It was after hall one day, in the middle of July, that Mr. Cartwright
came up to me with the great news.
'Our time has come at last, Jasper,' said he; 'this day the
Vice-Chancellor has received a letter from Mr. Secretary with very
sharp orders for the burying of our differences, seeing that the
Queen's grace will make progress here early in August.'
'That is news indeed,' said I; 'will there not be great things done
for her entertainment?'
'That is the way my content lies,' answered Mr. Cartwright, radiant.
'There will be disputations, great disputations, where we shall pour
into her gracious ear the true wisdom of Reformation, and refute our
backsliding, halting adversaries.'
'But it is always said,' I replied, 'that the Queen clings to
ceremonies and superstitions.'
'So she does,' he said, 'and were it not that that godly man, Lord
Robert Dudley, is ever at her side, things might go harder with the
faithful than they do.'
'Truly,' said I, 'our High Steward is very earnest for the truth, but
how shall we prevail with her better than he?'
'God will give us strength, and words, and wisdom,' he answered
excitedly. 'I shall stand forth in His might at the great
disputation, and speak words of fire that the Lord shall whisper in
my ears. She shall listen and know it is the word of God that she
hears; and lo! she shall go forth from Cambridge henceforth thrice
blessed, to search out and destroy utterly throughout the length and
breadth of the land all that the people have disobediently saved from
the destruction of Amalek.'
'But will she surely hearken?' I said, half pitying and half fearing
to see him lifting up his voice like one of the prophets.
'Ay, lad!' he cried, growing more and more excited, 'I know she will.
She is young and good and wise. She has been surrounded by evil
councillors, but the Lord has bidden me go cry to her, that she may
see the way of England's, ay, and the world's, salvation.'
It was not until the day after the Queen arrived, when she rode out
of her lodgings at King's to visit the colleges, that my eyes were
gladdened with the sight of that most sublime Princess.
I took my stand in Trinity, near the door of the hall, to see her
ride into it. I shall never forget that sight as she passed on erect
upon her horse, in a black velvet gown and hat. It was before the
present monstrous fashions had come into use, and her costume so set
off the brilliancy of her complexion and the ruddy glow of her hair
that she looked radiant as a goddess in the joy of her reception, and
the full flush and beauty of youthful womanhood.
[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH]
As she rode on into the hall I fell upon my knees to worship what
seemed to me, who had never spoken to and hardly seen a beautiful
woman before, the most lovely sight my eyes had ever beheld.
With all my lungs I shouted 'Vivat Regina Divina.' She heard my cry
and smiled down upon me, and I, poor soul, like I know not how many
more beside me that day, rose up over ears in love with my Queen.
And why should I not? Could a gentleman have a more worthy love?
Some speak of her littlenesses, and mumble over her womanly faults.
I, for one, will not listen to them. I did not see them. I
worshipped what I saw. What that was all men know.
What witnesses could I call in her defence were she arraigned before
a Court of Perfect Womanhood! And those not her own subjects
either--it is only natural that they should praise--but foreigners,
as any may know who have heard, as I have, Signor Giordano Bruno, the
wisest of all who in my time have travelled hither, and my good
friend, exhaust his surpassing eloquence in praising her.
'I hold her,' so I have heard him say, 'for a princess without peer
or rival, a woman so gifted and favoured of Heaven, that whether for
heroism or learning or sagacity, no soldier, or lawyer, or statesman
in her kingdom is her equal. I tell you that the wisdom, the
dignity, the statesmanship, the wit, the beauty of that most royal
lady has won her a throne upon the steps of which must humbly take
their place, Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, and all princesses of whom
the world has boasted hitherto. See where she sits upon her lofty
seat, with the eyes of Christendom fixed upon her in astonishment and
admiration, wondering to see how, in her beauty and dignity, as by
the mere force that shines from her glorious face, she kept back from
her beloved kingdom for well-nigh thirty years the storm that surged
and roared upon the face of Europe; and, when at last it burst in
frantic fury on your shores, hurled it back with one majestic sweep
of her arm, and bound it down once more to receive what it was her
will to send.'
