‘Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.’--L’Allegro.
The whole of the two Courts had to be received in the capital of
Lorraine in full state under the beautiful old gateway, but as mediaeval
pageants are wearisome matters this may be passed over, though it was
exceptionally beautiful and poetic, owing to the influence of
King Rene’s taste, and it perfectly dazzled the two Scottish
princesses--though, to tell the truth, they were somewhat disappointed
in the personal appearance of their entertainers, who did not come up to
their notion of royalty. Their father had been a stately and magnificent
man; their mother a beautiful woman. Henry VI. was a tall, well-made,
handsome man, with Plantagenet fairness and regularity of feature and a
sweetness all his own; but both these kings were, like all the house of
Valois, small men with insignificant features and sallow complexions.
Rene, indeed, had a distinction about him that compensated for want of
beauty, and Charles had a good-natured, easy, indolent look and gracious
smile that gave him an undefinable air of royalty. Rene’s daughters
were both very lovely, but their beauty came from the other side of the
house, with the blood of Charles the Great, through their mother, the
heiress of Lorraine.
There was a curious contrast between the brothers-in-law, Charles, when
dismounting at the castle gate, not disguising his weariness and relief
that it was over, and Rene, eager and anxious, desirous of making all
his bewildering multitude of guests as happy as possible, while the
Dauphin Louis stood by, half interested and amused, half mocking. He
was really fond of his uncle, though in a contemptuous superior sort
of manner, despising his religious and honourable scruples as mere
simplicity of mind.
Rene of Anjou has been hardly dealt with, as is often the case with
princes upright, religious, and chivalrous beyond the average of their
time, yet without the strength or the genius to enforce their rights and
opinions, and therefore thrust aside. After his early unsuccessful wars
his lands of Provence and Lorraine were islands of peace, prosperity,
and progress, and withal he was an extremely able artist, musician,
and poet, striving to revive the old troubadour spirit of Provence, and
everywhere casting about him an atmosphere of refinement and kindliness.
The hall of his hotel at Nanci was a beautiful place, with all the
gorgeous grace of the fifteenth century, and here his guests assembled
for supper soon after their arrival, all being placed as much as
possible according to rank. Eleanor found herself between a deaf old
Church dignitary and Duke Sigismund, on whose other side was Yolande,
the Infanta, as the Provencals called the daughter of Rene; while Jean
found the Dauphin on one side of her and a great French Duke on
the other. Louis amused himself with compliments and questions that
sometimes nettled her, sometimes pleased her, giving her a sense that he
might admire her beauty, but was playing on her simplicity, and trying
to make her betray the destitution of her home and her purpose in
coming.
Eleanor, on the other hand, found her cavalier more simple than herself.
In fact, he properly belonged to the Infanta, but she paid no attention
to him, nor did the Bishop try to speak to the Scottish princess.
Sigismund’s French was very lame, and Eleanor’s not perfect, but she had
a natural turn for languages, and had, in the convent, picked up some
German, which in those days had many likenesses to her own broad Scotch.
They made one another out, between the two languages, with signs,
smiles, and laughter, and whereas the subtilties along the table
represented the entire story of Sir Gawain and his Loathly Lady, she
contrived to explain the story to him, greatly to his edification; and
they went on to King Arthur, and he did his best to narrate the German
reading of Sir Parzival. The difficulties engrossed them till the
rose-water was brought in silver bowls to wash their fingers, on which
Sigismund, after observing and imitating the two ladies, remarked that
they had no such Schwarmerci in Deutschland, and Yolande looked as if
she could well believe it, while Elleen, though ignorant of the meaning
of his word, laughed and said they had as little in Scotland.
There was still an hour of daylight to come, and moon-rise would not
be far off, so that the hosts proposed to adjourn to the garden, where
fresh music awaited them.
King Rene was an ardent gardener. His love of flowers was viewed as one
of his weaknesses, only worthy of an old Abbot, but he went his own way,
and the space within the walls of his castle at Nanci was lovely with
bright spring flowers, blossoming trees, and green walks, where, as Lady
Suffolk said, her grandfather could have mused all day and all night
long, to the sound of the nightingales.
But what the sisters valued it for was that they could ramble away
together to a stone bench under the wall, and there sit at perfect ease
together and pour out their hearts to one another. Margaret, indeed,
touched them as they leant against her as if to convince herself of
their reality, and yet she said that they knew not what they did when
they put the sea between themselves and Scotland, nor how sick the heart
could be for its bonnie hills.
‘O gin I could see a mountain top again, I feel as though I could lay
me down and die content. What garred ye come daundering to these weary
flats of France?’
‘Ah, sister, Scotland is not what you mind it when our blessed father
lived!’
