Meantime the palace of Acre had been witness of a fearful scene. Since the
fall of Nazareth the Emir of Joppa had opened negotiations with Edward,
professing a desire to become a christian convert. So eager was the king
for this happy consummation that he cherished the deceitful hope, held out
by the Infidel, and granted him every opportunity for gaining information
concerning the tenets and practices of the church.
Letters and messages frequently passed between them, and so accustomed had
the English guards become to the brown haick and green turban of the
swarthy Mohammedan, who carried the despatches, that they gave him free
ingress to the city and admitted him to the palace, and even ushered him
into the king's ante-chamber almost without question or suspicion.
The day had been unusually sultry, even for the Syrian climate. The heat
of the atmosphere somewhat aggravated the symptoms of the disease from
which Edward was slowly recovering, and Eleanora had passed many weary
hours in vain endeavors to soothe his restlessness and induce repose.
As the sun declined a cooling breeze sprang up from the sea, seeming to
the patient wife to bear healing on its wings, and the invalid, stretched
on his couch before the casement, began at length to yield to the soothing
influence of slumber, when the chamberlain entered to say that the
emissary from Joppa waited an audience.
"Now have I no faith in the conversion of this Infidel," said Eleanora,
with an impatience unusual to her gentle spirit, "since his messenger
disturbs my lord's repose."
"Verily thou lackest thine accustomed charity," replied Edward. "I had
thought to hear thee declare the conversion of this Saracen my crowning
glory in Palestine. But thou art weary, my love. Go to thy rest, thy long
vigils by my side have already gathered the carnation from thy cheek."
"Yet, my lord--" interposed Eleanora.
"Nay, nay," said Edward, "disturb not thy sweet soul; perchance more than
my life depends upon the interview. I will straight dismiss the envoy, and
then thou canst entrust my slumbers to the care of the faithful Eva."
At the mention of Eva a new and not less painful train of associations was
awakened in the mind of Eleanora, and with a heavy sigh she withdrew as
the messenger entered.
A moment after there were sounds as of a violent struggle and of the fall
of a heavy body, and Eleanora, who had lingered in the ante-chamber,
scarcely knowing why, rushed back into the apartment, followed by the
chamberlain and guards.
The assassin lay upon the floor in the agonies of death, his head broken
by the oaken tressel from which she had just risen. Prostrate by his side
lay the prince, in a state of insensibility, the blood faintly oozing from
a wound in his arm. The princess comprehended at once the risk her husband
had incurred, and shuddered with apprehension at the thought of the danger
that yet might menace him; and while the attendants lifted him from the
floor, she tenderly raised his arm to her lips, and began to draw the
venom from the wound. But no sooner did Edward revive from his swoon,
than, forcibly thrusting her aside, he exclaimed, "Eleanora my life,
knowest thou not the dagger was poisoned?"
"Even so, my lord," said she, with steadfast composure, still firmly
persisting in her purpose, notwithstanding his constant remonstrance.
The fearful intelligence of their leader's peril spread with lightning
speed through the city, and self-sent messengers hurried in every
direction, and summoned leeches and priests to cure or shrive the dying
monarch. The Grand Master of the Temple, who was somewhat practised in the
habits of the assassins, appeared in the midst of the exciting scene, and
commending the timely application of Eleanora's loving lips, bound up the
wound with a soft emollient, and prescribed for the princess an antidote
of sovereign efficacy.
Scarcely had silence resumed her dominion in the palace, when the porter
was again aroused to admit de Courtenay and his rescued Eva. The traitor
D'Essai had been lodged in the tower of Maledictum, to wait Edward's
pleasure concerning him; and Eva, her heart overflowing with rapture in
the assurance of Sir Henry's restored confidence, and the security of a
father's love, passed the livelong night with Eleanora, in that free
communion of soul which generous natures experience when the gushings of a
common emotion overleap the barriers of conventionalism and formality.
* * * * *
Edward was himself again. The steady ray of reason had subdued the fevered
gleam of his eye, and the ruddy hue of health replaced the pallor of
wasting sickness upon his cheek. His athletic frame had wrestled with
disease, and come off conqueror over weakness and pain; and as he assumed
his seat of judgment, clad in his warlike panoply, the royal Plantagenet
"looked every inch a king." The great church of Acre was thrown open, and
knights in brilliant armor, and Templars and Hospitallers in the
habiliments of their orders, bishops and priests in their sacred robes,
and vassals in their holiday array, crowded up the long aisles, and filled
the spacious choir, as though eager to witness some splendid ceremonial.
