THE ARRIVAL OF THE COUNT DE LA ROCHE, AND THE VARIOUS EXCITEMENT
PRODUCED ON MANY PERSONAGES BY THAT EVENT.
The prudence of the archbishop's counsel was so far made manifest,
that on the next day Montagu found all remonstrance would have been
too late. The Count de la Roche had already landed, and was on his
way to London. The citizens, led by Rivers partially to suspect the
object of the visit, were delighted not only by the prospect of a
brilliant pageant, but by the promise such a visit conveyed of a
continued peace with their commercial ally; and the preparations made
by the wealthy merchants increased the bitterness and discontent of
Montagu. At length, at the head of a gallant and princely retinue,
the Count de la Roche entered London. Though Hastings made no secret
of his distaste to the Count de la Roche's visit, it became his office
as lord chamberlain to meet the count at Blackwall, and escort him and
his train, in gilded barges, to the palace.
In the great hall of the Tower, in which the story of Antiochus was
painted by the great artists employed under Henry III., and on the
elevation of the dais, behind which, across Gothic columns, stretched
draperies of cloth-of-gold, was placed Edward's chair of state.
Around him were grouped the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, the
Lords Worcester, Montagu, Rivers, D'Eyncourt, St. John, Raoul de
Fulke, and others. But at the threshold of the chamber stood Anthony
Woodville, the knightly challenger, his knee bound by the ladye-badge
of the S. S., and his fine person clad in white-flowered velvet of
Genoa, adorned with pearls. Stepping forward, as the count appeared,
the gallant Englishman bent his knee half-way to the ground, and
raising the count's hand to his lips, said in French, "Deign, noble
sir, to accept the gratitude of one who were not worthy of encounter
from so peerless a hand, save by the favour of the ladies of England,
and your own courtesy, which ennobles him whom it stoops to." So
saying, he led the count towards the king.
De la Roche, an experienced and profound courtier, and justly
deserving Hall's praise as a man of "great witte, courage,
valiantness, and liberalitie," did not affect to conceal the
admiration which the remarkable presence of Edward never failed to
excite; lifting his hand to his eyes, as if to shade them from a
sudden blaze of light, he would have fallen on both knees, but Edward
with quick condescension raised him, and, rising himself, said gayly,--
"Nay, Count de la Roche, brave and puissant chevalier, who hath
crossed the seas in honour of knighthood and the ladies, we would,
indeed, that our roiaulme boasted a lord like thee, from whom we might
ask such homage. But since thou art not our subject, it consoles us
at least that thou art our guest. By our halidame, Lord Scales, thou
must look well to thy lance and thy steed's girths, for never, I trow,
hast thou met a champion of goodlier strength and knightlier mettle."
"My lord king," answered the count, "I fear me, indeed, that a knight
like the Sieur Anthony, who fights under the eyes of such a king, will
prove invincible. Did kings enter the lists with kings, where,
through broad Christendom, find a compeer for your Highness?"
"Your brother, Sir Count, if fame lies not," returned Edward, slightly
laughing, and lightly touching the Bastard's shoulder, "were a fearful
lance to encounter, even though Charlemagne himself were to revive
with his twelve paladins at his back. Tell us, Sir Count," added the
king, drawing himself up,--"tell us, for we soldiers are curious in
such matters, hath not the Count of Charolois the advantage of all
here in sinews and stature?"
"Sire," returned De la Roche, "my princely brother is indeed mighty
with the brand and battle-axe, but your Grace is taller by half the
head,--and, peradventure, of even a more stalwart build; but that mere
strength in your Highness is not that gift of God which strikes the
beholder most."
Edward smiled good-humouredly at a compliment the truth of which was
too obvious to move much vanity, and said with a royal and knightly
grace, "Our House of York hath been taught, Sir Count, to estimate
men's beauty by men's deeds, and therefore the Count of Charolois hath
long been known to us--who, alas, have seen him not!--as the fairest
gentleman of Europe. My Lord Scales, we must here publicly crave your
pardon. Our brother-in-law, Sir Count, would fain have claimed his
right to hold you his guest, and have graced himself by exclusive
service to your person. We have taken from him his lawful office, for
we kings are jealous, and would not have our subjects more honoured
than ourselves." Edward turned round to his courtiers as he spoke,
and saw that his last words had called a haughty and angry look to the
watchful countenance of Montagu. "Lord Hastings," he continued, "to
your keeping, as our representative, we intrust this gentleman. He
must need refreshment ere we present him to our queen."
