"Long since we parted!
I to life's stormy wave--
Thou to thy quiet grave,
Leal and true-hearted!"
The first regnal act of Henry the Eighth was to strip the loyal lords of
the titles conferred upon them just two years before. Once more,
Aumerle became Earl of Rutland; Surrey, Earl of Kent Exeter, Earl of
Huntingdon; Wiltshire, Sir William Le Scrope; and Gloucester, Lord Le
Despenser.
Hitherto, King Richard had been imprisoned in the Tower, a lonely
captive. But now, possessed by jealous fears of insurrection and
restoration, the usurper hurried his royal prisoner from dungeon to
dungeon:--to Leeds Castle, Pickering, Knaresborough, and lastly, about
the middle of December, to Pomfret, which he was never to leave alive.
The guilty fears of Henry were not unfounded; but perhaps the judicial
murder of Lord Wiltshire at Bristol quickened the action of the little
band, now again reduced to six. They met quietly at Oxford in December,
to concert measures for King Richard's release and restoration,
resolving that in case of his death they would support the title of
March. But there was a seventh person present, whom it is
incomprehensible that any of the six should have been willing to trust.
This was Aumerle, vexed with the loss of his title, and always as ready
to join a conspiracy at the outset as he was to play the traitor at the
close. The extraordinary manner in which this man was always trusted
afresh by the friends whom he perpetually betrayed, is one of the
mysteries of psychological history. His plausibility and powers of
fascination must have been marvellous. An agreement was drawn up,
signed by the six, and entrusted to Aumerle (who cleverly slipped out of
the inconvenience of signing it himself), containing promises to raise
among them a force estimated at 8,000 archers and 300 lance-men, to meet
on the fourth of January at Kingston, and thence march to Colnbrook,
where Aumerle was to join them.
On the day appointed for the meeting at Kingston, Aumerle, attired in a
handsome furred gown, went to dine with his father. The Duchess appears
to have been absent. Aumerle carried the perilous agreement in his
bosom, and when he sat down to dinner, he pulled it forth, and
ostentatiously placed it by the side of his silver plate. The six seals
caught the old Duke's eye, as his son intended they should; and his
curiosity was not unnaturally aroused.
"What is that, fair son?" inquired his father.
Aumerle ceremoniously took off his hat--then always worn at dinner--and
bowed low.
"Monseigneur," said he obsequiously, "it is not for you."
Of course, after that, York was determined to see it.
"Show it me!" he said impatiently; "I will know what it is."
Aumerle must have laughed in his traitor heart, as with feigned
reluctance he handed the document to his father. York read it through;
and then rose from the table with one of his stormy bursts of anger.
"Saddle the horses!" he shouted forth to the grooms at the lower end of
the hall. And, turning to his son,--"Ha, thou thief! False traitor!
thou wert false to King Richard; well might it be looked for that thou
shouldst be false to thy cousin King Henry. And thou well knowest,
rascal! that I am pledged for thee in Parliament, and have put my body
and mine heritage to pawn for thy fidelity. I see thou wouldst fain
have me hanged; but, by Saint George! I had liefer thou wert hanged
than I!"
York strode out of the hall, calling to the grooms to hasten. Aumerle
gave him time to mount the stairs to assume his riding-suit, and then
himself went quietly to the stable, saddled a fleet barb, and rode for
his life to Windsor.
"Who goes there?" rang the royal warder's challenge.
"The Lord of Rutland, to have instant speech of the King. Is my
gracious Lord of York here?"
York had not arrived, and his son was safe. The warder had pushed to
the great gates, and was leading the way to the court-yard, when to his
astounded dismay, Aumerle's dagger was at his throat.
"How have I offended, my Lord?" faltered the poor man.
"No hast," was the response; "but if thou lock not up the gates
incontinent, and give the keys to me--"
The keys were in Aumerle's pocket the next minute. An hour later, when
his story was told, and his pardon solemnly promised, York and his train
came lumbering to the gate, to find his news forestalled. When Henry
had read the agreement, which York brought with him, he set out
immediately for London, while Aumerle calmly repaired to his tryst at
Colnbrook. Here Exeter was the first to join him. Aumerle informed his
friends that Henry was coming to meet them with a large army, but they
determined nevertheless to advance. They passed Maidenhead Bridge in
safety, but as soon as they crossed it, the vanguard of Henry's army was
visible. To the amazement of his colleagues, Aumerle, on whom they had
counted as staunch and loyal, doffed his bonnet with a laugh, and,
spurring forward, was received by the enemy as an expected ally. There
could be no doubt now that he had betrayed his too trusting friends.
