NEW DANGERS TO THE HOUSE OF YORK--AND THE KING'S HEART ALLIES ITSELF
WITH REBELLION AGAINST THE KING'S THRONE.
Oh, beautiful is the love of youth to youth, and touching the
tenderness of womanhood to woman; and fair in the eyes of the happy
sun is the waking of holy sleep, and the virgin kiss upon virgin lips
smiling and murmuring the sweet "Good-morrow!"
Anne was the first to wake; and as the bright winter morn, robust with
frosty sunbeams shone cheerily upon Sibyll's face, she was struck with
a beauty she had not sufficiently observed the day before; for in the
sleep of the young the traces of thought and care vanish, the aching
heart is lulled in the body's rest, the hard lines relax into flexile
ease, a softer, warmer bloom steals over the cheek, and, relieved from
the stiff restraints of dress, the rounded limbs repose in a more
alluring grace! Youth seems younger in its slumber, and beauty more
beautiful, and purity more pure. Long and dark, the fringe of the
eyelash rested upon the white lids, and the freshness of the parting
pouted lips invited the sister kiss that wakened up the sleeper.
"Ah, lady," said Sibyll, parting her tresses from her dark blue eyes,
"you are here, you are safe!--blessed be the saints and our Lady! for
I had a dream in the night that startled and appalled me."
"And my dreams were all blithe and golden," said Anne. "What was
thine?"
"Methought you were asleep and in this chamber, and I not by your
side, but watching you at a little distance; and lo! a horrible
serpent glided from yon recess, and, crawling to your pillow, I heard
its hiss, and strove to come to your aid, but in vain; a spell seemed
to chain my limbs. At last I found voice, I cried aloud, I woke; and
mock me not, but I surely heard a parting footstep, and the low
grating of some sliding door."
"It was the dream's influence, enduring beyond the dream. I have
often felt it so,--nay, even last night; for I, too, dreamed of
another, dreamed that I stood by the altar with one far away, and when
I woke--for I woke also--it was long before I could believe it was thy
hand I held, and thine arm that embraced me."
The young friends rose, and their toilet was scarcely ended, when
again appeared in the chamber all the stateliness of retinue allotted
to the Lady Anne. Sibyll turned to depart. "And whither go you?"
asked Anne.
"To visit my father; it is my first task on rising," returned Sibyll,
in a whisper.
"You must let me visit him, too, at a later hour. Find me here an
hour before noon, Sibyll."
The early morning was passed by Anne in the queen's company. The
refection, the embroidery frame, the closheys, filled up the hours.
The Duchess of Clarence had left the palace with her lord to visit the
king's mother at Baynard's Castle; and Anne's timid spirits were
saddened by the strangeness of the faces round her, and Elizabeth's
habitual silence. There was something in the weak and ill-fated queen
that ever failed to conciliate friends. Though perpetually striving
to form and create a party, she never succeeded in gaining confidence
or respect. And no one raised so high was ever left so friendless as
Elizabeth, when, in her awful widowhood, her dowry home became the
sanctuary. All her power was but the shadow of her husband's royal
sun, and vanished when the orb prematurely set; yet she had all gifts
of person in her favour, and a sleek smoothness of manner that seemed
to the superficial formed to win; but the voice was artificial, and
the eye cold and stealthy. About her formal precision there was an
eternal consciousness of self, a breathing egotism. Her laugh was
displeasing,--cynical, not mirthful; she had none of that
forgetfulness of self, that warmth when gay, that earnestness when
sad, which create sympathy. Her beauty was without loveliness, her
character without charm; every proportion in her form might allure the
sensualist; but there stopped the fascination. The mind was trivial,
though cunning and dissimulating; and the very evenness of her temper
seemed but the clockwork of a heart insensible to its own movements.
Vain in prosperity, what wonder that she was so abject in misfortune?
What wonder that even while, in later and gloomier years, [Grafton,
806] accusing Richard III. of the murder of her royal sons, and
knowing him, at least, the executioner of her brother and her child by
the bridegroom of her youth, [Anthony Lord Rivers, and Lord Richard
Gray. Not the least instance of the frivolity of Elizabeth's mind is
to be found in her willingness, after all the woes of her second
widowhood, and when she was not very far short of sixty years old, to
take a third husband, James III., of Scotland,--a marriage prevented
only by the death of the Scotch king.] she consented to send her
daughters to his custody, though subjected to the stain of
illegitimacy, and herself only recognized as the harlot?