The count bowed to the ground, and reverently withdrew from the royal
presence, accompanied by Hastings. Edward then, singling Anthony
Woodville and Lord Rivers from the group, broke up the audience, and,
followed by those two noblemen, quitted the hall.
Montagu, whose countenance had recovered the dignified and high-born
calm habitual to it, turned to the Duke of Clarence, and observed
indifferently, "The Count de la Roche hath a goodly mien, and a fair
tongue."
"Pest on these Burgundians!" answered Clarence, in an undertone, and
drawing Montagu aside. "I would wager my best greyhound to a
scullion's cur that our English knights will lower their burgonets."
"Nay, sir, an idle holiday show. What matters whose lance breaks, or
whose destrier stumbles?"
"Will you not, yourself, cousin Montagu--you who are so peerless in
the joust--take part in the fray?"
"I, your Highness,--I, the brother of the Earl of Warwick, whom this
pageant hath been devised by the Woodvilles to mortify and disparage
in his solemn embassy to Burgundy's mightiest foe!--I!"
"Sooth to say," said the young prince, much embarrassed, "it grieves
me sorely to hear thee speak as if Warwick would be angered at this
pastime. For, look you, Montagu, I, thinking only of my hate to
Burgundy and my zeal for our English honour, have consented, as high
constable, and despite my grudge to the Woodvilles, to bear the
bassinet of our own champion, and--"
"Saints in heaven!" exclaimed Montagu, with a burst of his fierce
brother's temper, which he immediately checked, and changed into a
tone that concealed, beneath outward respect, the keenest irony, "I
crave your pardon humbly for my vehemence, Prince of Clarence. I
suddenly remember me that humility is the proper virtue of knighthood.
Your Grace does indeed set a notable example of that virtue to the
peers of England; and my poor brother's infirmity of pride will stand
rebuked for aye, when he hears that George Plantagenet bore the
bassinet of Anthony Woodville."
"But it is for the honour of the ladies," said Clarence, falteringly;
"in honour of the fairest maid of all--the flower of English beauty--
the Lady Isabel--that I--"
"Your Highness will pardon me," interrupted Montagu; "but I do trust
to your esteem for our poor and insulted House of Nevile so far as to
be assured that the name of my niece Isabel will not be submitted to
the ribald comments of a base-born Burgundian."
"Then I will break no lance in the lists!"
"As it likes you, prince," replied Montagu, shortly; and, with a low
bow, he quitted the chamber, and was striding to the outer gate of the
Tower, when a sweet, clear voice behind him called him by his name.
He turned abruptly, to meet the dark eye and all-subduing smile of the
boy-Duke of Gloucester.
"A word with you, Montagu, noblest and most prized, with your princely
brothers, of the champions of our House,--I read your generous
indignation with our poor Clarence. Ay, sir! ay!--it was a weakness
in him that moved even me. But you have not now to learn that his
nature, how excellent soever, is somewhat unsteady. His judgment
alone lacks weight and substance,--ever persuaded against his better
reason by those who approach his infirmer side; but if it be true that
our cousin Warwick intends for him the hand of the peerless Isabel,
wiser heads will guide his course."
"My brother," said Montagu, greatly softened, "is much beholden to
your Highness for a steady countenance and friendship, for which I
also, believe me--and the families of Beauchamp, Montagu, and Nevile--
are duly grateful. But to speak plainly (which your Grace's youthful
candour, so all-acknowledged, will permit), the kinsmen of the queen
do now so aspire to rule this land, to marry or forbid to marry, not
only our own children, but your illustrious father's, that I foresee
in this visit of the bastard Anthony the most signal disgrace to
Warwick that ever king passed upon ambassador or gentleman. And this
moves me more!--yea, I vow to Saint George, my patron, it moves me
more--by the thought of danger to your royal House than by the grief
of slight to mine; for Warwick--but you know him."
"Montagu, you must soothe and calm your brother if chafed. I impose
that task on your love for us. Alack, would that Edward listened more
to me and less to the queen's kith! These Woodvilles!--and yet they
may live to move not wrath but pity. If aught snapped the thread of
Edward's life (Holy Paul forbid!), what would chance to Elizabeth, her
brothers, her children?"
"Her children would mount the throne that our right hands built," said
Montagu, sullenly.
