"I was not worthy of you, Douglas,
Not half worthy the like of you!"
...words which, honestly sobbed forth in very truth, would have been far
nearer real penitence than all the "acts of contrition" which passed her
lips day by day.
God knoweth. Men will never know. But all history and experience tend
to assure us that women such as Margaret de Clare usually die as they
have lived, and that of all barriers to penitence and conversion there
is none so hard to overthrow as indulged malice and deliberate hardening
of the heart against the love of God and man.
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There was not, as Piers and Clarice had feared there might have been,
any misfortune to them in the way of preventing their marriage. King
Edward had great respect for justice and honour, and finding that his
cousin had, though without legal formalities, granted Clarice's marriage
to Piers, he confirmed the grant, and Father Bevis married them quietly
in the chapel of Berkhamsted Castle, without any festivity or
rejoicings, for the embalmed body of the master to whom they owed so
much lay in state in the banquet-hall. It was a mournful ceremony,
where--
"The cheers that had erst made the welkin ring
Were drowned in the tears that were shed for the King."
Clarice and Piers made no attempt to obtain any further promotion. They
retired to a little estate in Derbyshire, which shortly afterwards fell
to Piers, and there they spent their lives, in serving their generation
according to the will of God, often brightened by visits from Ademar and
Heliet, who had taken up their abode not far from them in the
neighbouring county of Rutland. And as time went on, around Clarice
grew up brave sons and fair daughters, to all of whom she made a very
loving mother; but, perhaps, no one was ever quite so dear to her heart
as the star which had gleamed on her life the brighter for the
surrounding darkness, the little white rosebud which had been gathered
for the garden of God.
"In other springs her life might be
In bannered bloom unfurled;
But never, never match her wee
White Rose of all the world."
It was not until the spring which followed his death was blooming into
green leaves and early flowers that the coffin of Edmund, Earl of
Cornwall, was borne to the magnificent Abbey of Hales in
Gloucestershire, founded by his father. There they laid him down by
father and mother--the grand, generous, spendthrift Prince who had so
nearly borne the proud title of Caesar Augustus, and the fair, soft,
characterless Princess who had been crowned with him as Queen of the
Romans. For the Prince who was laid beside them that Easter afternoon,
the world had prepared what it considers a splendid destiny. Throne and
diadem, glory and wealth, love and happiness, were to have been his, so
far as it lay in the world's power to give them; but on most of all
these God had laid His hand, and forbidden them to come near the soul
which He had marked for His own. For him there was to be an
incorruptible crown, but no corruptible; the love of the Lord that
bought him, but not the love of the woman on whom he set his heart.
Now--whatever he may have thought on earth--now, standing on the sea of
glass, and having the harp of God, he knows which was the better
portion.
He wore no crown; he founded no dynasty; he passed away, like a name
written in water, followed only by the personal love of a few hearts
which were soon dust like him, and by the undying curses and calumnies
of the Church which he had done his best to purify against her will.
But shall we, looking back across the six centuries which lie between us
and him who brought Protestantism into England--shall we write on his
gravestone in the ruined Abbey of Hales, "This man lived in vain?"