The Last of the Barons — Complete
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CHAPTER VII. THE LAST PILGRIMS IN THE LONG PROCESSION TO THE COMMONBOURNE.
The king and his royal brothers, immediately after the victory, rodeback to London to announce their triumph. The foot-soldiers still stayedbehind to recruit themselves after the sore fatigue. And towards theeminence by Hadley church, the peasants and villagers of the districthad pressed in awe and in wonder; for on that spot had Henry (now sadlyled back to a prison, never again to unclose to his living form) stoodto watch the destruction of the host gathered in his name; and to thatspot the corpses of Warwick and Montagu were removed, while a bier wasprepared to convey their remains to London; [The bodies of Montagu andthe earl were exhibited bareheaded at St. Paul's church for three days,"that no pretence of their being alive might stir up any rebellionafterwards;... they were then carried down to the Priory of Bisham, inBerkshire, where among their ancestors by the mother's side (the Earlsof Salisbury), the two unquiet brothers rest in one tomb.... The largeriver of their blood, divided now into many streams, runs so small, theyare hardly observed as they flow by." (Habington's "Life of Edward IV.,"one of the most eloquent compositions in the language, though incorrectas a history).--"Sic transit gloria mundi."] and on that spot had therenowned friar conjured the mists, exorcised the enchanted guns, anddefeated the horrible machinations of the Lancastrian wizard.
And towards the spot, and through the crowd, a young Yorkist captainpassed with a prisoner he had captured, and whom he was leading to thetent of the Lord Hastings, the only one of the commanders from whommercy might be hoped, and who had tarried behind the king and his royalbrothers to make preparations for the removal of the mighty dead.
"Keep close to me, Sir Marmaduke," said the Yorkist; "we must look toHastings to appease the king: and, if he hope not to win your pardon, hemay, at least, after such a victory, aid one foe to fly."
"Care not for me, Alwyn," said the knight; "when Somerset was deaf saveto his own fears, I came back to die by my chieftain's side, alas, toolate! too late! Better now death than life! What kin, kith, ambition,love, were to other men was Lord Warwick's smile to me!"
Alwyn kindly respected his prisoner's honest emotion, and took advantageof it to lead him away from the spot where he saw knights andwarriors thickest grouped, in soldier-like awe and sadness, roundthe Hero-Brothers. He pushed through a humbler crowd of peasants andcitizens, and women with babes at their breast; and suddenly saw a troopof timbrel-women dancing round a leafless tree, and chanting some wildbut mirthful and joyous doggerel.
"What obscene and ill-seasoned revelry is this?" said the trader to agaping yeoman.
"They are but dancing, poor girls, round the wicked wizard whom FriarBungey caused to be strangled, and his witch daughter."
A chill foreboding seized upon Alwyn: he darted forward, scatteringpeasant and tymbestere with his yet bloody sword. His feet stumbledagainst some broken fragments; it was the poor Eureka, shattered, atlast, for the sake of the diamond! Valueless to the great friar, sincethe science of the owner could not pass to his executioner,--valuelessthe mechanism and the invention, the labour and the genius; but thesuperstition and the folly and the delusion had their value, and theimpostor who destroyed the engine clutched the jewel!
From the leafless tree was suspended the dead body of a man; beneath,lay a female, dead too; but whether by the hand of man or the mercyof Heaven, there was no sign to tell. Scholar and Child, Knowledgeand Innocence, alike were cold; the grim Age had devoured them, as itdevours ever those before, as behind, its march, and confounds, in onecommon doom, the too guileless and the too wise!
"Why crowd ye thus, knaves?" said a commanding voice.
"Ha, Lord Hastings! approach! behold!" exclaimed Alwyn.
"Ha, ha!" shouted Graul, as she led her sisters from the spot, wheeling,and screaming, and tossing up their timbrels, "ha! the witch and herlover! Ha, ha! Foul is fair! Ha, ha! Witchcraft and death go together,as thou mayest learn at the last, sleek wooer."
And, peradventure, when, long years afterwards, accusations ofwitchcraft, wantonness, and treason resounded in the ears of Hastings,and, at the signal of Gloucester, rushed in the armed doomsman, thoseominous words echoed back upon his soul!
At that very hour the gates of the Tower were thrown open to themultitude. Fresh from his victory, Edward and his brothers had goneto render thanksgivings at St. Paul's (they were devout, those threePlantagenets!), thence to Baynard's Castle, to escort the queen and herchildren once more to the Tower. And, now, the sound of trumpets stilledthe joyous uproar of the multitude, for in the balcony of the casementthat looked towards the chapel the herald had just announced that KingEdward would show himself to the people. On every inch of the courtyard,climbing up wall and palisade, soldier, citizen, thief, harlot, age,childhood, all the various conditions and epochs of multiform life,swayed, clung, murmured, moved, jostled, trampled,--the beings of thelittle hour!
High from the battlements against the weltering beam floated Edward'sconquering flag,--a sun shining to the sun. Again, and a third time,rang the trumpets, and on the balcony, his crown upon his head, buthis form still sheathed in armour, stood the king. What mattered to thecrowd his falseness and his perfidy, his licentiousness and cruelty? Allvices ever vanish in success! Hurrah for King Edward! THE MAN OF THE AGEsuited the age, had valour for its war and cunning for its peace, andthe sympathy of the age was with him! So there stood the king; at hisright hand, Elizabeth, with her infant boy (the heir of England) in herarms, the proud face of the duchess seen over the queen's shoulder. ByElizabeth's side was the Duke of Gloucester, leaning on his sword, andat the left of Edward, the perjured Clarence bowed his fair head to thejoyous throng! At the sight of the victorious king, of the lovely queen,and, above all, of the young male heir, who promised length of days tothe line of York, the crowd burst forth with a hearty cry, "Longlive the king and the king's son!" Mechanically Elizabeth turned hermoistened eyes from Edward to Edward's brother, and suddenly, as witha mother's prophetic instinct, clasped her infant closer to her bosom,when she caught the glittering and fatal eye of Richard, Duke ofGloucester (York's young hero of the day, Warwick's grim avenger in thefuture), fixed upon that harmless life, destined to interpose a feebleobstacle between the ambition of a ruthless intellect and the heritageof the English throne!