“True, sire, haste, haste! I stay but to deceive the enemy by feigning

to defend the pass, and to counsel, as I best may, the faithful soldiers

we leave behind.”

“Brave Hastings!” said Gloucester, pressing his hand, “you do well, and

I envy you the glory of this post. Come, sire.”

“Ay, ay,” said the king, with a sudden and fierce cry, “we go,--but

at least slaughtering as we go. See! yon rascal troop! ride we through

their midst! Havock and revenge!”

He set spurs to his steed, galloped over the bridge, and before his

companions could join him, dashed alone into the very centre of the

advanced guard sent to invest the fortress, and while they were yet

shouting, “Where is the tyrant, where is Edward?”

“Here!” answered a voice of thunder,--“here, rebels and faytors, in your

ranks!”

This sudden and appalling reply, even more than the sweep of the

gigantic sword, before which were riven sallet and mail as the woodman’s

axe rives the fagot, created amongst the enemy that singular panic,

which in those ages often scattered numbers before the arm and the name

of one. They recoiled in confusion and dismay. Many actually threw down

their arms and fled. Through a path broad and clear amidst the forest

of pikes, Gloucester and the captains followed the flashing track of the

king, over the corpses, headless or limbless, that he felled as he rode.

Meanwhile, with a truer chivalry, Hastings, taking advantage of the

sortie which confused and delayed the enemy, summoned such of the loyal

as were left in the fortress, advised them, as the only chance of life,

to affect submission to Warwick; but when the time came, to remember

their old allegiance, [Sharon Turner, vol. iii. 280.] and promising that

he would not desert them, save with life, till their safety was pledged

by the foe, reclosed his visor, and rode back to the front of the

bridge.

And now the king and his comrades had cut their way through all barrier,

but the enemy still wavered and lagged, till suddenly the cry of “Robin

of Redesdale!” was heard, and sword in hand, Hilyard, followed by a

troop of horse, dashed to the head of the besiegers, and, learning the

king’s escape, rode off in pursuit. His brief presence and sharp rebuke

reanimated the falterers, and in a few minutes they gained the bridge.

“Halt, sirs,” cried Hastings; “I would offer capitulation to your

leader! Who is he?”

A knight on horseback advanced from the rest. Hastings lowered the point

of his sword.

“Sir, we yield this fortress to your hands upon one condition,--our men

yonder are willing to submit, and shout with you for Henry VI. Pledge

me your word that you and your soldiers spare their lives and do them no

wrong, and we depart.”

“And if I pledge it not?” said the knight.

“Then for every warrior who guards this bridge count ten dead men

amongst your ranks.”

“Do your worst,--our bloods are up! We want life for life! revenge for

the subjects butchered by your tyrant chief! Charge! to the attack!

charge! pike and bill!” The knight spurred on, the Lancastrians

followed, and the knight reeled from his horse into the moat below,

felled by the sword of Hastings.

For several minutes the pass was so gallantly defended that the strife

seemed uncertain, though fearfully unequal, when Lord Montagu himself,

hearing what had befallen, galloped to the spot, threw down his

truncheon, cried “Hold!” and the slaughter ceased. To this nobleman

Hastings repeated the terms he had proposed.

“And,” said Montagu, turning with anger to the Lancastrians, who formed

a detachment of Fitzhugh’s force--“can Englishmen insist upon butchering

Englishmen? Rather thank we Lord Hastings that he would spare good King

Henry so many subjects’ lives! The terms are granted, my lord; and your

own life also, and those of your friends around you, vainly brave in a

wrong cause. Depart!”

“Ah, Montagu,” said Hastings, touched, and in a whisper, “what pity that

so gallant a gentleman should leave a rebel’s blot upon his scutcheon!”

“When chiefs and suzerains are false and perjured, Lord Hastings,”

answered Montagu, “to obey them is not loyalty, but serfdom; and revolt

is not disloyalty, but a freeman’s duty. One day thou mayst know that

truth, but too late.” [It was in the midst of his own conspiracy against

Richard of Gloucester that the head of Lord Hastings fell.]

Hastings made no reply, waved his hand to his fellow-defenders of the

bridge, and, followed by them, went slowly and deliberately on, till

clear of the murmuring and sullen foe; then putting spurs to their

steeds, these faithful warriors rode fast to rejoin their king; overtook

Hilyard on the way, and after a fierce skirmish, a blow from Hastings

unhorsed and unhelmed the stalwart Robin, and left him so stunned as to

check further pursuit. They at last reached the king, and gaining, with

him and his party, the town of Lynn, happily found one English and two

Dutch vessels on the point of sailing. Without other raiment than the

mail they wore, without money, the men a few hours before hailed as

sovereign or as peers fled from their native land as outcasts

and paupers. New dangers beset them on the sea: the ships of the

Easterlings, at war both with France and England, bore down upon their

vessels. At the risk of drowning they ran ashore near Alcmaer. The large

ships of the Easterlings followed as far as the low water would permit,

“intendeing at the fludde to have obtained their prey.” [Hall.] In this

extremity, the lord of the province (Louis of Grauthuse) came aboard

their vessels, protected the fugitives from the Easterlings,

conducted them to the Hague, and apprised the Duke of Burgundy how his

brother-in-law had lost his throne. Then were verified Lord Warwick’s

predictions of the faith of Burgundy! The duke for whose alliance

Edward had dishonoured the man to whom he owed his crown, so feared the

victorious earl, that “he had rather have heard of King Edward’s death

than of his discomfiture;” [Hall, p. 279] and his first thought was to

send an embassy to the king-maker, praying the amity and alliance of the

restored dynasty.

CHAPTER VIII. WHAT BEFELL ADAM WARNER AND SIBYLL WHEN MADE SUBJECT TO

THE GREAT FRIAR BUNGEY.

We must now return to the Tower of London,--not, indeed, to its lordly

halls and gilded chambers, but to the room of Friar Bungey. We must go

back somewhat in time; and on the day following the departure of the

king and his lords, conjure up in that strangely furnished apartment the

form of the burly friar, standing before the disorganized Eureka, with

Adam Warner by his side.

Graul, as we have seen, had kept her word, and Sibyll and her father,

having fallen into the snare, were suddenly gagged, bound, led through

by-paths to a solitary hut, where a covered wagon was in waiting, and

finally, at nightfall, conducted to the Tower. The friar, whom his own

repute, jolly affability, and favour with the Duchess of Bedford made

a considerable person with the authorities of the place, had already

obtained from the deputy-governor an order to lodge two persons, whom

his zeal for the king sought to convict of necromantic practices

in favour of the rebellion, in the cells set apart for such unhappy

captives. Thither the prisoners were conducted. The friar did not object

to their allocation in contiguous cells; and the jailer deemed him

mighty kind and charitable, when he ordered that they might be well

served and fed till their examination.

He did not venture, however, to summon his captives till the departure

of the king, when the Tower was in fact at the disposition of his

powerful patroness, and when he thought he might stretch his authority

as far as he pleased, unquestioned and unchid.

Now, therefore, on the day succeeding Edward’s departure, Adam Warner

was brought from his cell, and led to the chamber where the triumphant

friar received him in majestic state. The moment Warner entered, he

caught sight of the chaos to which his Eureka was resolved, and uttering

a cry of mingled grief and joy, sprang forward to greet his profaned

treasure. The friar motioned away the jailer (whispering him to wait

without), and they were left alone. Bungey listened with curious and

puzzled attention to poor Adam’s broken interjections of lamentation and

anger, and at last, clapping him roughly on the back, said,--

“Thou knowest the secret of this magical and ugly device: but in thy

hands it leads only to ruin and perdition. Tell me that secret, and in

my hands it shall turn to honour and profit. Porkey verbey! I am a man

of few words. Do this, and thou shalt go free with thy daughter, and

I will protect thee, and give thee moneys, and my fatherly blessing;

refuse to do it, and thou shalt go from thy snug cell into a black

dungeon full of newts and rats, where thou shalt rot till thy nails are

like birds’ talons, and thy skin shrivelled up into mummy, and covered

with hair like Nebuchadnezzar!”

“Miserable varlet! Give thee my secret, give thee my fame, my life!

Never! I scorn and spit at thy malice!”

The friar’s face grew convulsed with rage. “Wretch!” he roared forth,

“darest thou unslip thy hound-like malignity upon great Bungey? Knowest

thou not that he could bid the walls open and close upon thee; that he

could set yon serpents to coil round thy limbs, and yon lizard to gnaw

out thine entrails? Despise not my mercy, and descend to plain sense.

What good didst thou ever reap from thy engine? Why shouldst thou lose

liberty--nay, life--if I will, for a thing that has cursed thee with

man’s horror and hate?”

“Art thou Christian and friar to ask me why? Were not Christians

themselves hunted by wild beasts, and burned at the stake, and boiled

in the caldron for their belief? Knave, whatever is holiest men ever

persecute. Read thy Bible!”

“Read the Bible!” exclaimed Bungey, in pious horror at such a

proposition. “Ah, blasphemer, now I have thee! Thou art a heretic and

Lollard. Hollo, there!”

The friar stamped his foot, the door opened; but to his astonishment

and dismay appeared, not the grim jailer, but the Duchess of Bedford

herself, preceded by Nicholas Alwyn. “I told your Grace truly--see,

lady!” cried the goldsmith. “Vile impostor, where hast thou hidden this

wise man’s daughter?”

The friar turned his dull, bead-like eyes in vacant consternation from

Nicholas to Adam, from Adam to the duchess. “Sir friar,” said Jacquetta,

mildly--for she wished to conciliate the rival seers--“what means this

over-zealous violation of law? Is it true, as Master Alwyn affirms,

that thou hast stolen away and seducted this venerable sage and his

daughter,--a maid I deemed worthy of a post in my own household?”

“Daughter and lady,” said the friar, sullenly, “this ill faytor, I have

reason to know, has been practising spells for Lord Warwick and the

enemy. I did but summon him hither that my art might undo his charms;

and as for his daughter, it seemed more merciful to let her attend him

than to leave her alone and unfriended; specially,” added the friar with

a grin, “since the poor lord she hath witched is gone to the wars.”

“It is true, then, wretch, that thou or thy caitiffs have dared to lay

hands on a maiden of birth and blood!” exclaimed Alwyn. “Tremble!--see,

here, the warrant signed by the king, offering a reward for thy

detection, empowering me to give thee up to the laws. By Saint Dunstan,

but for thy friar’s frock, thou shouldst hang!”

“Tut, tut, Master Goldsmith,” said the duchess, haughtily, “lower

thy tone. This holy man is under my protection, and his fault was but

over-zeal. What were this sage’s devices and spells?”

“Marry,” said the friar, “that is what your Grace just hindereth my

knowing. But he cannot deny that he is a pestilent astrologer, and

sends word to the rebels what hours are lucky or fatal for battle and

assault.”

“Ha!” said the duchess, “he is an astrologer! true, and came nearer to

the alchemist’s truth than any multiplier that ever served me! My own

astrologer is just dead,--why died he at such a time? Peace, peace!

be there peace between two so learned men. Forgive thy brother, Master

Warner!” Adam had hitherto disdained all participation in this dialogue.

In fact, he had returned to the Eureka, and was silently examining

if any loss of the vital parts had occurred in its melancholy

dismemberment. But now he turned round and said, “Lady, leave the lore

of the stars to their great Maker. I forgive this man, and thank your

Grace for your justice. I claim these poor fragments, and crave your

leave to suffer me to depart with my device and my child.”

“No, no!” said the duchess, seizing his hand. “Hist! whatever Lord

Warwick paid thee, I will double. No time now for alchemy; but for the

horoscope, it is the veriest season. I name thee my special astrologer.”

“Accept, accept,” whispered Alwyn; “for your daughter’s sake--for your

own--nay, for the Eureka’s!”

Adam bowed his head, and groaned forth, “But I go not hence--no, not a

foot--unless this goes with me. Cruel wretch, how he hath deformed it!”

“And now,” cried Alwyn, eagerly, “this wronged and unhappy maiden?”

“Go! be it thine to release and bring her to our presence, good Alwyn,”

said the duchess; “she shall lodge with her father, and receive all

honour. Follow me, Master Warner.”

No sooner, however, did the friar perceive that Alwyn had gone in search

of the jailer, than he arrested the steps of the duchess, and said, with

the air of a much-injured man,--

“May it please your Grace to remember that unless the greater magician

have all power and aid in thwarting the lesser, the lesser can prevail;

and therefore, if your Grace finds, when too late, that Lord Warwick’s

or Lord Fitzhugh’s arms prosper, that woe and disaster befall the king,

say not it was the fault of Friar Bungey! Such things may be. Nathless

I shall still sweat and watch and toil; and if, despite your unhappy

favour and encouragement to this hostile sorcerer, the king should beat

his enemies, why, then, Friar Bungey is not so powerless as your

Grace holds him. I have said--Porkey verbey!--Figilabo et conabo--et

perspirabo--et hungerabo--pro vos et vestros, Amen!”

