money in his pocket before he permitted Marguerite to escape his
fingers. And, with that intense smallness of soul which--with the
exception of King John--was most remarkable in him of all the
Plantagenet monarchs, he refused, in his diplomatic negotiations, to
bestow upon Marguerite the regal title. Judging from his diction, he
was puzzled what to call her. He hit at last upon her title as a
Neapolitan Princess, less than which it might seem impossible to give
her. On the thirteenth of November, 1475, Thomas Thwaytes, knight,
received the royal command to deliver "the most serene Lady Margaret,
daughter of the illustrious Prince King Rene," to Sir Thomas Montgomery;
and the latter was ordered to convey the said lady to "the most serene
Prince, Louis of France, our dearest cousin." The ingenious way in
which King Louis is very civilly described, without admitting his title
to the crown of France, is worth notice. But when the actual delivery
came, it was found that a lower indignity yet was possible for poor
Marguerite. She was required to sign a formal renunciation of all rights
and privileges in England which her marriage-settlements had secured to
her. In this document no title whatever was given to her. She was not
even recognised as a foreign Princess. The opening words described her
as "Margaret, sometime in England married." The words would have truly
described every cottager's wife in the kingdom who bore the name of
Margaret--then one of the commonest names in England. But when the
insulting document was laid down before the Queen, she calmly took up
the pen and signed it. What did titles signify to her now? There was
no husband, there was no son, whose rights could be invaded, and whose
feelings could be outraged, by any renunciation of name or dignity on
her part. She felt with Valentina of Orleans--"Rien ne m' est plus:
plus ne m' est rien!" So she quietly signed her regal "Marguerite,"[#]
and by her own act laid down that queenly title which had been so heavy
and blood-stained a burden.
[#] In signing English documents, the Queen spelt her name "Margarete."
Queen Marguerite survived this action six years, which she spent, so
long as her father lived, with him at the Castle of Reculee, near
Angers, and afterwards at Chateau Dampierre, near Saumur. Her last years
were burdened with the horrible disease of leprosy,[#] supposed to have
been caused by intense grief. It was on the twenty-fifth of August,
1482, at Chateau Dampierre, that she laid down the weary weight of life,
and as we would fain believe and surely may be allowed to hope, went to
keep eternal holiday.
[#] What was meant by leprosy in the Middle Ages is an unsettled
question. It was evidently a cutaneous disease of some kind, but is
generally supposed not to have been identical with the oriental leprosy
of which we read in Scripture.
Perhaps, for her, there was no other way into the Garden of God than
through that great and howling wilderness. If it were so, how glad a
sight must the lights of home have been to that storm-wearied voyager!
This interview between the two Kings had a further pecuniary result--the
payment during some time of an annual sum of L11,000 by France to
England--a sum which the King of France was careful to term a pension,
and which the King of England took equal care to call a tribute. Edward
also made a further effort to obtain the young Earl of Richmond, who was
the fly in his ointment: but that wary youth, learning the fact, took
instant sanctuary, and the effort was in vain.
The winter of 1475-6 opened with rejoicings for the birth of the
Princess Anne--perhaps the best of the daughters of Edward IV. She
certainly possessed two qualities enjoyed by few of the
others--lowliness and modesty. The rejoicings were increased a week
after New Year's Day, when a second royal Anne was born--the only child
of the Duchess of Exeter and Sir Thomas St. Leger. She lived to become
the stock of the Dukes of Rutland: and she transmitted to them, not only
the property of her mother, but also lands on which she had no equitable
claim--those of the hapless Duke of Exeter. Had there been any right
feeling in the heart of his wretched widow, she would have bequeathed
those estates to the last of the Holands of Exeter, his sister Anne,
Lady Douglas, and they would have descended to her posterity, the
Nevilles of Raby. She did it not: and she had little time to do it.
The baby daughter had scarcely more than entered this troublesome world,
ere the soul was required of the Princess Anne of Exeter. She died on
the twelfth or fourteenth of January, 1476. For her an awful account
waited at the judgment bar.
In the last month of that year, Isabel Duchess of Clarence was summoned
before the same Divine tribunal. Her death was a signal misfortune to
her husband. Her influence had not been altogether for good, by any
means, yet such good as had been in it was sorely missed. Clarence had
loved her, and it is doubtful if he ever loved any other creature.
