The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon

by Washington Irving

  A ROYAL POET.

  Though your body be confined And soft love a prisoner bound, Yet the beauty of your mind Neither check nor chain hath found. Look out nobly, then, and dare Even the fetters that you wear. FLETCHER.

  ON a soft sunny morning in the genial month of May I made an excursionto Windsor Castle. It is a place full of storied and poeticalassociations. The very external aspect of the proud old pile is enoughto inspire high thought. It rears its irregular walls and massivetowers, like a mural crown around the brow of a lofty ridge, waves itsroyal banner in the clouds, and looks down with a lordly air upon thesurrounding world.

  On this morning, the weather was of that voluptuous vernal kind whichcalls forth all the latent romance of a man's temperament, filling hismind with music, and disposing him to quote poetry and dream of beauty.In wandering through the magnificent saloons and long echoing galleriesof the castle I passed with indifference by whole rows of portraitsof warriors and statesmen, but lingered in the chamber where hang thelikenesses of the beauties which graced the gay court of Charlesthe Second; and as I gazed upon them, depicted with amorous,half-dishevelled tresses, and the sleepy eye of love, I blessed thepencil of Sir Peter Lely, which had thus enabled me to bask in thereflected rays of beauty. In traversing also the "large green courts,"with sunshine beaming on the gray walls and glancing along the velvetturf, my mind was engrossed with the image of the tender, the gallant,but hapless Surrey, and his account of his loiterings about them in hisstripling days, when enamoured of the Lady Geraldine--

  "With eyes cast up unto the maiden's tower, With easie sighs, such as men draw in love."

  In this mood of mere poetical susceptibility, I visited the ancient keepof the castle, where James the First of Scotland, the pride and theme ofScottish poets and historians, was for many years of his youth detaineda prisoner of state. It is a large gray tower, that has stood the bruntof ages, and is still in good preservation. It stands on a mound whichelevates it above the other parts of the castle, and a great flight ofsteps leads to the interior. In the armory, a Gothic hall furnished withweapons of various kinds and ages, I was shown a coat of armor hangingagainst the wall, which had once belonged to James. Hence Iwas conducted up a staircase to a suite of apartments, of fadedmagnificence, hung with storied tapestry, which formed his prison, andthe scene of that passionate and fanciful amour, which has woven intothe web of his story the magical hues of poetry and fiction.

  The whole history of this amiable but unfortunate prince is highlyromantic. At the tender age of eleven, he was sent from home by hisfather, Robert III., and destined for the French court, to be rearedunder the eye of the French monarch, secure from the treachery anddanger that surrounded the royal house of Scotland. It was his mishap,in the course of his voyage, to fall into the hands of the English,and he was detained prisoner by Henry IV., notwithstanding that a truceexisted between the two countries.

  The intelligence of his capture, coming in the train of many sorrows anddisasters, proved fatal to his unhappy father. "The news," we are told,"was brought to him while at supper, and did so overwhelm him with griefthat he was almost ready to give up the ghost into the hands of theservants that attended him. But being carried to his bedchamber, heabstained from all food, and in three days died of hunger and grief atRothesay."*

  * Buchanan.

  James was detained in captivity above eighteen years; but, thoughdeprived of personal liberty, he was treated with the respect due tohis rank. Care was taken to instruct him in all the branches of usefulknowledge cultivated at that period, and to give him those mental andpersonal accomplishments deemed proper for a prince. Perhaps in thisrespect his imprisonment was an advantage, as it enabled him to applyhimself the more exclusively to his improvement, and quietly to imbibethat rich fund of knowledge and to cherish those elegant tastes whichhave given such a lustre to his memory. The picture drawn of him inearly life by the Scottish historians is highly captivating, and seemsrather the description of a hero of romance than of a character in realhistory. He was well learnt, we are told, "to fight with the sword,to joust, to tourney, to wrestle, to sing and dance; he was an expertmediciner, right crafty in playing both of lute and harp, and sundryother instruments of music, and was expert in grammar, oratory, andpoetry."*

  * Ballenden's translation of Hector Boyce.

