"Why then a final note prolong,
Or lengthen out a closing song,
Unless to bid the gentles speed
Who long have listened to my rede?"
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
The fickle sun of "merrie England" shone forth in unusual splendor;
and, as if resolved to bless the august ceremony on which it gazed,
permitted not a cloud to shadow the lustrous beams, which, darted
their floods of light through the gorgeous casements of Westminster
Abbey, in whose sacred precincts was then celebrating the bridal of
the young heir of England, with a fair and gentle daughter of Spain.
It was a scene to interest the coldest heart--not for the state and
splendor of the accoutrements, nor the high rank of the parties
principally concerned, nor for the many renowned characters of church,
state, and chivalry there assembled; it was the extreme youth and
touching expression, impressed on the features, of both bride and
bridegroom.
Neither Arthur, Prince of Wales, nor Catherine, Infanta of Arragon,
had yet numbered eighteen years, the first fresh season of joyous
life; but on neither countenance could be traced the hilarity and
thoughtlessness, natural to their age. The fair, transparent brow of
the young Prince, under which the blue veins could be clearly seen,
till lost beneath the rich chesnut curls, that parted on his brow,
fell loosely on either shoulder; the large and deep blue eye, which
was ever half concealed beneath the long, dark lash, as if some untold
languor caused the eyelid to droop so heavily; the delicate pink of
his downless cheek, the brilliant hue on his lips, even his peculiar
smile, all seemed to whisper the coming ill, that one so dear to
Englishmen would not linger with them to fulfil the sweet promise of
his youth.
Beauty is, perhaps, too strong a word to apply to the youthful bride.
It was the pensive sadness of her mild and pleasing features that so
attracted--natural enough to her position in a strange land, and the
thoughts of early severance from a mother she idolized, but recalled
some twenty years afterwards as the dim shadow of the sorrowing
future, glooming through the gay promise of the present. And there,
too, was Prince Henry, then only in his twelfth year, bearing in his
flashing eye and constantly varying expression of brow and mouth, true
index of those passions which were one day to shake Europe to the
centre; and presenting in his whole appearance a striking contrast
to his brother, and drawing around him, even while yet so young, the
hottest and wildest spirits of his father's court, who, while they
loved the person, scorned the gentle amusements of the Prince of
Wales.
Henry the Seventh and his hapless consort, Elizabeth of York, were, of
course, present--the one rejoicing in the conclusion of a marriage for
which he had been in treaty the last seven years, and which was at
last purchased at the cost of innocent blood; the other beholding only
her precious son, whose gentle and peculiarly domestic virtues, were
her sweetest solace for conjugal neglect and ill-concealed dislike.
Amongst the many noble Spaniards forming the immediate attendants of
the Infanta, had been one so different in aspect to his companions as
to attract universal notice; and not a few of the senior noblemen of
England had been observed to crowd round him whenever he appeared, and
evince towards him the most marked and pleasurable cordiality. His
thickly silvered hair and somewhat furrowed brow bore the impress
of some five-and-fifty years; but a nearer examination might have
betrayed, that sorrow more than years, had aged him, and full six,
or even ten years might very well be subtracted from the age which a
first glance supposed him. Why the fancy was taken that he was not a
Spaniard could not have been very easily explained; for his wife was
the daughter of the famous Pedro Pas, whose beauty, wit, and high
spirits were essentially Spanish, and was the Infanta's nearest and
most favored attendant; and he himself was constantly near her person,
and looked up to by the usually jealous Spaniards as even higher in
rank and importance that many of themselves. How, then, could he be a
foreigner? And marvel merged into the most tormenting curiosity, when,
on the bridal day of the Prince of Wales, though he still adhered to
the immediate train of the Princess, he appeared in the rich and full
costume of an English Peer. The impatience of several young gallants
could hardly by restrained even during the ceremony; at the conclusion
of which they tumultuously surrounded Lord Scales, declaring they
would not let him go, till he had told them who and what was this
mysterious friend: Lord Scales had headed a gallant band of English
knights in the Moorish war, and was therefore supposed to know every
thing concerning Spain, and certainly of this Anglo-Spaniard, as ever
since his arrival in England they had constantly been seen together.
