by Mary Shelley
“Lady of my heart, arise,” said Richard; “speak my soft-voiced Katherine — my White Rose of beauty — fair flower, crowning York’s withered tree. Has not God done all in giving you to me; yet we must part, love, for awhile. Your soldier is for the wars, Kate, while you sit in your bower, weaving victorious garlands for his return.”
“My ever dear Lord,” said Katherine, “I speak with fear, because I feel that I shall not address myself to your concealed thought. I do not wish to penetrate your secrets, and yet I tremble at their event. You have not so far deceived yourself as to imagine, that with these unfortunate men, you can ride over the pride and the power of this island; did I see on what else you founded the lofty hope, that has, since we came here, beamed in your eyes, I would resign myself to your better wisdom. But, wherever I turn my view, there is a blank. You do not dream of conquest, though you feel secure of victory. What can this mean, save that you see glory in death?”
“You are too quick-sighted, sweet Kate,” said Richard, “and see beyond the mark. I do not set my cast upon falling in this fray; though it may well happen that I should: but I have another aim.”
“Without guessing at what that may be,” replied the lady, “since you seem desirous to withhold the knowledge, permit me to present another object to your choice; decide between them, and I submit: but do not carelessly turn from mine. There is all to lose, nought to win, in what you now do. Death may blot the future page, so that we read neither disgrace or prison in its sad lines; but wherefore risk to die. While yet, dear love, we are young, life has a thousand charms, and one may be the miserable survivor, whose heart now bleeds at the mere surmise.”
She faltered; he kissed her soft cheek, and pressed her to his heart. “Why may we not — why should we not live?” continued Katherine; “what is there in the name or state of king, that should so take captive our thoughts, that we can imagine no life but on a throne? Believe me, careful nights and thorny days are the portion of a monarch: he is lifted to that awful height only to view more clearly destruction beneath; around, fear, hate, disloyalty, all yelling at him. The cold, heartless Tudor may well desire the prize, for he has nothing save the gilt crown to ennoble him; nothing but the supple knees of courtiers to present to him the show of love. But — ah! could I put fire into my weak words — my heart’s zeal into my supplicatory voice — persuasion would attend upon me, and you would feel that to the young, to two united as we are, our best kingdom is each other’s hearts; our dearest power that which each, without let or envy, exercises over the other. Though our palace roof be the rafters of a lowly cot, our state, the dear affection we bear each other, our attendants the duty and observance of one to the other — I, so served by King Edward’s son — you, by the rightful queen of this fair island — were better waited on than Henry and Elizabeth, by their less noble servitors. I almost think that, with words like these, I might draw you from the uneasy throne to the downy paradise of love; and can I not from this hard struggle, while death yet guards the palace gate, and you will be pierced through and through long ere you can enter.”
“Thus, my gentle love,” said Richard, “you would have me renounce my birth and name; you desire that we become the scorn of the world, and would be content that so dishonoured, the braggart impostor, and his dame Katherine, should spend their shameful days in an ignominious sloth, misnamed tranquillity. I am a king, lady, though no holy oil nor jewelled crown has touched this head; and such I must prove myself.”
“Oh, doubt it not,” she replied, “it is proved by your own speech and your own nobleness; my heart approves you such; the whole earth, till its latest day, will avouch that the lord of Katherine is no deceiver; but my words avail not with you.”
“They do avail, my best, my angel girl, to show me that the world’s treasure is mere dross compared with thee: one only thing I prize, not as thy equal, but as that without which, I were a casket not even worthy to encase this jewel of the earth — my honour! A word taught me by my victim brother, by my noble cousin Lincoln, by the generous Plantagenet; I learnt its meaning among a race of heroes — the Christian cavaliers — the Moorish chivalry of Spain; dear is it to me, since without it I would not partake your home of love — an home, more glorious and more blessed than the throne of the universe. It is for that I now fight, Katherine; not for a kingdom; which, as thy royal Cousin truly said, never will be mine. If I fall, that Cousin, the great, the munificent James, will be your refuge.”