  With this combination of manly and delicate accomplishments, fitting himto shine both in active and elegant life, and calculated to give him anintense relish for joyous existence, it must have been a severe trial,in an age of bustle and chivalry, to pass the spring-time of his yearsin monotonous captivity. It was the good fortune of James, however, tobe gifted with a powerful poetic fancy, and to be visited in his prisonby the choicest inspirations of the muse. Some minds corrode, and growinactive, under the loss of personal liberty; others grow morbidand irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to become tender andimaginative in the loneliness of confinement. He banquets upon the honeyof his own thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul inmelody.

  Have you not seen the nightingale, A pilgrim coop'd into a cage, How doth she chant her wonted tale, In that her lonely hermitage! Even there her charming melody doth prove That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove.+

  + Roger L'Estrange.

  Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it isirrepressible, unconfinable--that when the real world is shut out,it can create a world for itself, and, with a necromantic power, canconjure up glorious shapes and forms and brilliant visions, to makesolitude populous, and irradiate the gloom of the dungeon. Such was theworld of pomp and pageant that lived round Tasso in his dismal cell atFerrara, when he conceived the splendid scenes of his Jerusalem; and wemay consider The King's Quair,* composed by James during his captivityat Windsor, as another of those beautiful breakings forth of the soulfrom the restraint and gloom of the prison-house.

  The subject of the poem is his love for the lady Jane Beaufort, daughterof the Earl of Somerset, and a princess of the blood-royal of England,of whom he became enamoured in the course of his captivity. What givesit a peculiar value, is, that it may be considered a transcript ofthe royal bard's true feelings, and the story of his real loves andfortunes. It is not often that sovereigns write poetry or that poetsdeal in fact. It is gratifying to the pride of a common man, to finda monarch thus suing, as it were, for admission into his closet, andseeking to win his favor by administering to his pleasures. It is aproof of the honest equality of intellectual competition, which stripsoff all the trappings of factitious dignity, brings the candidate downto a level with his fellow-men, and obliges him to depend on his ownnative powers for distinction. It is curious, too, to get at the historyof a monarch's heart, and to find the simple affections of human naturethrobbing under the ermine. But James had learnt to be a poet before hewas a king; he was schooled in adversity, and reared in the company ofhis own thoughts. Monarchs have seldom time to parley with their heartsor to meditate their minds into poetry; and had James been brought upamidst the adulation and gayety of a court, we should never, in allprobability, have had such a poem as the Quair.

  * Quair, an old term for book.

  I have been particularly interested by those parts of the poem whichbreathe his immediate thoughts concerning his situation, or which areconnected with the apartment in the Tower. They have thus a personal andlocal charm, and are given with such circumstantial truth as to make thereader present with the captive in his prison and the companion of hismeditations.

  Such is the account which he gives of his weariness of spirit, and ofthe incident which first suggested the idea of writing the poem. It wasthe still mid-watch of a clear moonlight night; the stars, he says, weretwinkling as fire in the high vault of heaven, and "Cynthia rinsing hergolden locks in Aquarius." He lay in bed wakeful and restless, and tooka book to beguile the tedious hours.
The book he chose was Boetius'Consolations of Philosophy, a work popular among the writers of thatday, and which had been translated by his great prototype, Chaucer. Fromthe high eulogium in which he indulges, it is evident this was one ofhis favorite volumes while in prison; and indeed it is an admirabletext-book for meditation under adversity. It is the legacy of a nobleand enduring spirit, purified by sorrow and suffering, bequeathing toits successors in calamity the maxims of sweet morality, and the trainsof eloquent but simple reasoning, by which it was enabled to bearup against the various ills of life. It is a talisman, which theunfortunate may treasure up in his bosom, or, like the good King James,lay upon his nightly pillow.