He smiled good-humoredly at their importunity, and replied--
"I am afraid my friend's history has nothing very marvellous or
mysterious in it. His family were all staunch Lancastrians, and
perished either on the field or scaffold; he escaped almost
miraculously, and after a brief interval of restless wandering, went
to Spain and was treated with such consideration and kindness by
Ferdinand and Isabella, that he has lived there ever since, honored
and treated in all things as a child of the soil. On my arrival, I was
struck by his extraordinary courage and rash disregard of danger, and
gladly hailed in him a countryman. I learned afterwards that this
reckless bravery had been incited by a wish for death, and that events
had occurred in his previous life, which would supply matter for many
a minstrel tale."
"Let us hear it, let us hear it!" interrupted many eager voices, but
Lord Seales laughingly shook his head.
"Excuse me, my young friends: at present I have neither time nor
inclination for a long story. Enough that he loved, and loved
unhappily; not from its being unreturned, but from a concatenation of
circumstances and sorrows which may not be detailed."
"But he is married; and he is as devoted to Donna Catherine as she is
to him. I heard they were proverbial for their mutual affection and
domestic happiness. How could he so have loved before?" demanded,
somewhat skeptically, a very young man.
"My good friend, when you get a little older, you will cease to marvel
at such things, or imagine, because a man has been very wretched, he
is to be for ever. My friend once felt as you do (Lord Seales changed
his tone to one of impressive seriousness); but he was wise enough
to abide by the counsels of the beloved one he had lost, struggle to
shake off the sluggish misery which was crushing him, cease to wish
for death, and welcome life as a solemn path of usefulness and good,
still to be trodden, though its flowers might have faded. Gradually as
he awoke to outward things, and sought the companionship of her whom
his lost one had loved, he became sensible that, spiritless as he had
thought himself, he could yet, did he see fit, win and rivet regard;
and so he married, loving less than he was loved, perchance at the
time but scarcely so now. His marriage, and his present happiness, are
far less mysterious than his extraordinary interference in the event
which followed the conquest of the Moors--I mean the expulsion of the
Jews."
"By the way, what caused that remarkable edict?" demanded one of the
circle more interested in politics than in individuals. "It is a good
thing indeed to rid a land of such vermin; but in Spain they had
so much to do with the successful commerce of the country, that it
appears as impolitic as unnecessary."
"Impolitic it was, so far as concerned the temporal interests of the
kingdom; but the sovereigns of Spain decided on it, from the religious
light in which it was placed before them, by Torquemada. It is
whispered that Isabella would never have consented to a decree,
sentencing so many thousands of her innocent subjects to misery and
expulsion, had not her confessor worked on her conscience in an
unusual manner; alluding to some unprecedented favor shown to one of
that hated race, occasioned, he declared, by those arts of magic which
might occur again and yet again, and do most fatal evil to the land.
Isabella had, it appears, when reproached by Torquemada for her act
of mercy, which he termed weakness, pledged herself, not to interfere
with his measures for the extermination of the unbelief, and on this
promise of course he worked, till the edict was proclaimed."
"But this stranger, what had he to do with it?" demanded many of the
group, impatient at the interruption.
"What he had to do with it I really cannot tell you, but his zeal
to avert the edict lost him, in a great measure the confidence of
Ferdinand. When he found to prevent their expulsion was impossible,
he did all in his power to lessen their misfortune, if such it may be
called, by relieving every unbeliever that crossed his path."
An exclamation of horrified astonishment escaped his auditors. "What
could such conduct mean? did he lean towards unbelief himself--"
"That could hardly be," replied Lord Scales. "Unless he had been a
Catholic, earnest and zealous as herself, Isabella would never have so
esteemed him, as to give him as wife her especial favorite, Catherine
Pas, and place him so near the person of her child. When I left Spain,
I entreated my friend to accompany me, and resume his hereditary title
and estate, but I pleaded in vain. Some more than common tie seemed to
devote him to the interests of the Queen of Castile, whom he declared
he would never leave unless in England he could serve her better than
in Spain. At that time there was no chance of such an event. He now
tells me, that it was Isabella's earnest request that he should attend
the Princess; be always near her, and so decrease the difficulties,
which in a foreign land must for a time surround her. The Queen is
broken in health, and dispirited, from many domestic afflictions; and
it was with tears, she besought him to devote his remaining years, to
the service of her child, and be to the future Queen of England true,
faithful, and upright, as he had ever been to the Queen of Spain.
Need I say the honorable charge was instantly accepted, and while he
resumes his rank and duties as a Peer of his native land, the grateful
service of an adopted son of Spain will ever be remembered and
performed."
"But his name, his name?" cried many eager voices.
"ARTHUR STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY."