THE WOODVILLE INTRIGUE PROSPERS.--MONTAGU CONFERS WITH HASTINGS,
VISITS THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, AND IS MET ON THE ROAD BY A STRANGE
PERSONAGE.
And now the one topic at the court of King Edward IV. was the expected
arrival of Anthony of Burgundy, Count de la Roche, bastard brother of
Charolois, afterwards, as Duke of Burgundy, so famous as Charles the
Bold. Few, indeed, out of the immediate circle of the Duchess of
Bedford's confidants regarded the visit of this illustrious foreigner
as connected with any object beyond the avowed one of chivalrous
encounter with Anthony Woodville, the fulfilment of a challenge given
by the latter two years before, at the time of the queen's coronation.
The origin of this challenge, Anthony Woodville Lord Scales has
himself explained in a letter to the bastard, still extant, and of
which an extract may be seen in the popular and delightful biographies
of Miss Strickland. [Queens of England, vol. iii. p. 380] It seems
that, on the Wednesday before Easter Day, 1465, as Sir Anthony was
speaking to his royal sister, "on his knees," all the ladies of the
court gathered round him, and bound to his left knee a band of gold
adorned with stones fashioned into the letters S. S. (souvenance or
remembrance), and to this band was suspended an enamelled "Forget-me-
not." "And one of the ladies said that 'he ought to take a step
fitting for the times.'" This step was denoted by a letter on vellum,
bound with a gold thread, placed in his cap; and having obtained the
king's permission to bring the adventure of the flower of souvenance
to a conclusion, the gallant Anthony forwarded the articles and the
enamelled flower to the Bastard of Burgundy, beseeching him to touch
the latter with his knightly hand, in token of his accepting the
challenge. The Count de la Roche did so, but was not sent by his
brother amongst the knights whom Charolois despatched to England, and
the combat had been suspended to the present time.
But now the intriguing Rivers and his duchess gladly availed
themselves of so fair a pretext for introducing to Edward the able
brother of Warwick's enemy and the French prince's rival, Charles of
Burgundy; and Anthony Woodville, too gentle and knightly a person to
have abetted their cunning projects in any mode less chivalrous,
willingly consented to revive a challenge in honour of the ladies of
England.
The only one amongst the courtiers who seemed dissatisfied with the
meditated visit of the doughty Burgundian champion was the Lord
Montagu. This penetrating and experienced personage was not to be
duped by an affectation of that chivalry which, however natural at the
court of Edward III., was no longer in unison with the more intriguing
and ambitious times over which presided the luxurious husband of
Elizabeth Woodville. He had noticed of late, with suspicion, that
Edward had held several councils with the anti-Nevile faction, from
which he himself was excluded. The king, who heretofore had delighted
in his companionship, had shown him marks of coldness and
estrangement; and there was an exulting malice in the looks of the
Duchess of Bedford, which augured some approaching triumph over the
great family which the Woodvilles so openly laboured to supplant. One
day, as Marmaduke was loitering in the courtyard of the Tower,
laughing and jesting with his friends, Lord Montagu, issuing from the
king's closet, passed him with a hurried step and a thoughtful brow.
This haughty brother of the Earl of Warwick had so far attended to the
recommendation of the latter, that he had with some courtesy excused
himself to Marmaduke for his language in the archery-ground, and had
subsequently, when seeing him in attendance on the king, honoured him
with a stately nod, or a brief "Good morrow, young kinsman." But as
his eye now rested on Marmaduke, while the group vailed their bonnets
to the powerful courtier, he called him forth, with a familiar smile
he had never before assumed, and drawing him apart, and leaning on his
shoulder, much to the envy of the standers by, he said caressingly,--
"Dear kinsman Guy--"
"Marmaduke, please you, my lord."
"Dear kinsman Marmaduke, my brother esteems you for your father's
sake. And, sooth to say, the Neviles are not so numerous in court as
they were. Business and state matters have made me see too seldom
those whom I would most affect. Wilt thou ride with me to the More
Park? I would present thee to my brother the archbishop."
"If the king would graciously hold me excused."
"The king, sir! when I--I forgot," said Montagu, checking himself--
"oh, as to that, the king stirs not out to-day! He hath with him a
score of tailors and armourers in high council on the coming
festivities. I will warrant thy release; and here comes Hastings, who
shall confirm it."
