"In sooth it was a thing to weep
If then as now the level plain
Beneath was spreading like the deep,
The broad unruffled main.
If like a watch-tower of the sun
Above, the Alpuxarras rose,
Streaked, when the dying day was done,
With evening's roseate snows."
Archbishop Trench.
When Mary Tudor, released by death from her first dreary marriage,
contracted for her brother's pleasure, had appeased his wrath at her
second marriage made to please herself, Henry the Eighth was only too
glad to mark his assent by all manner of festivities; and English
chroniclers, instead of recording battles and politics, had only to
write of pageantries and tournaments during the merry May of the year
1515--a May, be it remembered, which, thanks to the old style, was at
least ten days nearer to Midsummer than our present month.
How the two queens and all their court had gone a-maying on Shooter's
Hill, ladies and horses poetically disguised and labelled with sweet
summer titles, was only a nine days' wonder when the Birkenholts had
come to London, but the approaching tournament at Westminster on the
Whitsun holiday was the great excitement to the whole population, for,
with all its faults, the Court of bluff King Hal was thoroughly genial,
and every one, gentle and simple, might participate in his pleasures.
Seats were reserved at the lists for the city dignitaries and their
families, and though old Mistress Headley professed that she ought to
have done with such vanities, she could not forbear from going to see
that her son was not too much encumbered with the care of little Dennet,
and that the child herself ran into no mischief. Master Headley himself
grumbled and sighed but he put himself into his scarlet gown, holding
that his presence was a befitting attention to the king, glad to gratify
his little daughter, and not without a desire to see how his
workmanship--good English ware--held out against "mail and plate of
Milan steel," the fine armour brought home from France by the new Duke
of Suffolk. Giles donned his best in the expectation of sitting in the
places of honour as one of the family, and was greatly disgusted when
Kit Smallbones observed, "What's all that bravery for? The tilting-
match quotha? Ha! ha! my young springald, if thou see it at all, thou
must be content to gaze as thou canst from the armourers' tent, if
Tibble there chooses to be cumbered with a useless lubber like thee."
"I always sat with my mother when there were matches at Clarendon,"
muttered Giles, who had learnt at least that it was of no use to
complain of Smallbones' plain speaking.
"If folks cocker malapert lads at Sarum we know better here," was the
answer.
"I shall ask the master, my kinsman," returned the youth.
But he got little by his move. Master Headley told him, not unkindly,
for he had some pity for the spoilt lad, that not the Lord Mayor himself
would take his own son with him while yet an apprentice. Tibble
Steelman would indeed go to one of the attendants' tents at the further
end of the lists, where repairs to armour and weapons might be needed,
and would take an assistant or two, but who they might be must depend on
his own choice, and if Giles had any desire to go, he had better don his
working dress.
In fact, Tibble meant to take Edmund Burgess and one workman for use,
and one of the new apprentices for pleasure, letting them change in the
middle of the day. The swagger of Giles actually forfeited for him the
first turn, which--though he was no favourite with the men--would have
been granted to his elder years and his relationship to the master; but
on his overbearing demand to enter the boat which was to carry down a
little anvil and charcoal furnace, with a few tools, rivets, nails, and
horse-shoes, Tibble coolly returned that he needed no such gay birds;
but if Giles chose to be ready in his leathern coat when Stephen
Birkenholt came home at mid-day, mayhap he might change with him.
Stephen went joyously in the plainest of attire, though Tibble in fur
cap, grimy jerkin, and leathern apron was no elegant steersman; and
Edmund, who was at the age of youthful foppery, shrugged his shoulders a
little, and disguised the garments of the smithy with his best flat cap
and newest mantle.
They kept in the wake of the handsome barge which Master Headley shared
with his friend and brother alderman, Master Hope the draper, whose
young wife, in a beautiful black velvet hood and shining blue satin
kirtle, was evidently petting Dennet to her heart's content, though the
little damsel never lost an opportunity of nodding to her friends in the
plainer barge in the rear.
The Tudor tilting-matches cost no lives, and seldom broke bones. They
were chiefly opportunities for the display of brilliant enamelled and
gilt armour, at the very acme of cumbrous magnificence; and of equally
gorgeous embroidery spread out over the vast expanse provided by
elephantine Flemish horses. Even if the weapons had not been purposely
blunted, and if the champions had really desired to slay one another,
they would have found the task very difficult, as in effect they did in
the actual game of war. But the spectacle was a splendid one, and all
the apparatus was ready in the armourers' tent, marked by Saint George
and the Dragon. Tibble ensconced himself in the innermost corner with a
"tractate," borrowed from his friend Lucas, and sent the apprentices to
gaze their fill at the rapidly filling circles of seats. They saw King
Harry, resplendent in gilded armour--"from their own anvil, true English
steel," said Edmund, proudly--hand to her seat his sister the bride, one
of the most beautiful women then in existence, with a lovely and
delicate bloom on her fair face and exquisite Plantagenet features. No
more royally handsome creatures could the world have offered than that
brother and sister, and the English world appreciated them and made the
lists ring with applause at the fair lady who had disdained foreign
princes to wed her true love, an honest Englishman.