Yet even then, the little band held the bridge till midnight. But by
midnight all hope was over. There was left only one alternative--flight
or death. The loyal six set spurs to their horses; and Surrey's steed
being fleetest, he soon outdistanced the others. All that night Surrey
rode at a breathless gallop, and when morning broke he was dashing past
Osney Abbey into the gates of Oxford. Exeter came up an hour or two
later; the rest followed afterwards. But they did not mean to stop at
Oxford for more than a few hours' rest. Then they spurred on to
Cirencester. On reaching the city gate, Surrey, with his usual
impulsive eagerness, shouted to the Constable, "Arm for King Richard!"
The Constable, supposing that "the luck had turned," obeyed; but the
next morning brought an archer from Henry, who must have discovered or
guessed whither the fugitives had gone. Surrey received Henry's message
and messenger with sovereign contempt; but the Constable, finding that
Henry was still in power, immediately went over to the winning side, and
there was a town riot. The peers had taken up their temporary abode in
an inn, which was surrounded and besieged by the mob. Surrey, impetuous
as usual, rushed to the window to address the mob. He was received with
a shower of arrows. His friends sprang forward to rescue him; but time
and the things of time were over for the young, dauntless, gallant
Surrey. They could only lay him gently down on the rushes to breathe
out his life. It was a sad end. Fairest and almost highest of the
nobles of England, of royal blood, of unblemished character, of great
wealth, and only twenty-five--to die on the floor of an inn, in a mob
riot!
But what was to become of the rest? Exeter's fertile brain suggested a
way of escape.
"Quick--fire the rushes! And then ope the back windows, and drop down
into the fosse."
It is manifest from the circumstances, that the back windows of the inn
opened from the town wall upon the ditch which ran round it, and which
in all probability was filled with water. John Maudeleyn gathered a
handful of the rushes, with which he set fire to the room in two or
three places. The five who remained--Exeter, Salisbury, Le Despenser,
and the two Maudeleyns,--then dropped down from the window, swam across
the fosse, and fled into the fields, where the scattered relics of their
own army were advancing to join them. But Exeter's idea had been a
shade too brilliant. He frightened by the fire not only his foes, but
his friends.
His troops fancied that Henry had come up, and was burning Cirencester;
and, panic-stricken, they dispersed in all directions. The five parted
into three divisions, and fled themselves.
They fled to death.
Exeter set out alone. His destination was Pleshy, whence he meant to
escape to France. But the angel of death met him there in the guise of
a woman, Joan Countess of Hereford, mother-in-law of Henry, and sister
of Archbishop Arundel. She had never forgiven Exeter for sitting in
judgment on her brother the Earl of Arundel, and she rested not now till
she saw him stretched before her, a headless corpse.
The two Maudeleyns went towards Scotland. Richard was apprehended, and
executed. There is good reason to believe that John, escaped, and that
it was he who, in after years, personated King Richard at the Scottish
Court.
The Lollard friends, Salisbury and Le Despenser, determined to attempt
their escape together.
For a minute they waited, looking regretfully after Exeter: then Le
Despenser said to his squire--
"Haste, Lyngern!--for Cardiff!"
They rode hard all that day--wearily all that night. Over hill and
dale, fording rivers, pushing through dense forests, threading mountain
passes, wading across trackless swamps. Town after town was left
behind; river after river was followed or crossed; till at last, as the
sun was setting, they cantered along the banks of the broad Severn, with
the towers of Berkeley Castle rising in the distance.
It was here that Salisbury drew bridle.
"'Tis no good!" he said. "I can no more. My Lord, mine heart misgiveth
me that you be wending but to death. Had it been the pleasure of the
Lord that we should escape our enemies, well: but if we be to meet
death, let me meet it at home. Go you on to your home, an' it like you;
but for me, I rest this night at Berkeley, and with the morrow I turn
back to Bisham."
