In Convent Walls / The Story of the Despensers

Emily Sarah Holt

"In Convent Walls"

Preface.

The historical portion of this tale has been partially narrated in one of my previous volumes, “In All Time of our Tribulation,” in which the Despenser story is begun, and its end told from another point of view. That volume left Isabelle of France at the height of her ambition, in the place to reach which she had been plotting so long and so unscrupulously. Here we see the Nemesis come upon her and the chief partner of her guilt; the proof that there is a God that judgeth in the earth. It is surely one of the saddest stories of history—sad as all stories are which tell of men and women whom God has endowed richly with gifts, and who, casting from them the Divine hand which would fain lift them up into the light of the Golden City, deliberately choose the pathway of death, and the blackness of darkness for ever. Few women have had grander opportunities given them than Isabelle for serving God and making their names blessed and immortal. She chose rather to serve self: and thereby inscribed her name on one of the blackest pages of England’s history, and handed down her memory to eternal execration. For “life is to do the will of God”—the true blessedness and glory of life here, no less than the life hereafter.

“Oh, the bitter shame and sorrow,
That a time should ever be
When I let the Saviour’s pity
Plead in vain, and proudly answered—
‘All of self, and none of Thee!’
“Yet He found me; I beheld Him
Bleeding on the accursed tree,—
Heard Him pray, ‘Forgive them, Father!’
And my wistful heart said faintly,
‘Some of self, and some of Thee!’
“Day by day, His tender mercy,
Healing, helping, full and free,
Sweet and strong, and, ah! so patient,
Brought me lower, while I whispered,
‘Less of self, and more of Thee!’
“Higher than the highest heaven,
Deeper than the deepest sea,
Lord, Thy love at last hast conquered:
Grant me now my heart’s desire—
‘None of self, and all of Thee!’”

Part 1—- Chapter 1.

Wherein Dame Cicely de Chaucombe scribeth soothliness (1360).

Wherein Commence the Annals of Cicely.

“Heaven does with us, as we with torches do—
Not light them for themselves.”
Shakespeare.

“It is of no use, Jack,” quoth I. “I never did love her, I never can, and never shall.”

“And I never bade you, Sissot,” answered he. “Put that in belike, prithee.”

“But you bade me write the story out,” said I. “Ay, I did so. But I left you free to speak your mind of any body that should come therein, from a bishop to a baa-lamb,” said he.

“Where shall I go for mine ink?” I made answer: “seeing that some part of my tale, to correspond to the matter, should need to be writ in vernage, (Note 1) and some other in verjuice.”

“Keep two quills by you,” saith he, “with inkhorns of the twain, and use either according to the matter.”

“Ay me!” said I. “It should be the strangest and woefullest tale ever writ by woman.”

“The more need that it should be writ,” quoth Jack, “by them that have lived it, and can tell the sooth-fastness (truth) thereof. Look you, Sissot, there are men enough will tell the tale of hearsay, such as they may win of one and another, and that is like to be full of guile and contrariousness. And many will tell it to win favour of those in high place, and so shall but the half be told. Thou hast lived through it, and wist all the inwards thereof, at least from thine own standing-spot. Let there be one tale told just as it was, of one that verily knew, and had no purpose to win gold or favour, but only to speak sooth-fastness.”

“You set me an hard task, Jack!” I said, and I think I sighed.

“Easier to do, maybe, than to reckon on,” saith he, in his dry, tholemode (Note 2) way. “Thou needest write but one word at once, and thou canst take thine own time to think what word to write.”

“But I have no parchment,” said I. I am a little afraid I coveted not any, for I fancied not the business at all. It was Jack who wanted the story writ out fair, not I.

“Well, I have,” saith Jack calmly.

“Nor any quills,” said I.

“I have,” saith Jack, after the same fashion.

“And the ink is dried-up.”

“Then will we buy more.”

“But—” I stayed, for I thought I had better hold my tongue.

“But— I have no mind to it,” saith Jack. “That might have come first, Sissot. It shows, when it doth, that thou hast come to an end of thine excuses. Nay, sweet heart, do but begin, and the mind will have after.”

“Lack-a-daisy!” said I, trying to laugh, though I felt somewhat irked (worried, irritated): “I reckon, then, I had best do mine husband’s bidding without more ado.”

“There spake my Sissot,” saith he. “Good dame!”

So here am I, sat at this desk, with a roll of parchment that Jack hath cut in even leches (strips) for to make a book, and an inkhorn of fresh ink, and divers quills—O me! must all this be writ up?

Well, have forth! I shall so content Jack, and if I content not myself, that shall pay me.

It was through being one of Queen Isabel’s gentlewomen that I came to know these things, and, as Jack saith, to live through my story. And I might go a step further back, for I came to that dignity by reason of being daughter unto Dame Alice de Lethegreve, that was of old time nurse to King Edward. So long as I was a young maid, I was one of the Queen’s sub-damsels; but when I wedded my Jack (and a better Jack never did maiden wed) I was preferred to be damsel of the chamber: and in such fashion journeyed I with the Queen to France, and tarried with her all the time she dwelt beyond seas, and came home with her again, and was with her the four years following, until all brake up, and she was appointed to keep house at Rising Castle. So the whole play was played before mine own eyes.

I spake only sooth-fastness when I told Jack I could never love her. How can man love whom he cannot trust? It would have been as easy to put faith in a snake because it had lovesome marks and colouring, as in that fair, fair face—ay, I will not deny that it was marvellous fair—with the gleaming eyes, which now seemed to flash with golden light, and now to look like the dark depths of a stagnant pool. Wonderful eyes they were! I am glad I never trusted them.

Nor did I never trust her voice. It was as marvellous as the eyes. It could be sweet as honey and sharp as a two-edged sword; soft as dove’s down, and hard as an agate stone. Too soft and sweet to be sooth-fast! She meant her words only when they were sword and agate.

And the King—what shall I say of him? In good sooth, I will say nothing, but leave him to unfold himself in the story. I was not the King’s foster-sister in sooth, for I was ten years the younger; and it was Robin, my brother, that claimed kin with him on that hand. But he was ever hendy (amiable, kindly, courteous) to me. God rest his hapless soul!

But where shall my tale begin? Verily, I have no mind to set forth from the creation, as chroniclers are wont. I was not there then, and lived not through that, nor of a long while after. Must I then begin from my creation? aswhasay (as who should say—that is to say), as near it as my remembrance taketh me. Nay, I think not so: for then should I tell much of the reign of King Edward of Westminster (Edward the First), that were right beside the real story. I think I shall take date from the time of the Queen’s first departure to France, which was the year of our Lord God, 1324.

I was a young maid of seventeen years when I entered the Queen’s household,—her own age. But in another sense, I was tenfold the child that she was. Indeed, I marvel if she ever were a child. I rather think she was born grown-up, as the old heathen fabled Minerva to have been. While on waiting, I often used to see and hear things that I did not understand, yet which I could feel were disapproved by something inside me: I suppose it must have been my conscience. And if at those times I looked on my mother’s face, I could often read disapproval in her eyes also. I never loved the long secret discourses there used to be betwixt the Queen and her uncle, my Lord of Lancaster: they always had to me the air of plotting mischief. Nor did I ever love my Lord of Lancaster; there was no simplicity nor courtesy in him. His natural manner (when he let it be seen) was stern and abrupt; but he did very rarely allow it to be seen; it was nearly always some affectation put on. And I hate that, and so doth Jack.

At that time I loved and hated instinctively, as I think children do; and at seventeen years, I was a child in all things save by the almanac. I could rarely tell why I did not love people—only, I did not love them. I knew oftener why I did. I never thought much of Sir Piers de Gavaston, that the King so dearly affected, but I never hated him in a deadly fashion, as some did that I knew. I loved better Sir Hugh Le Despenser, that was afterwards Earl of Gloucester, for he—

“Sissot,” saith a voice behind me, “what is the name of that chronicle?”

“I cannot tell, Jack,” said I. “What wouldst have it called?”

“‘The Annals of Cicely,’” quoth he; “for she is beginning, middle, and end of it.”

I felt as though he had cast a pitcher of cold water over me. I sat looking at my parchment.

“Read it over, prithee,” saith he, “and count how many great I’s be therein.”

So did I, and by my troth there were seventy-seven. Seventy-seven of me! and all in six leaves of parchment, forsooth. How many soever shall there be by the time I make an end?

“That’s an ill beginning, Jack!” said I, and I felt ready to cry. “Must I begin over again?”

“Sissot,” quoth he, “nothing is ever undone in this world.”

“What mean you?” said I.

“There was man died the year before thou wert born,” he made answer, “that was great friend of my father. He was old when my father was young, yet for all that were they right good friends. He was a very learned man; so wise in respect of things known but to few, that most men accounted him a very magician, and no good Christian. Howbeit, my father said that was but folly and slander. He told my father some of the strange matters that he found in nature; and amongst them, one thing, which hath ever stuck by me. Saith Friar Roger, Nothing is ever destroyed. Nothing that hath once had being, can ever cease to be.”

“Why, Jack!” cried I. “Verily that must be folly! I cast this scrap of parchment on the chafer, and it burneth up. It is gone, see thou. Surely it hath ceased to be?”

“No,” saith he. “It is gone into ashes and smoke.”

“What be ashes and smoke?” asked I, laughing.

