take infinite pleasure in making portraitures of OLIVER CROMWELL, who
had by this time become Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. She had
never seen that Bold Bad Man (the splendour of whose mighty achievements
must for ever remain tarnished by his blood-guiltiness in the matter of
the King's Murther); but from descriptions of his person, for which she
eagerly sought, and from bustos, pictures, and prints cut in brass,
which she obtained from Bristol and elsewhere, she produced some
surprising resemblances of him who was now the Greatest Man in England.
She painted him at full and at half length--in full-face, profile, and
three-quarter; but although she would show her work to her intimates,
and ask eagerly "Is it like--is it like him?" she would never part with
one copy (and there were good store of time-servers ready to buy the
Protector's picture at that time), nor could any tell how she disposed
of them.
This went on until the summer of the year 1657, when her father gently
put it to her that she had worn the willow long enough, and would have
had her ally herself with some gentleman of worth and parts in that part
of the country. For the poor Esquire desired that she should be his
heiress, and that a man-child should be born to the Greenville estate,
and thus the heir-at-law, who was a wretched attorney at Bristol, and
more bitter against kings than ever, should not inherit. She was not to
be moved, however, towards marriage; saying softly that she was already
wedded to her Frank in heaven,--for so she spoke of the Lord Francis
V----s,--and that her union had been blessed by her brother Dick, who
was in Heaven too, with King Charles and all the Blessed Army of
Martyrs. And I have heard, indeed, that the unhappy business of the
King's death was the means of so crazing, or casting into a Sad Celibacy
and Devouring Melancholy, multitudes of comely young women who were born
for love and delights, and to be the smiling mothers of many children.
So, seeing that he could do nothing with her, and loth to use any
unhandsome pressure towards one whom he loved as the Apple of his Eye,
the Esquire began to think it might divert her mind to more cheerful
thoughts if she quitted for a season that part of the country (for it
was at Home that she had received the dreadful news of her misfortune);
and, Sir Fortunatus Geddings and his family being extremely willing to
receive her, and do her honour, he despatched Arabella to London, under
protection of Mr. Landrail, his steward, a neighbour of his, Sir
Hardress Eustis, lending his Coach for the journey.
Being now come to London, every means which art could devise, or
kindness could imagine, were made use of by Sir Fortunatus, his wife,
and daughter, to make Arabella's life happier. But I should tell you a
strange thing that came about at her father's house the day after she
left it for the Town. Mr. Greenville chanced to go in a certain long
building (by the side of his pleasure-pond) that was used as a
boat-house, when, to his amazement, he sees, piled up against the wall,
a number of pictures, some completed, some but half finished, but all
representing the Lord Protector Cromwell. But the strangest thing about
them was, that in every picture the canvas about the head was pricked
through and through in scores of places with very fine clean holes, and,
looking around in his marvel, he found an arbalist or cross-bow, with
some very sharp bolts, and was so led to conjecture that some one had
been setting these heads of the Protector up as a target, and shooting
bolts at them. He was at first minded to send an express after his
daughter to London to question her if she knew aught of the matter; but
on second thoughts he desisted, remembering that in the Message, almost,
(as the times stood) there was Treason, and concluding that, after all,
it might be but some idle fancy of Arabella, and part of the Demi-Craze
under which she laboured. For there could be no manner of doubt that
the Pictures, if not the Holes in them, were of her handiwork.
Meanwhile Arabella was being entertained in the stateliest manner by Sir
Fortunatus Geddings, who stood in great favour with the government, and
had, during the troubles, assisted the Houses with large sums of money.
There were then not many sports or amusements wherewith a sorrowing
maiden could be diverted; for the temper of England's Rulers was against
vain pastimes and junketings. The Maypoles had been pulled down; the
players whipped and banished; the bear and bull baitings, and even the
mere harmless minstrelsy and ballad-singing of the streets, all
rigorously pulled down. But whatever the worthy Turkey merchant and his
household could do in the way of carrying Arabella about to suppers,
christenings, country gatherings, and so forth, was cheerfully and
courteously done. Sir Fortunatus maintained a coach (for he was one of
the richest merchants in the City of London), and in this conveyance
Arabella was ofttimes taken to drive in Hyde Park, or towards the
Uxbridge Road. 'Twas on one of these occasions that she first saw the
Protector, who likewise was in his coach, drawn by eight Holstein mares,
and attended by a troop of Horse, very gallantly appointed, with scarlet
livery coats, bright gorgets and back-pieces, and red plumes in their
hats.