Le Despenser looked sadly in his face. It seemed as though his last
friend were leaving him.
"Be it as you list, my Lord of Salisbury," he said. "Only God go with
both of us!"
Who shall say that He did not, though the road lay through the dark
river? For on the other side was Paradise.
So the Lollard friends parted: and so went Salisbury to his death. For
he never reached Bisham; he only crept back to Cirencester, and there he
was recognised and taken, and beheaded by the mob.
A weary way lay still before Le Despenser and Bertram. They journeyed
over land; and many a Welsh mountain had to be scaled, and many a brook
forded, before--when men and horses were so exhausted that another day
of such toil felt like a physical impossibility--spread before them lay
the silver sea, and the sun shone on the grim square towers of Cardiff.
"Home!" whispered the noble fugitive, slackening his pace an instant, as
the beloved panorama broke upon his sight. "Now forward, Lyngern--
home!"
Down they galloped wearily to the gates, walked through the town--
stopped every moment by demands for news--till at last the Castle was
reached, and in the base court they alighted from their exhausted
steeds. And then up-stairs, to Constance's bower, occupied by herself,
the Dowager, little Richard, and Maude. Bertram hurriedly preceded his
master into the room. The ladies, who were quietly seated at work, and
were evidently ignorant of any cause for excitement, looked up in
surprise at his entrance.
"Please it the Lady,--the Lord!"
Constance rose quickly, with a more decided welcome than she usually
vouchsafed to her husband.
"Why, my Lord! I thought you were in London."
"What ill hath happed, son?" was the more penetrating remark of the
Dowager.
"Well nigh all such as could hap, Madam," said Le Despenser wearily. "I
am escaped with life--if I have so 'scaped!--but with nought else. And
I come now, only to look on your beloved faces, and to bid farewell.--
Maybe a last farewell, my Lady!"
He stood looking into her face with his dark, sad eyes,--looking as if
he believed indeed that it would be a last farewell. Constance was
startled; and his mother's theories broke down at once, and she sobbed
out in an agony--
"O Tom, Tom! My lad, my last one!"
"You mean it, my Lord?" asked Constance, in a tone which showed that she
was not wholly indifferent to the question.
"I mean it right sadly, my Lady."
"But you go not hence this moment?"
Le Despenser sank down on the settle like the exhausted man he was.
"This moment!" he repeated. "Nay, not so, even for life. I am weary
and worn beyond measure. And to part so soon! One night to rest; and
then!--"
"My Lord, are you well assured of your peril?" suggested Constance.
"This your castle is strong and good, and your serving-men and retainers
many, and the townsmen leal--"
She stopped, tacitly answered by her husband's sorrowful smile, which so
plainly replied, "_Cui bono_?"
"My Lady!" he said quietly, "think ye there is this moment a tower, or a
noble, or a rood of land, that the Duke of Lancaster will leave unto us?
I cast no doubt that all our lands and goods be forfeit, some days ere
now."
He judged truly enough. On the day of the fugitives' flight from Oxford
to Cirencester, a writ of confiscation was issued in Parliament against
every one of them. That was the 5th of January; and this was the
evening of the 10th. There was a mournful rear-supper at Cardiff Castle
that night; and no member of the household, except the wearied Bertram
Lyngern, thought of sleep. Maude was busied in making up money and
jewels into numberless small packages, under the orders of the Dowager,
to be concealed on the persons of Le Despenser and his attendant squire.
The intention of her master was to take passage on some boat bound for
Ireland, and thence to escape into Scotland or France.
Le Despenser slept late into the morning--no wonder for a man who had
scarcely been out of his saddle for six days and nights. The
preparations for the continuation of his flight were nearly completed;
but he had not yet been disturbed, when a strange horn was heard outside
the fosse of the Castle. Constance, who had risen early, and was in an
excited state of mind, hastily opened a lattice to hear who was the
visitor.
"Who goes there?" demanded the warder's deep voice.
"Sir William Hankeford, Justice of the King's Bench, bearing his
Highness' warrant. Open quickly!"
There could be no question as to his object--the arrest of Le Despenser.