After her death he became reckless even beyond his former unscrupulous
condition. Gloucester kept his sinister eyes upon him, ready to take
advantage of the first political slip which he might make. It came two
years after Isabel's death. Clarence, who had previously quarrelled
with his brother Edward, was present at a trial of some old women on the
charge of witchcraft, and took the liberty of remonstrating with the
judges on too much haste in condemning the prisoners, as it seemed to
him, without sufficient evidence. Gloucester took advantage of this
circumstance. He adroitly represented to the King that Clarence had
interfered with the course of justice, thus taking upon himself a
prerogative of the Crown: that there was strong reason to think that he
contemplated a journey to Burgundy, with the view of assisting the Duke,
then in hostility to King Edward: that he had many times tried to
supplant his brother. The intensely superstitious Edward was reminded
of an old prediction that "G. shall reign after E.,"--and did not George
begin with the fated letter? So did Gloucester, but of course my Lord
Duke omitted that suggestion. He succeeded in frightening Edward into a
panic. Clarence was arrested, placed before the Council, and condemned
unheard. He was sentenced to be hanged: but at the intercession of the
Duchess Cicely, mother alike of the King and of the criminal, the
sentence was commuted to imprisonment in the Tower. Ten days later, in
his dungeon, Clarence was found dead, his head hanging over an open butt
of his favourite liquor, malvoisie. Hence arose the popular tradition
that he had been allowed to choose the manner of his death, and that he
had elected to be drowned in a butt of malmsey. In all probability the
open butt had been placed in his cell by order of the brother who so
well knew Clarence's weakness, and hoped by this means to get rid of him
without any legal responsibility as to his end. So perished the false
and faithless Clarence,--destroyed, like many another, on a mere
technical pretext, when on other counts he had previously merited
execution a hundred times over.
The years went on, and after a very short illness, Edward IV. passed to
his own account. After him came the deluge. Events succeeded one
another with startling rapidity. Only for two months was that grave and
gentle boy styled King Edward V. Then came the sudden _coup d' etat_,
prepared for during many years, by which Gloucester seized the crown,
and shut up the boy-King in prison. The Queen and Princesses once more
fled to sanctuary; the old friends and adherents of Edward, some of whom
had sold their very souls for the White Rose, were sacrificed on the
most trifling pretexts: and among them, the best of them all, the
upright and honourable Rivers. The boy-King and his brother were put
quietly out of the way. The new King made a progress throughout the
country, from Windsor to York, joined by the Queen at Warwick. One of
those strange gleams of tenderness which now and then flit across the
conduct of Richard III., as though for an instant he paused to listen to
the whispers of his better angel, induced him to spare Anne Neville a
royal progress which would have led her through Tewkesbury. At the
close of the year King Richard was at Westminster, firmly seated on his
blood-stained throne. He might well think, like the Spanish Regent,
that he had not a single enemy: for he had shot them all. But he forgot
one, yet left on earth: and he forgot one Other, who remaineth for ever
in Heaven.
And then his Nemesis began to come upon him. His one cherished child
died "an unhappy death" at Middleham Castle. His wife, once if
selfishly, yet so passionately loved, faded away and died by inches,
surviving her boy just twelve months. The terrors of God overwhelmed
him. He was tormented by perpetual apprehensions of conspiracy, and
distracted by nightly visions of horror. And then Richmond landed at
Milford Haven, and the climax came. With that personal courage which
was the best item of his bad character, Richard rushed into the field of
Bosworth, "and, foremost fighting, fell."
So ended the male line of the White Rose. The Red was uppermost at
last. The struggle, with all its untold agony, which had lasted through
thirty years, was over at length, and for ever.
Some tardy justice was done now. To the poor old Countess of Warwick,
starving in the north, her lands were given back, the iniquitous decree
which had deprived her of them being stigmatised, as it deserved, as
"against all reason, conscience, and course of nature, and contrary to
the law of God and man." But not only the pomps and vanities of this
wicked world, but also all covetous desires of the same, had long ago
faded from that lonely and weary heart. All whom she had loved were in
the grave, and her heirs were grandchildren whom she had never known,
whose father had been her worst enemy, and who were abundantly provided
for without a rood of any land of hers. Just a few pounds while she
lived, just a shelter to cover her hoary head, was all that Anne
Beauchamp craved for the little rest of life. She resigned all her
property the same year to the Crown, receiving in exchange the manor of
Sutton, in Warwickshire. It was probably there that she died, full of
years and sorrows, in or shortly before 1493.
