And spare, O spare
The meek usurper’s holy head.
--GRAY.
Once more, at the close of morning service, while it was still dark, did
Harry Clifford, the new-made knight, kneel before King Henry and feel
his hand in blessing on his head. Then he went forth to join Musgrave
and the troop that the Earl of Oxford was leading from the Tower to
raise the counties of East Anglia and watch the coast against a descent
of King Edward from the Low Countries.
As they passed the walls enclosing the Minories Convent, and Hal gazed
at it wistfully, the wide gateway was opened and out came a party of
black-hooded nuns, mounted on ponies and mules, evidently waiting till
Oxford’s band had gone by. Harry drew Sir Giles’s attention, and they
lingered, as they became certain that they beheld the Prioress Selby of
Greystone, hawk, hound and all, riding forth, nearly smothered in her
hood, and not so upright as of old.
‘Ay, here I am!’ she said, as he reined up and bowed his greeting. ‘Here
I am on my pilgrimage! I got Father Ridley, the Benedictine head, to
order me forth. Methinks he was glad, being a north countryman, to send
me out before I either died on the Poor Clares’ hands, or gave them a
fuller store of tales against us of St. Bennet’s! Not but that they are
good women, too godly and devout for a poor wild north country Selby
like me, who cannot live without air.
O the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree,
They flourish best at home in the north countree.
Flori, Flori, whither away? Ah! thou hast found thine old friend. Birds
of a feather. Eh? the young folk have foregathered likewise. Watch! And
thou, sir knight, whither are you away?’
‘On our way to Norfolk in case the Duke of York should show himself on
the coast. And yours, reverend Mother?’
‘To Canterbury first by easy journeys. We sleep to-night at the Tabard,
where we shall meet other pilgrims.’
‘Here, alack! our way severs from yours. Farewell, holy Mother, may you
find health on your pilgrimage.’
‘Every breath I take in is health,’ said the Mother, who had already
manoeuvred an opening in her veil, and gasped to throw it back as soon
as she should attain an unfrequented place. ‘There are so many coming
and going here that all the air is used up by their greasy nostrils!
Well! good luck, and God’s blessing go with you, and you, young Hal, I
may say so far, whichever side ye be, but still I hold that York has the
right, and yours may be a saint, but not a king.’
Hal had meantime ‘forgathered’ as the Prioress said with Anne, marching,
in spite of his new honours, close to her stirrup, and venturing to
whisper to her that he was now her knight, and ‘her colours,’ which he
was to wear for her, were only a tiny scrap of ribbon from her glove,
which he cut off with his dagger, and kissed, saying he should wear it
next his heart, though he might not do so openly.
Their love was more implied than ever it had been before, and she
repeated her confidence that the kind Prioress would never leave her
till she had done her utmost for them both.
‘But you, my good stripling, I am ashamed to see you. I have done
nothing for you. I sent a humble message to ask to see the Archbishop,
but had no answer, and by-and-by, when I stirred again, who should come
to sec me but young Bertram Selby, and “Kinswoman,” said he, “you had
best keep quiet. The Archbishop hath asked me whether rumours were sooth
that yours was scarce a regular Priory.” The squire stood up for me and
said, as became one of the family, that an outlying cell, where there
were ill neighbours of Scots, thieves, borderers, and the like, could
scarce look to be as trim as a city nunnery, and that none had ever
heard harm of Mother Agnes. But then one of his priests took on him to
whisper in his ear, and he demanded whether we had not gone so far as to
hide traitors from justice, to which Bertram returned a stout denial as
well he might, though he thought it well to give me warning, but for the
present there was no use in attempting anything more. The Archbishop was
exceedingly busy with the work of his office and the defence of London
in case of Edward’s threatened return; but he had not yet come, and no
one thought there was a reasonable doubt that Warwick, the Kingmaker,
would not be victorious, and he had carried his son-in-law, the Duke of
Clarence, with him.’ After the cause of the Red Rose was won, there was
no fear but that the services of Clifford would be remembered. So Harry
Clifford parted with Anne, promising himself and her that there should
be fresh Clifford services, winning a recognition of the De Vesci
inheritance if of no more.
The ladies went on their way in the track which Chaucer has made
memorable, laying their count to meet Queen Margaret and her son, and
win their ears beforehand, and wondering that they came not. Kentish
breezes soon revived the Prioress, and she went through many strange
devotions at the shrine of Becket, which, it might be feared, did not
improve her spiritual, so much as her bodily, health, while Anne’s
chiefly resolved themselves into prayers that Harry Clifford might
be guarded and restored, and that she herself might be saved from the
dreaded Lord Redgrave.
They did not set out on the return to London till they had inhaled
plenty of sea breezes by visiting the shrine of St. Mildred in the isle
of Thanet, and St. Eanswith at Folkestone, till Lent had begun, and
the first fresh tidings that they met were that Edward had landed in
Yorkshire, but his fleet had been dispersed by storms, and the people
did not rise to join him, so that he was fain to proclaim that he only
came to assert his right to his father’s inheritance of the Dukedom of
York.
