THE KING.
Some months before the battle of Naseby, which was fought in June early,
that is, in the year 1645, the plans of the king having now ripened, he
gave a secret commission for Ireland to the earl of Glamorgan, with
immense powers, among the rest that of coining money, in order that he
might be in a position to make proposals towards certain arrangements
with the Irish catholics, which, in view of the prejudices of the king's
protestant council, it was of vital importance to keep secret. Glamorgan
therefore took a long leave of his wife and family, and in the month of
March set out for Dublin. At Caernarvon, they got on board a small
barque, laden with corn, but, in rough weather that followed, were cast
ashore on the coast of Lancashire. A second attempt failed also, for,
pursued by a parliament vessel, they were again compelled to land on the
same coast. It was the middle of summer before they reached Dublin.
During this period there was of course great anxiety in Raglan, the
chief part of which was lady Glamorgan's. At times she felt that but for
the sympathy of Dorothy, often silent but always ministrant, she would
have broken down quite under the burden of ignorance and its attendant
anxiety.
In the prolonged absence of her husband, and the irregularity of
tidings, for they came at uncertain as well as wide intervals, her
yearnings after her vanished Molly, which had become more patient,
returned with all their early vehemence, and she began to brood on the
meeting beyond the grave of which her religion waked her hope. Nor was
this all: her religion itself grew more real; for although there is
nothing essentially religious in thinking of the future, although there
is more of the heart of religion in the taking of strength from the love
of God to do the commonest duty, than in all the longing for a blessed
hereafter of which the soul is capable, yet the love of a little child
is very close to the love of the great Father; and the loss that sets
any affection aching and longing, heaves, as on a wave from the very
heart of the human ocean, the labouring spirit up towards the source of
life and restoration. In like manner, from their common love to the
child, and their common sense of loss in her death, the hearts of the
two women drew closer to each other, and protestant mistress Dorothy was
able to speak words of comfort to catholic lady Glamorgan, which the
hearer found would lie on the shelf of her creed none the less quietly
that the giver had lifted them from the shelf of hers.
One evening, while yet lady Glamorgan had had no news of her husband's
arrival in Ireland, and the bright June weather continued clouded with
uncertainty and fear, lady Broughton came panting into her parlour with
the tidings that a courier had just arrived at the main entrance,
himself pale with fatigue, and his horse white with foam.
'Alas! alas!' cried lady Glamorgan, and fell back in her chair, faint
with apprehension, for what might not be the message he bore? Ere
Dorothy had succeeded in calming her, the marquis himself came hobbling
in, with the news that the king was coming.
'Is that all?' said the countess, heaving a deep sigh, while the tears
ran down her cheeks.
'Is that all?' repeated her father-in-law. 'How, my lady! Is there then
nobody in all the world but Glamorgan? Verily I believe thou wouldst
turn thy back on the angel Gabriel, if he dared appear before thee
without thy Ned under his arm. Bless the Irish heart! I never gave thee
MY Ned that thou shouldst fall down and worship the fellow.'
'Bear with me, sir,' she answered faintly. 'It is but the pain here.
Thou knowest I cannot tell but he lieth at the bottom of the Irish Sea.'
'If he do lie there, then lieth he in Abraham's bosom, daughter, where I
trust there is room for thee and me also. Thou rememberest how thy Molly
said once to thee, 'Madam, thy bosom is not so big as my lord Abraham's.
What a big bosom my lord Abraham must have!'
Lady Glamorgan laughed.
'Come then--"to our work alive!" which is now to receive his majesty,'
said the marquis. 'My wild Irishwoman--'
'Alas, my lord! tame enough now,' sighed the countess.
'Not too tame to understand that she must represent her husband before
the king's majesty,' said lord Worcester.
Lady Glamorgan rose, kissed her father-in-law, wiped her eyes, and
said--
'Where, my lord, do you purpose lodging his majesty?'
'In the great north room, over the buttery, and next the
picture-gallery, which will serve his majesty to walk in, and the
windows there have the finest prospect of all. I did think of the great
tower, but--Well--the chamber there is indeed statelier, but it is
gloomy as a dull twilight, while the one I intend him to lie in is
bright as a summer morning. The tower chamber makes me think of all the
lords and ladies that have died therein; the north room, of all the
babies that have been born there.'
'Spoken like a man!' murmured lady Glamorgan. 'Have you given
directions, my lord?'
'I have sent for sir Ralph. Come with me, Margaret: you and Mary must
keep your old father from blundering. Run, Dorothy, and tell Mr.
Delaware and Mr. Andrews that I desire their presence in my closet. I
miss the rogue Scudamore. They tell me he hath done well, and is sorely
wounded. He must feel the better for the one already, and I hope he will
soon be nothing the worse for the other.'
As he thus talked, they left the room and took their way to the study,
where they found the steward waiting them.
The whole castle was presently alive with preparations for the king's
visit. That he had been so sorely foiled of late, only roused in all the
greater desire to receive him with every possible honour. Hope revived
in lady Glamorgan's bosom: she would take the coming of the king as a
good omen for the return of her husband.
Dorothy ran to do the marquis's pleasure. As she ran, it seemed as if
some new spring of life had burst forth in her heart. The king! the king
actually coming! The God-chosen monarch of England! The head of the
church! The type of omnipotence! The wronged, the saintly, the wise! He
who fought with bleeding heart for the rights, that he might fulfil the
duties to which he was born! She would see him! she would breathe the
same air with him! gaze on his gracious countenance unseen until she had
imprinted every feature of his divine face upon her heart and memory!
The thought was too entrancing. She wept as she ran to find the master
of the horse and the master of the fish-ponds.
At length, on the evening of the third of July, a pursuivant,
accompanied by an advanced guard of horsemen, announced the king, and
presently on the north road appeared the dust of his approach. Nearer
they came, all on horseback, a court of officers. Travel-stained and
weary, with foam-flecked horses, but flowing plumes, flashing armour,
and ringing chains, they arrived at the brick gate, where lord Charles
himself threw the two leaves open to admit them, and bent the knee
before his king. As they entered the marble gate, they saw the marquis
descending the great white stair to meet them, leaning for his lameness
on the arm of his brother sir Thomas of Troy, and followed by all the
ladies and gentlemen and officers in the castle, who stood on the stair
while he approached the king's horse, bent his knee, kissed the royal
hand, and, rising with difficulty, for the gout had aged him beyond his
years, said:
'Domine, non sum dignus.'
I would I had not to give this brief dialogue; but it stands on record,
and may suggest something worth thinking to him who can read it aright.
The king replied:
'My lord, I may very well answer you again: I have not found so great
faith in Israel; for no man would trust me with so much money as you
have done.'
'I hope your majesty will prove a defender of the faith,' returned the
marquis.
The king then dismounted, ascended the marble steps with his host,
nearly as stiff as he from his long ride, crossed the moat on the
undulating drawbridge, passed the echoing gateway, and entered the stone
court.
The marquis turned to the king, and presented the keys of the castle.
The king took them and returned them.
'I pray your majesty keep them in so good a hand. I fear that ere it be
long I shall be forced to deliver them into the hands of who will spoil
the compliment', said the marquis.
'Nay,' rejoined his majesty, 'but keep them till the King of kings
demand the account of your stewardship, my lord.'
'I trust your majesty's name will then be seen where it stands therein,'
said the marquis, 'for so it will fare the better with the steward.'
In the court, the garrison, horse and foot, a goodly show, was drawn up
to receive him, with an open lane through, leading to the north-western
angle, where was the stair to the king's apartment. At the draw-well,
which lay right in the way, and around which the men stood off in a
circle, the king stopped, laid his hand on the wheel, and said gaily:
'My lord, is this your lordship's purse?'
'For your majesty's sake, I would it were,' returned the marquis.
At the foot of the stair, on plea of his gout, he delivered his majesty
to the care of lord Charles, sir Ralph Blackstone, and Mr. Delaware, who
conducted him to his chamber.
