by Mary Shelley
But the spectators cried shame — while Lady Jane with a scream hastened to save her favourite. The other, fiery as a borderer, attacked even her; and, in spite of her gloves, drops of blood from her fair hand stained her silken robe. James came to her rescue, and with one blow put an end to the offender’s life. Jane caressed her “tassel gentle;” while Mary looked on her “false carrion’s” extinction with unrepressed indignation. They returned to Stirling: immediately on their arrival they received tidings that the Duke of York’s fleet had been descried, and was expected to enter the Frith on the following day. None heard the words without emotion; the general sentiment was joy; for Richard’s landing was to be the signal of invasion. King Henry had one or two friends among the Scottish nobles, and these alone smiled contemptuously.
“We must have feasts and tourneys, fair mistress,” said the King, “to honour our royal visitor. Will your servant intrude unseemingly if while his arms extol your beauty, he wears your colours?”
Lady Jane smiled a reply, as she followed her father towards his mansion. She smiled, while feminine triumph beamed in her eye, and girlish bashfulness blushed in her cheek. “Has she not a bonny ee?” cried James to him, who rode near him. It was Sir Patrick Hamilton, his dear cousin and friend, to whom James often deferred, and respected, while he loved. His serious look recalled the King. “This is not the time, good sooth!” he continued, “for such sweet gauds — but for lance and broad-sword: — the coming of this Prince of Roses will bring our arms into play, all rusty as they are. I wonder what presence our guest may have!”
The friends then conversed concerning the projected war, which both agreed would be well-timed. It would at once give vent to the fiery impulses of the Scotch Lords, otherwise apt to prey upon each other. But lately a band of the Drummonds had burnt the kirk of Moulward, in which were six-score Murrays, with their wives and children; all of whom were victims. But foray in England — war with the land of their hate — the defiance would be echoed in glad shouts from Tweed to Tay; from the Lothians to the Carse of Gowrie; while it should be repeated in groans from the Northumberland wilds.
CHAPTER XI.
Cousin of York, thus once more we embrace thee;
Welcome to James of Scotland! For thy safety.
Know, such as love thee not shall never wrong thee.
Come, we will taste awhile our court delights.
Dream hence afflictions past, and then proceed
To high attempts of honour.
— FORD.
The Duke of York arrived off Leith. While the messengers were going to and fro, and preparation was made to disembark, he and his principal friends were assembled on the deck of their vessel, regarding this strange northern coast with curiosity, wonder, and some contempt.
“I see horses,” cried Lord Barry; “By’r Lord’s grace, grass grows hitherward — that is much!”
“I see kye,” exclaimed Frion, “so we may hope for buttered sowans at least, if not beef, at the palace of feasts.”
“Aye,” cried Sir Edward Brampton, who had come on board, “you may hope for choice cheer. I promise ye shall live well, ye that are noble — these unclad rocks and desart moors are the home of many an earl and belted knight, whose gorgeousness may vie with the cavaliers of France or Burgundy. In this it differs from England, ye will not find stout franklins or fat burgesses; there are no men of Ghent, nor London Aldermen: the halfnaked kern tills the stony soil. Next to the palace is the hearthless hovel. Wealth and penury, if not mates, are joint masters of the land.”
“I have heard,” said York, “that there is much paternal love and filial duty between the rich and poor in this country.”
“Among the northern mountains thus it is,” said Brampton; “a strange and savage race, which, my good Lord Barry, some name Irish, dwell on the barren heights, along the impassable defiles, beside their vast stormy lakes; but the Lowlander looks askance on the Highland clanship. List ye, gentlemen; all bears a different aspect here from the gentle southern kingdoms; but they are men, proud, valiant, warlike men, as such they claim our respect. His Majesty and a few others are moreover right gallant cavaliers.”
“Mark these words,” said York, earnestly, “and remember, dear friends, that we, the world’s wanderers, seek refuge here of our own will, which if we find, we must not disdain our hosts. Remember too the easy rage of the fiery Scot; and that we boast gentler customs: suffer no brawling to mar our concord; let not Richard of York, who of all his wide realm possesses your hearts only, find his dominions narrowed, or violently disturbed by your petulance and pride.”