And they told her how their lives had been spent in being hurried from
one prison-castle to another.
‘Prison-castles be not wanting here,’ replied Margaret with a
sigh. Then, as Elleen held up a hand in delight at the thrill of a
neighbouring nightingale, she cried, ‘What is yon sing-song, seesaw,
gurgling bird to our own bonnie laverock, soaring away to the sky,
without making such a wark of tuning his pipes, and never thinking
himself too dainty and tender for a wholesome frost or two! So Jamie
sent you off to seek for husbands here, did he? Couldna ye put up with a
leal Scot, like Glenuskie there?’
‘There were too many of them,’ said Jean.
‘And not ower leal either,’ said Eleanor.
‘Lealty is a rare plant ony gate,’ sighed Margaret, ‘and where sae
little is recked of our Scots royalty, mayhap ye’ll find that tocherless
lasses be less sought for than at hame. Didna I see thee, Elleen,
clavering with that muckle Archduke that nane can talk with?’
‘Ay,’ said Eleanor.
‘He is come here a-courting Madame Yolande, with his father’s goodwill,
for Alsace and Tyrol be his, mountains that might be in our ain
Hielands, they tell me.’
‘Methougnt,’ said Eleanor, ‘she scunnered from him, as Jeanie does
at--shall I say whom?’
‘And reason gude,’ said Margaret. ‘She has a joe of her ain, Count Ferry
de Vaudemont, that is the heir male of the line, and a gallant laddie.
At the great joust the morn methinks ye’ll see what may well be sung by
minstrels, and can scarce fail to touch the heart of a true troubadour,
as is my good uncle Rene.’
Margaret became quite animated, and her sisters pressed her to tell them
if she knew of any secret; but she playfully shook her head, and said
that if she did know she would not mar the romaunt that was to be played
out before them.
‘Nay,’ said Eleanor, ‘we have a romaunt of our own. May I tell, Jeanie?’
‘Who recks?’ replied Jean, with a little toss of her head.
Thus Eleanor proceeded to tell her sister what--since the adventure of
the goose--had gone far beyond a guess as to the tall, red-haired young
man-at-arms who had ridden close behind David Drummond.
‘Douglas, Douglas, tender and true,’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘He loves you
so as to follow for weeks, nay, months, in this guise without word or
look. Oh, Jeanie, Jeanie, happy lassie, did ye but ken it! Nay, put not
on that scornful mou’. It sorts you not weel, my bairn. He is of degree
befitting a Stewart, and even were he not, oh, sisters, sisters, better
to wed with a leal loving soul in ane high peel-tower than to bear a
broken heart to a throne!’ and she fell into a convulsive fit of choked
and bitter weeping, which terrified her sisters.
At the sound of a lute, apparently being brought nearer, accompanied
with footsteps, she hastily recovered herself, and rose to her feet,
while a smile broke out over her face, as the musician, a slender,
graceful figure, appeared on the path in the moonlight.
‘Answering the nightingales, Maitre Alain?’ she said.
‘This is the court of nightingales, Madame,’ he replied. ‘It is
presumption to endeavour to rival them even though the heart be torn
like that of Philomel.’ Wherewith he touched his lute, and began to sing
from his famous idyll--
‘Ainsi mon coeur se guermentait
De la grande douleur qu’il portait,
En ce plaisant lieu solitaire
Ou un doux ventelet venait,
Si seri qu’on le sentait
Lorsque la violette mieux flaire.’
Again, as Eleanor heard the sweet strains, and saw the long shadows of
the trees and the light of the rising moon, it was like the attainment
of her dreamland; and Margaret proceeded to make known to her sisters
Maitre Alain Chartier, the prince of song, adding, ‘Thou, too, wast a
songster, sister Elleen, even while almost a babe. Dost sing as of old?’
‘I have brought my father’s harp,’ said Eleanor.
‘Ah! I must hear it,’ she cried with effusion. ‘The harp. It will be his
voice again.’
‘Madame! Madame! Madame la Dauphine. Out here! Ever reckless of dew--ay,
and of waur than dew.’
These last words were added in Scotch, as a tall, dark-cloaked figure
appeared on the scene from between the trees. Margaret laughed, with a
little annoyance in her tone, as she said, ‘Ever my shadow, good Madame,
ever wearying yourself with care. Here, sisters, here is my trusty and
well-beloved Dame de Ste. Petronelle, who takes such care of me that she
dogs my footsteps like a messan.’
‘And reason gude,’ replied the lady. ‘Here is the muckle hall all
alight, and this King Rene, as they call him, twanging on his lute, and
but that the Seigneur Dauphin is talking to the English Lord on some
question of Gascon boundaries, we should have him speiring for you. I
saw the eye of him roaming after you, as it was.’
‘His eye seeking me!’ cried Margaret, springing up from her languid
attitude with a tone like exultation in her voice, such as evoked a low
sigh from the old dame, as all began to move towards the castle. She
was the widow of a Scotch adventurer who had won lands and honours in
France; and she was now attached to the service of the Dauphiness, not
as her chief lady--that post was held by an old French countess--but
still close enough to her to act as her guardian and monitor whenever it
was possible to deal with her.
The old lady, in great delight at meeting a compatriot, poured out her
confidences to Dame Lilias of Glenuskie. Infinitely grieved and annoyed
was she when, early as were the ordinary hours of the Court of Nanci, it
proved that the Dauphiness had called up her sisters an hour before, and
taken them across the chace which surrounded the castle to hear mass at
a convent of Benedictine nuns.
It was perfectly safe, though only a tirewoman and a page followed the
Dauphiness, and only Annis attended her two sisters, for the grounds
were enclosed, and King Rene’s domains were far better ruled and more
peaceful than those of the princes who despised him. It was an exquisite
spring morning, with grass silvery with dew and enamelled with flowers,
birds singing ecstatically on every branch, squirrels here and there
racing up a trunk. Margaret was in joyous spirits, and almost danced
between her sisters. Eleanor was amazed at the luxuriant beauty of the
scene, and could not admire enough. Jean, though at first a little cross
at the early summons, could not but be infected with their delight, and
the three laughed and frolicked together with almost childish glee in
the delight of their content.
The great, gentle-eyed, long-horned kine were being driven in at the
convent-yard to be milked by the lay-sisters; at another entrance,
peasants, beggars, and sick were congregating; the bell from the
lace-works spire rang out, and the Dauphiness led the way to the
gateway, where, at her knock on the iron-studded door, a lay-sister
looked through the wicket.
‘Good sister, here are some early pilgrims to the shrine of St.
Scolastique,’ she began.
‘To the other gate,’ said the portress hastily. Margaret’s face twinkled
with fun. ‘I wad fain take a turn with the beggar crew,’ she said to
her sisters in Scotch; ‘but it might cause too great an outcry if I were
kenned. Commend me to the Mere St. Antoine,’ she added in French, ‘and
tell her that the Dauphiness would fain hear mass with her.’
The portress cast an anxious doubtful glance, but being apparently
convinced, cried out for pardon, while hastily unlocking her door, and
sending a message to the Abbess.
As they entered the cloistered quadrangle the nuns in black procession
were on their way to mass, but turned aside to receive their visitors.
Margaret knelt for a moment for the blessing and kiss of the Abbess,
then greeted the nun whom she had mentioned, but begged for no further
ceremony, and then was led into church.
It was a brief festival mass, and was not really over before she, with
a restlessness of which her sisters began to be conscious, began to rise
and make her way out. A nun followed and entreated her to stay and break
her fast, but she would accept nothing save a draught of milk, swallowed
hastily, and with signs of impatience as her sisters took their turn.
She walked quickly, rather as one guilty of an escapade, again
surprising her sisters, who fancied the liberty of a married princess
illimitable.
Jean even ventured to ask her why she went so fast, ‘Would the King of
France be displeased?’
‘He! Poor gude sire Charles! He heeds not what one does, good or bad;
no, not the murdering of his minion before his eyes,’ said Margaret,
half laughing.
‘Thy husband, would he be angered?’ pressed on Jean.
‘My husband? Oh no, it is not in the depth and greatness of is thoughts
to find fault with his poor worm,’ said Margaret, a strange look, half
of exultation, half of pain, on her face. ‘Ah! Jeanie, woman, none kens
in sooth how great and wise my Dauphin is, nor how far he sees beyond
all around him, so that he cannot choose but scorn them and make them
his tools. When he has the power, he will do more for this poor realm of
France than any king before him.’
‘As our father would have done for Scotland,’ said Eleanor.
‘Then he tells thee of his plans?’
‘Me!’ said Margaret, with the suffering look returning. ‘How should he
talk to me, the muckle uncouthie wife that I am, kenning nought but a
wheen ballads and romaunts--not even able to give him the heir for whom
he longs,’ and she wrung her hands together, ‘how can I be aught but a
pain and grief to him!’
‘Nay, but thou lovest him?’ said Jean, over simply.
‘Lassie!’ exclaimed Margaret hotly, ‘what thinkest thou I am made of?
How should a wife not love her man, the wisest, canniest prince in
Christendom, too! Love him! I worship him, as the trouveres say, with
all my heart, and wad lay down my life if I could win one kind blush of
his eye; and yet--and yet--such a creature am I that I am ever wittingly
or unwittingly transgressing these weary laws, and garring him think me
a fool, or others report me such,’ clenching her hands again.
