WHEREIN THE DEMAGOGUE SEEKS THE COURTIER.
On quitting Adam's chamber, Hilyard paused not till he reached a
stately house, not far from Warwick Lane, which was the residence of
the Lord Montagu.
That nobleman was employed in reading, or rather, in pondering over,
two letters, with which a courier from Calais had just arrived, the
one from the archbishop, the other from Warwick. In these epistles
were two passages, strangely contradictory in their counsel. A
sentence in Warwick's letter ran thus:--
"It hath reached me that certain disaffected men meditate a rising
against the king, under pretext of wrongs from the queen's kin. It is
even said that our kinsmen, Copiers and Fitzhugh, are engaged therein.
Need I caution thee to watch well that they bring our name into no
disgrace or attaint? We want no aid to right our own wrongs; and if
the misguided men rebel, Warwick will best punish Edward by proving
that he is yet of use."
On the other hand, thus wrote the prelate:--
"The king, wroth with my visit to Calais, has taken from me the
chancellor's seal. I humbly thank him, and shall sleep the lighter
for the fardel's loss. Now, mark me, Montagu: our kinsman, Lord
Fitzhugh's son, and young Henry Nevile, aided by old Sir John Copiers,
meditate a fierce and well-timed assault upon the Woodvilles. Do thou
keep neuter,--neither help nor frustrate it. Howsoever it end, it
will answer our views, and shake our enemies."
Montagu was yet musing over these tidings, and marvelling that he in
England should know less than his brethren in Calais of events so
important, when his page informed him that a stranger, with urgent
messages from the north country, craved an audience. Imagining that
these messages would tend to illustrate the communications just
received, he ordered the visitor to be admitted.
He scarcely noticed Hilyard on his entrance, and said abruptly, "Speak
shortly, friend,--I have but little leisure."
"And yet, Lord Montagu, my business may touch thee home."
Montagu, surprised, gazed more attentively on his visitor: "Surely, I
know thy face, friend,--we have met before."
"True; thou wert then on thy way to the More."
"I remember me; and thou then seemedst, from thy bold words, on a
still shorter road to the gallows."
"The tree is not planted," said Robin, carelessly, "that will serve
for my gibbet. But were there no words uttered by me that thou
couldst not disapprove? I spoke of lawless disorders, of shameful
malfaisance throughout the land, which the Woodvilles govern under a
lewd tyrant--"
"Traitor, hold!"
"A tyrant," continued Robin, heeding not the interruption nor the
angry gesture of Montagu, "a tyrant who at this moment meditates the
destruction of the House of Nevile. And not contented with this
world's weapons, palters with the Evil One for the snares and
devilries of witchcraft."
"Hush, man! Not so loud," said Montagu, in an altered voice.
"Approach nearer,--nearer yet. They who talk of a crowned king, whose
right hand raises armies, and whose left hand reposes on the block,
should beware how they speak above their breath. Witchcraft, sayest
thou? Make thy meaning clear."
Here Robin detailed, with but little exaggeration, the scene he had
witnessed in Friar Bungey's chamber,--the waxen image, the menaces
against the Earl of Warwick, and the words of the friar, naming the
Duchess of Bedford as his employer. Montagu listened in attentive
silence. Though not perfectly free from the credulities of the time,
shared even by the courageous heart of Edward and the piercing
intellect of Gloucester, he was yet more alarmed by such proofs of
determined earthly hostility in one so plotting and so near to the
throne as the Duchess of Bedford, than by all the pins and needles
that could be planted into the earl's waxen counterpart.
"A devilish malice, indeed," said he, when Hilyard had concluded; "and
yet this story, if thou wilt adhere to it, may serve us well at need.
I thank thee, trusty friend, for thy confidence, and beseech thee to
come at once with me to the king. There will I denounce our foe, and,
with thine evidence, we will demand her banishment."
"By your leave, not a step will I budge, my Lord Montagu," quoth
Robin, bluntly,--"I know how these matters are managed at court. The
king will patch up a peace between the duchess and you, and chop off
my ears and nose as a liar and common scandal-maker. No, no; denounce
the duchess and all the Woodvilles I will; but it shall not be in the
halls of the Tower, but on the broad plains of Yorkshire, with twenty
thousand men at my back."
