"O Jack, Jack! Don't go and be a monk!"
"Go and be a monk!" saith Jack, with an hearty laugh. "Why, Wife, what
bees be in thine hood? I thought I was thine husband."
"So thou art, the saints be thanked," said I. "But thou art so good, I
am sore afraid thou wilt either die or be a monk."
"I'll not be a monk, I promise thee," quoth he. "I am not half good
enough, nor would I lose my Sissot. As to dying, be secure I shall not
die an hour afore God's will is: and the Lord hath much need of good
folks to keep this bad world sweet. I reckon we may be as good as we
can with reasonable safety. I'll try, if thou wilt."
So I did, and yet do: but I shall never be match to Jack.
Well, by this time we had won back to the Queen's lodging; and at foot
of degrees I bade good-night to Jack, being that night appointed to the
pallet--a business I never loved. I was thinking on Jack's last words,
as I went up, and verily had for the nonce forgat that which went afore,
when all at once a voice saith in mine ear--
"Well, Dame Cicely! Went you forth in such haste lest you should be
clapped into prison for stealing? Good lack, but mine heart's in my
mouth yet! Were you wood [mad], or what ailed you?"
"Dame Elizabeth," said I, as all came back on me, "I have been to visit
Hilda's mother."
"Dear heart! And what found you? Was she a-supping on goose and leeks?
That make o' folks do alway feign to be as poor as Job, when their
coffers be so full the lid cannot be shut. You be young, Dame Cicely,
and know not the world."
"Maybe," said I. "But if you will hearken me, I will tell you what I
found."
"Go to, then," saith she, as she followed me into our chamber.
"Whate'er you found, you left me too poor to pay the jeweller. I would
fain have had a sapphire pin more than I got, but your raid on my purse
disabled me thereof. The rogue would give me no credit."
"Hear but my tale," said I, "and if when it be told you regret your
sapphire pin, I beseech you say so."
So I told her in plain words, neither 'minishing nor adding, how I had
found them, and the story I had heard from the poor woman. She
listened, cool enough at first, but ere I made an end the water stood in
her eyes.
"_Ha, chetife_!" said she, when I stayed me. "I'll pay the maid another
time. Trust me, Dame Cicely, I believed not a word. If you had been
cheated as oft--! Verily, I am sorry I sent not man to see how matters
stood with them. Well, I am fain you gave her the money, after all.
But, trust me, you took my breath away!"
"And my own belike," said I.
I think Hilda and hers stood not in much want the rest of that winter.
But whenever she came with work for me, either Margaret my maid, or
Jack's old groom, a sober man and an ancient, walked back with her.
Meantime Sir Roger de Mortimer played first viol in the Court
minstrelsy. Up and yet higher up he crept, till he could creep no
further, as I writ a few leaves back. On the eve of Saint Pancras was
crowned the new Queen of France in the Abbey of Saint Denis, which is to
France as Westminster Abbey to us: and there ramped my Lord of Mortimer
in the very suite of the Queen herself, and in my Lord of Chester's own
livery. Twice-banished traitor, he appeared in the self presence of the
King that had banished him, and of the wife of his own natural Prince,
to whom he had done treason of the deepest dye. And not one voice said
him nay.
Thus went matters on till the beginning of September, 1326. The Queen
abode at Paris; the King of France made no sign: our King's trusty
messager, Donald de Athole, came and went with letters (and if it were
not one of his letters the Queen dropped into the brasier right as I
came one day into her chamber, I marvel greatly); but nought came forth
that we her ladies heard. On the even of the fifth of September, early,
came Sir John de Ostrevant to the Palace, and had privy speech of the
Queen--none being thereat but her confessor and Dame Isabel de Lapyoun:
and he was scarce gone forth when, as we sat in our chamber a-work, the
Queen herself looked in and called Dame Elizabeth forth.
I thought nought of it. I turned down hem, and cut off some threads,
and laid down scissors, and took up my needle to thread afresh--in the
Hotel de Saint Pol at Paris. And that needle was not threaded but in
the Abbey of Saint Edmund's Bury in Suffolk, twenty days after. Yet if
man had told me it should so be, I had felt ready to laugh him to scorn.
Ah me, what feathers we be, that a breath from God Almighty can waft
hither or thither at His will!
Never but that once did I see Dame Elizabeth to burst into a chamber.
And when she so did, I was in such amaze thereat that I fair gasped to
see it.
