On the next morning Mr. Congleton called me into the library from the
garden, where I was gathering for Muriel a few of such hardy flowers
as had survived the early frost. She was wont to carry them with her
to the prisons; for it was one of her kindly apprehensions of the
sufferings of others to divide the comfort wherewith things seemingly
indifferent do affect those that be shut out of all kinds of
enjoyments; and where a less tender nature should have been content to
provide necessaries, she, through a more delicate acquaintanceship and
light touch, as it were, on the strings of the human heart, ever
bethought herself when it was possible to minister if but one minute's
pleasure to those who had often well-nigh forgotten the very taste of
it. And she hath told me touching that point of flowers, how it had
once happened that the scent of some violets she had concealed in her
bosom with a like intent did move to tears an aged man, who for many
years past had not seen, no not so much as one green leaf in his
prison; which tears, he said, did him more good than anything else
which could have happened to him.
I threw down on a bench the chrysanthemums and other bold blossoms I
had gathered, and running into the house, opened the door of the
library, where, lo and behold, to my no small agitation and amaze, I
discovered Edmund Genings, who cried out as I entered:
"O my dear master's daughter and well-remembered playmate, I do greet
you with all mine heart; and I thank God that I see you in so good a
condition, as I may with infinite gladness make report of to
your good father, who through me doth impart to you his paternal
blessing and most affectionate commendations."
"Edmund," I cried, scarce able to speak for haste, "is he in London?
is he in prison?"
"No, forsooth," quoth Mr. Congleton.
"No, verily," quoth Edmund; both at the same time.
"Thy fears, silly wench," added the first, "have run away with thy
wits, and I do counsel thee another time to be at more pains to
restrain them; for when there be so many occasions to be afraid of
veritable evils, 'tis but sorry waste to spend fears on present
fancies."
By which I did conjecture my uncle not to be greatly pleased with
Edmund's coming to his house, and noticed that he did fidget in his
chair and ever and anon glanced at the windows which opened on the
garden in an uneasy manner.
"And wherefore art thou then in London?" I asked of Edmund; who thus
answered:
"Because Mr. James Fenn, who is also called Williesden, was taken and
committed close prisoner to the Marshalsea a short time back; which,
when my dear master did hear of, he was greatly disturbed and
turmoiled thereby, by reason of weighty matters having passed betwixt
him and that gentleman touching lands belonging to recusants, and that
extraordinary damage was likely to ensue to several persons of great
merit, if he could not advertise him in time how to answer to those
accusations which would be laid against him; and did seek if by any
means he could have access to him; but could find no hope thereof
without imminent danger not to himself only, but to many beside, if he
had come to London and been recognized."
"Wherein he did judge rightly," quoth my uncle; and then Edmund--
"So, seeing my master and others of a like faith with him in so great
straits touching their property and their lives also, I did most
earnestly crave his licence, being unknown and of no account in the
world, and so least to be suspected, to undertake this enterprise,
which he could not himself perform; which at last he did grant me,
albeit not without reluctance. And thus resolved I came to town."
"And has your hope been frustrated?" Mr. Congleton asked. To whom
Edmund--"I thank God, the end hath answered my expectations. I
committed the cause to him to whom nothing is impossible, and
determined, like a trusty servant, to do all that in me did lie
thereunto. And thinking on no other means, I took up my abode near to
the prison, hoping in time to get acquainted with the keeper; for
which purpose I had to drink with him each day, standing the cost,
beside paying him well, which I was furnished with the means to do. At
last I did, by his means, procure to see Mr. Fenn, and not only come
to speak to him, but to have access to his cell three or four times
with pen and ink and paper to write his mind. So I have furnished him
with the information he had need of, and likewise brought away with me
such answers to my master's questions as should solve his doubts how
to proceed in the aforesaid matters."
"God reward thee, my good youth," Mr. Congleton said, "for this thing
which thou hast done; for verily, under the laws lately set forth,
recusants be in such condition that, if not death, beggary doth stare
them in the face, and no remedy thereunto except by such assistance as
well-disposed Protestants be willing to yield to them."
"And where doth my father stay at this present time?" I asked; and
Edmund answered:
"Not so much as to you, Mistress Constance, am I free to reply to that
question; for when I left, 'Edmund,' quoth my master, 'it is a part of
prudence in these days to guard those that be dear to us from dangers
ensuing on what men do call our perversity; and as these new laws
enact that he which knoweth any one which doth hear mass, be it
ever so privately, or suffers a priest to absolve him, or performs any
other action appertaining to Catholic religion, and doth not discover
him before some public magistrate within the space of twenty days next
following, shall suffer the punishment of high treason, than which
nothing can be more horrible; and that neither sex nor age be a cause
of exemption from the like penalties, so that father must accuse son,
and sister brother, and children their parents;--it is, I say, a
merciful part to hide from our friends where we do conceal ourselves,
whose consciences do charge us with these novel crimes, lest theirs be
also burdened with the choice either to denounce us if called upon to
testify thereon, or else to speak falsely. Therefore I do charge thee,
my son Edmund' (for thus indeed doth my master term me, his unworthy
servant), 'that thou keep from my good child, and my dear sister, and
her no less dear husband, the knowledge of my present, but indeed
ever-shifting, abode; and solely inform them, by word of mouth, that I
am in good health, and in very good heart also, and do most earnestly
pray for them, that their strength and patience be such as the times
do require.'"
"And art thou reconciled, Edmund?" I asked, ever speaking hastily and
beforehand with prudence. Mr. Congleton checked me sharply; whereupon,
with great confusion, I interrupted my speech; but Edmund, albeit not
in words yet by signs, answered my question so as I should be
certified it was even as I hoped. He then asked if I should not be
glad to write a letter to my father,--which he would carry to him, so
that it was neither signed nor addressed,--which letter I did sit down
to compose in a hurried manner, my heart prompting my pen to utter
what it listed, rather than weighing the words in which those
affectionate sentiments were expressed. Mr. Congleton likewise did
write to him, whilst Edmund took some food, which he greatly needed;
for he had scarce eaten so much as one comfortable meal since he had
been in London, and was to ride day and night till he reached his
master. I wept very bitterly when he went away; for the sight of him
recalled the dear mother I had lost, the sole parent whose company I
was likewise reft of, and the home I was never like to see again. But
when those tears were stayed, that which at the time did cause sadness
ministered comfort in the retrospect, and relief from worse fears made
the present separation from my father more tolerable. And on the next
Sunday, when I went to the Charter House, with my cousins and Mistress
Ward, I was in such good cheer that Polly commended my prating; which
she said for some days had been so stayed that she had greatly feared
I had caught the infectious plague of melancholy from Kate, whom she
vowed did half kill her with the sound of her doleful sighing since
Mr. Lacy was gone, which she said was a dismal music brought into
fashion by love-sick ladies, and such as she never did intend to
practise; "for," quoth she, "I hold care to be the worst enemy in
life; and to be in love very dull sport, if it serve not to make one
merry." This she said turning to Sir Ralph Ingoldby, the
afore-mentioned suitor for her hand, who went with us, and thereupon
cried out, "Mercy on us, fair mistress, if we must be merry when we be
sad, and by merriment win a lady's love, the lack of which doth so
take away merriment that we must needs be sad, and so lose that which
should cure sadness;" and much more he in that style, and she
answering and making sport of his discourse, as was her wont with all
gentlemen.
When we reached the house, Mrs. Milicent was awaiting us at the door
of the gallery for to conduct us to the best place wherein we could
see her majesty's entrance. There were some seats there and other
persons present, some of which were of Polly's acquaintance, with whom
she did keep up a brisk conversation, in which I had occasion to
notice the sharpness of her wit, in which she did surpass any woman I
have since known, for she was never at a loss for an answer; as when
one said to her--
"Truly, you have no mean opinion of yourself, fair mistress."
"As one shall prize himself," quoth she, "so let him look to be valued
by others."
And another: "You think yourself to be Minerva."
Whereupon she: "No, sir, not when I be at your elbow;" meaning he was
no Ulysses.
And when one gentleman asked her of a book, if she had read it:
"The epistle," she said, "and no more."
"And wherefore no more," quoth he, "since that hath wit in it?"
"Because," she answered, "an author who sets all his wit in his
epistle is like to make his book resemble a bankrupt's doublet."
"How so?" asked the gentleman.
"In this wise," saith she, "that he sets the velvet before, though the
back be but of buckram."
"For my part," quoth a foppish young man, "I have thoughts in my mind
should fill many volumes."
"Alack, good sir," cries she, "is there no type good enough to set
them in?"
He, somewhat nettled, declares that she reads no books but of one
sort, and doats on _Sir Bevis and Owlglass_, or _Fashion's Mirror_,
and such like idle stuff, wherein he himself had never found so much
as one word of profitable use or reasonable entertainment.
"I have read a fable," she said, "which speaks of a pasture in which
oxen find fodder, hounds, hares, storks, lizards, and some animals
nothing."
"To deliver you my opinion," said a lady who sat next to Polly's
disputant, "I have no great esteem for letters in gentlewomen. The
greatest readers be oft the worst doers."
"Letters!" cries Polly; "why, surely they be the most weighty things
in creation; for so much as the difference of one letter mistaken in
the order in which it should stand in a short sentence doth alter the
expression of a man's resolve in a matter of life and death."
"How prove you that, madam?" quoth the lady.
"By the same token," answered Polly, "that I once did hear a gentleman
say, 'I must go die a beggar,' who willed to say, 'I must go buy a
dagger.'"
They all did laugh, and then some one said, "There was a witty book of
emblems made on all the cardinals at Rome, in which these scarlet
princes were very roughly handled. Bellarmine, for instance, as a
tiger fast chained to a post, and a scroll proceeding from the beast's
mouth--'Give me my liberty; you shall see what I am.' I wish," quoth
the speaker, "he were let loose in this island. The queen's judges
would soon constrain him to eat his words."
"Peradventure," answered Polly, "his own words should be too good food
for a recusant in her majesty's prisons."
"Maybe, madam, you have tasted of that food," quoth the aforesaid
lady, "that you be so well acquainted with its qualities."
Then I perceived that Mistress Ward did nudge Polly for to stay her
from carrying on a further encounter of words on this subject; for, as
she did remind us afterward, many persons had been thrown into prison
for only so much as a word lightly spoken in conversation which should
be supposed even in a remote manner to infer a favorable opinion of
Catholic religion; as, for instance, a bookseller in Oxford, for a
jest touching the queen's supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, had
been a short time before arrested, pilloried, whipped, and his ears
nailed to a counter, which with a knife he had himself to cut through
to free himself; which maybe had not been taken much notice of, as
nothing singular in these days, the man being a Catholic and of no
great note, but that much talk had been ministered concerning a
terrible disease which broke out immediately after the passing of that
sentence, by which the judge which had pronounced it, the jury, and
many other persons concerned in it, had died raving mad; to the no
small affright of the whole city. I ween, howsoever, no nudging should
have stopped Polly from talking, which indeed was a passion with her,
but that a burst of music at that time did announce the queen's
approach, and we did all stand up on the tiptoe of expectation to see
her majesty enter.
My heart did beat as fast as the pendulum of a clock when the cries
outside resounded, "Long live Queen Elizabeth!" and her majesty's
voice was distinctly heard answering, "I thank you, my good people;"
and the ushers crying out, "La Royne!" as the great door was thrown
open; through which we did see her majesty alight from her coach,
followed by many nobles and lords, and amongst them one of her
bishops, and my Lord and my Lady Surrey, kneeling to receive her on
the steps, with a goodly company of kinsfolks and friends around them.
Oh, how I did note every lineament of that royal lady, of so great
power and majesty, that it should seem as if she were not made of the
same mould as those of whom the Scriptures do say, that dust they are,
and to dust must they return. Very majestic did she appear; her
stature neither tall nor low, but her air exceedingly stately. Her
eyes small and black, her face fair, her nose a little hooked, and her
lips narrow. Upon her head she had a small crown, her bosom was
uncovered; she wore an oblong collar of gold and jewels, and on her
neck an exceeding fine necklace. She was dressed in white silk
bordered with pearls, and over it a mantle of black silk shot with
silver threads; her train, which was borne by her ladies, was very
long. When my lord knelt, she pulled off her glove, and gave him her
right hand to kiss, sparkling with rings and jewels; but when my lady,
in as sweet and modest a manner as can be thought of, advanced to pay
her the same homage, she did withdraw it hastily and moved on. I can
even now, at this distance of time, call to mind the look of that
sweet lady's face as she rose to follow her majesty, who leant on my
lord's arm with a show of singular favor, addressing herself to him in
a mild, playful, and obliging manner. How the young countess's cheek
did glow with a burning blush, as if doubting if she had offended in
the manner of her behavior, or had anyways merited the repulse she had
met with! How she stood for one moment irresolute, seeking to catch my
lord's eye, so as to be directed by him; and failing to do so, with a
pretty smile, but with what I, who loved her, fancied to be a
quivering lip, addressed herself to the ladies of the queen, and
conducted them through the cloisters to the garden, whither her
highness and my lord had gone.
