"Woe be to fearful hearts and faint hands, and the sinner that goeth
two ways!"--Ecclus. two 12.
Whatever may have been the feeling which possessed the mind of Constance
on her departure from Langley, the incident was felt by Maude as a
wrench and an uprooting, surpassing any previous incident of her life
since leaving Pleshy. The old house itself had come to feel like a mute
friend; the people left behind were acquaintances of many years; the
ground was all familiar. She was going now once more into a new world,
to new acquaintances, new scenes, new incidents. The journey over land
was in itself very pleasant. But the journey over sea from Bristol was
so exceedingly unpleasant, that poor Maude found herself acquainted with
a degree of physical misery which until then she had never imagined to
exist. And when at last the great, grim, square towers of the Castle of
Cardiff, which was to be her new home, rose before her eyes, she thought
them absolutely lovely--because they were _terra firma_. It can only be
ascribed to her unusual haste on the one hand, or to her usual caprice
on the other, that it had not pleased the Lady of Cardiff to give any
notice of her approach. Of course nobody expected her; and when her
trumpeter sounded his blast outside the moat, the warder looked forth in
some surprise. It was late in the evening for a guest to arrive.
"Who goeth yonder?"
"The Lady and her train."
"Saint Taffy and Saint Guenhyfar!" said the warder.
"Put forth the bridge!" roared the trumpeter.
"It had peen better to send word," calmly returned the warder.
"Send word to thy Lord, thou lither oaf!" cried the irate trumpeter,
"and see whether it liketh him to keep the Lady awaiting hither on an
even in January, while thou pratest in chopped English!"
Thereupon arose a passage of arms between the two affronted persons of
diverse nationalities, which was terminated by Constance, with one of
her sudden impulses, riding forward to the front, and taking the
business on herself.
"Sir Warder," she said--with that exquisite grace and lofty courtesy
which was natural to every Plantagenet, be the other features of his
character what they might,--"I am your Lady, and I pray you to notify
unto your Lord that I am come hither."
The warder was instantly mollified, and blew his horn to announce the
arrival of a guest. There was a minute's bustle among the minor
officials about the gate, a little running to and fro, and then the
drawbridge was thrown across, and the next moment the Lord Le Despenser
knelt low to his royal spouse. He could have had no idea of her coming
five minutes before, but he did his best to show her that any omissions
in her welcome were no fault on his part.
Thomas Le Despenser was just twenty years of age. He was only of
moderate height for a man; and Constance, who was a tall woman, nearly
equalled him. His Norman blood showed itself in his dark glossy hair,
his semi-bronzed complexion, and his dark liquid eyes, the expression of
which was grave almost to sadness. An extremely short upper lip perhaps
indicated blue blood, but it gave a haughty appearance to his features,
which was not indicative of his character. He had a sweet low-toned
voice, and an extremely winning smile.
The Princess suffered her husband to lift her from the pillion on which
she rode behind Bertram Lyngern, who had been transferred to her service
by her father's wish. At the door of the banquet-hall the Dowager Lady
met them. Maude's impression of her was not exactly pleasant. She
thought her a stiff, solemn-looking, elderly woman, in widow's garb.
The Lady Elizabeth received her royal guest with the lowest of
courtesies, and taking her hand, conducted her with great formality to a
state chair on the dais, the Lord Le Despenser standing, bare-headed, on
the step below.
The ensuing ten minutes were painfully irksome to all parties.
Everybody was shy of everybody else. A few common-place questions were
asked and answered; but when the Dowager suggested that "the Lady" must
be tired with her journey, and would probably like to rest for an hour
ere the rear-supper was served, it was a manifest relief to all.
A sudden incursion of so many persons into an unprepared house was less
annoying in the fourteenth century than it would be in the nineteenth.