“Why, they be ashes and smoke,” he made answer. “And the smoke curleth up chimney, and goeth out into the air: and the air cometh up Sissot’s nose-thirls, and feedeth her bodily life; and Sissot maketh seventy-seven I’s to six pages of parchment.”

“Now, Jack, softly!” said I.

“So it is, my dame,” pursueth he. “Every thing that dieth, feedeth somewhat that liveth. But I can go further an’ thou wilt. Friar Roger thought (though he had not proved it) that every word spoken might as it were dwell in the air, and at bidding of God hereafter, all those words should return to life and be heard again by all the world.”

I could not help but laugh.

“Why, what a din!” said I. “Do but think, all the words, in all languages, buzzing about man’s ears, that were ever spoken since Adam dwelt in the Garden of Eden!”

“Wouldst thou like all thy words repeated thus, Sissot?”

“I would not mind, Jack.”

“Wouldst not? Then I am worser than thou, which is like enough. I would not like to hear all my foolish words, all my angry words, all my sinful words, echoed back to me from the starry walls of heaven. And suppose, Sissot—only suppose that God should do as much with our thoughts! I dare say He knows how.”

I covered my face with mine hands.

“That would be dreadful!” I whispered.

“It will be, in very deed,” softly said Jack, “when the Books are opened, and the names read out, in the light of that great white Throne which shall be brighter than noon-day. I reckon in that day we shall not be hearkening for Sir Piers de Gavaston’s name, nor for Sir Hugh Le Despenser’s, but only for those of John and Cicely de Chaucombe. Now, set again to thy chronicling, my Sissot, and do it in the light of that Throne, and in the expectation of that Book: so shall it be done well.”

And so Jack left me. But to speak sooth, seeing the matter thus makes me to feel as though I scarce dared do it at all. Howsobe, I have it to do: and stedfast way maketh stedfast heart.

There were plenty of people who hated Sir Hugh Le Despenser, but I and my mother Dame Alice were not amongst them. He had been brought up with the King from his youth, but the King never loved him till after the death of Sir Piers de Gavaston. The Queen loved him, just so long as the King did not. That was always her way; the moment that she saw he cared for anything which was not herself, she at once began to hate it. And verily he never gave her cause, for he held her ever dearest of any mortal thing.

Sir Hugh was as goodly a gentleman as man’s eyes might see. Those who loved him not called him proud—yea, the very spirit of pride. But the manner they thought pride seemed to me rather a kind of sternness or shortness of speech, as if he wished to have done with the matter in hand. Some people call every thing pride; if man talk much, they say he loves to hear his own voice; if he be silent, he despises his company. Now it seems to me that I often speak and am silent from many other causes than pride, and therefore it may be the like with other folk. Do those which are ever accusing other of pride, do all their actions for that reason? If not so, how or why should they suspect it in other men? I do not think Sir Hugh was so much prouder than other. He knew his own value, I dare say; and very like he did not enjoy being set at nought—who doth so? Other said he was ambitious: and there might be some sooth-fastness in the accusation; yet I fancy the accusers loved a slice of worldly grandeur no less than most men. And some said he was wicked man: that did I never believe.

As for his wife, Dame Alianora, I scarcely know what to say of her. She was a curious mixture of qualities. She clung to the King her uncle when others forsook him, she was free-handed, and she could feel for man in trouble: those were her good points. Yet she seemed to feel but what she saw; it was “out of sight, out of mind,” with her; and she loved new faces rather too well to please me. I think, for one thing, she was timid; and that oft-times causes man to appear what he is not. But she was better woman than either of her sisters—the Lady Margaret Audley and the Lady Elizabeth de Clare. I never saw her do, nor heard her say, the heartless acts and speeches whereof I knew both of them guilty. I dare say, as women go, she was not ill woman. For, alas! I have lived long enough to know that there be not many good ones.

Well, I said—no did I?—that I would begin with the year 1324 of our Lord God. But, lack-a-day! there were matters afore 1324, like as there were men before Agamemnon. Truly, methinks there be a two-three I did well not to omit: aswhasay, the dying of Queen Margaret, widow of King Edward of Westminster, which deceased seven years earlier than so. I shall never cease to marvel how it came to pass that two women of the same nation, of the same family, being aunt and niece by blood, should have been so strangely diverse as those two Queens. All that was good, wise, and gentle, was in Queen Margaret: what was in Queen Isabel will my chronicle best tell. This most reverend lady led a very retired life after her husband’s death, being but a rare visitor to the Court, dwelling as quietly and holily as any nun might dwell, and winning love and respect from all that knew her. Very charitable was she and most devout: and (if it be lawful to say thus) had I been Pope, I had sooner canonised her than a goodly number that hath been. But I do ill to speak thus, seeing the holy Father is infallible, and acts in such matters but by the leading of God’s Spirit, as saith the Church. Good lack, but there be queer things in this world! I saw once Father Philip screw up his mouth when one said the same in his hearing, and saith he—

“The Lord Pope is infallible when he speaketh ex cathedrâ, but so only.”

“But how,” saith he that spake, “shall we know when he is sat in his chair and when he is out of it?”

An odd look came into Father Philip’s eyes.

“Master,” saith he, “when I was a little lad, my mother told me divers times that it was not seemly to ask curious questions.”

But I guess what the good Friar thought, though it be not always discreet to speak out man’s thoughts. Ah me! will the time ever come when man may say what he will, with no worse thereafter than a sneer or a sharp rebuke from his neighbour? If so were, I would I had been born in those merry days—but I should want Jack to be born then belike.

“Sissot,” saith a voice over my shoulder, “wist thou the full meaning of thy wish?”

Jack is given to coming in quietly—I never knew him make a noise—and peeping over my shoulder to see how my chronicle maketh progress: for he can well read, though he write not.

“What so, Jack?” said I.

“I reckon we should be the younger by some centuries,” quoth he, “and perchance should not be at all. But allowing it, dost thou perceive that such a difference should mean a change in all things?—that no fear should in likelihood mean no reverence nor obedience, and might come to mean more than that?”

“That were dread!” said I. “What manner of times should they be?”

“I think,” saith he, “those very ‘tempora periculosa’ whereof Saint Paul speaketh, when men shall love their own selves, and be proud, unthankful, without affection, peace, or benignity, loving their pleasures rather than God. And if it serve thee, I would not like to live in those times.”

“Dear heart, nor would I!” quoth I. “Yet surely, Jack, that seemeth a gainsaying. Were all men free to speak what they would, and not be called to account therefor, it were soothly to love their neighbours and show benignity.”

“Ay, if it were done for that end,” he made answer. “But the heart of man is a cage of deceits. Much must befall the world, I take it, ere that cometh to pass: and while they that bring it about may be good men that mean well, they that come to use it may be evil, and mean ill. The Devil is not come to an end of his shifts, be thou sure. Let man run as fast and far as he will, Satan shall wit how to keep alongside.”

I said nought. Jack is very wise, a deal more than I, yet I cannot always see through his eye-glasses. Mayhap it is not always because I am wiser of the twain.

“Freedom to do good and be good is a good thing,” then saith he: “but freedom to be ill, and do ill, must needs be an ill thing. And man being what he is, how makest thou sure that he shall always use his freedom for good, and not for ill?”

“Why, that must man chance,” said I.

“A sorry chance,” answereth he. “I were liever not to chance it. I thought I heard thee deny Fina this last week to go to the dance at Underby Fair?”

“So thou didst,” said I. “She is too young, and too giddy belike, to trust with a bevy of idle damosels as giddy as she.”

“Well, we are none of us so far grown-up in all wisdom that it were safe to trust us with our own reins in all things. Hast never heard the saw, ‘He that ruleth his own way hath a fool to his governor’?”

“Well!” said I; “but then let the wise men be picked out to rule us, and the fools to obey.”

“Excellent doctrine, my Sissot!” quoth Jack, smiling in his eyes: “at least, for the fools. I might somewhat pity the wise men. But how to bring it about? Be the fools to pick out the wise men? and are they wise enough to do it? I sorely fear we shall have a sorry lot of governors when thy law comes to be tried. I think, Wife, thou and I had better leave God to rule the world, for I suspect we should do it something worser than He.”

Let me fall back to my chronicling. Another matter happed in the year 1319, the which I trow I shall not lightly forget. The Queen abode at Brotherton, the King being absent. The year afore, had the Scots made great raids on the northern parts of England, had burned the outlying parts of York while the King was there, and taken the Earl of Richmond prisoner: and now, hearing of the Queen at Brotherton, but slenderly guarded, down they marched into Yorkshire, and we, suspecting nought, were well-nigh caught in the trap.

Well I mind that night, when I was awoke by pebbles cast up at my casement, for I lay in a turret chamber, that looked outward. So soon as I knew what the sound meant, I rose from my bed and cast a mantle about me, and opened the casement.

“Is any there?” said I.

“Is that thou, Sissot?” quoth a voice which I knew at once for my brother Robert’s, “Lose not one moment, but arouse the Queen, and pray her to take horse as speedily as may be, or she shall be captured of the Scots, which come in great force by the Aire Valley, and are nearhand (nearly) at mine heels. And send one to bid the garrison be alert, and to let me in, that I may tell my news more fully.”

I wis not whether I shut the casement or no, for ere man might count ten was I in the Queen’s antechamber, and shaking of Dame Elizabeth by the shoulders. But, good lack, she took it as easy as might be. She was alway one to take matters easy, Dame Elizabeth de Mohun.