"Fair my lord!"--as at that moment Hastings emerged from the little
postern that gave egress from the apartments occupied by the alchemist
of the Duchess of Bedford--"wilt thou be pleased, in thy capacity of
chamberlain, to sanction my cousin in a day's absence? I would confer
with him on family matters."
"Certes, a small favour to so deserving a youth. I will see to his
deputy."
"A word with you, Hastings," said Montagu, thoughtfully, and he drew
aside his fellow courtier: "what thinkest thou of this Burgundy
bastard's visit?"
"That it has given a peacock's strut to the popinjay Anthony
Woodville."
"Would that were all!" returned Montagu. "But the very moment that
Warwick is negotiating with Louis of France, this interchange of
courtesies with Louis's deadly foe, the Count of Charolois, is out of
season."
"Nay, take it not so gravely,--a mere pastime."
"Hastings, thou knowest better. But thou art no friend of my great
brother."
"Small cause have I to be so," answered Hastings, with a quivering
lip. "To him and your father I owe as deep a curse as ever fell on
the heart of man. I have lived to be above even Lord Warwick's
insult. Yet young, I stand amongst the warriors and peers of England
with a crest as haught and a scutcheon as stainless as the best. I
have drunk deep of the world's pleasures. I command, as I list, the
world's gaudy pomps, and I tell thee, that all my success in life
countervails not the agony of the hour when all the bloom and
loveliness of the earth faded into winter, and the only woman I ever
loved was sacrificed to her brother's pride."
The large drops stood on the pale brow of the fortunate noble as he
thus spoke, and his hollow voice affected even the worldly Montagu.
"Tush, Hastings!" said Montagu, kindly; "these are but a young man's
idle memories. Are we not all fated, in our early years, to love in
vain?--even I married not the maiden I thought the fairest, and held
the dearest. For the rest, bethink thee,--thou wert then but a simple
squire."
"But of as ancient and pure a blood as ever rolled its fiery essence
through a Norman's veins."
"It may be so; but old Houses, when impoverished, are cheaply held.
And thou must confess thou wert then no mate for Katherine. Now,
indeed, it were different; now a Nevile might be proud to call
Hastings brother."
"I know it," said Hastings, proudly,--"I know it, lord; and why?
Because I have gold, and land, and the king's love, and can say, as
the Centurion, to my fellow-man, 'Do this, and he doeth it;' and yet I
tell thee, Lord Montagu, that I am less worthy now the love of beauty,
the right hand of fellowship from a noble spirit, than I was then,
when--the simple squire--my heart full of truth and loyalty, with lips
that had never lied, with a soul never polluted by unworthy pleasures
or mean intrigues, I felt that Katherine Nevile should never blush to
own her fere and plighted lord in William de Hastings. Let this pass,
let it pass! You call me no friend to Warwick. True! but I am a
friend to the king he has served, and the land of my birth to which he
has given peace; and therefore, not till Warwick desert Edward, not
till he wake the land again to broil and strife, will I mingle in the
plots of those who seek his downfall. If in my office and stated rank
I am compelled to countenance the pageant of this mock tournament, and
seem to honour the coming of the Count de la Roche, I will at least
stand aloof and free from all attempt to apply a gaudy pageant to a
dangerous policy; and on this pledge, Montagu, I give you my knightly
hand."
"It suffices," answered Montagu, pressing the hand extended to him.
"But the other day I heard the king's dissour tell him a tale of some
tyrant, who silently showed a curious questioner how to govern a land,
by cutting down, with his staff, the heads of the tallest poppies; and
the Duchess of Bedford turned to me, and asked, 'What says a Nevile to
the application?' 'Faith, lady,' said I, 'the Nevile poppies have oak
stems.' Believe me, Hastings, these Woodvilles may grieve and wrong
and affront Lord Warwick, but woe to all the pigmy goaders when the
lion turns at bay!"
With this solemn menace, Montagu quitted Hastings, and passed on,
leaning upon Marmaduke, and with a gloomy brow.
At the gate of the palace waited the Lord Montagu's palfrey and his
retinue of twenty squires and thirty grooms. "Mount, Master
Marmaduke, and take thy choice among these steeds, for we shall ride
alone. There is no Nevile amongst these gentlemen." Marmaduke
obeyed. The earl dismissed his retinue, and in little more than ten
minutes,--so different, then, was the extent of the metropolis,--the
noble and the squire were amidst the open fields.
They had gone several miles at a brisk trot before the earl opened his
lips, and then, slackening his pace, he said abruptly, "How dost thou
like the king? Speak out, youth; there are no eavesdroppers here."
"He is a most gracious master and a most winning gentleman."
"He is both," said Montagu, with a touch of emotion that surprised
Marmaduke; "and no man can come near without loving him. And yet,
Marmaduke (is that thy name?)--yet whether it be weakness or
falseness, no man can be sure of his king's favour from day to day.
We Neviles must hold fast to each other. Not a stick should be lost
if the fagot is to remain unbroken. What say you?" and the earl's
keen eye turned sharply on the young man.
"I say, my lord, that the Earl of Warwick was to me patron, lord, and
father, when I entered yon city a friendless orphan; and that, though
I covet honours, and love pleasure, and would be loth to lift finger
or speak word against King Edward, yet were that princely lord--the
head of mine House--an outcast and a beggar, by his side I would
wander, for his bread I would beg."
"Young man," exclaimed Montagu, "from this hour I admit thee to my
heart! Give me thy hand. Beggar and outcast?--No! If the storm
come, the meaner birds take to shelter, the eagle remains solitary in
heaven!" So saying, he relapsed into silence, and put spurs to his
steed. Towards the decline of day they drew near to the favourite
palace of the Archbishop of York. There the features of the country
presented a more cultivated aspect than it had hitherto worn. For at
that period the lands of the churchmen were infinitely in advance of
those of the laity in the elementary arts of husbandry, partly because
the ecclesiastic proprietors had greater capital at their command,
partly because their superior learning had taught them to avail
themselves, in some measure, of the instructions of the Latin writers.
Still the prevailing characteristic of the scenery was pasture land,--
immense tracts of common supported flocks of sheep; the fragrance of
new-mown hay breathed sweet from many a sunny field. In the rear
stretched woods of Druid growth; and in the narrow lanes, that led to
unfrequent farms and homesteads, built almost entirely either of wood
or (more primitive still) of mud and clay, profuse weeds, brambles,
and wild-flowers almost concealed the narrow pathway, never intended
for cart or wagon, and arrested the slow path of the ragged horse
bearing the scanty produce of acres to yard or mill. But though to
the eye of an economist or philanthropist broad England now, with its
variegated agriculture, its wide roads, its white-walled villas, and
numerous towns, may present a more smiling countenance, to the early
lover of Nature, fresh from the child-like age of poetry and romance,
the rich and lovely verdure which gave to our mother-country the name
of "Green England;" its wild woods and covert alleys, proffering
adventure to fancy; its tranquil heaths, studded with peaceful flocks,
and vocal, from time to time, with the rude scrannel of the shepherd,
--had a charm which we can understand alone by the luxurious reading of
our elder writers. For the country itself ministered to that mingled
fancy and contemplation which the stirring and ambitious life of towns
and civilization has in much banished from our later literature.
Even the thoughtful Montagu relaxed his brow as he gazed around, and
he said to Marmaduke, in a gentle and subdued voice,--
"Methinks, young cousin, that in such scenes, those silly rhymes
taught us in our childhood of the green woods and the summer cuckoos,
of bold Robin and Maid Marian, ring back in our ears. Alas that this
fair land should be so often dyed in the blood of her own children!
Here, how the thought shrinks from broils and war,--civil war, war
between brother and brother, son and father! In the city and the
court, we forget others overmuch, from the too keen memory of
ourselves."
Scarcely had Montagu said these words, before there suddenly emerged
from a bosky lane to the right a man mounted upon a powerful roan
horse. His dress was that of a substantial franklin; a green surtout
of broadcloth, over a tight vest of the same colour, left, to the
admiration of a soldierly eye, an expanse of chest that might have
vied with the mighty strength of Warwick himself. A cap, somewhat
like a turban, fell in two ends over the left cheek, till they touched
the shoulder, and the upper part of the visage was concealed by a
half-vizard, not unfrequently worn out of doors with such head-gear,
as a shade from the sun. Behind this person rode, on a horse equally
powerful, a man of shorter stature, but scarcely less muscular a
frame, clad in a leathern jerkin, curiously fastened with thongs, and
wearing a steel bonnet, projecting far over the face.
