"Up then rose the 'prentices all,
Living in London, both proper and tall."
_Old Song._
Sir Thomas Cave, of Stanford in Northamptonshire, a worthy Knight who
held his wisdom of greater repute at court than did his royal Master,
was led by the glamour of a fine summer's afternoon in the year 1608 to
fulfil a long-deferred promise to his daughter.
At Spring Gardens, removed but a short space from the King's Palace of
Whitehall, that eccentric monarch, James I., had established a
menagerie. Here could be seen certain mangy specimens of the wonderful
beasts which bulked large in the lore of the period, and Mistress Anna
Cave, with her fair cousin, Mistress Eleanor Roe, had teased Sir Thomas
until he consented to take them thither on the first occasion, of fair
seeming as to the weather, when the King would be pleased to dispense
with his attendance.
The girls, than whom there were not two prettier maidens in all England,
soon tired of evil-smelling and snarling animals, which in no wise came
up to the wonderful creatures of their imagination, eked out by weird
wood-cuts in the books they read.
They found the charming garden, with its beds of flowers and
strawberries, its hedges of red and black currants, roses and
gooseberries, and its golden plum-trees lining the brick walls facing
west and south, far more to their liking.
Nor was it wholly unsuited to their age and condition that their eyes
wandered from the cages of furtive wolves and uneasy bears to the smooth
walks tenanted by a coterie of court ladies with their attendant
gallants. Anna Cave, eighteen, yet looking older by reason of her tall
stature and graceful carriage, Eleanor Roe, a year younger, a sweet
girl, at once timid in manner and joyous in disposition, found much to
cavil at in the Spanish fashions then prevalent in high circles. Born
and bred in decorous and God-fearing households, they were not a little
shocked by the way in which the great dames of the period dressed and
comported themselves. Yet, with all their youthful disapproval there
mingled a spice of curiosity, and Nellie, the shy one, often nudged her
more sedate companion to take note of a specially ornate farthingale or
a Spanish mantilla of exquisite design.
Now, despite the reverence in which the stout Sir Thomas held the King,
he did not approve of some of the King's associates. Especially was he
unwilling that the bold eyes of any of the young adventurers and
profligates who clustered under the banner of Rochester should survey
the charms of his daughter and niece. Therefore, when the girls would
have him walk with them in the wake of Lady Essex, then at the height of
her notorious fame, he peremptorily vetoed their design.
"If you are aweary of the kennels," he said, "we will stroll in our own
garden. It is fair as this, and the scent of the flowers therein is not
aped by the cosmetics of the women."
"Nay, but, uncle," pouted Eleanor, disappointed that the style of the
much talked-of Countess should be no more than glimpsed in passing, "we
have seen neither lion, nor tiger, nor humpbacked camel. Surely the
King's collection is not so meager that one may find as many wild beasts
at any May-day fair in Islington?"
"Lions, tigers, and the rest, Got wot! What doth a girl like thee want
with such fearsome cattle?"
"'Tis only a few days since I heard one declaiming a passage in Master
Shakespeare's play of 'Macbeth,' and he said:
What men dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble.
Now, save a very harmless-looking bear, neither Ann nor I have seen
these things, so we know not why they should be held so terrible."
During this recital the knight's red face became wider and wider with
surprise.
"Marry, Heaven forfend!" he cried, "what goings on there be behind my
back! Anna, can you, too, spout verse as glibly?"
"Indeed, father, Nellie and I know whole plays by heart. Yet we would
not indulge in this innocent pastime if we thought it angered you."
Sir Thomas was as wax in his daughter's hands. Secretly, he feared her
greater intellectual powers. He believed that girls' brains were better
suited to housewifely cares than to the study of poetry, yet some twinge
of doubt bade him keep the opinion pent in his own portly breast.
"Nay, then, if it pleases you and wiles away dull hours, I will not
hinder you. But our sweet Nellie should not betray her gifts in public.
Folk hereabouts have rabbits' ears and magpies' tongues. I fear me there
are neither lions nor horned pigs to hand. They are costly toys, and
'tis whispered that his gracious Majesty obtaineth less credit abroad
than among his liege subjects. Further, my bonny girls, I have asked a
certain youth, George Beeston by name, to sup with us to-night, and it
behooves you--What, Anna, has it come to that? You shrug at the mere
mention of him! And he a proper youth--not one of these graceless
rascals who yelp at Carr's heels!"
Again was Sir Thomas becoming choleric and red-faced, and the girls'
excursion promised to end in speedy dudgeon had not a messenger, wearing
the Palace livery, approached and doffed his cap, bowing low as he
halted.
"Happily one said your worship was in the gardens," he said. "I am
bidden to tell you that the King awaits your honor in his closet. The
matter is of utmost urgency."
