in confidence: at your own prayer, with your own plighted word of
prince and of kinsman, that whatever my frankness may utter should not
pass farther. Take," added the nobleman, with proud dignity--"take my
head rather than Lord Oxford's; for I deserve death, if I reveal to
one who can betray the loose words of another's intimacy and trust!"
"Forgive me, my cousin," said Richard, meekly; "my love to Anne
transported me too far. Lord Oxford's words, as you report them, had
conjured up a rival, and--but enough of this. And now," added the
prince, gravely, and with a steadiness of voice and manner that gave a
certain majesty to his small stature, "now as thou hast spoken openly,
openly also will I reply. I feel the wrong to the Lady Anne as to
myself; deeply, burningly, and lastingly, will it live in my mind; it
may be, sooner or later, to rise to gloomy deeds, even against Edward
and Edward's blood. But no, I have the king's solemn protestations of
repentance; his guilty passion has burned into ashes, and he now
sighs--gay Edward--for a lighter fere. I cannot join with Clarence,
less can I join with the Lancastrians. My birth makes me the prop of
the throne of York,--to guard it as a heritage (who knows?) that may
descend to mine,--nay, to me! And, mark me well if Warwick attempt a
war of fratricide, he is lost; if, on the other hand, he can submit
himself to the hands of Margaret, stained with his father's gore, the
success of an hour will close in the humiliation of a life. There is
a third way left, and that way thou hast piously and wisely shown.
Let him, like me, resign revenge, and, not exacting a confession and a
cry of peccavi, which no king, much less King Edward the Plantagenet,
can whimper forth, let him accept such overtures as his liege can
make. His titles and castles shall be restored, equal possessions to
those thou hast lost assigned to thee, and all my guerdon (if I can so
negotiate) as all my ambition, his daughter's hand. Muse on this, and
for the peace and weal of the realm so limit all thy schemes, my lord
and cousin!"
With these words the prince pressed the hand of the marquis, and
walked slowly towards the king's pavilion.
"Shame on my ripe manhood and lore of life," muttered Montagu, enraged
against himself, and deeply mortified. "How sentence by sentence and
step by step yon crafty pigmy led me on, till all our projects, all
our fears and hopes, are revealed to him who but views them as a foe.
Anne betrothed to one who even in fiery youth can thus beguile and
dupe! Warwick decoyed hither upon fair words, at the will of one whom
Italy (boy, there thou didst forget thy fence of cunning!) has taught
how the great are slain not, but disappear! no, even this defeat
instructs me now. But right, right! the reign of Clarence is
impossible, and that of Lancaster is ill-omened and portentous; and
after all, my son stands nearer to the throne than any subject, in his
alliance with the Lady Elizabeth. Would to Heaven the king could yet
--But out on me! this is no hour for musing on mine own aggrandizement;
rather let me fly at once and warn Oxford--imperilled by my
imprudence--against that dark eye which hath set watch upon his life."
At that thought, which showed that Montagu, with all his worldliness,
was not forgetful of one of the first duties of knight and gentleman,
the marquis hastened up the alley, in the opposite direction to that
taken by Gloucester, and soon found himself in the courtyard, where a
goodly company were mounting their haquenees and palfreys, to enjoy a
summer ride through the neighbouring chase. The cold and half-
slighting salutations of these minions of the hour, which now
mortified the Nevile, despoiled of the possessions that had rewarded
his long and brilliant services, contrasting forcibly the reverential
homage he had formerly enjoyed, stung Montagu to the quick.
"Whither ride you, brother Marquis?" said young Lord Dorset
(Elizabeth's son by her first marriage), as Montagu called to his
single squire, who was in waiting with his horse. "Some secret
expedition, methinks, for I have known the day when the Lord Montagu
never rode from his king's palace with less than thirty squires."
"Since my Lord Dorset prides himself on his memory," answered the
scornful lord, "he may remember also the day when, if a Nevile mounted
in haste, he bade the first Woodville he saw hold the stirrup."