  After closing the volume he turns its contents over in his mind, andgradually falls into a fit of musing on the fickleness of fortune, thevicissitudes of his own life, and the evils that had overtaken him evenin his tender youth. Suddenly he hears the bell ringing to matins, butits sound, chiming in with his melancholy fancies, seems to him like avoice exhorting him to write his story. In the spirit of poetic errantryhe determines to comply with this intimation; he therefore takes pen inhand, makes with it a sign of the cross to implore a benediction,and sallies forth into the fairy-land of poetry. There is somethingextremely fanciful in all this, and it is interesting as furnishinga striking and beautiful instance of the simple manner in whichwhole trains of poetical thought are sometimes awakened and literaryenterprises suggested to the mind.

  In the course of his poem, he more than once bewails the peculiarhardness of his fate, thus doomed to lonely and inactive life, andshut up from the freedom and pleasure of the world in which the meanestanimal indulges unrestrained. There is a sweetness, however, in his verycomplaints; they are the lamentations of an amiable and social spirit atbeing denied the indulgence of its kind and generous propensities; thereis nothing in them harsh nor exaggerated; they flow with a natural andtouching pathos, and are perhaps rendered more touching by theirsimple brevity. They contrast finely with those elaborate and iteratedrepinings which we sometimes meet with in poetry, the effusions ofmorbid minds sickening under miseries of their own creating, andventing their bitterness upon an unoffending world. James speaks of hisprivations with acute sensibility, but having mentioned them passes on,as if his manly mind disdained to brood over unavoidable calamities.When such a spirit breaks forth into complaint, however brief, weare aware how great must be the suffering that extorts the murmur. Wesympathize with James, a romantic, active, and accomplished prince, cutoff in the lustihood of youth from all the enterprise, the noble uses,and vigorous delights of life, as we do with Milton, alive to all thebeauties of nature and glories of art, when he breathes forth brief butdeep-toned lamentations over his perpetual blindness.

  Had not James evinced a deficiency of poetic artifice, we might almosthave suspected that these lowerings of gloomy reflection were meant aspreparative to the brightest scene of his story, and to contrast withthat refulgence of light and loveliness, that exhilarating accompanimentof bird and song, and foliage and flower, and all the revel of, theyear, with which he ushers in the lady of his heart. It is this scene,in particular, which throws all the magic of romance about the oldcastle keep. He had risen, he says, at daybreak, according to custom, toescape from the dreary meditations of a sleepless pillow. "Bewailing inhis chamber thus alone," despairing of all joy and remedy, "for, tiredof thought, and woe-begone," he had wandered to the window to indulgethe captive's miserable solace, of gazing wistfully upon the world fromwhich he is excluded. The window looked forth upon a small garden whichlay at the foot of the tower. It was a quiet, sheltered spot, adornedwith arbors and green alleys, and protected from the passing gaze bytrees and hawthorn hedges.

  Now was there made fast by the tower's wall, A garden faire, and in the corners set An arbour green with wandis long and small Railed about, and so with leaves beset Was all the place and hawthorn hedges knet, That lyf* was none, walkyng there forbye, That might within scarce any wight espye.

  So thick the branches and the leves grene, Beshaded all the alleys that there were, And midst of every arbour might be seen, The sharpe, grene, swete juniper, Growing so fair with branches here and there, That as it seemed to a lyf without, The boughs did spread the arbour all about.

  And on the small grene twistis+ set The lytel swete nightingales, and sung So loud and clear, the hymnis consecrate Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among, That all the garden and the wallis rung Right of their song----

  * Lyf, Person.

  + Twistis, small boughs or twigs. NOTE--The language of the quotations is generally modernized.

  It was the month of May, when every thing was in bloom, and heinterprets the song of the nightingale into the language of hisenamoured feeling:

  Worship, all ye that lovers be, this May; For of your bliss the kalends are begun, And sing with us, Away, winter, away. Come, summer, come, the sweet season and sun.

