CHAPTER XXVIII._Freston Tower

THE MARRIAGE PROCESSION.

A marriage in the year 1498, and in a nobleman's family, was almost

like an affair of state. In the metropolis, such an event might not

have been uncommon; but, in the country, it was in that day so joyous

an event, that he was considered but a niggard nobleman who had not

the whole country to participate in his festivity.

Such a maid as Ellen, too--so universally beloved in her own

neighborhood, and so celebrated for every female virtue of her

time--was sure to command the generous and gentle affections of all

who had any regard for their betters. There might be some morose

dispositions, who staid at home, brooding over melancholy

forebodings, and caring nothing for a marriage, for bride,

bridegroom, bridal attire, bridal friends, men, maids, banquets, or

any kind of festivity; but there was then no lack of well-wishers,

who really loved Ellen De Freston, and wished her happy.

Alice De Clinton, had she been at all of Ellen's disposition, would

have been her companion upon this occasion, but she lacked not

friends of the noblest class to fill her place. The fair daughters

of Fastolf, and De Broke, from the Haugh, were at Freston Castle,

together with four other maidens of quality, to accompany her to the

wedding.

The morning broke most lovely! The merry bells could be heard from

the town of Ipswich, ringing cheerily; for Lord De Freston and Edmund

Daundy were as universally loved for their amiable qualities, as they

were known to be rich and generous. Everything indicated a happy

morning: birds were singing blithely, and men and women's voices

mingled therewith. The hills around Ipswich echoed the joyful notes,

whilst people looked upon that day as one of the brightest festival

in which love reigned omnipotent. In short, every face exhibited

something of the anticipated pleasure of the bridal.

Maidens might be seen tripping along the meadows of the meandering

Gipping, with little baskets of flowers, on purpose to strew the

bridal path from St. Peter's Gate to the porch of St. Lawrence. It

was no loss of time to them to be seen to participate in the

happiness of a lady whom some one or other of them had known, for her

kindness to some poor relative, or for her gentleness and amiable

bearing.

Fame, when not courted but deserved, will come with a reward which is

as pleasant as it is unexpected. Actions done upon the Christian

principle of brotherly love are sure to be successful in the end;

they carry with them their own reward, being done from faith, and a

sense of duty.

Such were those of the whole life of Lord De Freston and his

daughter. Such were the motives which influenced him in his

patronage of Wolsey; such were his daughter's motives in the interest

she felt in his rising fame. But whilst hundreds around them were

grateful, and rejoiced to show the interest they felt in Ellen's

happiness, that one, the scholar and the friend, felt nothing of

gratitude, little of affection: he felt only the deepest, the most

heartfelt mortification.

Early on the morning of the 8th of July, 1498, did Thomas Wolsey,

Priest of Magdalen College, rise. Whether he slept or not, those who

saw him could only give a surmise, and from the swollen appearance of

his eyes, and the excessive pallor of his countenance, it was thought

that his reverence had passed a very restless night.

He was not stirring earlier than William Latimer, who, when Wolsey

descended from the internal balcony of the hall, was, with Edmund

Daundy, preparing to depart for Ipswich, that both might be in

readiness to receive the _cortège_ of the bride at the house of the

latter in St. Lawrence. As they stood in the hall, Thomas Wolsey

descended. He bowed haughtily in return to the generous salute of

his uncle and his young friend.

'I am ready to depart for Ipswich, gentlemen, and to solicit of the

officiating priest of St. Lawrence permission to perform the

_marriage ceremony_.'

These last words created a kind of adhesive firmness of his tongue to

the roof of his mouth; for, when his uncle replied that he had

already secured that permission, there was but a bow of acquiescence,

and a dignified move towards the massive hall-door. The party went

forward. Three of Lord De Freston's horses stood caparisoned for

them at the porch; but a delay was created by the proud priest saying

to the groom in waiting--

'My own horse!'

'My lord thought your own would be fatigued, and requests that you

will use his,' said the man.

'My own horse, sirrah!' was the uncourteous reply. The gentlemen

were equally as astonished as the groom; but seeing that Wolsey

quietly retreated into the hall, they could but desire the groom to

be as expeditious as possible in bringing the said nag round to the

door.

It was evident that Wolsey would have his own way, and not put a foot

into the stirrup until he had.

The horse was brought round. The bridegroom, bridesman, and priest,

departed with a retinue of horsemen for the town. It was a stately

ride. Nothing seemed to please Wolsey. He received all that was

said to him with silent indications of assent, as if they were only

such commonplace sayings as he might expect to receive from the

attendants upon his greatness. So passed they to his native town,

where, at this day, nothing remains in any way connected with him but

a postern gate of brick, leading to the school-master's lodge within

the area of the schools, and not, as some have called it, the

principal entrance to the President's Court.

They arrived at the mansion of Edmund Daundy at seven o'clock on the

morning of the eighth of July.

Dame Joan, Wolsey's mother, was there before them, with many of the

friends, wives, and daughters of the best families of the town and

neighborhood, who came to participate in the joyous doings.