The Duke’s associates listened with respect. Hitherto the spirited boy had been led by a Barry, a Clifford, a Neville, or a Plantagenet. They had counselled, spoken for him; his sword only had been as active as theirs. A new light seemed to have broken in upon his soul; it assumed a seriousness and power that exalted him in their eyes, while it took nothing from the candour and single-hearted reliance on their loves, which was his dearest charm.
On landing, the Duke of York was escorted to Edinburgh by the Earl of Errol, Sir Patrick Hamilton, and others. The attire, arms, and horses, with their caparisons, of these gentlemen, were little inferior to those displayed at Paris. King James awaited him at the Castle of Edinburgh. The monarch received his guest in state on his throne. The Prince was struck at once by his elegance, his majesty, and sweet animated aspect: his black bonnet, looped up by a large ruby, sat lightly on his brow, his glossy black curly hair escaping in ringlets from underneath; his embroidered shirt collar thrown back, displayed his throat, and the noble expression of his head; his dark grey eyes, his manly sun-burnt complexion, the look of thought, combined with goodness, mingled with dignity, gave an air of distinction to his whole person. Various were the physiognomies, various the guises, of those around him. The swart, gaunt Highlander, in his singular costume; the blue-eyed, red-haired sons of the Lowlands were there; and in each and all were remarkable a martial, sometimes a ferocious expression.
The Prince of England entered, surrounded by his (to the Scotch) foreign-looking knights.
James descended from his throne to embrace his visitant, and then re-assumed it, while all eyes were turned upon the royal Adventurer, whose voice and mien won every heart, before his eloquence had time to move them. “High and mighty King,” said Richard, “your grace, and these your nobles present, be pleased to hear the tragedy of one, who, born a prince, comes even as a beggar to your court. My Lords, sorrow and I were not twins: I am the elder, and for nine years I beheld not the ill-visage of that latest birth of my poor but royal mother’s fortunes. It were a long tale to tell, what rumour has made familiar to every ear: my uncle Gloucester’s usurpation; my brother’s death; and the sorrows of our race. I lost my kingdom ere I possessed it; and while yet my young hands were too feeble to grasp the sceptre of my ancestors, and with it, the sword needful to defend the same, capricious fate bestowed it on Henry of Richmond; a base-born descendant of ill-nurtured Bolingbroke; a scion of that Red Rose that so long and so rightfully had been uprooted in the land, which they had bought with its children’s dearest blood.
“Good, my lords, I might move you to pity did I relate how, in my tender years, that usurer King sought my life, buying the blood of the orphan at the hands of traitors. How, when these cruelties failed him, he used subtler arts; giving me nick-names; meeting my gallant array of partizans, not with an army of their peers, but with a base rout of deceits, treasons, spies, and blood-stained decoyers. It would suit me better to excite your admirations by speaking of the nobleness and fidelity of my friends; the generosity of the sovereigns who have shed invaluable dews upon the fading White Rose, so to refresh and restore it.
“But not to waste my tediousness on you, let this be the sum. I am here, the friend of France, the kinsman of Burgundy; the acknowledged Lord of Ireland; pursued by my powerful foe, I am here, King of Scotland, to claim your friendship and your aid. Here lies the accomplishment of my
destiny! The universal justice to be rendered me, which I dreamed of in my childhood, the eagle hopes of my youth, my better fortunes, and future greatness, have fled me. But here they have found a home: here they are garnered up; render them back to me, my lord; unlock with the iron key of fatal battle, the entrance to those treasures, all mine own, whose absence renders me so poor. Arm for me, Scotland; arm for the right! Never for a juster cause could you buckle breast-plate, or poize your lance. Be my captain, and these your peers, my fellow-soldiers. Fear not, but that we vanquish: that I gain a kingdom; you eternal glory from your regal gift. Alas! I am as an helmless vessel drifting towards the murderous rock; but you, as the strong north-wind, may fill the flapping sails, and carry me on my way with victory and gladness.”
