The Last of the Barons — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  CHAPTER II. IN WHICH ARE LAID OPEN TO THE READER THE CHARACTER OFEDWARD THE FOURTH AND THAT OF HIS COURT, WITH THE MACHINATIONS OF THEWOODVILLES AGAINST THE EARL OF WARWICK.

  Scarcely need it be said to those who have looked with some philosophyupon human life, that the young existence of Master Marmaduke Nevile,once fairly merged in the great common sea, will rarely reappear beforeus individualized and distinct. The type of the provincial cadet of theday hastening courtwards to seek his fortune, he becomes lost amidstthe gigantic characters and fervid passions that alone stand forth inhistory. And as, in reading biography, we first take interest in theindividual who narrates, but if his career shall pass into that broaderand more stirring life, in which he mingles with men who have left amore dazzling memory than his own, we find the interest change from thenarrator to those by whom he is surrounded and eclipsed,--so, in thisrecord of a time, we scarce follow our young adventurer into the courtof the brilliant Edward ere the scene itself allures and separates usfrom our guide; his mission is, as it were, well-nigh done. We leave,then, for a while this bold, frank nature-fresh from the health ofthe rural life--gradually to improve, or deprave itself, in thecompanionship it finds. The example of the Lords Hastings, Scales, andWorcester, and the accomplishments of the two younger Princes of York,especially the Duke of Gloucester, had diffused among the youngerand gayer part of the court that growing taste for letters whichhad somewhat slept during the dynasty of the House of Lancaster; andMarmaduke's mind became aware that learning was no longer the peculiardistinction of the Church, and that Warwick was behind his age when heboasted "that the sword was more familiar to him than the pen." He hadthe sagacity to perceive that the alliance with the great earl did notconduce to his popularity at court; and even in the king's presence,the courtiers permitted themselves many taunts and jests at the fieryWarwick, which they would have bitten out their tongues ere they wouldhave vented before the earl himself. But though the Nevile sufficientlycontrolled his native candour not to incur unprofitable quarrel byill-mannered and unseasonable defence of the hero-baron when sneered ator assailed, he had enough of the soldier and the man in him not to betainted by the envy of the time and place,--not to lose his gratitude tohis patron, nor his respect for the bulwark of the country. Rather, itmay be said, that Warwick gained in his estimation whenever comparedwith the gay and silken personages who avenged themselves by words forhis superiority in deeds. Not only as a soldier, but as a statesman, thegreat and peculiar merits of the earl were visible in all those measureswhich emanated solely from himself. Though so indifferently educated,his busy, practical career, his affable mixing with all classes, andhis hearty, national sympathies made him so well acquainted with theinterests of his country and the habits of his countrymen, that he wasfar more fitted to rule than the scientific Worcester or the learnedScales. The Young Duke of Gloucester presented a marked contrast to thegeneral levity of the court, in speaking of this powerful nobleman. Henever named him but with respect, and was pointedly courteous toeven the humblest member of the earl's family. In this he appeared toadvantage by the side of Clarence, whose weakness of disposition madehim take the tone of the society in which he was thrown, and who, whilereally loving Warwick, often smiled at the jests against him,--not,indeed, if uttered by the queen or her family, of whom he ill concealedhis jealousy and hatred.

  The whole court was animated and pregnant with a spirit of intrigue,which the artful cunning of the queen, the astute policy of Jacquetta,and the animosity of the different factions had fomented to a degreequite unknown under former reigns. It was a place in which the wit ofyoung men grew old rapidly; amidst stratagem, and plot, and ambitiousdesign, and stealthy overreaching, the boyhood of Richard III. passedto its relentless manhood: such is the inevitable fruit of that era incivilization when a martial aristocracy first begins to merge into avoluptuous court.