Constance breathlessly shut the window, bade Maude sweep the little
packets of jewellery and coin into her pocket, dashed into her bower,
and awoke her still slumbering husband.
"Rise, my Lord, this instant! Harry of Bolingbroke hath sent to take
you. We must hide you some whither."
Le Despenser was almost too tired and depressed to care for
apprehension.
"Whither, my Lady?" he asked hopelessly. "Better yield, maybe."
"_Ninerias_!" [Nonsense!--literally, _childishness_] cried Constance
hastily, using a word of her mother's tongue, which she had frequently
heard from the lips of Dona Juana. And springing to the wardrobe in the
ante-chamber, she was back in a second, with a thick furred winter gown.
"Lo' you, my Lord! Lap you in this, and--"
And Constance glanced round the room for a safe hiding-place.
"And!"--said Le Despenser, smiling sadly, but doing as he was requested.
"Go up the chimney!" said Constance hurriedly. "They will never look
there, and there is little warmth in yon ashes."
She caught up the shovel, and flung a quantity of cinders on the almost
extinct fire. The idea was not a bad one. The chimney was as wide as a
small closet; there were several rests for the sweep; and at one side
was a little chamber hollowed out, specially intended for some such
emergency as the present. With the help of the two ladies and Maude, Le
Despenser climbed up into his hiding-place.
Ten minutes later, Sir William Hankeford was bowing low in the
banquet-hall before the royal lady of the Castle, who gravely and very
courteously assured him of her deep regret that her lord was not at home
to receive him.
"An' it like you, Madam," returned the acute old judge, "I am bidden of
the King's Grace to ensure me thereof."
"Oh, certes," said Constance accommodatingly. "Maude! call hither
Master Giles, and bid him to lead my learned and worshipful Lord into
every chamber of the Castle."
The judge, a little disarmed by her perfect coolness, instituted the
search on which he was bound. He turned up beds, opened closets, shook
gowns, pinched cushions, and looked behind tapestry. So determined was
he to secure his intended prisoner, that he went through the whole
process in person. But he was forced to confess at last that, so far as
he could discover, Cardiff Castle was devoid of its master. The baffled
judge and his subordinates took their departure, after putting a series
of questions to various persons, which were answered without the
slightest regard to truth, the replicants being ignorant of any penalty
attached to lying beyond confession and penance; and considering,
indeed, that in an instance like the present it was rather a virtue than
a sin. When they were fairly out of sight, Constance went leisurely
back to her bower, and called up the chimney.
"Now, my good Lord, you may descend in safety."
Le Despenser obeyed; but he came down looking so like a chimney-sweep
that Constance, whose versatile moods changed with the rapidity of
lightning, flung herself on the bed in fits of laughter. The
interrupted preparations were quickly resumed and completed; and when
all was ready, and the boatman waiting at the Castle pier, Le Despenser
went into the hall to bid farewell to his mother. She was sitting on
the settle with an anxious, care-worn look. Maude stood in the window;
and at the lower end three or four servants were hurrying about, rather
restlessly than necessarily.
The old lady rose when her son entered, and her often-repressed love
flowed out in unwonted fervour, as she clasped him in her arms, knowing
that it might be for the last time.
"Our Lord be thine aid, my lad, my lad! Be true to thy King; but whatso
shall befall thee, be truest to thy God!"
"God helping me, so will I!" replied he solemnly.
"And--Tom, dearest lad!--is there aught I can do to pleasure thee?"
The tears sprang to his eyes at such words from her.
"Mother dear, have a care of my Lady!"
"I will, so!" answered the Dowager; but she added, with a pang of
jealous love which she would have rebuked sorely in another--"I would
she held thee more in regard."
"She may, one day," he said, mournfully, as if quietly accepting the
incontrovertible fact. "I told you once, and I yet trust, that the day
may dawn wherein my Lady's heart shall come home to God and me."
Maude remembered those words five years later.
"And now, Mother, farewell! I trust to be other-whither ere Wednesday
set in."
His mother kissed him, and blessed him, and let him go.
Le Despenser took his usual leave of the household, with a kind word, as
was his wont, even to the meanest drudge; and then he went back to his
lady's bower for that last, and to him saddest farewell of all.