The duchess was struck by this eloquent appeal; but more and more

convinced of the dread science of Adam by the evident apprehensions

of the redoubted Bungey, and firmly persuaded that she could bribe or

induce the former to turn a science that would otherwise be hostile into

salutary account, she contented herself with a few words of conciliation

and compliment, and summoning the attendants who had followed her,

bade them take up the various members of the Eureka (for Adam clearly

demonstrated that he would not depart without them) and conducted the

philosopher to a lofty chamber, fitted up for the defunct astrologer.

Hither, in a short time, Alwyn had the happiness of leading Sibyll,

and witnessing the delighted reunion of the child and father. And then,

after he had learned the brief details of their abduction, he related

how, baffled in all attempt to trace their clew, he had convinced

himself that either the duchess or Bungey was the author of the snare,

returned to the Tower, shown the king’s warrant, learned that an old

man and a young female had indeed been admitted into the fortress, and

hurried at once to the duchess, who, surprised at his narration and

complaint, and anxious to regain the services of Warner, had accompanied

him at once to the friar.

“And though,” added the goldsmith, “I could indeed procure you lodgings

more welcome to ye elsewhere, yet it is well to win the friendship of

the duchess, and royalty is ever an ill foe. How came ye to quit the

palace?”

Sibyll changed countenance, and her father answered gravely, “We

incurred the king’s displeasure, and the excuse was the popular hatred

of me and the Eureka.”

“Heaven made the people, and the devil makes three-fourths of what is

popular!” bluntly said the man of the middle class, ever against both

extremes.

“And how,” asked Sibyll, “how, honoured and true friend, didst thou

obtain the king’s warrant, and learn the snare into which we had

fallen?”

This time it was Alwyn who changed countenance. He mused a moment,

and then frankly answering, “Thou must thank Lord Hastings,” gave the

explanation already known to the reader.

But the grateful tears this relation called forth from Sibyll, her

clasped hands, her evident emotion of delight and love, so pained poor

Alwyn, that he rose abruptly and took his leave.

And now the Eureka was a luxury as peremptorily forbid to the astrologer

as it had been to the alchemist! Again the true science was despised,

and the false cultivated and honoured. Condemned to calculations which

no man (however wise) in that age held altogether delusive, and which

yet Adam Warner studied with very qualified belief, it happened by some

of those coincidences, which have from time to time appeared to confirm

the credulous in judicial astrology, that Adam’s predictions became

fulfilled. The duchess was prepared for the first tidings that Edward’s

foes fled before him. She was next prepared for the very day in which

Warwick landed; and then her respect for the astrologer became strangely

mingled with suspicion and terror, when she found that he proceeded

to foretell but ominous and evil events; and when at last, still in

corroboration of the unhappily too faithful horoscope, came the news of

the king’s flight, and the earl’s march upon London, she fled to Friar

Bungey in dismay. And Friar Bungey said,--

“Did I not warn you, daughter? Had you suffered me to--”

“True, true!” interrupted the duchess. “Now take, hang, rack, drown, or

burn your horrible rival, if you will, but undo the charm, and save us

from the earl!”

The friar’s eyes twinkled, but to the first thought of spite and

vengeance succeeded another: if he who had made the famous waxen

effigies of the Earl of Warwick were now to be found guilty of some

atrocious and positive violence upon Master Adam Warner, might not the

earl be glad of so good an excuse to put an end to Himself?

“Daughter,” said the friar, at that reflection, and shaking his head

mysteriously and sadly, “daughter, it is too late.”

The duchess in great despair flew to the queen. Hitherto she had

concealed from her royal daughter the employment she had given to Adam;

for Elizabeth, who had herself suffered from the popular belief in

Jacquetta’s sorceries, had of late earnestly besought her to lay aside

all practices that could be called into question. Now, however, when

she confessed to the agitated and distracted queen the retaining of Adam

Warner, and his fatal predictions, Elizabeth, who, from discretion and

pride, had carefully hidden from her mother (too vehement to keep a

secret) that offence in the king, the memory of which had made Warner

peculiarly obnoxious to him, exclaimed,--

“Unhappy mother, thou hast employed the very man my fated husband would

the most carefully have banished from the palace, the very man who could

blast his name.”

The duchess was aghast and thunderstricken.

“If ever I forsake Friar Bungey again!” she muttered; “OH, THE GREAT

MAN!”

But events which demand a detailed recital now rapidly pressing on, gave

the duchess not even the time to seek further explanation of Elizabeth’s

words, much less to determine the doubt that rose in her enlightened

mind whether Adam’s spells might not be yet unravelled by the timely

execution of the sorcerer!

CHAPTER IX. THE DELIBERATIONS OF MAYOR AND COUNCIL, WHILE LORD WARWICK

MARCHES UPON LONDON.

It was a clear and bright day in the first week of October, 1470, when

the various scouts employed by the mayor and council of London came

back to the Guild, at which that worshipful corporation were

assembled,--their steeds blown and jaded, themselves panting and

breathless,--to announce the rapid march of the Earl of Warwick. The

lord mayor of that year, Richard Lee, grocer and citizen, sat in the

venerable hall in a huge leather chair, over which a pall of velvet had

been thrown in haste, clad in his robes of state, and surrounded by his

aldermen and the magnates of the city. To the personal love which the

greater part of the body bore to the young and courteous king was added

the terror which the corporation justly entertained of the Lancastrian

faction. They remembered the dreadful excesses which Margaret had

permitted to her army in the year 1461,--what time, to use the

expression of the old historian, “the wealth of London looked pale;”

and how grudgingly she had been restrained from condemning her revolted

metropolis to the horrors of sack and pillage. And the bearing of this

august representation of the trade and power of London was not, at the

first, unworthy of the high influence it had obtained. The agitation

and disorder of the hour had introduced into the assembly several of the

more active and accredited citizens not of right belonging to it; but

they sat, in silent discipline and order, on long benches beyond the

table crowded by the corporate officers. Foremost among these, and

remarkable by the firmness and intelligence of his countenance, and

the earnest self-possession with which he listened to his seniors, was

Nicholas Alwyn, summoned to the council from his great influence with

the apprentices and younger freemen of the city.

As the last scout announced his news and was gravely dismissed, the lord

mayor rose; and being, perhaps, a better educated man than many of

the haughtiest barons, and having more at stake than most of them,

his manner and language had a dignity and earnestness which might have

reflected honour on the higher court of parliament.

“Brethren and citizens,” he said, with the decided brevity of one who

felt it no time for many words, “in two hours we shall hear the clarions

of Lord Warwick at our gates; in two hours we shall be summoned to give

entrance to an army assembled in the name of King Henry. I have done my

duty,--I have manned the walls, I have marshalled what soldiers we can

command, I have sent to the deputy-governor of the Tower--”

“And what answer gives he, my lord mayor?” interrupted Humfrey Heyford.

“None to depend upon. He answers that Edward IV., in abdicating the

kingdom, has left him no power to resist; and that between force and

force, king and king, might makes right.”

A deep breath, like a groan, went through the assembly.

Up rose Master John Stokton, the mercer. He rose, trembling from limb to

limb.

“Worshipful my lord mayor,” said he, “it seems to me that our first duty

is to look to our own selves!”

Despite the gravity of the emergence, a laugh burst forth, and was at

once silenced at this frank avowal.

“Yes,” continued the mercer, turning round, and striking the table with

his fist, in the action of a nervous man--“yes; for King Edward has set

us the example. A stout and a dauntless champion, whose whole youth has

been war, King Edward has fled from the kingdom. King Edward takes care

of himself,--it is our duty to do the same!”

Strange though it may seem, this homely selfishness went at once through

the assembly like a flash of conviction. There was a burst of applause,

and, as it ceased, the sullen explosion of a bombard (or cannon) from

the city wall announced that the warder had caught the first glimpse of

the approaching army.

Master Stokton started as if the shot had gone near to himself, and

dropped at once into his seat, ejaculating, “The Lord have mercy upon

us!” There was a pause of a moment, and then several of the corporation

rose simultaneously. The mayor, preserving his dignity, fixed on the

sheriff.

“Few words, my lord, and I have done,” said Richard Gardyner--“there is

no fighting without men. The troops at the Tower are not to be counted

on. The populace are all with Lord Warwick, even though he brought the

devil at his back. If you hold out, look to rape and plunder before

sunset to-morrow. If ye yield, go forth in a body, and the earl is not

the man to suffer one Englishman to be injured in life or health who

once trusts to his good faith. My say is said.”

“Worshipful my lord,” said a thin, cadaverous alderman, who rose

next, “this is a judgment of the Lord and His saints. The Lollards and

heretics have been too much suffered to run at large, and the wrath of

Heaven is upon us.”

An impatient murmuring attested the unwillingness of the larger part

of the audience to listen further; but an approving buzz from the elder

citizens announced that the fanaticism was not without its favourers.

Thus stimulated and encouraged, the orator continued; and concluded an

harangue, interrupted more stormily than all that had preceded, by an

exhortation to leave the city to its fate, and to march in a body to

the New Prison, draw forth five suspected Lollards, and burn them at

Smithfield, in order to appease the Almighty and divert the tempest!

This subject of controversy once started might have delayed the audience

till the ragged staves of the Warwickers drove them forth from their

hall, but for the sagacity and promptitude of the mayor.

“Brethren,” he said, “it matters not to me whether the counsel suggested

be good or bad, in the main; but this have I heard,--there is small

safety in death-bed repentance. It is too late now to do, through fear

of the devil, what we omitted to do through zeal for the Church. The

sole question is, ‘Fight or make terms.’ Ye say we lack men; verily,

yes, while no leaders are found! Walworth, my predecessor, saved

London from Wat Tyler. Men were wanting then till the mayor and his

fellow-citizens marched forth to Mile End. It may be the same now. Agree

to fight, and we’ll try it. What say you, Nicholas Alwyn?--you know the

temper of our young men.”

Thus called upon, Alwyn rose, and such was the good name he had already

acquired, that every murmur hushed into eager silence.

“My lord mayor,” he said, “there is a proverb in my country which says,

‘Fish swim best that’s bred in the sea;’ which means, I take it, that

men do best what they are trained for! Lord Warwick and his men are

trained for fighting. Few of the fish about London Bridge are bred in

that sea. Cry, ‘London to the rescue!’--put on hauberk and helm, and

you will have crowns enough to crack around you. What follows?--Master

Stokton hath said it: pillage and rape for the city, gibbet and cord for

mayor and aldermen. Do I say this, loving the House of Lancaster? No; as

Heaven shall judge me, I think that the policy King Edward hath chosen,

and which costs him his crown to-day, ought to make the House of York

dear to burgess and trader. He hath sought to break up the iron rule of

the great barons,--and never peace to England till that be done. He has

failed; but for a day. He has yielded for a time; so must we. ‘There’s a

time to squint, and a time to look even.’ I advise that we march out

to the earl, that we make honourable terms for the city, that we take

advantage of one faction to gain what we have not gained with the

other; that we fight for our profit, not with swords, where we shall

be worsted, but in council and parliament, by speech and petition.

New power is ever gentle and douce. What matters to us York or

Lancaster?--all we want is good laws. Get the best we can from

Lancaster, and when King Edward returns, as return he will, let him bid

higher than Henry for our love. Worshipful my lords and brethren, while

barons and knaves go to loggerheads, honest men get their own. Time

grows under us like grass. York and Lancaster may pull down each

other,--and what is left? Why, three things that thrive in all

weather,--London, industry; and the people! We have fallen on a rough

time. Well, what says the proverb? ‘Boil stones in butter, and you may

sup the broth.’ I have done.”

This characteristic harangue, which was fortunate enough to accord with

the selfishness of each one, and yet give the manly excuse of sound

sense and wise policy to all, was the more decisive in its effect,

inasmuch as the young Alwyn, from his own determined courage, and his

avowed distaste to the Lancaster faction, had been expected to favour

warlike counsels. The mayor himself, who was faithfully and personally

attached to Edward, with a deep sigh gave way to the feeling of the

assembly. And the resolution being once come to, Henry Lee was the first

to give it whatever advantage could be derived from prompt and speedy

action.

“Go we forth at once,” said he,--“go, as becomes us, in our robes of

state, and with the insignia of the city. Never be it said that the

guardians of the city of London could neither defend with spirit, nor

make terms with honour. We give entrance to Lord Warwick. Well, then, it

must be our own free act. Come! Officers of our court, advance.”

“Stay a bit, stay a bit,” whispered Stokton, digging sharp claws into

Alwyn’s arm; “let them go first,--a word with you, cunning Nick,--a

word.”

Master Stokton, despite the tremor of his nerves, was a man of such

wealth and substance, that Alwyn might well take the request, thus

familiarly made, as a compliment not to be received discourteously;

moreover, he had his own reasons for hanging back from a procession

which his rank in the city did not require him to join.

While, therefore, the mayor and the other dignitaries left the hall with

as much state and order as if not going to meet an invading army, but to

join a holiday festival, Nicholas and Stokton lingered behind.

“Master Alwyn,” said Stokton, then, with a sly wink of his eye, “you

have this day done yourself great credit; you will rise, I have my eye

on you! I have a daughter, I have a daughter! Aha! a lad like you may

come to great things!”

“I am much bounden to you, Master Stokton,” returned Alwyn, somewhat

abstractedly; “but what’s your will?”