At the Minoresses’ Convent they found that a messenger had arrived,
bidding Anne go to meet her father at his castle in Bedfordshire. He was
coming over with the Queen whenever she could obtain a convoy from King
Louis of France. Lord Redgrave was with him, and the marriage should
take place as soon as they arrived.
‘Never fear, child,’ said the Prioress; ‘many is the slip between the
cup and the lip.’
Further tidings came that Edward had thrown off his first plea, that he
had passed Warwick’s brother Montagu at Pontefract, and that men from
his own hereditary estates were flocking to his royal banner. Warwick
was calling up his men in all directions, and both armies were advancing
on London. Then it was known that ‘false, fleeting, perjured Clarence’
had deserted his father-in-law, and returned to his brother; and
worthless as he individually was, it boded ill for Lancaster, though
still hope continued in the uniform success of the Kingmaker. Warwick
was about twenty miles in advance of Edward, till that King actually
passed him and reached the town of Warwick itself. Still the Earl wrote
to his brother that if he could only hold out London for forty-eight
hours all would be well.
Once more poor King Henry was set on horseback and paraded through the
streets. Brother Martin went out with the chaplain of the Poor Clares to
gaze upon him, and they came back declaring that he was more than ever
like the image carried in a procession, seeming quite as helpless and
indifferent, except, said Brother Martin, when he passed a church, and
then a heavenly look came over his still features as he bowed his head;
but none of the crowd who came out to gaze cried ‘Save King Harry!’ or
‘God bless him!’
There were two or three thousand Yorkists in the various sanctuaries of
London, and they were preparing to rise in favour of their King Edward,
and only a few hundred were mustering in St. Paul’s Churchyard for the
Red Rose.
The Poor Clares were in much terror, though nunneries and religious
houses, and indeed non-combatants in general, were usually respected
by each side in these wars; but the Prioress of Greystone was not sorry
that the summons to her protegee called her party off on the way to
Bedfordshire, and they all set forward together, intending to make
Master Lorimer’s household at Chipping Barnet their first stage, as they
had engaged to do.
Their intention had been notified to Lorimer’s people in his London
shop, who had sent on word to their master, and the good man came out
to meet them, full of surprise at the valour of the ladies in attempting
the journey. But they could not possibly go further. King Edward was at
St. Albans, and was on his way to London, and the Earl of Warwick was
coming up from Dunstable with the Earls of Somerset and Oxford. For
ladies, even of religious orders, to ride on between the two hosts was
manifestly impossible, and he and his wife were delighted to entertain
the Lady Prioress till the roads should be safe.
The Prioress was nothing loth. She always enjoyed the freedom of a
secular household, and she was glad to remain within hearing of the last
news in this great crisis of York and Lancaster.
‘I marvel if there will be a battle,’ she said. ‘Never have I had the
good luck to see or hear one.’
‘Oh! Mother, are you not afraid?’ cried Sister Mabel.
‘Afraid! What should I be afraid of, silly maid? Do you think the
men-at-arms are wolves to snap you up?’
‘And,’ murmured Anne, ‘we shall know how it goes with my Lord of
Oxford’s people.’
These were the last days of Lent, and were carefully kept in the matter
of food by the household, but the religious observances were much
disturbed by the tidings that poured in. King Henry and Archbishop Nevil
had taken refuge in the house of Bishop Kemp of London, Urswick the
Recorder, with the consent of the Aldermen, had opened the gates to
Edward, and the Good Friday Services at Barnet, the Psalms and prayers
in the church, were disturbed by men-at-arms galloping to and fro, and
reports coming in continually.
There could be no going out to gather flowers to deck the Church the
next day, for King Edward was on the London side, and Warwick with
his army had reached the low hills of Hadley, and their tents, their
banners, and the glint of their armour might be seen over the heathy
slope between them and the lanes and fields, surrounded by hedges, that
fenced in the valley of Barnet. The little town itself, though lying
between the two armies, remained unoccupied by either party, and only
men-at-arms came down into it, not as plunderers, but to buy food.
Warwick’s cannon, however, thundered all night, a very awful sound to
such unaccustomed ears, but they were so directed that the charges flew
far away from Barnet, under a false impression as to the situation of
the Yorkist forces.
Mistress Lorimer had heard them before, but accompanied every report
with a pious prayer; Sister Mabel screamed at each, then joined in; the
Prioress was greatly excited, and walked about with Master Lorimer,
now on the roof, trying to see, now at the gate, trying to hear. Anne
fancied it meant victory to Hal’s party, but knelt, tried to pray while
she listened, and the dogs barked incessantly. And that Hal must be in
the army above the little town they guessed, for in the evening Watch
came floundering into the courtyard, hungry and muddy, but full of
affectionate recognition of his old friends and the quarters he had
learnt to know. Florimond, who happened to be loose, had a romp with
him in their old fashion, and to the vexation and alarm of his mistress,
they both ran off together, and must have gone hunting on the heath, for
there was no response to her silver whistle.