His grave, tender manner touched Constance's impressible heart. She
took her leave of him more affectionately than usual.
"Farewell, my Lady!" he faltered, holding her to his breast. "We meet
again--where God will, and when."
"And that will be in France, ere long," said Constance, sanguinely.
"You will send me speedy word of your landing, my Lord?"
"You will learn it, my Lady."
Why did he speak so vaguely? Had he some dim presentiment that his
"other-whither" might be Jerusalem the Golden?
No such hidden meaning occurred to Constance. She was almost startled
by the sudden flood of pent-up, passionate feeling, which swept all the
usual conventionalities out of his way, and made him whisper in accents
of inexpressible love--
"My darling! my darling! God keep and bless thee! Farewell once more--
Custance!"
They had never come so near to each other's hearts as in that moment of
parting. And the moment after, he was gone.
In the court-yard little Richard was running and dancing about under
Maude's supervision; and his father stayed an instant, to take the child
again into his arms and bless him once more. And then he left his
Castle by the little postern gate which led down to the jetty. There
were barges passing up and down the Channel, and Le Despenser's
intention was to row out to one of those bound for Ireland, and so
prosecute his voyage. He wore, we are told, a coat of furred damask;
and carried with him a cloak of motley velvet. The term "motley" was
applied to any combination of colours, from the simplest black and white
to the showiest red, blue, and yellow. In the one portrait occurring in
Creton's life-like illuminations, which I am disposed to identify with
that of Le Despenser, he wears a grey gown, relieved by very narrow
stripes of red. Perhaps it was that identical cloak or gown which hung
upon the arm of Bertram Lyngern, just outside the postern gate.
"Nay, good friend!" objected Le Despenser, with his customary kindly
consideration. "I have wearied thee enough these six days. Master
Giles shall go with me now."
"My Lord," replied Bertram, deferentially, yet firmly, "your especial
command except, we part not, by your leave."
Le Despenser acquiesced with a smile, and both entered the boat. When
Davy the ferryman returned, an hour later, he reported that his master
had embarked safely on a barge bound for Ireland.
"Then all will be well," said Constance lightly.
"God allowing!" gravely interposed the old lady. "There be winds and
waves atween Cardiff and Ireland, fair Daughter."
Did she think only of winds and waves?
No news reached them until the evening of the following Thursday. They
had sat down to supper, about four o'clock, when the blast of a horn
outside broke the stillness. The Lady Le Despenser, whom the basin of
rose-water had just reached for the opening washing of hands, dropped
the towel and grew white as death.
"Jesu have mercy! yonder is Master Lyngern's horn!"
"He is maybe returned with a message, Lady," suggested Father Ademar,
the chaplain; but all eyes were fixed on the door of the hall until
Bertram entered.
The worst apprehensions which each imagination could form took vivid
shape in the minds of all, when they saw his face. So white and
woe-begone he looked--so weary and unutterably sorrowful, that all
anticipated the news of some heavy and irreparable calamity, from which
he only had escaped alone to tell them.
"Where left you your Lord, Master Lyngern?"
It was the Dowager who was the first to break the spell of silence.
"Madam," said Bertram, in a husky, faltering voice, "I left him not at
all--till he left me."
He evidently had some secret meaning, and he was afraid to tell the
awful truth at once. Constance had risen, and stood nervously grasping
the arm of her state chair, with a white, excited face; but she did not
ask a question.
"Speak the worst, Bertram Lyngern!" cried the old lady. "Thy Lord--"
It seemed to Bertram as if the only words that would come to his lips in
reply were two lines of an inscription set up in many a church, and as
familiar to all present as any hackneyed proverb to us.
"`_Pur ta pite, Jesu, regarde, Et met cest alme en sauve garde_.'"
There was an instant's dead silence. It was broken by the mother's cry
of anguish--
"Tom, Tom! My lad, my last lad!"
"Drowned, Master Lyngern?" asked a score of voices.
Bertram tacitly ignored the question. He walked languidly up the hall,
and dropping on one knee before the Princess, presented to her a
sapphire signet-ring--the last token sent by her dead husband.