"Good lack!" cried I, and stared on her.
"Well may you say it!" quoth she. "Lay by work, all of you, and make
you ready privily in all haste for journeying by night. Lose not a
moment."
"Mary love us!" cries Isabel de la Helde. "Whither?"
"Whither the Queen's will is. Hold your tongues, and make you ready."
We lay that night--and it was not till late--in the town of Sessouns, in
the same lodging the Queen had before, at Master John de Gyse's house.
The next night we lay at Peronne, and the third we came to Ostrevant.
Dame Isabel told us the reason of this sudden flight. The Queen had
heard that her brother the King of France--who for some time past had
been very cool and distant towards her--had a design to seize upon her
and deliver her a prisoner to King Edward: and Sir John of Hainault,
Count of Ostrevant, who came to bring her this news, offered her a
refuge in his Castle of Ostrevant. I believed this tale when Dame
Isabel told it: I have no faith in it now. What followed did away
entirely therewith, and gave me firm belief that it was nothing save an
excuse to get away in safety and without the King of France's knowledge.
Be it how it may, Sir Roger de Mortimer came with her.
We were not many days at Ostrevant: only long enough for the Count to
raise his troops, and then, when all was ready, the Queen embarked for
England. On the 22nd of September we came ashore at Orwell, and had
full ill lodging; none having any shelter save the Queen herself, for
whom her knights ran up a shed of driftwood, hung o'er with carpets.
Never had I so discomfortous a night--the sea tossing within a few
yards, and the wind roaring in mine ears, and the spray all-to beating
over me as I lay on the beach, lapped in a mantle. I was well pleased
the next morrow, when the Queen, whose rest had been little, gave
command to march forward to Bury. But afore we set forth, come nearhand
an army of peasants into the presence, 'plaining of the Queen's
officers, that had taken their cows, chickens, and fruits, and paid not
a penny. The Queen had them all brought afore her, and with her own
hands haled forth the money due to each one, bidding them bring all
oppressions to her own ears, and straitly commanding her officers that
they should take not so much as an egg without payment. By this means
she won all the common people to her side, and they were ready to set
their lives in pledge for her truth and honour.
At that time I was but little aware how matters verily stood. I said to
Dame Joan de Vaux that the Queen showed her goodness hereby--for though
I knew the Mortimer by then to be ill man, I wist not that she knew it,
and reckoned her yet as innocent and beguiled woman.
"Doth she so?" answered Dame Joan. "How many grapes may man gather of a
bramble?"
"Nay!" said I, scarce perceiving her intent, "but very grapes come not
of brambles."
"Soothly," saith she: "neither do very brambles bear grapes."
Three days the Queen tarried at Bury: then, with banners flying, she
marched on toward Essex. I thought it strange that even she should
march with displayed banners, seeing the King was not of her company:
but I reckoned she had his order, and was acting as his deputy.
Elsewise had it been dread treason [Note 1], even in her. I was
confirmed in my thought when my Lord of Lancaster, the King's cousin,
and my Lord of Norfolk, the King's brother, came to meet her and joined
their troops to her company; and yet more when the Archbishop of Dublin,
and the Bishops of Hereford, Lincoln, and Ely, likewise joined them to
her. Verily, such holy men could not countenance treason.
Truth enough: but that which was untrue was not the treason, but the
holiness of these Caiaphases.
And now began that woeful Dolorous Way, which our Lord King Edward trod
after his Master Christ. But who knoweth whither a strange road shall
lead him, until he be come to the end thereof? I wis well that many
folk have said unto us--Jack and me--since all things were made plain,
How is it ye saw not aforetime, and wherefore followed ye the Queen thus
long? They saw not aforetime, no more than we; but now that all is
open, up come they with wagging heads and snorkilling noses,
and--"Verily, we were sore to blame for not seeing through the mist"--
the mist through the which, when it lay thick, no man saw. _Ha,
chetife_! I could easily fall to prophesying, myself, when all is over.
Could we have seen what lay at the end of that Dolorous Way, should any
true and loyal man have gone one inch along it?
And who was like to think, till he did see, what an adder the King
nursed in his bosom? Most men counted her a fair white dove, all
innocent and childlike: that did I not. I did see far enough, for all
the mist, to see she was no child in that fashion; yet children love
mischief well enough betimes; and I counted her, if not white, but
grey--not the loathly black fiend that she was at the last seen to be.