The king, meanwhile, had ridden out betimes alone, and no other of the
male sex presumed in his absence to invade the female circle. It was
with all a girl's fresh delight that Anne escaped at last to her own
chamber, where she found Sibyll; and, with her guidance, she threaded
the gloomy mazes of the Tower. "Let me see," she whispered, "before
we visit your father, let me see the turret in which the unhappy Henry
is confined."
And Sibyll led her through the arch of that tower, now called "The
Bloody," and showed her the narrow casement deep sunk in the mighty
wall, without which hung the starling in the cage, basking its plumes
in the wintry sun. Anne gazed with that deep interest and tender
reverence which the parent of the man she loves naturally excites in a
woman; and while thus standing sorrowful and silent, the casement was
unbarred, and she saw the mild face of the human captive; he seemed to
talk to the bird, which, in shrill tones and with clapping wings,
answered his address. At that time a horn sounded at a little
distance off; a clangour of arms, as the sentries saluted, was heard;
the demoiselles retreated through the arch, and mounted the stair
conducting to the very room, then unoccupied, in which tradition
records the murder of the Third Richard's nephews; and scarcely had
they gained this retreat, ere towards the Bloody Gate, and before the
prison tower, rode the king who had mounted the captive's throne. His
steed, gaudy with its housing, his splendid dress, the knights and
squires who started forward from every corner to hold his gilded
stirrup, his vigorous youth, so blooming and so radiant,--all
contrasted, with oppressive force, the careworn face that watched him
meekly through the little casement of the Wakefield tower. Edward's
large, quick blue eye caught sudden sight of the once familiar
features. He looked up steadily, and his gaze encountered the fallen
king's. He changed countenance: but with the external chivalry that
made the surface of his hollow though brilliant character, he bowed
low to his saddle-bow as he saw his captive, and removed the plumed
cap from his high brow.
Henry smiled sadly, and shook his reverend head, as if gently to
rebuke the mockery; then he closed the casement; and Edward rode into
the yard.
"How can the king hold here a court and here a prison? Oh, hard
heart!" murmured Anne, as, when Edward had disappeared, the damsels
bent their way to Adam's chamber.
"Would the Earl Warwick approve thy pity, sweet Lady Anne?" asked
Sibyll.
"My father's heart is too generous to condemn it," returned Anne,
wiping the tears from her eyes; "how often in the knight's galliard
shall I see that face!"
The turret in which Warner's room was placed flanked the wing
inhabited by the royal family and their more distinguished guests
(namely, the palace, properly speaking, as distinct from the
fortress), and communicated with the regal lodge by a long corridor,
raised above cloisters and open to a courtyard. At one end of this
corridor a door opened upon the passage, in which was situated the
chamber of the Lady Anne; the other extremity communicated with a
rugged stair of stone, conducting to the rooms tenanted by Warner.
Leaving Sibyll to present her learned father to the gentle Anne, we
follow the king into the garden, which he entered on dismounting. He
found here the Archbishop of York, who had come to the palace in his
barge, and with but a slight retinue, and who was now conversing with
Hastings in earnest whispers.
The king, who seemed thoughtful and fatigued, approached the two, and
said, with a forced smile, "What learned sententiary engages you two
scholars?"
"Your Grace," said the archbishop, "Minerva was not precisely the
goddess most potent over our thoughts at that moment. I received a
letter last evening from the Duke of Gloucester, and as I know the
love borne by the prince to the Lord Hastings, I inquired of your
chamberlain how far he would have foreguessed the news it announced."
"And what may the tidings be?" asked Edward, absently.
The prelate hesitated.
"Sire," he said gravely, "the familiar confidence with which both your
Highness and the Duke of Gloucester distinguish the chamberlain,
permits me to communicate the purport of the letter in his presence.