Constance took it mechanically; and Bertram, going back to his usual
seat, filled a goblet with Gascon wine, and drank it like a man who was
faint and exhausted.
"Sit, Master Lyngern, and rest you," pursued the Dowager; "but when you
be refreshed, give us to wit the rest."
The tone of her voice seemed to say that the worst which could come, had
come; and the dreadful fact known, the details mattered little.
Bertram attempted to eat, but almost immediately he pushed away his
trencher, and regardless of etiquette, laid his forehead upon his arm on
the table.
"I cannot eat! And how shall I speak what I must say? I would have
died for him." Then, suddenly lifting his head, he spoke quickly, as if
he wished to come at once to the end of his miserable task. "Noble
ladies, my Lord of Salisbury is beheaden of the rabble at Cirencester,
and my Lord of Exeter at Pleshy; and men say that Lord Richard the King
lieth dead at Pomfret, and that God wot how."
Constance spoke at last, but in a voice not like her own.
"God doom Henry of Bolingbroke!"
The words, if repeated, might have doomed her; but she feared no man.
That evening, Bertram told the details of that woeful story.
The barge-master whom they had accosted was sailing westwards, and he
readily agreed to take Le Despenser and his suite over to Ireland.
Somewhat too readily, Bertram thought; and he feared treachery from the
first. When the boat had pulled off to some distance, the barge-master
asked to what port his passengers wished to go. He was told that any
Irish port on the eastern coast would suit them; and he then altered his
tone, and roughly refused to carry them anywhere but to Bristol. The
man's evil intentions were manifest now; and Le Despenser, drawing his
sword, sternly commanded him to continue his voyage to Ireland, if he
valued his life. The barge-master's only reply was a low
signal-whistle, in answer to which twenty men, concealed in the hold,
sprang on deck and overwhelmed the little band of fugitives. The barge
then put about for Bristol, and on landing, the noble captive was
delivered by the treacherous barge-master into the custody of the Mayor.
That officer put him in close prison, and despatched a fleet messenger
to Henry to inquire what should be done with him. But before the answer
arrived, the capture became known in Bristol, and a clamorous mob
assembled before the Castle. The Mayor, to his credit, did his best to
resist the rabble, and to save his prisoner; but the mob were stronger
than authority. They carried the gates, rushed pell-mell into the
Castle, and dragged the captive forth into the market-place. And then
Bertram saw his master again--a helpless prisoner, in the hands of a
furious mob, among whom several priests were active. As he appeared,
there was a great shout of "Traitor!" and a few cries, lower yet more
terrible, of "Heretic!" They dragged him to the block erected in the
midst of the market-place, by which stood the public executioner. Le
Despenser saw unmistakably that his last hour had come; and he had not
been so far from anticipating that closing scene, that he was unprepared
for its coming.
"Sir," he said, turning to the executioner with his ordinary courtesy,
"I pray you of your grace to grant me time for prayer, and strike not
ere"--touching his handkerchief--"I shall let this fall."
The executioner, a quiet, practical man, unpossessed by the fury of the
mob, promised what was asked of him. Meantime Bertram Lyngern contrived
to squeeze himself inch by inch through the crowd, until at last he
stood beside his master.
"Ah, my trusty squire!" was the prisoner's greeting. "Look you--have
here my signet, which with Master Mayor's gentle allowing, you shall
bear unto my Lady."
The Mayor nodded permission. He was vexed and ashamed.
"Farewell, good friend," resumed Le Despenser, with a parting grasp of
his squire's hand. "Be sure to tell Madam my mother that I died true to
God and the King--and say unto my Lady that my last thought was of her."
Then he knelt down to commune with God. But he asked for no priest; and
when they saw it, the cries of the mob became fiercer than ever.
"Traitor!" and "Heretic!" were roared from every part of the vast
square.
Le Despenser rose, and faced his enemies.
"I am no traitor to my true King, and no heretic to the living God!" he
cried earnestly. "I was ever a true man to God, and to the King, and to
my Lady: touching which ye are not my judge, but God."
His voice was drowned by another roar of execration. Then he knelt
again--and the handkerchief fell. But just as the executioner raised
his arm--
"Just ere the falling axe did part
The burning brain from the true heart--"