‘Madame de Ste. Petronelle?’ asked Jean.
‘She! Oh no! She is a true loyal Lindsay, heart and soul, dour and
wearisome; but she would guard me from every foe, and most of all, as
she is ever telling me, from mine ain self, that is my worst enemy. Only
she sets about it in such guise that, for very vexation, I am driven
farther! No, it is the Countess de Craylierre, who is forever spiting
me, and striving to put whatever I do in a cruel light, if I dinna walk
after her will--hers, as if she could rule a king’s daughter!’
And Margaret stamped her foot on the ground, while a hot flush arose in
her cheeks. Her sisters, young girls as they were, could not understand
her moods, either of wild mirth, eager delight in poetry and music,
childish wilfulness and petulant temper or deep melancholy, all
coming in turn with feverish alternation and vehemence. As the ladies
approached the castle they were met by various gentlemen, among whom
was Maitre Alain Chartier, and a bandying of compliments and witticisms
began in such rapid French that even Eleanor could not follow it; but
there was something in the ring of the Dauphiness’s hard laugh that
pained her, she knew not why.
At the entrance they found the chief of the party returning from
the cathedral, where they had heard mass, not exactly in state, but
publicly.
‘Ha! ha! good daughter,’ laughed the King, ‘I took thee for a slug abed,
but it is by thy errant fashion that thou hast cheated us.’
‘I have been to mass at St Mary’s,’ returned Margaret, ‘with my sisters.
I love the early walk across the park.’
‘No wonder,’ came from between the thin lips of the Dauphin, as his keen
little eye fell on Chartier. Margaret drew herself up and vouchsafed not
to reply. Jean marvelled, but Eleanor felt with her, that she was too
proud to defend herself from the insult. Madame de Ste. Petronelle,
however, stepped forward and began: ‘Madame la Dauphine loves not
attendance. She made her journey alone with Mesdames ses soeurs with no
male company, till she reached home.’
But before the first words were well out of the good lady’s mouth Louis
had turned away, with an air of the most careless indifference, to a
courtier in a long gown, longer shoes, and a jewelled girdle, who became
known to the sisters as Messire Jamet de Tillay. Eleanor felt indignant.
Was he too heedless of his wife to listen to the vindication.
Madame de Ste. Petronelle took the Lady of Glenuskie aside and poured
out her lamentations. That was ever the way, she said, the Dauphiness
would give occasion to slanderers, by her wilful ways, and there were
those who would turn all she said or did against her, poisoning the ear
of the Dauphin, little as he cared.
‘Is he an ill man to her?’ asked Dame Lilias little prepossessed by his
looks.
‘He! Madame, mind you an auld tale of the Eatin wi’ no heart in his
body! I verily believe he and his father both were created like that
giant. No that the King is sair to live with either, so that he can eat
and drink and daff, and be let alone to take his ease. I have seen him;
and my gude man and them we kenned have marked him this score of years;
and whether his kingdom were lost or won, whether his best friends were
free or bound, dead or alive, he recked as little as though it were a
game of chess, so that he can sit in the ingle neuk at Bourges and toy
with Madame de Beaute, shameless limmer that she is! and crack his fists
with yon viper, Jamet de Tillay, and the rest of the crew. But he’ll
let you alone, and has a kindly word for them that don’t cross him--and
there be those that would go through fire and water for him. He is no
that ill! But for his son, he has a sneer and a spite such as never his
father had. He is never a one to sit still and let things gang their
gate; but he has as little pity or compassion as his father, and if King
Charles will not stir a finger to hinder a gruesome deed, Dauphin Louis
will not spare to do it so that he can gain by it, and I trow verily
that to give pain and sting with that bitter tongue of his is joy to
him.’
‘Then is there no love between him and our princess?’
‘Alack, lady, there is love, but ‘tis all on one side of the house. I
doubt me whether Messire le Dauphin hath it in him to love any living
creature. I longed, when I saw your maidens, that my poor lady had been
as bonnie as her sister Joanna; but mayhap that would not have served
her better. If she were as dull as the Duchess of Brittany--who they say
can scarce find a word to give to a stranger at Nantes--she might even
anger him less than she does with her wit and her books and her verses,
sitting up half the night to read and write rondeaux, forsooth!’
‘Her blessed father’s own daughter!’
‘That may be; but how doth it suit a wife? It might serve here, where
every one is mad after poesy, as they call it; but such ways are in
no good odour with the French dames, who never put eye to book, pen to
paper, nor foot to ground if they can help it; and when she behoves to
gang off roaming afoot, as she did this morn, there’s no garring the
ill-minded carlines believe that there’s no ill purpose behind.’
‘It is scarce wise.’
