The Last of the Barons — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  BOOK V.

  CHAPTER I. RURAL ENGLAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES--NOBLE VISITORS SEEK THECASTLE OF MIDDLEHAM.

  Autumn had succeeded to summer, winter to autumn, and the spring of 1468was green in England, when a gallant cavalcade was seen slowly windingthe ascent of a long and gradual hill, towards the decline of day.Different, indeed, from the aspect which that part of the country nowpresents was the landscape that lay around them, bathed in the smilesof the westering sun. In a valley to the left, a full view of whichthe steep road commanded (where now roars the din of trade through athousand factories), lay a long, secluded village. The houses, if sothey might be called, were constructed entirely of wood, and that of themore perishable kind,--willow, sallow, elm, and plum-tree. Not one couldboast a chimney; but the smoke from the single fire in each, after dulydarkening the atmosphere within, sent its surplusage lazily and fitfullythrough a circular aperture in the roof. In fact, there was long in theprovinces a prejudice against chimneys! The smoke was considered goodboth for house and owner; the first it was supposed to season, and thelast to guard "from rheums, catarrhs, and poses." [So worthy Hollinshed,Book II. c. 22.--"Then had we none but reredosses, and our heads didnever ache. For as the smoke, in those days, was supposed to be asufficient hardening for the timber of the house, so it was reputed afar better medicine to keep the goodman and his familie from the quacke,or pose, wherewith as then very few were oft acquainted."] Neitherdid one of these habitations boast the comfort of a glazed window, thesubstitute being lattice, or chequer-work,--even in the house of thefranklin, which rose statelily above the rest, encompassed with barnsand outsheds. And yet greatly should we err did we conceive that thesedeficiencies were an index to the general condition of the workingclass. Far better off was the labourer when employed, than now. Wageswere enormously high, meat extremely low; [See Hallam: Middle Ages,Chap. xx. Part II. So also Hollinsbed, Book XI., c. 12, comments on theamazement of the Spaniards, in Queen Mary's time, when they saw "whatlarge diet was used in these so homelie cottages," and reports one ofthe Spaniards to have said, "These English have their houses of sticksand dirt, but they fare commonlie so well as the king!"] and ourmotherland bountifully maintained her children.

  On that greensward, before the village (now foul and reeking with thesqualid population whom commerce rears up,--the victims, as the movers,of the modern world) were assembled youth and age; for it was a holidayevening, and the stern Puritan had not yet risen to sour the face ofMirth. Well clad in leathern jerkin, or even broadcloth, the youngpeasants vied with each other in quoits and wrestling; while the merrylaughter of the girls, in their gay-coloured kirtles and ribbonedhair, rose oft and cheerily to the ears of the cavalcade. From a gentleeminence beyond the village, and half veiled by trees, on which thefirst verdure of spring was budding (where now, around the gin-shop,gather the fierce and sickly children of toil and of discontent), rosethe venerable walls of a monastery, and the chime of its heavy bellswung far and sweet over the pastoral landscape. To the right of theroad (where now stands the sober meeting-house) was one of those smallshrines so frequent in Italy, with an image of the Virgin gaudilypainted, and before it each cavalier in the procession halted an instantto cross himself and mutter an ave. Beyond, still to the right, extendedvast chains of woodland, interspersed with strips of pasture, upon whichnumerous flocks were grazing, with horses, as yet unbroken to bit andselle, that neighed and snorted as they caught scent of their morecivilized brethren pacing up the road.

  In front of the cavalcade rode two, evidently of superior rank to therest,--the one small and slight, with his long hair flowing over hisshoulders; and the other, though still young, many years older, andindicating his clerical profession by the absence of all love-locks,compensated by a curled and glossy beard, trimmed with the greatestcare. But the dress of the ecclesiastic was as little according to ourmodern notions of what beseems the Church as can well be conceived:his tunic and surcoat, of a rich amber, contrasted well with the cleardarkness of his complexion; his piked shoes, or beakers, as they werecalled, turned up half-way to the knee; the buckles of his dress wereof gold, inlaid with gems; and the housings of his horse, which wasof great power, were edged with gold fringe. By the side of his steedwalked a tall greyhound, upon which he ever and anon glanced withaffection. Behind these rode two gentlemen, whose golden spurs announcedknighthood; and then followed a long train of squires and pages, richlyclad and accoutred, bearing generally the Nevile badge of the Bull;though interspersed amongst the retinue might be seen the grim Boar'shead, which Richard of Gloucester, in right of his duchy, had assumed ashis cognizance.

  "Nay, sweet prince," said the ecclesiastic, "I pray thee to considerthat a greyhound is far more of a gentleman than any other of the caninespecies. Mark his stately yet delicate length of limb, his sleek coat,his keen eye, his haughty neck."

  "These are but the externals, my noble friend. Will the greyhound attackthe lion, as our mastiff doth? The true character of the gentleman is toknow no fear, and to rush through all danger at the throat of his foe;wherefore I uphold the dignity of the mastiff above all his tribe,though others have a daintier hide and a statelier crest. Enough of suchmatters, archbishop,--we are nearing Middleham."

