I
In these summer days there was much faring abroad in the broad lands to
north and to south of the Pontefract Castle. The sunlight lay across
moors and uplands. The King was come with all his many to Newcastle; but
no Scots King was there to meet him. So he went farther to northwards.
His butchers drove before him herds of cattle that they slew some of
each night: their hooves made a broad and beaten way before the King's
horses. Behind came an army of tent men: cooks, servers, and sutlers.
For, since they went where new castles were few, at times they must
sleep on moorsides, and they had tents all of gold cloth and black, with
gilded tent-poles and cords of silk and silver wire. The lords and
principal men of those parts came out to meet him with green boughs, and
music, and slain deer, and fair wooden kegs filled with milk. But when
he was come near to Berwick there was still no Scots King to meet him,
and it became manifest that the King's nephew would fail that tryst.
Henry, riding among his people, swore a mighty oath that he would take
way even into Edinburgh town and there act as he listed, for he had with
him nigh on seven thousand men of all arms and some cannon which he had
been minded to display for the instruction of his nephew. But he had, in
real truth, little stomach for this feat. For, if he would go into
Scotland armed, he must wait till he got together all the men that the
Council of the North had under arms. These were scattered over the whole
of the Border country, and it must be many days before he had them all
there together. And already the summer was well advanced, and if he
delayed much longer his return, the after progress from Pontefract to
London must draw them to late in the winter. And he was little minded
that either Katharine or his son should bear the winter travel. Indeed,
he sent a messenger back to Pontefract with orders that the Prince
should be sent forthwith with a great guard to Hampton Court, so that he
should reach that place before the nights grew cold.
And, having stayed in camp four days near the Scots border--for he loved
well to live in a tent, since it re-awoke in him the ardour of his youth
and made him think himself not so old a man--he delivered over to the
Earl Marshal forty Scots borderers and cattle thieves that had been
taken that summer. These men he had meant to have handed, pardoned, to
the Scots King when he met him. But the Earl Marshal set up, along the
road into Scotland, from where the stone marks the border, a row of
forty gallows, all high, but some higher than others; for some of the
prisoners were men of condition. And, within sight of a waiting crowd of
Scots that had come down to the boundaries of their land to view the
King of England, Norfolk hanged on these trees the forty men.
And, laughing over their shoulders at this fine harvest of fruit,
gibbering and dangling against the heavens on high, the King and his
host rode back into the Border country. It was pleasant to ride in the
summer weather, and they hunted and rendered justice by the way, and
heard tales of battle that there had been before in the north country.
But there was one man, Thomas Culpepper, in the town of Edinburgh to
whom this return was grievous. He had been in these outlandish parts now
for more than nineteen months. The Scots were odious to him, the town
was odious; he had no stomach for his food, and such clothes as he had
were ragged, for he would wear nothing that had there been woven. He was
even a sort of prisoner. For he had been appointed to wait on the King's
Ambassador to the King of Scots, and the last thing that Throckmorton,
the notable spy, had done before he had left the Court had been to write
to Edinburgh that T. Culpepper, the Queen's cousin, who was a dangerous
man, was to be kept very close and given no leave of absence.
And one thing very much had aided this: for, upon receiving news, or the
rumour of news, that his cousin Katharine Howard--he was her mother's
brother's son--had wedded the King, or had been shown for Queen at
Hampton Court, he had suddenly become seized with such a rage that,
incontinently, he had run his sword through an old fishwife in the
fishmarket where he was who had given him the news, newly come by sea,
thinking that because he was an Englishman this marriage of his King
might gladden him. The fishwife died among her fish, and Culpepper with
his sword fell upon all that were near him in the market, till, his heel
slipping upon a haddock, he fell, and was fallen upon by a great many
men.
He must stay in jail for this till he had compounded with the old
woman's heirs and had paid for a great many cuts and bruises. And Sir
Nicholas Hoby, happening to be in Edinburgh at that time, understood
well what ailed Thomas Culpepper, and that he was mad for love of the
Queen his cousin--for was it not this Culpepper that had brought her to
the court, and, as it was said, had aforetime sold farms to buy her food
and gowns when, her father being a poor man, she was well-nigh starving?
