Toll, toll the bell!
Greatness is o'er,
The heart has broke,
To ache no more;
An unsubstantial pageant all--
Drop o'er the scene the funeral pall.
_Old Poem._
The commotion and shrieks of fear and amazement which were excited
among the ladies of the court by an event so singular and shocking,
had begun to abate, and the sighs, more serious though less intrusive,
of the few English attendants of the deceased Queen began to be heard,
together with the groans of old King René, whose emotions were as
acute as they were shortlived. The leeches had held a busy but
unavailing consultation, and the body that was once a queen's was
delivered to the Priest of St. Sauveur, that beautiful church in which
the spoils of Pagan temples have contributed to fill up the
magnificence of the Christian edifice. The stately pile was duly
lighted up, and the funeral provided with such splendour as Aix could
supply. The Queen's papers being examined, it was found that Margaret,
by disposing of jewels and living at small expense, had realised the
means of making a decent provision for life for her very few English
attendants. Her diamond necklace, described in her last will as in
the hands of an English merchant named John Philipson, or his son, or
the price thereof, if by them sold or pledged, she left to the said
John Philipson and his son Arthur Philipson, with a view to the
prosecution of the design which they had been destined to advance, or,
if that should prove impossible, to their own use and profit. The
charge of her funeral rites was wholly intrusted to Arthur, called
Philipson, with a request that they should be conducted entirely after
the forms observed in England. This trust was expressed in an addition
to her will, signed the very day on which she died.
Arthur lost no time in despatching Thiebault express to his father,
with a letter explaining, in such terms as he knew would be
understood, the tenor of all that had happened since he came to Aix,
and, above all, the death of Queen Margaret.
Finally, he requested directions for his motions, since the necessary
delay occupied by the obsequies of a person of such eminent rank must
detain him at Aix till he should receive them.
The old King sustained the shock of his daughter's death so easily,
that on the second day after the event he was engaged in arranging a
pompous procession for the funeral, and composing an elegy, to be sung
to a tune also of his own composing, in honour of the deceased Queen,
who was likened to the goddesses of heathen mythology, and to Judith,
Deborah, and all the other holy women, not to mention the saints of
the Christian dispensation. It cannot be concealed that, when the
first burst of grief was over, King René could not help feeling that
Margaret's death cut a political knot which he might have otherwise
found it difficult to untie, and permitted him to take open part with
his grandson, so far indeed as to afford him a considerable share of
the contents of the Provençal treasury, which amounted to no larger
sum than ten thousand crowns. Ferrand having received the blessing of
his grandfather, in a form which his affairs rendered most important
to him, returned to the resolutes whom he commanded; and with him,
after a most loving farewell to Arthur, went the stout but
simple-minded young Swiss, Sigismund Biederman.
The little court of Aix were left to their mourning. King René, for
whom ceremonial and show, whether of a joyful or melancholy character,
was always matter of importance, would willingly have bestowed on
solemnising the obsequies of his daughter Margaret what remained of
his revenue, but was prevented from doing so, partly by remonstrances
from his ministers, partly by the obstacles opposed by the young
Englishman, who, acting upon the presumed will of the dead, interfered
to prevent any such fantastic exhibitions being produced at the
obsequies of the Queen as had disgusted her during her life.
The funeral, therefore, after many days had been spent in public
prayers and acts of devotion, was solemnised with the mournful
magnificence due to the birth of the deceased, and with which the
Church of Rome so well knows how to affect at once the eye, ear, and
feelings.
Amid the various nobles who assisted on the solemn occasion, there was
one who arrived just as the tolling of the great bells of St. Sauveur
had announced that the procession was already on its way to the
cathedral. The stranger hastily exchanged his travelling-dress for a
suit of deep mourning, which was made after the fashion proper to
England. So attired, he repaired to the cathedral, where the noble
mien of the cavalier imposed such respect on the attendants that he
was permitted to approach close to the side of the bier; and it was
across the coffin of the Queen for whom he had acted and suffered so
much that the gallant Earl of Oxford exchanged a melancholy glance
with his son. The assistants, especially the English servants of
Margaret, gazed on them both with respect and wonder, and the elder
cavalier, in particular, seemed to them no unapt representative of the
faithful subjects of England, paying their last duty at the tomb of
her who had so long swayed the sceptre, if not faultlessly, yet always
with a bold and resolved hand.
