IMPRISONMENT IN THE TOWER
And bare, at once, Captivity displayed,
Stands scoffing through the never-opened gate;
Which nothing through its bars admits, save day
And tasteless food.
BYRON.
The Lady Katherine, no longer trusting the good intentions of the
insolent tyrant, was eager to communicate with her royal cousin of
Scotland, to urge him to save from death or disgrace, if not to effect
the liberation of him to whom he had given her hand. The difficulty of
finding a messenger was great. The queen, all amiable and sorrowing as
she was, shrunk from any act, which, if discovered, would enrage the
king. Where did Monina tarry while her friend was in this strait? Of all
his sometime associates was there not one who would risk all to retard
the last steps of fate. Since York's escape she had been so vigilantly
guarded, that a thousand schemes she had formed for her own evasion
proved abortive at their very outset.
Help was at length afforded her unexpectedly, when most despairing.
Edmund Plantagenet stood before her--changed indeed from what he had
been; she had not seen him since the siege of Exeter, where he was
wounded; but slight was his bodily hurt in comparison to the death-blow
his mind received.
Plantagenet was one of those concentrated characters, whose very outward
show of softness and gentleness serves the more to force the texture of
their souls to receive one indelible impression. He had passed a boyhood
of visions, given up to mighty aspirations and engrossing reverie. His
thoughts were stirring as the acts of others; his forest-school had so
tutored him, that he could live in bodily repose, while his mind
ruminated: he could be quickened to hope and fear, to lofty ambition, to
generosity, and devoted courage, feeling in his heart the keenest
impulses--while around him were the mute trees of the wild wood and
pathless glades. He could be satisfied with such dreamy illusions; so
that action with him was never the result of physical restlessness, nor
of youthful emulation, nor of that stirring spirit of life which forces
us to abhor repose. It flowed from an imperious sense of duty; it welled
up from the very sources of his soul. Other men perform the various
parts allotted to them, and yet are something else the while; as is the
actor, even while he struts in the garb of royalty: but Edmund yielded
himself wholly up, and was the mere creature of the thought within.
To be great and good--great from the good he should effect, was his
boyhood's aspiration. It is probable that, if he had not been subjected
to extraneous influence, he would have devoted himself to religion, and
become a saint or martyr; for his all, his understanding, heart, and
person, would have been given up to the holy cause he espoused. His
being led to King Richard's tent, the night before the battle of
Bosworth Field, gave a new and inextinguishable law to his life. Unknown
duties were imposed. The first and dearest was, to redeem his father's
soul from the guilt of murderous ambition, by elevating his injured
nephew to his original greatness. He devoted himself to his cousin. Soon
he learned to love Richard as the work of his own hands. He had reared
his tender infancy; he had been his tutor in martial exercises, teaching
him to curb the fiery steed, to wield the lance, and, more than all, to
meet danger in the field fearlessly: to be honourable, brave, and kind.
He had led him to war, and shielded him with his own body from the cruel
Moor. If ever they were divided, his thoughts dwelt only the more
carefully with him. Last, he had brought him from glorious combats in
Spain, to conquer his ancestral kingdom, and set him up the rival of a
powerful king--the mark of his vengeance.
It was all over. Edmund possessed no innate strength to rise from the
blow; he was a mariner on the wide ocean, without compass or rudder. The
universe had one central point for him; that was destroyed, and a total
blank remained. York's first surrender visited him as a death-stroke; he
struggled against it. Enfeebled by his wound, more by despair, he passed
over to Ireland; there he expected to find friends of the White Rose; he
found only enemies of Duke Perkin: men eager to exculpate themselves
from the charges of ill faith or ingratitude, gladly adopted a
phraseology, or a belief, that reduced to dust the golden glories of
poor Edmund's idol. Perkin Warbeck! Oh thou flower of York! thou
nursling of love, though child of calamity, is even thy bright name so
to be tainted? Not by those immediately arrayed by self-interest against
thee; but by, the vulgar crew, ever eager to crush the fallen. There was
no hope in Ireland. Keating, the Prior of Kilmainham, was dead. The earl
of Desmond was reconciled to the English government. Lord Barry had fled
to Spain. The citizens of Cork were busy redeeming, by eager servility,
their mayor's disloyalty.
Overcome by these sad changes, a malignant fever seized on Edmund: in
addition to every other disappointment, he had the consciousness that
his aid was necessary to his cousin: that his absence was probably
misinterpreted by his friends as cowardly dereliction. York was calling
on him in vain. Monina perhaps suspected his truth. Next to the sun of
his life, the noble Richard, Monina lay nearest his heart. It was a
mixture of many feelings; and even love, subdued by hopelessness,
quickened them to greater intensity. As soon as he could rise from his
couch, he directed his course to England. He arrived in London on the
day of the duke of York's worst disgrace. It was reported to him as the
gossip of the town: at the fatal word a mortal change seized upon his
frame: his limbs were as if struck by palsy; his cheeks fell in; his
hair grew white. On his arrival he had taken up his abode in a monastery
in the habit of a poor pilgrim: the sage monks, who beheld his state,
possessed no leech-craft to administer his cure: he lay with beating
pulses and open eyes, while the work of the grave appeared already in
operation against him: he wasted into a fleshless skeleton. And then
another secret change came over him; he conquered death, and crawled
forth, the ghost of what he was, into the hopeless world.
He contrived to gain admission to the princess. She did not recognize
him, such was the pale disguise disease had put upon him. His voice,
hollow as from a tomb, was altered; his dark, melancholy eyes, occupying
too large a portion of his face, gleamed from under his streaked and wan
brow. Yet his was a visit of comfort, for he could do her mission to
Scotland, and invite the forgetful James to succour his friend and
kinsman. Edmund listened eagerly to this proposal: a draught of soothing
balm descended into his frame, with the thought that yet all was not
lost. His physical energy almost returned: he hurried to depart--"How
will you traverse this wide kingdom?" asked the lady. "Cannot the Adalid
come as before, to aid and speed you on your way?"
"The Adalid is sailing on the far ocean sea," replied Plantagenet; "we
are all as dead, in the eyes of De Faro and our Monina."
"Faithless girl!"
With a trace of his ancient warmth and sweetness, Edmund entered upon
the gentle maiden's exculpation. He related that a poor fellow lay on
the bed next his in the convent hospital, whom he recognized to be an
Irishman, who had escaped from Waterford, and sailed with them in the
Adalid to Cornwall. From him he heard the tale of what had befallen De
Faro and his child. He heard how the mariner had long haunted the
English coast waiting for an opportunity to carry off the prince; of the
fatal night, when snatching his daughter from the watery peril, he saw
Richard, as he believed, perish in the waves. What more had the Moorish
mariner and his daughter to do with this miserable, guilty island? He
called his men together; he told them his resolve finally to quit the
eastern world for the golden islands of the west, inviting those who
were averse to the voyage to go on shore at once, before the fair wind
that was rising should hurry them into the open sea. The poor Irishman
alone desired to land: before he went he saw the Spanish damsel; he
described her as calm and mild, though there was something unearthly in
her gleaming eyes and in the solemn tone of her voice. "If," she said,
"you meet any of our friends, any who ask for De Faro and his daughter,
if you see Lady Brampton, Lord Barry, or Sir Edmund Plantagenet, tell
them that Monina lives, that she tarries with her father, and tasks
herself to be his comfort and support. We seek the Western Indies; well
may it betide us that we never reach the unknown strand; or we may be
cast away in an uninhabited solitude, where my care and companionship
may stead my dear father much; or I may teach the sacred truths of our
religion to the wild Indians, and speak the dear name of Christ to the
unbaptized of those wilds; or soften, as best I may, the cruel Spaniard,
and save the devoted people from their barbarity. Tell them, whichever
way I look, I perceive a thousand duties to which our great Taskmaster
calls me, and these I live to fulfil, if so my feeble body will permit;
tell them that my only hope is death; that, and that by my obedience to
the Almighty will, I may partly merit to join in Paradise the earthly
angel who now survives there."
Tears choked further speech; she imprinted her words by a gift of gold.
The boat which had been hailed, came alongside. The man on board, the
sails of the Adalid swelled proudly in the gale; the little caravel ran
lightly along on the top of the roughening waters. In less than two
hours she was out of sight, speeding swiftly over the sea towards the
wild western ocean.
Plantagenet departed; and the princess was yet more cheered when she
found that no further injury 'was meditated against her lord.
Imprisonment in the Tower was his sole punishment. Her pure, gentle mind
could not divine the full extent of King Henry's villany, nor guess how
he undermined the edifice he claimed praise for not levelling with the
ground.
Nor could her resigned, patient, feminine spirit conceive the cruel,
biting impatience of his lot that York endured. He had yielded at first
to the overwhelming sense of disgrace, and felt that last, worst emotion
of the injured, which answers the internal question, "What have I done
so to be visited?" in the poet's words,--
"I cannot charge
My memory with much save sorrow--but
I have been so beyond the common lot
Chastened and visited, I needs must think
That I was wicked."
But soon his eager, eagle spirit spurned the tame debasing thought: he
resolved again to struggle, and at last to conquer; the fire burned
brighter for its short smouldering; almost with a light heart he
laughed, as he resolved again to endeavour.
His prison life was more than irksome; it was unendurable. No change,
which is the soul of enjoyment, varied it. No sympathy, the parent of
content, came anear. In his young days he had trod on the verge of
life's wave, watching it recede, and fancying that it would discover
glittering treasures as it retreated into the ocean of eternity: now the
tide ebbed sullenly; the barren sands grew dark; and the expanse before
afforded no hope--what was to be done?
He was in the Tower, whence he had twice escaped; where the earl of
Warwick was immured, pining in fruitless vegetation, rather than living.
Should he do as he had done, and become a cipher, a forgotten prisoner,
a mere thing to wake and sleep, and be as nothing? The very dog that
guards a cottage-door from nightly harm had more dignity and purpose in
his life than this victim of ambition. The bird that alighted on the
sill of his iron-barred casement, and carried off a crumb for her
nestlings, was an emblem of utility and freedom in comparison, which
Warwick, cut off from all, must weep to mark. How different was
Richard's fate; he had dear friends ready to risk all for him, whose
life's sacrifice he could repay only by being true to himself; he had a
wife, wedded to him in youth's early flower, whose happiness was
unalterably linked to his. He had courage, fortitude, energy; he would
not cast these gifts away, a thankless boon: he valued them at their
price: if death crowned his efforts, it were well; he was a mere toy in
the hands of God, and he submitted; but as a man, he was ready to cope
with men, and though defeated never to be vanquished. Not a month after
his removal to the Tower he had observed his facilities, marked his
instruments, and resolved to enter on his schemes: they were quickened
by other circumstances.
