LORD HASTINGS.
William Lord Hastings was one of the most remarkable men of the age.
Philip de Comines bears testimony to his high repute for wisdom and
virtue. Born the son of a knight of ancient lineage but scanty lands,
he had risen, while yet in the prime of life, to a rank and an
influence second, perhaps, only to the House of Nevile. Like Lord
Montagu, he united in happy combination the talents of a soldier and a
courtier. But as a statesman, a schemer, a thinker, Montagu, with all
his craft, was inferior to Hastings. In this, the latter had but two
equals,--namely, George, the youngest of the Nevile brothers,
Archbishop of York; and a boy, whose intellect was not yet fully
developed, but in whom was already apparent to the observant the dawn
of a restless, fearless, calculating, and subtle genius. That boy,
whom the philosophers of Utrecht had taught to reason, whom the
lessons of Warwick had trained to arms, was Richard, Duke of
Gloucester, famous even now for his skill in the tilt-yard and his
ingenuity in the rhetoric of the schools.
The manners of Lord Hastings had contributed to his fortunes. Despite
the newness of his honours, even the haughtiest of the ancient nobles
bore him no grudge, for his demeanour was at once modest and manly.
He was peculiarly simple and unostentatious in his habits, and
possessed that nameless charm which makes men popular with the lowly
and welcome to the great. [On Edward's accession so highly were the
services of Hastings appreciated by the party, that not only the king,
but many of the nobility, contributed to render his wealth equal to
his new station, by grants of lands and moneys. Several years
afterwards, when he went with Edward into France, no less than two
lords, nine knights, fifty-eight squires, and twenty gentlemen joined
his train.--Dugdale: Baronage, p. 583. Sharon Turner: History of
England, vol. iii. p. 380.] But in that day a certain mixture of vice
was necessary to success; and Hastings wounded no self-love by the
assumption of unfashionable purism. He was regarded with small favour
by the queen, who knew him as the companion of Edward in his
pleasures, and at a later period accused him of enticing her faithless
lord into unworthy affections. And certain it is, that he was
foremost amongst the courtiers in those adventures which we call the
excesses of gayety and folly, though too often leading to Solomon's
wisdom and his sadness. But profligacy with Hastings had the excuse
of ardent passions: he had loved deeply, and unhappily, in his earlier
youth, and he gave in to the dissipation of the time with the restless
eagerness common to strong and active natures when the heart is not at
ease; and under all the light fascination of his converse; or the
dissipation of his life, lurked the melancholic temperament of a man
worthy of nobler things. Nor was the courtly vice of the libertine
the only drawback to the virtuous character assigned to Hastings by
Comines. His experience of men had taught him something of the
disdain of the cynic, and he scrupled not at serving his pleasures or
his ambition by means which his loftier nature could not excuse to his
clear sense. [See Comines, book vi., for a curious anecdote of what
Mr. Sharon Turner happily calls "the moral coquetry" of Hastings,--an
anecdote which reveals much of his character.] Still, however, the
world, which had deteriorated, could not harden him. Few persons so
able acted so frequently from impulse; the impulses were for the most
part affectionate and generous, but then came the regrets of caution
and experience; and Hastings summoned his intellect to correct the
movement of his heart,--in other words, reflection sought to undo what
impulse had suggested. Though so successful a gallant, he had not
acquired the ruthless egotism of the sensualist; and his conduct to
women often evinced the weakness of giddy youth rather than the cold
deliberation of profligate manhood. Thus in his veriest vices there
was a spurious amiability, a seductive charm; while in the graver
affairs of life the intellectual susceptibility of his nature served
but to quicken his penetration and stimulate his energies, and
Hastings might have said, with one of his Italian contemporaries,
"That in subjection to the influences of women he had learned the
government of men." In a word, his powers to attract, and his
capacities to command, may be guessed by this,--that Lord Hastings was
the only man Richard III. seems to have loved, when Duke of
Gloucester, [Sir Thomas More, "Life of Edward V.," speaks of "the
great love" Richard bore to Hastings.] and the only man he seems to
have feared, when resolved to be King of England.
Hastings was alone in the apartments assigned to him in the Tower,
when his page, with a peculiar smile, announced to him the visit of a
young donzell, who would not impart her business to his attendants.
The accomplished chamberlain looked up somewhat impatiently from the
beautiful manuscripts, enriched with the silver verse of Petrarch,
which lay open on his table, and after muttering to himself, "It is
only Edward to whom the face of a woman never is unwelcome," bade the
page admit the visitor. The damsel entered, and the door closed upon
her.