In a brief time Mistress Milicent came to fetch us to a window which
looked on the square, where a great open tent was set for a collation,
and seats all round it for the concert which was to follow. As we went
along, I took occasion to ask of her the name of a waiting-gentleman,
who ordered about the servants with no small alacrity, and met her
majesty with many bows and quirks and a long compliment in verse.
"Tis Mr. Churchyard," she said; "a retainer of his grace's, and a poet
withal."
"Not a _grave_ one, I hope," said Polly.
"Nay," answered the simple gentlewoman, "but one well versed in
pageants and tournaments and suchlike devices, as well as in writing
of verses and epigrams very fine and witty. Her majesty doth sometimes
send for him when any pageant is on hand."
"Ah, then, I doubt not," quoth Polly, "he doth take himself to be no
mean personage in the state, and so behaves accordingly."
Pretty Milicent left us to seek for Mistress Bess, whom she had charge
of that day; and now our eyes were so intent on watching the spectacle
before us that even Polly for a while was silent. The queen did sit at
table with a store of noblemen waiting on her; and a more goodly sight
and a rarer one is not to be seen than a store of men famed for so
much bravery and wit and arts of state, that none have been found to
surpass them in any age, who be so loyal to a queen and so reverent to
a woman as these to this lady, who doth wear the crown of so great a
kingdom, so that all the world doth hold it in respect, and her hand
sought by so many great princes. But all this time I could not
perceive that she so much as once did look toward my Lady Surrey, or
spoke one single word to her or to my Lady Lumley, or little Bess, and
took very scanty notice also of my Lady Berkeley, his grace's sister,
who was a lady of so great and haughty a stomach, and of speech so
eloquent and ready, that I have heard the queen did say, that albeit
Lady Berkeley bent her knee when she made obeisance to her, she could
very well see she bent not her will to love or serve her, and that she
liked not such as have a man's heart in a woman's body. 'Tis said that
parity breedeth not affection, or affinity respect, of which saying
this opinion of the queen's should seem a notable example. But to see
my Lady Surrey so treated in her own husband's father's house worked
in me such effects of choler, mingled with sadness, that I could
scarce restrain my tears. Methought there was a greater nobleness and
a more true queenly greatness in her meek and withal dignified
endurance of these slights who was the subject, than in the sovereign
who did so insult one who least of all did deserve it. What the queen
did, others took pattern from; and neither my Lord Burleigh, nor my
Lord Leicester, or Sir Christopher Hatton, or young Lord Essex (albeit
my lord's own friend ), or little Sir John Harrington, her majesty's
godson, did so much as speak one civil word or show her the least
attention; but she did bear herself with so much sweetness, and,
though I knew her heart was full almost to bursting, kept up so brave
an appearance that none should see it except such as had their own
hearts wounded through hers, that some were present that day who since
have told me that, for promise of future distinction and true nobility
of aspect and behavior, they had not in their whole lives known one to
be compared with the young Countess of Surrey.
Polly did point out to us the aforesaid noblemen and gentlemen, and
also Dr. Cheney, the bishop of Gloucester, who had accompanied her
majesty, and M. de la Motte, the French ambassador, whom she did seem
greatly to favor; but none that day so much as my Lord Surrey, on whom
she let fall many gracious smiles, and used playful fashions with him,
such as nipping him once or twice on the forehead, and shaking her
fan, as if to reprove him for his answers to her questions, which
nevertheless, if her countenance might be judged of, did greatly
content her; albeit I once observed her to frown (and methought, then,
what a terror doth lie in a sovereign's frown) and speak sharply to
him; at the which a high color came into his cheek, and rose up even
to his temples, which her majesty perceiving, she did again use the
same blandishments as before; and when the collation was ended, and
the concert began, which had been provided for her grace's
entertainment, she would have him sit at her feet, and gave him so
many tokens of good-will, that I heard Sir Ralph Ingoldby, who was
standing behind me, say to another gentleman:
"If that young nobleman's father is like to be shorter by the head,
his father's son is like to have his own raised higher than ever his
father's was, so he doth keep clear of papistry and overmuch fondness
for his wife, which be the two things her majesty doth most abhor
in her courtiers."