There was then always superfluous provision for guests who might
suddenly arrive; a castle was invariably victualled in advance of the
consumption expected; and as to sleeping accommodation, a sack filled
with chaff and a couple of blankets was all that any person anticipated
who was not of "high degree." Maude slept the first night in a long
gallery, with ten other women; for the future she would occupy the
pallet in her lady's chamber. Bertram was provided for along with the
other squires, in the banquet-hall, the chaff beds and blankets being
carried out of the way in the morning; and as to draughts, our
forefathers were never out of one inside their houses, and therefore did
not trouble themselves on that score. The washing arrangements,
likewise, were of the most primitive description. Princes and the
higher class of peers washed in silver basins in their own rooms; but a
squire or a knight's daughter would have been thought unwarrantably
fastidious who was not fully satisfied with a tub and a towel. A comb
was the only instrument used for dressing the hair, except where
crisping-pins were required; and mirrors were always fixtures against
the wall.
A long time elapsed before Maude felt at home at Cardiff; and she could
not avoid seeing that a still longer period passed before Constance did
so. The latter was restless and unsettled. She had escaped from the
rule of her step-mother to that of her mother-in-law, and she disliked
the one only a little less than the other; though "Daughter" fell very
differently on the ear from the lips of a child of ten, and from those
of a woman who was approaching sixty. But the worst point of
Constance's new life was her utter indifference to her husband. She
looked upon his gentle deference to her wishes as want of spirit, and
upon his quiet, reserved, undemonstrative manner as want of brains.
From loving him she was as far as she had been in those old days when
she had so cruelly told his sister Margaret that "when she loved Tom,
she would let him know."
That he loved her, and that very dearly, was patent to the most
superficial observer. Maude, who was not very observant of others, used
to notice how his eyes followed her wherever she went, brightened at the
sound of her step, and kindled eagerly when she spoke. The Dowager saw
it too, with considerable disapproval; and thought it desirable to turn
her observations to profit by a grave admonition to her son upon the sin
and folly of idolatry. She meant rightly enough, yet it sounded harsh
and cruel, when she bluntly reminded him that Constance manifestly cared
nothing for him.
Le Despenser's lip quivered with pain.
"Let be, fair Mother," he said gently. "It may be yet, one day, that my
Lady's heart shall come home to God and me, and that she shall then say
unto me, `I love thee.'"
Did that day ever come? Ay, it did come; but not during his day. The
time came when no music could have been comparable to the sound of his
voice--when she would have given all the world for one glimpse of his
smile--when she felt, like Avice, as though she could have climbed and
rent the heavens to have won him back to her. But the heavens had
closed between them before that day came. While they journeyed side by
side in this mortal world, he never heard her say, "I love thee."
The news received during the next few months was not likely to make
Constance feel more at home at Cardiff than before. It was one constant
funeral wail. On the 24th of March, 1394, her aunt Constanca, Duchess
of Lancaster, died of the plague at Leicester; in the close of May, of
the same disease, the beloved Lollard Queen; and on the first of July
her cousin, Mary Countess of Derby. Constance grew so restless, that
when orders came for her husband to attend the King at Haverford, where
he was about to embark on his journey to Ireland, she determined to go
there also.
"I can breathe better any whither than at Cardiff!" she said
confidentially to Maude.
But in truth it was not Cardiff from which he fled, but her own restless
spirit. The vine had been transplanted, and its tendrils refused to
twine round the strange boughs offered for its support.
The Princess found her father at Haverford, but the pair were very shy
of one another. The Duke was beginning to discover that he had made a
blunder, that his fair young wife's temper was not all sunshine, and
that his intended plaything was likely to prove his eventual tyrant.
Constance, on her part, felt a twinge of conscience for her pettish
desertion of him in his old age; for to her apprehension he was now an
old man: and she was privately conscious that she could not honestly
plead any preconsideration for her husband. She had merely pleased
herself, both in going and staying, and she knew it. But she spent her
whole life in gathering apples of Sodom, and flinging away one after
another in bitter disappointment. Yet the next which offered was always
grasped as eagerly as any that had gone before it.
Perhaps it was due to some feeling of regret on the Duke's part that he
invited his daughter and son-in-law to return with him. Constance
accepted the offer readily. The Duke was Regent all that winter, during
the King's absence in Ireland; and, as was usual, he took up his
residence in the royal Palace of Westminster. Constance liked her visit
to Westminster; she was nearly as tired of Langley as of Cardiff, and
this was something new. And a slight bond of union sprang up between
herself and her husband; for she made him, as well as Maude, the
confidant of all her complaints and vexations regarding her step-mother.