“Oh, let be till daylight,” quoth she, as she turned on her pillow. “’Tis but one of Robin Lethegreve’s fumes and frets, I’ll be bound. He is for ever a-reckoning that the Scots be at hand or the house o’ fire, and he looks for man to vault out of his warm bed that instant minute when his fearsome news be spoken. Go to sleep, Cicely, and let folks be.”

And round turned she, and, I warrant, was asleep ere I could bring forth another word. So then I fell to shaking Joan de Vilers, that lay at tother end of the chamber. But she was right as bad, though of another fashion.

“Wherefore rouse me?” saith she. “I can do nought. ’Tis not my place. If Dame Elizabeth arise not, I cannot. Thou wert best go back abed, dear heart. Thou shalt but set thyself in trouble.”

Well, there was no time to reason with such a goose; but I longed to shake her yet again. Howbeit, I tarried no longer in the antechamber, but burst into the Queen’s own chamber where she lay abed, with Dame Tiffany in the pallet—taking no heed that Joan called after me—

“Cicely! Cicely! how darest thou? Come back, or thou shall be mispaid or tint!” (Held in displeasure or ruined.)

But I cared not at that moment, whether for mispayment or tinsel. I had my duty to do, and I did it. If the news were true, the Queen was little like to snyb (blame) me when she found it so: and if no, well, I had but done as I should. And I knew that Dame Tiffany, which tended her like a hen with one chicken, should hear my tidings of another fashion from the rest. Had Dame Elizabeth lain that night in the pallet, and Dame Tiffany in the antechamber, my work had been the lighter. But afore I might win to the pallet—which to do I had need to cross the chamber,—Queen Isabel’s own voice saith from the state bed—“Who is there?”

“Dame,” said I,—forgetting to kneel, in such a fluster was I—“my brother hath now brought tidings that the Scots come in force by the Aire Valley, with all speed, and are nearhand at the very gate; wherefore—”

The Queen heard me no further. She was out of her bed, and herself donning her raiment, ere I might win thus far.

“Send Dame Elizabeth to me,” was all she said, “and thyself bid De Nantoil alarm the garrison. Well done!”

I count I am not perfect nor a saint, else had I less relished that second shake of Dame Elizabeth—that was fast asleep—and deliverance of the Queen’s bidding. I stayed me not to hear her mingled contakes and wayments (reproaches and lamentations), but flew off to the outermost door, and unbarring the same, spake through the crack that wherewith I was charged to Oliver de Nantoil, the usher of the Queen’s chamber, which lay that night at her outer door. Then was nought but bustle and stir, both within and without. The Queen would have up Robin, and hearkened to his tale while Alice Conan combed her hair, the which she bade bound up at the readiest, to lose not a moment. In less than an hour, methinks, she won to horse, and all we behind, and set forth for York, which was the contrary way to that the Scots were coming. And, ah me! I rade with Dame Elizabeth, that did nought but grieve over her lost night’s rest, and harry poor me for breaking the same. I asked at her if she had better loved to be taken of the Scots; since if so, the Queen’s leave accorded, we might have left her behind.

“Scots!” quoth she. “Where be these ghostly (fabulous, figurative) Scots? I will go bail they be wrapped of their foldings (plaids) fast asleep on some moor an hundred miles hence. ’Tis but Robin, the clown! that is so clumst (stupid) with his rashness, that he seeth a Scot full armed under every bush, and heareth a trumpeter in every corncrake: and as if that were not enough, he has a sister as ill as himself, that must take all for gospel as if Friar Robert preached it. Mary love us! but I quoke when thou gattest hold on me by the shoulders! I count it was a good hour ere I might sleep again.”

“Dear heart, Dame!” cried I, “but it was not two minutes! It is scantly an hour by now.”

“Then that is thy blame, Cicely, routing like a bedel (shouting like a town-crier), and oncoming (assaulting) folks as thou dost. I marvel thou canst not be peaceable! I alway am. Canst mind the night that ever I shaked thee awake and made thee run out of thy warm bed as if a bear were after thee?”

I trust I kept out of my voice the laughter that was in my throat as I said, “No, Dame: that cannot I.” The self notion of Dame Elizabeth ever doing thus to any was so exceeding laughable.

“Well! then why canst—Body o’ me! what ever is yonder flaming light?”

Master Oliver was just alongside, and quoth he drily—

“Burden not your Ladyship; ’tis but the Scots that have reached Brotherton, and be firing the suburbs.”

“Holy Mary, pray for us!” skraighs Dame Elizabeth, at last verily feared: “Cicely, how canst thou ride so slow? For love of all the saints; let us get on!”

Then fell she to her beads, and began to invoke all the Calendar, while she urged on her horse till his rapid trotting brake up the aves and oras into fragments that man might scarce hear and keep him sober. I warrant I was well pleased, for all my weariness, when we rade in at Micklebar of York; and so, I warrant, was Dame Elizabeth, for all her impassibility. We tarried not long at York, for, hearing that the Scots came on, the Queen removed to Nottingham for safer keeping. And so ended that year.

But no contakes had I, save of Dame Elizabeth, that for the rest of that month put on a sorrowful look at the sight of me. On the contrary part, Robin had brave reward from the King, and my Lady the Queen was pleased to advance me, as shall now be told, shortly thereafter: and ever afterwards did she seem to affy her more in me, as in one that had been tried and proved faithful unto trust.

Thus far had I won when I heard a little bruit behind me, and looking up, as I guessed, I saw Jack, over my shoulder.

“Dear heart, Jack!” said I, “but thou hast set me a merry task! Two days have I been a-work, and not yet won to the Queen’s former journey to France; yet I do thee to wit, I am full disheartened at the stretch of road I see afore me. Must I needs tell every thing that happed for every year? Mary love us! but I feel very nigh at my wits’ end but to think of it. Why, my Chronicle shall be bigger than the Golden Legend and the Morte Arthur put together, and all Underby Common shall not furnish geese enow to keep me in quills!”

I ended betwixt laughter and tears. To say sooth, I was very nigh the latter.

“Take breath, Sissot,” saith Jack, quietly.

“But dost thou mean that, Jack?”

“I mean not to make a nief (serf) of my wife,” saith he. I was something comforted to hear that.

“As for time, dear heart,” he pursueth, “take thou an hour or twain by the day, so thou weary not thyself; and for events, I counsel thee to make a diverse form of chronicle from any ever yet written.”

“How so, Jack?”

“Set down nothing because it should go in a chronicle, but only those matters wherein thyself was interested.”

“But that, Jack,” said I, laughing as I looked up on him, “shall be the ‘Annals of Cicely’ over again; wherewith I thought thou wert not compatient.” (Pleased, satisfied; the adjective of compassion.)

“Nay, the Annals of Cicely were Cicely’s fancies and feelings,” he made answer: “this should be what Cicely heard and saw.”

I sat and meditated thereon.

“And afore thou wear thy fingers to the bone with thy much scribing,” saith he, with that manner of smile of his eyes which Jack hath, “call thou Father Philip to write at thy mouth, good wife.”

“Nay, verily!” quoth I. “I would be loth to call off Father Philip from his godly meditations, though I cast no doubt he were both fairer scribe and better chronicler than I.”

To speak sooth, it was Father Philip learned me to write, and the master should be better than the scholar. I marvel more that have leisure learn not to write. Jack cannot, nor my mother, and this it was that made my said mother desirous to have me taught, for she said, had she wist the same, she could have kept a rare chronicle when she dwelt at the Court, and sith my life was like to be there also, she would fain have me able to do so. I prayed Father Philip to learn my discreet Alice, for I could trust her not to make an ill use thereof; but I feared to trust my giddy little Vivien with such edged tools as Jack saith pen and ink be. And in very sooth it were a dread thing if any amongst us should be entrapped into intelligence with the King’s enemies, or such treasonable matter; and of this are wise men ever afeared, when their wives or daughters learn to write. For me, I were little feared of such matter as that: and should rather have feared (for such as Vivien) the secret scribing of love-letters to unworthy persons. Howbeit, Jack is wiser than I, and he saith it were dangerous to put such power into the hands of most men and women.

Lo! here again am I falling into the Annals of Cicely. Have back, Dame Cicely, an’ it like you. Methinks I had best win back: yet how shall I get out of the said Annals, and forward on my journey, when the very next thing that standeth to be writ is mine own marriage?

It was on the morrow of the Epiphany, 1320, that I was wedded to my Jack in the Chapel of York Castle. I have not set down the inwards of my love-tale, nor shall I, for good cause; for then should I not only fall into the Annals of Cicely, but should belike never make end thereof. Howbeit, this will I say,—that when King Edward bestowed me on my Jack, I rather count he had his eyes about him, and likewise that there had been a few little passages that might have justified him in so doing: for Jack was of the household, and we had sat the one by the other at table more than once or twice, and had not always held our tongues when so were. So we were no strangers, forsooth, but pretty well to the contrary: and verily, I fell on my feet that morrow. I am not so sure of Jack. And soothly, it were well I should leave other folks to blow my trumpet, if any care to waste his breath at that business.

I was appointed damsel of the chamber on my marriage, and at after that saw I far more of the Queen than aforetime. Now and again it was my turn to lie in that pallet in her chamber. Eh, but I loved not that work! I used to feel all out (altogether) terrified when those great dark eyes flashed their shining flashes, and there were not so many nights in the seven that they did not. She was as easy to put out as to shut one’s eyes, but to bring in again—eh, that was weary work!