My heart moving me to curiosity, I could not forbear to ask:
"I pray you, sir, wherefore doth not her majesty like her courtiers to
love their wives?"
At the which question he laughed, and said:
"By reason, Mistress Constance, that when they be in that case they do
become stayers at home, and wait not on her majesty with a like
diligence as when they are unmarried, or leastways love not their
ladies. The Bible saith a man cannot serve God and mammon. Now her
grace doth opine men cannot serve the queen and their wives also."
"Then," I warmly cried, "I hope my Lord Surrey shall never serve the
queen!"
"I' faith, say it not so loud, young Mistress Papist," said Sir Ralph,
laughing, "or we shall have you committed for high treason. Some are
in the Tower, I warrant you, for no worse offence than the uttering of
such like rash words. How should you fancy to have your pretty ears
bored with a rougher instrument than Master Anselm's the jeweller?"
And so he; but Polly, who methinks was not well pleased that he should
notice mine ears, which were little and well-shaped, whereas hers were
somewhat larger than did accord with her small face, did stop his
further speech with me by asking him if he were an enemy to papists;
for if so, she would have naught to say to him, and he might become a
courtier to the queen, or any one else's husband, for anything she did
care, yea, if she were to lose her ears for it.
And he answered, he did very much love some papists, albeit he hated
papistry when it proved not conformable to reason and the laws of the
country.
And so they fell to whispering and suchlike discourses as lovers hold
together; and I, being seated betwixt this enamored gentleman and the
wall on the other side, had no one then to talk with. But if my tongue
and mine ears also, save for the music below, were idle, not so mine
eyes; for they did stray from one point to another of the fair
spectacle which the garden did then present, now resting on the queen
and those near unto her, and anon on my Lady Surrey, who sat on a
couch to the left of her majesty's raised canopy, together with Lady
Southwell, Lady Arundell (Sir Robert's wife), and other ladies of the
queen, and on one side of her the bishop of Gloucester, whom, by
reason of his assiduous talking with her, I took more special note of
than I should otherwise have done; albeit he was a man which did
attract the eye, even at the first sight, by a most amiable suavity of
countenance, and a sweet and dignified behavior both in speech and
action such as I have seldom observed greater in any one. His manners
were free and unconstrained; and only to look at him converse, it was
easy to perceive he had a most ready wit tempered with benevolence. He
seemed vastly taken with my Lady Surrey; and either had not noticed
how others kept aloof from her, or was rather moved thereby to show
her civility; for they soon did fall into such eager, and in some sort
familiar, discourse, as it should seem to run on some subject of like
interest to both. Her color went and came as the conversation
advanced; and when she spoke, he listened with such grave suavity,
and, when she stayed her speech, answered in so obliging a manner, and
seemed so loth to break off, that I could not but admire how two
persons, hitherto strangers to each other, and of such various ages
and standing, should be so companionable on a first acquaintanceship.
When the queen rose to depart, in the same order in which she came,
every one kneeling as she passed, I did keenly watch to see what
visage she would show to my Lady Surrey, whom she did indeed this time
salute; but in no gracious manner, as one who looks without looking,
notices without heeding, and in tendering of thanks thanketh
not. As my lord walked by her majesty's side through the cloisters to
the door, he suddenly dropped on one knee, and drawing a paper from
his bosom, did present it to her highness, who started as if
surprised, and shook her head in a playful manner--(oh, what a cruel
playfulness methought it was, who knew, as her majesty must needs also
have done, what that paper did contain)--as if she would not be at that
time troubled with such grave matters, and did hand it to my Lord
Burleigh; then gave again her hand to my lord to kiss, who did kneel
with a like reverence as before; but with a shade of melancholy in his
fair young face, which methought became it better than the smiles it
had worn that day.
After the queen had left, and all the guests were gone save such few
as my lord had willed to stay to supper in his private apartments, I
went unto my lady's chamber, where I found Mistress Milicent, who said
she was with my lord, and prayed me to await her return; for that she
was urgent I should not depart without speaking with her, which was
also what I greatly desired. So I took a book and read for the space
of an hour or more, whilst she tarried with my lord. When she came in,
I could see she had been weeping. But her women being present, and
likewise Mistress Bess, she tried to smile, and pressed my hand,
bidding me to stay till she was rid of her trappings, as she did term
them; and, sitting down before her mirror,--though I ween she never
looked at her own face, which that evening had in it more of the
whiteness of a lily than the color of the rose,--she desired her women
to unbraid her hair, and remove from her head the diamond circlet, and
from her neck the heavy gold chain with a pearl cross, which had
belonged to her husband's mother. Then stepping out of her robe, she
put on a silk wrapper, and so dismissed them, and likewise little
Bess, who before she went whispered in her ear:
"Nan, methinks the queen is foul and red-haired, and I should not care
to kiss her hand for all the fine jewels she doth wear."