“My will!--hum, I say, Nicholas, what’s your advice? Quite right not to

go to blows. Odds costards! that mayor is a very tiger! But don’t you

think it would be wiser not to join this procession? Edward IV., an’

he ever come back, has a long memory. He deals at my ware, too,--a

good customer at a mercer’s; and, Lord! how much money he owes the

city!--hum!--I would not seem ungrateful.”

“But if you go not out with the rest, there be other mercers who will

have King Henry’s countenance and favour; and it is easy to see that a

new court will make vast consumption in mercery.”

Master Stokton looked puzzled.

“That were a hugeous pity, good Nicholas; and, certes, there is Wat

Smith, in Eastgate, who would cheat that good King Henry, poor man!

which were a shame to the city; but, on the other hand, the Yorkists

mostly pay on the nail (except King Edward, God save him!), and the

Lancastrians are as poor as mice. Moreover, King Henry is a meek man,

and does not avenge; King Edward, a hot and a stern man, and may call it

treason to go with the Red Rose! I wish I knew how to decide! I have a

daughter, an only daughter,--a buxom lass, and well dowered. I would I

had a sharp son-in-law to advise me!”

“Master Stokton, in one word, then, he never goes far wrong who can run

with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Good-day to you, I have business

elsewhere.”

So saying, Nicholas rather hastily shook off the mercer’s quivering

fingers, and hastened out of the hall.

“Verily,” murmured the disconsolate Stokton, “run with the hare,

quotha!--that is, go with King Edward; but hunt with the hounds,--that

is, go with King Henry. Odds costards; it’s not so easily done by a

plain man not bred in the North. I’d best go--home, and do nothing!”

With that, musing and bewildered, the poor man sneaked out, and was soon

lost amidst the murmuring, gathering, and swaying crowds, many amongst

which were as much perplexed as himself.

In the mean while, with his cloak muffled carefully round his face, and

with a long, stealthy, gliding stride, Alwyn made his way through

the streets, gained the river, entered a boat in waiting for him, and

arrived at last at the palace of the Tower.

CHAPTER X. THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY OF THE EARL--THE ROYAL CAPTIVE IN THE

TOWER--THE MEETING BETWEEN KING-MAKER AND KING.

All in the chambers of the metropolitan fortress exhibited the greatest

confusion and dismay. The sentinels, it is true, were still at their

posts, men-at-arms at the outworks, the bombards were loaded, the flag

of Edward IV. still waved aloft from the battlements; but the officers

of the fortress and the captains of its soldiery were, some assembled

in the old hall, pale with fear, and wrangling with each other; some had

fled, none knew whither; some had gone avowedly and openly to join the

invading army.

Through this tumultuous and feeble force, Nicholas Alwyn was conducted

by a single faithful servitor of the queen’s (by whom he was expected);

and one glance of his quick eye, as he passed along, convinced him of

the justice of his counsels. He arrived at last, by a long and winding

stair, at one of the loftiest chambers, in one of the loftiest towers,

usually appropriated to the subordinate officers of the household.

And there, standing by the open casement, commanding some extended view

of the noisy and crowded scene beyond, both on stream and land, he saw

the queen of the fugitive monarch. By her side was the Lady Scrope,

her most familiar friend and confidant, her three infant children,

Elizabeth, Mary, and Cicely, grouped round her knees, playing with each

other, and unconscious of the terrors of the times; and apart from the

rest stood the Duchess of Bedford, conferring eagerly with Friar Bungey,

whom she had summoned in haste, to know if his art could not yet prevail

over enemies merely mortal.

The servitor announced Alwyn, and retired; the queen turned--“What news,

Master Alwyn? Quick! What tidings from the lord mayor?”

“Gracious my queen and lady,” said Alwyn, falling on his knees, “you

have but one course to pursue. Below yon casement lies your barge, to

the right see the round gray tower of Westminster Sanctuary; you have

time yet, and but time!”

The old Duchess of Bedford turned her sharp, bright, gray eyes from the

pale and trembling friar to the goldsmith, but was silent. The queen

stood aghast. “Mean you,” she faltered, at last, “that the city of

London forsakes the king? Shame on the cravens!”

“Not cravens, my lady and queen,” said Alwyn, rising. “He must have iron

nails that scratches a bear,--and the white bear above all. The king has

fled, the barons have fled, the soldiers have fled, the captains have

fled,--the citizens of London alone fly not; but there is nothing save

life and property left to guard.”

“Is this thy boasted influence with the commons and youths of the city?”

“My humble influence, may it please your Grace (I say it now openly,

and I will say it a year hence, when King Edward will hold his court in

these halls once again), my influence, such as it is, has been used

to save lives which resistance would waste in vain. Alack, alack! ‘No

gaping against an oven,’ gracious lady! Your barge is below. Again I say

there is yet time,--when the bell tolls the next hour that time will be

past!”

“Then Jesu defend these children!” said Elizabeth, bending over her

infants, and weeping bitterly; “I will go!”

“Hold!” said the Duchess of Bedford, “men desert us, but do the spirits

also forsake us?--Speak, friar! canst thou yet do aught for us?--and if

not, thinkest thou it is the right hour to yield and fly?”

“Daughter,” said the friar, whose terror might have moved pity, “as I

said before, thank yourself. This Warner, this--in short, the lesser

magician hath been aided and cockered to countervail the greater, as I

forewarned. Fly! run! fly! Verily and indeed it is the prosperest of all

times to save ourselves; and the stars and the book and my familiar all

call out, ‘Off and away!’”

“‘Fore heaven!” exclaimed Alwyn, who had hitherto been dumb with

astonishment at this singular interlude, “sith he who hath shipped the

devil must make the best of him, thou art for once an honest man and a

wise counsellor. Hark! the second gun! The earl is at the gates of the

city!”

The queen lingered no longer; she caught her youngest child in her arms;

the Lady Scrope followed with the two others. “Come, follow, quick,

Master Alwyn,” said the duchess, who, now that she was compelled to

abandon the world of prediction and soothsaying, became thoroughly the

sagacious, plotting, ready woman of this life; “come, your face and name

will be of service to us, an’ we meet with obstruction.”

Before Alwyn could reply, the door was thrown abruptly open, and

several of the officers of the household rushed pell-mell into the royal

presence.

“Gracious queen!” cried many voices at once, each with a different

sentence of fear and warning, “fly! We cannot depend on the soldiers;

the populace are up,--they shout for King Henry; Dr. Godard is preaching

against you at St. Paul’s Cross; Sir Geoffrey Gates has come out of the

sanctuary, and with him all the miscreants and outlaws; the mayor is now

with the rebels! Fly! the sanctuary, the sanctuary!”

“And who amongst you is of highest rank?” asked the duchess, calmly;

for Elizabeth, completely overwhelmed, seemed incapable of speech or

movement.

“I, Giles de Malvoisin, knight banneret,” said an old warrior armed

cap-a-pie, who had fought in France under the hero Talbot.

“Then, sir,” said the duchess, with majesty, “to your hands I confide

the eldest daughter of your king. Lead on!--we follow you. Elizabeth,

lean on me.”

With this, supporting Elizabeth, and leading her second grandchild, the

duchess left the chamber.

The friar followed amidst the crowd, for well he knew that if the

soldiers of Warwick once caught hold of him, he had fared about as

happily as the fox amidst the dogs; and Alwyn, forgotten in the general

confusion, hastened to Adam’s chamber.

The old man, blessing any cause that induced his patroness to dispense

with his astrological labours and restored him to the care of his

Eureka, was calmly and quietly employed in repairing the mischief

effected by the bungling friar; and Sibyll, who at the first alarm

had flown to his retreat, joyfully hailed the entrance of the friendly

goldsmith.

Alwyn was indeed perplexed what to advise, for the principal sanctuary

would, no doubt, be crowded by ruffians of the worst character; and

the better lodgments which that place, a little town in itself,

[the Sanctuary of Westminster was fortified] contained, be already

preoccupied by the Yorkists of rank; and the smaller sanctuaries were

still more liable to the same objection. Moreover, if Adam should be

recognized by any of the rabble that would meet them by the way, his

fate, by the summary malice of a mob, was certain. After all, the

Tower would be free from the populace; and as soon as, by a few rapid

questions, Alwyn learned from Sibyll that she had reason to hope her

father would find protection with Lord Warwick, and called to mind that

Marmaduke Nevile was necessarily in the earl’s train, he advised them to

remain quiet and concealed in their apartments, and promised to see

and provide for them the moment the Tower was yielded up to the new

government.

The counsel suited both Sibyll and Warner. Indeed, the philosopher could

not very easily have been induced to separate himself again from the

beloved Eureka; and Sibyll was more occupied at that hour with

thoughts and prayers for the beloved Hastings,--afar, a wanderer and an

exile,--than with the turbulent events amidst which her lot was cast.

In the storms of a revolution which convulsed a kingdom and hurled

to the dust a throne, Love saw but a single object, Science but its

tranquil toil. Beyond the realm of men lies ever with its joy and

sorrow, its vicissitude and change, the domain of the human heart.

In the revolution, the toy of the scholar was restored to him; in the

revolution, the maiden mourned her lover. In the movement of the mass,

each unit hath its separate passion. The blast that rocks the trees

shakes a different world in every leaf.

CHAPTER XI. THE TOWER IN COMMOTION.

On quitting the Tower, Alwyn regained the boat, and took his way to the

city; and here, whatever credit that worthy and excellent personage may

lose in certain eyes, his historian is bound to confess that his anxiety

for Sibyll did not entirely distract his attention from interest or

ambition. To become the head of his class, to rise to the first honours

of his beloved city of London, had become to Nicholas Alwyn a hope and

aspiration which made as much a part of his being as glory to a warrior,

power to a king, a Eureka to a scholar; and, though more mechanically

than with any sordid calculation or self-seeking, Nicholas Alwyn

repaired to his ware in the Chepe. The streets, when he landed, already

presented a different appearance from the disorder and tumult noticeable

when he had before passed them. The citizens now had decided what course

to adopt; and though the shops, or rather booths, were carefully closed,

streamers of silk, cloth of arras and gold, were hung from the upper

casements; the balconies were crowded with holiday gazers; the fickle

populace (the same herd that had hooted the meek Henry when led to the

Tower) were now shouting, “A Warwick!” “A Clarence!” and pouring throng

after throng, to gaze upon the army, which, with the mayor and aldermen,

had already entered the city. Having seen to the security of his costly

goods, and praised his apprentices duly for their care of his interests,

and their abstinence from joining the crowd, Nicholas then repaired

to the upper story of his house, and set forth from his casements and

balcony the richest stuffs he possessed. However, there was his own

shrewd, sarcastic smile on his firm lips, as he said to his apprentices,

“When these are done with, lay them carefully by against Edward of

York’s re-entry.”

Meanwhile, preceded by trumpets, drums, and heralds, the Earl of Warwick

and his royal son-in-law rode into the shouting city. Behind came the

litter of the Duchess of Clarence, attended by the Earl of Oxford, Lord

Fitzhugh, the Lords Stanley and Shrewsbury, Sir Robert de Lytton, and a

princely cortege of knights, squires, and nobles; while, file upon file,

rank upon rank, followed the long march of the unresisted armament.

Warwick, clad in complete armour of Milan steel,--save the helmet, which

was borne behind him by his squire,--mounted on his own noble Saladin,

preserved upon a countenance so well suited to command the admiration of

a populace the same character as heretofore of manly majesty and lofty

frankness. But to a nearer and more searching gaze than was likely to be

bent upon him in such an hour, the dark, deep traces of care, anxiety,

and passion might have been detected in the lines which now thickly

intersected the forehead, once so smooth and furrowless; and his kingly

eye, not looking, as of old, right forward as he moved, cast unquiet,

searching glances about him and around, as he bowed his bare head from

side to side of the welcoming thousands.

A far greater change, to outward appearance, was visible in the fair

young face of the Duke of Clarence. His complexion, usually sanguine and

blooming, like his elder brother’s, was now little less pale than that

of Richard. A sullen, moody, discontented expression, which not all

the heartiness of the greetings he received could dispel, contrasted

forcibly with the good-humoured, laughing recklessness, which had once

drawn a “God bless him!” from all on whom rested his light-blue joyous

eye. He was unarmed, save by a corselet richly embossed with gold. His

short manteline of crimson velvet, his hosen of white cloth laced with

gold, and his low horseman’s boots of Spanish leather curiously carved

and broidered, with long golden spurs; his plumed and jewelled cap;

his white charger with housings enriched with pearls and blazing with

cloth-of-gold; his broad collar of precious stones, with the order of

St. George; his general’s truncheon raised aloft, and his Plantagenet

banner borne by the herald over his royal head, caught the eyes of the

crowd only the more to rivet them on an aspect ill fitting the triumph

of a bloodless victory. At his left hand, where the breadth of the

streets permitted, rode Henry Lee, the mayor, uttering no word, unless

appealed to, and then answering but with chilling reverence and dry

monosyllables.

A narrow winding in the streets, which left Warwick and Clarence alone

side by side, gave the former the opportunity he had desired.

“How, prince and son,” he said in a hollow whisper, “is it with this

brow of care that thou saddenest our conquest, and enterest the capital

we gain without a blow?”