The king supped alone, but after supper, lady Glamorgan and the other
ladies of the family, having requested permission to wait upon him, were
ushered into his presence. Each of them took with her one of her ladies
in attendance, and Dorothy, being the one chosen by her mistress for
that honour, not without the rousing of a strong feeling of injustice in
the bosoms of the elder ladies, entered trembling behind her mistress,
as if the room were a temple wherein no simulacrum but the divinity
himself dwelt in visible presence.
His majesty received them courteously, said kind things to several of
them, but spoke and behaved at first with a certain long-faced reserve
rather than dignity, which, while it jarred a little with Dorothy's
ideal of the graciousness that should be mingled with majesty in the
perfect monarch, yet operated only to throw her spirit back into that
stage of devotion wherein, to use a figure of the king's own, the awe
overlays the love.
A little later the marquis entered, walking slowly, leaning on the arm
of lord Charles, but carrying in his own hands a present of apricots
from his brother to the king.
Meantime Dorothy's love had begun to rise again from beneath her awe;
but when the marquis came in, old and stately, reverend and slow, with a
silver dish in each hand and a basket on his arm, and she saw him bow
three times ere he presented his offering, himself serving whom all
served, himself humble whom all revered, then again did awe nearly
overcome her. When the king, however, having graciously received the
present, chose for each of the ladies one of the apricots, and coming to
Dorothy last, picked out and offered the one he said was likest the
bloom of her own fair cheek, gratitude again restored the sway of love,
and in the greatness of the honour she almost let slip the compliment.
She could not reply, but she looked her thanks, and the king doubtless
missed nothing.
The next day his majesty rested, but on following days rode to Monmouth,
Chepstow, Usk, and other towns in the neighbourhood, whose loyalty,
thanks to the marquis, had as yet stood out. After dinner he generally
paid the marquis a visit in the oak parlour, then perhaps had a walk in
the grounds, or a game on the bowling-green.
But although the marquis was devoted to the king's cause, he was not
therefore either blinded or indifferent to the king's faults, and as an
old man who had long been trying to grow better, he made up his mind to
risk a respectful word in the matter of kingly obligation.
One day, therefore, when his majesty entered the oak parlour, he found
his host sitting by the table with his Gower lying open before him, as
if he had been reading, which doubtless was the case.
'What book have you there, my lord?' asked the king--while some of his
courtiers stood near the door, and others gazed from the window on the
moat and the swelling, towering mass of the keep. 'I like to know what
books my friends read.'
'Sir, it is old master John Gower's book of verses, entitled Confessio
Amantis,' answered his lordship.
'It is a book I have never seen before,' said the king, glancing at its
pages.
'Oh!' returned the marquis, 'it is a book of books, which if your
majesty had been well versed in, it would have made you a king of
kings.'
'Why so, my lord?' asked the king.
'Why,' said the marquis, 'here is set down how Aristotle brought up and
instructed Alexander the Great in all his rudiments, and the principles
belonging to a prince. Allow me, sir, to read you such a passage as will
show your majesty the truth of what I say.'
He opened the book and read:
'Among the vertues one is chefe,
And that is trouthe, which is lefe (dear)
To God and eke to man also.
And for it hath ben ever so,
Taught Aristotle, as he well couth, (knew)
To Alisaundre, how in his youth
He shulde of trouthe thilke grace (that same)
With all his hole herte embrace,
So that his word be trewe and pleine
Toward the world, and so certeine,
That in him be no double speche.
For if men shulde trouthe seche,
And found it nought within a king,
It were an unfittende thing
The worde is token of that within;
There shall a worthy king begin
To kepe his tunge and to be trewe,
So shall his price ben ever newe.'
'And here, sir, is what he saith as to the significance of the kingly
crown, if your majesty will allow me to read it.'
'Read on, my lord; all is good and true,' said the king.
'The gold betokneth excellence,
That men shuld done him reverence,
As to her lege soveraine. (their liege)
The stones, as the bokes saine,
Commended ben in treble wise.
First, they ben hard, and thilke assise (that attribute)
Betokeneth in a king constaunce,
So that there shall be no variaunce
Be found in his condicion.