And so hugged her round the neck and stopped her mouth with kisses.
When they were gone,
"Constance," quoth she, "we be full young, I ween, for the burden laid
upon us, my lord and me."
"Ay, sweet one," I cried; "and God defend thou shouldst have to carry
it alone;" for my heart was sore that she had had so little favor
shown to her and my lord so much. A faint color tinged her cheek as
she replied:
"God knows I should be well cotent that Phil should stand so well in
her majesty's good graces as should be convenient to his honor and the
furtherance of his fortunes, if so be his father was out of prison;
and 'tis little I should reck of such slights as her highness should
choose to put upon me, if I saw him not so covetous of her favor that
he shall think less well of his poor Nan hereafter by reason of the
lack of her majesty's good opinion of her, which was so plainly showed
to-day. For, good Constance, bethink thee what a galling thing it is
to a young nobleman to see his wife so meanly entreated; and for her
majesty to ask him, as she did, if the pale-faced chit by his side,
when she arrived, was his sister or his cousin. And when he said it
was his wife who had knelt with him to greet her majesty"--"Wife!"
quoth the queen; "i' faith, I had forgotten thou wast married--if
indeed that is to be called a marriage which children do contract
before they come to the age of reason; and said she would take
measures for that a law should be passed which should make such
foolish marriages unlawful. And when my lord tried to tell her we had
been married a second time a few months since, she pretended not to
hear, and asked M. de la Motte if, in his country, children were made
to marry in their infancy. To which he gave answer, that the like
practice did sometimes take place in France; and that he had
himself been present at a wedding where the bridegroom was whipped
because he did refuse to open the ball with the bride. At the which
her majesty very much laughed, and said she hoped my lord had not been
so used on his wedding-day. I promise you Phil was very angry; but the
wound these jests made was so salved over with compliments, which
pleasantly tickle the ears when uttered by so great a queen, and marks
of favor more numerous than can be thought of, in the matter of
inviting him to hunt with her in Marylebone and Greenwich park, and
telling him he deserved better treatment than he had, as to his
household and setting forward in the world, that methinks the scar was
not long in healing; albeit in the relating of these passages the pain
somewhat revived. But what doth afflict me the most is the refusal her
highness made to read my lord's letter, lamenting the unhappy position
of the duke his father, and hoping the queen, by his means and those
of other friends, should mitigate her anger. I would have had Phil not
only go down on his knees as he did, but lie on the threshold of the
door, so that she should have walked over the son's body if she
refused to show mercy to the father; but he yet doth greatly hope from
the favor showed him that he may sue her majesty with better effect
some other time; and I pray God he may be right."
Here did the dear lady break off her speech, and, hiding her face in
her hands, remained silent for a short space; and I, seeing her so
deeply moved, with the intent to draw away her thoughts from painful
musings, inquired of her if the good entertainment she had found in
conversing with the bishop had been attributable to his witty
discourse, or to the subjects therein treated of.
"Ah, good Constance," she answered, "our talk was of one whom you have
often heard me speak of--Mr. Martin's friend, Master Campion,
[Footnote 2] who is now beyond seas at Douay, and whom this bishop
once did hold to be more dear to him than the apple of his eye. He
says his qualifications were so excellent, and he so beloved by all
persons in and outside of his college at Oxford, that none more so;
and that he did himself see in him so great a present merit and
promise of future excellence, that it had caused him more grief than
anything else which had happened to him, and been the occasion of his
shedding more tears than he had ever thought to have done, when he who
had received from him deacon's orders, and whom he had hoped should
have been an honor and a prop to the Church of England, did forsake it
and fly in the face of his queen and his country: first, by going into
Ireland; and then, as he understood, beyond seas, to serve the bishop
of Rome, against the laws of God and man. But that he did yet so
dearly affection him that, understanding we had sometimes tidings of
Mr. Martin, by whose means he had mostly been moved to this lamentable
defection, he should be contented to hear somewhat of his whilom son,
still dear to him, albeit estranged. I told him we did often see
Master Campion when Mr. Martin was here; and that, from what I had
heard, both were like to be at Douay, but that no letters passed
between Mr. Martin and ourselves; for that his grace did not allow of
such correspondence since he had been reconciled and gone beyond seas.