Warwick heard of his cousin's arrival; and he believed this to be the
signal of his own deliverance. His first chief desire was to have
communication with him. Among his attendants there was one to whom he
could apply; he was a lank, tall fellow, with little understanding and
but one idea--gratitude to the duke of Clarence. This man, called
Roger, and nicknamed Long Roger, his length being his chief distinction,
had been very poor, and burthened besides with several infant children:
accidents and a bad season brought them to the verge of starvation, when
a chance threw him in the way of the duke of Clarence, who got him made
servitor in the Tower. When this unfortunate prince was imprisoned
within its fatal walls. Long Roger underwent a thousand perils to wait
on him by stealth, and to do what service he might. Long Roger had a
prodigious appetite, and his chief delight was to smuggle dainties,
cooked by his Madge, into the prison chamber of the duke. The manner of
Clarence's death, which Roger affirmed to accord with the popular
tradition, alone consoled the faithful sympathizing fellow. Now he had
turned the key for thirteen years on the duke's hapless son: in spite of
his watchful care and proffered cates, he had seen the poor youth
dwindle to a skeleton, when suddenly the progress of delay was checked
by Our Lady: it was a miracle to see Lord Edward grow fat and comely to
look upon, changing his woe-begone looks into gracious smiles: by the
mass, there was witchcraft in it! Warwick often thanked Long Roger, and
told him what he would do when restored to freedom and rank: which will
never be, Roger said, except among the saints in Paradise; unless it
pleased God to remove his majesty, when my lady the queen should fully
know how fervently her cousin prayed for her; and, forsooth, with sweet
prince Arthur, his royal mother would be all-powerful. Long Roger's
visions went not beyond. He never imagined the possibility of effecting
the earl's escape; his limited understanding suggested no relief, save a
bottle of Canary, or bunches of white roses in June, which in fact was
Dame Madge's feminine idea; and often had the simple flowers soothed
Warwick's care. To this man the poor prisoner applied, to enable him to
see and converse with the newly-arrived Richard: two are better than one
to a feast; and, the next time Roger meditated a dainty supper for his
lord, he resolved to endeavour that York should partake it with him as a
guest.
In his own guileless way, the simple-hearted man began to practise on
and bribe one of his fellows, without whom it had been difficult to
accomplish his desire. Abel Blewet had lately been appointed to his
service: he was nearly a dwarf, with bushy eyebrows and red hair: there
was something of ill omen in his physiognomy, but as the tall yeoman
looked over the head of his comrade, his courage rose: "The
whipper-snapper could not rebuff me," he thought, as he drew himself up
to his full height, and began to propound the mighty deed of conducting
Perkin by mistake to the Lord Edward's chamber, on his return from
vespers. Roger paused suddenly; for, in spite of his stature, he was
appalled by the glance Blewet shot up from under his penthouses of
brows: still he gave a willing assent, and even took upon himself the
chief risk of the undertaking.
The following evening, while Richard was yet pondering how to commence
his machinations, undecided, though resolved; and while he made up his
mind not to betray his thoughts to the sinister-looking being before
him, he was surprised to find that he was led through an unaccustomed
gallery; and still more on entering the chamber into which he was
introduced, to recognise it as that where he had unexpectedly found
refuge during his last visit to the Tower, and to perceive that Warwick
himself was there expecting him.
Was this the thin, wasted being he had seen three years before? Had
Warwick been then set free to hunt upon the hills, he had not regained
more flesh and bloom than now that hope had been his only medicine. His
cousin York had inspired him with marvellous confidence; his last
entrance into the formidable Tower, and his speedy exit, had appeared a
miracle to the poor earl, to whom these high walls and sad chambers
formed a world, from which, as from the larger one, death only promised
egress. He had pined and wasted in his appetite to be free, to be
without those gates, beyond that fosse and giant battlements that girded
him in: these portentous, insuperable obstacles were mere cobweb chains
to Richard. He had come in, he had departed, and all as easily, so
Warwick thought, as the unregarded fly, that had perhaps flown from
Westminster, from Elizabeth's chamber, to light upon his cheek. In all
the subsequent tales of York's checks and overthrow, he smiled at the
idea that one born to victory could be thus overcome. He laughed at the
chains Henry had thrown over him; and his transfer to the Tower elated
him with a firm belief that liberty was at hand. Dwelling on these
thoughts, Warwick ceased to be the dead alive; he was cheerful, erect,
elastic in his gait, his complexion glowed with health, while sickness
lingered still on the cheek of the younger Plantagenet, and a more
subdued spirit dwelt in his heart.
Long Roger beheld the cousins embrace: he heard the earl call him, named
Perkin, his liege, and most dear kinsman: from that moment the
opprobrious name was banished from Roger's lips: he was convinced of
York's truth, and the Lord Edward's friend became an object of reverence
and of love.