And regarding "the brother marquis" with a stately eye that silenced
and awed retort, the long-descended Montagu passed the courtiers, and
rode slowly on till out of sight of the palace; he then pushed into a
hand-gallop, and halted not till he had reached London, and gained the
house in which then dwelt the Earl of Oxford, the most powerful of all
the Lancastrian nobles not in exile, and who had hitherto temporized
with the reigning House.
Two days afterwards the news reached Edward that Lord Oxford and
Jasper of Pembroke--uncle to the boy afterwards Henry VII.--had sailed
from England.
The tidings reached the king in his chamber, where he was closeted
with Gloucester. The conference between them seemed to have been warm
and earnest, for Edward's face was flushed, and Gloucester's brow was
perturbed and sullen.
"Now Heaven be praised!" cried the king, extending to Richard the
letter which communicated the flight of the disaffected lords. "We
have two enemies the less in our roiaulme, and many a barony the more
to confiscate to our kingly wants. Ha, ha! these Lancastrians only
serve to enrich us. Frowning still, Richard? smile, boy!"
"Foi de mon ame, Edward," said Richard, with a bitter energy,
strangely at variance with his usual unctious deference to the king,
"your Highness's gayety is ill-seasoned; you reject all the means to
assure your throne, you rejoice in all the events that imperil it. I
prayed you to lose not a moment in conciliating, if possible, the
great lord whom you own you have wronged, and you replied that you
would rather lose your crown than win back the arm that gave it you."
"Gave it me! an error, Richard! that crown was at once the heritage of
my own birth and the achievement of my own sword. But were it as you
say, it is not in a king's nature to bear the presence of a power more
formidable than his own, to submit to a voice that commands rather
than counsels; and the happiest chance that ever befell me is the
exile of this earl. How, after what hath chanced, can I ever see his
face again without humiliation, or he mine without resentment?"
"So you told me anon, and I answered, if that be so, and your Highness
shrinks from the man you have injured, beware at least that Warwick,
if he may not return as a friend, come not back as an irresistible
foe. If you will not conciliate, crush! Hasten by all arts to
separate Clarence from Warwick. Hasten to prevent the union of the
earl's popularity and Henry's rights. Keep eye upon all the
Lancastrian lords, and see that none quit the realm where they are
captives, to join a camp where they can rise into leaders. And at the
very moment I urge you to place strict watch upon Oxford, to send your
swiftest riders to seize Jasper of Pembroke, you laugh with glee to
hear that Oxford and Pembroke are gone to swell the army of your
foes!"
"Better foes out of my realm than in it," answered Edward, dryly.
"My liege, I say no more," and Richard rose. "I would forestall a
danger; it but remains for me to share it."
The king was touched. "Tarry yet, Richard," he said; and then, fixing
his brother's eye, he continued, with a half smile and a heightened
colour, "though we knew thee true and leal to us, we yet know also,
Richard, that thou hast personal interest in thy counsels. Thou
wouldst by one means or another soften or constrain the earl into
giving thee the hand of Anne. Well, then, grant that Warwick and
Clarence expel King Edward from his throne, they may bring a bride to
console thee for the ruin of a brother."
"Thou hast no right to taunt or to suspect me, my liege," returned
Richard, with a quiver in his lip. "Thou hast included me in thy
meditated wrong to Warwick; and had that wrong been done--"
"Peradventure it had made thee espouse Warwick's quarrel?"
"Bluntly, yes!" exclaimed Richard, almost fiercely, and playing with
his dagger. "But" (he added, with a sudden change of voice) "I
understand and know thee better than the earl did or could. I know
what in thee is but thoughtless impulse, haste of passion, the habit
kings form of forgetting all things save the love or hate, the desire
or anger, of a moment. Thou hast told me thyself, and with tears, of
thy offence; thou hast pardoned my boy's burst of anger; I have
pardoned thy evil thought; thou hast told me thyself that another face
has succeeded to the brief empire of Anne's blue eye, and hast further
pledged me thy kingly word, that if I can yet compass the hand of a
cousin dear to me from childhood, thou wilt confirm the union."
