[Illustration: "DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD, CATHERINE?" _Painting by
William Hurd Lawrence_]
"Madame and Queen," the Countess answered, "in this world every man
must scratch his own back. My lord has entrusted to me his castle of
Wark, his fiefs in Northumberland. These, I hear, are being laid
waste. Were there a thousand men-at-arms left in England I would say
fight. As it is, our men are yonder in France and the island is
defenceless. Accordingly I ride for the north to make what terms I may
with the King of Scots."
Now you might have seen the Queen's eyes flame. "Undoubtedly," said
she, "in her lord's absence it is the wife's part to defend his
belongings. And my lord's fief is England. I bid you God-speed,
Catherine." And when the Countess was gone, Philippa turned, her round
face all flushed. "She betrays him! she compounds with the Scot!
Mother of Christ, let me not fail!"
"A ship must be despatched to bid Sire Edward return," said the
secretary. "Otherwise all England is lost."
"Not so, John Copeland! Let Sire Edward conquer in France, if such be
the Trinity's will. Always he has dreamed of that, and if I bade him
return now he would be vexed."
"The disappointment of the King," John Copeland considered, "is a
lesser evil than allowing all of us to be butchered."
"Not to me, John Copeland," the Queen said.
Now came many lords into the chamber, seeking Madame Philippa. "We
must make peace with the Scottish rascal!--England is lost!--A ship
must be sent entreating succor of Sire Edward!" So they shouted.
"Messieurs," said Queen Philippa, "who commands here? Am I, then, some
woman of the town?"
Ensued a sudden silence. John Copeland, standing by the seaward
window, had picked up a lute and was fingering the instrument
half-idly. Now the Marquess of Hastings stepped from the throng.
"Pardon, Highness. But the occasion is urgent."
"The occasion is very urgent, my lord," the Queen assented, deep in
meditation.
John Copeland flung back his head and without prelude began to carol
lustily.
Sang John Copeland:
"_There are fairer men than Atys,
And many are wiser than he--
How should I heed them?--whose fate is
Ever to serve and to be
Ever the lover of Atys,
And die that Atys may dine,
Live if he need me--Then heed me,
And speed me, (the moment is thine!)
And let the heart of Atys,
At last, at last, be mine!_
"_Fair is the form unbeholden,
And golden the glory of thee
Whose voice is the voice of a vision,
Whose face is the foam of the sea,
And the fall of whose feet is the flutter
Of breezes in birches and pine,
When thou drawest near me, to hear me,
And cheer me, (the moment is thine!)
And let the heart of Atys,
At last, at last, be mine!_"
I must tell you that the Queen shivered, as with extreme cold. She
gazed toward John Copeland wonderingly. The secretary was as of stone,
fretting at his lute-strings, head downcast. Then in a while the Queen
turned to Hastings.
"The occasion is very urgent, my lord," the Queen assented. "Therefore
it is my will that to-morrow one and all your men be mustered at
Blackheath. We will take the field without delay against the King of
Scots."
The riot began anew. "Madness!" they shouted; "lunar madness! We can
do nothing until the King return with our army!"
"In his absence," the Queen said, "I command here."
"You are not Regent," the Marquess said. Then he cried, "This is the
Regent's affair!"
"Let the Regent be fetched," Dame Philippa said, very quietly.
Presently they brought in her son, Messire Lionel, now a boy of eight
years, and Regent, in name at least, of England.
Both the Queen and the Marquess held papers. "Highness," Lord Hastings
began, "for reasons of state, which I need not here explain, this
document requires your signature. It is an order that a ship be
despatched in pursuit of the King. Your Highness may remember the pony
you admired yesterday?" The Marquess smiled ingratiatingly. "Just
here, your Highness--a cross-mark."
"The dappled one?" said the Regent; "and all for making a little mark?"
The boy jumped for the pen.
"Lionel," said the Queen, "you are Regent of England, but you are also
my son. If you sign that paper you will beyond doubt get the pony, but
you will not, I think, care to ride him. You will not care to sit down
at all, Lionel."
The Regent considered. "Thank you very much, my lord," he said in the
ultimate, "but I do not like ponies any more. Do I sign here, mother?"
Philippa handed the Marquess a subscribed order to muster the English
forces at Blackheath; then another, closing the English ports. "My
lords," the Queen said, "this boy is the King's vicar. In defying him,
you defy the King. Yes, Lionel, you have fairly earned a pot of jam
for supper."
Then Hastings went away without speaking. That night assembled at his
lodgings, by appointment, Viscount Heringaud, Adam Frere, the Marquess
of Orme, Lord Stourton, the Earls of Neville and Gage, and Sir Thomas
Rokeby. These seven found a long table there littered with pens and
parchment; to the rear of it, a lackey behind him, sat the Marquess of
Hastings, meditative over a cup of Bordeaux.