  As he gazes on the scene, and listens to the notes of the birds, hegradually relapses into one of those tender and undefinable reveries,which fill the youthful bosom in this delicious season. He wonders whatthis love may be of which he has so often read, and which thus seemsbreathed forth in the quickening breath of May, and melting all natureinto ecstasy and song. If it really be so great a felicity, and if it bea boon thus generally dispensed to the most insignificant beings, why ishe alone cut off from its enjoyments?

  Oft would I think, O Lord, what may this be, That love is of such noble myght and kynde? Loving his folke, and such prosperitee, Is it of him, as we in books do find; May he oure hertes setten* and unbynd: Hath he upon oure hertes such maistrye? Or is all this but feynit fantasye?

  For giff he be of so grete excellence That he of every wight hath care and charge, What have I gilt+ to him, or done offense, That I am thral'd, and birdis go at large?

  * Setten, incline.

  + Gilt, what injury have I done, etc.

  In the midst of his musing, as he casts his eye downward, he beholds"the fairest and the freshest young floure" that ever he had seen. It isthe lovely Lady Jane, walking in the garden to enjoy the beauty of that"fresh May morrowe." Breaking thus suddenly upon his sight in a momentof loneliness and excited susceptibility, she at once captivates thefancy of the romantic prince, and becomes the object of his wanderingwishes, the sovereign of his ideal world.

  There is, in this charming scene, an evident resemblance to the earlypart of Chaucer's Knight's Tale, where Palamon and Arcite fall inlove with Emilia, whom they see walking in the garden of their prison.Perhaps the similarity of the actual fact to the incident which he hadread in Chaucer may have induced James to dwell on it in his poem. Hisdescription of the Lady Jane is given in the picturesque and minutemanner of his master, and, being doubtless taken from the life, is aperfect portrait of a beauty of that day. He dwells with the fondnessof a lover on every article of her apparel, from the net of pearl,splendent with emeralds and sapphires, that confined her golden hair,even to the "goodly chaine of small orfeverye"* about her neck, wherebythere hung a ruby in shape of a heart, that seemed, he says, like aspark of fire burning upon her white bosom. Her dress of whitetissue was looped up to enable her to walk with more freedom. She wasaccompanied by two female attendants, and about her sported a littlehound decorated with bells, probably the small Italian hound ofexquisite symmetry which was a parlor favorite and pet among thefashionable dames of ancient times. James closes his description by aburst of general eulogium:

  In her was youth, beauty, with humble port, Bounty, richesse, and womanly feature: God better knows than my pen can report, Wisdom, largesse,+ estate,++ and cunning& sure. In every point so guided her measure, In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance, That nature might no more her child advance.

  * Wrought gold.

 
+ Largesse, bounty.

  ++ Estate, dignity.

  & Cunning, discretion.

  The departure of the Lady Jane from the garden puts an end to thistransient riot of the heart. With her departs the amorous illusionthat had shed a temporary charm over the scene of his captivity, and herelapses into loneliness, now rendered tenfold more intolerable by thispassing beam of unattainable beauty. Through the long and weary day herepines at his unhappy lot, and when evening approaches, and Phoebus,as he beautifully expresses it, had "bade farewell to every leaf andflower," he still lingers at the window, and, laying his head upon thecold stone, gives vent to a mingled flow of love and sorrow, until,gradually lulled by the mute melancholy of the twilight hour, he lapses,"half-sleeping, half swoon," into a vision, which occupies the remainderof the poem, and in which is allegorically shadowed out the history ofhis passion.

  When he wakes from his trance, he rises from his stony pillow, and,pacing his apartment, full of dreary reflections, questions his spirit,whither it has been wandering; whether, indeed, all that haspassed before his dreaming fancy has been conjured up by precedingcircumstances, or whether it is a vision intended to comfort and assurehim in his despondency. If the latter, he prays that some token may besent to confirm the promise of happier days, given him in his slumbers.Suddenly, a turtledove of the purest whiteness comes flying in at thewindow, and alights upon his hand, bearing in her bill a branch of redgilliflower, on the leaves of which is written, in letters of gold, thefollowing sentence:

  Awake! Awake! I bring, lover, I bring The newis glad, that blissful is and sure Of thy comfort; now laugh, and play, and sing, For in the heaven decretit is thy cure.