'I give thee this, young man,' said Wolsey to the groom on taking his

horse, 'that thou mayest learn that a reward is worth having when it

is deserved. At ten o'clock do thou be at the portal leading to the

chancel door of St. Lawrence Church. Thou knowest the priest's

entrance, his private entrance, from the lane. There be thou with

this horse, caparisoned exactly as he now is--his trappings on,

exactly as thou seest them now. Let nothing be taken out of thy

possession. There is an angel for thee. Another angel doth await

thee.'

Wolsey gave the man a golden angel, of the value of six and

eightpence, a gift which commanded much more attention than many such

pieces would do now-a-days.

He not only promised obedience, but kept it punctually.

'Thou wilt accept once more, Thomas Wolsey, thine aged uncle's

hospitality. Come in.'

'I have a vow at the altar of St. Lawrence, which I must pay this

morning. I can enter no house until that is paid.'

'How long wilt thou be?'

'Until this marriage is over.'

'We shall hope to see thee then?'

'Thou mayest then hope.' And Wolsey departed for the church.

Whilst he bent at the altar of St. Lawrence Church, glad to escape

from anything like cheerfulness, he was steeling his heart for a

trial to which the pages of romance could scarcely afford a parallel.

Never once did he reproach himself for the cruelty of his behaviour

towards those who really loved him, and had given him the greatest

possible proofs of attachment. Never once did he reflect that his

then state of deportment towards Ellen was barbarous or unjust; his

whole soul was enveloped in the cloak of his own selfishness. His

heart was full of gall and bitterness, grief and agony. And as he

knelt before that altar to which he had devoted himself soul and

body, did he pray for that high, that holy, inward peace, which the

man who sacrifices every selfish feeling for the good of another

would so earnestly desire? His heart could have burst at the very

position he had then placed himself in, but for that indomitable

pride which prayed for future aggrandizement, that the poor scholar

of Ipswich might rival, or rather out-rival, the Lord De Freston and

his friends.

His vow was but an excuse for the feeding of his own solitary

disappointment, but for the opportunity of brooding over the

melancholy superstition to which his nature and his enlightened mind

were adverse, but to which his seemingly injured affections had fled

for solace.

Whilst Wolsey was thus mournfully fasting and praying, and the gay

world was shut out from the gloom of his devotion, parties of maidens

formed in rank, a long and pleasing file, went with their baskets of

flowers from Daundy's mansion gate towards St. Peter's Ford, by which

the bride was expected to enter the town, and as they went, their

leaders lifted up their voices and sung one stanza, at the conclusion

of the last two lines of which the whole company joined:

Come all ye merry lasses!

Come bring your flowers gay;

Come all in smiling masses,

And strew the bridal way.

Leave sorrow far behind you,

And be not you forlorn,

For Love alone should bind you

To greet the bridal morn.

CHORUS.

Then haste! oh, haste, this happy hour!

To meet the Maid of Freston Tower.

It was a lovely morning, indeed; and Ellen, the Maid of Freston

Tower, with her dear and anxious father, and her whole train of fair

damsels and rustic maidens, and tenants' daughters and servants, were

seen descending Freston Hill, from the park side to the strand. It

was a long and sweeping _cortége_; the bridesmaids and the bride

attired in travelling costume, attended by noble gentlemen, the

friends of the various parties, swept along that happy strand amidst

the blessings and praises of those poor people, who left their

morning toil by permission of their masters.

It was a sight in those feudal days worthy of being recorded in a

better ballad than the old one extant in the archives of the borough

of Ipswich, written by old Dan Lydgate, monk of the Benedictine Abbey

of St. Edmund's Bury; though he was a genuine poet of his day, and

few could vie with him in allegory, or in narrative, or in words; and

yet old Dan wanted that sense of feeling that meditates in love upon

things passing around him. He described them with flowery colours,

and now and then with a daring liberty almost approaching to

licentiousness. He was seldom pathetic or reflective--yet he is a

good old poet, and describes his times quite as well as Byron does

his, with far less morbid selfishness.

From far and near, Ipswich was like a vast fair; but there was no

gambling, hooting, hallooing, cheating, drinking, bargaining, and

brawling. Instead of these, there was a cheerful wedding, upon which

every face smiled with delight.

Beautiful indeed was the attachment between two such souls as those

of the son of Sir William Latimer and the daughter of Lord De

Freston, enhanced by similarity of taste, a love of truth,

literature, and talent, and by every virtue which adorns or ennobles

human nature. An abhorrence of anything unjust and oppressive

pervaded De Freston and Sir William Latimer, and was instilled into

their children.

The country was alive with joyful faces, and not only the hamlets of

Ipswich, but from every village down the Orwell, as far as Felixtow

Beach on the one side, and Shotley Point on the other, boats ascended

the tide to the gaily festive scene. Songs were got up by the

village singers. One ballad, or song, or chaunt, or whatever else it

may be called, is preserved, which affords not only a lively

description of the feeling then felt towards the daughter of Lord De

Freston, but it is not devoid of elegance or metrical beauty, though

it may not be exactly accurate in rhyme:--

The Boatmen's Bridal Song.

Come, row the boat, row! from Levington Creek;

The boat full of roses as e'er it can stick.

Row the boat, row!

Yoho! yoho!

For the pride of the castle, fair Ellen, we go!

Come, row the boat, row! 'tis the bridal day;

And woe to the maiden who stays away.

Row the boat, row!

Yoho! yoho!