"Ah, think you so?--you rejoice me! I had feared that the barons
might, that the commons would, that the Church must, pronounce the
unhappy truth, that--but you look amazed, my lord! Alas, my boyish
years are too garrulous!"
"I catch not your Highness's meaning."
"Pooh, pooh! By Saint Paul, your seeming dulness proves your loyalty;
but with me, the king's brother, frankness were safe. Thou knowest
well that the king was betrothed before to the Lady Eleanor Talbot;
that such betrothal, not set aside by the Pope, renders his marriage
with Elizabeth against law; that his children may (would to Heaven it
were not so!) be set aside as bastards, when Edward's life no longer
shields them from the sharp eyes of men."
"Ah," said Montagu, thoughtfully; "and in that case, George of
Clarence would wear the crown, and his children reign in England."
"Our Lord forefend," said Richard, "that I should say that Warwick
thought of this when he deemed George worthy of the hand of Isabel.
Nay, it could not be so; for, however clear the claim, strong and
powerful would be those who would resist it, and Clarence is not, as
you will see, the man who can wrestle boldly,--even for a throne.
Moreover, he is too addicted to wine and pleasure to bid fair to
outlive the king."
Montagu fixed his penetrating eyes on Richard, but dropped them,
abashed, before that steady, deep, unrevealing gaze, which seemed to
pierce into other hearts, and show nothing of the heart within.
"Happy Clarence!" resumed the prince, with a heavy sigh, and after a
brief pause,--"a Nevile's husband and a Warwick's son--what can the
saints do more for men? You must excuse his errors--all our errors--
to your brother. You may not know, peradventure, sweet Montagu, how
deep an interest I have in maintaining all amity between Lord Warwick
and the king. For methinks there is one face fairer than fair
Isabel's, and one man more to be envied than even Clarence. Fairest
face to me in the wide world is the Lady Anne's! happiest man between
the cradle and the grave is he whom the Lady Anne shall call her lord!
and if I--oh, look you, Montagu, let there be no breach between
Warwick and the king! Fare you well, dear lord and cousin,--I go to
Baynard's Castle till these feasts are over."
"Does not your Grace," said Montagu, recovering from the surprise into
which one part of Gloucester's address had thrown him--"does not your
Grace--so skilled in lance and horsemanship--preside at the lists?"
"Montagu, I love your brother well enough to displease my king. The
great earl shall not say, at least, that Richard Plantagenet in his
absence forgot the reverence due to loyalty and merit. Tell him that;
and if I seem (unlike Clarence) to forbear to confront the queen and
her kindred, it is because you should make no enemies,--not the less
for that should princes forget no friends."
Richard said this with a tone of deep feeling, and, folding his arms
within his furred surcoat, walked slowly on to a small postern
admitting to the river; but there, pausing by a buttress which
concealed him till Montagu had left the yard, instead of descending to
his barge, he turned back into the royal garden. Here several of the
court of both sexes were assembled, conferring on the event of the
day. Richard halted at a distance, and contemplated their gay dresses
and animated countenances with something between melancholy and scorn
upon his young brow. One of the most remarkable social
characteristics of the middle ages is the prematurity at which the
great arrived at manhood, shared in its passions, and indulged its
ambitions. Among the numerous instances in our own and other
countries that might be selected from history, few are more striking
than that of this Duke of Gloucester, great in camp and in council at
an age when nowadays a youth is scarcely trusted to the discipline of
a college. The whole of his portentous career was closed, indeed,
before the public life of modern ambition usually commences. Little
could those accustomed to see on our stage "the elderly ruffian"
[Sharon Turner] our actors represent, imagine that at the opening of
Shakspeare's play of "Richard the Third" the hero was but in his
nineteenth year; but at the still more juvenile age in which he
appears in this our record, Richard of Gloucester was older in
intellect, and almost in experience, than many a wise man at the date
of thirty-three,--the fatal age when his sun set forever on the field
of Bosworth!