"He is very like, very like," she murmured, looking long and earnestly
at the grand cavalcade.
"Like unto Whom, my dear?" asked Mrs. Nancy Geddings, the youngest
daughter of Sir Fortunatus, who was her companion in the coach that day.
"Very like unto him who is at Home in the West yonder," she made answer.
"Now take me back to Ludgate, Nancy sweet, for I am Sick."
She was to be humoured in everything, and she was taken back as she
desired. It chanced, a few days after this, that word came that his
Highness the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England (for to such
State had Oliver grown) designed to visit the City, to dine with the
citizens at Guildhall. There was to be a great Pageant. He was to be met
at Temple Bar by the Mayor and Aldermen, and to be escorted towards
Cheapside by those city Trainbands which had done such execution on the
Parliament side during the wars, and by the Companies with their Livery
banners. Foreign Ambassadors were to bear him company; for Oliver was
then at the height of his power, and had made the name of England
dreaded, and even his own prowess respected, by all nations that were
beyond sea. He was to hear a sermon at Bow Church at noon, and at two
o'clock--for the preacher was to be Mr. Hugh Peters, who always gave his
congregation a double turn of the hour-glass--he was to dine at the
Guildhall, where I know not how many geese, bustards, capons, pheasants,
ruffs and reeves, sirloins, shoulders of veal, pasties, sweet puddings,
jellies, and custards, with good store of Rhenish and Buckrack and
Canary, and Bordelais and Gascoin wines, were provided to furnish a
banquet worthy of the day. For although the Protectorate was a stern sad
period, and Oliver was (or had schooled himself to be) a temperate man,
the citizens had not quite forgotten their love of good cheer; and the
Protector himself was not averse from the keeping up some state and
splendour, Whitehall being now well-nigh as splendid as in the late
King's time, and his Highness sitting with his Make-Believe Lords around
him (Lisle, Whitelocke, and the rest), and eating his meat to tuckets
upon Trumpets, and being otherwise puffed up with Vanity.
The good folks with whom Arabella was sojourning thought it might help
to cure her of her sad moping ways if she saw the grand pageant go by,
and mingled in the merriment and feasting which the ladies of Sir
Fortunatus's family--the Knight himself being bidden to the
Guildhall--proposed to give their neighbours on the day when Oliver came
into the City. To this intent, the windows of their house without
Ludgate were all taken out of their frames, and the casements themselves
hung with rich cloths and tapestries, and decked with banners. And an
open house was kept, literally; meats and wines and sweets being set out
in every room, even to the bed-chambers, and all of the Turkey
merchant's acquaintance being bidden to come in and help themselves, and
take a squeeze at the windows to see his Highness go by. Only one window
on the first floor was set apart, and here sat the Ladies of the family,
with Mistress Deborah Clay, the Remembrancer's lady, and one that was
sister to a Judge of Commonwealth's Bench, and Arabella Greenville, who
was, for a wonder, quite cheerful and sprightly that morning, and who
had for her neighbour one Lady Lisle, the wife of John Lisle, one of
Cromwell's Chief Councillors and Commissioners of the Great Seal.[B]
The time that passed between their taking seats and the coming of the
pageant was passed pleasantly enough; not in drinking of healths, which
practice was then considered as closely akin to an unlawful thing, but
in laughing and quaffing, and whispering of merry jests. For I have
usually found that, be the Rule of Church and State ever so sour and
stern, folks _will_ laugh and quaff and jest on the sly, and be merry in
the green tree, if they are forced to be sad in the dry.
