The Last of the Barons — Complete
Page 53
CHAPTER VIII. THE ANCIENTS RIGHTLY GAVE TO THE GODDESS OF ELOQUENCE ACROWN.
The lady of Warwick stood at the threshold of the porch, which, in theinner side of the broad quadrangle, admitted to the apartments used bythe family; and, heading the mighty train that, line after line, emergedthrough the grim jaws of the arch, came the earl on his black destrier,and the young king.
Even where she stood, the anxious chatelaine beheld the moody and gloomyair with which Edward glanced around the strong walls of the fortress,and up to the battlements that bristled with the pikes and sallets ofarmed men, who looked on the pomp below, in the silence of militarydiscipline.
"Oh, Anne!" she whispered to her youngest daughter, who stood besideher, "what are women worth in the strife of men? Would that our smilescould heal the wounds which a taunt can make in a proud man's heart!"
Anne, affected and interested by her mother's words, and with a secretcuriosity to gaze upon the man who ruled on the throne of the princeshe loved, came nearer and more in front; and suddenly, as he turned hishead, the king's regard rested upon her intent eyes and blooming face.
"Who is that fair donzell, cousin of Warwick?" he asked.
"My daughter, sire."
"Ah, your youngest!--I have not seen her since she was a child."
Edward reined in his charger, and the earl threw himself from his selle,and held the king's stirrup to dismount. But he did so with a haughtyand unsmiling visage. "I would be the first, sire," said he, with aslight emphasis, and as if excusing to himself his condescension, "towelcome to Middleham the son of Duke Richard."
"And your suzerain, my lord earl," added Edward, with no less prouda meaning, and leaning his hand lightly on Warwick's shoulder, hedismounted slowly. "Rise, lady," he said, raising the countess, whoknelt at the porch, "and you too, fair demoiselle. Pardieu, we envy theknee that hath knelt to you." So saying, with royal graciousness, hetook the countess's hand, and they entered the hall as the musicians, inthe gallery raised above, rolled forth their stormy welcome.
The archbishop, who had followed close to Warwick and the king,whispered now to his brother,
"Why would Edward address the captains?"
"I know not."
"He hath made himself familiar with many in the march."
"Familiarity with a steel casque better becomes a king than waisall witha greasy flat-cap."
"You do not fear lest he seduce from the White Bear its retainers?"
"As well fear that he can call the stars from their courses around thesun."
While these words were interchanged, the countess conducted the king toa throne-chair raised upon the dais, by the side of which were placedtwo seats of state, and, from the dais, at the same time, advanced theDuke and Duchess of Clarence. The king prevented their kneeling, andkissed Isabel slightly and gravely on the forehead. "Thus, noble lady,I greet the entrance of the Duchess of Clarence into the royalty ofEngland."
Without pausing for reply, he passed on and seated himself on thethrone, while Isabel and her husband took possession of the state chairson either hand. At a gesture of the king's the countess and Anne placedthemselves on seats less raised, but still upon the dais. But nowas Edward sat, the hall grew gradually full of lords and knights whocommanded in Warwick's train, while the earl and the archbishop stoodmute in the centre, the one armed cap-a-pie, leaning on his sword, theother with his arms folded in his long robes.
The king's eye, clear, steady, and majestic, roved round that martialaudience, worthy to be a monarch's war-council, and not one of whommarched under a monarch's banner! Their silence, their discipline, thesplendour of their arms, the greater splendour of their noble names,contrasted painfully with the little mutinous camp of Olney, and thesurly, untried recruits of Anthony Woodville. But Edward, whose step,whose form, whose aspect, proclaimed the man conscious of his rights tobe lord of all, betrayed not to those around him the kingly pride, thelofty grief, that swelled within his heart. Still seated, he raised hisleft hand to command silence; with the right he replaced his plumed capupon his brow.
"Lords and gentlemen," he said (arrogating to himself at once, as athing of course, that gorgeous following), "we have craved leave of ourhost to address to you some words,--words which it pleases a king toutter, and which may not be harsh to the ears of a loyal subject. Norwill we, at this great current of unsteady fortune, make excuse, nobleladies, to you, that we speak of war to knighthood, which is ever thesworn defender of the daughter and the wife,--the daughters and the wifeof our cousin Warwick have too much of hero-blood in their blue veins togrow pale at the sight of heroes. Comrades in arms! thus far towards ourfoe upon the frontier we have marched, without a sword drawn or an arrowlaunched from an archer's bow. We believe that a blessing settles on thehead of a true king, and that the trumpet of a good angel goes beforehis path, announcing the victory which awaits him. Here, in the hall ofthe Earl of Warwick, our captain-general, we thank you for your cheerfulcountenance and your loyal service; and here, as befits a king, wepromise to you those honours a king alone worthily can bestow." Hepaused, and his keen eye glanced from chief to chief as he resumed: "Weare informed that certain misguided and traitor lords have joinedthe Rose of Lancaster. Whoever so doth is attainted, life and line,evermore! His lands and dignities are forfeit to enrich and to ennoblethe men who strike for me. Heaven grant I may have foes eno' to rewardall my friends! To every baron who owns Edward IV. king (ay, and notking in name, king in banquet and in bower, but leader and captain inthe war), I trust to give a new barony, to every knight a new knight'sfee, to every yeoman a hyde of land, to every soldier a year's pay. Whatmore I can do, let it be free for any one to suggest,--for my domains ofYork are broad, and my heart is larger still!"
A murmur of applause and reverence went round. Vowed, as those warriorswere, to the earl, they felt that A MONARCH was amongst them.
"What say you, then? We are ripe for glory. Three days will we halt atMiddleham, guest to our noble subject."