He--the cloth of frieze--in blue Milanese armour, made to look as
classical as possible, and with clasps and medals engraven from antique
gems--handed in Queen Katharine, whose dark but glowing Spanish
complexion made a striking contrast to the dazzling fairness of her
young sister-in-law. Near them sat a stout burly figure in episcopal
purple, and at his feet there was a form which nearly took away all
Stephen's pleasure for the time. For it was in motley, and he could
hear the bells jingle, while the hot blood rose in his cheeks in the
dread lest Burgess should detect the connection, or recognise in the
jester the grave personage who had come to negotiate with Mr Headley
for his indentures, or worse still, that the fool should see and claim
him.
However, Quipsome Hal seemed to be exchanging drolleries with the young
dowager of France, who, sooth to say, giggled in a very unqueenly manner
at jokes which made the grave Spanish-born queen draw up her stately
head, and converse with a lady on her other hand--an equally stately
lady, somewhat older, with the straight Plantagenet features, and by her
side a handsome boy, who, though only eight or nine years old, was
tonsured, and had a little scholar's gown. "That," said Edmund, "is my
Lady Countess of Salisbury, of whom Giles Headley prates so much."
A tournament, which was merely a game between gorgeously equipped
princes and nobles, afforded little scope for adventure worthy of
record, though it gave great diversion to the spectators. Stephen gazed
like one fascinated at the gay panoply of horse and man, with the huge
plumes on the heads of both, as they rushed against one another, and he
shared with Edmund the triumph when the lance from their armoury held
good, the vexation if it were shivered. All would have been perfect but
for the sight of his uncle, playing off his drolleries in a manner that
gave him a sense of personal degradation.
To escape from the sight almost consoled him when, in the pause after
the first courses had been run, Tibble told him and Burgess to return,
and send Headley and another workman with a fresh bundle of lances for
the afternoon's tilting. Stephen further hoped to find his brother at
the Dragon court, as it was one of those holidays that set every one
free, and separation began to make the brothers value their meetings.
But Ambrose was not at the Dragon court, and when Stephen went in quest
of him to the Temple, Perronel had not seen him since the early morning,
but she said he seemed so much bitten with the little old man's
scholarship that she had small doubt that he would be found poring over
a book in Warwick Inner Ward.
Thither therefore did Stephen repair. The place was nearly deserted,
for the inhabitants were mostly either artisans or that far too numerous
race who lived on the doles of convents, on the alms of churchgoers, and
the largesses scattered among the people on public occasions, and these
were for the most part pursuing their vocation both of gazing and
looking out for gain among the spectators outside the lists. The door
that Stephen had been shown as that of Ambrose's master was, however,
partly open, and close beside it sat in the sun a figure that amazed
him. On a small mat or rug, with a black and yellow handkerchief over
her head, and little scarlet legs crossed under a blue dress, all
lighted up by the gay May sun, there slept the little dark, glowing
maiden, with her head bent as it leant against the wall, her rosy lips
half-open, her long black plaits on her shoulders.
Stepping up to the half-open door, whence he heard a voice reading, his
astonishment was increased. At the table were his brother and his
master, Ambrose with a black book in hand, Lucas Hansen with some
papers, and on the ground was seated a venerable, white-bearded old man,
something between Stephen's notions of an apostle and of a magician,
though the latter idea predominated at sight of a long parchment scroll
covered with characters such as belonged to no alphabet that he had ever
dreamt of. What were they doing to his brother? He was absolutely in
an enchanter's den. Was it a pixie at the door, guarding it?
"Ambrose!" he cried aloud.
Everybody started. Ambrose sprang to his feet, exclaiming, "Stephen!"
The pixie gave a little scream and jumped up, flying to the old man, who
quietly rolled up his scroll.
Lucas rose up as Ambrose spoke.
"Thy brother?" said he.
"Yea--come in search of me," said Ambrose.
"Thou hadst best go forth with him," said Lucas.
"It is not well that youth should study over long," said the old man.
"Thou hast aided us well, but do thou now unbend the bow. Peace be with
thee, my son."
Ambrose complied, but scarcely willingly, and the instant they had made
a few steps from the door, Stephen exclaimed in dismay, "Who--what was
it? Have they bewitched thee, Ambrose?"
Ambrose laughed merrily. "Not so. It is holy lore that those good men
are reading."
