"O dumb, dumb lips! O crushed, crushed heart!
O grief, past pride, past shame!"
Miss Muloch.
Mother Joan had arrived at the point closing the last chapter, when the
sharp ringing of the Abbess' little bell announced the end of the
recreation-time; and convent laws being quite as rigid as those of the
Medes and Persians, Philippa was obliged to defer the further
gratification of her curiosity. When the next recreation-time came, the
blind nun resumed her narrative.
"When Dame Isabelle was lodged at her ease, for she saw first to that,
she ordered her prisoners to be brought before the Prince her son. She
had the decency not to sit as judge herself; but, in outrage of all
womanliness, she sat herself in the court, near the Prince's seat. She
would have sat in the seat rather than have missed her end. The Prince
was wholly governed by his mother; he knew not her true character; and
he was but a lad of fourteen years. So, when the prisoners were brought
forth, the tigress rose up in her place, and spake openly to the
assembled barons (a shameful thing for a woman to do!) that she and her
son would see that law and justice were rendered to them, according to
their deeds. She! That was the barons' place, not hers. She should
have kept to her distaff.
"Then said my grandfather, bowing his white head, `Ah, Dame! God grant
us an upright judge, and a just sentence; and that if we cannot have it
in this world, we may find it in another.'
"The charges laid against them were then read by the Marshal; and the
barons gave sentence--of course as Dame Isabelle wished. The Lord of
Arundel and Surrey, the premier Earl of England, [see Note 1], and the
aged white-haired Earl of Winchester, [see Note 2], were doomed to the
death of traitors.
"Saint Denis' Day--child, it gives me a shudder to name it! We were
within the castle, and they set up the gibbet before our eyes. Before
the eyes of the son of the one man, the wife and son of the other! I
remember catching up Isabel, and running with her into an inner
chamber--any whither to be out of sight of that awful thing. I
remember, too, that the Lady of Arundel, having seen all she could bear,
fainted away on the rushes, and I laid her gently down, and nursed her
back into life. But when she came to herself, she cried--`Is it all
over? O cruel Joan, to have made me live! I might have died with my
lord.' At last it was all over: over--for that time. And God had taken
no notice. He had not opened the heavens and thundered down His great
ire. I suppose that must have been on account of some high festival
they had in Heaven in honour of Saint Denis, and God was too busy,
listening to the angels, to have any time for us.
"But that night, ere the dawn, my father softly entered the chamber
where we maidens slept. He had been closeted half the night with the
King, taking counsel how to escape the cruel jaws of the tigress; and
now he roused us, and bade us farewell. He and the King would set forth
in a little boat, and endeavour to reach Wales. They thought us,
however, safer in the castle. We watched them embark in the grey dawn,
ere men were well astir; and they rowed off toward Wales. Would God
they had stayed where they were!--but God had not ended the festival of
Saint Denis.
"Twelve days that little boat rode the silver Severn; beaten back,
beaten back at every tide, the waves rough, and the wind contrary. And
at length Sir Henry Beaumont, the devil whispering to him who were in
the boat, set forth in pursuit. [See Note 3.]
"We saw them taken. The Monday after Saint Luke, Edward of Caernarvon,
sometime King of England, and Hugh Le Despenser, sometime Earl of
Gloucester, were led captives into Bristol, and delivered to the
tigress. But we were not to see them die. Perhaps Saint Luke had
interceded for us, as it was in his octave. The King was sent to
Berkeley Castle. My father they set on the smallest and poorest horse
they could find in the army, clad in an emblazoned surcoat such as he
was used to wear. From the moment that he was taken, he would touch no
food. And when they reached Hereford, he was so weak and ill, that Dame
Isabelle began to fear he would escape her hands by a more merciful
death than she designed for him. So she stayed her course at Hereford
for the Feast of All Saints, and the morrow after she had him brought
forth for trial. They had need to bear him into her presence, he was so
nearly insensible. Finding that they could not wake him into life by
speaking to him and calling him, they twined a crown of nettles and set
it on his head. But he was even then too near death to rouse himself.
So, lest he should die on the spot, they hurried him forth to execution.
He died the death of a traitor; but maybe God was more merciful than
they, and snatched his soul away ere he had suffered all they meant he
should. I suppose He allowed him to suffer previously, in punishment
for his allying himself with the wicked men of Edingdon: but I trust his
suffering purified his soul, and that God received him.