And also by description
The vertue, whiche is in the stones,
A verray signe is for the nones
Of that a king shall ben honest,
And holde trewely his behest (promise)
Of thing, which longeth to kinghede.' (belongeth)
'And so on--for I were loath to weary your majesty--of the colour of the
stones, and the circular form of the crown.'
'Read on, my lord,' said the king.
Several passages, therefore, did the marquis pick out and read--amongst
which probably were certain concerning flatterers--taking care still to
speak of Alexander and Aristotle, and by no means of king and marquis,
until at length he had 'read the king such a lesson,' as Dr. Bayly
informs us, 'that the bystanders were amazed at his boldness.'
'My lord, have you got your lesson by heart, or speak you out of the
book?' asked the king, taking the volume.
'Sir,' the marquis replied, 'if you could read my heart, it may be you
might find it there; or if your majesty please to get it by heart, I
will lend you my book.'
'I would willingly borrow it,' said the king.
'Nay,' said the marquis, 'I will lend it to you upon these conditions:
first, that you read it; and, second, that you make use of it.'
Here, glancing round, well knowing the nature of the soil upon which his
words fell, he saw 'some of the new-made lords displeased, fretting and
biting their thumbs,' and thus therefore resumed:--
'But, sir, I assure you that no man was so much for the absolute power
of the king as Aristotle. If your majesty will allow me the book again,
I will show you one remarkable passage to that purpose.'
Having searched the volume for a moment, and found it, he read as
follows:--
'Harpaghes first his tale tolde,
And said, how that the strength of kinges
Is mightiest of alle thinges.
For king hath power over man,
And man is he, which reson can,
As he, which is of his nature
The most noble creature
Of alle tho that God hath wrought.
And by that skill it seemeth nought, (for that reason)
He saith that any erthly thing
May be so mighty as a king.
A king may spille, a king may save,
A king may make of lorde a knave,
And of a knave a lord also;
The power of a king stant so
That he the lawes overpasseth.
What he will make lasse, he lasseth;
What he will make more, he moreth;
And as a gentil faucon soreth,
He fleeth, that no man him reclaimeth.
But he alone all other tameth,
And slant him self of lawe fre.'
'There, my liege! So much for Aristotle and the kinghood! But think not
he taketh me with him all the way. By our Lady, I go not so far.'
Lifting his head again, he saw, to his wish, that 'divers new-made
lords' had 'slunk out of the room.'
'My lord,' said the king, 'at this rate you will drive away all my
nobility.'
'I protest unto your majesty,' the marquis replied, 'I am as new a made
lord as any of them all, but I was never called knave or rogue so much
in all my life as I have been since I received this last honour: and why
should they not bear their shares?'
In high good-humour with his success, he told the story the same evening
to lady Glamorgan in Dorothy's presence. It gave her ground for thought:
she wondered that the marquis should think the king required such
lessoning. She had never dreamed that a man and his office are not only
metaphysically distinct, but may be morally separate things; she had
hitherto taken the office as the pledge for the man, the show as the
pledge for the reality; and now therefore her notion of the king
received a rude shock from his best friend.
The arrival of his majesty had added to her labours, for now again horse
must spout every day,--with no Molly to see it and rejoice. Every
fountain rushed heavenwards, 'and all the air' was 'filled with pleasant
noise of waters.' This required the fire-engine to be kept pretty
constantly at work, and Dorothy had to run up and down the stair of the
great tower several times a-day. But she lingered on the top as often
and as long as she might.
One glorious July afternoon, gazing from the top of the keep, she saw
his majesty, the marquis, some of the courtiers, and a Mr. Prichard of
the neighbourhood, on the bowling-green, having a game together. It was
like looking at a toy-representation of one, for, so far below,
everything was wondrously dwarfed and fore-shortened. But certainly it
was a pretty sight-the gay garments, the moving figures, the bowls
rolling like marbles over the green carpet, while the sun, and the blue
sky, and just an air of wind--enough to turn every leaf into a languidly
waved fan, enclosed it in loveliness and filled it with life. It was
like a picture from a CAMERA OBSCURA dropped right at the foot of the
keep, for the surrounding walk, moat, and sunk walk beyond, were, seen
from that height, but enough to keep the bowling-green, which came to
the edge of the sunk walk, twelve feet below it, from appearing to cling
to the foundations of the tower. The circle of arches filled with
shell-work and statues of Roman emperors, which formed the face of the
escarpment of the sunk walk, looked like a curiously-cut fringe to the
carpet.
