"For strangers then did so increase,
By reason of King Henry's queen,
And privileged in many a place
To dwell, as was in London seen.
Poor tradesmen had small dealing then
And who but strangers bore the bell,
Which was a grief to Englishmen
To see them here in London dwell."
_Ill May Day_,
by Churchill, a Contemporary Poet.
Time passed on, and Edmund Burgess, who had been sent from York to learn
the perfection of his craft, completed his term and returned to his
home, much regretted in the Dragon court, where his good humour and good
sense had generally kept the peace, both within and without.
Giles Headley was now the eldest prentice. He was in every way greatly
improved, thoroughly accepting his position, and showing himself quite
ready both to learn and to work; but he had not the will or the power of
avoiding disputes with outsiders, or turning them aside with a merry
jest; and rivalries and quarrels with the armoury at the Eagle began to
increase. The Dragon, no doubt, turned out finer workmanship, and this
the Eagle alleged was wholly owing to nefarious traffic with the old
Spanish or Moorish sorcerer in Warwick Inner Ward, a thing unworthy of
honest Englishmen.
This made Giles furious, and the cry never failed to end in a fight, in
which Stephen supported the cause of the one house, and George Bates and
his comrades of the other.
It was the same with even the archery at Mile End, where the butts were
erected, and the youth contended with the long bow, which was still
considered as the safeguard of England. King Henry often looked in on
these matches, and did honour to the winners. One match there was in
especial, on Mothering Sunday, when the champions of each guild shot
against one another at such a range that it needed a keen eye to see the
popinjay--a stuffed bird at which they shot.
Stephen was one of these, his forest lore having always given him an
advantage over many of the others. He even was one of the last three
who were to finish the sport by shooting against one another. One was a
butcher named Barlow. The other was a Walloon, the best shot among six
hundred foreigners of various nations, all of whom, though with little
encouragement, joined in the national sport on these pleasant spring
afternoons. The first contest threw out the Walloon, at which there
were cries of ecstasy; now the trial was between Barlow and Stephen, and
in this final effort, the distance of the pole to which the popinjay was
fastened was so much increased that strength of arm told as much as
accuracy of aim, and Stephen's seventeen years' old muscles could not,
after so long a strain, cope with those of Ralph Barlow, a butcher of
full thirty years old. His wrist and arm began to shake with weariness,
and only one of his three last arrows went straight to the mark, while
Barlow was as steady as ever, and never once failed. Stephen was
bitterly disappointed, his eyes filled with tears, and he flung himself
down on the turf, feeling as if the shouts of "A Barlow! a Barlow!"
which were led by the jovial voice of King Harry himself, were all
exulting over him.
Barlow was led up to the king, who hailed him "King of Shoreditch," a
title borne by the champion archer ever after, so long as bowmanship in
earnest lasted. A tankard which the king filled with silver pieces was
his prize, but Henry did not forget Number 2. "Where's the other
fellow?" he said. "He was but a stripling, and to my mind, his feat was
a greater marvel than that of a stalwart fellow like Barlow."
Half a dozen of the spectators, among them the cardinal's hurried in
search of Stephen, who was roused from his fit of weariness and
disappointment by a shake of the shoulder as his uncle jingled his bells
in his ears, and exclaimed, "How now, here I own a cousin!" Stephen sat
up and stared with angry, astonished eyes, but only met a laugh. "Ay,
ay, 'tis but striplings and fools that have tears to spend for such as
this! Up, boy! D'ye hear? The other Hal is asking for thee."
And Stephen, hastily brushing away his tears, and holding his flat cap
in his hand, was marshalled across the mead, hot, shy, and indignant, as
the jester mopped and mowed, and cut all sorts of antics before him,
turning round to observe in an encouraging voice, "Pluck up a heart,
man! One would think Hal was going to cut off thine head!" And then,
on arriving where the king sat on his horse, "Here he is, Hal, such as
he is come humbly to crave thy gracious pardon for hitting the mark no
better! He'll mend his ways, good my lord, if your grace will pardon
him this time."