"Her vengeance thus satiated, Dame Isabelle set out for London. The
Castle of Arundel was forfeited, and the Lady and her son Richard were
left homeless. [See Note 4.] We set forth with them, a journey of many
weary days, to join my mother. But when we reached London, we found all
changed. Dame Isabelle, on her first coming, had summoned my mother to
surrender the Tower; and she, being affrighted, had resigned her charge,
and was committed to the custody of the Lord de la Zouche. So we
homeless ones bent our steps to Sempringham, where were two of my
father's sisters, Joan and Alianora; and we prayed the holy nuns there
to grant us shelter in their abode of peace. The Lord of Hereford gave
an asylum for young Richard.
"Those were peaceful, quiet days we passed at Sempringham; and they were
the last Isabel was to know. Meanwhile, the Friars Predicants, and in
especial the men of Edingdon and Ashridge, were spreading themselves
throughout the land, working well to bring back the King. Working too
well; for Dame Isabelle took alarm, and on Saint Maurice's Day, twelve
months after her landing, the King died at Berkeley Castle. God knew
how: and I think she knew who had sat by his side on the throne, and who
was the mother of his children. We only heard at Sempringham, that on
that night shrieks of agony rang through the vale of the Severn, and men
woke throughout the valley, and whispered a requiem for the hapless soul
which was departing in such horrible torment.
"But that opened the eyes of the young King (for the Prince of Wales had
been made King; ay, and all the hour of his crowning, Dame Isabelle
stood by, and made believe to weep for her lord): he began to see what a
serpent was his mother; and I daresay Brother John de Gaytenby, the
Friar Predicant who was his confessor, let not the matter sleep. And no
sooner did Edward of Windsor gain his full power, than he shut up the
wicked Jezebel his mother in the Castle of Rising. She lived there
twenty years: she died there, fourteen years ago.
"So the tide turned. The friends of Dame Isabelle died on the scaffold,
four years later, even as _he_ had died; and we heard it at Sempringham,
and knew that God and the saints and angels had taken up our cause at
last. Child, God's mill grindeth slowly, but it grindeth very small.
"Ere this, Hugh, my brother, had been granted his life by the King, but
not our father's earldom [see Note 5]; and when my father had been dead
only two years, leaving such awful memories--our mother wedded again.
Ah, well! she was our mother. But, child, I have seen a caterpillar,
shaken rudely from the fragrant petals of a rose, crawl to the next weed
that grew. She was fair and well-dowered; and against the King's will,
she wedded the Lord de la Zouche, in whose custody she was.
"And now for the end of my woeful tale, which is the story of Isabel
herself. For, one year later, the Castle of Arundel was given back to
Richard Fitzalan; and two years thereafter the Lady of Arundel died.
Listen a little longer with patience: for the saddest part of the story
is that yet to come.
"When Richard and Isabel went back to the Castle of Arundel, I was a
young novice, just admitted. And considering the second marriage of our
mother, and the death of the Lady of Arundel, and the extreme youth of
Isabel (who was not yet fourteen), I was permitted to reside very much
with her. A woeful residence it was; for now began the fourteen
terrible years of my darling's passion.
"For no sooner was his mother's gentle hand removed, than, even on the
very day of her burial, Earl Richard threw off the mask.
"Before that time, I had wonderingly doubted if he loved her. I knew
then that he hated her. And I found one other thing, sadder yet--that
she loved him. I confess unto thee, by the blessed ankle-bones of Saint
Denis, that I never could make out why. I never saw in him anything to
love; and had I so done, methinks he had soon had that folly out of me.
At first I scarcely understood all. I used to see livid blue bruises on
her neck and arms, and ask her wherefore they were there; and she would
only flush faintly, and say,--`It is nothing--I struck myself against
something.' I never knew for months against what she struck. But she
never complained--not even to me. She was patient as an angel of God.
"Now and then I used to notice that there came to the castle an aged
man, in the garb of the Friars Predicants; unto whom--and to him only--
Isabel used to confess. So changed was he from his old self, that I
never knew till long after that this was our father's old confessor,
Giles de Edingdon. She only said to me that he taught her good things.
If he taught her her saintly endurance, it was good. But I fear he
taught her other things as well: to hold in light esteem that blessed
doctrine of grace of condignity, whereby man can and doth merit the
favour of God. And what he gave her instead thereof I know not. She
used to tell me, but I forget now. Only once, in an awful hour, she
said unto me, that but for the knowledge he had given her, she could not
have borne her life.