  "The saints be praised! for I am hungered," observed the archbishop,piously: "but, sooth to say, my cook at the More far excelleth what wecan hope to find at the board of my brother. He hath some faults, ourWarwick! Hasty and careless, he hath not thought eno' of the blessingshe might enjoy, and many a poor abbot hath daintier fare on his humbletable."

  "Oh, George Nevile! who that heard thee, when thou talkest of houndsand interments, [entremets (side dishes)] would recognize the LordChancellor of England,--the most learned dignitary, the most subtlestatesman?"

  "And oh, Richard Plantagenet!" retorted the archbishop, dropping themincing and affected tone, which he, in common with the coxcombs of thatday, usually assumed, "who that heard thee when thou talkest of humilityand devotion, would recognize the sternest heart and the most daringambition God ever gave to prince?"

  Richard started at these words, and his eye shot fire as it met the keencalm glance of the prelate.

  "Nay, your Grace wrongs me," he said, gnawing his lip,--"or I should notsay wrongs, but flatters; for sternness and ambition are no vices in aNevile's eyes."

  "Fairly answered, royal son," said the archbishop, laughing; "but let usbe frank. Thou hast persuaded me to accompany thee to Lord Warwick asa mediator; the provinces in the North are disturbed; the intrigues ofMargaret of Anjou are restless; the king reaps what he has sown in theCourt of France, and, as Warwick foretold, the emissaries and gold ofLouis are ever at work against his throne; the great barons are moodyand discontented; and our liege King Edward is at last aware that, ifthe Earl of Warwick do not return to his councils, the first blast of ahostile trumpet may drive him from his throne. Well, I attend thee: myfortunes are woven with those of York, and my interest and my loyaltygo hand in hand. Be equally frank with me. Hast thou, Lord Richard, nointerest to serve in this mission save that of the public weal?"

  "Thou forgettest that the Lady Isabel is dearly loved by Clarence, andthat I would fain see removed all barrier to his nuptial bliss. Butyonder rise the towers of Middleham. Beloved walls, which sheltered mychildhood! and, by holy Paul, a noble pile, which would resist an army,or hold one."

  While thus conversed the prince and the archbishop, the Earl of Warwick,musing and alone, slowly paced the lofty terrace that crested thebattlements of his outer fortifications.

  In vain had that restless and powerful spirit sought content inretirement. Trained from his childhood to active life, to move mankindto and fro at his beck, this single and sudden interval of repose in theprime of his existence, at the height of his fame, served but to swellthe turbulent and dangerous passions to which all vent was forbidden.

  The statesman of modern days has at least food for intellect in letterswhen deprived of action; but with all his talents, and thoroughlycultivated as
his mind was in the camp, the council, and the state, thegreat earl cared for nothing in book-lore except some rude ballad thattold of Charlemagne or Rollo. The sports that had pleased the leisure ofhis earlier youth were tedious and flat to one snatched from so mightya career. His hound lay idle at his feet, his falcon took holiday on theperch, his jester was banished to the page's table. Behold the repose ofthis great unlettered spirit! But while his mind was thus debarred fromits native sphere, all tended to pamper Lord Warwick's infirmity ofpride. The ungrateful Edward might forget him; but the king seemed tostand alone in that oblivion. The mightiest peers, the most renownedknights, gathered to his hall. Middleham,--not Windsor nor Shene norWestminster nor the Tower--seemed the COURT OF ENGLAND. As the Lastof the Barons paced his terrace, far as his eye could reach, his broaddomains extended, studded with villages and towns and castles swarmingwith his retainers. The whole country seemed in mourning for hisabsence. The name of Warwick was in all men's mouths, and not a groupgathered in market-place or hostel but what the minstrel who had someballad in praise of the stout earl had a rapt and thrilling audience.

  "And is the river of my life," muttered Warwick, "shrunk into thisstagnant pool? Happy the man who hath never known what it is to taste offame,--to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!"

  Rapt in this gloomy self-commune, he heard not the light step thatsought his side, till a tender arm was thrown around him, and a face inwhich sweet temper and pure thought had preserved to matronly beauty allthe bloom of youth, looked up smilingly to his own.

  "My lord, my Richard," said the countess, "why didst thou steal sochurlishly from me? Hath there, alas! come a time when thou deemest meunworthy to share thy thoughts, or soothe thy troubles?"

  "Fond one! no," said Warwick, drawing the form still light, thoughrounded, nearer to his bosom. "For nineteen years hast thou been to me aleal and loving wife. Thou wert a child on our wedding-day, m'amie, andI but a beardless youth; yet wise enough was I then to see, at the firstglance of thy blue eye, that there was more treasure in thy heart thanin all the lordships thy hand bestowed."

  "My Richard!" murmured the countess, and her tears of grateful delightfell on the hand she kissed.

  "Yes, let us recall those early and sweet days," continued Warwick, witha tenderness of voice and manner that strangers might have marvelledat, forgetting how tenderness is almost ever a part of such peculiarmanliness of character; "yes, sit we here under this spacious elm, andthink that our youth has come back to us once more. For verily, m'amie,nothing in life has ever been so fair to me as those days when westood hand in hand on its threshold, and talked, boy-bridegroom andchild-bride as we were, of the morrow that lay beyond."