But instead of gorgeous decorations, wainscot and window draped with black
diffused a funereal gloom, and the solemn reverberation of the tolling
bell seemed to sound a requiem over the grave of Hope.
Sir Francis d'Essai had been tried in a council of his peers, and found
guilty of treason to religion and knightly devoir; and this day, the
anniversary of his admission to the rank of knighthood, his companions in
arms, the vassals whom he despised, and all those actuated by curiosity or
enmity, were assembled to witness his _degradation_. Eva shuddered at the
terrible doom of her former lover, and de Courtenay, with instinctive
delicacy, had obtained permission to absent himself from the scene on a
visit to the Holy Sepulchre. As king-of-arms, and first in rank, it was
the duty of Edward to preside over this fearful ceremony, which, by the
true and loyal, was regarded as more terrible than death itself.
At the first stroke of the great bell, the pursuivants, having robed Sir
Francis for the last time in his knightly habiliments, conducted him from
the _Cursed Tower_ toward the church. As they entered the door, the
doleful peal sank in silence, and, after one awful moment, his
fellow-knights, with broken voices, began to chant the burial service.
An elevated stage, hung with black, had been erected in the centre of the
nave, and upon this the pursuivants, whose business it was to divest him
of every outward insignia of courage and truth, placed the culprit, in
full view of all the vast concourse.
When the chanting ceased, Prince Edward spoke in a voice that thrilled to
every heart, "Sir Francis d'Essai! thou who didst receive the sword of
knighthood from the hand of the good St. Louis, dost stand before us this
day attaint of treason to thy God, thy truth, and the lady of thy love.
Wherefore thy peers have willed that the order of knighthood, by the which
thou hast received all the honor and worship upon thy body, _be brought to
nought_, and thy state be undone, and thou be driven forth outcast and
dishonored according to thy base deserts." Instantly the brazen tongue
from the belfry ratified the fiat, and announced the hour of doom. At the
word, the squire with trembling hand removed the helmet, the defence of
disloyal eyes, revealing the pale and haggard countenance of the recreant
knight, and the choir resumed the mournful dirge. Then each pursuivant
advanced in his order to the performance of his unwelcome duty. One by one
the knightly trappings of D'Essai were torn from his body, and as cuirass,
greaves, brassarts, and gauntlets rang upon the pavements, the heralds
exclaimed, "Behold the harness of a miscreant!"
Trembling and bent beneath the weight of shame, the craven stood, while
they smote the golden spurs from his heels, and brake his dishonored sword
above his head, and the terrible requiem wailed over the perished emblems
of his former innocence.
The Grand Master of the Templars then entered upon the stage, bearing a
silver basin filled with tepid water, and the herald, holding it up,
exclaimed, "By what name call men the knight before us?"
The pursuivants answered, "The name which was given him in baptism,--the
name by which his father was known,--the name confirmed to him in chivalry
is Sir Francis d'Essai."
The heralds again replied, "Falsehood sits upon his tongue and rules in
his heart; he is miscreant, traitor, and Infidel."
Immediately the Grand Master, in imitation of baptism, dashed the water in
his face, saying, "Henceforth be thou called by thy right name, Traitor!"
Then the heralds rang out a shrill note upon the trumpets, expressive of
the demand, "What shall be done with the false-hearted knave?" Prince
Edward in his majesty arose, and in a voice agitated with a sense of the
awful penalty, replied, "Let him with dishonor and shame be banished from
the kingdom of Christ--Let his brethren curse him, and let not the angels
of God intercede for him."
Immediately each knight drew his sword, and presenting its gleaming point
against the now defenceless D'Essai, crowded him down the steps to the
altar, where the pursuivants seized him, and forced him into his coffin,
and placed him on the bier, and the attendant priests completed the
burial-service over his polluted name and perjured soul. At a sign from
the king, the bearers took up the bier, and all the vast congregation
followed in sad procession, to the city-gates, where they thrust him out,
a thing accursed, while the great bell from the lofty tower of the
cathedral told the tale of his infamy in tones of terrible significance,
"Gone--gone--gone--virtue, faith, and truth; lost--lost--lost--honor,
fame, and love." From Carmel's hoary height to Tabor's sacred top, each
hallowed hill and vale reverberated the awful knell, "Gone and lost--lost
and gone"--and the breeze that swept the plain of Esdraelon caught up the
dismal echo, and seemed hurrying across the Mediterranean to whisper to
the chivalry of Europe the dreadful story of his _degradation_.