The last sound of the solemn dirge had died away, and almost all the
funeral attendants had retired, when the father and son still lingered
in mournful silence beside the remains of their sovereign. The clergy
at length approached, and intimated they were about to conclude the
last duties, by removing the body, which had been lately occupied and
animated by so haughty and restless a spirit, to the dust, darkness,
and silence of the vault where the long-descended Counts of Provence
awaited dissolution. Six priests raised the bier on their shoulders,
others bore huge waxen torches before and behind the body, as they
carried it down a private staircase which yawned in the floor to admit
their descent. The last notes of the requiem, in which the churchmen
joined, had died away along the high and fretted arches of the
cathedral, the last flash of light which arose from the mouth of the
vault had glimmered and disappeared, when the Earl of Oxford, taking
his son by the arm, led him in silence forth into a small cloistered
court behind the building, where they found themselves alone. They
were silent for a few minutes, for both, and particularly the father,
were deeply affected. At length the Earl spoke.
"And this, then, is her end," said he. "Here, royal lady, all that we
have planned and pledged life upon falls to pieces with thy
dissolution! The heart of resolution, the head of policy is gone; and
what avails it that the limbs of the enterprise still have motion and
life? Alas, Margaret of Anjou! may Heaven reward thy virtues, and
absolve thee from the consequence of thine errors! Both belonged to
thy station, and, if thou didst hoist too high a sail in prosperity,
never lived there princess who defied more proudly the storms of
adversity, or bore up against them with such dauntless nobility of
determination. With this event the drama has closed, and our parts, my
son, are ended."
"We bear arms, then, against the infidels, my lord?" said Arthur, with
a sigh that was, however, hardly audible.
"Not," answered the Earl, "until I learn that Henry of Richmond, the
undoubted heir of the House of Lancaster, has no occasion for my
services. In these jewels, of which you wrote me, so strangely lost
and recovered, I may be able to supply him with resources more needful
than either your services or mine. But I return no more to the camp of
the Duke of Burgundy; for in him there is no help."
"Can it be possible that the power of so great a
sovereign has been overthrown in one fatal battle?" said Arthur.
[Illustration: THE FUNERAL OF THE QUEEN.
Drawn and Etched by R. de Los Rios.]
"By no means," replied his father. "The loss at Granson was very
great; but to the strength of Burgundy it is but a scratch on the
shoulders of a giant. It is the spirit of Charles himself, his wisdom
at least, and his foresight, which have given way under the
mortification of a defeat by such as he accounted inconsiderable
enemies, and expected to have trampled down with a few squadrons of
his men-at-arms. Then his temper is become froward, peevish, and
arbitrary, devoted to those who flatter and, as there is too much
reason to believe, betray him, and suspicious of those counsellors who
give him wholesome advice. Even I have had my share of distrust. Thou
knowest I refused to bear arms against our late hosts the Swiss; and
he saw in that no reason for rejecting my attendance on his march. But
since the defeat of Granson, I have observed a strong and sudden
change, owing, perhaps, in some degree to the insinuations of
Campo-basso, and not a little to the injured pride of the Duke, who
was unwilling that an indifferent person in my situation, and thinking
as I do, should witness the disgrace of his arms. He spoke in my
hearing of lukewarm friends, cold-blooded neutrals,--of those who, not
being with him, must be against him. I tell thee, Arthur de Vere, the
Duke has said that which touched my honour so nearly, that nothing but
the commands of Queen Margaret, and the interests of the House of
Lancaster, could have made me remain in his camp. That is over--My
royal mistress has no more occasion for my poor services--the Duke can
spare no aid to our cause--and if he could, we can no longer dispose
of the only bribe which might have induced him to afford us succours.
The power of seconding his views on Provence is buried with Margaret
of Anjou."