Happy, happy for the world if thou, my peerless Queen, like the new
sun-goddess Aphrodite that thou art, shouldst open thy girdle till it
embraced not only England and Ireland, but the whole globe. Then
under thy benignant universal rule it should deserve the title thou
hast won for thine own realm amongst the wisest of other lands; then
should it be named, as they have named England, 'the pattern of
perfect monarchy,' '_domicilium quietatis et humanitatis_.'
Such, at any rate, was Cambridge while the sun stayed with us; and
such indeed was England by the side of other realms. So completely
did the fair flowers of scholarship which blossomed in the sunbeams
of her presence obscure the thorns beneath, that Cambridge indeed
appeared the garden of learning that she thought it.
It was a sight I am proud to have seen when she sat in great St.
Mary's Church beneath her canopy, with the Doctors and Bachelors in
due order around her upon the great stage that had been erected there
for the disputations.
'Surely it is a second Sheba,' whispered Mr. Cartwright to me, as I
stood by his side with the books he required for setting forth his
arguments. 'She has come from the South to hear the wisdom of
Heaven. Pray God he may give me this day some shred of the spirit of
Solomon.'
'Would God, sir,' said I, 'you might turn her heart, though I fear
the ungodly have sorely hardened it.'
'Why do you say that?' asked he.
'Did she not last night,' I answered, 'listen to a play of Plautus in
King's Chapel after evening prayer, and did they not use the
rood-loft as a gallery for her women?'
'Better use it for that,' said Mr. Cartwright, 'than for the lewd
mockery of God they hold there daily. What wonder the poor Queen is
led astray in that pestilent slough of Papacy where she lodges. But
peace now, for the Proctor calls on the Respondent to begin the act.'
Mr. Thomas Byng of Peterhouse set forth the questions of the
philosophy act. They were two, namely, 'Monarchy is the best form of
government;' and secondly, 'The constant changing of the laws is
dangerous.'
When his oration was finished the masters who were called to the
disputation came forward. Mr. Cartwright's opponent in this was Mr.
Thomas Preston of King's, a man of very goodly presence and
sufficient wit, though more fit for a courtier than a scholar, and at
heart little better Reformation man than the rest of the King's
fellows.
He made a speech well wrought enough, and delivered with courtly
gesture, and very trippingly, to the great pleasure of the Queen.
Yet for fire, learning, persuasion, and all that pertains to true
rhetoric and philosophy, it was, to my mind, but the chatter of a jay
beside my Mr. Cartwright's speaking.
I could see the Queen was well pleased with what he said. It was
like being in paradise with the angels for me to watch her beautiful
face, wherein was delicately mirrored all the subtle perceiving
qualities of her most polished mind, as each was stirred by the magic
of my master's tongue.
As I look back to it now it seems to me like the shining surface of
some tropic lake, wherein the great soul of God, that dwells in the
trees and flowers and vines, is mirrored each moment more gloriously
as the soft breath of heaven from time to time breaks up the
reflected image.
I dwell on this because some have said, most wantonly, that Mr.
Cartwright was so vexed at the favour the Queen afterwards showed to
Mr. Preston that he thenceforward became a bitter enemy of the church
she loved. I say it is a wanton lie to speak so. My master was too
great a soul to harbour such littleness. His hatred of prelacy and
superstitious forms was of older and firmer standing than that. If
at that time he changed at all in opinion, it was that he saw too
well there was no hope of winning the Queen, and that it was to
Parliament and the people he must henceforth look.
He was very silent as we left the church, and in spite of all I could
say concerning the Queen's plain pleasure in his speech, I could see
the melancholy of his face grow deeper and its resolution sterner. I
know that he saw at once that he had failed, and perceived clearly
before him the long life of toil and pain and bitterness through
which he was thenceforth to fight his way.
I was very glad that evening as we sat together gloomily in our
lodging to hear a knocking at the door. I went to open it, and found
there a gentleman of the Court, tall of stature, but so wrapped in
his cloak and shaded by a large Spanish hat that I could not tell who
it was.
'Is Mr. Cartwright within?' said the gentleman.
'Would you have speech with him?' asked I.