To "Dame Bessy Grey" the Nemesis came too. It is customary to bestow
great pity on the widow of Edward IV.; and it is true that few women
have known more crushing sorrow than she. But I think it is too
commonly forgotten how much she had deserved it. She was a most
designing woman--the truth was not in her: and she was pitiless to the
sorrows of others. In her last years she retired to Bermondsey
Convent--of her own motion; not, as has been represented, through
coercion from her son-in-law--and there she died, on the 7th or 8th of
June, 1493.
Except in the form of witnessing sorrows borne by his friends, no
Nemesis ever came to Thomas Grey, now[#] Marquis of Dorset. That form
is, to some natures, one of the very bitterest which pain can take: to
others it is absolutely painless. Judging from what is known of his
character, it may be surmised that the misfortunes of his friends would
be a sorrow borne very philosophically by him. Two years' exile, during
the short reign of King Richard, was the worst he had to bear for
himself--that is, in this life.
[#] Created Apr. 18th, 1475. He is said to have been previously made
Earl of Huntingdon, Aug. 4, 1471--the second title of the Duke of
Exeter: but I never found one instance when he was so termed on the
Rolls.
Notwithstanding his disappointment concerning Agnes, Master Rotherham
kept up his acquaintance with Lovell Tower. He was present when she
took the veil at Godstow, in the summer of 1476; and that she was not
the only attraction he found in the family was proved by the continuance
of his visits. About three years after her profession, Master Rotherham
came to the conclusion, which he communicated to Lord Marnell, that his
grief for the loss of Agnes would be considerably alleviated if he might
have her sister Dorathie. Lord Marnell hesitated: for Dorathie's social
position, as heiress presumptive to her mother's barony, was very
different from that of Agnes. But he consulted the elder ladies, and
found Lady Margery of opinion that a good, sensible man without title or
large property would be a much better husband for Dorathie than a bad or
foolish man who brought her a coronet and a county.
"Say you not so, Madam?" she concluded, turning to her mother.
The Lady Idonia's reply was to call Dorathie to her. She took her
grand-daughter's face in both hands, and looked tenderly at the rosy
cheeks and the pretty blue eyes, which were those neither of father nor
mother, but which reminded Idonia Marnell, how often no one knew, of
other blue eyes which were dust now in the Abbey of St. Albans.
"Aye, Madge. It will do," was the short but distinct decision of the
old lady.
So Dorathie Marston became Dorathie Rotherham, and instead of departing
to some strange place with her husband, he came to live with her.
The years went on, until the autumn leaves of 1537 were carpeting the
green sward, and the wind was blowing keenly through the glades of
Woodstock, and waving the willows that congregate round the Abbey of
Godstow. The period was one which we look back upon as lively and
tumultuous: yet to the few aged men and women who could look back
further yet, to the terrible days of the Roses, it seemed very quiet.
Matters had changed greatly since that time. The little printing-press
set up by William Caxton the mercer in the Westminster Cloisters, had
spread its wide wings over all the land: and the monk who, in his
isolated courage, had posted his theses on the door of the church at
Wittemburg, had spread his skirts over all the world. Men talked busily
now on subjects which they had hardly thought about, fifty years before.
Men, aye, and women too, dared to think for themselves. And one of the
earliest results of these phenomena was the conclusion that the
so-called religious houses had generally ceased to be houses of
religion, and that the sooner they were done away with the better.
The state of many of these religious houses was of a kind that simply
cannot be described. In them Satan and his angels reigned supreme. But
there were a few--alas! they were very few--where the vows were really
kept, where learning still had scope, and charity still held sway. And
of female communities, the best of all these was the Abbey of Godstow.
The smaller houses, of the value of three hundred marks and under, were
first suppressed. The larger, of which Godstow was one, followed later.
Undoubtedly the motives for this proceeding were not pure and unmixed.
Every person who joined in it was not actuated by exclusive regard for
morality, nor was everybody quite innocent of some respect for those
confiscated lands--not to speak of silver vases, gemmed reliquaries, and
gold pieces--which, in the general up-breaking, might fall in his
direction. Perhaps, when we have satisfied ourselves that our own
motives are on all occasions absolutely unadulterated, we shall be in a
more advantageous position to cast stones at the Reformers.