A murmur filled the presence-chamber, dark Douglas grasped his sword; Hamilton’s eyes glanced lightnings; not one there but felt his heart beat with desire to enforce the illustrious exile’s right. The tide of rising enthusiasm paused as James arose; and deep attention held them all. He descended from his throne. “My royal brother,” he said, “were I a mere errant knight, so good and high I esteem your cause, without more ado I would don my armour, and betake me to the field. The same power which enables me to afford you far better succour than the strength of one arm, obliges me to pause and take council, ere I speak what it is in my heart to promise. But your Highness has made good your interests among my counsellors; and I read in their gestures the desire of war and adventure for your sake. Deem yourself an exile no more. Fancy that your have come from merry England to feast with your brother in the north, and we will escort you back to your capital in triumphant procession, showing the gaping world how slighter than silky cobwebs are the obstacles that oppose the united strength of Plantagenet and Stuart. Welcome — thrice welcome to the Scottish land — kinsmen, nobles, valiant gentlemen, bid dear welcome to my brother England!”
CHAPTER XII.
A lady, the wonder of her kind.
Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind;
Which dilating had moulded her mien and motion.
Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean.
— SHELLEY.
A few days made it apparent that York acquired a stronger power over the generous and amiable King of Scotland, than could be given by motives of state policy. He became his friend; no empty name with James, whose ardent soul poured itself headlong into this new channel, and revelled in a kind of extacy in the virtues and accomplishments of his favoured guest. Both these Princes were magnanimous and honourable, full of grandeur of purpose, and gentleness of manner: united by these main qualities, the diversities of their dispositions served rather to draw them closer. Though Richard’s adventures and disasters had been so many, his countenance, his very mind was less careworn than that of James. The White Rose, even in adversity, was the nursling of love: the Scottish Prince, in his palace-fostered childhood, had been the object of his father’s hatred and suspicion: cabal, violence, and duplicity had waited on him. James governed those around him by demonstrating to them, that it was their interest to obey a watchful, loving, generous monarch: Richard’s power was addressed to the most exalted emotions of the human heart, to the fidelity, self-devotion, and chivalric attachment of his adherents. James drew towards himself the confidence of men; Richard bestowed his own upon them. James was winning from his courtesy, Richard from his ingenuousness. Remorse had printed a fadeless stamp of thought and pain on the King’s countenance an internal self-communion and self-rebuke were seated in the deep shadows of his thoughtful eyes. Richard’s sorrow for the disasters he might be said to have occasioned his friends, his disdain of his own vagabond position, his sadness, when his winged thoughts flew after the Adalid, to hover over his sweet Monina; all these emotions were tinged by respect for the virtues of those around him, conscious rectitude, picus resignation to Providence, gratitude to his friends, and a tender admiration of the virgin virtues of her he loved: so that there arose thence only a softer expression for his features, a sweetness in the candour of his smile, a gentle fascination in his frank address, that gave at once the stamp of elevated feeling and goodness to his mien. He looked innocent, while James’s aspect gave token, that in his heart good and ill had waged war: the better side had conquered, yet had not come off scatheless from the fight.
In the first enthusiasm of his new attachment, James was eager to lavish on his friend every mark of his favour and interest: he was obliged to check his impatience, and to submit to the necessity of consulting with and deferring to others. His promises, though large, continued therefore to be vague; and York knew that he had several enemies at the council-board. The intimacy between him and the King prevented him from entertaining any doubts as to the result; but he had a difficult task in communicating this spirit of patient forbearance to his friends. Sometimes they took sudden fright, lest they should all at once meet a denial to their desires; sometimes they were indignant at the delays that were interposed. None was more open in his expressions of discontent than Master Secretary Frion. He, who had been the soul of every enterprize until now, who had fancied that his talents for negociation would be of infinite avail in the Scottish court, found that the friendship between the Princes, and Richard’s disdain of artfully enticing to his side his host’s noble subjects, destroyed at once his diplomatic weaving. He craftily increased the discontent of the proud Neville, the disquietude of the zealous Lady Brampton, and the turbulent intolerance of repose of Lord Barry; while Richard, on the other hand, exerted himself to tranquillize and reduce them to reason: he was sanguine in his expectations, and above all, confident in his friend’s sincere intention to do more than merely assist him by force of arms. He saw a thousand projects at work in James’s generous heart, every one tending to exalt him in the eyes of the world, and to rescue him for ever from the nameless, fugitive position he occupied. Nor was his constant intercourse with the King of small influence over his happiness: the genius, the versatile talents, the grace and accomplishments of this sovereign, the equality and sympathy that reigned between them, was an exhaustless source of more than amusement, of interest and delight. The friends of James became his friends: Sir Patrick Hamilton was chief among these, and warmly attached to the English Prince: another, whom at first ceremony had placed at a greater distance from him, grew into an object of intense interest and continual excitation.