  Through this moving and shifting web of ambition and intrigue the royalEdward moved with a careless grace: simple himself, because his objectwas won, and pleasure had supplanted ambition. His indolent, joyoustemper served to deaden his powerful intellect; or, rather, hisintellect was now lost in the sensual stream through which it flowed.Ever in pursuit of some new face, his schemes and counterschemeswere limited to cheat a husband or deceive a wife; and dexterous andsuccessful no doubt they were. But a vice always more destructivethan the love of women began also to reign over him,--namely, theintemperance of the table. The fastidious and graceful epicurism of theearly Normans, inclined to dainties but abhorring excess, and regardingwith astonished disdain the heavy meals and deep draughts of the Saxon,had long ceased to characterize the offspring of that noblest ofall noble races. Warwick, whose stately manliness was disgusted withwhatever savoured of effeminacy or debauch, used to declare that hewould rather fight fifty battles for Edward IV. than once sup with him!Feasts were prolonged for hours, and the banquets of this king of theMiddle Ages almost resembled those of the later Roman emperors. The LordMontagu did not share the abstemiousness of his brother of Warwick. Hewas, next to Hastings, the king's chosen and most favourite companion.He ate almost as much as the king, and drank very little less. Of fewcourtiers could the same be said! Over the lavish profligacy and excessof the court, however, a veil dazzling to the young and high-spiritedwas thrown. Edward was thoroughly the cavalier, deeply imbued with theromance of chivalry, and, while making the absolute woman his plaything,always treated the ideal woman as a goddess. A refined gallantry, adeferential courtesy to dame and demoiselle, united the language ofan Amadis with the licentiousness of a Gaolor; and a far morealluring contrast than the court of Charles II. presented to the grimCommonwealth seduced the vulgar in that of this most brave and mostbeautiful prince, when compared with the mournful and lugubrious circlesin which Henry VI. had reigned and prayed. Edward himself, too, itwas so impossible to judge with severe justice, that his extraordinarypopularity in London, where he was daily seen, was never diminished byhis faults; he was so bold in the field, yet so mild in the chamber;when his passions slept, he was so thoroughly good-natured and social,so kind to all about his person, so hearty and gladsome in his talk andin his vices, so magnificent and so generous withal; and, despite hisindolence, his capacities for business were marvellous,--and these lastcommanded the reverence of the good Londoners; he often administeredjustice himself, like the caliphs of the East, and with great acutenessand address. Like most extravagant men, he had a wholesome touchof avarice. That contempt for commerce which characterizes a modernaristocracy was little felt by the nobles of that day, with theexception of such blunt patricians as Lord Warwick or Raoul de Fulke.The great House of De la Pole (Duke of Suffolk), the heir of whichmarried Edward's sister Elizabeth, had been founded by a merchant ofHull. Earls and archbishops scrupled not to derive revenues from whatwe should now esteem the literal resources of trade. [The Abbot ofSt. Alban's (temp. Henry III.) was a vendor of Yarmouth bloaters. TheCistercian Monks were wool-merchants; and Macpherson tells us ofa couple of Iceland bishops who got a license from Henry VI. forsmuggling. (Matthew Paris. Macpherson's "Annals of Commerce," 10.)As the Whig historians generally have thought fit to consider theLancastrian cause the more "liberal" of the two, because Henry IV. wasthe popular choice, and, in fact, an elected, not an hereditary king, soit cannot be too emphatically repeated, that the accession of Edward IV.was the success of two new and two highly--popular principles,--the onethat of church reform, the other that of commercial calculation. Allthat immense section, almost a majority of the people, who had beenpersecuted by the Lancastrian kings as Lollards, revenged on Henry theaggrieved rights of religious toleration. On the other hand, thoughHenry IV., who was immeasurably superior to his warlike son in intellectand statesmanship, had favoured the growing commercial spirit, it hadreceived nothing but injury under Henry V., and little better thancontempt under Henry VI. The accession of the Yorkists was, then, ontwo grounds a great popular movement; and it was followed by a thirdadvantage to the popular cause,--namely, in the determined
desire bothof Edward and Richard III. to destroy the dangerous influence of theold feudal aristocracy. To this end Edward laboured in the creation ofa court noblesse; and Richard, with the more dogged resolution thatbelonged to him, went at once to the root of the feudal power, inforbidding the nobles to give badges and liveries (this also wasforbidden, it is true, by the edict of Edward IV. as well as by hispredecessors from the reign of Richard II.; but no king seems to havehad the courage to enforce the prohibition before Richard III.),--inother words, to appropriate armies under the name of retainers.Henry VII., in short, did not originate the policy for which he hasmonopolized the credit; he did but steadily follow out the theory ofraising the middle class and humbling the baronial, which the House ofYork first put into practice.] shown itself on this point more liberalin its policy, more free from feudal prejudices, than that of thePlantagenets. Even Edward II. was tenacious of the commerce with Genoa,and an intercourse with the merchant princes of that republic probablyserved to associate the pursuits of commerce with the notion of rank andpower. Edward III. is still called the Father of English Commerce; butEdward IV. carried the theories of his ancestors into far more extensivepractice, for his own personal profit. This king, so indolent in thepalace, was literally the most active merchant in the mart. He tradedlargely in ships of his own, freighted with his own goods; and though,according to sound modern economics, this was anything but an aid tocommerce, seeing that no private merchant could compete with a royaltrader who went out and came in duty-free, yet certainly the merecompanionship and association in risk and gain, and the commonconversation that it made between the affable monarch and the homeliesttrader, served to increase his popularity, and to couple it with respectfor practical sense. Edward IV. was in all this pre-eminently THE MANOF HIS AGE,--not an inch behind it or before! And, in addition to thishappy position, he was one of those darlings of Nature, so affluent andblest in gifts of person, mind, and outward show, that it is only at thedistance of posterity we ask why men of his own age admired the false,the licentious, and the cruel, where those contemporaries, over-dazzled,saw but the heroic and the joyous, the young, the beautiful,--theaffable to friend, and the terrible to foe!