"Ay, marry, and that will I," said the king. "The springald bids fair
to be King of Shoreditch by the time the other fellow abdicates. How
old art thou, my lad?"
"Seventeen, an it please your grace," said Stephen, in the gruff voice
of his age.
"And thy name?"
"Stephen Birkenholt, my liege," and he wondered whether he would be
recognised; but Henry only said--
"Methinks I've seen those sloe-black eyes before. Or is it only that
the lad is thy very marrow, quipsome one?"
"The which," returned the jester, gravely, while Stephen tingled all
over with dismay, "may account for the tears the lad was wasting at not
having the thews of the fellow double his age! But I envy him not! Not
I! He'll never have wit for mine office, but will come in second there
likewise."
"I dare be sworn he will," said the king. "Here, take this, my good
lad, and prank thee in it when thou art out of thy time, and goest a-
hunting in Epping!"
It was a handsome belt with a broad silver clasp, engraven with the
Tudor rose and portcullis; and Stephen bowed low and made his
acknowledgments as best he might.
He was hailed with rapturous acclamations by his own contemporaries, who
held that he had saved the credit of the English prentice world, and
insisted on carrying him enthroned on their shoulders back to Cheapside,
in emulation of the journeymen and all the butcher kind, who were thus
bearing home the King of Shoreditch.
Shouts, halloos, whistles, every jubilant noise that youth and boyhood
could invent, were the triumphant music of Stephen on his surging and
uneasy throne, as he was shifted from one bearer to another when each in
turn grew tired of his weight. Just, however, as they were nearing
their own neighbourhood, a counter cry broke out, "Witchcraft! His
arrows are bewitched by the old Spanish sorcerer! Down with Dragons and
Wizards!" And a handful of mud came full in the face of the enthroned
lad, aimed no doubt by George Bates. There was a yell and rush of rage,
but the enemy was in numbers too small to attempt resistance, and dashed
off before their pursuers, only pausing at safe corners to shout
Parthian darts of "Wizards!" "Magic!" "Sorcerers!" "Heretics!"
There was nothing to be done but to collect again, and escort Stephen,
who had wiped the mud off his face, to the Dragon court, where Dennet
danced on the steps for joy, and Master Headley, not a little gratified,
promised Stephen a supper for a dozen of his particular friends at
Armourers' Hall on the ensuing Easter Sunday.
Of course Stephen went in search of his brother, all the more eagerly
because he was conscious that they had of late drifted apart a good
deal. Ambrose was more and more absorbed by the studies to which Lucas
Hansen led him, and took less and less interest in his brother's
pursuits. He did indeed come to the Sunday's dinner according to the
regular custom, but the moment it was permissible to leave the board he
was away with Tibble Steelman to meet friends of Lucas, and pursue
studies, as if, Stephen thought, he had not enough of books as it was.
When Dean Colet preached or catechised in Saint Paul's in the afternoon
they both attended and listened, but that good man was in failing
health, and his wise discourses were less frequent.
Where they were at other times, Stephen did not know, and hardly cared,
except that he had a general dislike to, and jealousy of, anything that
took his brother's sympathy away from him. Moreover Ambrose's face was
thinner and paler, he had a strange absorbed look, and often even when
they were together seemed hardly to attend to what his brother was
saying.
"I will make him come," said Stephen to himself, as he went with
swinging gait towards Warwick Inner Ward, where, sure enough, he found
Ambrose sitting at the door, frowning over some black-letter which
looked most uninviting in the eyes of the apprentice, and he fell upon
his brother with half angry, half merry reproofs for wasting the fine
spring afternoon over such studies.