"Nay now, Ambrose. Stand still--if thou canst, poor fellow," he
muttered, and then made the sign of the cross three times over his
brother, who stood smiling, and said, "Art satisfied Stevie? Or wilt
have me rehearse my _Credo_?" Which he did, Stephen listening
critically, and drawing a long breath as he recognised each word,
pronounced without a shudder at the critical points. "Thou art safe so
far," said Stephen. "But sure he is a wizard. I even beheld his
familiar spirit--in a fair shape doubtless--like a pixie! Be not
deceived, brother. Sorcery reads backwards--and I saw him so read from
that scroll of his. Laughest thou! Nay! what shall I do to free thee?
Enter here!"
Stephen dragged his brother, still laughing, into the porch of the
nearest church, and deluged him with holy water with such good will,
that Ambrose, putting up his hands to shield his eyes, exclaimed, "Come
now, have done with this folly, Stephen--though it makes me laugh to
think of thy scared looks, and poor little Aldonza being taken for a
familiar spirit." And Ambrose laughed as he had not laughed for weeks.
"But what is it, then?"
"The old man is of thy calling, or something like it, Stephen, being
that he maketh and tempereth sword-blades after the prime Damascene or
Toledo fashion, and the familiar spirit is his little daughter."
Stephen did not however look mollified. "Sword-blades! None have a
right to make them save our craft. This is one of the rascaille
Spaniards who have poured into the city under favour of the queen to
spoil and ruin the lawful trade. Though could you but have seen,
Ambrose, how our tough English ashwood in King Harry's band--from our
own armoury too--made all go down before it, you would never uphold
strangers and their false wares that can only get the better by
sorcery."
"How thou dost harp upon sorcery!" exclaimed Ambrose. "I must tell thee
the good old man's story as 'twas told to me, and then wilt thou own
that he is as good a Christian as ourselves--ay, or better--and hath
little cause to love the Spaniards."
"Come on, then," said Stephen. "Methought if we, went towards
Westminster we might yet get where we could see the lists. Such a rare
show, Ambrose, to see the King in English armour, ay, and Master
Headley's, every inch of it, glittering in the sun, so that one could
scarce brook the dazzling, on his horse like a rock shattering all that
came against him! I warrant you the lances cracked and shivered like
faggots under old Purkis's bill-hook. And that you should liefer pore
over crabbed monkish stuff with yonder old men! My life on it, there
must be some spell!"
"No more than of old, when I was ever for book and thou for bow," said
Ambrose; "but I'll make thee rueful for old Michael yet. Hast heard
tell of the Moors in Spain?"
"Moors--blackamoors who worship Mahound and Termagant. I saw a
blackamoor last week behind his master, a merchant of Genoa, in Paul's
Walk. He looked like the devils in the Miracle Play at Christ Church,
with blubber lips and wool for hair. I marvelled that he did not writhe
and flee when he came within the Minster, but Ned Burgess said he was a
christened man."
"Moors be not all black, neither be they all worshippers of Mahound,"
replied Ambrose.
However, as Ambrose's information, though a few degrees more correct and
intelligent than his brother's, was not complete, it will be better not
to give the history of Lucas's strange visitors in his words.
They belonged to the race of Saracen Arabs who had brought the arts of
life to such perfection in Southern Spain, but who had received the
general appellation of Moors from those Africans who were continually
reinforcing them, and, bringing a certain Puritan strictness of
Mohammedanism with them, had done much towards destroying the highest
cultivation among them before the Spanish kingdoms became united, and
finally triumphed over them. During the long interval of two centuries,
while Castille was by Italian occupied by internal wars, and Aragon
conquests, there had been little aggression on the Moorish borderland,
and a good deal of friendly intercourse both in the way of traffic and
of courtesy, nor had the bitter persecution and distrust of new converts
then set in, which followed the entire conquest of Granada. Thus, when
Ronda was one of the first Moorish cities to surrender, a great merchant
of the unrivalled sword-blades whose secret had been brought from
Damascus, had, with all his family, been accepted gladly when he
declared himself ready to submit and receive baptism. Miguel Abenali
was one of the sons, and though his conversion had at first been mere
compliance with his father's will and the family interests, he had
become sufficiently convinced of Christian truth not to take part with
his own people in the final struggle. Still, however, the inbred
abhorrence of idolatry had influenced his manner of worship, and when,
after half a lifetime, Granada had fallen, and the Inquisition had begun
to take cognisance of new Christians from among the Moors as well as the
Jews, there were not lacking spies to report the absence of all sacred
images or symbols from the house of the wealthy merchant, and that
neither he nor any of his family had been seen kneeling before the
shrine of Nuestra Senora. The sons of Abenali did indeed feel strongly
the power of the national reaction, and revolted from the religion which
they saw cruelly enforced on their conquered countrymen. The Moor had
been viewed as a gallant enemy, the Morisco was only a being to be
distrusted and persecuted; and the efforts of the good Bishop of
Granada, who had caused the Psalms, Gospels, and large portions of the
Breviary to be translated into Arabic, were frustrated by the zeal of
those who imagined that heresy lurked in the vernacular, and perhaps
that objections to popular practices might be strengthened.