  He receives the branch with mingled hope and dread; reads it withrapture; and this he says was the first token of his succeedinghappiness. Whether this is a mere poetic fiction, or whether the LadyJane did actually send him a token of her favor in this romantic way,remains to be determined according to the fate or fancy of the reader.He concludes his poem by intimating that the promise conveyed in thevision and by the flower, is fulfilled by his being restored to liberty,and made happy in the possession of the sovereign of his heart.

  Such is the poetical account given by James of his love adventuresin Windsor Castle. How much of it is absolute fact, and how much theembellishment of fancy, it is fruitless to conjecture; let us not,however, reject every romantic incident as incompatible with real life,but let us sometimes take a poet at his word. I have noticed merelythose parts of the poem immediately connected with the tower, and havepassed over a large part which was in the allegorical vein, somuch cultivated at that day. The language, of course, is quaint andantiquated, so that the beauty of many of its golden phrases willscarcely be perceived at the present day, but it is impossible not tobe charmed with the genuine sentiment, the delightful artlessness andurbanity, which prevail throughout it. The descriptions of Nature too,with which it is embellished, are given with a truth, a discrimination,and a freshness, worthy of the most cultivated periods of the art.

  As an amatory poem, it is edifying, in these days of coarser thinking,to notice the nature, refinement, and exquisite delicacy whichpervade it; banishing every gross thought, or immodest expression, andpresenting female loveliness, clothed in all its chivalrous attributesof almost supernatural purity and grace.

  James flourished nearly about the time of Chaucer and Gower, and wasevidently an admirer and studier of their writings. Indeed, in one ofhis stanzas he acknowledges them as his masters; and in some partsof his poem we find traces of similarity to their productions, moreespecially to those of Chaucer. There are always, however, generalfeatures of resemblance in the works of contemporary authors, which arenot so much borrowed from each other as from the times. Writers, likebees, toll their sweets in the wide world; they incorporate with theirown conceptions, the anecdotes and thoughts current in society; and thuseach generation has some features in common, characteristic of the agein which it lives.

  James belongs to one of the most brilliant eras of our literary history,and establishes the claims of his country to a participation inits primitive honors. Whilst a small cluster of English writers areconstantly cited as the fathers of our verse, the name of theirgreat Scottish compeer is apt to be passed over in silence; but heis evidently worthy of being enrolled in that little constellation ofremote but never-failing luminaries who shine in the highest firmamentof literature, and who, like morning stars, sang together at the brightdawning of British poesy.

  Such of my readers as may not be familiar with Scottish history (thoughthe manner in which it has of late been woven with captivating fictionhas made it a universal study) may be curious to learn something of thesubsequent history of James and the fortunes of his love. His passionfor the Lady Jane, as it was the solace of his captivity, so itfacilitated his release, it being imagined by the Court that aconnection with the blood-royal of England would attach him to its owninterests. He was ultimately restored to his liberty and crown, havingpreviously espoused the Lady Jane, who accompanied him to Scotland, andmade him a most tender and devoted wife.

  He found his kingdom in great confusion, the feudal chieftainshaving taken advantage of the troubles and irregularities of a longinterregnum, to strengthen themselves in their possessions, and placethemselves above the power of the laws. James sought to found the basisof his power in the affections of his people. He attached the lowerorders to him by the reformation of abuses, the temperate and equableadministration of justice, the encouragement of the arts of peace, andthe promotion of every thing that could diffuse comfort, competency,and innocent enjoyment through the humblest ranks of society. Hemingled occasionally among the common people in disguise; visitedtheir firesides; entered into their cares, their pursuits, and theiramusements; informed himself of the mechanical arts, and how they couldbest be patronized and improved; and was thus an all-pervading spirit,watching with a benevolent eye over the meanest of his subjects. Havingin this generous manner made himself strong in the hearts of the commonpeople, he turned himself to curb the power of the factious nobility;to strip them of those dangerous immunities which they had usurped; topunish such as had been guilty of flagrant offences; and to bring thewhole into proper obedience to the Crown. For some time they borethis with outward submission, but with secret impatience and broodingresentment. A conspiracy was at length formed against his life, at thehead of which was his own uncle, Robert Stewart, Earl of Athol, who,being too old himself for the perpetration of the deed of blood,instigated his grandson, Sir Robert Stewart, together with Sir RobertGraham, and others of less note, to commit the deed. They broke into hisbedchamber at the Dominican convent near Perth, where he was residing,and barbarously murdered him by oft-repeated wounds. His faithful queen,rushing to throw her tender body between him and the sword, was twicewounded in the ineffectual attempt to shield him from the assassin; andit was not until she had been forcibly torn from his person, that themurder was accomplished.