“Never,” interrupted the lady, “Scotland I shall never see again; never show myself, a queen and no queen, the mock of their rude speech; never put myself into my dear, but ambitious father’s hands, to be bartered away to another than my Richard; rather with your aunt of Burgundy, rather in Tudor’s own court, with your fair sister. Holy angels! of what do I speak? how frightfully distinct has the bereft world spread itself out as my widowed abode!”
A gush of tears closed her speech. “Think of brighter days, my love,” said Richard, “they will be ours. You spoke erewhile of the difficulty of giving true imagery to the living thought; thus, I know not how to shape an appropriate garb (to use a trope of my friend Skelton) for my inmost thoughts. I feel sure of success. I feel, that in giving up every prospect of acquiring my birth-right, I make the due oblation to fortune, and that she will bestow the rest — that rest is to rescue my name from the foul slur Henry has cast on it; to establish myself as myself in the eyes of England; and then to solicit your patience in our calamity — your truth and love as the only sceptre and globe this hand will ever grasp. In my own Spain, among the orange and myrtle groves, the flowery plains and sun-lit hills of Andalusia, we will live unambitious, yet more fortunate than crowned emperors.”
With such words and promises he soothed her fears; to the word honour she had no reply. Yet it was a mere word here; in this case, a barren word, on which her life and happiness were to be wrecked.
The Prince and Monina had met with undisguised delight. No Clifford would now dare traduce her; she need not banish herself from countries where his name enriched the speech of all men; nor even from that which, invited by her, he had come to conquer. He was glad to be able to extend his zealous fraternal protection over her, to feel that he might guard her through life, despite of the fortune that divided them. He obtained for her the Lady Katherine’s regard, which she sought opportunities to demonstrate, while they were avoided by Monina, who honoured and loved her as Richard’s wife and dearest friend, yet made occasion to absent herself from both. Nothing beautiful could be so unlike as these two fair ones. Katherine was the incarnate image of loveliness, such as it might have been conceived by an angelic nature; noble, soft, equable from her tender care not to displease others; in spite of the ills of fate, gay, because self-satisfied and resigned; the bright side of things was that which she contemplated: the bright and the tranquil — although the hazards run by him she loved, at this period informed her thoughts with terror. Monina, — no, there was no evil in Monina; if too much self-devotion, too passionate an attachment to one dear idea, too enthusiastic an adoration of one exalted being, could be called aught but virtue. The full orbs of her dark eyes, once flashing bright, were now more serious, more melancholy; her very smile would make you weep; her vivacity, all concentred in one object, forgot to spend itself on trifles; yet, while the Princess wept that Richard should encounter fruitless danger for a mistaken aim, gladness sat on Monina’s brow: “He goes to conquer; God will give victory to the right: as a warrior he treads his native land; as a monarch he will rule over her. The very name of King he bears, will shame the lukewarm English; they will gather round the apparent sun, now that he shows himself unclouded, leaving the false light, Tudor, to flicker into its native nothingness.”
“Monina,” said the Prince, “you in the wide world can bestow richest largess on the beggar, King Richard.” She looked on him in wonder. “I go to conquer or to die: this, lovely one, is no new language for you; a warrior’s friend must hear such wor
ds unflinching. I die without a fear if you take one charge upon you.” Her beaming, expressive eyes replied to him. He continued: “The Adalid and safety are images most firmly united in my mind; if I cannot find security on board of her myself, let those dear to me inherit my possession there. The hardest thought that I bear with me, is that my fair Queen should become captive to my base-minded foe. May I not trust that if I fall, the Adalid will be her home and refuge to convey her to her native country, or any whither she may direct? I intrust this charge to you, my sister, my far more than sister, my own kind Monina. You will forget yourself in that fateful hour, to fulfil my latest wish?”