“By Saint George!” answered Clarence, sullenly, and in the same tone,

“thinkest thou it chafes not the son of Richard of York, after such

toils and bloodshed, to minister to the dethronement of his kin and the

restoration of the foe of his race?”

“Thou shouldst have thought of that before,” returned Warwick, but with

sadness and pity in the reproach.

“Ay, before Edward of Lancaster was made my lord and brother,” retorted

Clarence, bitterly.

“Hush!” said the earl, “and calm thy brow. Not thus didst thou speak at

Amboise; either thou wert then less frank or more generous. But regrets

are vain: we have raised the whirlwind, and must rule it.”

And with that, in the action of a man who would escape his own thoughts,

Warwick made his black steed demivolte; and the crowd shouted again

the louder at the earl’s gallant horsemanship, and Clarence’s dazzling

collar of jewels.

While thus the procession of the victors, the nominal object of all this

mighty and sudden revolution--of this stir and uproar, of these shining

arms and flaunting banners, of this heaven or hell in the deep passions

of men--still remained in his prison-chamber of the Tower, a true type

of the thing factions contend for; absent, insignificant, unheeded,

and, save by a few of the leaders and fanatical priests, absolutely

forgotten!

To this solitary chamber we are now transported; yet solitary is a word

of doubtful propriety; for though the royal captive was alone, so far as

the human species make up a man’s companionship and solace, though the

faithful gentlemen, Manning, Bedle, and Allerton, had, on the news of

Warwick’s landing, been thrust from his chamber, and were now in the

ranks of his new and strange defenders, yet power and jealousy had not

left his captivity all forsaken. There was still the starling in its

cage, and the fat, asthmatic spaniel still wagged its tail at the sound

of its master’s voice, or the rustle of his long gown. And still from

the ivory crucifix gleamed the sad and holy face of the God, present

alway, and who, by faith and patience, linketh evermore grief to

joy,--but earth to heaven.

The august prisoner had not been so utterly cut off from all knowledge

of the outer life as to be ignorant of some unwonted and important stir

in the fortress and the city. The squire who had brought him his morning

meal had been so agitated as to excite the captive’s attention, and had

then owned that the Earl of Warwick had proclaimed Henry king, and was

on his march to London. But neither the squire nor any of the officers

of the Tower dared release the illustrious captive, or even remove him

as yet to the state apartments vacated by Elizabeth. They knew not what

might be the pleasure of the stout earl or the Duke of Clarence, and

feared over-officiousness might be their worst crime. But naturally

imagining that Henry’s first command, at the new position of things,

might be for liberty, and perplexed whether to yield or refuse, they

absented themselves from his summons, and left the whole tower in which

he was placed actually deserted.

From his casement the king could see, however, the commotion, and the

crowds upon the wharf and river, with the gleam of arms and banners;

and hear the sounds of “A Warwick!” “A Clarence!” “Long live good Henry

VI.!” A strange combination of names, which disturbed and amazed him

much! But by degrees the unwonted excitement of perplexity and surprise

settled back into the calm serenity of his most gentle mind and temper.

That trust in an all-directing Providence, to which he had schooled

himself, had (if we may so say with reverence) driven his beautiful soul

into the opposite error, so fatal to the affairs of life,--the error

that deadens and benumbs the energy of free will and the noble alertness

of active duty. Why strain and strive for the things of this world? God

would order all for the best. Alas! God hath placed us in this world,

each, from king to peasant, with nerves and hearts and blood and

passions to struggle with our kind; and, no matter how heavenly the

goal, to labour with the million in the race!

“Forsooth,” murmured the king, as, his hands clasped behind him,

he paced slowly to and fro the floor, “this ill world seemeth but

a feather, blown about by the winds, and never to be at rest. Hark!

Warwick and King Henry,--the lion and the lamb! Alack, and we are fallen

on no Paradise, where such union were not a miracle! Foolish bird!”--and

with a pitying smile upon that face whose holy sweetness might have

disarmed a fiend, he paused before the cage and contemplated his

fellow-captive--“foolish bird, the uneasiness and turmoil without have

reached even to thee. Thou beatest thy wings against the wires, thou

turnest thy bright eyes to mine restlessly. Why? Pantest thou to be

free, silly one, that the hawk may swoop on its defenceless prey?

Better, perhaps, the cage for thee, and the prison for thy master. Well,

out if thou wilt! Here at least thou art safe!” and opening the cage,

the starling flew to his bosom, and nestled there, with its small clear

voice mimicking the human sound,--

“Poor Henry, poor Henry! Wicked men, poor Henry!”

The king bowed his meek head over his favourite, and the fat spaniel,

jealous of the monopolized caress, came waddling towards its master,

with a fond whine, and looked up at him with eyes that expressed more of

faith and love than Edward of York, the ever wooing and ever wooed, had

read in the gaze of woman.

With those companions, and with thoughts growing more and more composed

and rapt from all that had roused and vexed his interest in the

forenoon, Henry remained till the hour had long passed for his evening

meal. Surprised at last by a negligence which (to do his jailers

justice) had never before occurred, and finding no response to his

hand-bell, no attendant in the anteroom, the outer doors locked as

usual, but the sentinel’s tread in the court below hushed and still,

a cold thrill for a moment shot through his blood.--“Was he left for

hunger to do its silent work?” Slowly he bent his way from the outer

rooms back to his chamber; and, as he passed the casement again, he

heard, though far in the distance, through the dim air of the deepening

twilight, the cry of “Long live King Henry!”

This devotion without, this neglect within, was a wondrous contrast!

Meanwhile the spaniel, with that instinct of fidelity which divines the

wants of the master, had moved snuffling and smelling round and round

the chambers, till it stopped and scratched at a cupboard in the

anteroom, and then with a joyful bark flew back to the king, and taking

the hem of his gown between its teeth, led him towards the spot it had

discovered; and there, in truth, a few of those small cakes, usually

served up for the night’s livery, had been carelessly left. They

sufficed for the day’s food, and the king, the dog, and the starling

shared them peacefully together. This done, Henry carefully replaced his

bird in its cage, bade the dog creep to the hearth and lie still; passed

on to his little oratory, with the relics of cross and saint strewed

around the solemn image,--and in prayer forgot the world! Meanwhile

darkness set in: the streets had grown deserted, save where in some

nooks and by-lanes gathered groups of the soldiery; but for the most

part the discipline in which Warwick held his army had dismissed those

stern loiterers to the various quarters provided for them, and little

remained to remind the peaceful citizens that a throne had been

uprooted, and a revolution consummated, that eventful day.

It was at this time that a tall man, closely wrapped in his large

horseman’s cloak, passed alone through the streets and gained the Tower.

At the sound of his voice by the great gate, the sentinel started in

alarm; a few moments more, and all left to guard the fortress were

gathered round him. From these he singled out one of the squires who

usually attended Henry, and bade him light his steps to the king’s

chamber. As in that chamber Henry rose from his knees, he saw the broad

red light of a torch flickering under the chinks of the threshold; he

heard the slow tread of approaching footsteps; the spaniel uttered a low

growl, its eyes sparkling; the door opened, and the torch borne behind

by the squire, and raised aloft so that its glare threw a broad light

over the whole chamber, brought into full view the dark and haughty

countenance of the Earl of Warwick.

The squire, at a gesture from the earl, lighted the sconces on the wall,

the tapers on the table, and quickly vanished. King-maker and king were

alone! At the first sight of Warwick, Henry had turned pale, and receded

a few paces, with one hand uplifted in adjuration or command, while with

the other he veiled his eyes,--whether that this startled movement

came from the weakness of bodily nerves, much shattered by sickness and

confinement, or from the sudden emotions called forth by the aspect of

one who had wrought him calamities so dire. But the craven’s terror in

the presence of a living foe was, with all his meekness, all his holy

abhorrence of wrath and warfare, as unknown to that royal heart as to

the high blood of his hero-sire. And so, after a brief pause, and a

thought that took the shape of prayer, not for safety from peril, but

for grace to forgive the past, Henry VI. advanced to Warwick, who

still stood dumb by the threshold, combating with his own mingled and

turbulent emotions of pride and shame, and said, in a voice majestic

even from its very mildness,--

“What tale of new woe and evil hath the Earl of Salisbury and Warwick

come to announce to the poor captive who was once a king?”

“Forgive me! Forgiveness, Henry, my lord,--forgiveness!” exclaimed

Warwick, falling on his knee. The meek reproach; the touching words; the

mien and visage altered, since last beheld, from manhood into age;

the gray hairs and bended form of the king, went at once to that proud

heart; and as the earl bent over the wan, thin hand resigned to his

lips, a tear upon its surface out-sparkled all the jewels that it wore.

“Yet no,” continued the earl (impatient, as proud men are, to hurry from

repentance to atonement, for the one is of humiliation and the other of

pride),--“yet no, my liege, not now do I crave thy pardon. No; but when

begirt, in the halls of thine ancestors, with the peers of England,

the victorious banner of Saint George waving above the throne which thy

servant hath rebuilt,--then, when the trumpets are sounding thy rights

without the answer of a foe; then, when from shore to shore of fair

England the shout of thy people echoes to the vault of heaven,--then

will Warwick kneel again to King Henry, and sue for the pardon he hath

not ignobly won!

“Alack, sir,” said the king, with accents of mournful yet half-reproving

kindness, “it was not amidst trump and banners that the Son of God

set mankind the exemplar and pattern of charity to foes. When thy hand

struck the spurs from my heel, when thou didst parade me through the

booting crowd to this solitary cell, then, Warwick, I forgave thee,

and prayed to Heaven for pardon for thee, if thou didst wrong me,--for

myself, if a king’s fault had deserved a subject’s harshness. Rise, Sir

Earl; our God is a jealous God, and the attitude of worship is for Him

alone.”

Warwick rose from his knee; and the king, perceiving and compassionating

the struggle which shook the strong man’s breast, laid his hand on the

earl’s shoulder, and said, “Peace be with thee!--thou hast done me no

real harm. I have been as happy in these walls as in the green parks of

Windsor; happier than in the halls of state or in the midst of wrangling

armies. What tidings now?”

“My liege, is it possible that you know not that Edward is a fugitive

and a beggar, and that Heaven hath permitted me to avenge at once your

injuries and my own? This day, without a blow, I have regained your

city of London; its streets are manned with my army. From the council

of peers and warriors and prelates assembled at my house, I have stolen

hither alone and in secret, that I might be the first to hail your

Grace’s restoration to the throne of Henry V.”

The king’s face so little changed at this intelligence, that its calm

sadness almost enraged the impetuous Warwick, and with difficulty he

restrained from giving utterance to the thought, “He is not worthy of a

throne who cares so little to possess it!”

“Well-a-day!” said Henry, sighing, “Heaven then hath sore trials yet in

store for mine old age! Tray, Tray!” and stooping, he gently patted his

dog, who kept watch at his feet, still glaring suspiciously at Warwick,

“we are both too old for the chase now!--Will you be seated, my lord?”

“Trust me,” said the earl, as he obeyed the command, having first set

chair and footstool for the king, who listened to him with downcast

eyes and his head drooping on his bosom--“trust me, your later days,

my liege, will be free from the storms of your youth. All chance of

Edward’s hostility is expired. Your alliance, though I seem boastful

so to speak,--your alliance with one in whom the people can confide for

some skill in war, and some more profound experience of the habits and

tempers of your subjects than your former councillors could possess,

will leave your honoured leisure free for the holy meditations it

affects; and your glory, as your safety, shall be the care of men who

can awe this rebellious world.”

“Alliance!” said the king, who had caught but that one word; “of what

speakest thou, Sir Earl?”

“These missives will explain all, my liege; this letter from my lady the

Queen Margaret, and this from your gracious son, the Prince of Wales.”

“Edward! my Edward!” exclaimed the king, with a father’s burst of

emotion. “Thou hast seen him, then,--bears he his health well, is he of

cheer and heart?”

“He is strong and fair, and full of promise, and brave as his

grandsire’s sword.”

“And knows he--knows he well--that we all are the potter’s clay in the

hands of God?”

“My liege,” said Warwick, embarrassed, “he has as much devotion as

befits a Christian knight and a goodly prince.”

“Ah,” sighed the king, “ye men of arms have strange thoughts on these

matters;” and cutting the silk of the letters, he turned from the

warrior. Shading his face with his hand, the earl darted his keen glance

on the features of the king, as, drawing near to the table, the latter

read the communications which announced his new connection with his

ancient foe.

But Henry was at first so affected by the sight of Margaret’s well-known

hand, that he thrice put down her letter and wiped the moisture from his

eyes.

“My poor Margaret, how thou hast suffered!” he murmured; “these very

characters are less firm and bold than they were. Well, well!” and

at last he betook himself resolutely to the task. Once or twice his

countenance changed, and he uttered an exclamation of surprise. But the

proposition of a marriage between Prince Edward and the Lady Anne did

not revolt his forgiving mind, as it had the haughty and stern temper

of his consort. And when he had concluded his son’s epistle, full of the

ardour of his love and the spirit of his youth, the king passed his left

hand over his brow, and then extending his right to Warwick, said, in

accents which trembled with emotion, “Serve my son, since he is thine,

too; give peace to this distracted kingdom, repair my errors, press not

hard upon those who contend against us, and Jesu and His saints will

bless this bond!”