I saw many a thing I loved not, many a thing I would not have done in
her place, many a thing that I but half conceived, and feared to be ill
deed--but there ended my seeing. I thought she was caught within the
meshes of a net, and I was sorry she kept not thereout. But I never
guessed that the net was spread by her own hands.
My mother, Dame Alice de Lethegreve, I think, saw clearer than I did:
but it was by reason she loved more,--loved him who became the
sacrifice, not the miserable sinner for whose hate and wickedness he was
sacrificed.
So soon as King Edward knew of the Queen's landing, which was by
Michaelmas Eve at latest, he put forth a proclamation to all his lieges,
wherein he bade them resist the foreign horde about to be poured upon
England. Only three persons were to be received with welcome and
honour: which was, the Queen herself, Edward her son (his father, in his
just ire, named him not his son, neither as Earl of Chester), and the
King's brother, the Lord Edmund of Kent. I always was sorry for my Lord
of Kent; he was so full hoodwinked by the Queen, and never so much as
guessed for one moment, that he acted a disloyal part. He was a noble
gentleman, a kindly and a generous; not, maybe, the wisest man in the
realm, and something too prone to rush after all that had the look of a
noble deed, ere he gave himself time enough to consider the same. But
if the world held no worser men at heart than he, it were marvellous
better world than now.
One other thing did King Edward, which showed how much he had learned:
he offered a great price of one thousand pounds [about 18,000 pounds,
according to modern value], for the head of the Mortimer: and no sooner
did the Queen hear thereof, than she offered double--namely, two
thousand pounds--for the head of Sir Hugh Le Despenser--a man whose
little finger was better worth two thousand than the Mortimer's head was
worth one. Two days later, the King fortified the Tower, and appointed
the Lord John of Eltham governor thereof; but he being only a child of
ten years, the true governor was the Lady Alianora La Despenser, who was
left in charge of the King's said son. And two days afore Saint Francis
[October 2nd] he left the Tower, and set forth toward Wallingford,
leaving the Bishop of Exeter to keep the City: truly a thankless
business, for never could any man yet keep the citizens of London. Nor
could he: for a fortnight was not over ere they rose in insurrection
against the King's deputies, invested the Tower, wrenched the keys from
the Constable, John de Weston, to whom the Lady Alianora had confided
them, brought her out with the young Lord, and carried them to the
Wardrobe--not without honour--and then returning, they seized on the
Bishop, with two of his squires, and strake off their heads at the
Standard in Chepe. And this will I say for the said Bishop, though he
were not alway pleasant to deal withal, for he was very furnish--yet was
he honest man, and loved his master, ay, and held to him in days when it
was little profit so to do. And seeing how few honest men there be,
that will hold on to the right when their profit lieth to the left, that
is much to say.
With the King went Sir Hugh Le Despenser--I mean the younger, that was
create Earl of Gloucester by reason of his marriage; for the Lady
Alianora his wife was eldest of the three sisters that were coheirs of
that earldom. And thereanent--well-a-day! how different folks do from
that I should do in their place! I can never tell wherefore, when man
doth ill, the penalty thereof should be made to run over on his innocent
sons. Because Sir Hugh forfeited the earldom, wherefore passed it not
to his son, that was loyal man and true, and one of the King's best
councillors all his life? On the contrary part, it was bestowed on Sir
Hugh de Audley, that wedded the Lady Margaret (widow of Sir Piers de
Gavaston), that stood next of the three coheirs. And it seemeth me
scarce just that Sir Hugh de Audley, that had risen up against King
Edward of old time, and been prisoned therefor, and was at best but a
pardoned rebel, should be singled out for one of the finest earldoms in
England, and not Sir Hugh Le Despenser, whose it was of right, and to
whose charge--save the holding of the Castle of Caerphilly against Queen
Isabel, which was in very loyalty to his true lord King Edward--no fault
at all could be laid. I would I had but the world to set right! Then
should there be justice done, and every wrong righted, and all crooked
ways put straight, and every man and woman made happy. Dear heart, what
fair and good world were this, when I had made an end of--
Did man laugh behind me?
"Jack! Soothly, I thought it must be thou. What moveth thy laughter?"
"Dame Cicely de Chaucombe," saith he, essaying to look sober--which he
managed but ill. "The Annals of Cicely, likewise; and the imaginings of
Cicely in especial."
"Well, what now mispayeth [displeases] thee?" quoth I.