The foremost of these strangers, coming thus unawares upon the
courtiers, reined in his steed, and said in a clear, full voice, "Good
evening to you, my masters. It is not often that these roads witness
riders in silk and pile."
"Friend," quoth the Montagu, "may the peace we enjoy under the White
Rose increase the number of all travellers through our land, whether
in pile or russet!"
"Peace, sir!" returned the horseman, roughly,--"peace is no blessing
to poor men, unless it bring something more than life,--the means to
live in security and ease. Peace hath done nothing for the poor of
England. Why, look you towards yon gray tower,--the owner is,
forsooth, gentleman and knight; but yesterday he and his men broke
open a yeoman's house, carried off his wife and daughters to his
tower, and refuseth to surrender them till ransomed by half the year's
produce on the yeoman's farm."
"A caitiff and illegal act," said Montagu.
"Illegal! But the law will notice it not,--why should it? Unjust, if
it punish the knight and dare not touch the king's brother!"
"How, sir?"
"I say the king's brother! Scarcely a month since, twenty-four
persons under George Duke of Clarence entered by force a lady's house,
and seized her jewels and her money, upon some charge, God wot, of
contriving mischief to the boy-duke. [See for this and other
instances of the prevalent contempt of law in the reign of Edward IV.,
and, indeed, during the fifteenth century, the extracts from the
Parliamentary Rolls, quoted by Sharon Turner, "History of England,"
vol. iii. p. 399.] Are not the Commons ground by imposts for the
queen's kindred? Are not the king's officers and purveyors licensed
spoilers and rapiners? Are not the old chivalry banished for new
upstarts? And in all this, is peace better than war?"
"Knowest thou not that these words are death, man?"
"Ay, in the city! but in the fields and waste thought is free. Frown
not, my lord. Ah, I know you, and the time may come when the baron
will act what the franklin speaks. What! think you I see not the
signs of the storm? Are Warwick and Montagu more safe with Edward
than they were with Henry? Look to thyself! Charolois will outwit
King Louis, and ere the year be out, the young Margaret of England
will be lady of your brave brother's sternest foe!"
"And who art thou, knave?" cried Montagu, aghast, and laying his
gloved hand on the bold prophet's bridle.
"One who has sworn the fall of the House of York, and may live to
fight, side by side, in that cause with Warwick; for Warwick, whatever
be his faults, has an English heart, and loves the Commons."
Montagu, uttering an exclamation of astonishment, relaxed hold of the
franklin's bridle; and the latter waved his hand, and spurring his
steed across the wild chain of commons, disappeared with his follower.
"A sturdy traitor!" muttered the earl, following him with his eye.
"One of the exiled Lancastrian lords, perchance. Strange how they
pierce into our secrets! Heardst thou that fellow, Marmaduke?"
"Only in a few sentences, and those brought my hand to my dagger. But
as thou madest no sign, I thought his grace the king could not be much
injured by empty words."
"True! and misfortune has ever a shrewish tongue."
"An' it please you, my lord," quoth Marmaduke, "I have seen the man
before, and it seemeth to me that he holds much power over the rascal
rabble." And here Marmaduke narrated the attack upon Warner's house,
and how it was frustrated by the intercession of Robin of Redesdale.
"Art thou sure it is the same man, for his face was masked?"
"My lord, in the North, as thou knowest, we recognize men by their
forms, not faces,--as in truth we ought, seeing that it is the sinews
and bulk, not the lips and nose, that make a man a useful friend or
dangerous foe."
Montagu smiled at this soldierly simplicity. "And heard you the name
the raptrils shouted?"
"Robin, my lord. They cried out 'Robin,' as if it had been a 'Montagu
I or a 'Warwick.'"
"Robin! ah, then I guess the man,--a most perilous and stanch
Lancastrian. He has more weight with the poor than had Cade the
rebel, and they say Margaret trusts him as much as she does an Exeter
or Somerset. I marvel that he should show himself so near the gates
of London. It must be looked to. But come, cousin. Our steeds are
breathed,--let us on!"