  It was necessary to say thus much on the commercial tendencies ofEdward, because, at this epoch, they operated greatly, besides othermotives shortly to be made clear, in favour of the plot laid by theenemies of the Earl of Warwick, to dishonour that powerful minister anddrive him from the councils of the king.

  One morning Hastings received a summons to attend Edward, and onentering the royal chamber, he found already assembled Lord Rivers, thequeen's father, Anthony Woodville, and the Earl of Worcester.

  The king seemed thoughtful; he beckoned Hastings to approach, and placedin his hand a letter, dated from Rouen. "Read and judge, Hastings," saidEdward.

  The letter was from a gentleman in Warwick's train. It gave a glowingaccount of the honours accorded to the earl by Louis XI., greater thanthose ever before manifested to a subject, and proceeded thus:--

  "But it is just I should apprise you that there be strange rumours as tothe marvellous love that King Louis shows my lord the earl. He lodgethin the next house to him, and hath even had an opening made in thepartition-wall between his own chamber and the earl's. Men do say thatthe king visits him nightly, and there be those who think that so muchstealthy intercourse between an English ambassador and the kinsman ofMargaret of Anjou bodeth small profit to our grace the king."

  "I observe," said Hastings, glancing to the superscription, "that thisletter is addressed to my Lord Rivers. Can he avouch the fidelity of hiscorrespondent?"

  "Surely, yes," answered Rivers; "it is a gentleman of my own blood."

  "Were he not so accredited," returned Hastings, "I should question thetruth of a man who can thus consent to play the spy upon his lord andsuperior."

  "The public weal justifies all things," said the Earl of Worcester (who,though by marriage nearly connected to Warwick, eyed his power withthe jealous scorn which the man of book-lore often feels for one whosetalent lies in action),--"so held our masters in all state-craft, theGreek and Roman."

  "Certes," said Sir Anthony Woodville, "it grieveth the pride of anEnglish knight that we should be beholden for courtesies to the born foeof England, which I take the Frenchman naturally to be."

  "Ah," said Edward, smiling sternly, "I would rather be myself, withbanner and trump, before the walls of Paris, than sending my cousin theearl to beg the French king's brother to accept my sister as a bride.And what is to become of my good merchant-ships if Burgundy take umbrageand close its ports?"