Stung by the weight of woe that had fallen upon him, the miserable D'Essai
rose and gazed across the plain. An arid waste spread out before him like
the prospect of his own dreary future, blackened and desolate by the reign
of evil passions.
Life, what had it been to him? A feverish dream, a burning thirst, a
restless, unsatisfied desire! Virtue--honor--truth--idle words, their
solemn mockery yet rang in his ears. He ran--he flew--anywhere, anywhere
to flee the haunting thoughts that trooped like fiends upon his track.
He neared the banks of the river, its cooling waters rolling on in their
eternal channel, promised to allay his fever and bury his dishonored name
in oblivion. He plunged in--that ancient river swept him away, the river
Kishon, and as he sank to rise no more, a deep voice exclaimed, "So perish
thine enemies, O Lord!" It was the voice of Dermot de la Clare, who,
passing southward at the head of his troop, from the opposite bank became
an involuntary witness of the frantic suicide.
The week following the ceremony last described, Eva entered the apartment
of Eleanora, each fair feature radiant with pleasure, bearing in her hand
a carrier-pigeon, whose fluttering heart betokened the weary length of way
that had tried the strength of its glossy pinions.
"Whence hast thou the dove, and what is his errand?" exclaimed the
princess, equally eager for any intelligence that might affect the fate of
the East.
"A Pullani brought it to the palace," she replied, and hastily cutting the
silken thread, she detached a letter from beneath the wing of the bird. It
contained but these words: "The Sultan of Egypt is hard pressed by the
Moslems. It is a favorable moment to commence negotiations."
The seal of the Shamrock was the only signature, but Eva well understood
that the Clare had been engaged in devising an honorable scheme to release
Edward from an expedition which could not result in glory to the christian
arms.
The prince had now been fourteen months in the Holy Land. His army, never
sufficient to allow of his undertaking any military enterprise of
importance, was reduced by sickness, want and desertion, and he therefore
gladly accepted the hint of his unknown friend, and despatched de
Courtenay to Egypt with proposals of peace.
It was a glad errand to the knight, though the timid and (she could not
conceal it) loving Eva warned him most strenuously against the artifices
of the Sultan, Al Malek al Dhaker Rokneddin Abulfeth Bibers al Alai al
Bendokdari al Saheli, whose name, at least, she said, was _legion_.
"And were he the prince of darkness himself, the love of my guardian Eva
would protect me against his wiles," gallantly returned the count.
"Alas!" said Eva, humbly, "thou little knowest the broken reed on which
thou leanest. My weak will mocks my bravest resolutions, and makes me feel
the need of a firmer spirit for my guide."
"Heaven grant that I may one day receive the grateful office," returned
her lover.
"Heaven help me become worthy of thy noble devotion," said Eva,
remembering with regret the cruel test to which she had subjected his
generous affection.
De Courtenay found little difficulty in settling the terms of a ten years'
truce with the formidable Mameluke; for the Sultan had far greater reason
to fear his Moslem than his Christian foes.
There was no occasion for the farther sojourn of the English in Palestine;
and Edward, having accomplished nothing more than his great-uncle, and
leaving a reputation scarcely inferior to Coeur de Lion, departed with
his retinue for Europe.
Notwithstanding the peaceful termination of the expedition, this crusade,
the last of the chivalrous offspring of Feudalism and Enthusiasm, like its
elder brethren, found a premature grave in darkness and gloom.
The son of St. Louis, Philip the Hardy, returning from Tunis, deposited
five coffins in the crypts of St. Denis. They contained the remains of his
sainted father, Louis IX., of his brother Tristan, of his brother-in-law,
Thibaut, descendant of Adela, of his beloved queen and their infant son.
Weak and dying himself, he was almost the only heir of his royal family.