"It is true," said Edward. "But if thou wed thy bride, keep her aloof
from the court,--nay, frown not, my boy, I mean simply that I would
not blush before my brother's wife!"
Richard bowed low in order to conceal the expression of his face, and
went on without further notice of the explanation. "And all this
considered, Edward, I swear by Saint Paul, the holiest saint to
thoughtful men, and by Saint George, the noblest patron to high-born
warriors, that thy crown and thine honour are as dear to me as if they
were mine own. Whatever sins Richard of Gloucester may live to
harbour and repent, no man shall ever say of him that he was a
recreant to the honour of his country [so Lord Bacon observes of
Richard, with that discrimination, even in the strongest censure, of
which profound judges of mankind are alone capable, that he was "a
king jealous of the honor of the English nation"], or slow to defend
the rights of his ancestors from the treason of a vassal or the sword
of a foreign foe. Therefore, I say again, if thou reject my honest
counsels; if thou suffer Warwick to unite with Lancaster and France;
if the ships of Louis bear to your shores an enemy, the might of whom
your reckless daring undervalues, foremost in the field in battle,
nearest to your side in exile, shall Richard Plantagenet be found!"
These words, being uttered with sincerity, and conveying a promise
never forfeited, were more impressive than the subtlest eloquence the
wily and accomplished Gloucester ever employed as the cloak to guile,
and they so affected Edward, that he threw his arms around his
brother; and after one of those bursts of emotion which were frequent
in one whose feelings were never deep and lasting, but easily aroused
and warmly spoken, he declared himself really to listen to and adopt
all means which Richard's art could suggest for the better maintenance
of their common weal and interests.
And then, with that wondrous, if somewhat too restless and over-
refining energy which belonged to him, Richard rapidly detailed the
scheme of his profound and dissimulating policy. His keen and
intuitive insight into human nature had shown him the stern necessity
which, against their very will, must unite Warwick with Margaret of
Anjou. His conversation with Montagu had left no doubt of that peril
on his penetrating mind. He foresaw that this union might be made
durable and sacred by the marriage of Anne and Prince Edward; and to
defeat this alliance was his first object, partly through Clarence,
partly through Margaret herself. A gentlewoman in the Duchess of
Clarence's train had been arrested on the point of embarking to join
her mistress. Richard had already seen and conferred with this lady,
whose ambition, duplicity, and talent for intrigue were known to him.
Having secured her by promises of the most lavish dignities and
rewards, he proposed that she should be permitted to join the duchess
with secret messages to Isabel and the duke, warning them both that
Warwick and Margaret would forget their past feud in present sympathy,
and that the rebellion against King Edward, instead of placing them on
the throne, would humble them to be subordinates and aliens to the
real profiters, the Lancastrians. [Comines, 3, c. 5; Hall;
Hollinshed] He foresaw what effect these warnings would have upon the
vain duke and the ambitious Isabel, whose character was known to him
from childhood. He startled the king by insisting upon sending, at
the same time, a trusty diplomatist to Margaret of Anjou, proffering
to give the princess Elizabeth (betrothed to Lord Montagu's son) to
the young Prince Edward. ["Original Letters from Harleian
Manuscripts. Edited by Sir H. Ellis (second series).] Thus, if the
king, who had, as yet, no son, were to die, Margaret's son, in right
of his wife, as well as in that of his own descent, would peaceably
ascend the throne. "Need I say that I mean not this in sad and
serious earnest?" observed Richard, interrupting the astonished king.
"I mean it but to amuse the Anjouite, and to deafen her ears to any
overtures from Warwick. If she listen, we gain time; that time will
inevitably renew irreconcilable quarrel between herself and the earl.
His hot temper and desire of revenge will not brook delay. He will
land, unsupported by Margaret and her partisans, and without any fixed
principle of action which can strengthen force by opinion."
"You are right, Richard," said Edward, whose faithless cunning
comprehended the more sagacious policy it could not originate. "All
be it as you will."
"And in the mean while," added Richard, "watch well, but anger not,
Montagu and the archbishop. It were dangerous to seem to distrust
them till proof be clear; it were dull to believe them true. I go at
once to fulfil my task."