While Dorothy aloft was thus looking down and watching the game,--
'What a lovely prospect it is!' said his majesty below, addressing Mr.
Prichard, while the marquis bowled.
Making answer, Mr. Prichard pointed out where his own house lay, half
hidden by a grove, and said--'May it please your majesty, I have advised
my lord to cut down those trees, so that when he wants a good player at
bowls, he may have but to beckon.'
'Nay,' returned the king, 'he should plant more trees, that so he might
not see thy house at all.'
The marquis, who had bowled, and was coming towards them, heard what the
king said, and fancying he aimed at the fault of the greedy buying-up of
land--
'If your majesty hath had enough of the game,' he said, 'and will climb
with me to the top of the tower, I will show you what may do your mind
some ease.'
'I should be sorry to set your Lordship such an arduous task,' replied
the king. 'But I am very desirous of seeing your great tower, and if you
will permit me, I will climb the stair without your attendance.'
'Sir, it will pleasure me to think that the last time ever I ascended
those stairs, I conducted your majesty. For indeed it shall be the last
time. I grow old.'
As the marquis spoke, he led towards the twin-arched bridge over the
castle-moat, then through the western gate, and along the side of the
court to the Gothic bridge, on their way despatching one of his
gentlemen to fetch the keys of the tower.
'My lord,' said the king when the messenger had gone, 'there are some
men so unreasonable as to make me believe that your lordship hath good
store of gold yet left within the tower; but I, knowing how I have
exhausted you, could never have believed it, until now I see you will
not trust the keys with any but yourself.'
'Sir,' answered the marquis, 'I was so far from giving your majesty any
such occasion of thought by this tender of my duty, that I protest unto
you that I was once resolved that your majesty should have lain there,
but that I was loath to commit your majesty to the Tower.'
'You are more considerate, my lord, than some of my subjects would be if
they had me as much in their keeping,' answered the king sadly. 'But
what are those pipes let into the wall up there?' he asked, stopping in
the middle of the bridge and looking up at the keep.
'Nay, sire, my son Edward must tell you that. He taketh strange
liberties with the mighty old hulk. But I will not injure his good grace
with your majesty by talking of that I understand not. I trust that one
day, when you shall no more require his absence, you will yet again
condescend to be my guest, when my son, by your majesty's favour now my
lord Glamorgan, will have things to show you that will delight your eyes
to behold.'
'I have ere now seen something of his performance,' answered the king;
'but these naughty times give room for nothing in that kind but guns and
swords.'
Leaving the workshop unvisited, his lordship took the king up the stair,
and unlocking the entrance to the first floor, ushered him into a lofty
vaulted chamber, old in the midst of antiquity, dark, vast, and stately.
'This is where I did think to lodge your majesty,' he said,
'but--but--your majesty sees it is gloomy, for the windows are narrow,
and the walls are ten feet through.'
'It maketh me very cold,' said the king, shuddering. 'Good sooth, but I
were loath to be a prisoner!'
He turned and left the room hastily. The marquis rejoined him on the
stair, and led him, two stories higher, to the armoury, now empty
compared to its former condition, but still capable of affording some
supply. The next space above was filled with stores, and the highest was
now kept clear for defence, for the reservoir so fully occupied the top
that there was no room for engines of any sort; and indeed it took up so
much of the storey below with its depth that it left only such room as
between the decks of a man of war, rendering it hardly fit for any other
use.
Reaching the summit at length, the king gazed with silent wonder at the
little tarn which lay there as on the crest of a mountain. But the
marquis conducted him to the western side, and, pointing with his
finger, said--
'Sir, you see that line of trees, stretching across a neck of arable
field, where to the right the brook catches the sun?'