Le Despenser was satisfied if she would make a friend of him about
anything, and he was anxious to shield her from every annoyance in his
power.
It appeared to Maude, who had grown into a quiet, meditative woman, that
the feeling of the Duchess towards her step-daughter was not far from
positive hatred. She seemed to seek occasions to mortify her, and to
manufacture quarrels which it would have been no trouble to avoid. It
was some time before Maude could discern the cause. But one day, in a
quiet talk with Bertram Lyngern, still her chief friend, she asked him
whether he had noticed it.
"Have I eyes, trow?" responded Bertram with a smile.
"But wherefore is it, count you?"
"Marry, the old tale, methinks. Two men seldom discern alike; and he
that looketh on the blue side of a changeable sarcenet [shot silk], can
never join hands with him that seeth nought save the red."
"You riddle, Master Lyngern."
"Why, look you, our Lady Custance was rocked in a Lollard cradle; but my
Lady Duchess' Grace had a saint's bone for her rattle. And her mother
is an Arundel."
"But so is my Lord's Grace of York [the archbishop] himself an Arundel."
"Ay--as mecounteth you shall see, one day."
"Doth not the doctrine of Sir John de Wycliffe like, him well?"
"Time will show," said Bertram, drily.
It was quite true that Archbishop Arundel had for some two years been
throwing dust in Lollard eyes by plausible professions of conversion to
some of the views of that party. At a time when I was less acquainted
with his character and antecedents, I gave him credit for sincerity.
[Note 1.] I know him better now. He was merely playing a very deep
game, and this was one of his subtlest moves. His assumption of
Lollardism, or of certain items of it, was only the assumption of a
mask, to be worn as long as it proved serviceable, and then to be
dropped and forgotten. The time for the mask to drop had come now. The
death of Archbishop Courtenay, July 31, 1396, left open to Thomas de
Arundel the sole seat of honour in which he was not already installed.
Almost born in the purple [Note 2], he had climbed up from
ecclesiastical dignity to dignity, till at last there was only one
further height left for him to scale. It could surprise no one to see
the vacant mitre set on the astute head of Gloucester's confessor and
prompter.
The Earl of Rutland presented himself at Westminster Palace before his
sister left it, attended as usual by his squire, Hugh Calverley.
Bertram and Maude at once wished to know all the news of Langley, from
which place they had come. Hugh seemed acquainted with no news except
one item, which was that Father Dominic, having obtained a canonry, had
resigned his post of household confessor to the Palace; and a new
confessor had been appointed in his stead.
"And who is the new priest?" asked Bertram. "One Sir Marmaduke de
Tyneworth." [A fictitious person.]
"And what manner of man is he?"
"A right honest man and a proper [a fitting, satisfactory man], say they
who have confessed unto him; more kindly and courteous than Father
Dominic."
"He hath then not yet confessed thee?"
"I never confess," said Hugh quietly. The impression made upon
Bertram's feelings by this statement was very much that which would be
left on ours, if we heard a man with a high reputation for piety calmly
remark that he never prayed.
"Never confess!" he repeated in astonished tones. "Not to men. I
confess unto God only."
"But how canst, other than by the priest?"
"What hardship, trow? Can I not speak save by the priest?"
"But thou canst receive no absolving!"
"No can I? Ay verily, friend, I can!"
"But--" Bertram stopped, with a puzzled look.
"Come, out with all thy _buts_," said Hugh, smilingly.
"Why, methinks--and holy Church saith it--that this is God's means
whereby men shall approach unto Him: nor hath He given unto us other."
"Holy Church saith it? Ay so. But where saith God such a thing?"
Bertram was by no means ignorant of Wycliffe's Bible, and he searched
his memory for authority or precedent.
"Well, thou wist that the man which had leprosy was bidden to show him
unto the priest, the which was to declare if his malady were true
leprosy or no."
"The priest being therein an emblem or mystery of Christ, which is true
Healer of the malady of sin."