The suppression of the Abbey of Godstow was close at hand, and the nuns
had made arrangements for the lives they meant to lead in future. Such
of them as had relatives living commonly returned to them. A few of the
elder ones, who had none, took refuge in the one or two convents of
their Order which were, reasonably and charitably, allowed to remain
until the death of the last surviving member. Those who married were
very few, and were decidedly independent of public opinion.
On a small, but comfortable, pallet-bed in the infirmary of the Abbey
lay one nun who needed to make no such provision for future life. She
had received her invitation to the King's Palace, and she lay waiting
for His messengers to bring His chariot for her. She had other
invitations too: loving entreaties from the distant wolds of Yorkshire,
where Dorathie Rotherham, Baroness Marnell of Lymington, herself an old
woman of eighty years, was longing to cheer the last days of her aged
and only sister; and scarcely less urgent pressure from far Devonshire,
where the Lady Combe, of Combe Abbas, was affectionately desirous to
minister to her husband's saintly and venerable aunt. But none of all
these moved Mother Agnes, as she lay in the pallet-bed, waiting for the
King's messengers. Life's fitful fever was over, and the eventide had
come. For her there was a longer journey, to a better home.
Outside the infirmary two nuns, an old woman and a middle-aged one, were
discussing some point which evidently disturbed their serenity.
"Well, it must be, I count," said the younger, who was the Abbess
herself. "I am sore afeared it shall be diseaseful to Mother Agnes.
Good lack, can they not do the King's gracious pleasure without poking
into every corner, and counting the threads in every spider's web!
Howbeit--Well! go, Sister Katherine, and say that my Lords the King's
Commissioners can ascend now. But I would have thee say to the chief of
them, whoso it be, that in the infirmary is a very aged and holy sister
that is nigh to death, and that I pray them of their grace to tread in
that chamber as quiet as may be."
Sister Katherine departed on her errand, and the Abbess went forward
into the sick chamber. A few minutes later her messenger rejoined her.
"My Lords Commissioners speak very fair," said she. "I told the eldest
gentleman as you bade me, holy Mother: and he promiseth that only the
three chiefest of them shall come into this chamber, and that they shall
tread and speak so quiet as may be."
"'Tis the best we may look for," responded the Abbess: "but I would it
were well over."
In about half an hour the footsteps were heard approaching. They roused
the dying nun, who had been in a dozing condition for some time.
"What is it, holy Mother?" she said nervously.
"Dear heart, 'tis but those weary companions, the King's Highness' noble
Commissioners, that must needs see with their own evil eyes how many
candlesticks and phials of physic be of the mantel-shelf," said the
Abbess rather irritably. "They know their own business, trow: but
verily I would have thought, after reckoning every aglet[#] in the
treasury, and every stick of firewood in the yard, they might have left
us poor nuns be to drink our senna in peace. Dear heart, what work is
here to drive out an handful of old women into this wicked world! Well,
well! we shall soon have done therewith, most of us."
[#] The little silver ring which surrounds lace-holes in boots, stays,
&c.
She ceased her diatribe, for my Lords Commissioners were entering, and
standing up, gave them her blessing--with how much sincerity she was not
careful to state. The three gentlemen bowed low to the mitred Abbess,
and seemed half alarmed at their own temerity.
"Methinks we need not tarry hither," said the chief Commissioner.
"May-be, holy Sister"--addressing Sister Katherine--"it should stand
with your conveniency, under leave of my Lady Abbess, to take note of
such furnishings as be in this chamber, and we will accept the
same.--Lead forth, my Lord of Dorset."
Before this could be done, the further progress of the Commissioners was
intercepted by a weak voice from the pallet bed.
"My Lord of Dorset!" said Mother Agnes faintly.
The youngest of the party, a fair-haired, good-looking young man of
about five-and-twenty, paused and turned to her, as if the name belonged
to him.
"Pray you, of your grace, come one moment hither," she said, speaking
with some difficulty.
The young Marquis came forward at once, and knelt by the bed of the
dying nun, who looked earnestly for some seconds into his face.
"What kin are you," she asked, "to sometime Queen Elizabeth, whose son
was Lord of Dorset?"
"That son was my father's father," answered the young man.
"So long ago!" said the dying woman. "Young Lord, 'tis but like
yesterday that your father's father was a young man like you. 'Past, as
a watch in the night!'"
Her eyes ran feebly over the handsome features, the clear grey eyes, the
nervous twitching of the brow, the good-natured fulness of the lower
lip, the weak, vacillating indecision of the retreating chin. In those
few seconds, she seemed to read his character.