I am not like to forget that July even when, in the Palace of Westminster, my Lord of Exeter came to the Queen, bearing the Great Seal. It was a full warm eve, and the Queen was late abed. Joan de Vilers was that night tire-woman, and I was in waiting. I mind that when one scratched on the door, we thought it Master Oliver, and instead of going to see myself, I but bade one of the sub-damsels in a whisper. But no sooner said she,—“Dame, if it shall serve you, here is my Lord of Exeter and Sir Robert de Ayleston,”—than there was a full great commotion. The Queen rose up with her hair yet unbound, and bade them be suffered to enter: and when my Lord of Exeter came in, she—and after her all we of her following—set her on her knees afore him to pray his blessing. This my Lord gave, but something hastily, as though his thoughts were elsewhere. Then said he—

“Dame, the King sends you the Great Seal, to be kept of you until such time as he shall ask it again.”

And he motioned forward Sir Robert de Ayleston, that held in his arms the great bag of white leather, wherein was the Great Seal of gold.

Saw I ever in all my life face change as hers changed then! To judge from her look, she might have been entering the gates of Heaven. (A sorry Heaven, thought I, that gold and white leather could make betwixt them.) Her eyes glowed, and flashed, and danced, all at once: and she sat her down in a chair of state, and received the Seal in her own hands, and saith she—

“Bear with you my duty to the King my lord, and tell him that I will keep his great charge in safety.”

So her words ran. But her eyes said—and eyes be apt to speak truer than voices—“This day am I proudest of all the women in England, and I let not go this Seal so long as I can keep it!”

Then she called Dame Elizabeth, which received the Seal upon the knee, and the Queen bade her commit it to the great cypress coffer wherein her royal robes were kept.

Not long after that, the Queen took her chamber at the Tower afore the Lady Joan was born; and the Great Seal was then returned to the King’s Wardrobe. Master Thomas de Cherleton was then Comptroller of the Wardrobe: but he was not over careful of his office, and left much in the hands of his clerks; and as at that time Jack was clerk in charge, he was truly Keeper of the Great Seal so long as the Queen abode in the Tower. He told me he would be rare thankful when the charge was over, for he might not sleep o’ nights for thinking on the same. I do think folks in high place, that be set in great charge, should do their own work, and not leave it to them beneath, so that Master Comptroller hath all the credit when things go well, and poor John Clerk payeth all the wyte if things go wrong. But, dear heart! if man set forth to amend all the crooked ways of this world, when shall he ever have done? Maybe if I set a-work to amend me, Cicely, it shall be my best deed, and more than I am like to have done in any hurry.

Now come I to the Queen’s journey to France in 1324, and my tale shall thereupon grow more particular. The King sent her over to remonstrate with the King of France her brother for his theft of Guienne—for it was no less; and to conclude a treaty with him to restore the same. It was in May she left England and just before that something had happened wherein I have always thought she had an hand. In the August of the year before, Sir Roger de Mortimer brake prison from the Tower, and made good his escape to Normandy; where, after tarrying a small season with his mother’s kinsmen, the Seigneurs de Fienles, he shifted his refuge to Paris, where he was out of the King’s jurisdiction. Now in regard of that matter it did seem to me that King Edward was full childish and unwise. Had his father been on the throne, no such thing had ever happed: he wist how to deal with traitors. But now, with so slack an hand did the King rule, that not only Sir Roger gat free of the Tower by bribing one of his keepers and drugging the rest, but twenty good days at the least were lost while he stale down to the coast and so won away. There was indeed a hue and cry, but it wrought nothing, and even that was not for a week. There was more diligence used to seize his lands than to seize him. And at the end of all, just afore the Queen’s journey, if my Lady Mortimer his wife, that had gone down to Southampton thinking to join him, was not taken and had to Skipton Castle, and the young damsels, her children, that were with her, sent to separate convents! I have ever believed that was the Queen’s doing. It was she that loved not the Lady Mortimer should go to France: it should have interfered with her game. But what weakness and folly was it that the King should hearken her! Well—

“Soft you, now!”

“O Jack, how thou didst start me! I very nigh let my pen fall.”

“Then shouldst thou have inked thy tunic, Sissot; and it were pity, so good Cologne sindon as it is. But whither goest thou with thy goose-quill a-flying, good wife? Who was Sir Roger de Mortimer? and what like was he?”

“Who was he, Jack?” quoth I, feeling somewhat took aback. “Why, he was—he was Sir Roger de Mortimer.”

“How like a woman!” saith Jack, setting his hands in the pockets of his singlet.

“Now, Jack!” said I. “And what was he like, saidst thou? Why, he was as like a traitor, and a wastrel, and every thing that was bad, as ever I saw man in all my life.”

“Horns, belike—and cloven feet—and a long tail?” quoth Jack. “I’ll give it up, Sissot. Thou wert best write thy chronicle thine own way. But it goeth about to be rarely like a woman.”

“Why, how should it not, when a woman is she that writeth it?” said I, laughing. But Jack had turned away, with that comical twist of his mouth which shows him secretly diverted.

Verily, I know not who to say Sir Roger was, only that he was Lord of Wigmore and Ludlow, and son of the Lady Margaret that was born a Fienles, and husband of the Lady Joan that was born a Geneville; and the proudest caitiff and worst man that ever was, as shall be shown ere I lay down my pen. He was man that caused the loss of himself and of other far his betters, and that should have been the loss of England herself but for God’s mercy. The friend of Sathanas and of all evil, the foe of God and of all good—this, and no less, it seemeth me, was Sir Roger de Mortimer of Wigmore. God pardon him as He may (if such a thing be possible)!

Note 1. A very sweet, luscious wine. Verjuice was the most acid type of vinegar.

Note 2. Quiet, calm, patient. In Lowland Scotch, to thole is still to endure; and thole-mood must mean calm endurance.

Part 1—- Chapter 2.

Wherein Cicely begins to see.

“Tempt not the Tempter; he is near enough.”

Dr Horatius Bonar.

Now can any man tell what it is in folks that causeth other folks to fancy them? for I have oft-times been sorely pestered to find out. Truly, if man be very fair, or have full winning ways, and sweet words, and so forth, then may it be seen without difficulty. I never was puzzled to know why Sir Roger or any other should have fallen o’ love with Queen Isabel. But what on earth could draw her to him, that puzzled me sore. He was not young—about ten years elder than she, and she was now a woman of thirty years. Nor was he over comely, as men go,—I have seen better-favoured men, and I have seen worser. Nor were his manners sweet and winning, but the very contrary thereof, for they were rough and rude even to women, he alway seemed to me the very incarnation of pride. Men charged Sir Hugh Le Despenser with pride, but Sir Roger de Mortimer was worse than he tenfold. One of his own sons called him the King of Folly: and though the charge came ill from his lips that brought it, yet was it true as truth could be. His pride showed every where—in his dress, in the way he bore himself, in his words,—yea, in the very tones of his voice. And his temper was furious as ever I saw. Verily, he was one of the least lovesome men that I knew in all my life: yet for him, the fairest lady of that age bewrayed her own soul, and sold the noblest gentleman to the death. Truly, men and women be strange gear!

I had written thus far when I laid down my pen, and fell a-meditating, on the strangeness of such things as folks be and do in this world. And as I there sat, I was aware of Father Philip in the chamber, that had come in softly and unheard of me, so lost in thought was I. He smiled when I looked up on him.

“How goeth the chronicle, my daughter?” saith he.

“Diversely, Father,” I made answer. “Some days my pen will run apace, but on others it laggeth like oxen at plough when the ground is heavy with rain.”

“The ground was full heavy when I entered,” saith he, “for the plough was standing still.”

I laughed. “So it was, trow. But I do not think I was idle, Father; I was but meditating.”

“Wise meditations, that be fruitful in good works, be far away from idlesse,” quoth he. “And on what wert thou thinking thus busily, my daughter?”

“On the strange ways of men and women, Father.”

“Did the list include Dame Cicely de Chaucombe?” saith Father Philip, with one of his quiet smiles.

“No,” I made answer. “I had not reached her.”

“Or Philip de Edyngdon? Perchance thou hadst not reached him.”

“Why, Father, I might never think of sitting in judgment on you. No, I was thinking of some I had wist long ago: and in especial of Dame Isabel the Queen, and other that were about her. What is it moveth folks to love one another, or to hate belike?”

“There be but three things can move thee to aught, my daughter: God, Satan, and thine own human heart.”

“And my conscience?” said I.

“Men do oftentimes set down to conscience,” saith he, “that which is either God or Satan. The enlightened conscience of the righteous man worketh as God’s Holy Spirit move him. The defiled conscience of the evil man listeneth to the promptings of Satan. And the seared conscience is as dead, and moveth not at all.”

“Father, can a man then kill his conscience?”

“He may lay it asleep for this life, daughter: may so crush it with weights thereon laid that it is as though it had the sickness of palsy, and cannot move limb. But I count, when this life is over, it shall shake off the weight, and wake up, to a life and a torment that shall never end.”

“I marvel if she did,” said I, rather to myself than him.

“Daughter,” he made answer, “whoso she be, let her be. God saith not to thee, He, and she, but I, and thou. When Christ knocketh at thy door, if thou open not, shall He take it as tideful answer that thou wert full busy watching other folks’ doors to see if they would open?”