  "Beau sire," said Hastings, "thou knowest how little cause I have tolove the Earl of Warwick. We all here, save your gracious self, bear thememory of some affront rendered to us by his pride and heat of mood! butin this council I must cease to be William de Hastings, and be all andwholly the king's servant. I say first, then, with reference to thesenoble peers, that Warwick's faith to the House of York is too wellproven to become suspected because of the courtesies of King Louis,--anartful craft, as it clearly seems to me, of the wily Frenchman, toweaken your throne, by provoking your distrust of its great supporter.Fall we not into such a snare! Moreover, we may be sure that Warwickcannot be false, if he achieve the object of his embassy,--namely,detach Louis from the side of Margaret and Lancaster by close alliancewith Edward and York. Secondly, sire, with regard to that alliance,which it seems you would repent,--I hold now, as I have held ever, thatit is a master-stroke in policy, and the earl in this proves his sharpbrain worthy his strong arm; for as his highness the Duke of Gloucesterhath now clearly discovered that Margaret of Anjou has been of latein London, and that treasonable designs were meditated, though nowfrustrated, so we may ask why the friends of Lancaster really stoodaloof; why all conspiracy was, and is, in vain?--Because, sire, of thisvery alliance with France; because the gold and subsidies of Louis arenot forthcoming; because the Lancastrians see that if once Lord Warwickwin France from the Red Rose, nothing short of such a miracle as theirgaining Warwick instead can give a hope to their treason. Your Highnessfears the anger of Burgundy, and the suspension of your trade with theFlemings; but--forgive me--this is not reasonable. Burgundy dare notoffend England, matched, as its arms are, with France; the Flemings gainmore by you than you gain by the Flemings, and those interested burgherswill not suffer any prince's quarrel to damage their commerce. Charoloismay bluster and threat, but the storm will pass, and Burgundy will becontented, if England remain neutral in the feud with France. All thesereasons, sire, urge me to support my private foe, the Lord Warwick,and to pray you to give no ear to the discrediting his Honour and hisembassy."

  The profound sagacity of these remarks, the repute of the speaker, andthe well-known grudge between him and Warwick, for reasons hereafterto be explained, produced a strong effect upon the intellect of Edward,always vigorous, save when clouded with passion. But Rivers, whosemalice to the earl was indomitable, coldly recommenced,--

  "With submission to the Lord Hastings, sire, whom we know that lovesometimes blinds, and whose allegiance to the earl's fair sister, theLady of Bonville, perchance somewhat moves him to forget the day whenLord Warwick--"

  "Cease, my lord," said Hastings, white with suppressed anger; "thesereferences beseem not the councils of grave men."

  "Tut, Hastings," said Edward, laughing merrily, "women mix themselvesup in all things: board or council, bed or battle,--wherever thereis mischief astir, there, be sure, peeps a woman's sly face from herwimple. Go on, Rivers."

  "Your pardon, my Lord Hastings," said Rivers, "I knew not my thrust wentso home; there is another letter I have not yet laid before the king."He drew forth a scroll from his bosom, and read as follows:--

  "Yesterday the earl feasted the king, and as, in discharge of mineoffice, I carved for my lord, I heard King Louis say, 'Pasque Dieu, myLord Warwick, our couriers bring us word that Count Charolois declareshe shall yet wed the Lady Margaret, and that he laughs at yourambassage. What if o
ur brother, King Edward, fall back from the treaty?''He durst not!' said the earl."

  "Durst not!" exclaimed Edward, starting to his feet, and striking thetable with his clenched hand, "durst not! Hastings, hear you that?"

  Hastings bowed his head in assent. "Is that all, Lord Rivers?"

  "All! and methinks enough."

  "Enough, by my halidame!" said Edward, laughing bitterly; "he shall seewhat a king dares, when a subject threatens. Admit the worshipfulthe deputies from our city of London,--lord chamberlain, it is thineoffice,--they await in the anteroom."