‘Yet to hear her, ‘tis such walking and wearing herself out that keeps
the life in her and alone gives her sleep. My puir bairn, worshipping
the very ground her man sets foot on, and never getting aught but a gibe
or a girn from him, and, for the very wilfulness of her sair heart, ever
putting herself farther from him!’
Such was the piteous account that Madame de Ste. Petronelle (otherwise
Dame Elspeth Johnstone) gave, and which the Lady of Glenuskie soon
perceived to be only too true during the days spent at Nanci. To the
two young sisters the condition of things was less evident. To Margaret
their presence was such sunshine, that they usually saw her in her
highest, most flighty, and imprudent spirits, taking at times absolute
delight in shocking her two duennas; and it was in this temper that, one
hot noon day, coming after an evening of song and music, finding Alain
Chartier asleep on a bench in the garden, she declared that she must
kiss the mouth from which such sweet strains proceeded, and bending
down, imprinted so light a kiss as not to waken him, then turned round,
her whole face rippling with silent laughter at the amusement of Jean
and Margaret of Anjou, Elleen’s puzzled gravity, and the horror and
dismay of her elder ladies. But Dame Lilias saw what she did not--a look
of triumphant malice on the face of Jamet de Tillay. Or at other times
she would sit listening, with silent tears in her eyes, to plaintive
Scottish airs on Eleanor’s harp, which she declared brought back her
father’s voice to her, and with it the scent of the heather, and the
very sight of Arthur’s Seat or the hills of Perth. Elleen had some
sudden qualms of heart lest her sister’s blitheness should be covering
wounds within; but she was too young to be often haunted by such
thoughts in the delightful surroundings in which that Easter week was
spent--the companionship of their sister and of the two young Infantas
of Anjou, as well as all the charm of King Rene’s graceful attention.
Eleanor had opened to her fresh stores of beauty, exquisite
illuminations, books of all kinds--legend, history, romance, poetry--all
freely displayed to her by her royal host, who took an elderly man’s
delight in an intelligent girl; nor, perhaps, was the pleasure lessened
by the need of explaining to Archduke Sigismund, in German ever
improving, that which he could not understand. There was a delightful
freedom about the Court--not hard, rugged, always on the defence, like
that of Scotland; nor stiffly ecclesiastical, as had been that of Henry
of Windsor; but though there was devotion every morning, there was for
the rest of the day holiday-making according to each one’s taste--not
hawking, for the ‘bon roi Rene’ was merciful to the birds in nesting
time, for which he was grumbled and laughed at by the young nobles, and
it may be feared by Jean, who wanted to exhibit Skywing’s prowess;
but there was riding at the ring, and jousting, or long rides in the
environs, minstrelsy in the gardens, and once a graceful ballet of the
King’s own composition; and the evenings, sometimes in-doors, sometimes
out-of-doors, were given to song and music. Altogether it was a land of
enchantment to most, whether gaily or poetically inclined.
Only there were certain murmurs by the rugged Scots and fierce Gascons
among the guests. George observed to David Drummond that he felt as if
this was a nest of eider-ducks, all down and fluff. Davie responded that
it was like a pasteboard town in a mystery play, and that he longed to
strike at it with his good broadsword. The English squire who stood
by, in his turn compared it to a castle of flummery and blanc-manger.
A French captain of a full company declared that he wished he had the
plundering of it; and a fierce-looking mountaineer of the Vosges of
Alsace growled that if the harping old King of Nowhere flouted his
master, Duke Sigismund, maybe they should have a taste of plunder.
There was actually to be a tournament on the Monday, the day before the
wedding, and a first tournament was a prodigious event in the life of a
young lady. Jean was in the utmost excitement, and never looked at
her own pretty face of roses and lilies in the steel mirror without
comparing it with those of the two Infantas in the hope of being chosen
Queen of Beauty; but, to her great disappointment, King Rene prudently
ordained that there should be no such competition, but that the prizes
should be bestowed by his sister, the Queen of France.
The Marquess of Suffolk requested Sir Patrick to convey to young Douglas
a free offer of fitting him out for the encounter, with armour and horse
if needful, and even of conferring knighthood on him, so that he might
take his place on equal terms in the lists.
‘He would like to do it, the insolent loon!’ was Geordie’s grim comment.
‘Will De la Pole dare to talk of dubbing the Red Douglas! When I bide
his buffet, it shall be in another sort. When I take knighthood, it
shall be from my lawful King or my father.’
‘So I shall tell him,’ replied Sir Patrick, ‘and I deem you wise, for
there be tricks of French chivalry that a man needs to know ere he can
acquit himself well in the lists; and to see you fail would scarce raise
you in the eyes of your lady.’