“Yet may we not learn, Father, from other folks’ blunders?”

“Hast thou so learned, daughter?”

“Well, not much,” said I. “A little, now and then, maybe.”

“I never learned much,” saith he, “from the blunders of any man save Philip de Edyngdon. What I learned from other folks’ evil deeds was mostly to despise and be angered with them—not to beware for myself. And that lore cometh not of God. Thou mayest learn from such things set down in Holy Writ: but verily it takes God to pen them, so that we may indeed profit and not scorn,—that we may win and not lose. Be sure that whenever God puts in thine hand a golden coin of His realm, with the King’s image stamped fair thereon, Satan is near at hand, with a gold-washed copper counterfeit stamped with his image, and made so like that thou hast need to look close, to make sure which is the true. ‘Hold not all gold that shineth’—a wise saw, my daughter, whether it be a thing heavenly or earthly.”

“I will endeavour myself to profit by your good counsel, Father,” said I. “But mine husband bade me write this chronicle, though, sooth to say, I had no list thereto. And if I shall leave to deal with he and she, how then may my chronicle be writ?”

“Write thy chronicle, my daughter,” he answered. “But write it as God hath writ His Chronicles. Set down that which men did, that which thou sawest and heardest. Beware only of digging into men’s purposes where thou knewest them not, and sawest but the half thereof. And it is rarely possible for men to see the whole of that which passeth in their own day. Beware of setting down a man as all evil for one evil thing thou mayest see him to do. We see them we live amongst something too close to judge them truly. And beware, most of all, of imagining that thou canst get behind God’s purposes, and lay bare all His reasons. Verily, the wisest saint on earth cannot reach to the thousandth part thereof. God can be fully understood, only of God.”

I have set down these wise words of good Father Philip, for though they be too high and wide for mine understanding, maybe some that shall read my chronicle may have better brains than she that writ.

So now once again to my chronicling, and let me endeavour to do the same as Father Philip bade me.

It was on the eve of Saint Michael, 1325, that the Queen and her meynie (I being of them) reached Paris. We were ferried over the Seine to the gate of Nully (Note 1), and thence we clattered over the stones to the Hotel de Saint Pol (Note 2), where the Queen was lodged in the easternmost tower, next to our Lady Church, and we her meynie above. Dame Isabel de Lapyoun and I were appointed to lie in the pallet by turns. The Queen’s bedchamber was hung with red sindon, broidered in the border with golden swans, and her cabinet with blue say, powdered with lily-flowers in gold, which is the arms of France, as every man knoweth, seeing they are borne by our King that now is, in right of this same Queen Isabel his mother. He, that was then my Lord of Chester, was also of the cortege, having sailed from Dover two days before Holy Cross (Note 3), and joined the Queen in Guienne; but the Queen went over in March, and was all that time in Guienne.

Dear heart! but Jack—which loveth to be square and precise in his matters—should say this were strange fashion wherein to write chronicles, to date first September and then the March afore it! I had better go back a bit.

It was, then, the 9th of March the Queen crossed from Dover to Whitsand, which the French call Guissant. She dwelt first, as I said, in Guienne, for all that summer; very quiet and peaceful were we, letters going to and fro betwixt our Queen and her lord, and likewise betwixt her and the King of France; but no visitors (without there were one that evening Dame Isabel lay in the pallet in my stead, and was so late up, and passed by the antechamber door with her shoes in her hands, as little Meliora the sub-damsel would have it she saw by the keyhole): and we might nearhand as well have been in nunnery for all the folks we saw that were not of the house. Verily, I grew sick irked (wearied, distressed) of the calm, that was like a dead calm at sea, when ships lie to, and can win neither forward nor backward. Ah, foolish Cicely! thou hadst better have given thanks for the last peace thou wert to see for many a year.

Well, my Lord of Chester come, which was the week after Holy Cross, we set forth with few days’ delay, and came to Paris, as I said, the eve of Michaelmas. Marvellous weary was I with riding, for I rade of an horse the whole way, and not, as Dame Isabel did, with the Queen in her char. I was so ill tired that I could but eat a two-three wafers (Note 4), and drink a cup of wine, and then hied I to my bed, which, I thank the saints, was not the pallet that night.

The King and Queen of France were then at Compiegne, King Charles having been wed that same summer to his third wife, Dame Jeanne of Evreux: and a good woman I do believe was she, for all (as I said aforetime) there be but few. But I do think, and ever shall, that three wives be more than any man’s share. The next morrow, they came in from Compiegne, to spend Michaelmas in Paris: and then was enough noise and merriment. First, mass in our Lady Church, whereto both Dame Isabel and I waited on the Queen; and by the same token, she was donned of one of the fairest robes that ever she bare, which was of velvet blue of Malyns (Malines), broidered with apple-blossom and with diapering of gold. It did not become her, by reason of her dark complexion, so well as it should have done S—

“Hold! Man spelleth not Cicely with an S.”

“Jack, if thou start me like this any more, then will I turn the key in the lock when I sit down to write,” cried I, for verily mine heart was going pitter-patter to come up in my throat, and out at my mouth, for aught I know. “Thou irksome man, I went about to write ‘some folks,’ not ‘Cicely.’”

“But wherefore?” saith Jack, looking innocent as a year-old babe. “When it meaneth Cicely, then would I put Cicely.”

“But I meant not Cicely, man o’ life, bless thee!”

“I thank thee for thy blessing, Sissot; and I will fain hope thou didst mean that any way. I will go bail thy pen meant not Cicely, good wife; but if it were not in thine heart that Sissot’s fair hair, and rose-red complexion, and grey eyes, should have gone better with that blue velvet gown than Queen Isabel’s dusky hair and brown eyes, then do I know little of man or woman. And I dare be bound it would, belike.”

And Jack lifteth his hat to me right courteously, and is gone afore I well know whether to laugh or to be angered. So I ween I had better laugh.

Where was I, trow? Oh, at mass in our Lady Church of Paris, where that day was a miracle done on two that were possessed of the Devil, whose names were Geoffrey Boder and Jeanne La Petite; and the girdle of Saint Mary being shown on the high altar, they were allowed to touch the same, whereon they were healed straightway. And the Queen, with her own hands, gave them alms, a crown; and her oblation to the image of Saint Mary in the said church, being a festival, was a crown (her daily oblation being seven-pence the day); and to the said holy girdle a crown, and to the holy relics, yet another. Then came we home by the water of Seyne, for which the boatman had twelve pence. (Note 5.)

We dwelt after this full peacefully at Paris for divers weeks, saving that we made short journeys to towns in the neighbourhood; as, one day to the house of the Sisters Predicants of Poissy, and another to God’s House of Loure (Note 6), and another to Villers, where tarried the Queen of France, and so forth. And some days spent we likewise at Reyns and Sessouns. (Note 7.)

At Paris she had her robes made, of purple and colour of Malbryn, for the feast of All Saints, and they were furred with miniver and beasts ermines. And to me Cicely was delivered, to make my robe for the same, three ells rayed (striped) cloth and a lamb fur, and an hood of budge.

The Queen spent nigh an whole day at Sessouns, and another at Reyns, in visiting the churches; and the last can I well remember, by reason of that which came after. First, we went to the church of Saint Nicholas, where she offered a cloth of Turk, price forty shillings; and to Saint Remy she gave another, price forty-five shillings; and to the high altar of the Cathedral one something better. And to the ampulla (Note 7) and shrine of Saint Remy a crown, and likewise a crown to the holy relics there kept. Then to the Friars Minors, where at the high altar she offered a cloth of Lucca bought in the town, price three and an half marks (Note 8). And (which I had nearhand forgot) to the head of Saint Nicasius in the Cathedral, a crown.

The last night ere we left Sessouns, I remember, as I came into the Queen’s lodging from vespers in the Cathedral,—Jack, that went with me, having tarried at the potter’s to see wherefore he sent not home three dozen glasses for the Queen’s table (and by the same token, the knave asked fifteen pence for the same when they did come, which is a price to make the hair stand on end)—well, as I said, I was a-coming in, when I met one coming forth that at first sight I wist not. And yet, when I meditated, I did know him, but I could not tell his name. He had taken no note of me, save to hap his mantle somewhat closer about his face, as though he cared not to be known—or it might be only that he felt the cold, for it was sharp for the time of year. Up went I into the Queen’s lodging, which was then in the house of one John de Gyse, that was an honester man than Master Bolard, with whom she lodged at Burgette, for that last charged her three shillings and seven-pence for a worser lodging than Master Gyse gave her for two shillings.

I had writ thus far when I heard behind me a little bruit that I knew.

“Well, Jack?” said I, not looking up.

“Would thou wert better flyer of falcons, Sissot!” saith he.

“Dear heart! what means that, trow?” quoth I.

“Then shouldst thou know,” he made answer, “that to suffer a second quarry to turn thee from thy first is oft-times to lose both.”

“Verily, Jack, I conceive not thy meaning.”

“Why, look on yon last piece. It begins with thee coming home from vespers. Then it flieth to me, to the potter and his glasses, to the knavery of his charges, and cometh back to the man whom thou didst meet coming forth of the door—whom it hath no sooner touched, than it is off again to the cold even; then comest thou into the Queen’s lodging, and down ‘grees’ (degrees, that is, stairs) once more to the landlord’s bill. Do, prithee, keep to one heron till thou hast bagged him.”