There was a gentleman standing behind Arabella, a Counsellor of
Lincoln's Inn I think, who was telling a droll story of Lord President
Bradshaw to his friend from the Temple. Not greatly a person of whom to
relate merry tales, I should think, that terrible Bencher, who sat at
the head of the High Commission, clothed in his scarlet robe, and passed
judgment upon his lord the King. But still these gentlemen laughed loud
and long, as one told the other how the President lay very sick, sick
almost to death, at his country house; and how, he being one that was in
the Commission of the Chancellorship, had taken them away with him, and
would by no means surrender them, keeping them under his pillow, night
and day; wherefore one of his brother commissioners was fain to seek him
out, and press him hard to give up the seals, saying that the business
of the nation was at a Standstill, for they could neither seal patents
nor pardons. But all in vain, Bradshaw crying out in a voice that,
though weak, was still terrible, that he would never give them up, but
would carry them with him into the next world; whereat quoth the other
commissioner, "_By ----, My Lord President, they will certainly melt if
you do._" And at this tale the gentleman from Lincoln's Inn and he from
the Temple both laughed so, that Arabella, who had been listening
without eavesdropping, burst into a fit of laughter too; only my Lady
Lisle (who had likewise heard the Story) regarded her with a very grim
and dissatisfied countenance, and murmured that she thought a little
trailing up before the Council, and committing to the Gate-house, would
do some popinjays some good, and cure them of telling tales as
treasonable as they were scurrilous.
But now came a great noise of trumpets and hautboys and drums, and the
great pageant came streaming up towards Ludgate, a troop of Oliver's own
Body-guard on iron-grey chargers clearing the way, which they did with
scant respect for the lives and limbs of the crowd, and with very
little scruple either in bruising the Trainbands with their horses'
hoofs and the flat of their broadswords. As Arabella leant forward to
see the show approach, something hard, and it would seem of metal, that
she carried beneath her mantle, struck against the arm of my Lady Lisle,
who, being a woman of somewhat quick temper, cried out,
"Methinks that you carry a pocket-flask with you, Mistress Greenville,
instead of a vial of essences. That which you have must hold a pint at
least."
"I do carry such a flask," answered Arabella, "and please God, there are
those here to-day who shall drink of it even to the Dregs."
This speech was afterwards remembered against her as a proof of her
Intent.
All, however, were speedily too busy with watching the Show go by to
take much heed of any word passage between the two women. Now it was
Mistress Deborah Clay pointing out the Remembrancer to her gossip; now
the flaunting banners of the Companies, now the velvet robes of the
Lords of the Council were looked upon; now a Great Cry arose that his
Highness was coming.
He came in his coach drawn by the eight Holstein mares, one of his lords
by his side, and his two chaplains, with a gentleman of the bed-chamber
sitting over against. He wore a rich suit of brown velvet purfled with
white satin, a bright gorget of silver,--men said that he wore mail
beneath his clothes,--startups and gauntlets of yellow Spanish, a great
baldric of cloth-of-gold, and in his hat a buckle of diamonds and a red
feather. Yet, bravely as he was attired, those who knew him declared
that they had never seen Oliver look so careworn and so miserable as he
did that day.
By a kind of Fate, he turned his glance upwards as he passed the house
of the Turkey merchant, and those Cruel Eyes met the fierce gaze of
Arabella Greenville.
"Blood for Blood!" she cried out in a loud clear voice; and she drew a
Pistol from the folds of her mantle, and fired downwards, and with good
aim, at the Protector's head.
My Lady Lisle saw the deed done. "Jezebel!" she shrieked, striking the
weapon from Arabella's hand.
Oliver escaped unharmed, but by an almost miracle. The bullet had struck
him as it was aimed, directly in the centre of his forehead, he wearing
his hat much slouched over his brow; but it had struck--not his skull,
but the diamond buckle, and glancing off from that hard mass, sped out
of the coach-window again, on what errand none could tell, for it was
heard of no more. I have often wondered what became of all the bullets I
have let fly.
