GLAMORGAN.
The winter passed, with much running to and fro, in foul weather and
fair; and still the sounds of war came no nearer to Raglan, which lay
like a great lion in a desert that the hunter dared not arouse. The
whole of Wales, except a castle or two, remained subject to the king;
and this he owed in great measure to the influence and devotion of the
Somersets, his obligation to whom he seemed more and more bent on
acknowledging.
One day in early summer lady Margaret was sitting in her parlour, busy
with her embroidery, and Dorothy was by her side assisting her, when
lord Herbert, who had been absent for many days, walked in.
'How does my lady Glamorgan?' he said gaily.
'What mean you, my Herbert?' returned his wife, looking in his eyes
somewhat eagerly.
'Thy Herbert am I no more; neither plume I myself any more in the spare
feathers of my father. Thou art, my dove, as thou deservest to be,
countess of Glamorgan, in the right of thine own husband, first earl of
the same; for such being the will of his majesty, I doubt not thou wilt
give thy consent thereto, and play the countess graciously. Come,
Dorothy, art not proud to be cousin to an earl?'
'I am proud that you should call me cousin, my lord,' answered Dorothy;
'but truly to me it is all one whether you be called Herbert or
Glamorgan. So thou remain thou, cousin, and my friend, the king may call
thee what he will, and if thou art pleased, so am I.'
It was the first time she had ever thou'd him, and she turned pale at
her own daring.
'St. George! but thou hast well spoken, cousin!' cried the earl. 'Hath
she not, wife?'
'So well that if she often saith as well, I shall have much ado not to
hate her,' replied lady Glamorgan. 'When didst thou ever cry "well
spoken" to thy mad Irishwoman, Ned?'
'All thou dost is well, my lady. Thou hast all the titles to my praises
already in thy pocket. Besides, cousin Dorothy is young and meek, and
requireth a little encouragement.'
'Whereas thy wife is old and bold, and cares no more for thy good word,
my new lord of Glamorgan?'
Dorothy looked so grave that they both fell a-laughing.
'I would thou couldst teach her a merry jest or two, Margaret,' said the
earl. 'We are decent people enough in Raglan, but she is much too sober
for us. Cheer up, Dorothy! Good times are at hand: that thou mayest not
doubt it, listen--but this is only for thy ear, not for thy tongue: the
king hath made thy cousin, that is me, Edward Somerset, the husband of
this fair lady, generalissimo of his three armies, and admiral of a
fleet, and truly I know not what all, for I have yet but run my eye over
the patent. And, wife, I verily do believe the king but bides his time
to make my father duke of Somerset, and then one day thou wilt be a
duchess, Margaret. Think on that!'
Lady Glamorgan burst into tears.
'I would I might have a kiss of my Molly!' she cried.
She had never before in Dorothy's hearing uttered the name of her child
since her death. New dignity, strange as it may seem to some, awoke
suddenly the thought of the darling to whom titles were but words, and
the ice was broken. A pause followed.
'Yes, Margaret, thou art right,' said Glamorgan at length; 'it is all
but folly; yet as the marks of a king's favour, such honours are
precious.'
As to what a king's favour itself might be worth, that my lord of
Glamorgan lived to learn.
'It is I who pay for them,' said his wife.
'How so, my dove?'
'Do they not cost me thee, Herbert--and cost me very dear? Art not ever
from my sight? Wish I not often as I lay awake in the dark, that we were
all in heaven and well over with the foolery of it? The angels keep
Molly in mind of us!'
'Yes, my Peggy, it is hard on thee, and hard on me too,' said the earl
tenderly, 'yet not so hard as upon our liege lord, the king, who selleth
his plate and jewels.'
'Pooh! what of that then, Herbert? An' he would leave me thee, he might
have all mine, and welcome; for thou knowest, Ned, I but hold them for
thee to sell when thou wilt.'
'I know; and the time may come, though, thank God, it is not yet. What
wouldst thou say, countess, if with all thy honours thou did yet come to
poverty? Canst be poor and merry, think'st thou?'
'So thou wert with me, Herbert--Glamorgan, I would say, but my lips
frame not themselves to the word. I like not the title greatly, but when
it means thee to me, then shall I love it.'
'Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet content!'
--sang the earl in a mellow tenor voice.
'My lord, an' I have leave to speak,' said Dorothy, 'did you not say the
diamond in that ring Richard Heywood sent me was of some worth?'