“Ha, chétife!” cried I. “Must I have firstly, secondly, thirdly, yea, up to thirty-seventhly, like old Father Edison’s homilies?”

“Better so,” saith he, “than to course three hares together and catch none.”

“I’ll catch mine hare yet, as thou shall see,” saith I.

“Be it done. Gee up!” saith he. (Note 9).

Well, up came I into the Queen’s antechamber, where were sat Dame Elizabeth, and Dame Isabel de Lapyoun, and Dame Joan de Vaux, and little Meliora. And right as I came in at the door, Dame Joan dropped her sewing off her knee, and saith—

“Lack-a-day! I am aweary of living in this world!”

“Well, if so,” saith Dame Elizabeth, peacefully waxing her thread, “you had best look about for a better.”

“Nay!” quoth she, “how to get there?”

“Ask my Lord of Winchester,” saith Dame Isabel.

“I shall lack the knowledge ill ere I trouble him,” she made answer. “Is it he with the Queen this even?”

“There’s none with the Queen!” quoth Dame Isabel, as sharp as if she should have snapped her head off.

Dame Joan looked up in some astonishment.

“Dear heart!” said she, “I thought I heard voices in her chamber.”

“There was one with her,” answereth Meliora, “when I passed the door some minutes gone.”

“Maybe the visitor is gone,” said I. “As I came in but now, I met one coming forth.”

“Who were it, marry?” quoth Dame Joan.

“It was none of the household,” said I. “A tall, personable man, wrapped in a great cloak, wherewith he hid his face; but whether it were from me or from the November even, that will I not say.”

“There hath been none such here,” saith Dame Elizabeth.

“Not in this chamber,” saith Meliora.

“Meliora Servelady!” Dame Isabel made answer, “who gave thee leave to join converse with thy betters?” (Note 10).

The sub-damsel looked set down for a minute, but nought ever daunted her for long. She was as pert a little maid as ever I knew, and but little deserved her name of Meliora. (Ah me, is this another hare? Have back.)

“There hath been none of any sort come to the Queen to-day,” said Dame Isabel, in so angered a tone that I began at once to marvel who had come of whom she feared talk.

“Nay, but there so hath!” makes response Dame Joan: “have you forgot Master Almoner that was with her this morrow nigh an hour touching his accounts?—and Ralph Richepois with his lute after dinner?”

“Marry, and the Lady Gibine, Prioress of Oremont,” addeth Dame Elizabeth.

“And the two Beguines—” began Meliora; but she ended not, for Dame Isabel boxed her ears.

“Ay, and Jack Bonard, that she sent with letters to the Queen of France,” saith Dame Joan.

“Yea, and Ivo le Breton came a-begging, yon poor old man that had served her when a child,” made answer Dame Elizabeth.

“And Ma—” Poor Meliora got no further, for Dame Isabel gave her a buffet on the side of her head that nigh knocked her off the form. I could not but think that some part of that buffet was owing to us three, though Meliora had it all. But what so angered Dame Isabel, that might I not know.

At that time came the summons to supper, so the matter ended. But as supper was passing, Dame Joan de Vaux, by whom I sat, with Master Almoner on mine other hand, saith to me—

“Pray you, Dame Cicely, have you any guess who it were that you met coming forth?”

“I have, and I have not,” said I. “There was that in his face which I knew full well, yet cannot I bethink me of his name.”

“It was not Master Madefray, trow?”

“In no wise: a higher man than he, and of fairer hair.”

“Not a priest neither?”

“Nay, certes.”

“Leave not to sup your soup, Dame Cicely, nor show no astonishment, I pray, while I ask yet a question. Was it—Sir Roger the Mortimer of Ludlow?”

For all Dame Joan’s warnful words, I nigh dropped my spoon, and I never knew how the rest of the soup tasted.

“Wala wa!” said I, under my breath, “but I do believe it was he.”

“I saw him,” saith she, quietly. “And take my word for it, friend—that man cometh for no good.”

“Marry!” cried I in some heat, “how dare he come nigh the Queen at all? he, a banished man! Without, soothly, he came humbly to entreat her intercession with the King for his pardon. But e’en then, he might far more meetly have sent his petition by some other. Verily, I marvel she would see him!”

“Do you so?” saith Dame Joan in that low quiet voice. “So do not I. She will see him yet again, or I mistake much.”

“Ha, chétife!” I made answer. “It is full well we be on our road back to Paris, for there at least will he not dare to come.”

“Not dare?”

“Surely not, for the King of France, which himself hath banished him, should never suffer it.”

Dame Joan helped herself to a roasted plover with a smile. When the sewer was gone, quoth she—

“I think, Dame Cicely, you know full little whether of Sir Roger de Mortimer or of the King of France. For the last, he is as easily blinded a man as you may lightly see; and if our Queen his sister told him black was white, he should but suppose that she saw better than he. And for the other—is there aught in all this world, whether as to bravery or as to wickedness, that Sir Roger de Mortimer would not dare?”

“Dear heart!” cried I. “I made account we had done with men of that order.”

“You did?” Dame Joan’s tone, and the somewhat dry smile which went with it, said full plainly, “In no wise.”

“Well, soothly we had enough and to spare!” quoth I. “There was my Lord of Lancaster—God rest his soul!—and Sir Piers de Gavaston (if he were as ill man as some said).”

“He was not a saint, I think,” she said: “yet could I name far worser men than he.”

“And my sometime Lord of Warwick,” said I, “was no saint likewise, or I mistake.”

“Therein,” saith she, “have you the right.”

“Well,” pursued I, “all they be gone: and soothly, I had hoped there were no more such left.”

“Then should there be no original sin left,” she made answer; “yea, and Sathanas should be clean gone forth of this world.”

The rest of the converse I mind not, but that last sentence tarried in my mind for many a day, and hath oft-times come back to me touching other matters.

We reached Loure on Saint Martin’s Day (November 11th), and Paris the next morrow. There found we the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, (Stratford and Stapleton), whom King Edward had sent over to join the Queen’s Council. Now I never loved overmuch neither of these Reverend Fathers, though it were for very diverse causes. Of course, being priests, they were holy men; but I misdoubt if either were perfect man apart from his priesthood—my Lord of Winchester more in especial. Against my Lord of Exeter have I but little to say; he was fumish (irritable, captious) man, but no worse. But my Lord of Winchester did I never trust, nor did I cease to marvel that man could. As to King Edward, betray him to his enemies to-day, and he should put his life in your hands again to-morrow: never saw I man like to him, that no experience would learn mistrust. Queen Isabel trusted few: but of them my said Lord of Winchester was one. I have noted at times that they which be untrue themselves be little given to trust other. She trusted none save them she had tried: and she had tried this Bishop, not once nor twice. He never brake faith with her; but with King Edward he brake it a score of times twice told, and with his son that is now King belike. I wis not whether at this time the Queen was ready to put affiance in him; I scarce think she was: for she shut both Bishops out of her Council from the day she came to Paris. But not at this time, nor for long after did I guess what it signified.

November was nigh run out, when one morrow Dame Joan de Vaux brought word that the Queen, being a-cold, commanded her velvet mantle taken to her cabinet: and I, as the dame in waiting then on duty, took the same to her. I found her sat of a chair of carven wood, beside the brasier, and two gentlemen of the other side of the hearth. Behind her chair Dame Elizabeth waited, and I gave the mantle to her to cast over the Queen’s shoulders. The gentlemen stood with their backs to the light, and I paid little note to them at first, save to see that one was a priest: but as I went about to go forth, the one that was not a priest turned his face, and I perceived to mine amaze that it was Sir Roger de Mortimer. Soothly, it needed all my courtly self-command that I should not cry out when I beheld him. Had I followed the prompting of mine own heart, I should have cried, “Get thee gone, thou banished traitor!” He, who had returned unlicenced from Scotland ere the war was over, in the time of old King Edward of Westminster; that had borne arms against his son, then King, under my Lord of Lancaster; that, having his life spared, and being but sent to the Tower, had there plotted to seize three of the chief fortresses of the Crown—namely, the said Tower, and the Castles of Windsor and Wallingford,—and had thereupon been cast for death, and only spared through the intercession of the Queen and the Bishop of Hereford: yet, after all this, had he broken prison, bribing one of his keepers and drugging the rest, and was now a banished felon, in refuge over seas: he to dare so much as to breathe the same air with the wife of his Sovereign, with her that had been his advocate, and that knew all his treacheries! Could any worser insult to the Queen have been devised? But all at once, as I passed along the gallery, another thought came in upon me. What of her? who, knowing all this and more, yet gave leave for this man—not to kneel at her feet and cry her mercy—that had been grace beyond any reasonable hope: but suffered him to stand in her presence, to appear in her privy cabinet—nay, to act as though he were a noble appointed of her Council! Had she forgot all the past?

I travelled no further for that time. The time was to come when I should perceive that forgetfulness was all too little to account for her deeds.

That night, Dame Tiffany being appointed to the pallet, it so fell out that Dame Elizabeth, Dame Joan, and I, lay in the antechamber. We had but began to doff ourselves, and Dame Elizabeth was stood afore the mirror, a-combing of her long hair—and rare long hair it was, and of a fine colour (but I must not pursue the same, or Jack shall find in the hair an hare)—when I said to her—

“Dame Elizabeth, pray you tell me, were you in waiting when Sir Roger de Mortimer came to the Queen?”