Presently Hastings said: "My friends, in creating our womankind the
Maker of us all was beyond doubt actuated by laudable and cogent
reasons; so that I can merely lament my inability to fathom these
reasons. I shall obey the Queen faithfully, since if I did otherwise
Sire Edward would have my head off within a day of his return. In
consequence, I do not consider it convenient to oppose his vicar.
To-morrow I shall assemble the tatters of troops which remain to us,
and to-morrow we march northward to inevitable defeat. To-night I am
sending a courier into Northumberland. He is an obliging person, and
would convey--to cite an instance--eight letters quite as blithely as
one."
Each man glanced furtively about him. England was in a panic by this,
and knew itself to lie before the Bruce defenceless. The all-powerful
Countess of Salisbury had compounded with King David; now Hastings too,
their generalissimo, compounded. What the devil! loyalty was a
sonorous word, and so was patriotism, but, after all, one had estates
in the north.
The seven wrote in silence. When they had ended, I must tell you that
Hastings gathered the letters into a heap, and without glancing at the
superscriptures, handed all these letters to the attendant lackey.
"For the courier," he said.
The fellow left the apartment. Presently there was a clatter of hoofs
without, and Hastings rose. He was a gaunt, terrible old man,
gray-bearded, and having high eyebrows that twitched and jerked.
"We have saved our precious skins," said he. "Hey, you Iscariots! I
commend your common-sense, messieurs, and I request you to withdraw.
Even a damned rogue such as I has need of a cleaner atmosphere when he
would breathe." The seven went away without further speech.
They narrate that next day the troops marched for Durham, where the
Queen took up her quarters. The Bruce had pillaged and burned his way
to a place called Beaurepair, within three miles of the city. He sent
word to the Queen that if her men were willing to come forth from the
town he would abide and give them battle.
She replied that she accepted his offer, and that the barons would
gladly risk their lives for the realm of their lord the King. The
Bruce grinned and kept silence, since he had in his pocket letters from
nine-tenths of them protesting they would do nothing of the sort.
There is comedy here. On one side you have a horde of half-naked
savages, a shrewd master holding them in leash till the moment be
auspicious; on the other, a housewife at the head of a tiny force
lieutenanted by perjurers, by men already purchased. God knows the
dreams she had of miraculous victories, what time her barons trafficked
in secret with the Bruce. On the Saturday before Michaelmas, when the
opposing armies marshalled in the Bishop's Park, at Auckland, it is
recorded that not a captain on either side believed the day to be
pregnant with battle. There would be a decent counterfeit of
resistance; afterward the little English army would vanish pell-mell,
and the Bruce would be master of the island. The farce was
prearranged, the actors therein were letter-perfect.
That morning at daybreak John Copeland came to the Queen's tent, and
informed her quite explicitly how matters stood. He had been drinking
overnight with Adam Frere and the Earl of Gage, and after the third
bottle had found them candid. "Madame and Queen, we are betrayed. The
Marquess of Hastings, our commander, is inexplicably smitten with a
fever. He will not fight to-day. Not one of your lords will fight
to-day." Master Copeland laid bare such part of the scheme as
yesterday's conviviality had made familiar. "Therefore I counsel
retreat. Let the King be summoned out of France."
But Queen Philippa shook her head, as she cut up squares of toast and
dipped them in milk for the Regent's breakfast. "Sire Edward would be
vexed. He has always intended to conquer France. I shall visit the
Marquess as soon as Lionel is fed--do you know, John Copeland, I am
anxious about Lionel; he is irritable and coughed five times during the
night--and then I will attend to this affair."
She found the Marquess in bed, groaning, the coverlet pulled up to his
chin. "Pardon, Highness," said Lord Hastings, "but I am an ill man. I
cannot rise from this couch."
"I do not question the gravity of your disorder," the Queen retorted,
"since it is well known that the same illness brought about the death
of Iscariot. Nevertheless, I bid you get up and lead our troops
against the Scot."
Now the hand of the Marquess veiled his countenance. But, "I am an ill
man," he muttered, doggedly. "I cannot rise from this couch."
There was a silence.
"My lord," the Queen presently began, "without is an army prepared--ay,
and quite able--to defend our England. The one requirement of this
army is a leader. Afford them that, my lord--ah, I know that our peers
are sold to the Bruce, yet our yeomen at least are honest. Give them,
then, a leader, and they cannot but conquer, since God also is honest
and incorruptible. Pardieu! a woman might lead these men, and lead
them to victory!"