ELIZABETH OF YORK
Small joy have I have being England's queen.
SHAKSPEARE.
Henry the Seventh was a man of strong sense and sound understanding. He
was prudent, resolute, and valiant; on the other hand, he was totally
devoid of generosity, and was actuated all his life by base and bad
passions. At first the ruling feeling of his heart was hatred of the
House of York--nor did he wholly give himself up to the avarice that
blotted his latter years, till the extinction of that unhappy family
satisfied his revenge, so that for want of fuel the flame died away.
Most of his relatives and friends had perished in the field or on the
scaffold by the hands of the Yorkists--his own existence had been in
jeopardy during their exaltation; and the continuance of his reign, and
even of his life, depended on their utter overthrow. Henry had a mind
commensurate to the execution of his plans: he had a talent for seizing,
as if instinctively, on all the bearings of a question before him; and a
ready perception of the means by which he might obviate difficulties and
multiply facilities, was the most prominent part of his character. He
never aimed at too much, and felt instantaneously when he had arrived at
the enough. More of cruelty would have roused England against him; less
would have given greater hopes to the partizans of his secreted rival.
He had that exact portion of callousness of heart which enabled him to
extricate himself in the admirable manner he did from all his
embarrassments.
It is impossible to say what his exact views were, when he landed in
England, an I made head against Richard the Third. His right of
succession, even through the House of Lancaster, was ill-founded, and
probably he would scarcely have dared to decorate his brows with the
royal circlet but for the happy boldness of Stanley, and the enthusiasm
felt by his soldiers in the hour of victory, which had bestowed it on
him. Once a king, as it was impossible, without risk of life, to sink to
a private station, he did not hesitate, but bent every energy of his
mind to the contriving the means to seat himself firmly on his
newly-acquired throne.
The illegitimacy of Edward the Fourth's children had removed them from
the succession. But though no doubt was entertained as to the fact of
Edward having married Lady Eleanor Butler, yet Henry had the taint of
illegitimacy on his own race; and, moreover, Elizabeth Woodville having
so long filled the station of queen of England, the public voice went in
her favour, and the majority of the English people looked upon the tale
which deprived her children of their rights, as a contrivance of their
usurping uncle. What then was to become of them? Edward the Fifth was
dead: of this fact there was no doubt. It had been rumoured that the
duke of York had not long survived his brother. To ascertain the truth
of this report, Henry dispatched one of his most staunch adherents to
the Tower. The boy was not there; but a mystery hung over his fate which
did not quite assure the new king of his death. Henry feared that he was
in the hands of the Yorkists, and this dread gave fresh vigour to his
distrust and abhorrence of the partizans of the White Rose. He formed a
scheme to defeat their projects; he caused it to be disseminated that
both the princes had been found dead--murdered--in the Tower.
The competitors for the crown, whose claims ranked next, were the
daughters of Edward the Fourth. Henry immediately saw the necessity of
agreeing to the treaty entered into by the countess of Richmond, for his
marriage with the eldest of these princesses. He hated to owe his title
to the crown to any part of the House of York; he resolved, if possible,
to delay and break the marriage; but his own friends were urgent with
him to comply, and prudence dictated the measure; he therefore promised
to adopt it--thus effectually to silence the murmurs of the party of
the White Rose.
But if the young duke of York reappeared meanwhile, it would be
necessary not to repeal the Act of Parliament that cast a stigma on his
birth. If the children of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward the Fourth were
debarred from the crown, the earl of Warwick was the next heir. He was
confined, by Richard the Third, at Sheriff Hutton, in Yorkshire. He was
the especial object of Henry's fear, and now he commanded him to be
brought from his northern prison to the Tower of London, to be kept a
close prisoner in that melancholy and ill-fated place. There was one
other rival, the earl of Lincoln, named by Richard to succeed him; but
his pretensions came so far behind the others, and he enjoyed so high a
reputation for sagacity and virtue, that Henry believed it best to let
him alone for the present, only surrounding him with spies; and
resolved, on the first note of danger, to destroy him.
Fortune smiled on the new sovereign. The disappearance of the two
children from the Tower caused the Yorkists to settle their affections
on the young Elizabeth. She was at Sheriff Hutton, waiting impatiently
for her union with her uncle; now she received commands to proceed to
London, as the affianced bride of that uncle's conqueror. Already the
common talk ran on the entwining of the two Roses; and all the adherents
of her family, who could gain access, recommended their cause to her,
and entreated her, in the first days of power, not to forget her
father's friends, but to incline the heart of her husband to an
impartial love for the long rival houses of Lancaster and York.