Ambrose looked up with a dreamy smile and greeted his brother; but all
the time Stephen was narrating the history of the match, (and he _did_
tell the fate of each individual arrow of his own or Barlow's), his eyes
were wandering back to the crabbed page in his hand, and when Stephen
impatiently wound up his history with the invitation to supper on Easter
Sunday, the reply was, "Nay, brother, thanks, but that I cannot do."
"Cannot!" exclaimed Stephen.
"Nay, there are other matters in hand that go deeper."
"Yea, I know whatever concerns musty books goes deeper with thee than
thy brother," replied Stephen, turning away much mortified.
Ambrose's warm nature was awakened. He held his brother by the arm and
declared himself anything but indifferent to him, but he owned that he
did not love noise and revelry, above all on Sunday.
"Thou art addling thy brains with preachings!" said Stephen. "Pray
Heaven they make not a heretic of thee. But thou mightest for once have
come to mine own feast."
Ambrose, much perplexed and grieved at thus vexing his brother, declared
that he would have done so with all his heart, but that this very Easter
Sunday there was coming a friend of Master Hansen's from Holland: who
was to tell them much of the teaching in Germany, which was so
enlightening men's eyes.
"Yea, truly, making heretics of them, Mistress Headley saith," returned
Stephen. "O Ambrose, if thou wilt run after these books and parchments,
canst not do it in right fashion, among holy monks, as of old?"
"Holy monks!" repeated Ambrose. "Holy monks! Where be they?"
Stephen stared at him.
"Hear uncle Hal talk of monks whom he sees at my Lord Cardinal's table!
What holiness is there among them? Men, that have vowed to renounce all
worldly and carnal things flaunt like peacocks and revel like swine--my
Lord Cardinal with his silver pillars foremost of them! He poor and
mortified! 'Tis verily as our uncle saith, he plays the least false and
shameful part there!"
"Ambrose, Ambrose, thou wilt be distraught, poring over these matters
that were never meant for lads like us! Do but come and drive them out
for once with mirth and good fellowship."
"I tell thee, Stephen, what thou callest mirth and good fellowship do
but drive the pain in deeper. Sin and guilt be everywhere. I seem to
see the devils putting foul words on the tongue and ill deeds in the
hands of myself and all around me, that they may accuse us before God.
No, Stephen, I cannot, cannot come. I must go where I can hear of a
better way."
"Nay," said Stephen, "what better way can there be than to be shriven--
clean shriven--and then houselled, as I was ere Lent, and trust to be
again on next Low Sunday morn? That's enough for a plain lad." He
crossed himself reverently, "Mine own Lord pardoneth and cometh to me."
But the two minds, one simple and practical, the other sensitive and
speculative, did not move in the same atmosphere, and could not
understand one another. Ambrose was in the condition of excitement and
bewilderment produced by the first stirrings of the Reformation upon
enthusiastic minds. He had studied the Vulgate, made out something of
the Greek Testament, read all fragments of the Fathers that came in his
way, and also all the controversial "tractates," Latin or Dutch, that he
could meet with, and attended many a secret conference between Lucas and
his friends, when men, coming from Holland or Germany, communicated
accounts of the lectures and sermons of Dr Martin Luther, which already
were becoming widely known.
He was wretched under the continual tossings of his mind. Was the
entire existing system a vast delusion, blinding the eyes and destroying
the souls of those who trusted to it; and was the only safety in the one
point of faith that Luther pressed on all, and ought all that he had
hitherto revered to crumble down to let that alone be upheld? Whatever
he had once loved and honoured at times seemed to him a lie, while at
others real affection and veneration, and dread of sacrilege, made him
shudder at himself and his own doubts! It was his one thought, and he
passionately sought after all those secret conferences which did but
feed the flame that consumed him.