The young prince, then, eyed the gaudy, fluttering, babbling
assemblage before him with mingled melancholy and scorn. Not that he
felt, with the acuteness which belongs to modern sentiment, his bodily
defects amidst that circle of the stately and the fair, for they were
not of a nature to weaken his arm in war or lessen his persuasive
influences in peace. But it was rather that sadness which so often
comes over an active and ambitious intellect in early youth, when it
pauses to ask, in sorrow and disdain, what its plots and counterplots,
its restlessness and strife, are really worth. The scene before him
was of pleasure,--but in pleasure neither the youth nor the manhood of
Richard III. was ever pleased; though not absolutely of the rigid
austerity of Amadis or our Saxon Edward, he was comparatively free
from the licentiousness of his times. His passions were too large for
frivolous excitements. Already the Italian, or, as it is falsely
called, the Machiavelian policy, was pervading the intellect of
Europe, and the effects of its ruthless, grand, and deliberate
statecraft are visible from the accession of Edward IV. till the close
of Elizabeth's reign. With this policy, which reconciled itself to
crime as a necessity of wisdom, was often blended a refinement of
character which disdained vulgar vices. Not skilled alone in those
knightly accomplishments which induced Caxton, with propriety, to
dedicate to Richard "The Book of the Order of Chivalry," the Duke of
Gloucester's more peaceful amusements were borrowed from severer
Graces than those which presided over the tastes of his royal
brothers. He loved, even to passion, the Arts, Music,--especially of
the more Doric and warlike kind,--Painting and Architecture; he was a
reader of books, as of men,--the books that become princes,--and hence
that superior knowledge of the principles of law and of commerce which
his brief reign evinced. More like an Italian in all things than the
careless Norman or the simple Saxon, Machiavel might have made of his
character a companion, though a contrast to that of Castruccio
Castrucani.
The crowd murmured and rustled at the distance, and still with folded
arms Richard gazed aloof, when a lady, entering the garden from the
palace, passed by him so hastily that she brushed his surcoat, and,
turning round in surprise, made a low reverence, as she exclaimed,
"Prince Richard! and alone amidst so many!"
"Lady," said the duke, "it was a sudden hope that brought me into this
garden,--and that was the hope to see your fair face shining above the
rest."
"Your Highness jests," returned the lady, though her superb
countenance and haughty carriage evinced no opinion of herself so
humble as her words would imply.
"My Lady of Bonville," said the young duke, laying his hand on her
arm, "mirth is not in my thoughts at this hour."
"I believe your Highness; for the Lord Richard Plantagenet is not one
of the Woodvilles. The mirth is theirs to-day."
"Let who will have mirth,--it is the breath of a moment. Mirth cannot
tarnish glory,--the mirror in which the gods are glassed."
"I understand you, my lord," said the proud lady; and her face, before
stern and high, brightened into so lovely a change, so soft and
winning a smile, that Gloucester no longer marvelled that that smile
had rained so large an influence on the fate and heart of his
favourite Hastings. The beauty of this noble woman was indeed
remarkable in its degree, and peculiar in its character. She bore a
stronger likeness in feature to the archbishop than to either of her
other brothers; for the prelate had the straight and smooth outline of
the Greeks,--not like Montagu and Warwick, the lordlier and manlier
aquiline of the Norman race,--and his complexion was feminine in its
pale clearness. But though in this resembling the subtlest of the
brethren, the fair sister shared with Warwick an expression, if
haughty, singularly frank and candid in its imperious majesty; she had
the same splendid and steady brilliancy of eye, the same quick quiver
of the lip, speaking of nervous susceptibility and haste of mood. The
hateful fashion of that day which pervaded all ranks, from the highest
to the lowest, was the prodigal use of paints and cosmetics, and all
imaginable artificial adjuncts of a spurious beauty. This extended
often even to the men, and the sturdiest warrior deemed it no shame to
recur to such arts of the toilet as the vainest wanton in our day
would never venture to acknowledge. But the Lady Bonville, proudly
confident of her beauty, and possessing a purity of mind that revolted
from the littleness of courting admiration, contrasted forcibly in
this the ladies of the court. Her cheek was of a marble whiteness,
though occasionally a rising flush through the clear, rich,
transparent skin showed that in earlier youth the virgin bloom had not
been absent from the surface. There was in her features, when they
reposed, somewhat of the trace of suffering,--of a struggle, past it
may be, but still remembered. But when she spoke, those features
lighted up and undulated in such various and kindling life as to
dazzle, to bewitch, or to awe the beholder, according as the impulse
moulded the expression. Her dress suited her lofty and spotless
character. Henry VI. might have contemplated with holy pleasure its
matronly decorum; the jewelled gorget ascended to the rounded and
dimpled chin; the arms were bare only at the wrists, where the blue
veins were seen through a skin of snow; the dark glossy locks, which
her tirewoman boasted, when released, swept the ground, were gathered
into a modest and simple braid, surmounted by the beseeming coronet
that proclaimed her rank. The Lady Bonville might have stood by the
side of Cornelia, the model of a young and high-born matron, in whose
virtue the honour of man might securely dwell.