On arriving at the More, its stately architecture, embellished by the
prelate with a facade of double arches, painted and blazoned somewhat
in the fashion of certain old Italian houses, much dazzled Marmaduke.
And the splendour of the archbishop's retinue--less martial indeed
than Warwick's--was yet more imposing to the common eye. Every office
that pomp could devise for a king's court was to be found in the
household of this magnificent prelate,--master of the horse and the
hounds, chamberlain, treasurer, pursuivant, herald, seneschal, captain
of the body-guard, etc.,--and all emulously sought for and proudly
held by gentlemen of the first blood and birth. His mansion was at
once a court for middle life, a school for youth, an asylum for age;
and thither, as to a Medici, fled the letters and the arts.
Through corridor and hall, lined with pages and squires, passed
Montagu and Marmaduke, till they gained a quaint garden, the wonder
and envy of the time, planned by an Italian of Mantua, and perhaps the
stateliest one of the kind existent in England. Straight walks,
terraces, and fountains, clipped trees, green alleys, and smooth
bowling-greens abounded; but the flowers were few and common: and if
here and there a statue might be found, it possessed none of the art
so admirable in our earliest ecclesiastical architecture, but its
clumsy proportions were made more uncouth by a profusion of barbaric
painting and gilding. The fountains, however, were especially
curious, diversified, and elaborate: some shot up as pyramids, others
coiled in undulating streams, each jet chasing the other as serpents;
some, again, branched off in the form of trees, while mimic birds,
perched upon leaden boughs, poured water from their bills. Marmaduke,
much astonished and bewildered, muttered a paternoster in great haste;
and even the clerical rank of the prelate did not preserve him from
the suspicion of magical practices in the youth's mind.
Remote from all his train, in a little arbour overgrown with the
honeysuckle and white rose, a small table before him bearing fruits,
confectionery, and spiced wines (for the prelate was a celebrated
epicure, though still in the glow of youth), they found George Nevile,
reading lazily a Latin manuscript.
"Well, my dear lord and brother," said Montagu, laying his arm on the
prelate's shoulder, "first let me present to thy favour a gallant
youth, Marmaduke Nevile, worthy his name and thy love."
"He is welcome, Montagu, to our poor house," said the archbishop,
rising, and complacently glancing at his palace, splendidly gleaming
through the trellis-work. 'Puer ingenui vultus.' Thou art acquainted,
doubtless, young sir, with the Humaner Letters?"
"Well-a-day, my lord, my nurturing was somewhat neglected in the
province," said Marmaduke, disconcerted, and deeply blushing, "and
only of late have I deemed the languages fit study for those not
reared for our Mother Church."
"Fie, sir, fie! Correct that error, I pray thee. Latin teaches the
courtier how to thrive, the soldier how to manoeuvre, the husbandman
how to sow; and if we churchmen are more cunning, as the profane call
us (and the prelate smiled) than ye of the laity, the Latin must
answer for the sins of our learning."
With this, the archbishop passed his arm affectionately through his
brother's, and said, "Beshrew me, Montagu, thou lookest worn and
weary. Surely thou lackest food, and supper shall be hastened. Even
I, who have but slender appetite, grow hungered in these cool gloaming
hours."
"Dismiss my comrade, George,--I would speak to thee," whispered
Montagu.
"Thou knowest not Latin?" said the archbishop, turning with a
compassionate eye to Nevile, whose own eye was amorously fixed on the
delicate confectioneries,--"never too late to learn. Hold, here is a
grammar of the verbs, that, with mine own hand, I have drawn up for
youth. Study thine amo and thy moneo, while I confer on Church
matters with giddy Montagu. I shall expect, ere we sup, that thou
wilt have mastered the first tenses."
"But--"
"Oh, nay, nay; but me no buts. Thou art too tough, I fear me, for
flagellation, a wondrous improver of tender youth,"--and the prelate
forced his grammar into the reluctant hands of Marmaduke, and
sauntered down one of the solitary alleys with his brother.
Long and earnest was their conference, and at one time keen were their
dispute's.