By order of Cardinal Ximenes, these Arabic versions were taken away and
burnt; but Miguel Abenali had secured his own copy, and it was what he
there learnt that withheld him from flying to his countrymen and
resuming their faith when he found that the Christianity he had
professed for forty years was no longer a protection to him. Having
known the true Christ in the Gospel, he could not turn back to Mohammed,
even though Christians persecuted in the Name they so little understood.
The crisis came in 1507, when Ximenes, apparently impelled by the dread
that simulated conformity should corrupt the Church, quickened the
persecution of the doubtful "Nuevos Cristianos," and the Abenali family,
who had made themselves loved and respected, received warning that they
had been denounced, and that their only hope lay in flight.
The two sons, high-spirited young men, on whom religion had far less
hold than national feeling, fled to the Alpuxarra Mountains, and
renouncing the faith of the persecutors, joined their countrymen in
their gallant and desperate warfare. Their mother, who had long been
dead, had never been more than an outward Christian; but the second wife
of Abenali shared his belief and devotion with the intelligence and
force of character sometimes found among the Moorish ladies of Spain.
She and her little ones fled with him in disguise to Cadiz, with the
precious Arabic Scriptures rolled round their waists, and took shelter
with an English merchant, who had had dealings in sword-blades with
Senor Miguel, and had been entertained by him in his beautiful Saracenic
house at Ronda with Eastern hospitality. This he requited by giving
them the opportunity of sailing for England in a vessel laden with Xeres
sack; but the misery of the voyage across the Bay of Biscay in a ship
lit for nothing but wine, was excessive, and creatures reared in the
lovely climate and refined luxury of the land of the palm and orange,
exhausted too already by the toils of the mountain journey, were
incapable of enduring it, and Abenali's brave wife and one of her
children were left beneath the waves of the Atlantic. With the one
little girl left to him, he arrived in London, and the recommendation of
his Cadiz friend obtained for him work from a dealer in foreign weapons,
who was not unwilling to procure them nearer home. Happily for him,
Moorish masters, however rich, were always required to be proficients in
their own trade; and thus Miguel, or Michael as he was known in England,
was able to maintain himself and his child by the fabrication of blades
that no one could distinguish from those of Damascus. Their perfection
was a work of infinite skill, labour, and industry, but they were so
costly, that their price, and an occasional job of inlaying gold in
other metal, sufficed to maintain the old man and his little daughter.
The armourers themselves were sometimes forced to have recourse to him,
though unwillingly, for he was looked on with distrust and dislike as an
interloper of foreign birth, belonging to no guild. A Biscayan or
Castillian of the oldest Christian blood incurred exactly the same
obloquy from the mass of London craftsmen and apprentices, and Lucas
himself had small measure of favour, though Dutchmen were less alien to
the English mind than Spaniards, and his trade did not lead to so much
rivalry and competition.
As much of this as Ambrose knew or understood he told to Stephen, who
listened in a good deal of bewilderment, understanding very little, but
with a strong instinct that his brother's love of learning was leading
him into dangerous company. And what were they doing on this fine May
holiday, when every one ought to be out enjoying themselves?
"Well, if thou wilt know," said Ambrose, pushed hard, "there is one
Master William Tindal, who hath been doing part of the blessed Evangel
into English, and for better certainty of its correctness, Master
Michael was comparing it with his Arabic version, while I overlooked the
Latin."
"O Ambrose, thou wilt surely run into trouble. Know you not how nurse
Joan used to tell us of the burning of the Lollard books?"
"Nay, nay, Stevie, this is no heresy. 'Tis such work as the great
scholar, Master Erasmus, is busied on--ay, and he is loved and honoured
by both the Archbishops and the King's grace. Ask Tibble Steelman what
he thinks thereof."
"Tibble Steelman would think nought of a beggarly stranger calling
himself a sword-cutler, and practising the craft without prenticeship or
license," said Stephen, swelling with indignation. "Come on, Ambrose,
and sweep the cobwebs from thy brain. If we cannot get into our own
tent again, we can mingle with the outskirts, and learn how the day is
going, and how our lances and breastplates have stood where the knaves
at the Eagle have gone like reeds and egg-shells--just as I threw George
Bates, the prentice at the Eagle yesterday, in a wrestling match at the
butts with the trick old Diggory taught me."