WARWICK AND HIS FAMILY IN EXILE.
We now summon the reader on a longer if less classic journey than from
Thebes to Athens, and waft him on a rapid wing from Shene to Amboise.
We must suppose that the two emissaries of Gloucester have already
arrived at their several destinations,--the lady has reached Isabel,
the envoy Margaret.
In one of the apartments appropriated to the earl in the royal palace,
within the embrasure of a vast Gothic casement, sat Anne of Warwick;
the small wicket in the window was open, and gave a view of a wide and
fair garden, interspersed with thick bosquets and regular alleys, over
which the rich skies of the summer evening, a little before sunset,
cast alternate light and shadow. Towards this prospect the sweet face
of the Lady Anne was turned musingly. The riveted eye, the bended
neck, the arms reclining on the knee, the slender fingers interlaced,
--gave to her whole person the character of revery and repose.
In the same chamber were two other ladies; the one was pacing the
floor with slow but uneven steps, with lips moving from time to time,
as if in self-commune, with the brow contracted slightly: her form and
face took also the character of revery, but not of repose.
The third female (the gentle and lovely mother of the other two) was
seated, towards the centre of the room, before a small table, on which
rested one of those religious manuscripts, full of the moralities and
the marvels of cloister sanctity, which made so large a portion of the
literature of the monkish ages. But her eye rested not on the Gothic
letter and the rich blazon of the holy book. With all a mother's fear
and all a mother's fondness, it glanced from Isabel to Anne, from Anne
to Isabel, till at length in one of those soft voices, so rarely
heard, which makes even a stranger love the speaker, the fair countess
said,--
"Come hither, my child Isabel; give me thy hand, and whisper me what
hath chafed thee."
"My mother," replied the duchess, "it would become me ill to have a
secret not known to thee, and yet, methinks, it would become me less
to say aught to provoke thine anger!"
"Anger, Isabel! Who ever knew anger for those they love?"
"Pardon me, my sweet mother," said Isabel, relaxing her haughty brow,
and she approached and kissed her mother's cheek.
The countess drew her gently to a seat by her side.
"And now tell me all,--unless, indeed, thy Clarence hath, in some
lover's hasty mood, vexed thy affection; for of the household secrets
even a mother should not question the true wife."
Isabel paused, and glanced significantly at Anne.
"Nay, see!" said the countess, smiling, though sadly, "she, too, hath
thoughts that she will not tell to me; but they seem not such as
should alarm my fears, as thine do. For the moment ere I spoke to
thee, thy brow frowned, and her lip smiled. She hears us not,--speak
on."
"Is it then true, my mother, that Margaret of Anjou is hastening
hither? And can it be possible that King Louis can persuade my lord
and father to meet, save in the field of battle, the arch-enemy of our
House?"
"Ask the earl thyself, Isabel; Lord Warwick hath no concealment from
his children. Whatever he doth is ever wisest, best, and
knightliest,--so, at least, may his children always deem!"
Isabel's colour changed and her eye flashed. But ere she could
answer, the arras was raised, and Lord Warwick entered. But no longer
did the hero's mien and manner evince that cordial and tender
cheerfulness which, in all the storms of his changeful life, he had
hitherto displayed when coming from power and danger, from council or
from camp, to man's earthly paradise,--a virtuous home.
Gloomy and absorbed, his very dress--which, at that day, the Anglo-
Norman deemed it a sin against self-dignity to neglect--betraying, by
its disorder, that thorough change of the whole mind, that terrible
internal revolution, which is made but in strong natures by the
tyranny of a great care or a great passion, the earl scarcely seemed
to heed his countess, who rose hastily, but stopped in the timid fear
and reverence of love at the sight of his stern aspect; he threw
himself abruptly on a seat, passed his hand over his face, and sighed
heavily.
That sigh dispelled the fear of the wife, and made her alive only to
her privilege of the soother. She drew near, and placing herself on
the green rushes at his feet, took his hand and kissed it, but did not
speak.
The earl's eyes fell on the lovely face looking up to him through
tears, his brow softened, he drew his hand gently from hers, placed it
on her head, and said in a low voice,--"God and Our Lady bless thee,
sweet wife!"
Then, looking round, he saw Isabel watching him intently; and, rising
at once, he threw his arm round her waist, pressed her to his bosom,
and said, "My daughter, for thee and thine day and night have I
striven and planned in vain. I cannot reward thy husband as I would;
I cannot give thee, as I had hoped, a throne!"
"What title so dear to Isabel," said the countess, "as that of Lord
Warwick's daughter?"
Isabel remained cold and silent, and returned not the earl's embrace.
Warwick was, happily, too absorbed in his own feelings to notice those
of his child. Moving away, he continued, as he paced the room (his
habit in emotion, which Isabel, who had many minute external traits in
common with her father, had unconsciously caught from him),--
"Till this morning I hoped still that my name and services, that
Clarence's popular bearing and his birth of Plantagenet, would suffice
to summon the English people round our standard; that the false Edward
would be driven, on our landing, to fly the realm; and that, without
change to the dynasty of York, Clarence, as next male heir, would
ascend the throne. True, I saw all the obstacles, all the
difficulties,--I was warned of them before I left England; but still I
hoped. Lord Oxford has arrived, he has just left me. We have gone
over the chart of the way before us, weighed the worth of every name,
for and against; and, alas! I cannot but allow that all attempt to
place the younger brother on the throne of the elder would but lead to
bootless slaughter and irretrievable defeat."