"What was that hour?--Ah! it was the hour, when for the first time he
threw aside all care, even before me, and struck her senseless on the
rushes at my feet. And I never forgave him. She forgave him, poor
innocent!--nay, rather, I think she loved him too well to think of
forgiveness. I never saw love like hers; it would have borne death
itself, and have kissed the murderer's hand in dying. Some women do
love so. I never did, nor could.
"But when this awful hour came, and she fell at my feet, as if dead, by
a blow from his hand in anger,--the spirit of my fathers came upon me,
and like a prophetess of woe, child, I stood forth and cursed him! I
think God spake by me, for words seemed to come from me without my will;
and I said that for two generations the heir of his house should die by
violence in the flower of his age [See Note 6]. Thou mayest see if it
be so; but I never shall.
"And what said he?--He said, bowing his head low,--`Sister Joan La
Despenser is a great flatterer. Pray, accept my thanks. Henceforward,
she may perhaps find the calm glades of Shaftesbury more pleasant than
the bowers of Arundel. At least, I venture to beg that she will make
the trial.' And he went forth, calling to his hounds.
"Ay, went forth, without another word, and left her lying there at my
feet--her, to save whom one pang of pain I would have laid down my life.
And the portcullis was shut upon me. I was powerless to save her from
that man: I was to see her again no more. I did see her again no more
for ever. I waited till her sense came back, when she said she was not
hurt, and fell to excusing him. I felt as though I could have torn him
limb from limb. But that would have pained her.
"And then, when she was restored, I went forth from the Castle of
Arundel. I had been dismissed by the master; and dearly as I loved her,
I was too proud to be dismissed twice. So we took our farewell. Her
soft cheek pressed to mine--for the last time; her dear eyes looking
into mine--for the last time; her sweet, low voice blessing me--for the
last time.
"And what were her last words, saidst thou? I cannot repeat them
tearlessly, even now.
"`God grant thee the Living Water.'
"Those were they. She had spoken to me oft--though I had not much cared
to listen, except to her sweet voice--of something whereof this Giles
had told her; some kind of fairy tale, regarding this life as a desert,
and of some Well of pure, fresh water, deep down therein. I know not
what. I cared for all that came from her, but I cared nought for what
came only through her from Giles de Edingdon. But she said God had
given her a draught of that Living Water, and she was at rest. I know
nothing about it. But I am glad if anything gave her rest from that
anguish--even a fairy tale.
"Well, after that I saw her no more again. But now and then, when mine
hunger for her could no longer be appeased, I used to come to the
Convent of Arundel, and send word to Alina, thy nurse, to come to me
thither. And so, from time to time, I had word of her.
"The years passed on, and with them he grew harder and harder. He had
hated her, first, I think, from the fancy that my father had been after
some manner the cause of his father's violent end; and after that he
hated her for herself. And as time passed, and she had no child, he
hated her worse than ever. But at last, after many years, God gave her
one--thyself. I thought, perchance, if anything would soften him, thy
smiles and babyish ways might do it. But--soften him! It had been
easier to soften a rock of stone. When he knew that it was only a girl
that was born, he hated her worse than ever. Three years more; then the
last blow fell. Earl Henry of Lancaster bade him to his castle. As
they talked, quoth the Earl,--`I would you had not been a wedded man, my
Lord of Arundel; I had gladly given you one of my daughters.'--`Pure
foy!' quoth he, `but that need be no hindrance, nor shall long.' Nor
was it. He sent to our holy Father the Pope--with some lie, I trow--and
received a divorce, and a dispensation to wed Alianora, his cousin, the
young widow of the Lord de Beaumont, son of that Sir Henry that captured
the King and my father. All the while he told Isabel nothing. The
meanest of her scullions knew of the coming woe before she knew it. The
night ere Earl Richard should be re-wedded, he thought proper to dismiss
his discarded wife.
"`Dame,' said he to her, as he rose from the supper-table, `I pray you,
give good ear for a moment to what my chaplain is about to read.'
"He was always cruelly courteous before men.
"She stayed and listened. Then she grew faint and white--then she
grasped the seat to support her--then she lost hold and sense, and fell
down as if dead before him. Poor, miserably-crushed heart! She loved
this monster so well!
"He waited till she came to herself. Then he gave the last stroke.