  "Ah, Richard, even in those days thy ambition sometimes vexed my woman'svanity, and showed me that I could never be all in all to so large aheart!"

  "Ambition! No, thou mistakest,--Montagu is ambitious, I but proud.Montagu ever seeks to be higher than he is, I but assert the right to bewhat I am and have been; and my pride, sweet wife, is a part of my lovefor thee. It is thy title, Heiress of Warwick, and not my father's, thatI bear; thy badge, and not the Nevile's, which I have made the symbolof my power. Shame, indeed, on my knighthood, if the fairest dame inEngland could not justify my pride! Ah, belle amie, why have we not ason?"

  "Peradventure, fair lord," said the countess, with an arch yethalf-melancholy smile, "because that pride, or ambition, name it as thouwilt, which thou excusest so gallantly, would become too insatiate andlimitless if thou sawest a male heir to thy greatness; and God, perhaps,warns thee that, spread and increase as thou wilt,--yea, until half ournative country becometh as the manor of one man,--all must pass from theBeauchamp and the Nevile into new Houses; thy glory indeed an eternalheirloom, but only to thy land,--thy lordships and thy wealth meltinginto the dowry of a daughter."

  "At least no king hath daughters so dowried," answered Warwick; "andthough I disdain for myself the hard vassalage of a throne, yet if thechannel of our blood must pass into other streams, into nothing meanerthan the veins of royalty should it merge." He paused a moment, andadded with a sigh, "Would that Clarence were more worthy Isabel!"

  "Nay," said the countess, gently, "he loveth her as she merits. He iscomely, brave, gracious, and learned."

  "A pest upon that learning,--it sicklies and womanizes men's minds!"exclaimed Warwick, bluntly. "Perhaps it is his learning that I am tothank for George of Clarence's fears and doubts and calculations andscruples. His brother forbids his marriage with any English donzell, forEdward dares not specialize what alone he dreads. His letters burn withlove, and his actions freeze with doubts. It was not thus I loved thee,sweetheart. By all the saints in the calendar, had Henry V. or the LionRichard started from the tomb to forbid me thy hand, it would but havemade me a hotter lover! Howbeit Clarence shall decide ere the moonwanes, and but for Isabel's tears and thy entreaties, my father'sgrandchild should not have waited thus long the coming of so hesitatinga wooer. But lo, our darlings! Anne hath thine eyes, m'amie; and shegroweth more into my heart every day, since daily she more favoursthee."

  While he thus spoke, the fair sisters came lightly and gayly up theterrace: the arm of the statelier Isabel was twined round Anne'sslender waist; and as they came forward in that gentle link, with theirlithesome and bounding step, a happier blending of contrasted beauty wasnever seen. The months that had passed since the sisters were presentedfirst to the reader had little changed the superb and radiant lovelinessof Isabel, but had added surprisingly to the attractions of Anne. Herform was more rounded, her bloom more ripened; and though something oftimidity and bashfulness still lingered about the grace of her movementsand the glance of her dove-like eye, the more earnest thoughts of theawakening woman gave sweet intelligence to her countenance, and thatdivinest of all attractions--the touching and conscious modesty--to theshy but tender smile, and the blush that so came and went, so went andcame, that it stirred the heart with a sort of delighted pity for oneso evidently susceptible to every emotion of pleasure and of pain. Lifeseemed too rough a thing for so soft a nature, and gazing on her, onesighed to guess her future.

  "And what brings ye hither, young truants?" said the earl, as Anne,leaving her sister, clung lovingly to his side (for it was ever herhabit to cling to some one), while Isabel kissed her mother's hand, andthen stood before her parents, colouring deeply, and with downcast eyes."What brings ye hither, whom I left so lately deep engaged in the loom,upon the helmet of Goliath, with my burgonet before you as a sample?Wife, you are to blame,--our rooms of state will be arrasless for thenext three generations, if these rosy fingers are suffered thus to playthe idlers."

  "My father," whispered Anne, "guests are on their way hither,--a noblecavalcade; you note them not from this part of the battlements, but fromour turret it was fair to see how their plumes and banners shone in thesetting sun."

  "Guests!" echoed the earl; "well, is that so rare an honour that yourhearts should beat like village girls at a holiday? Ah, Isabel! look ather blushes. Is it George of Clarence at last? Is it?"

  "We see the Duke of Gloucester's cognizance," whispered Anne, "and ourown Nevile Bull. Perchance our cousin George, also, may--"

  Here she was interrupted by the sound of the warder's horn, followed amoment after by the roar of one of the bombards on the keep.

  "At least," said Warwick, his face lighting up, "that signal announcesthe coming of king's blood. We must honour it,--for it is our own. Wewill go forth and meet our guests--your hand, countess."

  And gravely and silently, and in deep but no longer gloomy thought,Warwick descended from the terrace, followed by the fair sisters; andwho that could have looked upon that princely pair and those lovelyand radiant children, could have foreseen that in that hour, Fate, intempting the earl once more to action, was busy on their doom!