Now, this announcement had the precise effect on its recipient
calculated by those who sent it. Sir Thomas, inflated with importance,
was rendered almost incoherent. Never before had he received such a
royal message. All considerations must bow to it. He bustled the girls
into a litter in which they could be carried to his brother's house in
the city without soiling their shoes or being exposed to the gaze of the
throng in the Fleet or Ludgate. He himself hurried off to Whitehall,
there to be kept in a fume of impatience for a good hour or more, while
the King disputed with a Scottish divine as to the exact pronunciation
of the Latin tongue. Admitted at last to the presence, he found that the
urgency of his summons touched no greater matter than the cleansing of
the Fleet ditch, a fruitful source of dispute between the monarch and
the city in those days.
Sir Thomas had wit enough to promise that the King's wishes should be
made known to the Common Council, and sense enough to wonder why he was
called in such hot haste to attend a trivial thing.
It was a time when men sought hidden motives for aught that savored of
the uncommon; the knight, borrowing a palfrey from a merchant of his
acquaintance, rode homeward along the Strand revolving the puzzle in his
mind. Long before he reached Temple Bar he was wiser if not happier.
Soon after Anna Cave and the sprightly Eleanor entered their litter to
be carried swiftly through the Strand, two young men approached Temple
Bar from the east. Their distinctive garments showed that while one was
of gentle birth the other was a yeoman; that they were not master and
man could be seen at a glance, as they conversed one with the other with
easy familiarity, and repaid with ready good-humor the chaff which they
received from the cheeky apprentices who solicited custom in the busy
street.
Indeed, the appearance of the yeoman was well calculated to stir tongues
less nimble than those of the pert salesmen of Fleet Street. Gigantic in
height and width, his broad, ruddy face beaming with the delight
afforded by the evidently novel sights of London, his immense size was
accentuated by a coat of tough brown leather and high riding-boots of
the same material which almost met the skirts of the coat. Tight-fitting
trousers of gray homespun matched the color of his broad-brimmed felt
hat, in which a gay plume of cock's feathers was clasped by a big brooch
of dull gold. The precious metal served to enclose a peculiar ornament,
in the shape of a headless fossil snake, curled in a circle as in life
and polished until it shone like granite.
Though his coat was girt by a sword-belt he carried no weapons of steel,
apparently depending for protection, if such a giant required its aid,
on a long and heavy ashplant. In other hands it would be a cumbrous
stake; to him it served as a mere wand.
His immense size, aided by a somewhat unusual garb in well-dressed
London, absolutely eclipsed, in the public eye, the handsome and
stalwart youth who, in richer but studiously simple attire, strode by
his side.
The apprentices, fearless in their numbers and unfettered in impudence,
plied him with saucy cries.
"What d'ye lack, Master Samson? Here be two suits for the price of one,
for one man's clothes would never fit thee."
"Come hither, mountain! I'll sell thee a town clock that shall serve
thee as watch."
"Hi, master! Let me show thee a trencher worthy of thy stomach."
The last speaker held forth a salver of such ample circumference that
the two young men were fain to laugh.
"I' faith, friend," said the giant, with utmost good-humor, "we are more
needing meat than dishes. Nevertheless, you have ta'en my measure
rightly."
His North-country accent proclaimed him a Yorkshire dalesman, and the
White Rose was popular just then in Fleet Street.
"If that be so," said the sturdy silversmith's assistant who had hailed
him, "you must hie to Smithfield, where they shall roast you a bullock."
"Come wi' me, then. Mayhap they need a puppy for the spit."
The answer turned the laugh against the apprentice. He bravely
endeavored to rally.
"I cry your honor's pardon," he said. "I looked not for brains where
there was so much beef."
"Therein you further showed your observation. Ofttimes the cockloft is
empty in those whom nature hath built many stories high."
Again the buoyant spirits of the Colossus won him the suffrages of the
crowd. Clearly, he had an even temper in his great frame of bone and
sinew, for the easy play of his limbs showed that, big as he was, he
held no superfluous flesh, while the heat of the day left him unmoved,
notwithstanding his heavy garments.
But his companion caught him by the arm.
"Come, Roger," he said quietly. "We must find our kinsman's house. There
is still much to be done ere night falls."
The crowd made way for them. They passed westward through Temple Bar,
which was not the frowning stone arch of later days, but a strong
palisade, with posts and chains, capable of being closed during a
tumult, or when darkness made it difficult to keep watch and ward in the
city.
The Strand, which they entered, was an open road, with the mansions and
gardens of great noblemen on the left, or south side. Each walled
enclosure was separate from its neighbor, the alleys between leading to
the water stairs, where passengers so minded took boat to Southwark or
Lambeth.
On the north were other houses, some pretentious, but more closely
packed together, and, on this hand, Drury Lane and St. Martin's Lane
were already becoming thoroughfares of note.
One of these houses, not far removed from the Church of St.