The stoppage of the coach; the Protector half stunned; the chaplain
paralysed with fear; the Trainbands in a frenzy--half of terror, half of
strong drink--firing off their pieces hap-hazard at the windows, and
shouting out that this was a plot of the Papists or the Malignants; the
crowd surging, the Body-Guard galloping to and fro; the poor
standard-bearers tripping themselves up with their own poles,--all this
made a mad turmoil in the street without Ludgate. But the Protector had
speedily found all his senses, and had whispered a word or two to a
certain Sergeant in whom he placed great trust, and pointed his finger
to a certain window. Then the Sergeant being gone away, orders were
given for the pageant to move on; and through Ludgate, and by Paul's,
and up Chepe, and to Bow Church, it moved accordingly. Mr. Hugh Peters
preached for two hours as though nothing had happened. Being doubtless
under instructions, he made not the slightest allusion to the late
tragic Attempt; and at the banquet afterwards at the Guildhall, there
were only a few trifling rumours that his Highness had been shot at by a
mad woman from a window in Fleet Street; denial, however, being
speedily given to this by persons in Authority, who declared that the
disturbance without Ludgate had arisen simply from a drunken soldier of
the Trainbands firing his musketoon into the air for Joy.
But the Sergeant, with some soldiers of the Protector's own, walked
tranquilly into the house of Sir Fortunatus Geddings, and into the upper
chamber, where the would-be Avenger of Blood was surrounded by a throng
of men and women gazing upon her, half in horror, and half in
admiration. The Sergeant beckoned to her, and she arose without a
murmur, and went with him and the soldiers, two only being left as
sentinels, to see that no one stirred from the house till orders came.
By this time, from Ludgate to Blackfriars all was soldiers, the crowd
being thrust away east and west; and, between a lane of pikemen,
Arabella was brought into the street, hurried through the narrow lanes
behind Apothecaries' Hall, and so through the alleys to Blackfriars
Stairs, where a barge was in waiting, which bore her swiftly away to
Whitehall.
"You have flown at High Game, mistress," was the only remark made to her
by the Sergeant.
She was locked up for many hours in an inner chamber, the windows being
closed, and a lamp set on the table. They bound her, but, mindful of her
sex and youth, not in fetters, or even with ropes, contenting themselves
with fastening her arms tightly behind her with the Sergeant's silken
sash. For the Sergeant was of Cromwell's own guard, and was of great
authority.
At about nine at night the Sergeant and two soldiers came for her, and
so brought her, through many lobbies, to Cromwell's own closet, where
she found him still with his hat and baldric on, sitting at a table
covered with green velvet.
"What prompted thee to seek my Life?" he asked, without anger, but in a
slow, cold, searching voice.
"Blood for Blood!" she answered, with undaunted mien.
"What evil have I done thee, that thou shouldst seek my blood?"
"What evil--what evil, Beelzebub?--all! Thou hast slain the King my Lord
and master. Thou hast slain the Dear Brother who was my playmate, and my
father's hope and pride. Thou hast slain the Sweet and Gallant Youth who
was to have been my husband."
"Thou are that Arabella Greenville, then, the daughter of the wavering
half-hearted Esquire of the West."
"I am the daughter of a Gentleman of Long Descent. I am Arabella
Greenville, an English Maid of Somerset; and I cry for vengeance for the
blood of Charles Stuart, for the blood of Richard Greenville, for the
blood of FRANCIS VILLIERS. Blood for Blood!"
That terrible gleam of Madness leapt out of her blue eyes, and, all
bound as she was, she rushed towards the Protector, as though in her
fury she would have spurned him with her foot, or torn him with her
teeth. The Sergeant for his part made as though he would have drawn his
sword upon her; but Oliver laid his hand on the arm of his officer, and
bade him forbear.
"Leave the maiden alone with me," he said calmly; "wait within call. She
can do no harm." Then, when the soldiers had withdrawn, he walked to and
fro in the room for many minutes, ever and anon turning his head and
gazing fixedly on the prisoner, who stood erect, her head high, her
hands, for all their bonds, clenched in defiance.
"Thou knowest," he said, "that thy Life is forfeit."
"I care not. The sooner the better. I ask but one Mercy: that you send
me not to Tyburn, but to Hampton Court; there to be shot to death in
the courtyard by a file of musketeers."
"Wherefore to Hampton?"
"Because it was there you murdered my Lover and my Brother."
"I remember," the Protector said, bowing his head. "They were rare
Malignants, both. I remember; it was on the same thirtieth of January
that Charles Stuart died the death. But shouldst thou not, too, bear in
mind that Vengeance is not thine, but the Lord's?"
"Blood for Blood!"