"Wherefore think you so, my lord?" asked Isabel, in evident
excitement. "Your own retainers are sixty thousand,--an army larger
than Edward, and all his lords of yesterday, can bring into the
field."
"My child," answered the earl, with that profound knowledge of his
countrymen which he had rather acquired from his English heart than
from any subtlety of intellect, "armies may gain a victory, but they
do not achieve a throne,--unless, at least, they enforce a slavery;
and it is not for me and for Clarence to be the violent conquerors of
our countrymen, but the regenerators of a free realm, corrupted by a
false man's rule."
"And what then," exclaimed Isabel,--"what do you propose, my father?
Can it be possible that you can unite yourself with the abhorred
Lancastrians, with the savage Anjouite, who beheaded my grandsire,
Salisbury? Well do I remember your own words,--'May God and Saint
George forget me, when I forget those gray and gory hairs!'"
Here Isabel was interrupted by a faint cry from Anne, who, unobserved
by the rest, and hitherto concealed from her father's eye by the deep
embrasure of the window, had risen some moments before, and listened,
with breathless attention, to the conversation between Warwick and the
duchess.
"It is not true, it is not true!" exclaimed Anne, passionately.
"Margaret disowns the inhuman deed."
"Thou art right, Anne," said Warwick; "though I guess not how thou
didst learn the error of a report so popularly believed that till of
late I never questioned its truth. King Louis assures me solemnly
that that foul act was done by the butcher Clifford, against
Margaret's knowledge, and, when known, to her grief and anger."
"And you, who call Edward false, can believe Louis true?"
"Cease, Isabel, cease!" said the countess. "Is it thus my child can
address my lord and husband? Forgive her, beloved Richard."
"Such heat in Clarence's wife misbeseems her not," answered Warwick.
"And I can comprehend and pardon in my haughty Isabel a resentment
which her reason must at last subdue; for think not, Isabel, that it
is without dread struggle and fierce agony that I can contemplate
peace and league with mine ancient foe; but here two duties speak to
me in voices not to be denied: my honour and my hearth, as noble and
as man, demand redress, and the weal and glory of my country demand a
ruler who does not degrade a warrior, nor assail a virgin, nor corrupt
a people by lewd pleasures, nor exhaust a land by grinding imposts;
and that honour shall be vindicated, and that country shall be
righted, no matter at what sacrifice of private grief and pride."
The words and the tone of the earl for a moment awed even Isabel; but
after a pause, she said suddenly, "And for this, then, Clarence hath
joined your quarrel and shared your exile?--for this,--that he may
place the eternal barrier of the Lancastrian line between himself and
the English throne?"
"I would fain hope," answered the earl, calmly, "that Clarence will
view our hard position more charitably than thou. If he gain not all
that I could desire, should success crown our arms, he will, at least,
gain much; for often and ever did thy husband, Isabel, urge me to
stern measures against Edward, when I soothed him and restrained.
Mort Dieu! how often did he complain of slight and insult from
Elizabeth and her minions, of open affront from Edward, of parsimony
to his wants as prince,--of a life, in short, humbled and made bitter
by all the indignity and the gall which scornful power can inflict on
dependent pride. If he gain not the throne, he will gain, at least,
the succession in thy right to the baronies of Beauchamp, the mighty
duchy, and the vast heritage of York, the vice-royalty of Ireland.
Never prince of the blood had wealth and honours equal to those that
shall await thy lord. For the rest, I drew him not into my quarrel;
long before would he have drawn me into his; nor doth it become thee,
Isabel, as child and as sister, to repent, if the husband of my
daughter felt as brave men feel, without calculation of gain and
profit, the insult offered to his lady's House. But if here I
overgauge his chivalry and love to me and mine, or discontent his
ambition and his hopes, Mort Dieu! we hold him not a captive. Edward
will hail his overtures of peace; let him make terms with his brother,
and return."
"I will report to him what you say, my lord," said Isabel, with cold
brevity and, bending her haughty head in formal reverence, she
advanced to the door. Anne sprang forward and caught her hand.
"Oh, Isabel!" she whispered, "in our father's sad and gloomy hour can
you leave him thus?" and the sweet lady burst into tears.
"Anne," retorted Isabel, bitterly, "thy heart is Lancastrian; and
what, peradventure, grieves my father hath but joy for thee."
Anne drew back, pale and trembling, and her sister swept from the
room.
The earl, though he had not overheard the whispered sentences which
passed between his daughters, had watched them closely, and his lip
quivered with emotion as Isabel closed the door.
"Come hither, my Anne," he said tenderly; "thou who hast thy mother's
face, never hast a harsh thought for thy father."