The earl’s object, perhaps, in seeking a meeting with Henry so private

and unwitnessed, had been that none, not even his brother, might hearken

to the reproaches he anticipated to receive, or say hereafter that

he heard Warwick, returned as victor and avenger to his native

land, descend, in the hour of triumph, to extenuation and excuse. So

affronted, imperilled, or to use his own strong word, “so despaired,”

had he been in the former rule of Henry, that his intellect, which,

however vigorous in his calmer moods, was liable to be obscured and

dulled by his passions, had half confounded the gentle king with his

ferocious wife and stern councillors, and he had thought he never could

have humbled himself to the man, even so far as knighthood’s submission

to Margaret’s sex had allowed him to the woman. But the sweetness of

Henry’s manners and disposition, the saint-like dignity which he had

manifested throughout this painful interview, and the touching grace

and trustful generosity of his last words,--words which consummated the

earl’s large projects of ambition and revenge,--had that effect upon

Warwick which the preaching of some holy man, dwelling upon the patient

sanctity of the Saviour, had of old on a grim Crusader, all incapable

himself of practising such meek excellence, and yet all moved and

penetrated by its loveliness in another; and, like such Crusader, the

representation of all mildest and most forgiving singularly stirred up

in the warrior’s mind images precisely the reverse,--images of armed

valour and stern vindication, as if where the Cross was planted sprang

from the earth the standard and the war-horse!

“Perish your foes! May war and storm scatter them as the chaff! My

liege, my royal master,” continued the earl, in a deep, low, faltering

voice, “why knew I not thy holy and princely heart before? Why stood so

many between Warwick’s devotion and a king so worthy to command it?

How poor, beside thy great-hearted fortitude and thy Christian heroism,

seems the savage valour of false Edward! Shame upon one who can betray

the trust thou hast placed in him! Never will I!--Never! I swear it!

No! though all England desert thee, I will stand alone with my breast of

mail before thy throne! Oh, would that my triumph had been less peaceful

and less bloodless! would that a hundred battlefields were yet left

to prove how deeply--deeply in his heart of hearts--Warwick feels the

forgiveness of his king!”

“Not so, not so, not so! not battlefields, Warwick!” said Henry. “Ask

not to serve the king by shedding one subject’s blood.”

“Your pious will be obeyed!” replied Warwick. “We will see if mercy can

effect in others what thy pardon effects in me. And now, my liege, no

longer must these walls confine thee. The chambers of the palace await

their sovereign. What ho, there!” and going to the door he threw it

open, and agreeably to the orders he had given below, all the officers

left in the fortress stood crowded together in the small anteroom,

bareheaded, with tapers in their hands, to conduct the monarch to the

halls of his conquered foe.

At the sudden sight of the earl, these men, struck involuntarily and at

once by the grandeur of his person and his animated aspect, burst forth

with the rude retainer’s cry, “A Warwick! a Warwick!”

“Silence!” thundered the earl’s deep voice. “Who names the subject in

the sovereign’s presence? Behold your king!” The men, abashed by the

reproof, bowed their heads and sank on their knees, as Warwick took a

taper from the table, to lead the way from the prison.

Then Henry turned slowly, and gazed with a lingering eye upon the walls

which even sorrow and solitude had endeared. The little oratory, the

crucifix, the relics, the embers burning low on the hearth, the rude

time-piece,--all took to his thoughtful eye an almost human aspect of

melancholy and omen; and the bird, roused, whether by the glare of the

lights, or the recent shout of the men, opened its bright eyes, and

fluttering restlessly to and fro, shrilled out its favourite sentence,

“Poor Henry! poor Henry!--wicked men!--who would be a king?”

“Thou hearest it, Warwick?” said Henry, shaking his head.

“Could an eagle speak, it would have another cry than the starling,”

returned the earl, with a proud smile.

“Why, look you,” said the king, once more releasing the bird, which

settled on his wrist, “the eagle had broken his heart in the narrow

cage, the eagle had been no comforter for a captive; it is these gentler

ones that love and soothe us best in our adversities. Tray, Tray, fawn

not now, sirrah, or I shall think thou hast been false in thy fondness

heretofore! Cousin, I attend you.”

And with his bird on his wrist, his dog at his heels, Henry VI. followed

the earl to the illuminated hall of Edward, where the table was spread

for the royal repast, and where his old friends, Manning, Bedle, and

Allerton, stood weeping for joy; while from the gallery raised aloft,

the musicians gave forth the rough and stirring melody which had

gradually fallen out of usage, but which was once the Norman’s

national air, and which the warlike Margaret of Anjou had retaught her

minstrels,--“THE BATTLE HYMN OF ROLLO.”

BOOK XI. THE NEW POSITION OF THE KING-MAKER

CHAPTER I. WHEREIN MASTER ADAM WARNER IS NOTABLY COMMENDED AND

ADVANCED--AND GREATNESS SAYS TO WISDOM, “THY DESTINY BE MINE, AMEN.”

The Chronicles inform us, that two or three days after the entrance

of Warwick and Clarence,--namely, on the 6th of October,--those two

leaders, accompanied by the Lords Shrewsbury, Stanley, and a numerous

and noble train, visited the Tower in formal state, and escorted

the king, robed in blue velvet, the crown on his head, to public

thanksgivings at St. Paul’s, and thence to the Bishop’s Palace, [not to

the Palace at Westminster, as some historians, preferring the French to

the English authorities, have asserted,--that palace was out of repair]

where he continued chiefly to reside.

The proclamation that announced the change of dynasty was received with

apparent acquiescence through the length and breadth of the kingdom,

and the restoration of the Lancastrian line seemed yet the more firm and

solid by the magnanimous forbearance of Warwick and his councils. Not

one execution that could be termed the act of a private revenge stained

with blood the second reign of the peaceful Henry. One only head fell on

the scaffold,--that of the Earl of Worcester. [Lord Warwick himself did

not sit in judgment on Worcester. He was tried and condemned by Lord

Oxford. Though some old offences in his Irish government were alleged

against him, the cruelties which rendered him so odious were of recent

date. He had (as we before took occasion to relate) impaled twenty

persons after Warwick’s flight into France. The “Warkworth Chronicle”

says, “He was ever afterwardes greatly behated among the people for this

disordynate dethe that he used, contrary to the laws of the lande.”]

This solitary execution, which was regarded by all classes as a due

concession to justice, only yet more illustrated the general mildness of

the new rule.

It was in the earliest days of this sudden restoration that Alwyn found

the occasion to serve his friends in the Tower. Warwick was eager to

conciliate all the citizens, who, whether frankly or grudgingly, had

supported his cause; and, amongst these, he was soon informed of the

part taken in the Guildhall by the rising goldsmith. He sent for Alwyn

to his house in Warwick-lane, and after complimenting him on his advance

in life and repute, since Nicholas had waited on him with baubles for

his embassy to France, he offered him the special rank of goldsmith to

the king.

The wary, yet honest, trader paused a moment in some embarrassment

before he answered,--

“My good lord, you are noble and gracious eno’ to understand and forgive

me when I say that I have had, in the upstart of my fortunes, the

countenance of the late King Edward and his queen; and though the public

weal made me advise my fellow-citizens not to resist your entry, I would

not, at least, have it said that my desertion had benefited my private

fortunes.”

Warwick coloured, and his lip curled. “Tush, man, assume not virtues

which do not exist amongst the sons of trade, nor, much I trow, amongst

the sons of Adam. I read thy mind. Thou thinkest it unsafe openly to

commit thyself to the new state. Fear not,--we are firm.”

“Nay, my lord,” returned Alwyn, “it is not so. But there are many better

citizens than I, who remember that the Yorkists were ever friends to

commerce. And you will find that only by great tenderness to our crafts

you can win the heart of London, though you have passed its gates.”

“I shall be just to all men,” answered the earl, dryly; “but if the

flat-caps are false, there are eno’ of bonnets of steel to watch over

the Red Rose!”

“You are said, my lord,” returned Alwyn, bluntly, “to love the barons,

the knights, the gentry, the yeomen, and the peasants, but to despise

the traders,--I fear me that report in this is true.”

“I love not the trader spirit, man,--the spirit that cheats, and

cringes, and haggles, and splits straws for pence, and roasts eggs

by other men’s blazing rafters. Edward of York, forsooth, was a great

trader! It was a sorry hour for England when such as ye, Nick Alwyn,

left your green villages for loom and booth. But thus far have I spoken

to you as a brave fellow, and of the north countree. I have no time to

waste on words. Wilt thou accept mine offer, or name another boon in

my power? The man who hath served me wrongs me,--till I have served him

again!”

“My lord, yes; I will name such a boon,--safety, and, if you will,

some grace and honour, to a learned scholar now in the Tower, one Adam

Warner, whom--”

“Now in the Tower! Adam Warner! And wanting a friend, I no more an

exile! That is my affair, not thine. Grace, honour,--ay, to his heart’s

content. And his noble daughter? Mort Dieu! she shall choose her

bridegroom among the best of England. Is she, too, in the fortress?”

“Yes,” said Alwyn, briefly, not liking the last part of the earl’s

speech.

The earl rang the bell on his table. “Send hither Sir Marmaduke Nevile.”

Alwyn saw his former rival enter, and heard the earl commission him to

accompany, with a fitting train, his own litter to the Tower. “And

you, Alwyn, go with your foster-brother, and pray Master Warner and his

daughter to be my guests for their own pleasure. Come hither, my rude

Northman,--come. I see I shall have many secret foes in this city: wilt

not thou at least be Warwick’s open friend?”

Alwyn found it hard to resist the charm of the earl’s manner and voice;

but, convinced in his own mind that the age was against Warwick, and

that commerce and London would be little advantaged by the earl’s rule,

the trading spirit prevailed in his breast.

“Gracious my lord,” he said, bending his knee in no servile homage, “he

who befriends my order, commands me.”

The proud noble bit his lip, and with a silent wave of his hand

dismissed the foster-brothers.

“Thou art but a churl at best, Nick,” said Marmaduke, as the door closed

on the young men. “Many a baron would have sold his father’s hall for

such words from the earl’s lip.”

“Let barons sell their free conduct for fair words. I keep myself

unshackled to join that cause which best fills the market and reforms

the law. But tell me, I pray thee, Sir Knight, what makes Warner and his

daughter so dear to your lord?”

“What! know you not?--and has she not told you?--Ah, what was I about to

say?”

“Can there be a secret between the earl and the scholar?” asked Alwyn,

in wonder.

“If there be, it is our place to respect it,” returned the Nevile,

adjusting his manteline; “and now we must command the litter.”

In spite of all the more urgent and harassing affairs that pressed upon

him, the earl found an early time to attend to his guests. His welcome

to Sibyll was more than courteous,--it was paternal. As she approached

him, timidly and with a downcast eye, he advanced, placed his hand upon

her head,--

“The Holy Mother ever have thee in her charge, child!--This is a

father’s kiss, young mistress,” added the earl, pressing his lips to her

forehead; “and in this kiss, remember that I pledge to thee care for thy

fortunes, honour for thy name, my heart to do thee service, my arm to

shield from wrong! Brave scholar, thy lot has become interwoven with my

own. Prosperous is now my destiny,--my destiny be thine! Amen!”

He turned then to Warner, and without further reference to a past which

so galled his proud spirit, he made the scholar explain to him the

nature of his labours. In the mind of every man who has passed much of

his life in successful action, there is a certain, if we may so say,

untaught mathesis,--but especially among those who have been bred to the

art of war. A great soldier is a great mechanic, a great mathematician,

though he may know it not; and Warwick, therefore, better than many

a scholar comprehended the principle upon which Adam founded his

experiments. But though he caught also a glimpse of the vast results

which such experiments in themselves were calculated to effect, his

strong common-sense perceived yet more clearly that the time was not

ripe for such startling inventions.

“My friend,” he said, “I comprehend thee passably. It is clear to me,

that if thou canst succeed in making the elements do the work of man

with equal precision, but with far greater force and rapidity, thou must

multiply eventually, and, by multiplying, cheapen, all the products of

industry; that thou must give to this country the market of the world;

and that thine would be the true alchemy that turneth all to gold.”

“Mighty intellect, thou graspest the truth!” exclaimed Adam.

“But,” pursued the earl, with a mixture of prejudice and judgment,

“grant thee success to the full, and thou wouldst turn this bold land

of yeomanry and manhood into one community of griping traders and sickly

artisans. Mort Dieu! we are over-commerced as it is,--the bow is already

deserted for the ell-measure. The town populations are ever the most

worthless in war. England is begirt with mailed foes; and if by one

process she were to accumulate treasure and lose soldiers, she would

but tempt invasion and emasculate defenders. Verily, I avise and implore

thee to turn thy wit and scholarship to a manlier occupation!”

“My life knows no other object; kill my labour and thou destroyest me,”

said Adam, in a voice of gloomy despair. Alas, it seemed that, whatever

the changes of power, no change could better the hopes of science in

an age of iron! Warwick was moved. “Well,” he said, after a pause, “be

happy in thine own way. I will do my best at least to protect thee.

To-morrow resume thy labours; but this day, at least, thou must feast

with me.”