"I understand you, my lord," she said, with her bright, thankful
smile; "and as Lord Warwick's sister, I am grateful."
"Your love for the great earl proves you are noble enough to forgive,"
said Richard, meaningly. "Nay, chide me not with that lofty look; you
know that there are no secrets between Hastings and Gloucester."
"My lord duke, the head of a noble House hath the right to dispose of
the hands of the daughters; I know nothing in Lord Warwick to
forgive."
But she turned her head as she spoke, and a tear for a moment trembled
in that haughty eye.
"Lady," said Richard, moved to admiration, "to you let me confide my
secret. I would be your nephew. Boy though I be in years, my heart
beats as loudly as a man's; and that heart beats for Anne."
"The love of Richard Plantagenet honours even Warwick's daughter!"
"Think you so? Then stand my friend; and, being thus my friend,
intercede with Warwick, if he angers at the silly holiday of this
Woodville pageant."
"Alas, sir! you know that Warwick listens to no interceders between
himself and his passions. But what then? Grant him wronged,
aggrieved, trifled with,--what then? Can he injure the House of
York?"
Richard looked in some surprise at the fair speaker.
"Can he injure the House of York?--Marry, yes," he replied bluntly.
"But for what end? Whom else should he put upon the throne?"
"What if he forgive the Lancastrians? What if--"
"Utter not the thought, prince, breathe it not," exclaimed the Lady
Bonville, almost fiercely. "I love and honour my brave brother,
despite--despite--" She paused a moment, blushed, and proceeded
rapidly, without concluding the sentence. "I love him as a woman of
his House must love the hero who forms its proudest boast. But if, for
any personal grudge, any low ambition, any rash humour, the son of my
father Salisbury could forget that Margaret of Anjou placed the gory
head of that old man upon the gates of York, could by word or deed
abet the cause of usurping and bloody Lancaster,--I would--I would--
Out upon my sex! I could do nought but weep the glory of Nevile and
Monthermer gone forever."
Before Richard could reply, the sound of musical instruments, and a
procession of heralds and pages proceeding from the palace, announced
the approach of Edward. He caught the hand of the dame of Bonville,
lifted it to his lips, and saying, "May fortune one day permit me to
face as the earl's son the earl's foes," made his graceful reverence,
glided from the garden, gained his barge, and was rowed to the huge
pile of Baynard's Castle, lately reconstructed, but in a gloomy and
barbaric taste, and in which, at that time, he principally resided
with his mother, the once peerless Rose of Raby.
The Lady of Bonville paused a moment, and in that pause her
countenance recovered its composure. She then passed on, with a
stately step, towards a group of the ladies of the court, and her eye
noted with proud pleasure that the highest names of the English
knighthood and nobility, comprising the numerous connections of her
family, formed a sullen circle apart from the rest, betokening, by
their grave countenances and moody whispers, how sensitively they felt
the slight to Lord Warwick's embassy in the visit of the Count de la
Roche, and how little they were disposed to cringe to the rising sun
of the Woodvilles. There, collected into a puissance whose discontent
hard sufficed to shake a firmer throne (the young Raoul de Fulke, the
idolater of Warwick, the impersonation in himself of the old Norman
seignorie, in their centre), with folded arms and lowering brows,
stood the earl's kinsmen, the Lords Fitzhugh and Fauconberg: with
them, Thomas Lord Stanley, a prudent noble, who rarely sided with a
malcontent, and the Lord St. John, and the heir of the ancient
Bergavennies, and many another chief, under whose banner marched an
army. Richard of Gloucester had shown his wit in refusing to mingle
in intrigues which provoked the ire of that martial phalanx. As the
Lady of Bonville swept by these gentlemen, their murmur of respectful
homage, their profound salutation, and unbonneted heads, contrasted
forcibly with the slight and grave, if not scornful, obeisance they
had just rendered to one of the queen's sisters, who had passed a
moment before in the same direction. The lady still moved on, and
came suddenly across the path of Hastings, as, in his robes of state,
he issued from the palace. Their eyes met, and both changed colour.