The young duke informs me that he hath long conceived an affection
which he would improve into marriage, but before he address either the
demoiselle or her father, he prays me to confer with your Grace, whose
pleasure in this, as in all things, will be his sovereign law."
"Ah, Richard loves me with a truer love than George of Clarence! But
who can he have seen on the Borders worthy to be a prince's bride?"
"It is no sudden passion, sire, as I before hinted; nay, it has been
for some time sufficiently notorious to his friends and many of the
court; it is an affection for a maiden known to him in childhood,
connected to him by blood,--my niece, Anne Nevile."
As if stung by a scorpion, Edward threw off the prelate's arm, on
which he had been leaning with his usual caressing courtesy.
"This is too much!" said he, quickly, and his face, before somewhat
pale, grew highly flushed. "Is the whole royalty of England to be one
Nevile? Have I not sufficiently narrowed the basis of my throne?
Instead of mating my daughter to a foreign power,--to Spain or to
Bretagne,--she is betrothed to young Montagu! Clarence weds Isabel,
and now Gloucester--no, prelate, I will not consent!"
The archbishop was so little prepared for this burst, that he remained
speechless. Hastings pressed the king's arm, as if to caution him
against so imprudent a display of resentment; but the king walked on,
not heeding him, and in great disturbance. Hastings interchanged
looks with the archbishop, and followed his royal master.
"My king," he said, in an earnest whisper, "whatever you decide, do
not again provoke unhappy feuds laid at rest. Already this morning I
sought your chamber, but you were abroad, to say that I have received
intelligence of a fresh rising of the Lancastrians in Lincolnshire,
under Sir Robert Welles, and the warlike knight of Scrivelsby, Sir
Thomas Dymoke. This is not yet an hour to anger the pride of the
Neviles!"
"O Hastings! Hastings!" said the king, in a tone of passionate
emotion, "there are moments when the human heart cannot dissemble!
Howbeit your advice is wise and honest! No, we must not anger the
Neviles!"
He turned abruptly; rejoined the archbishop, who stood on the spot on
which the king had left him, his arms folded on his breast, his face
calm, but haughty.
"My most worshipful cousin," said Edward, "forgive the well-known heat
of my hasty moods! I had hoped that Richard would, by a foreign
alliance, have repaired the occasion of confirming my dynasty abroad,
which Clarence lost. But no matter! Of these things we will speak
anon. Say naught to Richard till time ripens maturer resolutions: he
is a youth yet. What strange tidings are these from Lincolnshire?"
"The house of your purveyor, Sir Robert de Burgh, is burned, his lands
wasted. The rebels are headed by lords and knights. Robin of
Redesdale, who, methinks, bears a charmed life, has even ventured to
rouse the disaffected in my brother's very shire of Warwick."
"O Henry," exclaimed the king, casting his eyes towards the turret
that held his captive, "well mightest then call a crown 'a wreath of
thorns!'"
"I have already," said the archbishop, "despatched couriers to my
brother, to recall him from Warwick, whither he went on quitting your
Highness. I have done more; prompted by a zeal that draws me from the
care of the Church to that of the State, I have summoned the Lords St.
John, De Fulke, and others, to my house of the More,--praying your
Highness to deign to meet them, and well sure that a smile from your
princely lips will regain their hearts and confirm heir allegiance, at
a moment when new perils require all strong arms."
"You have done most wisely. I will come to your palace,--appoint your
own day."
"It will take some days for the barons to arrive from their castles.
I fear not ere the tenth day from this."
"Ah," said the king, with a vivacity that surprised his listeners,
aware of his usual impetuous energy, "the delay will but befriend us;
as for Warwick, permit me to alter your arrangements; let him employ
the interval, not in London, where he is useless, but in raising men
in the neighbourhood of his castle, and in defeating the treason of
this Redesdale knave. We will give commission to him and to Clarence
to levy troops; Hastings, see to this forthwith. Ye say Sir Robert
Welles leads the Lincolnshire varlets; I know the nature of his
father, the Lord Welles,--a fearful and timorous one; I will send for
him, and the father's head shall answer for the son's faith. Pardon
me, dear cousin, that I leave you to attend these matters. Prithee
visit our queen, meanwhile, she holds you our guest."
"Nay, your Highness must vouchsafe my excuse; I also have your royal
interests too much at heart to while an hour in my pleasurement. I
will but see the friends of our House now in London, and then back to
the More, and collect the force of my tenants and retainers."
"Ever right, fair speed to you, cardinal that shall be! Your arm,
Hastings."
The king and his favourite took their way into the state chambers.
"Abet not Gloucester in this alliance,--abet him not!" said the king,
solemnly.
"Pause, sire! This alliance gives to Warwick a wise counsellor,
instead of the restless Duke of Clarence. Reflect what danger may
ensue if an ambitious lord, discontented with your reign, obtains the
hand of the great earl's coheiress, and the half of a hundred baronies
that command an army larger than the crown's."
Though these reasonings at a calmer time might well have had their
effect on Edward, at that moment they were little heeded by his
passions. He stamped his foot violently on the floor. "Hastings!" he
exclaimed, "be silent! or--" He stopped short, mastered his emotion.
"Go, assemble our privy council. We have graver matters than a boy's
marriage now to think of."
It was in vain that Edward sought to absorb the fire of his nature in
state affairs, in all needful provisions against the impending perils,
in schemes of war and vengeance. The fatal frenzy that had seized him
haunted him everywhere, by day and by night. For some days after the
unsuspected visit which he had so criminally stolen to his guest's
chamber, something of knightly honour, of religious scruple, of common
reason,--awakened in him the more by the dangers which had sprung up
and which the Neviles were now actively employed in defeating,--
struggled against his guilty desire, and roused his conscience to a
less feeble resistance than it usually displayed when opposed to
passion; but the society of Anne, into which he was necessarily thrown
so many hours in the day, and those hours chiefly after the
indulgences of the banquet, was more powerful than all the dictates of
a virtue so seldom exercised as to have none of the strength of habit.
And as the time drew near when he must visit the archbishop, head his
army against the rebels (whose force daily increased, despite the
captivity of Lord Welles and Sir Thomas Dymoke, who, on the summons of
the king, had first taken sanctuary, and then yielded their persons on
the promise of pardon and safety), and restore Anne to her mother,--as
this time drew near, his perturbation of mind became visible to the
whole court; but, with the instinct of his native craft, he contrived
to conceal its cause. For the first time in his life he had no
confidant--he did not dare trust his secret to Hastings. His heart
gnawed itself. Neither, though constantly stealing to Anne's side,
could he venture upon language that might startle and enlighten her.
He felt that even those attentions, which on the first evening of her
arrival had been noticed by the courtiers, could not be safely
renewed. He was grave and constrained, even when by her side, and the
etiquette of the court allowed him no opportunity for unwitnessed
conference. In this suppressed and unequal struggle with himself the
time passed, till it was now but the day before that fixed for his
visit to the More. And, as he rose at morning from his restless
couch, the struggle was over, and the soul resolved to dare the crime.
His first thought was to separate Anne from Sibyll. He affected to
rebuke the queen for giving to his high-born guest an associate below
her dignity, and on whose character, poor girl, rested the imputation
of witchcraft; and when the queen replied that Lady Anne herself had
so chosen, he hit upon the expedient of visiting Warner himself, under
pretence of inspecting his progress,--affected to be struck by the
sickly appearance of the sage, and sending for Sibyll, told her, with
an air of gracious consideration, that her first duty was to attend
her parent; that the queen released her for some days from all court
duties; and that he had given orders to prepare the room adjoining
Master Warner's, and held by Friar Bungey, till that worthy had
retired with his patroness from the court, to which she would for the
present remove.
Sibyll, wondering at this novel mark of consideration in the careless
king, yet imputing it to the high value set on her father's labours,
thanked Edward with simple earnestness, and withdrew. In the anteroom
she encountered Hastings, on his way to the king. He started in
surprise, and with a jealous pang: "What! thou, Sibyll! and from the
king's closet! What led thee thither?"
"His grace's command." And too noble for the pleasure of exciting the
distrust that delights frivolous minds as the proof of power, Sibyll
added, "The king has been kindly speaking to me of my father's
health." The courtier's brow cleared; he mused a moment, and said, in
a whisper, "I beseech thee to meet me an hour hence at the eastern
rampart."
Since the return of Lord Hastings to the palace there had been an
estrangement and distance in his manner, ill suiting one who enjoyed
the rights of an accepted suitor, and wounding alike to Sibyll's
affection and her pride; but her confidence in his love and truth was
entire. Her admiration for him partook of worship, and she steadily
sought to reason away any causes for alarm by recalling the state
cares which pressed heavily upon him, and whispering to herself that
word of "wife," which, coming in passionate music from those beloved
lips, had thrown a mist over the present, a glory over the future! and
in the king's retention of Adam Warner, despite the Duchess of
Bedford's strenuous desire to carry him off with Friar Bungey, and
restore him to his tasks of alchemist and multiplier, as well as in
her own promotion to the queen's service, Sibyll could not but
recognize the influence of her powerful lover. His tones now were
tender, though grave and earnest. Surely, in the meeting he asked, all
not comprehended would be explained. And so, with a light heart, she
passed on.
Hastings sighed as his eye followed her from the room, and thus said
he to himself, "Were I the obscure gentleman I once was, how sweet a
lot would that girl's love choose to me from the urn of fate! But,
oh! when we taste of power and greatness, and master the world's dark
wisdom, what doth love shrink to?--an hour's bliss and a life's
folly." His delicate lip curled, and breaking from his soliloquy, he
entered the king's closet. Edward was resting his face upon the palms
of his hands, and his bright eyes dwelt upon vacant space, till they
kindled into animation as they lighted on his favourite.
"Dear Will," said the king, "knowest thou that men say thou art
bewitched?"
"Beau sire, often have men, when a sweet face hath captured thy great
heart, said the same of thee!"
"It may be so with truth, for verily love is the arch-devil's birth."
The king rose, and strode his chamber with a quick step; at last
pausing,--
"Hastings," he said, "so thou lovest the multiplier's pretty daughter?
She has just left me. Art thou jealous?"
"Happily your Highness sees no beauty in looks that have the gloss of
the raven, and eyes that have the hue of the violet."
"No, I am a constant man, constant to one idea of beauty in a thousand
forms,--eyes like the summer's light-blue sky, and locks like its
golden sunbeams! But to set thy mind at rest, Will, know that I have
but compassionated the sickly state of the scholar, whom thou prizest
so highly; and I have placed thy fair Sibyll's chamber near her
father's. Young Lovell says thou art bent on wedding the wizard's
daughter."
"And if I were, beau sire?"
Edward looked grave.
"If thou wert, my poor Will, thou wouldst lose all the fame for shrewd
wisdom which justifies thy sudden fortunes. No, no; thou art the
flower and prince of my new seignorie,--thou must mate thyself with a
name and a barony that shall be worthy thy fame and thy prospects.
Love beauty, but marry power, Will. In vain would thy king draw thee
up, if a despised wife draw thee down!"
Hastings listened with profound attention to these words. The king
did not wait for his answer, but added laughingly,--
"It is thine own fault, crafty gallant, if thou dost not end all her
spells."
"What ends the spells of youth and beauty, beau sire?"
"Possession!" replied the king, in a hollow and muttered voice.
Hastings was about to answer, when the door opened, and the officer in
waiting announced the Duke of Clarence. "Ha!" said Edward, "George
comes to importune me for leave to depart to the government of
Ireland, and I have to make him weet that I think my Lord Worcester a
safer viceroy of the two."
"Your Highness will pardon me; but, though I deemed you too generous
in the appointment, it were dangerous now to annul it."
"More dangerous to confirm it. Elizabeth has caused me to see the
folly of a grant made over the malmsey,--a wine, by the way, in which
poor George swears he would be content to drown himself. Viceroy of
Ireland! My father had that government, and once tasting the sweets
of royalty, ceased to be a subject! No, no, Clarence--"
"Can never meditate treason against a brother's crown. Has he the wit
or the energy or the genius for so desperate an ambition?"
"No; but he hath the vanity. And I will wager thee a thousand marks
to a silver penny that my jester shall talk giddie Georgie into
advancing a claim to be soldan of Egypt or Pope of Rome!"