"`I depart now,' said he, `to fetch home my bride. May I beg that the
Lady Isabel La Despenser will quit the castle before she comes. It
would be very unpleasant to her otherwise.'
"Unpleasant--to Alianora! And to Isabel, what would it be? Little he
recked of that. She had received her dismissal. He had said to her, in
effect,--`You are my wife, and Lady of Arundel, no more.'
"She lifted herself up a little, and looked into his face. She knew she
was looking upon him for the last time. And once more the fervent,
unvalued, long-outraged love broke forth,--once more, for the last time.
"`My lord! my lord!' she wailed. `Leave me not so, Richard! Give me
one kiss for farewell!'
"He did not lift her from the ground; he did not kiss her; but he was
not quite silent to that last bitter cry. He held forth his hand--the
hand which had been uplifted to strike her so often. She clasped it in
hers, and kissed it many times. And that was his farewell.
"When he had drawn his hand from her, and was gone forth, she sat a
season like a statue, listening. She hearkened till she heard him ride
away--on his way to Alianora. Then, as if some prop that had held her
up were suddenly withdrawn, she fell forward, and lay with her face to
the rushes. All that awful night she lay there. Alina came to her, and
strove to lift her, to give her food, to yield her comfort: but she took
no heed of anything. When the dawn came, she arose, and wrapped herself
in her mantle. She took no money, no jewels--not an ouche nor a grain
of gold. Only she wrapped in silk two locks of hair--his and thine. I
should have left the first behind. Then, when she was seated on the
horse to depart, the page told her who mounted afore, that his Lord had
given him command to take her to a certain place, which was not to be
told beforehand.
"Alina said she shivered a little at this; but she only answered, `Do my
lord's will.' Then she asked for thee. Alina lifted thee up to her,
and she clasped thee close underneath her veil, and kissed thee
tenderly. And that was thy last mother's kiss."
"Then that is what I remember!" broke in Philippa suddenly.
"It is impossible, child!" answered Joan. "Thou wert but a babe of
three years old."
"But I do--I am sure I do!" she repeated.
"Have thy way," said Joan. "If thou so thinkest, I will not gainsay
thee. Well, she gave thee back in a few minutes; and then she rode
away--never pausing to look back--no man knew whither."
"But what became of her?"
"God wotteth. Sometimes I hope he murdered her. One sin more or less
would matter little to the black list of sins on his guilty soul; and
the little pain of dying by violence would have saved Isabel the greater
pain of living through the desolate woe of the future. But I never
knew, as I told thee. Nor shall I ever know, till that last day come
when the Great Doom shall be, and he and she shall stand together before
the bar of God. There shall be an end to her torment then. It is
something to think that there shall be no end to his."
So, in a tone of bitter, passionate vindictiveness, Joan La Despenser
closed her story.
Philippa sat silent, wondering many things. If Guy of Ashridge knew any
thing of this, if Giles de Edingdon were yet living, if Agnes the
lavender had ever found out what became of her revered mistress. And
when she knelt down to tell her beads that night, a very strange and
terrible prayer lingered on her lips the last and most earnestly of all.
It was, that she might never again see her father's face. She felt
that had she done so, the spirit of the prophetess might have seized
upon her as upon Joan; that, terrified as she had always been of him,
she should now have stood up before him and have cursed him to his face.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. Edmund Fitzalan was premier Earl as Earl of Surrey, which title
he acquired by his marriage with Alesia, sister and heir of John de
Warrenne, last Earl of Surrey of the original male line.
Note 2. Probably owing to the great mortality among the nobles caused
by the French war, a man who survived fifty was regarded as very old in
the reign of Edward the Third.
Note 3. This is Froissart's account of the events, and his dates have
been mainly followed. Many writers give a varying narrative, stating
that the King and Earl did reach Wales, and were taken there in a wood.
Their dates are also about a month later. The inquisitions of the
Despensers, as is usual in the case of attainted persons, do not give
the date of death.
Note 4. The castle was granted to Edmund Earl of Kent, brother of
Edward the Second; and there, on his attainder and execution, four years
later, his widow and children were arrested.
Note 5. The earldom did not return to the Despenser family until 1397,
when it was conferred on the great-grandson of the attainted Earl.
Note 6. Earl Richard, his son, was beheaded in London, in the spring of
1397; Earl Thomas, his grandson, fell at Agincourt, October 13, 1415.