“This evening,” said the King to him, soon after his arrival, “you will see the flower of our Scottish damsels, the flower of the world well may I call her; for assuredly, when you see the Lady Katherine Gordon, you will allow that she is matchless among women.”
Richard was surprised: did James’s devotion to Lady Jane Kennedy, nay, his conscious look whenever he mentioned her, mean nothing? Besides, on this appeal to his own judgment, he pictured his soft-eyed Spaniard, with all her vivacity and all her tenderness, and he revolted from the idea of being the slave of any other beauty. “Speak to our guest, Sir Patrick,” continued the King, “and describe the fair earthly angel who makes a heaven of our bleak wilds; or rather, for his Highness might suspect you, let me, not her lover, but her cousin, her admirer, her friend, tell half the charms, half the virtues of the daughter of Huntley. Is it not strange that I, who have seen her each day since childhood, and who still gaze with wonder on her beauty, should yet find that words fail me when I would paint it? I am apt to see, and ready to praise, the delicate arch of this lady’s brow, the fire of another’s eyes, another’s pouting lip and fair complexion, the gay animation of one, the chiseled symmetry of a second. Often, when our dear Lady Kate has sat, as is often her wont, retired from sight, conversing with some travelled greybeard, or paying the homage of attention to some ancient dame (of late I have remarked her often in discourse with Lady Brampton), I have studied her face and person to discover where the overpowering charm exists, which, like a strain of impassioned music, electrifies the senses, and touches the hearts of all near her. Is it in her eyes? A poet migh
t dream of dark blue orbs like hers, and that he had kissed eyelids soft as those, when he came unawares on the repose of young Aurora, and go mad for ever after, because it was only a dream: yet I have seen brighter; nor are they languishing. Her lips, yes, the soul of beauty is there, and so is it in her dimpled chin. In the delicate rounding of her cheeks, in the swanlike loveliness of her throat, in the soft ringlets of her glossy hair, down to the very tips of her roseate-tinged fingers, there is proportion, expression and grace. You will hardly see all this: at first you will be struck; extreme beauty must strike; but your second thought will be, to wonder what struck you, and then you will look around, and see twenty prettier and more attractive; and then, why, at the first words she speaks, you will fancy it an easy thing to die upon the mere thought of her: her voice alone will take you out of yourself, and carry you into another state of being. She is simple as a child, straight-forward, direct: falsehood — pah! Katherine is Truth. This simplicity, which knows neither colouring nor deviation, might almost make you fear, while you adore her, but that her goodness brings you back to love. She is good, almost beyond the consciousness of being so: she is good, because she gives herself entirely up to sympathy; and, beyond every other, she dives into the sources of your pleasures and pains, and takes a part in them. The better part of yourself will, when she speaks, appear to leap out, as if, for the first time, it found its other half; while the worse is mute, like a stricken dog, before her. She is gay, more eager to create pleasure than to please; for to please, we must think of ourselves, and be ourselves the hero of the story, and Katherine is ever forgetful of self: she is guileless and gall-less; all love her; her proud father, and fiery, contentious Highland brothers, defer to her; yet, to look at her, it is as if the youngest and most innocent of the Graces read a page of Wisdom’s book, scarce understanding what it meant, but feeling that it was right.”