Two parties arrived on the same day at Sheriff Hutton, on the different
missions of conducting the Lady Elizabeth and the earl of Warwick to
London. On the morning of their departure they met in the garden of
their abode to take leave of each other. Elizabeth was nineteen years
old, Warwick was the exact age of her brother, Edward the Fifth; he was
now sixteen.
"We are about to travel the same road with far different expectations,"
said Warwick. "I go to be a prisoner; you, fair cousin, to ascend a
throne."
There was a despondency in the youth's manner that deeply affected this
princess. "Dear Edward," she replied, clasping his hand; "we have been
fellow-prisoners long, and sympathy has lightened the burthen of our
chains. Can I forget our walks in this beauteous park, and the love and
confidence we have felt for each other? My dearest boy, when I am queen,
Esther will claim a boon from Ahasuerus, and Warwick shall be the chief
noble in my train."
She looked at him with a brilliant smile; her heart glowed with sisterly
affection. She might well entertain high anticipations of future power;
she was in the pride of youth and beauty; the light spirit of expected
triumph lighted up her lovely face. She was about to become the bride of
a conqueror, yet one whose laurels would droop without her propping; she
was to be queen of her native land, the pearly clasp to unite the silken
bond with which peace now bound long discordant England. She was unable
to communicate this spirit of hope to her desponding friend; he gazed on
her beauty with admiration and deep grief, asking, with tearful eyes,
"Shall we ever meet again?"
"Yes! in London, in the court of Henry, we shall again be
companions--friends."
"I go to the Tower, not to the court," replied Warwick, "and when those
gloomy gates close on me, I shall pray that my head may soon repose on
the cold stone that pillows my cousin Edward. I shall sleep uneasily
till then."
"Fie, cousin!" said Elizabeth; "such thoughts ill beseem the nearest
kinsman of the future queen of England. You will remain but a short time
in the Tower; but if you nurse thoughts like these, you will pine there
as you did before I shared your prison here, and the roses with which my
care has painted your cheeks, will again fade."
"Wan and colourless will my cheek be ere your bright eyes look on it
again. Is it not sufficient grief that I part from you, beloved friend!"
A gush at once of sorrow, of affection, of long suppressed love,
overpowered the youth. "I shall think of you," he added, "in my
prison-house; and while I know that you regret my fate, I cannot be
wholly a wretch. Do you not love me? And will you not, as a proof, give
me one of these golden hairs, to soothe poor Warwick's misery? One
only," he said, taking from braided locks the small gift he demanded, "I
will not diminish the rich beauty of your tresses, yet they will not
look lovelier, pressed by the jewelled diadem of England, than under the
green chaplet I crowned you with a few months past, my Queen of May!"
And thus, the eyes of each glistening with tears, they parted. For a
moment Warwick looked as if he wished to press his cousin to his heart;
and she, who loved him as a sister, would have yielded to his embrace:
but before his arms enfolded her, he started back, bent one knee,
pressed her hand to his lips, his eyes, his brow, and bending his head
for an instant towards the ground, sprang up, and rushed down the avenue
towards the gate at which his guard awaited him. Elizabeth stood
motionless, watching him till out of sight. The sun sparkled brightly on
a tuft of wild flowers at her feet. The glittering light caught her eye.
"It is noon," she thought; "the morning dew is dry; it is Warwick's
tears that gem these leaves." She gathered the flowers, and, first
kissing them, placed them in her bosom; with slow steps, and a sorrowing
heart, she re-entered the castle.
The progress of the Lady Elizabeth from Sheriff Hutton to London was
attended by every circumstance that could sustain her hopes. She was
received with acclamation and enthusiasm in every town through which she
passed. She indeed looked forward with girlish vanity to the prospect of
sharing the throne with Henry. She had long been taught the royal
lesson, that with princes, the inclinations are not to bear any part in
a disposal of the hand. Her imagination fed on the good she would do for
others, when raised to the regal dignity; the hope of liberating
Warwick, and of fulfilling her mother's wishes in conferring benefits on
various partizans of the White Rose, filled her bosom with the purest
joy; youth, beauty, and the expectation of happiness, caused the measure
of her content to overflow. With a fluttering heart she entered London:
small preparation had been made to receive her, and she was immediately
conducted to her mother's abode at the Tower Royal, in the parish of
Walbrook. The first check her hopes received arose from the clouded brow
of the queen, as she embraced her daughter, and welcomed her arrival.