The archbishop had very little of the energy of Montagu or the
impetuosity of Warwick, but he had far more of what we now call mind,
as distinct from talent, than either; that is, he had not their
capacities for action, but he had a judgment and sagacity that made
him considered a wise and sound adviser: this he owed principally to
the churchman's love of ease, and to his freedom from the wear and
tear of the passions which gnawed the great minister and the aspiring
courtier; his natural intellect was also fostered by much learning.
George Nevile had been reared, by an Italian ecclesiastic, in all the
subtle diplomacy of the Church; and his ambition, despising lay
objects (though he consented to hold the office of chancellor), was
concentrated in that kingdom over kings which had animated the august
dominators of religious Rome. Though, as we have said, still in that
age when the affections are usually vivid, [He was consecrated Bishop
of Exeter at the age of twenty; at twenty-six he became Archbishop of
York, and was under thirty at the time referred to in the text.]
George Nevile loved no human creature,--not even his brothers; not
even King Edward, who, with all his vices, possessed so eminently the
secret that wins men's hearts. His early and entire absorption in the
great religious community, which stood apart from the laymen in order
to control them, alienated him from his kind; and his superior
instruction only served to feed him with a calm and icy contempt for
all that prejudice, as he termed it, held dear and precious. He
despised the knight's wayward honour, the burgher's crafty honesty.
For him no such thing as principle existed; and conscience itself lay
dead in the folds of a fancied exemption from all responsibility to
the dull herd, that were but as wool and meat to the churchman
shepherd. But withal, if somewhat pedantic, he had in his manner a
suavity and elegance and polish which suited well his high station,
and gave persuasion to his counsels. In all externals he was as
little like a priest as the high-born prelates of that day usually
were. In dress he rivalled the fopperies of the Plantagenet brothers;
in the chase he was more ardent than Warwick had been in his earlier
youth; and a dry sarcastic humour, sometimes elevated into wit, gave
liveliness to his sagacious converse.
Montagu desired that the archbishop and himself should demand solemn
audience of Edward, and gravely remonstrate with the king on the
impropriety of receiving the brother of a rival suitor, while Warwick
was negotiating the marriage of Margaret with a prince of France.
"Nay," said the archbishop, with a bland smile, that fretted Montagu
to the quick, "surely even a baron, a knight, a franklin, a poor
priest like myself, would rise against the man who dictated to his
hospitality. Is a king less irritable than baron, knight, franklin,
and priest,--or rather, being, as it were, per legem, lord of all,
hath he not irritability eno' for all four? Ay, tut and tush as thou
wilt, John, but thy sense must do justice to my counsel at the last. I
know Edward well; he hath something of mine own idlesse and ease of
temper, but with more of the dozing lion than priests, who have only,
look you, the mildness of the dove. Prick up his higher spirit, not
by sharp remonstrance, but by seeming trust. Observe to him, with thy
gay, careless laugh--which, methinks, thou hast somewhat lost of late
--that with any other prince Warwick might suspect some snare, some
humiliating overthrow of his embassage, but that all men know how
steadfast in faith and honour is Edward IV."
"Truly," said Montagu, with a forced smile, "you understand mankind;
but yet, bethink you--suppose this fail, and Warwick return to England
to hear that he hath been cajoled and fooled; that the Margaret he had
crossed the seas to affiance to the brother of Louis is betrothed to
Charolois--bethink you, I say, what manner of heart beats under our
brother's mail."
"Impiger, iracundus!" said the archbishop; "a very Achilles, to whom
our English Agamemnon, if he cross him, is a baby. All this is sad
truth; our parents spoilt him in his childhood, and glory in his
youth, and wealth, power, success, in his manhood. Ay! if Warwick be
chafed, it will be as the stir of the sea-serpent, which, according to
the Icelanders, moves a world. Still, the best way to prevent the
danger is to enlist the honour of the king in his behalf,--to show
that our eyes are open, but that we disdain to doubt, and are frank to
confide. Meanwhile send messages and warnings privately to Warwick."
These reasonings finally prevailed with Montagu, and the brothers
returned with one mind to the house. Here, as after their ablutions
they sat down to the evening meal, the archbishop remembered poor
Marmaduke, and despatched to him one of his thirty household
chaplains. Marmaduke was found fast asleep over the second tense of
the verb amo.