"Ha! thou a leader of armies,--and for what end,--to dethrone the
king?"
"That as it may be,--but first for justice to the people; it is the
people's rising that I will head, and not a faction's. Neither White
Rose nor Red shall be on my banner; but our standard shall be the gory
head of the first oppressor we can place upon a pole."
"What is it the people, as you word it, would demand?"
"I scarce know what we demand as yet,--that must depend upon how we
prosper," returned Hilyard, with a bitter laugh; "but the rising will
have some good, if it shows only to you lords and Normans that a Saxon
people does exist, and will turn when the iron heel is upon its neck.
We are taxed, ground, pillaged, plundered,--sheep, maintained to be
sheared for your peace or butchered for your war. And now will we
have a petition and a charter of our own, Lord Montagu. I speak
frankly. I am in thy power; thou canst arrest me, thou canst strike
off the head of this revolt. Thou art the king's friend,--wilt thou
do so? No, thou and thy House have wrongs as well as we, the people.
And a part at least of our demands and our purpose is your own."
"What part, bold man?"
"This: we shall make our first complaint the baneful domination of the
queen's family; and demand the banishment of the Woodvilles, root and
stem."
"Hem!" said Montagu, involuntarily glancing over the archbishop's
letter,--"hem, but without outrage to the king's state and person?"
"Oh, trust me, my lord, the franklin's head contains as much north-
country cunning as the noble's. They who would speed well must feel
their way cautiously."
"Twenty thousand men--impossible! Who art thou, to collect and head
them?"
"Plain Robin of Redesdale."
"Ha!" exclaimed Montagu, "is it indeed as I was taught to suspect?
Art thou that bold, strange, mad fellow, whom, by pike and brand--a
soldier's oath--I, a soldier, have often longed to see. Let me look
at thee. 'Fore Saint George, a tall man, and well knit, with
dareiment on thy brow. Why, there are as many tales of thee in the
North as of my brother the earl. Some say thou art a lord of degree
and birth, others that thou art the robber of Hexham to whom Margaret
of Anjou trusted her own life and her son's."
"Whatever they say of me," returned Robin, "they all agree in this,--
that I am a man of honest word and bold deed; that I can stir up the
hearts of men, as the wind stirreth fire; that I came an unknown
stranger into the parts where I abide; and that no peer in this
roiaulme, save Warwick himself, can do more to raise an army or shake
a throne."
"But by what spell?"
"By men's wrongs, lord," answered Robin, in a deep voice; "and now,
ere this moon wanes, Redesdale is a camp!"
"What the immediate cause of complaint?"
"The hospital of St. Leonard's has compelled us unjustly to render
them a thrave of corn."
"Thou art a cunning knave! Pinch the belly if you would make
Englishmen rise."
"True," said Robin, smiling grimly; "and now--what say you--will you
head us?"
"Head you! No I"
"Will you betray us?"
"It is not easy to betray twenty thousand men; if ye rise merely to
free yourselves from a corn-tax and England from the Woodvilles, I see
no treason in your revolt."
"I understand you, Lord Montagu," said Robin, with a stern and half-
scornful smile,--"you are not above thriving by our danger; but we
need now no lord and baron,--we will suffice for ourselves. And the
hour will come, believe me, when Lord Warwick, pursued by the king,
must fly to the Commons. Think well of these things and this
prophecy, when the news from the North startles Edward of March in the
lap of his harlots."
Without saying another word, he turned and quitted the chamber as
abruptly as he had entered.
Lord Montagu was not, for his age, a bad man; though worldly, subtle,
and designing, with some of the craft of his prelate brother he united
something of the high soul of his brother soldier. But that age had
not the virtue of later times, and cannot be judged by its standard.
He heard this bold dare-devil menace his country with civil war upon
grounds not plainly stated nor clearly understood,--he aided not, but
he connived: "Twenty thousand men in arms," he muttered to himself,--
"say half-well, ten thousand--not against Edward, but the Woodvilles!
It must bring the king to his senses; must prove to him how odious the
mushroom race of the Woodvilles, and drive him for safety and for
refuge to Montagu and Warwick. If the knaves presume too far," (and
Montagu smiled), "what are undisciplined multitudes to the eye of a
skilful captain? Let the storm blow, we will guide the blast. In this
world man must make use of man."