'I did, cousin. It is a stone of the finest water, and of good weight,
though truly I weighed it not.'
'Then would I cast it in the king's treasury, an' if your lordship would
condescend to be the bearer of such a small offering.'
'No, child; the king robs not orphans.'
'Did the King of Kings rob the poor widow that cast in her two mites,
then?'
'No; but perhaps the priests did. Still, as I say, the hour may come
when all our mites may be wanted, and thine be accepted with the rest,
but my father and I have yet much to give, and shall have given it
before that hour come. Besides, as to thee, Dorothy, what would that
handsome roundhead of thine say, if instead of keeping well the ring he
gave thee, thou had turned it to the use he liked the least?'
'He will never ask me concerning it,' said Dorothy, with a faint smile.
'Be not over-sure of it, child. My lady asks me many things I never
thought to tell her before the priest made us one. Dorothy, I have no
right and no wish to spy into thy future, and fright thee with what, if
it come at all, will come peacefully as June weather. I have not
constructed thy horoscope to cast thy nativity, and therefore I speak as
one of the ignorant; but let me tell thee, for I do say it confidently,
that if these wars were once over, and the king had his own again, there
will be few men in his three kingdoms so worthy of the hand and heart of
Dorothy Vaughan as that same roundhead fellow, Richard Heywood. I would
to God he were as good a catholic as he is a mistaken puritan! And now,
my lady, may I not send thy maiden from us, for I would talk with thee
alone of certain matters--not from distrust of Dorothy, but that they
are not my own to impart, therefore I pray her absence.'
The parliament having secured the assistance of the Scots, and their
forces having, early in the year, entered England, the king on his side
was now meditating an attempt to secure the assistance of the Irish
catholics, to which the devotion of certain of the old catholic houses
at home encouraged him. But it was a game of terrible danger, for if he
lost it, he lost everything; and that it should transpire before
maturity would be to lose it absolutely; for the Irish catholics had,
truly or falsely, been charged with such enormities during the
rebellion, that they had become absolutely hateful in the eyes of all
English protestants, and any alliance with them must cost him far more
in protestants than he could gain by it in catholics. It was necessary
therefore that he should go about it with the utmost caution; and indeed
in his whole management of it, the wariness far exceeded the dignity,
and was practised at the expense of his best friends. But the poor king
was such a believer in his father's pet doctrine of the divine right of
his inheritance, that not only would he himself sacrifice everything to
the dim shadow of royalty which usurped the throne of his conscience,
but would, without great difficulty or compunction, though not always
without remorse, accept any sacrifice which a subject might have
devotion enough to bring to the altar before which Charles Stuart acted
as flamen.
In this my story of hearts rather than fortunes, it is not necessary to
follow the river of public events through many of its windings, although
every now and then my track will bring me to a ferry, where the boat
bearing my personages will be seized by the force of the current, and
carried down the stream while crossing to the other bank.
It must have been, I think, in view of his slowly-maturing intention to
employ lord Herbert in a secret mission to Ireland with the object above
mentioned, that the king had sought to bind him yet more closely to
himself by conferring on him the title of Glamorgan. It was not,
however, until the following year, when his affairs seemed on the point
of becoming desperate, that he proceeded, possibly with some protestant
compunctions, certainly with considerable protestant apprehension, to
carry out his design. Towards this had pointed the relaxation of his
measures against the catholic rebels for some time previous, and may to
some have indicated hopes entertained of them. It must be remembered
that while these catholics united to defend the religion of their
country, they, like the Scots who had joined the parliament, professed a
sincere attachment to their monarch, and in the persons of their own
enemies had certainly taken up arms against many of his.
Meantime the Scots had invaded England, and the parliament had largely
increased their forces in the hope of a decisive engagement; but the
king refused battle and gained time. In the north prince Rupert made
some progress, and brought on the battle of Marston Moor, where the
victory was gained by Cromwell, after all had been regarded as lost by
the other parliamentary generals. On the other hand, the king gained an
important advantage in the west country over Essex and his army.
The trial and execution of Laud, who died in the beginning of the
following year, obeying the king rather than his rebellious lords, was a
terrible sign to the house of Raglan of what the presbyterian party was
capable of. But to Dorothy it would have given a yet keener pain, had
she not begun to learn that neither must the excesses of individuals be
attributed to their party, nor those of his party taken as embodying the
mind of every one who belongs to it. At the same time the old
insuperable difficulty returned; how could Richard belong to such a
party?