The ambitious Charles d'Anjou, the rival and the murderer of Corradino,
grandson of Frederic and Violante, plundered the stranded vessels of the
returning crusaders, and thus enriched his kingdom of Sicily, by the great
shipwreck of the empire and the church.
Death, too, had been busy in the palace of Windsor. The two beautiful
children of Edward and Eleanora had been laid in the tomb, and their
grandfather, Henry III., with their aunt Margaret, Queen of Scotland, soon
followed them to the great charnel-house of England, Westminster Abbey.
The melancholy tidings of these repeated bereavements met the royal pair
in Sicily, and cast a pall over the land to which they had anticipated a
triumphant return.
The great problem of the conquest of Palestine was not yet solved to the
mind of Edward, but the progress of the age trammelled his powers and
limited his ambitious aspirations. The orders of knighthood, exhausted by
the repeated drafts made upon their forces, by these eastern expeditions,
began to decline in the scale of power; and the lower ranks, finding new
avenues to wealth in productive labor and commerce, began the great battle
with military organizations and hereditary aristocracy, which has been
going on with increased advantage to the working classes from the middle
ages to the present glorious era.
Gregory X. made some feeble attempts to rouse Europe once more for the
redemption of the Holy Sepulchre, but his earnest appeal received no
response from the sovereigns of Christendom, and within three years the
last strain of the great anthem "Hierosolyma liberati" that began with the
swelling tones of mustering warriors and sounded on through two centuries
in the soul-stirring harmonies of jubilante peans, alternating with the
mournful measures of funeral dirges, ended in a last sad refrain over the
diminished remnants of the military orders, who, in a vain defence of
Acre, dyed the sands of Syria with their blood.
From Sicily the royal crusaders proceeded to Rome, where they were
cordially welcomed and splendidly entertained by Pope Gregory X., who,
having long filled the office of confessor in their household, had been
recalled from the Holy Land, to occupy the chair of St. Peter.
In the train of the King of England was his cousin, Henry, son of Richard
of Cornwall, a gallant young noble who had led the detachment that opposed
the band of Leicester, and, by his warlike prowess, greatly contributed to
the successful issue of the sanguinary conflict at Evesham. His zeal and
loyalty during this doubtful period, commended him to the confidence of
Edward, and he had still more endeared himself to his royal patron, by his
ardor in battling against the Infidels, and his brilliant achievements at
the siege of Nazareth.
The young Henry was the affianced husband of the Princess Mary, in
consequence of which, Eleanora had admitted him to an intimacy, and
evinced for him an affection almost equal to that enjoyed by the royal
children themselves.
During the stay of the king at Rome, the devoted Henry obtained permission
to make a pilgrimage to a celebrated shrine near Naples, for the
consecration of sundry relics which he had collected in Palestine. As he
knelt at the foot of the altar and closed his eyes in prayer, he was not
aware of the entrance of his mortal enemy, Guy de Montfort, son of the
Earl of Leicester. With stealthy tread the assassin approached, bent over
the suppliant youth, and exclaiming, "Die! murderer of my father!" thrust
his sword into the heart, beating warm with life and hope, and sprinkled
the holy relics with the blood of another martyr. With a vengeful frown of
satisfied hate, he wiped the sword, returned it to its scabbard, and
strode from the church. One of his knights, fit follower of such a master,
inquired as he rejoined his troop,
"What has my lord Guy de Montfort done?"
"Taken vengeance," was the fiendish reply.
"How so?" rejoined the knight. "Was not your father, the great Leicester,
dragged a public spectacle, by the hair of the head through the streets of
Evesham?"
Without a word the demon turned to his yet more malignant triumph, and
seizing the victim, whose pale lips yet moved with the instinct of prayer,
dragged him from the attendants, who were vainly striving to staunch the
life-blood welling from the wound, to the public place, and left him a
ghastly spectacle to the horror-stricken crowd.
It was now necessary for the murderers to think of self-defence. The
English retainers of Earl Henry had raised the cry of revenge, and the
Italian populace excited by the fearful tragedy that had been enacted in
the very presence of the virgin and child, began to run together and join
the parties of attack or defence. The train of de Montfort immediately
raised the shout of, "d'Anjou! Down with the Ghibelines!" and when the
armed forces of the Duke Charles rode into the midst of the throng to
investigate the cause of the tumult, Sir Guy joined their ranks, and
departed for Naples under their escort.