"Ah!" said Bertram triumphantly, "but lo' thou, when our Lord Himself
did heal one that had leprosy, what quoth He? `Show thyself to the
priest,' saith He: not, `I am the true Priest, and therefore thou mayest
slack to show thee to yon other priest, which is but the emblem of Me.'"
"Because," replied Hugh, "He did fulfil the law, and made it honourable.
Therefore saith He, `Show thyself to the priest.' The law held good
until He should have fulfilled the same."
"But mind thou," urged Bertram eagerly, "it was but the lither [wicked,
abandoned] Pharisees which did speak like unto thee. What said they
save the very thing thou wouldst fain utter--to wit, `Who may forgyve
synnes but God aloone?' And alway our Lord did snyb and rebuke these
ill fawtors."
"Friend, countest thou that the Jew which had leprosy, and betook him
unto the high priest, did meet with contakes because he went not
likewise unto one of the lesser? Either this confession unto the priest
is to be used with, or without, the confession unto God. If to be used
without, what is this but saying the priest to be God? And if to be
used with, what but saying that God is not sufficient, and the High
Priest may not act without the lesser priest do aid Him?"
"But what sayest touching the Pharisees?" repeated Bertram, who was not
able to answer Hugh's argument, and considered his own unanswerable.
"What say I?" was the calm answer. "Why, I say they spake very sooth,
saving that they pushed not the matter to its full issue. Had they
followed their reasoning on to the further end, then would they have
said, and spoken truly, `If this man can in very deed forgive sin, then
is He God.' Mark, I pray thee, what did our Lord in this matter. He
brought forth His letters of warrant. He healed the palsied man afore
them--`that ye wite,' saith He, `that mannes sone hath power in erthe to
forgyve synnes.' As though He had said unto them, `Ye say well; none
may forgive sins but God alone: wherefore see, in My forgiving of sin,
the plain proof that I am God's Son.' To show them that He had power to
forgive sin, He did heal this man of his malady. And verily I ask no
more of any priest that would confess me, but only that he bring forth
his letters of warrant, as did his Master and mine. When I shall I see
him to heal the sick with a word, then will I crede that he can forgive
sin in like manner. Lo' thou, if he can forgive, he can heal: if he can
heal by his word, then can _he_ forgive."
The waters were rather too deep for Bertram to wade in. He tried
another line of argument.
"Saint James also saith that men should confess their sins."
"`Ech to othire'--well: when it liketh Sir Marmaduke to knowledge his
sins unto me, then will I mine unto him, if we have done any wrong each
to other. But look thou into that matter of Saint James, and thou shalt
find it to touch not well men, but only sick; which, knowledging their
sins when their conscience is troubled, and praying each for other,
shall be healed of their sickness."
"Moreover, Achan did confession unto Josue," said Bertram, starting
another hare.
"Ah! Josue was a priest, trow?"
"Nay, but if it be well to knowledge our sins each to other, it shall
not be worse because the man is a priest."
"Nor better," said Hugh, in his quietest manner.
"Nay!" urged Bertram, who thought he had the advantage here, "but an' it
be well to confess at all, it is good to confess unto any: and if to
any, to a woman; or if to a woman, to a man; or to a man, then to a
priest."
Hugh gave a soft little laugh.
"Good friend, I could prove any gear in the world by that manner of
reasoning. If it be good to confess unto any, then unto anything that
liveth; and if so, then to a beast; and if to a beast, then to yonder
cat. Come hither, Puss, and hear this my friend his confession!"
"Have done with thy mocking!" cried Bertram. "And mind thou, the Lord
did charge the holy apostles with power to forgive sins."
"Granting that so be--what then?"
"What then? Why, that priests have now the like power."
"But what toucheth it the priests?"
"In that they be successors unto the apostles."
"In what manner?"
Hugh was evidently not disposed to take any links of the chain for
granted.
"Man!" exclaimed Bertram, almost in a pet, "wist not that Paul did
ordain Timothy Bishop of Ephesus, and bade him do the like to other,--
and so from each to other was the blessed grace handed down, till it gat
at the priests that now be?"
"Was it so?" said Hugh coolly. "But when and where bade Paul that
Timothy should forgive sins?"