  Hastings gravely obeyed, and in crimson gowns, with purple hoods andgold chains, marshalled into the king's presence a goodly deputationfrom the various corporate companies of London.

  These personages advanced within a few paces of the dais, and therehalted and knelt, while their spokesman read, on his knees, a longpetition, praying the king to take into his gracious considerationthe state of the trade with the Flemings; and though not absolutelyventuring to name or to deprecate the meditated alliance with France,beseeching his grace to satisfy them as to certain rumours, already veryprejudicial to their commerce, of the possibility of a breach with theDuke of Burgundy. The merchant-king listened with great attention andaffability to this petition; and replied shortly, that he thanked thedeputation for their zeal for the public weal,--that a king would haveenough to do if he contravened every gossip's tale; but that it washis firm purpose to protect, in all ways, the London traders, and tomaintain the most amicable understanding with the Duke of Burgundy.

  The supplicators then withdrew from the royal presence.

  "Note you how gracious the king was to me?" whispered Master Heyford toone of his brethren; "he looked at me while he answered."

  "Coxcomb!" muttered the confidant, "as if I did not catch his eye whenhe said, 'Ye are the pillars of the public weal!' But because MasterHeyford has a handsome wife he thinks he tosseth all London on his ownhorns!"

  As the citizens were quitting the palace, Lord Rivers joined them. "Youwill thank me for suggesting this deputation, worthy sirs," said he,smiling significantly; "you have timed it well!"--and passing by them,without further comment, he took the way to the queen's chamber.

  Elizabeth was playing with her infant daughter, tossing the child inthe air, and laughing at its riotous laughter. The stern old Duchess ofBedford, leaning over the back of the state-chair, looked on with alla grandmother's pride, and half chanted a nursery rhyme. It was asight fair to see! Elizabeth never seemed more lovely: her artificial,dissimulating smile changed into hearty, maternal glee, her smoothcheek flushed with exercise, a stray ringlet escaping from the stiffcoif!--And, alas, the moment the two ladies caught sight of Rivers, allthe charm was dissolved; the child was hastily put on the floor; thequeen, half ashamed of being natural, even before her father, smoothedback the rebel lock, and the duchess, breaking off in the midst of hergrandam song, exclaimed,--

  "Well, well! how thrives our policy?"

  "The king," answered Rivers, "is in the very mood we could desire. Atthe words, 'He durst not!' the Plantagenet sprung up in his breast; andnow, lest he ask to see the rest of the letter, thus I destroy it;" andflinging the scroll in the blazing hearth, he watched it consume.

  "Why this, sir?" said the queen.

  "Because, my Elizabeth, the bold words glided off into a decentgloss,--'He durst not,' said Warwick, 'because what a noble heart daresleast is to belie the plighted word, and what the kind heart shuns mostis to wrong the confiding friend."

  "It was fortunate," said the duchess, "that Edward took heat at thefirst words, nor stopped, it seems, for the rest!"

  "I was prepared, Jacquetta; had he asked to see the rest, I should havedropped the scroll into the brazier, as containing what I would notpresume to read. Courage! Edward has seen the merchants; he has floutedHastings,--who would gainsay us. For the rest, Elizabeth, be it yoursto speak of affronts paid by the earl to your highness; be it yours,Jacquetta, to rouse Edward's pride by dwelling on Warwick's overweeningpower; be it mine to enlist his interest on behalf of his merchandise;be it Margaret's to move his heart by soft tears for the bold Charolois;and ere a month be told, Warwick shall find his embassy a thriftlesslaughing-stock, and no shade pass between the House of Woodville and thesun of England."

  "I am scarce queen while Warwick is minister," said Elizabeth,vindictively. "How he taunted me in the garden, when we met last!"

  "But hark you, daughter and lady liege, hark you! Edward is not preparedfor the decisive stroke. I have arranged with Anthony, whose chivalrousfollies fit him not for full comprehension of our objects, how uponfair excuse the heir of Burgundy's brother--the Count de la Roche--shallvisit London; and the count once here, all is ours! Hush! take up thelittle one,--Edward comes!"