The elder men who were with him were not thus agitated. Lucas's
convictions had not long been fixed. He did not court observation nor
do anything unnecessarily to bring persecution on himself, but he
quietly and secretly acted as an agent in dispersing the Lollard books
and those of Erasmus, and lived in the conviction that there would one
day be a great crash, believing himself to be doing his part by
undermining the structure, and working on undoubtingly. Abenali was not
aggressive. In fact, though he was reckoned among Lucas's party,
because of his abstinence from all cult of saints or images, and the
persecution he had suffered, he did not join in their general opinions,
and held aloof from their meetings. And Tibble Steelman, as has been
before said, lived two lives, and that as foreman at the Dragon court,
being habitual to him, and requiring much thought and exertion, the
speculations of the reformers were to him more like an intellectual
relaxation than the business of life. He took them as a modern artisan
would in this day read his newspaper, and attend his club meeting.
Ambrose, however, had the enthusiastic practicalness of youth. On that
which he fully believed, he must act, and what did he fully believe?
Boy as he was--scarcely yet eighteen--the toils and sports that
delighted his brother seemed to him like toys amusing infants on the
verge of an abyss, and he spent his leisure either in searching in the
Vulgate for something to give him absolute direction, or in going in
search of preachers, for, with the stirring of men's minds, sermons were
becoming more frequent.
There was much talk just now of the preaching of one Doctor Beale, to
whom all the tradesmen, Journeymen, and apprentices were resorting, even
those who were of no special religious tendencies. Ambrose went on
Easter Tuesday to hear him preach at Saint Mary's Spitall. The place
was crowded with artificers, and Beale began by telling them that he had
"a pitiful bill," meaning a letter, brought to him declaring how aliens
and strangers were coming in to inhabit the City and suburbs, to eat the
bread from poor fatherless children, and take the living from all
artificers and the intercourse from merchants, whereby poverty was so
much increased that each bewaileth the misery of others. Presently
coming to his text, "_Caelum caeli Domini, terram autem dedit filiis
hominis_," (the Heaven of Heavens is the Lord's, the earth hath He given
to the children of men), the doctor inculcated that England was given to
Englishmen, and that as birds would defend their nests, so ought
Englishmen to defend themselves, _and to hurt and grieve aliens for the
common weal_! The corollary a good deal resembled that of "hate thine
enemy" which was foisted by "them of the old time" upon "thou shalt love
thy neighbour." And the doctor went on upon the text, "_Pugna pro
patria_," to demonstrate that fighting for one's country meant rising
upon and expelling all the strangers who dwelt and traded within it.
Many of these foreigners were from the Hanse towns which had special
commercial privileges, there were also numerous Venetians and Genoese,
French and Spaniards, the last of whom were, above all, the objects of
dislike. Their imports of silks, cloth of gold, stamped leather, wine
and oil, and their superior skill in many handicrafts, had put English
wares out of fashion; and their exports of wool, tin, and lead excited
equal jealousy, which Dr Beale, instigated as was well known by a
broker named John Lincoln, was thus stirring up into fierce passion.
His sermon was talked of all over London; blacker looks than ever were
directed at the aliens, stones and dirt were thrown at them, and even
Ambrose, as he walked along the street, was reviled as the Dutchkin's
knave. The insults became each day more daring and outrageous. George
Bates and a skinner's apprentice named Studley were caught in the act of
tripping up a portly old Flanderkin and forthwith sent to Newgate, and
there were other arrests, which did but inflame the smouldering rage of
the mob. Some of the wealthier foreigners, taking warning by the signs
of danger, left the City, for there could be no doubt that the whole of
London and the suburbs were in a combustible condition of discontent,
needing only a spark to set it alight.
It was just about this time that a disreputable clerk--a lewd priest, as
Hall calls him--a hanger-on of the house of Howard, was guilty of an
insult to a citizen's wife as she was quietly walking home through the
Cheap. Her husband and brother, who were nearer at hand than he
guessed, avenged the outrage with such good wills that this disgrace to
the priesthood was left dead on the ground. When such things happened,
and discourses like Beale's were heard, it was not surprising that
Ambrose's faith in the clergy as guides received severe shocks.