‘More like they would find too much earnest in the midst of their sham?’
returned Geordie. ‘You had best tell your English Marquis, as he calls
himself, that he had better not trust a lance in a Scotsman hand, if he
wouldna have all the shams that fret me beyond my patience about their
ears.’
This was not exactly what Sir Patrick told the Marquis; though he was
far from disapproving of the resolution. He kept an eye on this strange
follower, and was glad to see that there was no evil or licence in his
conduct, but that he chiefly consorted with David and a few other
young squires to whom this week, so delightful to the ladies, was
inexpressibly wearisome.
Tournaments have been described, so far as the nineteenth century
can describe them, so often that no one wishes to hear more of their
details. These had nearly reached their culmination in the middle of
the fifteenth century. Defensive armour had become highly ornamental and
very cumbrous, so that it was scarcely possible for the champions to
do one another much harm, except that a fall under such a weight
was dangerous. Thus it was only an exercise of skill in arms and
horsemanship on which the ladies gazed as they sat in the gallery
around Queen Marie, the five young princesses together forming, as the
minstrels declared, a perfect wreath of loveliness. The Dauphiness, with
a flush on her cheek and an eager look on her face, her tall form, and
dress more carefully arranged than usual, looked well and princely;
Eleanor, very like her, but much developed in expression and improved
in looks since she left home, and a beauty of her own; but the palm lay
between the other three--Yolande, tall, grave, stately, and anxious,
with darker blue eyes and brown hair than her sister, who, with her
innocent childish face, showing something of the shyness of a bride, sat
somewhat back, as if to conceal herself between Yolande and Jean, who
was all excitement, her cheeks flushed, and her sunny hair seeming to
glow with a radiance of its own. Duke Sigismund was among the defenders,
in a very splendid suit of armour, made in Italy, and embossed in that
new taste of the Cinquecento that was fast coming in.
The two kings began with an amicable joust, in which Rene had the best
of it. Then they took their seats, and as usual there was a good deal
of riding one against the other at the lists, and shivering of lances;
while some knights were borne backwards, horse and all, others had their
helmets carried off; but Rene, who sat in great enjoyment, with his
staff in hand, between his sister and her husband, King Charles, had
taken care that all the weapons should be blunted. Sigismund, a tall,
large, strongly made man, was for some time the leading champion.
Perhaps there was an understanding that the Lion of Hapsburg and famed
Eagle of the Tyrol was to carry all before him and win, in an undoubted
manner, the prize of the tourney, and the hand of the Infanta Yolande.
Certainly the colour rose higher and higher in her delicate cheek, but
those nearest could see that it was not with pleasure, for she bit her
lip with annoyance, and her eyes wandered in search of some one.
Presently, in a pause, there came forward on a tall white horse a
magnificently tall man, in plain but bright armour, three allerions or
beakless eagles on his breast, and on his shield a violet plant, with
the motto, Si douce est la violette. The Dauphiness leant across her
sister and squeezed Yolande’s hand vehemently, as the knight inclined
his lance to the King, and was understood to crave permission to show
his prowess. Charles turned to Rene, whose good-humoured face looked
annoyed, but who could not withhold his consent. The Dauphiness, whose
vehement excitement was more visible than even Yolande’s, whispered to
Eleanor that this was Messire Ferry de Vaudemont, her true love, come to
win her at point of the lance.
History is the parent of romance, and romance now and then becomes
history. It is an absolute and undoubted fact that Count Frederic or
Ferry de Vaudemont, the male representative of the line of Charles the
Great, did win his lady-love, Yolande of Anjou, by his good lance within
the lists, and that thus the direct descent was brought eventually back
to Lorraine, though this was not contemplated at the time, since Yolande
had then living both a brother and a nephew, and it was simply for her
own sake that Messire Ferry, in all the strength and beauty that
descended to the noted house of Guise, was now bearing down all before
him, touching shield after shield, only to gain the better of their
owners in the encounter. Yolande sat with a deep colour in her cheeks,
and her hands clasped rigidly together without a movement, while the
Lorrainer spectators, with a strong suspicion who the Knight of the
Violet really was, and with a leaning to their own line, loudly
applauded each victory.
King Rene, long ago, had had to fight for his wife’s inheritance with
this young man’s father, who, supported by the strength of Burgundy, had
defeated and made him prisoner, so that he was naturally disinclined to
the match, and would have preferred the Hapsburg Duke, whose Alsatian
possessions were only divided from his own by the Vosges; but his
generous and romantic spirit could not choose but be gained by the
proceeding of Count Ferry, and the mute appeal in the face and attitude
of his much-loved daughter.
He could not help joining in the applause at the grace and ease of the
young knight, till by and by all interest became concentrated on the
last critical encounter with Sigismund.