'I see it, my lord,' answered the king.
'And behind it a house and garden, small but dainty?'
'Yes, my lord.'
'Then I trust your majesty will release me from suspicion of being of
those to whom the prophet Isaias saith, "Vae qui conjungitis domum ad
domum, et agrum agro copulatis usque ad terminum loci: numquid
habitabitis vos soli in medio terrae?" May it please your majesty, I
planted those trees to hoodwink mine eyes from such temptations, hiding
from them the vineyard of Naboth, lest they should act the Jezebel and
tempt me to play the Ahab thereto. If I did thus when those trees and I
were young, shall I do worse now that I stand with one foot in the
grave, and purgatory itself in the other?'
The king seemed to listen politely, but only listened half and did not
perceive his drift. He was looking at Dorothy where she stood at the
opposite side of the reservoir, unable, because of the temporary
obstruction occasioned by certain alterations and repairs about the
cocks now going on, to reach the stair without passing the king and the
marquis. The king asked who she was; and the marquis, telling him a
little about her, called her. She came, courtesied low to his majesty,
and stood with beating heart.
'I desire,' said the marquis, 'thou shouldst explain to his majesty that
trick of thy cousin Glamorgan, the water-shoot, and let him see it
work.'
'My lord,' answered Dorothy, trembling betwixt devotion and doubtful
duty, 'it was the great desire of my lord Glamorgan that none in the
castle should know the trick, as it pleases your lordship to call it.'
'What, cousin! cannot his majesty keep a secret? And doth not all that
Glamorgan hath belong to the king?'
'God forbid I should doubt either, my lord,' answered Dorothy, turning
very pale, and ready to sink, 'but it cannot well be done in the broad
day without some one seeing. At night, indeed--'
'Tut, tut! it is but a whim of Glamorgan's. Thou wilt not do a jot of
ill to show the game before his majesty in the sunlight.'
'My lord, I promised.'
'Here standeth who will absolve thee, child! His majesty is paramount to
Glamorgan.'
'My lord! my lord!' said Dorothy almost weeping, 'I am bewildered, and
cannot well understand. But I am sure that if it be wrong, no one can
give me leave to do it, or absolve me beforehand. God himself can but
pardon after the thing is done, not give permission to do it. Forgive
me, sir, but so master Matthew Herbert hath taught me.'
'And very good doctrine, too,' said the marquis emphatically, 'let who
will propound it. Think you not so, sir?'
But the king stood with dull imperturbable gaze fixed on the distant
horizon, and made no reply. An awkward silence followed. The king
requested his host to conduct him to his apartment.
'I marvel, my lord,' said his majesty as they went down the stair,
seeing how lame his host was, 'that, as they tell me, your lordship
drinks claret. All physicians say it is naught for the gout.'
'Sir,' returned the marquis, 'it shall never be said that I forsook my
friend to pleasure my enemy.'
The king's face grew dark, for ever since the lecture for which he had
made Gower the textbook, he had been ready to see a double meaning of
rebuke in all the marquis said. He made no answer, avoided his
attendants who waited for him in the fountain court, expecting him to go
by the bell-tower, and, passing through the hall and the stone court,
ascended to his room alone, and went into the picture-gallery, where he
paced up and down till supper-time.
The marquis rejoined the little company of his own friends who had left
the bowling-green after him, and were now in the oak parlour. A little
troubled at the king's carriage towards him, he entered with a merrier
bearing than usual.
'Well, gentlemen, how goes the bias?' he said gayly.
'We were but now presuming to say, my lord,' answered Mr. Prichard,
'that there are who would largely warrant that if you would you might be
duke of Somerset.'
'When I was earl of Worcester,' returned the marquis, 'I was well to do;
since I was marquis, I am worse by a hundred thousand pounds; and if I
should be a duke, I should be an arrant beggar. Wherefore I had rather
go back to my earldom, than at this rate keep on my pace to the dukedom
of Somerset.'