Bertram found it much harder to prove his assertion than to state it.
He could only answer that he did not know.
"Nor I neither," returned Hugh. "Nor Timothy neither, without I much
mistake."
"I must needs give thee up. Thou art the worst caitiff to reason
withal, ever mortal man did see!"
Hugh laughed.
"Lo' you, friend, I ask but for one instance of authority. Show unto me
any passage of authority in God's Word, whereby any priest shall forgive
sins; or show unto me any priest that now liveth, which shall bring
forth his letters of warrant by healing a man all suddenly of his
sickness whatsoever, and I am at a point. Bring him forth, prithee; or
else confess thou hast no such to bring."
"Hold thy peace, for love of Mary Mother!" said Bertram, passing his
irrepressible opponent a plateful of smoking pasty, for the party were
at supper; "and fill thy jaws herewith, the which is so hot thou shalt
occupy it some time."
"My words being, somewhat too hot for thee, trow?" rejoined Hugh
comically. "Good. I can hold my peace right well when I am wanted so
to do."
When Constance returned home to Cardiff, she remained there for some
little time without any further visit to Court. She alone of all the
Princesses was absent from the Church of Saint Nicholas at Calais, when
the King was married there to the Princess Isabelle of France--a child
of only eight years old. Something far more interesting to herself
detained her at Cardiff; where, on the 30th of November, 1396, an heir
was born to the House of Le Despenser.
That the will of "the Lady" stood paramount we see in the name given to
the infant. He was christened after her favourite brother, Richard--a
name unknown in his father's line, whose family names were always Hugh
and Edward.
In their unfeigned admiration of this paragon of babies, its mother and
grandmother sank all their previous differences. But when the difficult
question of education arose, the differences reappeared as strongly as
ever. The only notion which Constance had of bringing up a child was to
give it everything it cried for; while the Dowager was prepared to go a
long way in the opposite direction, and give it nothing in respect to
which it showed the slightest temper. The practical result was that the
boy was committed to the care of Maude, whom both agreed in trusting,
with the most contradictory orders concerning his training. Maude
followed the dictates of her own common sense, and implicitly obeyed the
commands of neither of the rival authorities; but as little Richard
throve well under her care, she was never called to account by either.
The year 1397 brought a political earthquake, which ended in the
destruction of three of the five grand traitors, the Lords Appellants.
The commons had at last opened their eyes to the real state of affairs.
The conspirators were meditating fresh projects of treachery, when by
the advice of the Dukes of Lancaster and York, Gloucester was arrested
and imprisoned at Calais, where he died on the 15th of September, either
from apoplexy or by a private execution. Richard Earl of Arundel, the
tool of his priestly brother, was beheaded six days later. The Earl of
Warwick, who had been merely the blind dupe of the others, was banished
to the Isle of Man. The remaining two--the ambitious Derby, and the
conceited Nottingham--contrived in the cleverest manner, not only to
escape punishment, but to obtain substantial rewards for their loyalty!
Derby presented a very humble petition on behalf of both, in which he
owned, with so exquisite a show of penitence, to having _listened_ to
the suggestions of the deceased traitors, and been concerned in "several
riotous disturbances"--professed himself and his friend to be so
abjectly repentant, and so irrevocably faithful for ever henceforward--
that King Richard, as easily deceived as usual, hastened to pardon the
repenting sinners. But there was one man in the world who was not
deceived by Derby's plausible professions. Old Lancaster shook his
white head when he heard that his son was not only pardoned, but
restored to favour.
"'Tis hard matter for father thus to speak of son," he said to his royal
nephew; "nathless, my gracious Lord, I do you to wit that you have done
a fool deed this day. You shall never have peace while Hal is in this
kingdom."
"Fair Uncle, I am sure he will repay me!" was the response of the
warm-hearted Richard.
"Ha!" said John of Gaunt, and sipped his ipocras with a grim smile.
"_Sans doute, Monseigneur, sans doute_!"