Every one watched almost breathlessly as the big heavy Austrian, mounted
on a fresh horse, and the slim Lorrainer in armour less strong but less
weighty, had their meeting. Two courses were run with mere splintering
of lance; at the third, while Rene held his staff ready to throw if
signs of fighting _a l’outrance_ appeared, Ferry lifted his lance a
little, and when both steeds recoiled from the clash, the azure eagle of
the Tyrol was impaled on the point of his lance, and Sigismund, though
not losing his saddle, was bending low on it, half stunned by the force
of the blow. Down went Rene’s warder. Loud were the shouts, ‘Vive the
Knight of the Violet! Victory to the Allerions!’
The voice of Rene was as clear and exulting as the rest, as the heralds,
with blast of trumpet, proclaimed the Chevalier de la Violette the
victor of the day, and then came forward to lead him to the feet of the
Queen of France. His helmet was removed, and at the face of manly beauty
that it revealed, the applause was renewed; but as Marie held out the
prize, a splendidly hilted sword, he bowed low, and said, ‘Madame, one
boon alone do I ask for my guerdon.’ And withal, he laid the blue eagle
on his lance at the feet of Yolande.
Rene was not the father to withstand such an appeal. He leapt from his
chair of state, he hurried to Yolande in her gallery, took her by the
hand, and in another moment Ferry had sprung from his horse, and on the
steps knight and lady, in their youthful glory and grace, stood hand
in hand, all blushes and bliss, amid the ecstatic applause of the
multitude, while the Dauphiness shed tears of joy. Thus brilliantly
ended the first tournament witnessed by the Scottish princesses. Eleanor
had been most interested on the whole in Duke Sigismund, and had exulted
in his successes, and been sorry to see him defeated, but then she knew
that Yolande dreaded his victory, and she suspected that he did not
greatly care for Yolande, so that, since he was not hurt, and was
certainly the second in the field, she could look on with complacency.
Moreover, at the evening’s dance, when Margaret and Suffolk, Ferry
and Yolande stood up for a stately pavise together, Sigismund came to
Eleanor, and while she was thinking whether or not to condole with
him, he shyly mumbled something about not regretting--being free--the
Dauphin, her brother, enduring a beaten knight. It was all in a mixture
of French and German, mostly of the latter, and far less comprehensible
than usual, unless, indeed, maidenly shyness made her afraid to
understand or to seem to do so. He kept on standing by her, both
of them, mute and embarrassed, not quite unconscious that they were
observed, perhaps secretly derided by some of the lookers-on. The first
relief was when the Dauphiness came and sat down by her sister, and
began to talk fast in French, scarce heeding whether the Duke understood
or answered her.
One question he asked was, who was the red-faced young man with stubbly
sunburnt hair, and a scar on his cheek, who had appeared in the lists in
very gaudy but ill-fitting armour, and with a great raw-boned, snorting
horse, and now stood in a corner of the hall with his eyes steadily
fixed on the Lady Joanna.
‘So!’ said Sigismund. ‘That fellow is the Baron Rudiger von Batchburg
Der Schelm! How has he the face to show himself here?’
‘Is he one of your Borderers--your robber Castellanes?’ asked Margaret.
‘Even so! His father’s castle of Balchenburg is so cunningly placed on
the march between Elsass and Lothringen that neither our good host nor
I can fully claim it, and these rogues shelter themselves behind one
or other of us till it is, what they call in Germany a Rat Castle, the
refuge of all the ecorcheurs and routiers of this part of the country.
They will bring us both down on them one of these days, but the place is
well-nigh past scaling by any save a gemsbock or an ecorcheur!’
Jean herself had remarked the gaze of the Alsatian mountaineer. It was
the chief homage that her beauty had received, and she was somewhat
mortified at being only viewed as part of the constellation of royalty
and beauty doing honour to the Infantas. She believed, too, that if G
he could have brought her out in as effective and romantic a light as
that in which Yolande had appeared, and she was in some of her moods
hurt and angered with him for refraining, while in others she supposed
sometimes that he was too awkward thus to venture himself, and at others
she did him the justice of believing that he disdained to appear in
borrowed plumes.
The wedding was by no means so splendid an affair as the tournament, as,
indeed, it was merely a marriage by proxy, and Yolande and her Count of
Vaudemont were too near of kin to be married before a dispensation could
be procured.
The King and Queen of France would leave Nanci to see the bride partly
on her way. The Dauphin and his wife were to tarry a day or two behind,
and the princesses belonged to their Court. Sir Patrick had fulfilled
his charge of conducting them to their sister, and he had now to avail
himself of the protection of the King’s party as far as possible on
the way to Paris, where he would place Malcolm at the University, and
likewise meet his daughter’s bridegroom and his father.