And at his banquet that day, among the knights and barons, and the

abbots and the warriors, Adam sat on the dais near the earl, and Sibyll

at “the mess” of the ladies of the Duchess of Clarence. And ere the

feast broke up, Warwick thus addressed his company:--

“My friends, though I, and most of us reared in the lap of war, have

little other clerkship than sufficed our bold fathers before us, yet in

the free towns of Italy and the Rhine,--yea, and in France, under her

politic king,--we may see that a day is dawning wherein new knowledge

will teach many marvels to our wiser sons. Wherefore it is good that a

State should foster men who devote laborious nights and weary days to

the advancement of arts and letters, for the glory of our common land. A

worthy gentleman, now at this board, hath deeply meditated contrivances

which may make our English artisans excel the Flemish loons, who now

fatten upon our industry to the impoverishment of the realm. And, above

all, he also purposes to complete an invention which may render our

ship-craft the most notable in Europe. Of this I say no more at present;

but I commend our guest, Master Adam Warner, to your good service,

and pray you especially, worshipful sirs of the Church now present, to

shield his good name from that charge which most paineth and endangereth

honest men. For ye wot well that the commons, from ignorance, would

impute all to witchcraft that passeth their understanding. Not,” added

the earl, crossing himself, “that witchcraft does not horribly infect

the land, and hath been largely practised by Jacquetta of Bedford, and

her confederates, Bungey and others. But our cause needeth no such aid;

and all that Master Warner purposes is in behalf of the people, and in

conformity with Holy Church. So this wassail to his health and House.”

This characteristic address being received with respect, though with

less applause than usually greeted the speeches of the great earl,

Warwick added, in a softer and more earnest tone, “And in the fair

demoiselle, his daughter, I pray you to acknowledge the dear friend of

my beloved lady and child, Anne, Princess of Wales; and for the sake of

her highness and in her name, I arrogate to myself a share with Master

Warner in this young donzell’s guardianship and charge. Know ye, my

gallant gentles and fair squires, that he who can succeed in achieving,

either by leal love or by bold deeds, as best befit a wooer, the grace

of my young ward, shall claim from my hands a knight’s fee, with as much

of my best land as a bull’s hide can cover; and when heaven shall grant

safe passage to the Princess Anne and her noble spouse, we will hold at

Smithfield a tourney in honor of Saint George and our ladies, wherein,

pardie, I myself would be sorely tempted to provoke my jealous countess,

and break a lance for the fame of the demoiselle whose fair face is

married to a noble heart.”

That evening, in the galliard, many an admiring eye turned to Sibyll,

and many a young gallant, recalling the earl’s words, sighed to win

her grace. There had been a time when such honour and such homage would

have, indeed, been welcome; but now ONE saw them not, and they were

valueless. All that, in her earlier girlhood, Sibyll’s ambition had

coveted, when musing on the brilliant world, seemed now well-nigh

fulfilled,--her father protected by the first noble of the land, and

that not with the degrading condescension of the Duchess of Bedford,

but as Power alone should protect Genius, honoured while it honours; her

gentle birth recognized; her position elevated; fair fortunes smiling

after such rude trials; and all won without servility or abasement.

But her ambition having once exhausted itself in a diviner passion, all

excitement seemed poor and spiritless compared to the lonely waiting

at the humble farm for the voice and step of Hastings. Nay, but for her

father’s sake, she could almost have loathed the pleasure and the pomp,

and the admiration and the homage, which seemed to insult the reverses

of the wandering exile.

The earl had designed to place Sibyll among Isabel’s ladies, but the

haughty air of the duchess chilled the poor girl; and pleading the

excuse that her father’s health required her constant attendance, she

prayed permission to rest with Warner wherever he might be lodged. Adam

himself, now that the Duchess of Bedford and Friar Bungey were no longer

in the Tower, entreated permission to return to the place where he had

worked the most successfully upon the beloved Eureka; and, as the Tower

seemed a safer residence than any private home could be, from popular

prejudice and assault, Warwick kindly offered apartments, far more

commodious than they had yet occupied, to be appropriated to the father

and daughter. Several attendants were assigned to them, and never was

man of letters or science more honoured now than the poor scholar who,

till then, had been so persecuted and despised.

Who shall tell Adam’s serene delight? Alchemy and astrology at rest,

no imperious duchess, no hateful Bungey, his free mind left to its

congenial labours! And Sibyll, when they met, strove to wear a cheerful

brow, praying him only never to speak to her of Hastings. The good

old man, relapsing into his wonted mechanical existence, hoped she had

forgotten a girl’s evanescent fancy.

But the peculiar distinction showed by the earl to Warner confirmed

the reports circulated by Bungey,--“that he was, indeed, a fearful

nigromancer, who had much helped the earl in his emprise.” The earl’s

address to his guests in behalf both of Warner and Sibyll, the high

state accorded to the student, reached even the Sanctuary; for the

fugitives there easily contrived to learn all the gossip of the city.

Judge of the effect the tale produced upon the envious Bungey! judge of

the representations it enabled him to make to the credulous duchess! It

was clear now to Jacquetta as the sun in noonday that Warwick rewarded

the evil-predicting astrologer for much dark and secret service, which

Bungey, had she listened to him, might have frustrated; and she promised

the friar that, if ever again she had the power, Warner and the Eureka

should be placed at his sole mercy and discretion.

The friar himself, however, growing very weary of the dulness of the

Sanctuary, and covetous of the advantages enjoyed by Adam, began to

meditate acquiescence in the fashion of the day, and a transfer of his

allegiance to the party in power. Emboldened by the clemency of the

victors, learning that no rewards for his own apprehension had been

offered, hoping that the stout earl would forget or forgive the old

offence of the waxen effigies, and aware of the comparative security his

friar’s gown and cowl afforded him, he resolved one day to venture

forth from his retreat. He even flattered himself that he could cajole

Adam--whom he really believed the possessor of some high and weird

secrets, but whom otherwise he despised as a very weak creature--into

forgiving his past brutalities, and soliciting the earl to take him into

favour.

At dusk, then, and by the aid of one of the subalterns of the Tower,

whom he had formerly made his friend, the friar got admittance

into Warner’s chamber. Now it so chanced that Adam, having his own

superstitions, had lately taken it into his head that all the various

disasters which had befallen the Eureka, together with all the little

blemishes and defects that yet marred its construction, were owing to

the want of the diamond bathed in the mystic moonbeams, which his German

authority had long so emphatically prescribed; and now that a monthly

stipend far exceeding his wants was at his disposal, and that it became

him to do all possible honour to the earl’s patronage, he resolved that

the diamond should be no longer absent from the operations it was to

influence. He obtained one of passable size and sparkle, exposed it the

due number of nights to the new moon, and had already prepared its place

in the Eureka, and was contemplating it with solemn joy, when Bungey

entered.

“Mighty brother,” said the friar, bowing to the ground, “be merciful as

thou art strong! Verily thou hast proved thyself the magician, and I but

a poor wretch in comparison,--for lo! thou art rich and honoured, and I

poor and proscribed. Deign to forgive thine enemy, and take him as thy

slave by right of conquest. Oh, Cogsbones! oh, Gemini! what a jewel thou

hast got!”

“Depart! thou disturbest me,” said Adam, oblivious, in his absorption,

of the exact reasons for his repugnance, but feeling indistinctly that

something very loathsome and hateful was at his elbow; and, as he spoke,

he fitted the diamond into its socket.

“What! a jewel, a diamond--in the--in the--in the--MECHANICAL!” faltered

the friar, in profound astonishment, his mouth watering at the sight.

If the Eureka were to be envied before, how much more enviable now.

“If ever I get thee again, O ugly talisman,” he muttered to himself, “I

shall know where to look for something better than a pot to boil eggs.”

“Depart, I say!” repeated Adam, turning round at last, and shuddering as

he now clearly recognized the friar, and recalled his malignity. “Darest

thou molest me still?”

The friar abjectly fell on his knees, and, after a long exordium of

penitent excuses, entreated the scholar to intercede in his favour with

the earl.

“I want not all thy honours and advancement, great Adam, I want only to

serve thee, trim thy furnace, and hand thee thy tools, and work out my

apprenticeship under thee, master. As for the earl, he will listen to

thee, I know, if thou tellest him that I had the trust of his foe, the

duchess; that I can give him all her closest secrets; that I--”

“Avaunt! Thou art worse than I deemed thee, wretch! Cruel and ignorant I

knew thee,--and now mean and perfidious! I work with thee! I commend

to the earl a living disgrace to the name of scholar! Never! If thou

wantest bread and alms, those I can give, as a Christian gives to want;

but trust and honour, and learned repute and noble toils, those are not

for the impostor and the traitor. There, there, there!” And he ran to

the closet, took out a handful of small coins, thrust them into the

friar’s hands, and, pushing him to the door, called to the servants to

see his visitor to the gates. The friar turned round with a scowl. He

did not dare to utter a threat, but he vowed a vow in his soul, and went

his way.

It chanced, some days after this, that Adam, in one of his musing

rambles about the precincts of the Tower, which (since it was not

then inhabited as a palace) was all free to his rare and desultory

wanderings, came by some workmen employed in repairing a bombard; and as

whatever was of mechanical art always woke his interest, he paused, and

pointed out to them a very simple improvement which would necessarily

tend to make the balls go farther and more direct to their object. The

principal workman, struck with his remarks, ran to one of the officers

of the Tower; the officer came to listen to the learned man, and then

went to the earl of Warwick to declare that Master Warner had the most

wonderful comprehension of military mechanism. The earl sent for Warner,

seized at once upon the very simple truth he suggested as to the proper

width of the bore, and holding him in higher esteem than he had ever

done before, placed some new cannon he was constructing under his

superintendence. As this care occupied but little of his time, Warner

was glad to show gratitude to the earl, looking upon the destructive

engines as mechanical contrivances, and wholly unconscious of the new

terror he gave to his name.

Soon did the indignant and conscience-stricken Duchess of Bedford hear,

in the Sanctuary, that the fell wizard she had saved from the clutches

of Bungey was preparing the most dreadful, infallible, and murtherous

instruments of war against the possible return of her son-in-law!

Leaving Adam to his dreams, and his toils, and his horrible reputation,

we return to the world upon the surface,--the Life of Action.

CHAPTER II. THE PROSPERITY OF THE OUTER SHOW--THE CARES OF THE INNER

MAN.

The position of the king-maker was, to a superficial observer, such as

might gratify to the utmost the ambition and the pride of man. He had

driven from the land one of the most gorgeous princes and one of the

boldest warriors that ever sat upon a throne. He had changed a dynasty

without a blow. In the alliances of his daughters, whatever chanced, it

seemed certain that by one or the other his posterity would be the kings

of England.

The easiness of his victory appeared to prove of itself that the hearts

of the people were with him; and the parliament that he hastened to

summon confirmed by law the revolution achieved by a bloodless sword.

[Lingard, Hume, etc.]

Nor was there aught abroad which menaced disturbance to the peace at

home. Letters from the Countess of Warwick and Lady Anne announced their

triumphant entry at Paris, where Margaret of Anjou was received with

honours never before rendered but to a queen of France.

A solemn embassy, meanwhile, was preparing to proceed from Paris to

London to congratulate Henry, and establish a permanent treaty of peace

and commerce, [Rymer, xi., 682-690] while Charles of Burgundy himself

(the only ally left to Edward) supplicated for the continuance of

amicable relations with England, stating that they were formed with the

country, not with any special person who might wear the crown; [Hume,

Comines] and forbade his subjects by proclamation to join any enterprise

for the recovery of his throne which Edward might attempt.

The conduct of Warwick, whom the parliament had declared, conjointly

with Clarence, protector of the realm during the minority of the Prince

of Wales, was worthy of the triumph he had obtained. He exhibited now

a greater genius for government than he had yet displayed; for all

his passions were nerved to the utmost, to consummate his victory and

sharpen his faculties. He united mildness towards the defeated faction

with a firmness which repelled all attempt at insurrection. [Habington.]

In contrast to the splendour that surrounded his daughter Anne, all

accounts spoke of the humiliation to which Charles subjected the exiled

king; and in the Sanctuary, amidst homicides and felons, the wife of the

earl’s defeated foe gave birth to a male child, baptized and christened

(says the chronicler) “as the son of a common man.” For the Avenger and

his children were regal authority and gorgeous pomp, for the fugitive

and his offspring were the bread of the exile, or the refuge of the

outlaw.

But still the earl’s prosperity was hollow, the statue of brass stood on

limbs of clay. The position of a man with the name of subject, but the

authority of king, was an unpopular anomaly in England. In the principal

trading-towns had been long growing up that animosity towards the

aristocracy of which Henry VII. availed himself to raise a despotism

(and which, even in our day, causes the main disputes of faction); but

the recent revolution was one in which the towns had had no share.

It was a revolution made by the representative of the barons and his

followers. It was connected with no advancement of the middle class;

it seemed to the men of commerce but the violence of a turbulent and

disappointed nobility. The very name given to Warwick’s supporters was

unpopular in the towns. They were not called the Lancastrians, or the

friends of King Henry,--they were styled then, and still are so, by

the old chronicler, “The Lord’s Party.” Most of whatever was still

feudal--the haughtiest of the magnates, the rudest of the yeomanry,

the most warlike of the knights--gave to Warwick the sanction of their

allegiance; and this sanction was displeasing to the intelligence of the

towns.