'Yes, and alone,' answered the gentleman. I knew not what to do, but
Mr. Cartwright, who had started up at the sound of the stranger's
voice, cried out at once to me that I should go.
I went out straightway to King's College to see the seniors and Court
ladies go in to the play of Dido, which was being presented there
that night, wherein Mr. Thomas Preston was playing a chief part.
In an hour's time I returned, but hearing voices still within my
lodging, waited outside, where a lamp swung over the door. Very soon
the voices ceased, and the gentleman came out. He seemed so occupied
with his recent talk with Mr. Cartwright that he took no pains to
conceal his face, and as he passed out by the lamp I could see it was
none other than Lord Robert Dudley.
'What said Lord Robert about it?' I asked when I went in, thinking he
had certainly come from the Queen to speak with my master about his
oration.
'How knew you it was Lord Robert?' said he quickly.
'I saw his face by the lamp-light,' said I, surprised at his
sharpness.
'Then tell no man what you saw,' he answered. He was silent a
moment, and then, as though he thought best to tell me more, since I
knew so much, or perhaps for very longing to speak with some one, he
went on.
'He came not to speak of the oration,' said he, 'but of deeper
matters, of things which nearly concern our Reformation. God grant
he be a true man!'
'But is he not surely a true friend of ours?' I asked.
'I know not, lad, I know not,' he said. 'He speaks fair enough, but
I doubt there is too much wind under his cap for us to count too much
on his steadfastness. Still, better a popinjay at Court than no
friend at all. Things look black indeed if all he says be true. God
knows what counsel is being breathed in the Queen's ears, but 'tis
certain her right hand is held out to Spain. Since peace was made
with France, I thought there would be leisure for England to complete
the good work within herself; but now this dallying with Spain and
the woman of Scotland of which I hear may mar all, and we perhaps
shall have to fight the fight again. Heaven send these piracies--of
which Mr. Drake writes to us, and of which Lord Robert speaks--may by
God's help prosper, till they make a breach between His people and
the spawn of antichrist, such as no Queen or King or embassy can
heal.'
It surprised me to hear so godly a man as Mr. Cartwright speak of
Heaven prospering piracy, but I was wont to believe all he said was
right, and held my peace. He went on then to tell me how earnest her
Majesty was that Lord Robert should marry the Queen of Scots, and how
well she had received the new Spanish ambassador at Richmond, and
many other evil signs.
'But surely, sir,' said I, 'in this she deserves the praise of our
party, seeing that if the Queen of Scots had so godly a husband as
our High Steward, all practices against the cause in Scotland would
end, and a true succession be assured.'
'Speak not of it, lad,' Mr. Cartwright replied. 'It is but cozening
of the Lord to dally thus with antichrist. England must have no part
with the accursed thing. Rome and Reformation, there are these two,
and no other; and we must choose between them. Pray, lad, and watch
and toil by night and day, by thought and deed, that the choice may
be the right. Above all, pray, as I have ever bid you, that we may
see the Queen speedily matched to some godly Protestant lord, so
that, being blessed with issue, she may keep the succession clear
from all fear of Romish taint. Wrestle, lad, with the Lord for that.
It is the only hope and safeguard of Reformation in England.'
He uttered no more than we all thought then from the wisest and most
wide-seeing to the most ignorant and bigoted. He, I think, saw it
more plainly than many, and during the rest of the Queen's visit we
spoke of little but these things, till I fully shared his thought
that the tide of Rome, which, had begun to flow again, and had
already covered so many fair Protestant provinces, was setting hard
towards England; and each morn and night my prayers went up with
those of all our party, and many a one beside, that the Queen might
soon be wed.
So moved was I by all this talk that I could take but little note of
the disputations, plays, and pageants with which my university
entertained the Queen, the more so as Mr. Cartwright took no more
part in them. Still, I saw her every day, and dreamed of her every
night, feeling I loved her more and more for the dangers that
surrounded her, and that I would spare not even my life to ward her
from her enemies.
On the 10th of August, after a morning shower of degrees upon all the
Court, the Queen left Cambridge, and I not long afterwards, being
troubled with an ague, went home to Longdene.