"The good Lord's grace be with thee!" said the faint voice at last. "Be
thou strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might!"
Did Henry Grey think of those words, twenty years later, when after a
life spent in bondage through fear of death, God gave him grace to break
through the trammels of Satan, and to stand bravely out upon Tower Hill
to die for Him?
The Commissioners were gone, to the relief of the Abbess, who muttered
something as the door closed after them, which was not the same form of
words as the benediction with which she had greeted them. The next
moment she bent down to listen to the weak tones of Mother Agnes.
"Holy Mother, may I crave a boon of you?"
"Surely, good my sister," said the testy yet kind-hearted Abbess.
"Mother, among the gear that came hither with me, must be in the
treasury "--
Agnes paused for breath.
"Well, good sister?"
"A silver ring, set with little rubies in form of a cresset."
"Aye. What so?"
"Good Mother, of your grace, give me leave to bear that ring upon my
finger until I go hence."
The Abbess was sorely exercised by this request. It must imply either
strong vanity in the dying nun, or else a most undue attachment to
earthly things. Nay, probably, it meant what was still worse--an
attachment to earthly persons: a most improper thing in a professed nun!
The Abbess hesitated, but the woman's heart in her prevailed, as she
looked into the wistful, dying eyes.
"My sister, shall I do well if I say aye? Thou wist no holy nun must
have affinity with the world. Who gave thee the ring?"
"One that hath been dust these sixty years."
"Well, well! be it so. I trust thee, Sister Agnes. Only remember, thy
thoughts should be above, not below."
"Below is the dust only," said Agnes. "What I loved is above."
The old nun who kept the keys of the treasury found the silver ring, and
brought it to the Abbess. A faint smile greeted the remembered token as
it was slipped on the thin hand.
"Remove it not, I pray," she said, "until I am not here to care for it.
And now suffer me to keep silence, for I would commune with God."
The hand that bore the ring was laid upon her breast, with the other
hand crossed over it. Two hours passed, and she never stirred.
"She must lack food now," whispered the Abbess to Sister Katherine.
Sister Katherine shook her more experienced head.
"She will eat no more, save of the angels' manna."
That night, Sister Margaret unlocked the treasury, and restored the ruby
ring to its place. Agnes Marston cared for it no more.
*HISTORICAL APPENDIX.*
I. THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER, AND ITS CONNECTION
WITH THE HOUSE OF TUDOR.
Catherine, sixth and youngest daughter of Charles VI. King of France,
and Isabeau of Bavaria, was born at the Hotel, de St. Pol, Paris, Oct.
27th, 1401; and died at Bermondsey Abbey, London, Jan. 3rd, 1437. She
was buried in Westminster Abbey, after many years of neglect, during
which her corpse, dried to the appearance of a mummy, had been made a
show to strangers. Surnamed The Fair. One historian tells us that she
was a most devout woman, perpetually at prayer: but the excessively
wayward, impulsive, selfish character of all her actions during her
queenly life points to the conclusion that this refers exclusively to
her later days: as otherwise we should be impelled to the unwelcome but
unavoidable surmise that her prayers were allowed to have very little
effect upon her conduct. She married--
(1) King Henry V. of England, eldest son of Henry IV. and Mary Bohun:
born at Monmouth, Aug. 9th, 1387: married at Troyes Cathedral, June 3rd,
1420: died at Vincennes, of fever, Aug. 31st, 1432: buried in
Westminster Abbey.
(2) Owain, surnamed Twdwr (often contemporaneously spelt Tydier), son of
Meredith ap Twdwr and Margaret, daughter of David Vychan: born at
Snowdon, date unknown: wardrobe-keeper to Queen Catherine, whom he
married in 1428: beheaded, after the battle of Mortimer's Cross, at
Hereford, Feb. 2nd, 1461: buried in Grey Friars' Church, Hereford.
ISSUE OF CATHERINE OF FRANCE. (A) By Henry V.:--
1. HENRY VI., surnamed _The Holy_, born at Windsor (in direct
contravention of his father's orders) Dec. 6th, 1421: deposed Mar. 4th,
1461; restored, Oct., 1470; again deposed, Apr. 11th, 1471; died in the
Tower, London, May 21 [? 27th--see text], 1471: buried first at Chertsey
Abbey, afterwards in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.