Therefore Sir Nicholas begged alike the Ambassador and the King of Scots
that they would keep this madman clapped up till they were very certain
that the fit was off him. And, what with the charges of blood ransom and
jailing for nine months, Culpepper had no money at all when at last he
was enlarged, but must eat his meals at the Ambassador's table, so that
he could not in any way come away into England till he had written for
more money and had earned a further salary. And that again was a matter
of many months, and later he spent more in drinking and with Scots women
till he persuaded himself that he had forgotten his cousin that was now
a Queen. Moreover, it was made clear to him by those about him that it
was death to leave his post unpermitted.
But, with the coming of the Court up into the north parts, his
impatience grew again, so that he could no longer eat but only drink and
fight. It was rumoured that the Queen was riding with the King, and he
swore a mighty oath that he would beg of her or of the King leave at
last to be gone from that hateful city; and the nearer came the King the
more his ardour grew. So that, when the news came that the King was
turned back, Culpepper could no longer compound it with himself. He had
then a plenty of money, having kept his room for seven days, and the
night before that he had won half a barony at dice from a Scots archer.
But he had no passport into England; therefore, because he was afraid to
ask for one, being certain of a refusal, he blacked his face and hands
with coal and then took refuge on a coble, leaving the port of Leith for
Durham. He had well bribed the master of this ship to take him as one of
his crew. In Durham he stayed neither to wash nor to eat, but, having
bought himself a horse, he rode after the King's progress that was then
two days' journey to the south, and came up with them. He had no wits
left more than to ask of the sutlers at the tail of the host where the
Queen was. They laughed at this apparition upon a haggard horse, and one
of them that was a notable cutpurse took all the gold that he had, only
giving him in exchange the news that the Queen was at Pontefract, from
which place she had never stirred. With a little silver that he had in
another bag he bought himself a provision of food, a store of drink, and
a poor Kern to guide him, running at his saddle-bow.
He saw neither hills nor valleys, neither heather nor ling: he had no
thoughts but only that of finding the Queen his cousin. At times the
tears ran down his begrimed face, at times he waved his sword in the air
and, spurring his horse, he swore great oaths. How he fared, where he
rested, by what roads he went over the hills, that he never knew.
Without a doubt the Kern guided him faithfully.
For the Queen, having news that the King was nearly come within a day's
journey, rode out towards the north to meet him. And as she went along
the road, she saw, upon a hillside not very far away, a man that sat
upon a dead horse, beating it and tugging at its bridle. Beside him
stood a countryman, in a garment of furs and pelts, with rawhide boots.
She had a great many men and ladies riding behind her, and she had come
as far as she was minded to go. So she reined in her horse and sent two
prickers to ask who these men were.
And when she heard that this was a traveller, robbed of all his money
and insensate, and his poor guide who knew nothing of who he might be,
she turned her cavalcade back and commanded that the traveller should be
borne to the castle on a litter of boughs and there attended to and
comforted until again he could take the road. And she made occasion upon
this to comment how ill it was for travellers that the old monasteries
were done away with. For in the old time there were seven monasteries
between there and Durham, wherein poor travellers might lodge. Then, if
a merchant were robbed upon the highways, he could be housed at
convenient stages on his road home, and might afterwards send recompense
to the good fathers or not as he pleased or was able. Now, there was no
harbourage left on all that long road, and, but for the grace of God,
that pitiful traveller might have lain there till the ravens picked out
his eyes.
And some commended the Queen's words and actions, and some few, behind
their hands, laughed at her for her soft heart. And the more Lutheran
sort said that it was God's mercy that the old monasteries were gone;
for they had, they said, been the nests for lowsels, idle wayfarers,
palmers, pilgrims, and the like. And, praise God, since that clearance
fourteen thousand of these had been hanged by the waysides for sturdy
rogues, to the great purging of the land.