Mary-le-Strand, thrust the high wall of its garden so far into the road
that it narrowed the passage between it and Somerset House. Here, a
group of young gallants had gathered, and some soldiers, of swarthy
visage and foreign attire, were loitering in the vicinity.
"This, if my memory serves, should be the house of Gondomar, the Spanish
Ambassador," said Walter Mowbray, the elder and more authoritative of
the pair.
"Gondomar! Another name for Old Nick! The devil should keep his proper
name in all countries, as he keeps his nature in all places."
"Hush, Roger, or we shall have a brawl on our hands. I am no lover of
Spaniards, you know full well, yet we must pass Gondomar's men without
unseemly taunt. The King loves not to hear of naked blades."
Thus admonished, his wonted grin of good-humor returned to Roger
Sainton's face, and, as the swaggering youngsters in the road were
paying some heed to a covered litter rapidly approaching from the west,
the friends essayed to pass them by taking the pavement close under the
wall of the Ambassador's garden.
As luck would have it, a sort of signal seemed to be given for a row to
start. Swords were whipped out, men ran forward, and there was a sudden
clash of steel.
A laughing fop, for his sins, turned to seek some one with whom to pick
a quarrel; he chanced to find himself face to face with Mowbray, Roger
being a little in front and at one side.
"I'll have the wall of you, sirrah," cried the stranger, frowning
offensively.
Walter stepped back, and his right hand crossed to his sword hilt, so
evident was the design of the other to insult him.
But Sainton laughed. He caught the would-be bully by the belt.
"Yea, and take the house, too, if the landlord be willing, my pretty
buck," he growled pleasantly, whereon he heaved the swaggerer bodily
over the wall, and they heard the crash of his body into the window of a
summer house.
Those who stood near were rendered aghast by this feat of strength; they
had never seen its like. Young Lord Dereham was no light weight, and his
lordship's wriggling carcass had described sufficient parabola to clear
coping-stones set ten feet above the pavement.
The incident passed unheeded by the greater mob in the roadway. For no
reason whatever a crowd of struggling men surged around the litter.
Mowbray, clutching his undrawn sword, planted his back against the wall
from which the discomfited aristocrat would have ousted him; he called
to Sainton:--
"Stand by, Roger! There is some treason afoot!"
The words had scarce left his mouth when a Spanish halberdier felled the
two nearest litter-bearers, and a shriek of dismay came from behind the
drawn curtains as the conveyance dropped to the ground.
Another rush, also preconcerted, enabled some of the well-dressed
rascals to possess themselves of the litter-poles. The gates of
Gondomar's garden were suddenly opened, and a move was made to carry the
litter thither.
At that instant Eleanor Roe, thrusting aside the curtains, showed her
beautiful face, now distraught with fear, and cried aloud for help.
"Be not alarmed, fair one," said one of her new escort, scarcely veiling
his bold stare of admiration by an assumption of good manners. "We have
saved you from some roistering knaves, and shall give you a pleasant
refuge until the trouble be quelled."
"Where are my father's serving-men?" demanded another voice, and Anna
looked forth, though anger rather than fear marked her expression.
"Prone in the dust, miladi," answered the cavalier.
Both girls saw that they were being taken towards Gondomar's house.
"I pray you convey us to Temple Bar," cried Anna, an alarmed look now
sending shadows across her dark eyes. "'Tis but a step, and there our
names shall warrant us bearers in plenty."
"You are much too pretty to trust to such varlets," said the spokesman
of the party, and, before another word of protest could be uttered, the
litter was hustled within the gates, which were closed at once.
Now, both Mowbray and his huge companion were assured that the whole
business was a trick. The only sufferers from the riot were the
unfortunate litter-bearers and the nobleman who was pitched over the
wall. All the rest was make-believe, save the unpleasing fact that two
young and beautiful girls were left helpless in the hands of a number of
unprincipled libertines such as followed the lead set by Carr, the
Scottish page, and maintained, in later years, by "Steenie" and "Baby
Charles" in a lewd and dissolute court.
But Mowbray was a comparative stranger in London, and Sainton had never
before set eyes on the capital. Common prudence suggested that they
should not raise a clamor at the gates of Gondomar, whose great
influence with the erratic King was widely known and justly dreaded.
Yet, when did prudence ever withstand the pleading of a pretty face?
Mowbray's blood was boiling, and it needed but little to rouse him to
action. The impetus was soon forthcoming.
The noise of the disturbance brought people running from Temple Bar.
Others hurried up from the direction of Charing Cross. Then, as now,
Londoners dearly loved a street row.
Again, by well-planned strategy, the soldiers and some of the exquisites
mingled with the crowd and gave lying assurances that the rogues who
fought had run off towards the Convent Garden. Roger recognized the
silversmith's apprentice among the gapers.