  It was the recollection of this romantic tale of former times, and ofthe golden little poem, which had its birthplace in this tower, thatmade me visit the old pile with more than common interest. The suitof armor hanging up in the hall, richly gilt and embellished, as if tofigure in the tourney, brought the image of the gallant and romanticprince vividly before my imagination. I paced the deserted chamberswhere he had composed his poem; I leaned upon the window, and endeavoredto persuade myself it was the very one where he had been visited byhis vision; I looked out upon the spot where he had first seen the LadyJane. It was the same genial and joyous month; the birds were againvying with each other in strains of liquid melody; every thing wasbursting into vegetation, and budding forth the tender promise of theyear. Time, which delights to obliterate the sterner memorials of humanpride, seems to have passed lightly over this little scene of poetry andlove, and to have withheld his desolating hand. Several centuries havegone by, yet the garden still flourishes at the foot of the tower. Itoccupies what was on
ce the moat of the keep; and, though some parts havebeen separated by dividing walls, yet others have still their arborsand shaded walks, as in the days of James, and the whole is sheltered,blooming, and retired. There is a charm about the spot that has beenprinted by the footsteps of departed beauty, and consecrated by theinspirations of the poet, which is heightened, rather than impaired, bythe lapse of ages. It is, indeed, the gift of poetry, to hallow everyplace in which it moves; to breathe around nature an odor more exquisitethan the perfume of the rose, and to shed over it a tint more magicalthan the blush of morning.

  Others may dwell on the illustrious deeds of James as a warrior and alegislator; but I have delighted to view him merely as the companionof his fellow-men, the benefactor of the human heart, stooping from hishigh estate to sow the sweet flowers of poetry and song in the paths ofcommon life. He was the first to cultivate the vigorous and hardy plantof Scottish genius, which has since become so prolific of the mostwholesome and highly flavored fruit. He carried with him into thesterner regions of the north, all the fertilizing arts of southernrefinement. He did every thing in his power to win his countrymen to thegay, the elegant, and gentle arts, which soften and refine the characterof a people, and wreathe a grace round the loftiness of a proud andwarlike spirit. He wrote many poems, which, unfortunately for thefulness of his fame, are now lost to the world; one, which is stillpreserved, called "Christ's Kirk of the Green," shows how diligently hehad made himself acquainted with the rustic sports and pastimes, whichconstitute such a source of kind and social feeling among the Scottishpeasantry; and with what simple and happy humor he could enter intotheir enjoyments. He contributed greatly to improve the national music;and traces of his tender sentiment and elegant taste are said to existin those witching airs, still piped among the wild mountains and lonelyglens of Scotland. He has thus connected his image with whatever is mostgracious and endearing in the national character; he has embalmed hismemory in song, and floated his name to after-ages in the rich streamsof Scottish melody. The recollection of these things was kindling at myheart, as I paced the silent scene of his imprisonment. I have visitedVaucluse with as much enthusiasm as a pilgrim would visit the shrineat Loretto; but I have never felt more poetical devotion than whencontemplating the old tower and the little garden at Windsor, andmusing over the romantic loves of the Lady Jane, and the Royal Poet ofScotland.