"What, then, is your purpose?" demanded his son.
"I propose," said Oxford, "to wait at the court of King René until I
can hear from the Earl of Richmond, as we must still call him. I am
aware that banished men are rarely welcome at the court of a foreign
prince; but I have been the faithful follower of his daughter
Margaret. I only propose to reside in disguise, and desire neither
notice nor maintenance; so methinks King René will not refuse to
permit me to breathe the air of his dominions, until I learn in what
direction fortune or duty shall call me."
"Be assured he will not," answered Arthur. "René is incapable of a
base or ignoble thought; and if he could despise trifles as he detests
dishonour, he might be ranked high in the list of monarchs."
This resolution being adopted, the son presented his father at King
René's court, whom he privately made acquainted that he was a man of
quality, and a distinguished Lancastrian. The good King would in his
heart have preferred a guest of lighter accomplishments and gayer
temper to Oxford, a statesman and a soldier of melancholy and grave
habits. The Earl was conscious of this, and seldom troubled his
benevolent and light-hearted host with his presence. He had, however,
an opportunity of rendering the old King a favour of peculiar value.
This was in conducting an important treaty betwixt René and Louis XI.
of France, his nephew. Upon that crafty monarch René finally settled
his principality; for the necessity of extricating his affairs by such
a measure was now apparent even to himself, every thought of favouring
Charles of Burgundy in the arrangement having died with Queen
Margaret. The policy and wisdom of the English Earl, who was intrusted
with almost the sole charge of this secret and delicate measure, were
of the utmost advantage to good King René, who was freed from personal
and pecuniary vexations, and enabled to go piping and tabouring to his
grave. Louis did not fail to propitiate the plenipotentiary, by
throwing out distant hopes of aid to the efforts of the Lancastrian
party in England. A faint and insecure negotiation was entered into
upon the subject; and these affairs, which rendered two journeys to
Paris necessary on the part of Oxford and his son, in the spring and
summer of the year 1476, occupied them until that year was half spent.
In the meanwhile, the wars of the Duke of Burgundy with the Swiss
Cantons and Count Ferrand of Lorraine continued to rage. Before
midsummer 1476, Charles had assembled a new army of at least sixty
thousand men, supported by one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, for
the purpose of invading Switzerland, where the warlike mountaineers
easily levied a host of thirty thousand Switzers, now accounted almost
invincible, and called upon their confederates, the Free Cities on the
Rhine, to support them with a powerful body of cavalry. The first
efforts of Charles were successful. He overran the Pays de Vaud, and
recovered most of the places which he had lost after the defeat at
Granson. But instead of attempting to secure a well-defended frontier,
or, what would have been still more politic, to achieve a peace upon
equitable terms with his redoubtable neighbours, this most obstinate
of princes resumed the purpose of penetrating into the recesses of the
Alpine mountains, and chastising the mountaineers even within their
own strongholds, though experience might have taught him the danger,
nay desperation, of the attempt. Thus the news received by Oxford and
his son, when they returned to Aix in midsummer, was, that Duke
Charles had advanced to Morat (or Murten), situated upon a lake of the
same name, at the very entrance of Switzerland. Here report said that
Adrian de Bubenburg, a veteran knight of Berne, commanded, and
maintained the most obstinate defence, in expectation of the relief
which his countrymen were hastily assembling.
"Alas, my old brother-in-arms!" said the Earl to his son, on hearing
these tidings, "this town besieged, these assaults repelled, this
vicinity of an enemy's country, this profound lake, these inaccessible
cliffs, threaten a second part of the tragedy of Granson, more
calamitous perhaps than even the former!"
On the last week of June, the capital of Provence was agitated by one
of those unauthorised yet generally received rumours which transmit
great events with incredible swiftness, as an apple flung from hand to
hand by a number of people will pass a given space infinitely faster
than if borne by the most rapid series of expresses. The report
announced a second defeat of the Burgundians, in terms so exaggerated
as induced the Earl of Oxford to consider the greater part, if not the
whole, as a fabrication.