"Thou art a maiden of a stern Resolve and a strong Will," said the
Protector, musingly. "If thou art pardoned, wilt thou promise repentance
and amendment?"
"Blood for Blood!"
"Poor distraught creature," this Once cruel man made answer, "I will
have no blood of thine. I have had enough," he continued, with a dark
look and a deep sigh; "I am weary; and Blood will have Blood. But that
my life was in Mercy saved for the weal of these kingdoms, thou mightst
have done with me, Arabella Greenville, according to thy desires."
He paused, as though for some expression of sorrow; but she was silent.
"Thou art hardened," he resumed; "it may be that there are things that
_cannot_ be forgiven."
"There are," she said, firmly.
"I spare thy life," the Lord Protector continued; "but, Arabella
Greenville, thou must go into Captivity. Until I am Dead, we two cannot
be at large together. But I will not doom thee to a solitary prison.
Thou shalt have a companion in durance. Yes," he ended, speaking between
his teeth, and more to himself than to her, "she shall join Him yonder
in his lifelong prison. Blood for Blood; the Slayer and the Avenger
shall be together."
She was taken back to her place of confinement, where meat and drink
were placed before her, and a tiring-woman attended her with a change of
garments. And at day-break the next morning she was taken away in a
litter towards Colchester in Essex.[C]
FOOTNOTES:
[B] This Lady Lisle was a very virulent partisan woman, and, according
to my Grandmother's showing, was so bitter against the Crown that, being
taken, when a young woman, to witness the execution of King Charles, and
seeing one who pressed to the scaffold after the blow to dip her
kerchief in the Martyr's blood, she cried out "that she needed no such
relic; but that she would willingly drink the Tyrant's blood." This is
the same Alice Lisle who afterwards, in King James's time, suffered at
Winchester for harbouring two of the Western Rebels.
[C] Those desirous of learning fuller particulars of my Grandmother's
History, or anxious to satisfy themselves that I have not Lied, should
consult a book called _The Travels of Edward Brown, Esquire_, that is
now in the Great Library at Montague House. Mr. Brown is in most things
curiously exact; but he errs in stating that Mrs. Greenville's name was
Letitia,--it was Arabella.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
MY GRANDMOTHER DIES, AND I AM LEFT ALONE, WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A NAME.
I HAVE sat over against Death unnumbered times in the course of a long
and perilous life, and he has appeared to me in almost every shape; but
I shall never forget that Thirtieth of January in the year '20, when my
Grandmother died. I have seen men all gashed and cloven about--a very
mire of blood and wounds,--and heads lying about on the floor like
ninepins, among the Turks, where a man's life is as cheap as the
Halfpenny Hatch. I was with that famous Commander Baron Trenck[D] when
his Pandours--of whom I was one--broke into Mutiny. He drew a pistol
from his belt, and said, "I shall decimate you." And he began to count
Ten, "one, two, three, four," and so on, till he came to the tenth man,
whom he shot Dead. And then he took to counting again, until he was
arrived at the second Tenth. That man's brains he also blew out. I was
the tenth of the third batch, but I never blenched. Trenck happily held
his hand before he came to Me. The Pandours cried out that they would
submit, although I never spoke a word; he forgave us; and I had a flask
of Tokay with him in his tent that very after-dinner. I have seen a man
keel-hauled at sea, and brought up on the other side, his face all
larded with barnacles like a Shrove-tide capon. Thrice I have stood
beneath the yardarm with the rope round my neck (owing to a king's ship
mistaking the character of my vessel).[E] I have seen men scourged till
the muscles of their backs were laid bare as in a Theatre of Anatomy; I
have watched women's limbs crackle and frizzle in the flames at an Act
of Faith, with the King and Court--ay, and the court-ladies too--looking
on. I stood by when that poor mad wretch Damiens was pulled to pieces by
horses in the Greve. I have seen what the plague could do in the galleys
at Marseilles. Death and I have been boon companions and bedfellows. He
has danced a jig with me on a plank, and ridden bodkin, and gone snacks
with me for a lump of horse-flesh in a beleaguered town; but no man can
say that John Dangerous had aught but a bold face to show that Phantom
who frights nursemaids and rich idle people so.