Dame Lilias did not by any means like leaving her young cousins, so long
her charge, without attendants of their own; but the Dauphiness
gave them a tirewoman of her own, and undertook that Madame de Ste.
Petronelle should attend them in case of need, as well as that she would
endeavour to have Annis, when Madame de Terreforte, at her Court as
long as they were there. They also had a squire as equerry, and George
Douglas was bent on continuing in that capacity till his outfit from his
father arrived, as it was sure to do sooner or later.
Margaret knew who he was, and promised Sir Patrick to do all in her
power for him, as truly his patience and forbearance well deserved.
It was a very sorrowful parting between the two maidens and the Lady of
Glenuskie, who for more than half a year had been as a mother to them,
nay, more than their own mother had ever been; and bad done much to
mitigate the sharp angles of their neglected girlhood by her influence.
In a very few months more she would see James, and Mary, and the
‘weans’; and the three sisters loaded her with gifts, letters, and
messages for all. Eleanor promised never to forget her counsel, and
to strive not to let the bright new world drive away all those devout
feelings and hopes that Mother Clare and King Henry had inspired, and
that Lady Drummond had done her best to keep up.
Duke Sigismund had communicated to Sir Patrick his intention of making a
formal request to King James for the hand of the Lady Eleanor. He was
to find an envoy to make his proposal in due form, who would join Sir
Patrick at Terreforte after the wedding was over, so as to go with the
party to Scotland.
Meantime, with many fond embraces and tears, Lady Drummond took leave
of her princesses, and they owned themselves to feel as if a protecting
wall had been taken away in her and her husband.
‘It is folly, though, thus to speak,’ said Jean, ‘when we have our
sister, and her husband, and his father, and all his Court to protect
us.’
‘We ought to be happy,’ said Eleanor gravely. ‘Outside here at Nanci,
it is all that my fancy ever shaped, and yet--and yet there is a strange
sense of fear beyond.’
‘Oh, talk not that gate,’ cried Jean, ‘as thou wilt be having thy
gruesome visions!’
‘No; it is not of that sort,’ returned Eleanor. ‘I trow not! It may be
rather the feeling of the vanity of all this world’s show.’
‘Oh, for mercy’s sake, dinna let us have clavers of that sort, or we
shall have thee in yon nunnery!’ exclaimed Jean. ‘See this girdle of
Maggie’s, which she has given me. Must I not make another hole to draw
it up enough for my waist?’
‘Jean herself was much disappointed when Margaret, with great regret,
told her that the Dauphin had to go out of his way to visit some castles
on his way to Chalons sur Marne, and that he could not encumber his
hosts with so large a train as the presence of two royal ladies rendered
needful. They were, therefore, to travel by another route, leading
through towns where there were hostels. Madame de Ste. Petronelle was to
go with them, and an escort of trusty Scots archers, and all would meet
again in a fortnight’s time.
All sounded simple and easy, and Margaret repeated, ‘It will be a troop
quite large enough to defend you from all ecorcheurs; indeed, they dare
not come near our Scottish archers, whom Messire, my husband, has told
off for your escort. And you will have your own squire,’ she added,
looking at Jean.
‘That’s as he lists,’ said Jean scornfully.
‘Ah, Jeanie, Jeanie, thou mayst have to rue it if thou turn’st lightly
from a leal heart.’
‘I’m not damsel-errant of romance, as thou and Elleen would fain be,’
said Jean.
‘Nay,’ said Margaret, ‘love is not mere romance. And oh, sister, credit
me, a Scots lassie’s heart craves better food than crowns and coronets.
Hard and unco’ cold be they, where there is no warmth to meet the
yearning soul beneath, that would give all and ten times more for one
glint of a loving eye, one word from a tender lip.’ Again she had one of
those hysteric bursts of tears, but she laughed herself back, crying,
‘But what is the treason wifie saying of her gudeman--her Louis, that
never yet said a rough word to his Meg?’
Then came another laugh, but she gathered herself up at a summons to
come down and mount.
She was tenderly embraced by all, King Rene kissing her and calling her
his dear niece and princess of minstrelsy, who should come to him at
Toulouse and bestow the golden violet.
She rode away, looking back smiling and kissing her hand, but Eleanor’s
eyes grew wide and her cheeks pale.
‘Jean,’ she murmured, low and hoarsely, ‘Margaret’s shroud is up to her
throat.’
‘Hoots with thy clavers,’ exclaimed Jeanie in return. ‘I never let thee
sing that fule song, but Meg’s fancies have brought the megrims into
thine head! Thou and she are pair.’
‘That we shall be nae longer,’ sighed Eleanor. ‘I saw the shroud as
clear as I see yon cross on the spire.’