“Ay,” saith she, and combed away.

“And,” said I, “with what excuse came he?”

“Excuse?” quoth she. “Marry, I heard none at all.”

“None!” I cried, tarrying in the doffing of my subtunic. “Were you not ill angered to behold such a traitor?”

“Dame Cicely,” saith she, slowly pulling the loose hairs forth of the comb, “if you would take pattern by me, and leave troubling yourself touching your neighbours’ doings, you should have fewer griefs to mourn over.”

Could the left sleeve of my subtunic, which I was then a-doffing, have spoke unto me, I am secure he should have ’plained that he met with full rough treatment at my hands.

“Good for you, Dame, an’ you so can!” said I somewhat of a heat. “So long as my neighbours do well, I desire not to mell (meddle) nor make in their matters. But if they do ill—”

“Why, then do I desire it even less,” saith she, “for I were more like to get me into a muddle. Mine own troubles be enough for me, and full too many.”

“Dear heart! had you ever any?” quoth I.

“In very deed, I do ensure you,” saith she, “for this comb hath one of his teeth split, and he doth not only tangle mine hair, but giveth me vile wrenches betimes, when I look not for them. And ’tis but a month gone, at Betesi (Béthizy), that I paid half-a-crown for him. The rogue cheated me, as my name is Bess. I could find in mine heart to give him a talking.”

“Only a talking?” saith Dame Joan, and laughed. “You be happy woman, in good sooth, if your worsest trouble be a comb that hath his teeth split.”

“Do but try him!” quoth Dame Elizabeth, and snorked (twisted, contorted) up her mouth, as the comb that instant moment came to a spot where her hair was louked (fastened) together. “Bless the comb!” saith she, and I guess she meant it but little. “Wala wa! Dame Joan, think you ’tis matter for laughter?”

“More like than greeting,” (weeping), she made answer.

“Verily,” said I, “but I see much worser matter for tears than your comb, Dame Elizabeth. Either the Queen is sore ill-usen of her brother, that such ill companions should be allowed near her, or else—”

Well for me, my lace snapped at that moment, and I ended not the sentence. When I was laid down beside Dame Joan, it came to me like a flash of lightning—“Or else—what?” And at that minute Dame Joan turned her on the pillows, and set her lips to mine ear.

“Dame Cicely,” quoth she, “mine heart misdoubts me it is the ‘or else.’ Pray you, govern your tongue, and use your eyes in time to come. Trust not her in the red bed too much, and her in the green-hung chamber not at all.”

The first was Dame Elizabeth, and the last Dame Isabel de Lapyoun, that lay in a chamber hung with green, with Dame Tiffany. I was secure she meant not the other, but to make certain I whispered the name, and she saith, “She.”

I reckoned it not ill counsel, for mine own thoughts assented thereto, in especial as touched Dame Isabel.

After that day wherein Sir Roger de Mortimer was in the Queen’s cabinet, I trow I kept mine eyes open.

For a few days he came and went: but scarce more than a sennight had passed ere I learned that he had come to dwell in Paris all out; and but little more time was spent when one even, Dame Isabel de Lapyoun came into our chamber as we were about to hie us abed, and saith she, speaking to none in especial, but to all—

“Sir Roger de Mortimer is made of the Prince’s following, and shall as to-morrow take up his abode in the Queen’s hostel.”

“Dear heart!” saith Dame Elizabeth, making pause with one hand all wet, and in the other the napkin whereon she went about to dry it. “Well, no business of mine, trow.”

I could not help to cry, “Ha, chétife!”

Dame Isabel made answer to neither the one nor the other, but marched forth of the door with her nose an inch higher than she came in. She was appointed to the pallet for that night, so we three lay all in our chamber.

“This passeth!” saith Dame Elizabeth, drying of her fingers, calm enough, on the napkin.

“Even as I looked for,” saith Dame Joan, but her voice was not so calm. There was in it a note of grief (a tone of indignation).

“I ne’er trouble me to look for nought,” quoth Dame Elizabeth. “What good, trow? Better to leave folks come and go, as they list, so long as they let (hinder) you not to come and go likewise.”

“I knew not you were one of Cain’s following, Dame Bess.”

“Cain’s following!” saith she, drawing off her fillet. “Who was Cain, trow? Wala wa! but if my fillet be not all tarnished o’ this side. I would things would go right!”

“So would I, and so did not Cain,” Dame Joan makes answer. “Who was he, quotha? Why, he that slew his brother Abel.”

“Oh, some of those old Scripture matters? I wis nought o’ those folks. But what so? I have not slain my brother, nor my sister neither.”

“It looks as though your brother and your sister too might go astray and be lost ere you should soil your fingers and strain your arms a-pulling them forth.”

“Gramercy! Every man for himself!” saith Dame Elizabeth, a-pulling off her hood. “Now, here’s a string come off! Alway my luck! If a body might but bide in peace—”

“And never have no troubles, nor strings come off, nor buttons broke, nor stitches come loose—” adds Dame Joan, a-laughing.

“Right so—man might have a bit of piece of man’s life, then. Why, look you, the string is all chafen, that it is not worth setting on anew; and so much as a yard of red ribbon have I not. I must needs don my hood of green of Louvaine.”

She said it in a voice which might have gone with the direst calamity that could befall.

“Dame Elizabeth de Mohun, you be a full happy woman!”

“What will the woman say next?”

“That somewhat hangeth on what you may next say.”

“Well, what I next say is that I am full ill-used to have in one hour a tarnished fillet and a broken string, and—Saint Lucy love us! here be two of my buttons gone!”

I could thole no longer, and forth brake I in laughter. Dame Joan joined with me, and some ado had we to peace Dame Elizabeth, that was sore grieved by our laughing.

“Will you leave man be?” quoth she. “They be right (real) silver buttons, and not one more have I of this pattern: I ensure you they cost me four shillings the dozen at John Fairhair’s in London (a London goldsmith). I’ll be bound I can never match them without I have them wrought of set purpose. Deary, deary me!”

“Well!” saith Dame Joan, “I may break my heart afore I die, but I count it will not be over buttons.”

“Not o’er your buttons, belike,” saith Dame Elizabeth. “And here, this very day, was Hilda la Vileyne at me, begging and praying me that I would pay her charges for that hood of scarlet wrought with gold and pearls the which I had made last year when I was here with the Queen. Truly, I forgat the same at that time; and now I have not the money to mine hand. But deary me, the pitiful tale she told!—of her mother ill, and her two poor little sisters without meet raiment for winter, and never a bit of food nor fuel in the house—I marvel what maids would be at, to make up such tales!”

“It was not true, trow?”

“True?” saith Dame Elizabeth, pulling off her rings. “It might be true as Damascus steel, for aught I know. But what was that to me? I lacked the money for somewhat that liked me better than to buy fuel for a parcel of common folks like such. They be used to lack comforts, and not I. And I hate to hear such stories, belike. Forsooth, man might as well let down a black curtain over the window on a sunshine day as be plagued with like tales when he would fain be jolly. I sent her off in hot haste, I can tell you.”

“With the money?”

“The saints be about us! Not I.”

“And the little maids may greet them asleep for lack of food?” saith Dame Joan.

“How wis I there be any such? I dare be bound it was all a made-up tale to win payment.”

“You went not to see?”

“I go to see! I! Dame Joan, you be verily—”

“I am verily one for whom Christ our Lord deigned to die on the bitter rood, and so is Hilda la Vileyne. Tell me but where she dwelleth, and I will go to see if the tale be true.”

“Good lack! I carry not folks’ addresses in mine head o’ that fashion. Let be; she shall be here again in a day or twain. She hath granted me little peace these last ten days.”

“And you verily wis not where she dwelleth?”

“I wis nought thereabout, and an’ I did I would never tell you to-night. Dear heart, do hie you abed and sleep in peace, and let other folks do the like! I never harry me with other men’s troubles. Good even!”

And Dame Elizabeth laid her down and happed the coverlet about her, and was fast asleep in a few minutes.

The next even, when we came into hall for supper, was Sir Roger de Mortimer on the dais, looking as though the world belonged to him. Maybe he thought it was soon to do the same; and therein was he not deceived. The first day, he sat in his right place, at the high table, after the knights and barons of France whom the King of France had appointed to the charge of our Queen: but not many days were over ere he crept up above them—and then above the bishops themselves, until at last he sat on the left hand of Queen Isabel, my Lord of Chester being at her right. But this first night he kept his place.

Note 1. Neuilly. Queen Isabelle’s scribe is responsible for the orthography in this and subsequent places.

Note 2. The old Palace of the French Kings, the remaining part of which is now known as the Conciergerie.

Note 3. September 12th.

Note 4. Cakes made with honey. Three pennyworth were served daily at the royal table.

Note 5. Wardrobe Account, 19 Edward the Second, 25/15.

Note 6. Rheims and Soissons. An idea of the difficulties of travelling at that time maybe gathered from the entry of “Guides for the Queen between Paris and Rheims, 18 shillings.”

Note 7. The vessel containing the oil wherewith the Kings of France were anointed, oil and ampulla being fabled to have come from Heaven.

Note 8. 2 pounds 13 shillings 4 pence.—Wardrobe Account, 19 Edward the Second, 25/15.

Note 9. Gee. This is one of the few words in our tongue directly derivable from the ancient Britons.

Note 10. “Avice Serueladi” occurs on the Close Roll for 1308.