As Anne threw herself on Warwick's breast, he continued, "And how
camest thou to learn that Margaret disowns a deed that, if done by her
command, would render my union with her cause a sacrilegious impiety
to the dead?"
Anne coloured, and nestled her head still closer to her father's
bosom. Her mother regarded her confusion and her silence with an
anxious eye.
The wing of the palace in which the earl's apartments were situated
was appropriated to himself and household, flanked to the left by an
abutting pile containing state-chambers, never used by the austere and
thrifty Louis, save on great occasions of pomp or revel; and, as we
have before observed, looking on a garden, which was generally
solitary and deserted. From this garden, while Anne yet strove for
words to answer her father, and the countess yet watched her
embarrassment, suddenly came the soft strain of a Provencal lute;
while a low voice, rich, and modulated at once by a deep feeling and
an exquisite art that would have given effect to even simpler words,
breathed--
THE LAY OF THE HEIR OF LANCASTER
"His birthright but a father's name,
A grandsire's hero-sword,
He dwelt within the stranger's land,
The friendless, homeless lord!"
"Yet one dear hope, too dear to tell,
Consoled the exiled man;
The angels have their home in heaven
And gentle thoughts in Anne."
At that name the voice of the singer trembled, and paused a moment;
the earl, who at first had scarcely listened to what he deemed but the
ill-seasoned gallantry of one of the royal minstrels, started in proud
surprise, and Anne herself, tightening her clasp round her father's
neck, burst into passionate sobs. The eye of the countess met that of
her lord; but she put her finger to her lips in sign to him to listen.
The song was resumed--
"Recall the single sunny time,
In childhood's April weather,
When he and thou, the boy and girl,
Roved hand in band together."
"When round thy young companion knelt
The princes of the isle;
And priest and people prayed their God,
On England's heir to smile."
The earl uttered a half-stifled exclamation, but the minstrel heard
not the interruption, and continued,--
"Methinks the sun hath never smiled
Upon the exiled man,
Like that bright morning when the boy
Told all his soul to Anne."
"No; while his birthright but a name,
A grandsire's hero--sword,
He would not woo the lofty maid
To love the banished lord."
"But when, with clarion, fife, and drum,
He claims and wins his own;
When o'er the deluge drifts his ark,
To rest upon a throne."
"Then, wilt thou deign to hear the hope
That blessed the exiled man,
When pining for his father's crown
To deck the brows of Anne?"
The song ceased, and there was silence within the chamber, broken but
by Anne's low yet passionate weeping. The earl gently strove to
disengage her arms from his neck; but she, mistaking his intention,
sank on her knees, and covering her face with her hands, exclaimed,--
"Pardon! pardon! pardon him, if not me!"
"What have I to pardon? What hast thou concealed from me? Can I
think that thou hast met, in secret, one who--"
"In secret! Never, never, Father! This is the third time only that I
have heard his voice since we have been at Amboise, save when--save
when--"
"Go on."
"Save when King Louis presented him to me in the revel under the name
of the Count de F----, and he asked me if I could forgive his mother
for Lord Clifford's crime."
"It is, then, as the rhyme proclaimed; and it is Edward of Lancaster
who loves and woos the daughter of Lord Warwick!"
Something in her father's voice made Anne remove her hands from her
face, and look up to him with a thrill of timid joy. Upon his brow,
indeed, frowned no anger, upon his lip smiled no scorn. At that
moment all his haughty grief at the curse of circumstance which drove
him to his hereditary foe had vanished. Though Montagu had obtained
from Oxford some glimpse of the desire which the more sagacious and
temperate Lancastrians already entertained for that alliance, and
though Louis had already hinted its expediency to the earl, yet, till
now, Warwick himself had naturally conceived that the prince shared
the enmity of his mother, and that such a union, however politic, was
impossible; but now indeed there burst upon him the full triumph of
revenge and pride. Edward of York dared to woo Anne to dishonour,
Edward of Lancaster dared not even woo her as his wife till his crown
was won! To place upon the throne the very daughter the ungrateful
monarch had insulted; to make her he would have humbled not only the
instrument of his fall, but the successor of his purple; to unite in
one glorious strife the wrongs of the man and the pride of the
father,--these were the thoughts that sparkled in the eye of the king-
maker, and flushed with a fierce rapture the dark cheek, already
hollowed by passion and care. He raised his daughter from the floor,
and placed her in her mother's arms, but still spoke not.
"This, then, was thy secret, Anne," whispered the countess; "and I
half foreguessed it, when, last night, I knelt beside thy couch to
pray, and overheard thee murmur in thy dreams."
"Sweet mother, thou forgivest me; but my father--ah, he speaks not.
One word! Father, Father, not even his love could console me if I
angered thee!"
The earl, who had remained rooted to the spot, his eyes shining
thoughtfully under his dark brows, and his hand slightly raised, as if
piercing into the future, and mapping out its airy realm, turned
quickly,--
"I go to the heir of Lancaster; if this boy be bold and true, worthy
of England and of thee, we will change the sad ditty of that scrannel
lute into such a storm of trumpets as beseems the triumph of a
conqueror and the marriage of a prince!"