The Last of the Barons — Complete
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BOOK IV. INTRIGUES OF THE COURT OF EDWARD IV.
CHAPTER I. MARGARET OF ANJOU.
The day after the events recorded in the last section of this narrative,and about the hour of noon, Robert Hilyard (still in the reverenddisguise in which he had accosted Hastings) bent his way through thelabyrinth of alleys that wound in dingy confusion from the Chepe towardsthe river.
The purlieus of the Thames, in that day of ineffective police, shelteredmany who either lived upon plunder, or sought abodes that proffered, atalarm, the facility of flight. Here, sauntering in twos or threes, orlazily reclined by the threshold of plaster huts, might be seen thatrefuse population which is the unholy offspring of civil war,--disbandedsoldiers of either Rose, too inured to violence and strife for peacefulemployment, and ready for any enterprise by which keen steel wins brightgold. At length our friend stopped before the gate of a small house, onthe very marge of the river, which belonged to one of the many religiousorders then existing; but from its site and aspect denoted the povertyseldom their characteristic. Here he knocked; the door was opened by alay-brother; a sign and a smile were interchanged, and the visitor wasushered into a room belonging to the superior, but given up for the lastfew days to a foreign priest, to whom the whole community appeared toconsider the reverence of a saint was due. And yet this priest, who,seated alone, by a casement which commanded a partial view of thedistant Tower of London, received the conspirator, was clad in thehumblest serge. His face was smooth and delicate; and the animation ofthe aspect, the vehement impatience of the gesture, evinced little ofthe holy calm that should belong to those who have relinquished theaffairs of earth for meditation on the things of heaven. To thispersonage the sturdy Hilyard bowed his manly knees; and casting himselfat the priest's feet, his eyes, his countenance, changed from theircustomary hardihood and recklessness into an expression at once ofreverence and of pity.
"Well, man--well, friend--good friend, tried and leal friend, speak!speak!" exclaimed the priest, in an accent that plainly revealed aforeign birth.
"Oh, gracious lady! all hope is over; I come but to bid you fly. AdamWarner was brought before the usurper; he escaped, indeed, the torture,and was faithful to the trust. But the papers--the secret of therising--are in the hands of Hastings."
"How long, O Lord," said Margaret of Anjou, for she it was, under thatreverend disguise, "how long wilt Thou delay the hour of triumph andrevenge?"
The princess as she spoke had suffered her hood to fall back, andher pale, commanding countenance, so well fitted to express fiery andterrible emotion, wore that aspect in which many a sentenced man hadread his doom,--an aspect the more fearful, inasmuch as the passion thatpervaded it did not distort the features, but left them locked, rigid,and marble-like in beauty, as the head of the Medusa.
"The day will dawn at last," said Hilyard; "but the judgments of Heavenare slow. We are favoured, at the least, that our secret is confinedto a man more merciful than his tribe." He then related to Margarethis interview with Hastings at the house of the Lady Lougueville, andcontinued: "This morning, not an hour since, I sought him (for lastevening he did not leave Edward, a council met at the Tower), andlearned that he had detected the documents in the recesses of Warner'sengine. Knowing from your Highness and your spies that he had been opento the gifts of Charolois, I spoke to him plainly of the guerdon thatshould await his silence. 'Friar,' he answered, 'if in this court andthis world I have found it were a fool's virtue to be more pure thanothers, and if I know that I should but provoke the wrath of those whoprofit by Burgundian gold, were I alone to disdain its glitter, I havestill eno' of my younger conscience left me not to make barter ofhuman flesh. Did I give these papers to King Edward, the heads of fiftygallant men, whose error is but loyalty to their ancient sovereign,would glut the doomsman; but,' he continued, 'I am yet true to my kingand his cause; I shall know how to advise Edward to the frustrating allyour schemes. The districts where you hoped a rising will be guarded,the men ye count upon will be watched: the Duke of Gloucester, whosevigilance never sleeps, has learned that the Lady Margaret is inEngland, disguised as a priest. To-morrow all the religious houses willbe searched; if thou knowest where she lies concealed, bid her lose notan hour to fly.'"
"I Will NOT fly!" exclaimed Margaret; "let Edward, if he dare, proclaimto my people that their queen is in her city of London. Let him send hishirelings to seize her. Not in this dress shall she be found. In robesof state, the sceptre in her hand, shall they drag the consort of theirking to the prison-house of her palace."
"On my knees, great queen, I implore you to be calm; with the lossof your liberty ends indeed all hope of victory, all chance even ofstruggle. Think not Edward's fears would leave to Margaret the life thathis disdain has spared to your royal spouse. Between your prison andyour grave, but one secret and bloody step! Be ruled; no time to lose!My trusty Hugh even now waits with his boat below. Relays of horsesare ready, night and day, to bear you to the coast; while seeking yourrestoration, I have never neglected the facilities for flight. Pausenot, O gracious lady; let not your son say, 'My mother's passion haslost me the hope of my grandsire's crown.'"
"My boy; my princely boy, my Edward!" exclaimed Margaret, burstinginto tears, all the warrior-queen merged in the remembrance of the fondmother. "Ah, faithful friend! he is so gallant and so beautiful! Oh, heshall reward thee well hereafter!"
"May he live to crush these barons, and raise this people!" said thedemagogue of Redesdale. "But now, save thyself!"
"But what! is it not possible yet to strike the blow? Rather let us spurto the north; rather let us hasten the hour of action, and raise the RedRose through the length and breadth of England!"