“My Prince,” she replied, “your words were cruel, did I not know that you speak in over care, and not from the impulse of your heart. In the same spirit, I promise that your desire shall be accomplished: if you fall, my father will protect — die for my lady the Queen. But why speak these ill-omened words? You will succeed; you will hasten the lagging hand of Fate, and dethrone one never born to reign, to bestow on England its rightful king. The stars promise this in their resplendent, unfailing scrowl — the time-worn student in his lore has proclaimed it — the sacred name of monarch which you bear, is the pledge and assurance of predestined victory.”
“And you meanwhile will stay, and assure Katherine’s destiny?”
“My dear Lord, I have a task to accomplish. If I leave her Grace, it is because all spirits of good and power watch over her, and my weak support is needed elsewhere. I am bound for London.”
They parted thus. The temerity of their designs sometimes inspired them with awe; but more usually animated them to loftier hopes. When the thickening shadows of “coming events” clouded their spirits, they took refuge in the sun-bright imaginations which painted to each the accomplishment of their several hopes. Monina felt assured that the hour of victory was at hand. Richard looked forward to a mortal struggle, to be crowned with success: a few short weeks or briefer days would close the long account: his word redeemed, his honour avenged, he looked forward to his dear reward: not a sceptre — that was a plaything fit for Henry’s hand; but to a life of peace and love; a very eternity of sober, waking bliss, to be passed with her he idolized, in the sunny clime of his regretted Spain.
CHAPTER VIII.
Oh, that stern unbending man!
In this unhappy marriage what have I
Not suffered — not endured!
— SCHILLER’S WALLENSTEIN.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
— SHAKSPEARE.
The lapse of years had confirmed Henry on his throne. He was extortionate and severe, it is true; and thus revolts had been frequent during the earlier portion of his reign; but they took their rise in a class which even in modern days, it is difficult to keep within the boundaries of law. The peasantry, scattered and dependant on the nobles, were tranquil; but artificers, such as the miners of Cornwall, who met in numbers, and could ask each other, “Why, while there is plenty in the land, should we and our children starve? Why pay our hard earnings into the regal coffers?” and, still increasing in boldness, demand at last, “Why should these men govern us?
“We are many — they are few!”
Thus sedition sprung from despair, and assumed arms; to which Henry had many engines to oppose, bulwarks of his power. A commercial spirit had sprung up during his reign, partly arising from the progress of civilization, and partly from so large a portion of the ancient nobility having perished in the civil wars. The spirit of chivalry, which isolates man, had given place to that of trade, which unites them in bodies.
Among these, the White Rose of England had not a single partizan — the nobles who once had upheld the house of York were few; they had for the last eight years been intent upon restoring their fortunes, and were wholly disinclined to the endangering them afresh for a stranger youth. When Fitzwater, Stanley, and their numerous fellow-conspirators, and fellow-victims sided with the Duke of York, nearly all England entertained a timid belief in his identity with King Edward’s lost son — but those times were changed. Many were glad to soothe their consciences by declaring him an impostor; many so desired to curry favour with Henry; a still greater number either feared to say their thought, or were averse to disturb the tranquillity of their country, by a contest, which could benefit one man alone, and which must entail on them another war like that so lately ended — Abroad, in France, Burgundy, and Scotland, the Prince might be discountenanced from political motives; but he was treated with respect, and spoken of as being the man he named himself: in England it was otherwise — contempt followed hard upon fear, giving birth to derision, the best weapon against the unhappy, which Henry well knew how to wield. He had two motives in this — one was, that by affixing disgrace and scorn to his adversary, he took away the glitter of his cause, and deterred the young and ambitious from any desire to share in his obloquy. The other was a feeling deeperrooted in his mind — an intense hatred of the House of York — an exultation in its overthrow and disgrace — a gloating over every circumstance that blotted it with ignominy. If Richard had really been an impostor, Henry had not used half the pains to stigmatise him as low-born — to blast his pride with nicknames, nor have looked forward with the joy he now did, to having him in his power — to the degradation — the mortal stain of infamy he intended to taint him with for ever.