Many fears in truth occupied the thoughts of the illustrious widow. She
could not forget her sons; and the mystery that hung over the fate of
the younger pressed heavily upon her. It was now the eighteenth of
October, and the preparations for the coronation of Henry were in great
forwardness; Parliament had recognized his title without any allusion to
the union with the heiress of the House of York. She had endeavoured to
fathom his purposes, and to understand his character. She knew that he
entertained a settled hatred for the White Rose, and that his chief
pride lay in establishing himself on the throne, independent of the
claim he might acquire by his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth. The
common people murmured, the Yorkists were discontented,--the neighbour
stage before they should break out into open rebellion. Thus dark clouds
interposed before the sun of peace, which had been said to have risen on
the event of the battle of Bosworth Field.
Henry the Seventh was crowned on the thirtieth of October. The queen
looked on this ceremony as the downfall of her hopes. Housed by this
fear, she entered into a sea of intrigue, in which, after all, she had
no certain aim, except that of re-animating the zeal of the Yorkists,
and of exciting such discontent in the public mind, on the postponement
of her daughter's marriage, as to force Henry to consent to an immediate
union. The gentle Elizabeth had meanwhile submitted patiently to her
destiny. She dismissed regality from her thoughts, and devoted herself
to her mother; recreating herself in the society of her sisters, and now
and then contemplating the faded leaves she had brought from Sheriff
Hutton, and lamenting the fate of Warwick. She had learned to fear and
almost to hate Henry; and, but for the sake of her suffering party, to
rejoice that he had apparently relinquished his intention of marrying
her.
The dissatisfaction manifested by the English people forced Henry to
comply with the universal wish entertained of seeing the daughter of
Edward the Fourth on the throne; yet it was not until the beginning of
January that the princess received intimation to prepare for her
nuptials. This prospect, which had before elated, now visited her
coldly; for, without the hope of influencing her husband, the state of a
queen appeared mere bondage. In her heart she wished to reject her
uncourteous bridegroom; and once she had ventured to express this desire
to her mother, who, filled with affright, laid aside her intrigues,
devoting herself to cultivate a more rational disposition in her
daughter. Henry paid the doomed girl one visit, and saw little in her
except a bashful child; while his keener observation was directed
towards the dowager queen. She, with smooth brow and winning smiles, did
the honours of reception to her future son-in-law--to her bitter foe.
The cold courtesy of Henry chilled her; and a strong desire lurked under
her glossy mien, to reproach the usurper with his weak title, to set up
her daughter's claim in opposition to his, and to defy him to the field.
As soon as Henry departed, her suppressed emotions found vent in tears.
Elizabeth was astonished: she knelt before her, caressed her, and asked
if all were not well now, since the plighted troth had passed between
her and the king.
"Has it passed?" murmured the queen; "and is your hapless fate decided?
Why did I not join you at Sheriff Hutton? Why did I not place your hand
in that of your noble cousin? Ah, Warwick! could I even now inspire you
with my energy, you would be free in arms; and England to a man would
rise in the cause of Edward the Sixth, and my sweet Elizabeth!"
The colour in the princess's cheeks varied during the utterance of this
speech; first they flushed deep red, but the pale hue of resolution
succeeded quickly to the agitation of doubt. "Mother," she said, "I was
your child; plastic clay in your hands; had you said these words two
hours ago, Warwick might have been liberated--I perhaps happy. But you
have given me away; this ring is the symbol of my servitude; I belong to
Henry. Say no word, I beseech you, that can interfere with my duty to
him. Permit me to retire."
On the eighteenth of January her nuptials were celebrated.
The forbidding manners of Henry threw a chill over the marriage
festival. He considered that he had been driven to this step by his
enemies; and that the chief among these, influenced by her mother, was
Elizabeth herself. The poor girl never raised her eyes from the moment
she had encountered at the altar the stern and unkind glance of the
king. Her steps were unassured, her voice faltering; the name of wife
was to her synonymous with that of slave, while her sense of duty
prevented every outward demonstration of the despair that occupied her
heart.
Her mother's indignation was deeper, although not less veiled. She could
silence, but not quell, the rage that arose in her breast from her
disappointment; and there were many present who shared her sentiments.
As far as he had been able, Henry had visited the Yorkists with the
heaviest penalties. An act of attainder had been passed against the duke
of Norfolk, Lord Lovel, the Staffords, and all indeed of note who had
appeared against him. Those with whom he could not proceed to
extremities, he wholly discountenanced. The Red Rose flourished bright
and free--one single white blossom, doomed to untimely blight, being
entwined with the gaudier flowers.