Tidings of this melancholy event were soon carried to Rome, and Edward
immediately appealed to the pope for justice upon the murderer. Gregory,
who feared to offend Edward, and who was almost equally alarmed at the
prospect of a rupture with the tyrant of Sicily, had recourse to various
ingenious methods of delay. Finding however that the King of England had
determined to postpone the obsequies of his noble relative, until a curse
was pronounced upon the assassin, he was forced to the exercise of
ecclesiastical measures.
Clothed in his pontifical robes, Gregory X. entered the church at
Orvietto, and proceeding to the high altar, took the bible in his hand,
and, after setting before the awestruck assembly the guilt of the culprit,
proceeded thus to fulminate his anathema against the assassin.
"For the murder of Henry of Germany, slain before the shrine of St. Mary,
in the face of day, we lay upon Guy de Montfort the curse of our Holy
Church. In virtue of the authority bestowed upon us as the successor of
St. Peter, we do pronounce him excommunicate, and alien to all the
privileges and consolations which our blessed religion affords. We permit
every one to seize him--we order the governors of provinces to arrest
him--we place under interdict all who shall render him an asylum--we
prohibit all Christians from lending him aid, and we dispense his vassals
from all oaths of fidelity they have made to him; may none of the
blessings of this holy book descend upon him, and may all the curses
contained therein, cleave unto him;" and he dashed the bible to the
ground.
Lifting the waxen taper, he continued, "Let the light of life be withdrawn
from him, and let his soul sink in _eternal night_." With the word he
threw the candle upon the pavement, and instantly every light in the
church was extinguished, and amid the gloom, the trembling congregation
heard the voice of the pontiff, ringing out full and clear, "I curse him
by book, by candle, and by bell." A solemn toll proclaimed the
malediction, and amid the darkness and the silence, the multitude crept
one by one from the church, as though fearful of being implicated in the
terrible denunciation.
Edward, having thus placed his cousin under the ban of the church,
disdained to persecute him with farther vengeance, and taking an amicable
leave of the pontiff continued his route to France. Learning that England
was quiet under the regency of the queen-mother, he improved the
opportunity to make the tour of his southern dominions, and, in gallant
sports and knightly adventures passed several months upon the continent.
Edward and Eleanora arrived in England, August 2d, 1273. The English
welcomed their return with the greatest exultation. Both houses of
parliament assembled to do honor to their entrance into London, and the
streets were hung with garlands of flowers and festoons of silk; while the
wealthy inhabitants, showered gold and silver on the royal retinue as they
passed.
Preparations were made for their coronation on a scale of magnificence
hitherto unrivalled. Fourteen days were spent in erecting booths for the
accommodation of the populace, and temporary kitchens for the purpose of
roasting oxen, sheep, and fowls, and preparing cakes and pastry, for the
expected banquet. Hogsheads of Bordeaux wine, and pipes of good stout
English ale, were ranged at convenient intervals, and flagon-masters
appointed to deal them out to the thirsty crowds.
The night before the expected ceremony, the presumptive king and queen
were indulging in reminiscences of the early days of their married life,
and comparing those troublous times, with the splendid future that seemed
to stretch in bright perspective before them.
"Methinks, sweet life," said Edward, tenderly taking her hand, "those days
when thou dwelt a fugitive in the wilds of Devonshire, and I languished
within the walls of Kenilworth, gave little promise of our present
peaceful state."
"True, my lord, yet had I not dwelt in the humble hamlet, I might never
have known the pure loyalty of English hearts."
"By our Lady, thou hast a better alchemy than thy clerkly brother, the
Castilian monarch, for his science finds only _gold_ in everything, while
thy diviner art finds _good_ in all, and loyalty in outlaws."
"I remember me," replied Eleanora, with an arch smile, "there was a
gallant outlaw, in whom my woman's heart discerned every noble and
knightly quality. But small credit can I claim for my science, since it
was the alchemy of love that revealed his virtues."
"No other alchemy hath e'er found good in man, and, sinner as I am, I
might fear the judgment of thy purity, did not the same sweet charity that
discovers undeveloped virtues transmute even errors into promises of good.
To-morrow, God willing, it will be in Edward's power to constitute
Eleanora the dispenser of bounty. Whom would she first delight to honor?"