"So, my lord chamberlain," said the dame, sarcastically, "the Count de
la Roche is, I hear, consigned to your especial charge."
"A charge the chamberlain cannot refuse, and which William Hastings
does not covet."
"A king had never asked Montagu and Warwick to consider amongst their
duties any charge they had deemed dishonouring."
"Dishonouring, Lady Bonville!" exclaimed Hastings, with a bent brow
and a flushed cheek,--"neither Montagu nor Warwick had, with safety,
applied to me the word that has just passed your lips."
"I crave your pardon," answered Katherine, bitterly. "Mine articles
of faith in men's honour are obsolete or heretical. I had deemed it
dishonouring in a noble nature to countenance insult to a noble enemy
in his absence. I had deemed it dishonouring in a brave soldier, a
well-born gentleman (now from his valiantness, merit, and wisdom
become a puissant and dreaded lord), to sink into that lackeydom and
varletaille which falsehood and cringing have stablished in these
walls, and baptized under the name of 'courtiers.' Better had
Katherine de Bonville esteemed Lord Hastings had he rather fallen
under a king's displeasure than debased his better self to a
Woodville's dastard schemings."
"Lady, you are cruel and unjust, like all your haughty race; and idle
were reply to one who, of all persons, should have judged me better.
For the rest, if this mummery humbles Lord Warwick, gramercy! there is
nothing in my memory that should make my share in it a gall to my
conscience; nor do I owe the Neviles so large a gratitude, that rather
than fret the pile of their pride, I should throw down the scaffolding
on which my fearless step hath clomb to as fair a height, and one
perhaps that may overlook as long a posterity, as the best baron that
ever quartered the Raven Eagle and the Dun Bull. But," resumed
Hastings, with a withering sarcasm, "doubtless the Lady de Bonville
more admires the happy lord who holds himself, by right of pedigree,
superior to all things that make the statesman wise, the scholar
learned, and the soldier famous. Way there--back, gentles,"--and
Hastings turned to the crowd behind,--"way there, for my lord of
Harrington and Bonville!"
The bystanders smiled at each other as they obeyed; and a heavy,
shambling, graceless man, dressed in the most exaggerated fopperies of
the day, but with a face which even sickliness, that refines most
faces, could not divest of the most vacant dulness, and a mien and
gait to which no attire could give dignity, passed through the group,
bowing awkwardly to the right and left, and saying, in a thick, husky
voice, "You are too good, sirs,--too good: I must not presume so
overmuch on my seignorie. The king would keep me,--he would indeed,
sirs; um--um--why, Katherine--dame--thy stiff gorget makes me ashamed
of thee. Thou wouldst not think, Lord Hastings, that Katherine had a
white skin,--a parlous white skin. La, you now, fie on these
mufflers!" The courtiers sneered; Hastings, with a look of malignant
and pitiless triumph, eyed the Lady of Bonville. For a moment the
colour went and came across her transparent cheek; but the confusion
passed, and returning the insulting gaze of her ancient lover with an
eye of unspeakable majesty, she placed her arm upon her lord's, and
saying calmly, "An English matron cares but to be fair in her
husband's eyes," drew him away; and the words and the manner of the
lady were so dignified and simple, that the courtiers hushed their
laughter, and for the moment the lord of such a woman was not only
envied but respected.
While this scene had passed, the procession preceding Edward had filed
into the garden in long and stately order. From another entrance
Elizabeth, the Princess Margaret, and the Duchess of Bedford, with
their trains, had already issued, and were now ranged upon a flight of
marble steps, backed by a columned alcove, hung with velvet striped
into the royal baudekin, while the stairs themselves were covered with
leathern carpets, powdered with the white rose and the fleur de lis;
either side lined by the bearers of the many banners of Edward,
displaying the white lion of March, the black bull of Clare, the cross
of Jerusalem, the dragon of Arragon, and the rising sun, which he had
assumed as his peculiar war-badge since the battle of Mortimer's
Cross. Again, and louder, came the flourish of music; and a murmur
through the crowd, succeeded by deep silence, announced the entrance
of the king. He appeared, leading by the hand the Count de la Roche,
and followed by the Lords Scales, Rivers, Dorset, and the Duke of
Clarence. All eyes were bent upon the count, and though seen to
disadvantage by the side of the comeliest and stateliest and most
gorgeously-attired prince in Christendom, his high forehead, bright
sagacious eye, and powerful frame did not disappoint the expectations
founded upon the fame of one equally subtle in council and redoubted
in war.