"Be not alarmed, maiden," said Hastings, touched by the downcast bend
of the hooded countenance, and the unmistakable and timid modesty of
his visitor's bearing. "What hast thou to say to me?"
At the sound of his voice, Sibyll Warner started, and uttered a faint
exclamation. The stranger of the pastime-ground was before her.
Instinctively she drew the wimple yet more closely round her face, and
laid her hand upon the bolt of the door as if in the impulse of
retreat.
The nobleman's curiosity was roused. He looked again and earnestly on
the form that seemed to shrink from his gaze; then rising slowly, he
advanced, and laid his band on her arm. "Donzell, I recognize thee,"
he said, in a voice that sounded cold and stern. "What service
wouldst thou ask me to render thee? Speak! Nay! I pray thee,
speak."
"Indeed, good my lord," said Sibyll, conquering her confusion; and,
lifting her wimple, her dark blue eyes met those bent on her, with
fearless truth and innocence, "I knew not, and you will believe me,--I
knew not till this moment that I had such cause for gratitude to the
Lord Hastings. I sought you but on the behalf of my father, Master
Adam Warner, who would fain have the permission accorded to other
scholars, to see the Lord Henry of Windsor, who was gracious to him in
other days, and to while the duress of that princely captive with the
show of a quaint instrument he has invented."
"Doubtless," answered Hastings, who deserved his character (rare in
that day) for humanity and mildness--"doubt less it will pleasure me,
nor offend his grace the king, to show all courtesy and indulgence to
the unhappy gentleman and lord, whom the weal of England condemns us
to hold incarcerate. I have heard of thy father, maiden, an honest
and simple man, in whom we need not fear a conspirator; and of thee,
young mistress, I have heard also, since we parted."
"Of me, noble sir?"
"Of thee," said Hastings, with a smile; and, placing a seat for her,
he took from the table an illuminated manuscript. "I have to thank
thy friend Master Alwyn for procuring me this treasure!"
"What, my lord!" said Sibyll, and her eyes glistened, were you--you
the--the--"
"The fortunate person whom Alwyn has enriched at so slight a cost?
Yes. Do not grudge me my good fortune in this. Thou hast nobler
treasures, methinks, to bestow on another!"
"My good lord!"
"Nay, I must not distress thee. And the young gentleman has a fair
face; may it bespeak a true heart!"
These words gave Sibyll an emotion of strange delight. They seemed
spoken sadly, they seemed to betoken a jealous sorrow; they awoke the
strange, wayward woman-feeling, which is pleased at the pain that
betrays the woman's influence: the girl's rosy lips smiled
maliciously. Hastings watched her, and her face was so radiant with
that rare gleam of secret happiness,--so fresh, so young, so pure, and
withal so arch and captivating, that hackneyed and jaded as he was in
the vulgar pursuit of pleasure, the sight moved better and tenderer
feelings than those of the sensualist. "Yes," he muttered to
himself, "there are some toys it were a sin to sport with and cast
away amidst the broken rubbish of gone passions!"
He turned to the table, and wrote the order of admission to Henry's
prison, and as he gave it to Sibyll, he said, "Thy young gallant, I
see, is at the court now. It is a perilous ordeal, and especially to
one for whom the name of Nevile opens the road to advancement and
honour. Men learn betimes in courts to forsake Love for Plutus, and
many a wealthy lord would give his heiress to the poorest gentleman
who claims kindred to the Earl of Salisbury and Warwick."
"May my father's guest so prosper," answered Sibyll, "for he seems of
loyal heart and gentle nature!"
"Thou art unselfish, sweet mistress," said Hastings; and, surprised by
her careless tone, he paused a moment: "or art thou, in truth,
indifferent? Saw I not thy hand in his, when even those loathly
tymbesteres chanted warning to thee for loving, not above thy merits,
but, alas, it may be, above thy fortunes?"
Sibyll's delight increased. Oh, then, he had not applied that hateful
warning to himself! He guessed not her secret. She blushed, and the
blush was so chaste and maidenly, while the smile that went with it
was so ineffably animated and joyous, that Hastings exclaimed, with
unaffected admiration, "Surely, fair donzell, Petrarch dreamed of
thee, when he spoke of the woman-blush and the angel-smile of Laura.
Woe to the man who would injure thee! Farewell! I would not see thee
too often, unless I saw thee ever."
He lifted her hand to his lips with a chivalrous respect as he spoke;
opened the door, and called his page to attend her to the gates.
Sibyll was more flattered by the abrupt dismissal than if he had knelt
to detain her. How different seemed the world as her light step
wended homeward!