"Since the prince of outlaws puts it in my power," said Eleanora, with a
look of grateful affection, "I would e'en reward those bold foresters who
delivered my Edward from the enemies that sought his life."
"Thou sayest well, dearest," replied Edward, "and now that thou remindest
me of my escape from thraldom, I pray our Lady of Walsingham aid me to
discharge an obligation that hath long laid heavy on my conscience.
Yesternight, methought I saw, among the yeomen busy in the preparations
for the approaching pageant, the tall outlaw, who, in his gown and cowl,
one moment gave me priestly benizon, and the next, advised me of
Leicester's movements, with the sagacity of a practised warrior. Such
length of limb and strength of arm, once seen, does not escape my memory;
and, if my eye deceive me not, 'twas he, with Courtenay, who led the
assault at Nazareth; and furthermore, it runneth in my mind, that I have
seen him elsewhere and in other guise."
"Mayhap it was the tall knight who defended Eleanora at the Jews'
massacre, till thy arrival dispersed the rabble mob," returned the queen.
"By the soul of St. Bartholomew thou divinest well," said the king; "and,
since thou knowest the monk, perhaps thou canst give me tidings concerning
the shrewd-witted boy, who managed to gain speech with me, when all my
partisans had failed. So fair a squire must, ere this, have earned the
spurs of knighthood; and much would it pleasure me, to lay the accolade
upon his shoulder, in return for his dextrous plotting. That the lad
pertained not to the household of Mortimer, I knew right well; but whether
he were a retainer of the bold outlaw who organized the royal forces, or
some young noble whose love of adventure set him upon the work, I could
never yet decide."
"And if he were retainer of the outlaw?" said Eleanora, inquiringly.
"My gratitude should none the less reward the service of one who risked
his life for mine," replied the king.
A smile of satisfaction beamed on the countenance of Eleanora, and opening
her gypsire, and taking thence the small ivory whistle, she despatched an
attendant with the token to Eva.
Shortly after, the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of an
attendant, who announced that a page from Lady Mortimer craved an audience
of his majesty.
"Let him be at once admitted," said Edward, casting a significant glance
at Eleanora.
The door was thrown open, and the beautiful boy, whose image at that
moment filled the mind of the king, entered with trembling step, and
proceeding straight to the monarch, knelt at his feet, and with clasped
hands began to plead earnestly for the pardon of the banished Earl Dermot
de la Clare.
"How is this?" exclaimed Edward, gazing with astonishment, first upon the
kneeling page, and then upon his wife. "How is this? by the Holy Rood, my
heart misgives me, thou art witch as well as alchemist. Here is the
identical page I have vainly sought for nine long years, conjured up by
the magic of an ivory whistle."
"Earl Dermot de la Clare!" said he to Eva, lifting the boy tenderly from
his knees, "why has the banished outlaw sought thy fair lips to plead his
cause? Let himself present his claims to our clemency, and we will promise
justice for ourself, and perchance a better guerdon from our loving
spouse, who would ever have mercy rejoice above judgment.
"And thou, sweet dove," said he, gazing admiringly upon the doubting Eva,
"'who wearest the badge of Mortimer,' and whose 'giddy brain recks not of
politics,' demandest manor and lordship for an outlawed man! Didst crave
it for thyself, not twice the boon could make me say thee nay."
"'Tis for myself I crave the boon, royal liege," said Eva, falling again
upon her knees. "Dermot de la Clare is the sire of thy poor orphan
charge."
"Thy sire!" exclaimed the prince, greatly moved. "How knowest thou this?"
"First, by the story of the rescued sailor, who was one of the band with
which my father thought to regain possession of his fief, when the act of
attainder had branded him an outlaw. He it was with the cartman's frock,
who waited our coming at the cross-road on the memorable day of my lord's
escape. Next, by the shamrock, the ancient cognizance of the house of
Strongbow, and by the rose of Sharon, which my mother wrought upon the
scarf in memory of her husband's pilgrimage. But Eva finds the strongest
proof in the promptings of her heart; for from the day since she rested in
his arms at London bridge, to the time when he drew her from the Vulture's
Nest at Mount Lebanon, she hath trusted in his love, and obeyed his
bidding, with such confidence as none but a father could inspire."