Which the bishop said was a commendable prudence in his grace, and the
part of a careful father; and added, that then maybe he knew more of
what had befallen Master Campion than I did; for that he had a long
epistle from him, so full of moving arguments and pithy remonstrances
as might have shaken one not well grounded and settled in his
religion, and which also contained a recital of his near arrest in
Dublin, where the queen's officers would have arrested him, if a
friend had not privately warned him of his danger. And I do know, good
Constance, who that friend was; for albeit I would not tell the
bishop we had seen Master Campion since he was reconciled, he, in
truth, was here some months ago: my lord met him in the street,
disguised as a common travelling man, and brought him into the garden,
whither he also called me; and we heard then from him how he would
have been taken in Ireland, if the viceroy himself, Sir Henry Sydney,
who did greatly favor him,--as indeed all who know him incline to do,
for his great parts, and nobleness of mind and heart, and withal most
attractive manners,--had not sent him a message, in the middle of the
night, to the effect that he should instantly leave the city, and take
measures for to escape abroad. So, under the name of Patrick, and
wearing the livery of the Earl of Kildare, he travelled to a port
twenty miles from Dublin, and there embarked for England. The queen's
officers, coming on board the ship whereon he had taken his passage,
before it sailed, searched it all over; but through God's mercy, he
said, and St. Patrick's prayers, whose name he had taken, no one did
recognize him, and he passed to London; and the day after, my lord
sent him over to Flanders. So much as the bishop did know thereon, he
related unto me, and stinted not in his praise of his great merits,
and lamentations for what he called his perversion; and hence he took
occasion to speak of religion. And when I said I had been brought up
in the Catholic religion, albeit I now conformed to the times, he said
he would show me the way to be Catholic and still obey the laws, and
that I might yet believe for the most part what I had learnt from my
teachers, so be I renounced the Pope, and commended my saying the
prayers I had been used to; which, he doubted not, were more pleasing
to God than such as some ministers do recite out of their own heads,
whom he did grieve to hear frequented our house, and were no better
than heretics, such as Mr. Fox and Mr. Fulke and Mr. Charke, and the
like of them. But what did much content me was, that he mislikes the
cruel usage recusants do meet with; and he said, not as if boasting of
it, but to declare his mind thereon, that he had often sent them alms
who suffered for their conscience' sake, as many do at this time. But
that I was to remember many Protestants were burnt in the late queen's
time, and that if Papists were not kept under by strict laws, the like
might happen again."
[Footnote 2: State Papers.]
"You should have told him," I cried, who had been silent longer than I
liked, "that Protestants are burnt also in this reign, by the same
token that some Anabaptists did so suffer a short time back, to your
Mr. Fox's no small disgust, who should will none but Catholics to be
put to death."
"Content thee, good Constance," my lady answered; "I be not so
furnished with arguments as thou in a like case wouldst be. So I only
said, I would to God none were burnt, or hanged, or tortured any more
in this country, or in the world at all, for religion; and my lord of
Gloucester declared he was of the same mind, and would have none so
dealt with, if he could mend it, here or abroad. Then the queen rising
to go, our discourse came to an end; but this good bishop says he will
visit me when he next doth come to London, and make that matter plain
to me how I can remain Catholic, and obey the queen, and content his
grace."
"Then he will show you," I cried, "how to serve God and the world,
which the gospel saith is a thing not to be thought of, and full of
peril to the soul."
My Lady Surrey burst into tears, and I was angered with myself that I
had spoken peradventure over sharply to her who had too much trouble
already; but it did make me mad to see her so beset that the faith
which had been once so rooted in her, and should be her sure and only
stay in the dangerous path she had entered on, should be in such wise
shaken as her words did indicate. But she was not angered, the
sweet soul; and drawing me to herself, laid her head on my bosom, and
said:
"Thou art a true friend, though a bold one; and I pray God I may never
lack the benefit of such friendship as thine, for he knoweth I have
great need thereof."
And so we parted with many tender embraces, and our hearts more
strictly linked together than heretofore.