The royal host and the princely guest made their way where Elizabeth,
blazing in jewels and cloth-of-gold, shone royally, begirt by the
ladies of her brilliant court. At her right hand stood her mother, at
her left, the Princess Margaret.
"I present to you, my Elizabeth," said Edward, "a princely gentleman,
to whom we nevertheless wish all ill-fortune,--for we cannot desire
that he may subdue our knights, and we would fain hope that he may be
conquered by our ladies."
"The last hope is already fulfilled," said the count, gallantly, as on
his knee he kissed the fair hand extended to him. Then rising, and
gazing full and even boldly upon the young Princess Margaret, he
added, "I have seen too often the picture of the Lady Margaret not to
be aware that I stand in that illustrious presence."
"Her picture! Sir Count," said the queen; "we knew not that it had
been ever limned."
"Pardon me, it was done by stealth."
"And where have you seen it?"
"Worn at the heart of my brother the Count of Charolois!" answered De
la Roche, in a whispered tone.
Margaret blushed with evident pride and delight; and the wily envoy,
leaving the impression his words had made to take their due effect,
addressed himself, with all the gay vivacity he possessed, to the fair
queen and her haughty mother.
After a brief time spent in this complimentary converse, the count
then adjourned to inspect the menagerie, of which the king was very
proud. Edward, offering his hand to his queen, led the way, and the
Duchess of Bedford, directing the count to Margaret by a shrewd and
silent glance of her eye, so far smothered her dislike to Clarence as
to ask his highness to attend herself.
"Ah, lady," whispered the count, as the procession moved along, "what
thrones would not Charolois resign for the hand that his unworthy
envoy is allowed to touch!"
"Sir," said Margaret, demurely looking down, "the Count of Charolois
is a lord who, if report be true, makes war his only mistress."
"Because the only loving mistress his great heart could serve is
denied to his love! Ah, poor lord and brother, what new reasons for
eternal war to Burgundy, when France, not only his foe, becomes his
rival!"
Margaret sighed, and the count continued till by degrees he warmed the
royal maiden from her reserve; and his eye grew brighter, and a
triumphant smile played about his lips, when, after the visit to the
menagerie, the procession re-entered the palace, and the Lord Hastings
conducted the count to the bath prepared for him, previous to the
crowning banquet of the night. And far more luxurious and more
splendid than might be deemed by those who read but the general
histories of that sanguinary time, or the inventories of furniture in
the houses even of the great barons, was the accommodation which
Edward afforded to his guest. His apartments and chambers were hung
with white silk and linen, the floors covered with richly-woven
carpets; the counterpane of his bed was cloth-of-gold, trimmed with
ermine; the cupboard shone with vessels of silver and gold; and over
two baths were pitched tents of white cloth of Rennes fringed with
silver. [See Madden's Narrative of the Lord Grauthuse; Archaelogia,
1830.]
Agreeably to the manners of the time, Lord Hastings assisted to
disrobe the count; and, the more to bear him company, afterwards
undressed himself and bathed in the one bath, while the count
refreshed his limbs in the other.
"Pri'thee," said De la Roche, drawing aside the curtain of his tent,
and putting forth his head--"pri'thee, my Lord Hastings, deign to
instruct my ignorance of a court which I would fain know well, and let
me weet whether the splendour of your king, far exceeding what I was
taught to look for, is derived from his revenue as sovereign of
England, or chief of the House of York?"
"Sir," returned Hastings, gravely, putting out his own head, "it is
Edward's happy fortune to be the wealthiest proprietor in England,
except the Earl of Warwick, and thus he is enabled to indulge a state
which yet oppresses not his people."
"Except the Earl of Warwick!" repeated the count, musingly, as the
fumes of the odours with which the bath was filled rose in a cloud
over his long hair,--"ill would fare that subject, in most lands, who
was as wealthy as his king! You have heard that Warwick has met King
Louis at Rouen, and that they are inseparable?"
"It becomes an ambassador to win grace of him he is sent to please."
"But none win the grace of Louis whom Louis does not dupe."
"You know not Lord Warwick, Sir Count. His mind is so strong and so
frank, that it is as hard to deceive him as it is for him to be
deceived."
"Time will show," said the count, pettishly, and he withdrew his head
into the tent.