"Thy eloquence hath proved thy cause," said the king, raising her and
seating her by his side; "and were I a needy knight, requiring royal
favor, I'd bribe thy pleading eyes to back my suit, and never fear
denial."
Eva essayed to stammer forth her thanks, but tears choked her utterance,
and Eleanora, pitying her confusion, reassured her with playful allusions
to her childish aspirations for the sovereignty of Ireland.
"I fear me," said Edward, gazing upon her varying color with admiration,
"that to reward all my subjects and vassals, according to their merit,
will exhaust my exchequer. The audacity of these benefactors exceeds all
belief! It was but this morning that one more bold than his fellows
demanded the fairest flower of our court as a recompense for his knightly
service in the eastern campaign."
The conscious Eva looked imploringly at her mistress, who graciously
accorded her permission to depart, while Edward continued his raillery.
"I referred the gallant unto thee, love," said he, "for he must be a brave
man who dares transfer the possessions of his wife."
"To the marriage of de Courtenay with our beautiful ward," returned the
queen, "there riseth but one objection. From the similarity of her name,
she ever fancied herself the heiress of the former King of Leinster, and
hath cultivated a taste for decorations befitting royalty. I fear me that
Sir Henry, being but the younger branch of his house, will scarce be able
to maintain a state suited to her desires."
"God grant she have not the ambition of Earl Strigul, else might we find
it necessary to do battle for our fief of Ireland," said Edward.
"Nay, from the ambition of Eva, thou hast nought to fear; her heart would
incline her rather to bestow benefices upon her friends, than to hoard
treasures for herself. Therefore it is that I desire for her worthy
alliance and princely dower," returned the queen.
"Thou hast it in thy power, best one, to obviate thine own objections and
to bless the loyal hamlet that protected thy seclusion, by giving them so
gracious a mistress."
Tears of gratitude filled the eyes of the queen, as looking affectionately
upon her husband she replied, "How lost were Eleanora to the love of God
did she not daily thank Him for making her the wife of one who finds his
own happiness in promoting the welfare of his subjects."
"Not all his subjects regard him with thy partial fondness," said the
king. "Our brother, Alexander of Scotland, has refused to renew the oath
of homage, which his ancestor made to Henry II. for his crown, and will
attend our coronation only as kingly guest; while the bold Llewellyn
refuses to set foot in London."
"The troublous period through which the realm so lately passed, pleads
their best excuse for these unjust suspicions," suggested the queen. "When
the wisdom and magnanimity of my Edward shall become known, they will
learn to trust their interest in his hands with the confidence of
vassals."
"Thou would'st fain persuade me," said Edward, laughing, "that I may love
my enemies."
"I would persuade thee," said Eleanora, with a smile of confident
affection, "to make thine enemies thy friends. Suspicion ever breeds
hatred. There be many warm, true hearts in England, at this hour, who,
having followed the fortunes of Leicester, for what they deemed the public
good, are withheld by fear, from uttering the shout of loyalty."
"And how would'st thou purpose that I should bind them to their
allegiance?" said Edward, curiously.
"By the same rule that our blessed Lord restored this fallen world,"
returned the queen, timidly. "He declareth his love toward us, even while
we are sinners, and thus we learn to confide in Him."
"Verily, there seems truth in what thou sayest," said the king,
thoughtfully; "but it were a thing unheard of--for a ruler to illustrate
the principles of forgiveness, and place his kingdom at the mercy of
traitors."
"The good St. Louis," urged Eleanora, almost fearful of pressing the
matter too far, "leaned ever to the side of mercy; and no king of France
hath enjoyed a more peaceful or glorious reign."
"It shall be as thou sayest," said Edward, after a pause, during which he
gazed upon her pleading countenance, whose every feature mirrored the
intense interest of her heart in the welfare of their subjects, and the
honor of her lord. "It shall be as thou sayest. Heaven cannot suffer me to
err in this matter, since it hath sent an angel for my counsellor." Then
resuming his accustomed tone of affectionate pleasantry, he added, "Thou
think'st it well, dearest, for a warrior like myself to perform some work
of supererogation, to cancel the sins into which my love of power may yet
lead me. But small merit may I claim for my clemency, since it were not in
the nature of man to withstand the sweet earnestness with which thou dost
enforce thy gentle counsels."