"Ah, lady, if without warrant from your lord; if without foreignsubsidies; if without having yet ripened the time; if without gold,without arms, and without one great baron on our side, we forestall arising, all that we have gained is lost; and instead of war, you canscarcely provoke a riot. But for this accursed alliance of Edward'sdaughter with the brother of icy-hearted Louis, our triumph had beensecure. The French king's gold would have manned a camp, bribed thediscontented lords, and his support have sustained the hopes of the moreleal Lancastrians. But it is in vain to deny, that if Lord Warwick winLouis--"
"He will not! he shall not!--Louis, mine own kinsman!" exclaimedMargaret, in a voice in which the anguish pierced through the loudertone of resentment and disdain.
"Let us hope that he will not," replied Hilyard, soothingly; "somechance may yet break off these nuptials, and once more give us Franceas our firm ally. But now we must be patient. Already Edward is fastwearing away the gloss of his crown; already the great lords desert hiscourt; already, in the rural provinces, peasant and franklin complain ofthe exactions of his minions; already the mighty House of Nevile frownssullen on the throne it built. Another year, and who knows but the Earlof Warwick,--the beloved and the fearless, whose statesman-art alonehath severed from you the arms and aid of France, at whose liftedfinger all England would bristle with armed men--may ride by the side ofMargaret through the gates of London?"
"Evil-omened consoler, never!" exclaimed the princess, starting to herfeet, with eyes that literally shot fire. "Thinkest thou that the spiritof a queen lies in me so low and crushed, that I, the descendant ofCharlemagne, could forgive the wrongs endured from Warwick and hisfather? But thou, though wise and loyal, art of the Commons; thouknowest not how they feel through whose veins rolls the blood of kings!"
A dark and cold shade fell over the bold face of Robin of Redesdale atthese words.
"Ah, lady," he said, with bitterness, "if no misfortune can curbthy pride, in vain would we rebuild thy throne. It is these Commons,Margaret of Anjou--these English Commons--this Saxon People, that canalone secure to thee the holding of the realm which the right arm wins.And, beshrew me, much as I love thy cause, much as thou hast with thysorrows and thy princely beauty glamoured and spelled my heart andmy hand,--ay, so that I, the son of a Lollard, forget the wrongs theLollard
s sustained from the House of Lancaster; so that I, who have seenthe glorious fruitage of a Republic, yet labour for thee, to overshadowthe land with the throne of ONE--yet--yet, lady--yet, if I thought thouwert to be the same Margaret as of old, looking back to thy dead kings,and contemptuous of thy living people, I would not bid one mother's sonlift lance or bill on thy behalf."
So resolutely did Robin of Redesdale utter these words, that the queen'shaughty eye fell abashed as he spoke; and her craft, or her intellect,which was keen and prompt where her passions did not deafen and blindher judgment, instantly returned to her. Few women equalled this onceidol of knight and minstrel, in the subduing fascination that she couldexert in her happier moments. Her affability was as gracious as herwrath was savage; and with a dignified and winning frankness, sheextended her hand to her ally, as she answered, in a sweet, humble,womanly, and almost penitent voice,--
"O bravest and lealest of friends, forgive thy wretched queen. Hertroubles distract her brain,--chide her not if they sour her speech.Saints above! will ye not pardon Margaret if at times her nature beturned from the mother's milk into streams of gall and bloody purpose,when ye see, from your homes serene, in what a world of strife andfalsehood her very womanhood hath grown unsexed?" She paused a moment,and her uplifted eyes shed tears fast and large. Then, with a sigh,she turned to Hilyard, and resumed more calmly, "Yes, thou artright,--adversity hath taught me much. And though adversity will toooften but feed and not starve our pride, yet thou--thou hast made meknow that there is more of true nobility in the blunt Children of thePeople than in many a breast over which flows the kingly robe. Forgiveme, and the daughter of Charlemagne shall yet be a mother to theCommons, who claim thee as their brother!"
Thoroughly melted, Robin of Redesdale bowed over the hand held to hislips, and his rough voice trembled as he answered, though that answertook but the shape of prayer.
"And now," said the princess, smiling, "to make peace lasting betweenus, I conquer myself, I yield to thy counsels. Once more the fugitive, Iabandon the city that contains Henry's unheeded prison. See, I am ready.Who will know Margaret in this attire? Lead on!"
Rejoiced to seize advantage of this altered and submissive mood,Robin instantly took the way through a narrow passage, to a small doorcommunicating with the river. There Hugh was waiting in a small boat,moored to the damp and discoloured stairs.
Robin, by a gesture, checked the man's impulse to throw himself at thefeet of the pretended priest, and bade him put forth his best speed.The princess seated herself by the helm, and the little boat cutrapidly through the noble stream. Galleys, gay and gilded, with armorialstreamers, and filled with nobles and gallants, passed them, noisy withmirth or music, on their way. These the fallen sovereign heeded not;but, with all her faults, the woman's heart beating in her bosom--shewho in prosperity had so often wrought ruin, and shame, and woe toher gentle lord; she who had been reckless of her trust as queen; andincurred grave--but, let us charitably hope, unjust--suspicion of herfaith as wife, still fixed her eyes on the gloomy tower that containedher captive husband, and felt that she could have forgotten a while eventhe loss of power if but permitted to fall on that plighted heart, andweep over the past with the woe-worn bridegroom of her youth.