And now there appeared the attendants, with hippocras, syrups, and
comfits, by way of giving appetite for the supper, so that no further
opportunity for private conversation was left to the two lords. While
the count was dressing, the Lord Scales entered with a superb gown,
clasped with jewels, and lined with minever, with which Edward had
commissioned him to present the Bastard. In this robe the Lord Scales
insisted upon enduing his antagonist with his own hands, and the three
knights then repaired to the banquet. At the king's table no male
personage out of the royal family sat, except Lord Rivers--as
Elizabeth's father--and the Count de la Roche, placed between Margaret
and the Duchess of Bedford.
At another table, the great peers of the realm feasted under the
presidence of Anthony Woodville, while, entirely filling one side of
the hall, the ladies of the court held their "mess" (so-called) apart,
and "great and mighty was the eating thereof!"
The banquet ended, the dance began. The admirable "featliness" of the
Count de la Roche, in the pavon, with the Lady Margaret, was rivalled
only by the more majestic grace of Edward and the dainty steps of
Anthony Woodville. But the lightest and happiest heart which beat in
that revel was one in which no scheme and no ambition but those of
love nursed the hope and dreamed the triumph.
Stung by the coldness even more than by the disdain of the Lady
Bonville, and enraged to find that no taunt of his own, however
galling, could ruffle a dignity which was an insult both to memory and
to self-love, Hastings had exerted more than usual, both at the
banquet and in the revel, those general powers of pleasing, which,
even in an age when personal qualifications ranked so high, had yet
made him no less renowned for successes in gallantry than the
beautiful and youthful king. All about this man witnessed to the
triumph of mind over the obstacles that beset it,--his rise without
envy, his safety amidst foes, the happy ease with which he moved
through the snares and pits of everlasting stratagem and universal
wile! Him alone the arts of the Woodvilles could not supplant in
Edward's confidence and love; to him alone dark Gloucester bent his
haughty soul; him alone, Warwick, who had rejected his alliance, and
knew the private grudge the rejection bequeathed,--him alone, among
the "new men," Warwick always treated with generous respect, as a wise
patriot and a fearless soldier; and in the more frivolous scenes of
courtly life, the same mind raised one no longer in the bloom of
youth, with no striking advantages of person, and studiously
disdainful of all the fopperies of the time, to an equality with the
youngest, the fairest, the gaudiest courtier, in that rivalship which
has pleasure for its object and love for its reward. Many a heart
beat quicker as the graceful courtier, with that careless wit which
veiled his profound mournfulness of character, or with that delicate
flattery which his very contempt for human nature had taught him,
moved from dame to donzell; till at length, in the sight and hearing
of the Lady Bonville, as she sat, seemingly heedless of his revenge,
amidst a group of matrons elder than herself, a murmur of admiration
made him turn quickly, and his eye, following the gaze of the
bystanders, rested upon the sweet, animated face of Sibyll, flushed
into rich bloom at the notice it excited. Then as he approached the
maiden, his quick glance darting to the woman he had first loved told
him that he had at last discovered the secret how to wound. An
involuntary compression of Katherine's proud lips, a hasty rise and
fall of the stately neck, a restless, indescribable flutter, as it
were, of the whole frame, told the experienced woman-reader of the
signs of jealousy and fear. And he passed at once to the young
maiden's side. Alas! what wonder that Sibyll that night surrendered
her heart to the happiest dreams; and finding herself on the floors of
a court, intoxicated by its perfumed air, hearing on all sides the
murmured eulogies which approved and justified the seeming preference
of the powerful noble, what wonder that she thought the humble maiden,
with her dower of radiant youth and exquisite beauty, and the fresh
and countless treasures of virgin love, might be no unworthy mate of
the "new lord"?
It was morning [The hours of our ancestors, on great occasions, were
not always more seasonable than our own. Froissart speaks of court
balls, in the reign of Richard II., kept up till day.] before the
revel ended; and when dismissed by the Duchess of Bedford, Sibyll was
left to herself, not even amidst her happy visions did the daughter
forget her office. She stole into her father's chamber. He, too, was
astir and up,--at work at the untiring furnace, the damps on his brow,
but all Hope's vigour at his heart. So while Pleasure feasts, and
Youth revels, and Love deludes itself, and Ambition chases its shadows
(chased itself by Death),--so works the world-changing and world-
despised SCIENCE, the life within life, for all living,--and to all
dead!