"Here, lad," he said, beckoning him, "ask yon fellow holding a kerchief
to his broken head who were the ladies he carried in the litter."
The man, thus appealed to, gathered his wits sufficiently to answer, and
the honored names of Cave and Roe acted as sparks on tinder. Forthwith,
a number of city youths gathered round Mowbray and Sainton to hear their
version of the fray.
As soon as they knew that the girls had been taken into Gondomar's
house, all the race hatred and religious bigotry of the time flamed
forth in ungovernable fury.
"'Prentices! 'Prentices! Clubs! Clubs!" rang out the yell, and the
war-cry of the guilds quickly reached to the city barrier, whence a
torrent of youths poured headlong into the Strand.
"We'll have 'em out, if all the ambassadors in St. James's barred the
way," shouted the valiant silversmith, who contrived to keep very close
to Roger in the press, and, when reinforcements arrived, a decided move
was made towards the garden gate.
And now, indeed, a real fight was imminent. Seeing their ruse foiled,
Gondomar's adherents banded together for the defense. The citizens were
determined to rescue the daughters of two men respected of all honest
burgesses, but, if more numerous, they were not properly armed to attack
swordsmen and halberdiers. Hence, blood would be spilt in plenty before
they won the gate, had not Roger pulled back Walter Mowbray, who headed
the attack.
"Leave 'em to me," he said. "I'll side 'em!"
With that he leaped forward into the space cleared by the halberdiers,
and made play with his staff. A steel helmet was cracked like a
potsherd, three unarmored gallants dropped beneath one blow, and two
halberds were broken across as if they had been pipe-stems abhorred by
the King.
Before this raging giant, with the tremendous sweep of his long arms
and six-foot staff, ordinary swords and ceremonial battle-axes were of
no avail. He mowed down his adversaries as a scythe cuts grass, and a
few lightning circles described by the ashplant, cleared the way to the
gate.
The door was really a wide postern, sunk in the wall, built of stout oak
and studded with iron rivets. Without a moment's pause, Sainton leaned
against it. There was a sound of rending wood-work, and the structure
was torn from its hinges.
Mowbray parried a vengeful thrust made at his friend by a fallen
Spaniard, and jammed the hilt of his sword into the man's face. Roger,
bending his head, entered the garden. Behind him came Walter, and the
exulting mob poured in at their heels.
The garden was empty. Leading to the house was a flight of broad steps;
at the open door of the mansion stood a tall, grim-looking, clean-shaven
priest, a Spaniard, of the ascetic type, a man of dignified appearance,
in whose face decision and strength of character set their seal.
At his elbow Mowbray saw the young nobleman who had addressed the girls.
He ran forward, fearing lest Roger should open the argument with his
cudgel.
"Hold!" cried the ecclesiastic, in good English. "What want ye here in
this unbridled fashion?"
"We seek two ladies, daughters of Sir Thomas Cave and Master Robert Roe,
who were brought hither forcibly but a few minutes back."
"They are not here."
"That is a black lie, black as your own gown," put in Roger Sainton.
The priest's sallow face flushed. He was of high rank, and not used to
being spoken to so curtly. Mowbray, already cooler now swords had given
place to words, restrained Roger by a look and a hand on his arm.
"My friend is blunt of speech," he explained. "He only means that you
are mistaken. It will avoid riot and bloodshed if the ladies are given
over forthwith to the safe conduct of those who are acquainted with
their parents."
"Who are you who can venture to speak on behalf of an ignorant and
unmannerly gathering which dares to violate the sanctuary of an
Embassy?" was the vehement response.
"My name is Walter Mowbray," was the calm answer. "There is no violation
of sanctuary intended. We are here to rescue two ladies inveigled into
this house by unworthy device. Either they come out or we come in."
"Aye, shaven-pate, 'tis ill disputing with him who commands an army,"
cried Roger.
The cleric, on whom Mowbray's reply seemed to have an extraordinary
effect, shot glances at both which would have slain them if looks could
kill. But the impatient mob was shouting for active measures: it would
have asked no greater fun than the sack of Gondomar's residence;
moreover, the majority of the Spaniards and their allies were routed in
the street.
So the priest swallowed his wrath and muttered something in a low tone
to the silken-clad person by his side. Then he faced Mowbray again.
"When I said there were no ladies here, I meant that none had been
conveyed hither forcibly. Two young ladies were sheltered by his
Excellency's retinue, it is true. If they choose they are at liberty to
accompany you, and I shall now acquaint them therewith."
A hoarse laugh from the crowd showed that the sophistry did not pass
unheeded. Nevertheless, Mowbray's counsel of moderation swayed the mob
into quiescence, and, a minute later, Anna Cave and Eleanor Roe, pale
and trembling, hardly knowing what was toward, were carried in their
litter to the city by an excited but good-tempered escort.