Secure in power — fearless of the result, Henry heard with unfeigned joy that his young rival had landed in England, and was advancing into the interior of the island, at the head of the Cornish insurgents. He himself announced the rising to his nobles. Laughing, he said, “I have tidings for you, gentlemen: a flight of wild geese clad in eagles’ feathers, are ready to pounce upon us. Even now they hover over our good city of Exeter, frighting the honest burghers with their dissonance.”
“Blackheath will witness another victory,” said Lord Oxford.
“And my kitchen receive a new scullion,” replied the King; “since Lambert Simnel became falconer, our roast meat thinks itself dishonoured at not being spitted by a pretender to my crown; for no Audley heads these fellows, but the King of Rakehells himself, the most noble Perkin, who, to grace the more the unwashed rogues, calls himself Richard the Fourth for the nonce. I have fair hope to see his Majesty this bout, if he whiz not away in a fog, or sink underground like Lord Lovel, to the disappointment of all merry fellows, who love new masks and gaudy mumming.”
“Please your Majesty,” said the young Lord William Courtney, “it is for the honour of our house that not a stone of Exeter be harmed. With your good leave, my father and myself will gather in haste what force we may: if fortune aid us, we may present your Grace with your new servitor.”
“Be it so, my Lord,” replied the King, “and use good dispatch. We ourselves will not tarry: so that, with less harm to all, we may tread out these hasty lighted embers. Above all, let not Duke Perkin escape; it is my dearest wish that he partake our hospitality.”
“Yes,” so ran Henry’s private thoughts; “he must be mine, mine alive, mine to deal with as I list.” With even more care than he put in the mustering his army, he ordered that the whole of the southern sea-coast of England should be guarded; every paltry fishing village had its garrison, which permitted no boat to put off to sea, nor any to land, without the strictest investigation; not content with this, he committed it to the care of his baser favourites to forge some plot which might betray his enemy without a blow into his hands.
“Give me your benison, good Bess,” said the Monarch, with unwonted gaiety of manner; “with daylight I depart on the ungentle errand of encountering your brother Perkin.”
Elizabeth, not less timid than she had ever been, was alarmed by his show of mirth, and by this appellation bestowed on one she knew to be so near of kin. That very morning she had seen Monina — the enthusiastic Monina, who, confiding in her royal friend’s success, visited London to watch over the fate of
Elizabeth and her children. The Queen smiled at her offers of service; she felt that no such army could endanger Henry’s reign; but she feared for Richard, for her ill-fated brother, who had now entered the net, for whom she felt assured there was no escape. Trembling at her own boldness, she answered the King, “Whoever he may be, you will not destroy him in cold blood?”
“You would have me spare the impostor?” asked Henry. “Spare him who claims your son’s throne? By Our Lady of Walsingham, the maternal virtues of the daughter of York deserve high praise.”
Elizabeth, dreading more to offend, horrorstruck at the idea that her husband should shed her brother’s blood, burst into tears. “Silly girl,” said Henry, “I am not angry; nay, more, I grant your prayer. Perkin, if not slain by a chance blow, shall live. My word is passed; trust to it: I neither inquire nor care whether he be the godson or the base brat of the libertine Edward. In either case, my revenge stoops not so low as his paltry life: does this content you?”
“May the saints bless your Grace,” said Elizabeth, “you have eased my every fear.”
“Remember then that you prove no ingrate,” continued the King, “no dupe of report, no traducer of your children’s birth. Betray no interest in the knave’s downfall, save as he is my enemy. If you display any emotion that awakens a doubt, that this canker rose be aught in your eyes except a base pretender — if you mark any feeling but stern contempt for one so vile — tremble. My vengeance will fall on him; and his blood be on your head.”
“Magnanimous Prince!” thought Elizabeth, in bitter scorn, when he had left her: “this is your mercy. You fear! My poor Richard — your sister, a monarch’s daughter, is finely taught by this Earl’s son. But you will live; then let him do his worst: the Queen of England is not quite a slave; if Henry can bind, Elizabeth may loose; and the Duke of York laugh in another land at the malice of his enemy.”