"Three days, sire!" repeated Warwick, in a voice of surprise.
"Yes; and this, fair cousin, and ye, lords and gentlemen, is my reasonfor the delay. I have despatched Sir William, Lord de Hastings, tothe Duke of Gloucester, with command to join us here (the archbishopstarted, but instantly resumed his earnest, placid aspect); to the LordMontagu, Earl of Northumberland, to muster all the vassals of our shireof York. As three streams that dash into the ocean, shall our triplearmy meet and rush to the war. Not even, gentlemen, not even to thegreat Earl of Warwick will Edward IV. be so beholden for roiaulme andrenown, as to march but a companion to the conquest. If ye were raisedin Warwick's name, not mine,--why, be it so! I envy him such friends;but I will have an army of mine own, to show mine English soldiery howa Plantagenet battles for his crown. Gentlemen, ye are dismissed to yourrepose. In three days we march! and if any of you know in these fairrealms the man, be he of York or of Lancaster, more fit to command bravesubjects than he who now addresses you, I say to that man, turn rein,and leave us! Let tyrants and cowards enforce reluctant service,--mycrown was won by the hearts of my people! Girded by those hearts, let mereign, or, mourned by them, let me fall! So God and Saint George favourme as I speak the truth!"
And as the king ceased, he uncovered his head, and kissed the crossof his sword. A thrill went through the audience. Many were there,disaffected to his person, and whom Warwick's influence alone could haveroused to arms; but at the close of an address spirited and loyal initself, and borrowing thousand-fold effect by the voice and mien of thespeaker, no feeling but that of enthusiastic loyalty, of almost tearfuladmiration, was left in those steel-clad breasts.
As the king lifted on high the cross of his sword, every blade leapedfrom its scabbard, and glittered in the air; and the dusty banners inthe hall waved, as to a mighty blast, when, amidst the rattle of armour,burst forth the universal cry, "Long live Edward IV.! Long live theking!"
The sweet countess, even amidst the excitement, kept her eyes anxiouslyfixed on W
arwick, whose countenance, however shaded by the black plumesof his casque, though the visor was raised, revealed nothing ofhis mind. Her daughters were more powerfully affected; for Isabel'sintellect was not so blinded by her ambition but that the kinglinessof Edward forced itself upon her with a might and solemn weight, whichcrushed, for the moment, her aspiring hopes.
Was this the man unfit to reign? This the man voluntarily to resign acrown? This the man whom George of Clarence, without fratricide, couldsucceed? No!--there spoke the soul of the First and the Third Edward!There shook the mane and there glowed the eye of the indomitable lionof the august Plantagenets! And the same conviction, rousing softer andholier sorrow, sat on the heart of Anne; she saw, as for the first time,clearly before her the awful foe with whom her ill-omened and belovedprince had to struggle for his throne. In contrast beside that form,in the prime of manly youth--a giant in its strength, a god in itsbeauty--rose the delicate shape of the melancholy boy who, afar inexile, coupled in his dreams, the sceptre and the bride! By one of thosemysteries which magnetism seeks to explain, in the strong intensity ofher emotions, in the tremor of her shaken nerves, fear seemed to growprophetic. A stream as of blood rose up from the dizzy floors. The imageof her young prince, bound and friendless, stood before the throne ofthat warrior-king. In the waving glitter of the countless swords raisedon high, she saw the murderous blade against the boy-heir of Lancasterdescend--descend! Her passion, her terror, at the spectre which fancythus evoked, seized and overcame her; and ere the last hurrah sent itshollow echo to the raftered roof, she sank from her chair to the ground,hueless and insensible as the dead.
The king had not without design permitted the unwonted presence of thewomen in this warlike audience,--partly because he was not unawareof the ambitious spirit of Isabel, partly because he counted on theaffection shown to his boyhood by the countess, who was said to havesingular influence over her lord, but principally because in such apresence he trusted to avoid all discussion and all questioning, andto leave the effect of his eloquence, in which he excelled all hiscontemporaries, Gloucester alone excepted, single and unimpaired; andtherefore, as he rose, and returned with a majestic bend the acclamationof the warriors, his eye now turned towards the chairs where the ladiessat, and he was the first to perceive the swoon of the fair Anne.
With the tender grace that always characterized his service to women, hedescended promptly from his throne, and raised the lifeless form in hisstalwart arms; and Anne, as he bent over her, looked so strangely lovelyin her marble stillness, that even in that hour a sudden thrill shotthrough a heart always susceptible to beauty as the harp-string to thebreeze.
"It is but the heat, lady," said he, to the alarmed countess, "and letme hope that interest which my fair kinswoman may take in the fortunesof Warwick and of York, hitherto linked together--"
"May they ever be so!" said Warwick, who, on seeing his daughter'sstate, had advanced hastily to the dais; and, moved by the king's words,his late speech, the evils that surrounded his throne, the gentlenessshown to the beloved Anne, forgetting resentment and ceremony alike, heheld out his mailed hand. The king, as he resigned Anne to her mother'sarms, grasped with soldierly frankness, and with the ready wit of thecold intellect which reigned beneath the warm manner, the hand thusextended, and holding still that iron gauntlet in his own ungloved andjewelled fingers, he advanced to the verge of the dais, to which, inthe confusion occasioned by Anne's swoon, the principal officers hadcrowded, and cried aloud,--
"Behold! Warwick and Edward thus hand in hand, as they stood when theclarions sounded the charge at Towton! and that link what swords forgedon a mortal's anvil can rend or sever?"
In an instant every knee there knelt; and Edward exultingly beheld thatwhat before had been allegiance to the earl was now only homage to theking.