"There was once man," saith Jack, "thought as thou dost. And seeing
that the hollyhocks in his garden were taller than the daisies, he bade
his gardener with a scythe cut short the hollyhocks, that all the
flowers should be but of one height."
"Well, what happed?" said I.
"Why, next day were there no hollyhocks. And then the hollyhock stems
and the daisies both laid 'plaint of the gardener."
"Both?" said I.
"Both. They alway do."
"But what 'plaint had the daisies to offer?"
"Why, that they had not been pulled up to the height of the hollyhocks,
be sure."
"But how could they so?"
"Miscontent hath no `can' in his hornbook. Not what thou canst, but
what he would, is his measure of justice."
"But justice is justice," said I--"not what any man would, but what is
fair and even."
"Veriliest. But what is fair and even? If thou stand on Will's haw
[hillock], the oak on thy right hand is the largest tree; if thou stand
on Dick's, it shall be the beech on thy left. And thine ell-wand
reacheth not. How then to measure?"
"But I would be on neither side," said I, "but right in the midst: so
should I see even."
"Right in the midst, good wife, is where God standeth; and few men win
there. There be few matters whereof man can see both to the top and to
the bottom. Mostly, if man see the one end, then he seeth not the
other. And that which man seeth not, how shall he measure? Without
thou lay out to follow the judge which said that he would clearly man
should leave to harry him with both sides of a matter. So long as he
heard but the plaintiff, he could tell full well where the right lay;
but after came the defendant, and put him all out, that he wist not on
which side to give judgment. Maybe Judge Sissot should sit on the bench
alongside of him."
"Now, Jack," said I, "thou laughest at me."
"Good discipline for thee, sweetheart," saith he, "and of lesser
severity than faulting thee. But supposing the world lay in thine hands
to set right, and even that thou hadst the power thereto, how long time
dost think thy work should abide?"
"_Ha, chetife_!" cried I. "I ne'er bethought me of that."
"The world was set right once," quoth Jack, "by means of cold water, and
well washed clean therein. But it tarried not long, as thou wist. Sin
was not washed away; and Satan was not drowned in the Flood: and very
soon thereafter were they both a-work again. Only one stream can wash
the world to last, and that floweth right from the rood on Calvary."
"Yet there is enough," said I, "to wash the whole world."
"Verily. But how, if the world will not come and wash? `He that
will'--_qui vult_--`let him take water of life freely.' But he that is
not athirst for the holy water, shall not have it forced down his throat
against his will."
"How shall man come by the thirst, Jack, if he hath it not? For if the
gift shall be given only to him that thirsteth for it, it seemeth me the
thirst must needs be born ere we shall come for the water."
"Nay, sweetheart, we all desire happiness and wealth and honour; the
mistake is that we be so ready to slake our thirst at the pools of muddy
water which abound on every hand, rather than go to the fount of living
water. We grasp at riches and honours and pleasures of this life: lo,
here the blame, in that we are all athirst for the muddy pool, and have
no desire for the holy water--for the gold of the royal mint stamped
with the King's image, for the crown of everlasting life, for the bliss
which shall endure unto all ages. We cry soothly for these things; but
it is aswhasay, Give me happiness, but let it end early; give me seeming
gold, but let it be only tinsel; give me a crown, but be it one that
will fade away. Like a babe that will grip at a piece of tin whereon
the sun shineth, and take no note of a golden ingot that lieth by in
shadow."
"But who doth such things, Jack?"
"Thou and I, Sissot, unless Christ anoint our eyes that we see in
sooth."
"Jack!" cried I, all suddenly, "as I have full many times told thee,
thou art better man than many a monk."
"Now scornest thou at me," saith he. "How can I be perfect, that am
wedded man? [Note 2.] Thou wist well enough that perfect men be only
found among the contemplative, not among them that dwell in the world.
Yet soothly, I reckon man may dwell in the world and love Christ, or he
may dwell in cloister and be none of His."
Well, I know not how that may be; but this do I know, that never was
there any Jack even to my Jack; and I am sore afraid that if I ever win
into Heaven, I shall never be able to see Jack, for he shall be ten
thousand mile nearer the Throne than I Cicely am ever like to be.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. At this time it was high treason for any subject to march with
banners displayed, unless he acted as the King's representative by his
distinct commission.
Note 2. The best men then living looked on the life of idle
contemplation as the highest type of Christian life, to which no married
man could attain.