Classes in all times have a keen instinct of their own class-interests.

The revolution which the earl had effected was the triumph of

aristocracy; its natural results would tend to strengthen certainly the

moral, and probably the constitutional, power already possessed by that

martial order. The new parliament was their creature, Henry VI. was a

cipher, his son a boy with unknown character, and according to vulgar

scandal, of doubtful legitimacy, seemingly bound hand and foot in the

trammels of the archbaron’s mighty House; the earl himself had never

scrupled to evince a distaste to the change in society which was slowly

converting an agricultural into a trading population.

It may be observed, too, that a middle class as rarely unites itself

with the idols of the populace as with the chiefs of a seignorie. The

brute attachment of the peasants and the mobs to the gorgeous and lavish

earl seemed to the burgesses the sign of a barbaric clanship, opposed

to that advance in civilization towards which they half unconsciously

struggled.

And here we must rapidly glance at what, as far as a statesman may

foresee, would have been the probable result of Warwick’s ascendancy,

if durable and effectual. If attached, by prejudice and birth, to the

aristocracy, he was yet by reputation and habit attached also to the

popular party,--that party more popular than the middle class,--the

majority, the masses. His whole life had been one struggle against

despotism in the crown. Though far from entertaining such schemes as

in similar circumstances might have occurred to the deep sagacity of

an Italian patrician for the interest of his order, no doubt his policy

would have tended to this one aim,--the limitation of the monarchy by

the strength of an aristocracy endeared to the agricultural population,

owing to that population its own powers of defence, with the wants

and grievances of that population thoroughly familiar, and willing to

satisfy the one and redress the other: in short, the great baron would

have secured and promoted liberty according to the notions of a seigneur

and a Norman, by making the king but the first nobleman of the realm.

Had the policy lasted long enough to succeed, the subsequent despotism,

which changed a limited into an absolute monarchy under the Tudors,

would have been prevented, with all the sanguinary reaction in which

the Stuarts were the sufferers. The earl’s family, and his own “large

father-like heart,” had ever been opposed to religious persecution; and

timely toleration to the Lollards might have prevented the long-delayed

revenge of their posterity, the Puritans. Gradually, perhaps, might

the system he represented (of the whole consequences of which he was

unconscious) have changed monarchic into aristocratic government,

resting, however, upon broad and popular institutions; but no doubt,

also, the middle, or rather the commercial class, with all the blessings

that attend their power, would have risen much more slowly than

when made as they were already, partially under Edward IV., and more

systematically under Henry VIL, the instrument for destroying feudal

aristocracy, and thereby establishing for a long and fearful interval

the arbitrary rule of the single tyrant. Warwick’s dislike to the

commercial biases of Edward was, in fact, not a patrician prejudice

alone. It required no great sagacity to perceive that Edward had

designed to raise up a class that, though powerful when employed against

the barons, would long be impotent against the encroachments of the

crown; and the earl viewed that class not only as foes to his own order,

but as tools for the destruction of the ancient liberties.

Without presuming to decide which policy, upon the whole, would have

been the happier for England,--the one that based a despotism on the

middle class, or the one that founded an aristocracy upon popular

affection,--it was clear to the more enlightened burgesses of the

great towns, that between Edward of York and the Earl of Warwick a vast

principle was at stake, and the commercial king seemed to them a more

natural ally than the feudal baron; and equally clear it is to us, now,

that the true spirit of the age fought for the false Edward, and against

the honest earl.

Warwick did not, however, apprehend any serious results from the passive

distaste of the trading towns. His martial spirit led him to despise the

least martial part of the population. He knew that the towns would not

rise in arms so long as their charters were respected; and that slow,

undermining hostility which exists only in opinion, his intellect, so

vigorous in immediate dangers, was not far-sighted enough to comprehend.

More direct cause for apprehension would there have been to a suspicious

mind in the demeanour of the earl’s colleague in the Protectorate,--the

Duke of Clarence. It was obviously Warwick’s policy to satisfy this weak

but ambitious person. The duke was, as before agreed, declared heir

to the vast possessions of the House of York. He was invested with the

Lieutenancy of Ireland, but delayed his departure to his government till

the arrival of the Prince of Wales. The personal honours accorded him in

the mean while were those due to a sovereign; but still the duke’s brow

was moody, though, if the earl noticed it, Clarence rallied into seeming

cheerfulness, and reiterated pledges of faith and friendship.

The manner of Isabel to her father was varying and uncertain: at one

time hard and cold; at another, as if in the reaction of secret remorse,

she would throw herself into his arms, and pray him, weepingly, to

forgive her wayward humours. But the curse of the earl’s position was

that which he had foreseen before quitting Amboise, and which, more or

less, attends upon those who from whatever cause suddenly desert the

party with which all their associations, whether of fame or friendship,

have been interwoven. His vengeance against one had comprehended many

still dear to him. He was not only separated from his old companions in

arms, but he had driven their most eminent into exile. He stood

alone amongst men whom the habits of an active life had indissolubly

connected, in his mind, with recollections of wrath and wrong. Amidst

that princely company which begirt him, he hailed no familiar face.

Even many of those who most detested Edward (or rather the Woodvilles)

recoiled from so startling a desertion to the Lancastrian foe. It was a

heavy blow to a heart already bruised and sore, when the fiery Raoul de

Fulke, who had so idolized Warwick, that, despite his own high lineage,

he had worn his badge upon his breast, sought him at the dead of night,

and thus said,--

“Lord of Salisbury and Warwick, I once offered to serve thee as a

vassal, if thou wouldst wrestle with lewd Edward for the crown which

only a manly brow should wear; and hadst thou now returned, as Henry

of Lancaster returned of old, to gripe the sceptre of the Norman with a

conqueror’s hand, I had been the first to cry, ‘Long live King Richard,

namesake and emulator of Coeur de Lion!’ But to place upon the throne

yon monk-puppet, and to call on brave hearts to worship a patterer of

aves and a counter of beads; to fix the succession of England in

the adulterous offspring of Margaret, the butcher-harlot [One of the

greatest obstacles to the cause of the Red Rose was the popular belief

that the young prince was not Henry’s son. Had that belief not been

widely spread and firmly maintained, the lords who arbitrated between

Henry VI. and Richard Duke of York, in October, 1460, could scarcely

have come to the resolution to set aside the Prince of Wales altogether,

to accord Henry the crown for his life, and declare the Duke of York his

heir. Ten years previously (in November, 1450), before the young

prince was born or thought of, and the proposition was really just and

reasonable, it was moved in the House of Commons to declare Richard Duke

of York next heir to Henry; which, at least, by birthright, he certainly

was; but the motion met with little favour and the mover was sent to

the Tower.]; to give the power of the realm to the men against whom thou

thyself hast often led me to strive with lance and battle-axe, is to

open a path which leads but to dishonour, and thither Raoul de Fulke

follows not even the steps of the Lord of Warwick. Interrupt me not!

speak not! As thou to Edward, so I now to thee, forswear allegiance, and

I bid thee farewell forever!”

“I pardon thee,” answered Warwick; “and if ever thou art wronged as I

have been, thy heart will avenge me. Go!” But when this haughty visitor

was gone, the earl covered his face with his hands, and groaned aloud.

A defection perhaps even more severely felt came next. Katherine de

Bonville had been the earl’s favourite sister; he wrote to her at the

convent to which she had retired, praying her affectionately to come to

London, “and cheer his vexed spirit, and learn the true cause, not to

be told by letter, which had moved him to things once farthest from his

thought.” The messenger came back, the letter unopened; for Katherine

had left the convent, and fled into Burgundy, distrustful, as it seemed

to Warwick, of her own brother. The nature of this lion-hearted man was,

as we have seen, singularly kindly, frank, and affectionate; and now

in the most critical, the most anxious, the most tortured period of his

life, confidence and affection were forbidden to him. What had he not

given for one hour of the soothing company of his wife, the only being

in the world to whom his pride could have communicated the grief of his

heart, or the doubts of his conscience! Alas! never on earth should he

hear that soft voice again! Anne, too, the gentle, childlike Anne, was

afar; but she was happy,--a basker in the brief sunshine, and blind to

the darkening clouds. His elder child, with her changeful moods, added

but to his disquiet and unhappiness. Next to Edward, Warwick of all

the House of York had loved Clarence, though a closer and more domestic

intimacy had weakened the affection by lessening the esteem. But looking

further into the future, he now saw in this alliance the seeds of many

a rankling sorrow. The nearer Anne and her spouse to power and fame,

the more bitter the jealousy of Clarence and his wife. Thus, in the very

connections which seemed most to strengthen his House, lay all which

must destroy the hallowed unity and peace of family and home.

The Archbishop of York had prudently taken no part whatever in the

measures that had changed the dynasty. He came now to reap the

fruits; did homage to Henry VI., received the Chancellor’s seals, and

recommenced intrigues for the Cardinal’s hat. But between the bold

warrior and the wily priest there could be but little of the endearment

of brotherly confidence and love. With Montagu alone could the earl

confer in cordiality and unreserve; and their similar position, and

certain points of agreement in their characters, now more clearly

brought out and manifest, served to make their friendship for each other

firmer and more tender, in the estrangement of all other ties, than ever

it had been before. But the marquis was soon compelled to depart from

London, to his post as warden of the northern marches; for Warwick had

not the rash presumption of Edward, and neglected no precaution against

the return of the dethroned king.

So there, alone, in pomp and in power, vengeance consummated, ambition

gratified, but love denied; with an aching heart and a fearless front;

amidst old foes made prosperous, and old friends alienated and ruined,

stood the king-maker! and, day by day, the untimely streaks of gray

showed more and more amidst the raven curls of the strong man.

CHAPTER III. FURTHER VIEWS INTO THE HEART OF MAN, AND THE CONDITIONS OF

POWER.

But woe to any man who is called to power with exaggerated expectations

of his ability to do good! Woe to the man whom the populace have

esteemed a popular champion, and who is suddenly made the guardian of

law! The Commons of England had not bewailed the exile of the good

earl simply for love of his groaning table and admiration of his huge

battle-axe,--it was not merely either in pity, or from fame, that his

“name had sounded in every song,” and that, to use the strong expression

of the chronicler, the people “judged that the sun was clearly taken

from the world when he was absent.”

They knew him as one who had ever sought to correct the abuses of power,

to repair the wrongs of the poor; who even in war had forbidden his

knights to slay the common men. He was regarded, therefore, as a

reformer; and wonderful indeed were the things, proportioned to his

fame and his popularity, which he was expected to accomplish; and his

thorough knowledge of the English character, and experience of every

class,--especially the lowest as the highest,--conjoined with the vigour

of his robust understanding, unquestionably enabled him from the very

first to put a stop to the lawless violences which had disgraced the

rule of Edward. The infamous spoliations of the royal purveyors ceased;

the robber-like excesses of the ruder barons and gentry were severely

punished; the country felt that a strong hand held the reins of power.

But what is justice when men ask miracles? The peasant and mechanic were

astonished that wages were not doubled, that bread was not to be had for

asking, that the disparities of life remained the same,--the rich still

rich, the poor still poor. In the first days of the revolution, Sir

Geoffrey Gates, the freebooter, little comprehending the earl’s merciful

policy, and anxious naturally to turn a victory into its accustomed

fruit of rapine and pillage, placed himself at the head of an armed mob,

marched from Kent to the suburbs of London, and, joined by some of the

miscreants from the different Sanctuaries, burned and pillaged, ravished

and slew. The earl quelled this insurrection with spirit and ease;

[Hall, Habington] and great was the praise he received thereby. But

all-pervading is the sympathy the poor feel for the poor. And when even

the refuse of the populace once felt the sword of Warwick, some portion

of the popular enthusiasm must have silently deserted him.

Robert Hilyard, who had borne so large a share in the restoration of the

Lancastrians, now fixed his home in the metropolis; and anxious as

ever to turn the current to the popular profit, he saw with rage and

disappointment that as yet no party but the nobles had really triumphed.

He had longed to achieve a revolution that might be called the People’s;

and he had abetted one that was called “the Lord’s doing.” The affection

he had felt for Warwick arose principally from his regarding him as an

instrument to prepare society for the more democratic changes he panted

to effect; and, lo! he himself had been the instrument to strengthen the

aristocracy. Society resettled after the storm, the noble retained his

armies, the demagogue had lost his mobs! Although through England were

scattered the principles which were ultimately to destroy feudalism,

to humble the fierce barons into silken lords, to reform the Church,

to ripen into a commonwealth through the representative system,--the

principles were but in the germ; and when Hilyard mingled with the

traders or the artisans of London, and sought to form a party which

might comprehend something of steady policy and definite object, he

found himself regarded as a visionary fanatic by some, as a dangerous

dare-devil by the rest. Strange to say, Warwick was the only man who

listened to him with attention; the man behind the age and the man

before the age ever have some inch of ground in common both desired to

increase liberty; both honestly and ardently loved the masses; but each

in the spirit of his order,--Warwick defended freedom as against the

throne, Hilyard as against the barons. Still, notwithstanding their

differences, each was so convinced of the integrity of the other,--that

it wanted only a foe in the field to unite them as before. The natural

ally of the popular baron was the leader of the populace.

Some minor, but still serious, griefs added to the embarrassment of the

earl’s position. Margaret’s jealousy had bound him to defer all rewards

to lords and others, and encumbered with a provisional council all great

acts of government, all grants of offices, lands, or benefits. [Sharon

Turner] And who knows not the expectations of men after a successful

revolution? The royal exchequer was so empty that even the ordinary

household was suspended; [See Ellis: Original Letters from Harleian

Manuscripts, second series, vol. i., letter 42.] and as ready money was

then prodigiously scarce, the mighty revenues of Warwick barely sufficed

to pay the expenses of the expedition which, at his own cost, had

restored the Lancastrian line. Hard position, both to generosity and to

prudence, to put off and apologize to just claims and valiant service!

With intense, wearying, tortured anxiety, did the earl await the coming

of Margaret and her son. The conditions imposed on him in their absence

crippled all his resources. Several even of the Lancastrian nobles held

aloof, while they saw no authority but Warwick’s. Above all, he relied

upon the effect that the young Prince of Wales’s presence, his beauty,

his graciousness, his frank spirit--mild as his fathers, bold as his

grandsire’s--would create upon all that inert and neutral mass of the

public, the affection of which, once gained, makes the solid strength

of a government. The very appearance of that prince would at once dispel

the slander on his birth. His resemblance to his heroic grandfather

would suffice to win him all the hearts by which, in absence, he was

regarded as a stranger, a dubious alien. How often did the earl groan

forth, “If the prince were but here, all were won!” Henry was worse than

a cipher,--he was an eternal embarrassment. His good intentions, his

scrupulous piety, made him ever ready to interfere. The Church had got

hold of him already, and prompted him to issue proclamations against

the disguised Lollards, which would have lost him at one stroke half his

subjects. This Warwick prevented, to the great discontent of the honest

prince. The moment required all the prestige that an imposing presence

and a splendid court could bestow. And Henry, glad of the poverty of his

exchequer, deemed it a sin to make a parade of earthly glory. “Heaven

will punish me again,” said he, meekly, “if, just delivered from a

dungeon, I gild my unworthy self with all the vanities of perishable

power.”

There was not a department which the chill of this poor king’s virtue

did not somewhat benumb. The gay youths, who had revelled in the

alluring court of Edward IV., heard, with disdainful mockery, the grave

lectures of Henry on the length of their lovelocks and the beakers

of their shoes. The brave warriors presented to him for praise were

entertained with homilies on the guilt of war. Even poor Adam was

molested and invaded by Henry’s pious apprehensions that he was seeking,

by vain knowledge, to be superior to the will of Providence.

Yet, albeit perpetually irritating and chafing the impetuous spirit of

the earl, the earl, strange to say, loved the king more and more. This

perfect innocence, this absence from guile and self-seeking, in the

midst of an age never excelled for fraud, falsehood, and selfish

simulation, moved Warwick’s admiration as well as pity. Whatever

contrasted Edward IV. had a charm for him. He schooled his hot temper,

and softened his deep voice, in that holy presence; and the intimate

persuasion of the hollowness of all worldly greatness, which worldly

greatness itself had forced upon the earl’s mind, made something

congenial between the meek saint and the fiery warrior. For the

hundredth time groaned Warwick, as he quitted Henry’s presence,--

“Would that my gallant son-in-law were come! His spirit will soon learn

how to govern; then Warwick may be needed no more! I am weary, sore

weary of the task of ruling men!”

“Holy Saint Thomas!” bluntly exclaimed Marmaduke, to whom these sad

words were said,--“whenever you visit the king you come back--pardon me,

my lord--half unmanned. He would make a monk of you!”

“Ah,” said Warwick, thoughtfully, “there have been greater marvels than

that. Our boldest fathers often died the meekest shavelings. An’ I had

ruled this realm as long as Henry,--nay, an’ this same life I lead now

were to continue two years, with its broil and fever,--I could well

conceive the sweetness of the cloister and repose. How sets the wind?

Against them still! against them still! I cannot bear this suspense!”

The winds had ever seemed malignant to Margaret of Anjou, but never more

than now. So long a continuance of stormy and adverse weather was never

known in the memory of man; and we believe that it has scarcely its

parallel in history.

The earl’s promise to restore King Henry was fulfilled in October. From

November to the following April, Margaret, with the young and royal

pair, and the Countess of Warwick, lay at the seaside, waiting for

a wind. [Fabyan, 502.] Thrice, in defiance of all warnings from the

mariners of Harfleur, did she put to sea, and thrice was she driven back

on the coast of Normandy, her ships much damaged. Her friends protested

that this malice of the elements was caused by sorcery, [Hall, Warkworth

Chronicle]--a belief which gained ground in England, exhilarated the

Duchess of Bedford, and gave new fame to Bungey, who arrogated all

the merit, and whose weather wisdom, indeed, had here borne out his

predictions. Many besought Margaret not to tempt Providence, not to

trust the sea; but the queen was firm to her purpose, and her son

laughed at omens,--yet still the vessels could only leave the harbour to

be driven back upon the land.

Day after day the first question of Warwick, when the sun rose, was,

“How sets the wind?” Night after night, ere he retired to rest, “Ill

sets the wind!” sighed the earl. The gales that forbade the coming of

the royal party sped to the unwilling lingerers courier after courier,

envoy after envoy; and at length Warwick, unable to bear the sickening

suspense at distance, went himself to Dover [Hall], and from its white

cliffs looked, hour by hour, for the sails which were to bear “Lancaster

and its fortunes.” The actual watch grew more intolerable than the

distant expectation, and the earl sorrowfully departed to his castle

of Warwick, at which Isabel and Clarence then were. Alas! where the old

smile of home?

CHAPTER IV. THE RETURN OF EDWARD OF YORK.

And the winds still blew, and the storm was on the tide, and Margaret

came not when, in the gusty month of March, the fishermen of the Humber

beheld a single ship, without flag or pennon, and sorely stripped and

rivelled by adverse blasts, gallantly struggling towards the shore. The

vessel was not of English build, and resembled in its bulk and fashion

those employed by the Easterlings in their trade, half merchantman, half

war-ship.

The villagers of Ravenspur,--the creek of which the vessel now rapidly

made to,--imagining that it was some trading craft in distress, grouped

round the banks, and some put out their boats: But the vessel held on

its way, and, as the water was swelled by the tide, and unusually deep,

silently cast anchor close ashore, a quarter of a mile from the crowd.

The first who leaped on land was a knight of lofty stature, and in

complete armour richly inlaid with gold arabesques. To him succeeded

another, also in mail, and, though well guilt and fair proportioned, of

less imposing presence. And then, one by one, the womb of the dark ship

gave forth a number of armed soldiers, infinitely larger than it could

have been supposed to contain, till the knight who first landed stood

the centre of a group of five hundred men. Then were lowered from the

vessel, barbed and caparisoned, some five score horses; and, finally,

the sailors and rowers, armed but with steel caps and short swords, came

on shore, till not a man was left on board.

“Now praise,” said the chief knight, “to God and Saint George that we

have escaped the water! and not with invisible winds but with bodily

foes must our war be waged.”

“Beau sire,” cried one knight, who had debarked immediately after the

speaker, and who seemed, from his bearing and equipment, of higher rank

than those that followed, “beau sire, this is a slight army to reconquer

a king’s realm! Pray Heaven that our bold companions have also escaped

the deep!”

“Why, verily, we are not eno’ at the best, to spare one man,” said the

chief knight, gayly, “but, lo! we are not without welcomers.” And he

pointed to the crowd of villagers who now slowly neared the warlike

group, but halting at a little distance, continued to gaze at them in

some anxiety and alarm.

“Ho there! good fellows!” cried the leader, striding towards the throng,

“what name give you to this village?”

“Ravenspur, please your worship,” answered one of the peasants.

“Ravenspur, hear you that, lords and friends? Accept the omen! On this

spot landed from exile Henry of Bolingbroke, known afterwards in our

annals as King Henry IV.! Bare is the soil of corn and of trees,--it

disdains meaner fruit; it grows kings! Hark!” The sound of a bugle was

heard at a little distance, and in a few moments a troop of about a

hundred men were seen rising above an undulation in the ground, and

as the two bands recognized each other, a shout of joy was given and

returned.

As this new reinforcement advanced, the peasantry and fishermen,

attracted by curiosity and encouraged by the peaceable demeanour of the

debarkers, drew nearer, and mingled with the first comers.

“What manner of men be ye, and what want ye?” asked one of the

bystanders, who seemed of better nurturing than the rest, and who,

indeed, was a small franklin.

No answer was returned by those he more immediately addressed; but the

chief knight heard the question, and suddenly unbuckling his helmet,

and giving it to one of those beside him, he turned to the crowd a

countenance of singular beauty at once animated and majestic, and said

in a loud voice, “We are Englishmen, like you, and we come here to claim

our rights. Ye seem tall fellows and honest.--Standard bearer, unfurl

our flag!” And as the ensign suddenly displayed the device of a sun in

a field azure, the chief continued, “March under this banner, and for

every day ye serve, ye shall have a month’s hire.”

“Marry!” quoth the franklin, with a suspicious, sinister look, “these

be big words. And who are you, Sir Knight, who would levy men in King

Henry’s kingdom?”

“Your knees, fellows!” cried the second knight. “Behold your true liege

and suzerain, Edward IV.! Long live King Edward!”

The soldiers caught up the cry, and it was re-echoed lustily by the

smaller detachment that now reached the spot; but no answer came from

the crowd. They looked at each other in dismay, and retreated rapidly

from their place amongst the troops. In fact, the whole of the

neighbouring district was devoted to Warwick, and many of the peasantry

about had joined the former rising under Sir John Coniers. The franklin

alone retreated not with the rest; he was a bluff, plain, bold fellow,

with good English blood in his veins. And when the shout ceased, he said

shortly, “We hereabouts know no king but King Henry. We fear you would

impose upon us. We cannot believe that a great lord like him you call

Edward IV. would land with a handful of men to encounter the armies of

Lord Warwick. We forewarn you to get into your ship and go back as fast

as ye came, for the stomach of England is sick of brawls and blows; and

what ye devise is treason!”

Forth from the new detachment stepped a youth of small stature, not in

armour, and with many a weather-stain on his gorgeous dress. He laid his

hand upon the franklin’s shoulder. “Honest and plain-dealing fellow,”

said he, “you are right: pardon the foolish outburst of these brave men,

who cannot forget as yet that their chief has worn the crown. We come

back not to disturb this realm, nor to effect aught against King Henry,

whom the saints have favoured. No, by Saint Paul, we come but back to

claim our lands unjustly forfeit. My noble brother here is not king of

England, since the people will it not, but he is Duke of York, and he

will be contented if assured of the style and lands our father left him.

For me, called Richard of Gloucester, I ask nothing but leave to spend

my manhood where I have spent my youth, under the eyes of my renowned

godfather, Richard Nevile, Earl of Warwick. So report of us. Whither

leads yon road?”

“To York,” said the franklin, softened, despite his judgment, by the

irresistible suavity of the voice that addressed him.

“Thither will we go, my lord duke and brother, with your leave,” said

Prince Richard, “peaceably and as petitioners. God save ye, friends and

countrymen, pray for us, that King Henry and the parliament may do us

justice. We are not over rich now, but better times may come. Largess!”

and filling both hands with coins from his gipsire, he tossed the bounty

among the peasants.

“Mille tonnere! What means he with this humble talk of King Henry and

the parliament?” whispered Edward to the Lord Say, while the crowd

scrambled for the largess, and Richard smilingly mingled amongst them,

and conferred with the franklin.

“Let him alone, I pray you, my liege; I guess his wise design. And now

for our ships. What orders for the master?”

“For the other vessels, let them sail or anchor as they list. But

for the bark that has borne Edward king of England to the land of his

ancestors there is no return!”

The royal adventurer then beckoned the Flemish master of the ship, who,

with every sailor aboard, had debarked, and the loose dresses of the

mariners made a strong contrast to the mail of the warriors with whom

they mingled.

“Friend,” said Edward, in French, “thou hast said that thou wilt share

my fortunes, and that thy good fellows are no less free of courage and

leal in trust.”

“It is so, sire. Not a man who has gazed on thy face, and heard thy

voice, but longs to serve one on whose brow Nature has written king.”

“And trust me,” said Edward, “no prince of my blood shall be dearer to

me than you and yours, my friends in danger and in need. And sith it

be so, the ship that hath borne such hearts and such hopes should, in

sooth, know no meaner freight. Is all prepared?”

“Yes, sire, as you ordered. The train is laid for the brennen.”

“Up, then, with the fiery signal, and let it tell, from cliff to

cliff, from town to town, that Edward the Plantagenet, once returned to

England, leaves it but for the grave!”

The master bowed, and smiled grimly. The sailors, who had been prepared

for the burning, arranged before between the master and the prince, and

whose careless hearts Edward had thoroughly won to his person and his

cause, followed the former towards the ship, and stood silently grouped

around the shore. The soldiers, less informed, gazed idly on, and

Richard now regained Edward’s side.