Westminster Hall beheld a grand and imposing ceremony on the Michaelmas
Day of 1397. The King sat in state upon his throne at the further end,
the little Queen beside him, and the various members of the royal line
on either side--Princes on the right, Princesses on the left. The
Duchess of Lancaster had the first place; then the Duchess of York,
particularly complacent and resplendent; the Duchess of Gloucester, who
should have sat third, was closely secluded (of her free will) in the
Convent of Bermondsey. Next sat the Countess of March, the elder sister
of the Duchess Joan, and wife of the Lollard heir of England. The
daughters of the Princes followed her. Elizabeth, Countess of
Huntingdon, daughter of the Duke of Lancaster, whom that day was to make
a duchess, and who bore away the palm from the rest as "the best singer
and the best dancer" of all the royal ladies, held her place, beaming
with smiles, and radiant with rubies and crimson velvet. Next, arrayed
in blue velvet, sat the only daughter of York, Constance Lady Le
Despenser. Round the hall sat the nobles of England in their
"Parliament robes," each of the married peers with his lady at his side;
while below came the House of Commons, and lower yet, outside the
railing, the people of England, in the shape of an eager, sight-seeing
mob. There was to be a great creation of peers, and one by one the
names were called. As each of the candidates heard his name, he rose
from his seat, and was led up to the throne by two nobles of the order
to which he was about to be raised.
"Sir Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby!" The gentleman whose
unswerving loyalty was about to be recompensed by the gift of a coronet
(!) rose with his customary grace from his seat, third on the right hand
of the King, and was led up by his father of Lancaster and his uncle of
York. He knelt, bareheaded, before the throne. A sword was girt to his
side, a ducal coronet set on his head by the royal hand, and he rose
Duke of Hereford. As old Lancaster resumed his seat, he smiled grimly
under his white beard, and muttered to himself--"_Sans doute_!"
"Sir Edward of Langley, Earl of Rutland!"
Constance's brother was similarly led up by his father and his cousin,
the newly-created Duke, and he resumed his princely seat, Duke of
Aumerle, or Albemarle.
"Sir Thomas de Holand, Earl of Kent, Baron Wake!"
Hereford and Aumerle were the two to lead up the candidate. He was the
son of the King's half-brother, and was reputed the handsomest of the
nobles: a tall, finely-developed man, with the shining golden hair of
his Plantagenet ancestors. He was created Duke of Surrey.
Hereford sat down, and Surrey and Aumerle conducted John Earl of
Huntingdon to the throne. He was half-brother of the King, uncle of
Surrey, and husband of the royal songstress who sat and smiled in
crimson velvet. He had stepped out of the family ranks; for instead of
being tall, fair, and good-looking, like the rest of his house, he was a
little dark-haired man, whom no artist would have selected as a model of
beauty. A strong anti-Lollard was this nobleman, a good hater, a
prejudiced, violent, unprincipled man; possessed of two virtues only--
honesty and loyalty. He had been cajoled for a time by Gloucester, but
his brother knew him too well to doubt his sincerity or affection. He
was made Duke of Exeter.
The next call was for--"Sir Thomas de Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham!" And
up came the last of the "Lords Appellants," painfully conscious in his
heart of hearts that while he might have been in his right place on the
scaffold in Cheapside, he was very much out of it in Westminster Hall,
kneeling to receive the coronet of Norfolk.
A coronet was now laid aside, for the recipient was not present. She
was an old lady of royal blood, above seventy years of age, the second
cousin of the King, and great-grandmother of Nottingham. Her style and
titles were duly proclaimed as Duchess of Norfolk for life.
But when "Sir John de Beaufort, Earl of Somerset!" was called for, the
peer summoned rose and walked forward alone. He was to be created a
marquis--a title of King Richard's own devising, and at that moment
borne by no one else. The Earl came reluctantly, for he was very
unwilling to be made unlike other people; and he dropped his new title,
and returned to the old one, as soon as he conveniently could. He had a
tall, fine figure, but not a pleasant face; and his religion, no less
than his politics, he wore like a glove--well-fitting when on, but
capable of being changed at pleasure. Just now, when Lollardism was
"walking in silver slippers," my Lord Marquis of Dorset was a Lollard.
Rome rarely persecutes men of this sort, for she makes them useful in
preference.