Part 1—- Chapter 3.

How Dame Elizabeth’s Bill was paid.

“And yet it never was in my soul
To play so ill a part:
But evil is wrought by want of thought
As well as by want of heart.”
Thomas Hood.

As I came forth of hall, after supper, that even, and we were entered into the long gallery whereinto the Queen’s degrees opened, I was aware of a full slender and white-faced young maid, that held by the hand a small (little child) of mayhap five or six years. She looked as though she waited for some man. The Queen had tarried in hall to receive a messenger, and Dame Joan de Vaux was in waiting, so Dame Elizabeth, Dame Isabel, Dame Tiffany, and I were those that passed along the gallery. Dame Isabel and Dame Tiffany the maid let pass, with no more than a pitiful look at the former, that deigned her no word: but when Dame Elizabeth came next, on the further side, I being betwixt, the maid stepped forward into the midst, as if to stay her. Her thin hands were clasped over her bosom, and the pitifullest look ever I saw was in her eyes.

“Dame, ayez pitié!” was all she said; and it was rather breathed than spoken.

“Bless us, Saint Mary!—art thou here again?” quoth Dame Elizabeth of a testier fashion than she was wont. “Get thee gone, child; I have no time to waste. Dear heart, what a fuss is here over a crown or twain! Dost think thy money is lost? I will pay thee when it liketh me; I have not my purse to mine hand at this minute.”

And on she walked, brushing past the maid. I tarried.

“Are you Hilda la Vileyne?” I said unto her.

“Dame, that is my name, and here is my little sister Iolande. She hath not tasted meat (food) this day, nor should not yesterday, had not a kindly gentleman, given me a denier to buy soup. But truly I do not ask for charity—only to be paid what I have honestly earned.”

“And hadst thou some soup yesterday?”

“Yes—no—Oh, I am older; I can wait better than the little ones. The mother is sick: she and the babes must not wait. It does not signify for me.”

Oh, how hungered were those great eyes, that looked too large for the white face! The very name of soup seemed to have brought the craving look therein.

I turned to the small. “Tell me, Iolande, had Hilda any of the soup yesterday?”

“No,” said the child; “I and Madeleine drank it, every drop, that our mother left.”

“And had Hilda nothing?”

“There was a mouldy crust in the cupboard,” said the child. “It had dropped behind the cup, and Hilda found it when she took the cup down. We could not see it behind. We can only just reach to take the cup down, and put it up again. That was what Hilda had, and she wiped the cup with one end of it.”

“The cup that had held the soup?”

“Yes, surely,” said the child, with a surprised look. “We only have one,—does not Madame know?”

“It is an esquelle (porringer; a shallow bowl), not a cup,” said Hilda, reddening a little: “the child hardly knows the difference.”

I felt nearhand as though I could have twisted Dame Elizabeth’s neck for meat for those children.

“And are you, in good sooth, so ill off as that?” said I. “No meat, and only one esquelle in all the house?”

“Dame,” said Hilda meekly, as in excuse, “our father was long ill, and now is our mother likewise; and many things had to be sold to pay the apothecary, and also while I waited on them could I not be at work; and my little sisters are not old enough to do much. But truly it is only these last few weeks that we have been quite so ill off as to have no food, and I have been able to earn but a few deniers now and then—enough to keep us alive, but no more.”

“How much oweth you Dame Elizabeth?” said I.

“Dame, it is seven crowns for the hood I wrought, and three more for a girdle was owing aforetime, and now four for kerchiefs broidering: it is fourteen crowns in all. I should not need to ask charity if I could but be paid my earnings. The apothecary said our mother was sick rather from sorrow and want of nourishment than from any malady; and if the good Dame would pay me, I might not only buy fresh matter for my work, but perchance get food that would make my mother well—at least well enough to sew, and then we should have two pairs of hands instead of one. I do not beg, Dame!”

She louted low as she spoke, and took her little sister again by the hand. “Come, Iolande; we keep Madame waiting.”

“But hast thou got no money?” pleaded the barne. “Thou saidst to Madeleine that we should bring some supper back. Thou didst, Hilda!”

“I did, darling,” allowed her sister, looking a little ashamed. “I could not peace the babe else, and—I hoped we should.”

I could bear no more. The truth of those maids’ story was in the little one’s bitter disappointment, and in poor Hilda’s hungry eyes. Eyes speak sooth, though lips be false.

“Come,” said I. “I pray you, tarry but one moment more. You shall not lose by it.”

“We are at Madame’s service,” said Hilda.

I ran up degrees as fast as ever I could. As the saints would have it, that very minute I oped the door, was Dame Elizabeth haling forth silver in her lap, and afore her stood the jeweller’s man awaiting to be paid. Blame me who will, I fell straight on those gold pieces and silver crowns.

“Fourteen crowns, Dame Elizabeth!” quoth I, all scant of breath. “Quick! give me them—for Hilda la Vileyne—and if no, may God forgive you, for I never will!”

Soothly, had the Archangel Raphael brake into the chamber and demanded fourteen crowns, Dame Elizabeth could have gazed on him no more astonied than she did on me, Cicely, that she had seen nearhand every day of her life for over a dozen years. I gave her leave to look how it listed her. From the coins in her lap I counted forth nine nobles and a French crown, and was half-way down degrees again ere she well knew what I would be at. If I had had to pay her back every groat out of mine own purse—nay, verily, if I had stood to be beheaden for it—I would have had that money for Hilda la Vileyne that night.

They stood where I had left them, by the door of the long gallery, near the porte-cochère, but now with them was a third—mine own Jack, that had but now come in from the street, and the child knew him again, as she well showed.

“O Hilda!”

I heard her say, as I came running down swiftly—for I was dread afraid Dame Elizabeth should overtake me and snatch back the money—and I might have spared my fears, for had I harried the Queen’s crown along with her crowns, no such a thing should ever have come in her head—“O Hilda!” saith the child, “see here the good Messire who gave us the denier to buy soup.”

I might have guessed it was Jack. He o’erheard the child, and stayed him to pat her on the head.

“Well, little one, was the soup good?”

“So good, Messire! But Hilda got none—not a drop.”

“Hush!” saith Hilda; but the child would go on.

“None at all! why, how was that?” saith Jack, looking at Hilda.

I answered for her. “The sick mother and helpless babes had the soup,” said I; “and this brave maid was content with a mouldy crust. Jack, a word in thine ear.”

“Good!” saith he, when I had whispered to him. “Go thy ways, sweetheart, and so do.”

“Nay, there is no need to go any ways,” said I, “for here cometh Meliora down degrees, and of a truth I somewhat shrink from facing Dame Elizabeth after my robbery of her, any sooner than must be—Meliora, child, wilt run above an instant, and fetch my blue mantle and the thicker of mine hoods?”

Meliora ran up straightway; for though she was something too forward, and could be pert when she would, yet was she good-natured enough when kindly used. I turned to Hilda.

“Hold thy palm, my maid,” said I. “Here is the money the lady ought (owed) thee.” And I haled into her hand the gold pieces and the silver crown.

Verily, I could have greeted mine eyes sore to see what then befell. The barne capered about and clapped her hands, crying, “Supper! supper! now we shall have meat!” but Hilda covered her eyes with her void hand, and sobbed as though her heart should break.

“God Almighty bless you, kind Dame!” said she, when as she could speak again. “I was nearhand in utter mishope (nearly in despair). Now my mother can have food and physic, and maybe, if it please God, she shall recover. May I be forgiven, but I was beginning to think the good God cared not for poor folks like us, or maybe that there was no God to care at all.”

Down came Meliora with my hood and mantle, which I cast all hastily about me, and then said I to Hilda—

“My maid, I would fain see thy mother; maybe I could do her some good; and mine husband here will go with us for a guard. Lead on.”

“God bless you!” she said yet again. “He must have heard me.” The last words were spoken lowly, as to herself.

We went forth of the great gates, and traversed the good streets, and came into divers little alleys that skirt the road near Saint Denis’ Gate. In one of these Hilda turned into an house—a full poor hut it was—and led me up degrees into a poor chamber, whither the child ran gleefully afore. Jack left me at the door, he and I having covenanted, when we whispered together, what he should do whilst I visited Hilda’s mother.

Little Iolande ran forward into the chamber, crying, “Supper! supper! Mother and Madeleine, Hilda has money for supper!”

What I then beheld was a poor pallet, but ill covered with a thin coverlet, whereon lay a pale, weak woman, that seemed full ill at ease, yet I thought scarce so much sick of body as sick at heart and faint with fasting and sorrow. At the end of the pallet sat a child something elder than Iolande, but a child still. There was no form in the chamber, but Hilda brought forward an old box, whereon she cast a clean apron, praying me to sit, and to pardon them that this should be the best they had to offer. I sat me down, making no matter thereof, for in very deed I was full of pity for these poor creatures.

The mother, as was but like, took me for Dame Elizabeth, and began to thank me for having paid my debts—at long last, she might have said. But afore I could gainsay it, Hilda saith warmly—

“Oh no, Mother! This is not the lady that ought the money. Madame here is good—so good! and that lady—she has no heart in her, I think.”

“Not very good, Hilda,” said I, laughing, “when I fell on the dame that ought thee the money, and fairly wrenched it from her, whether she would or no. Howbeit,” I continued to the poor woman, “I will be good to you, if I can.”

By bits and scraps I pulled her story forth of her mouth. It was no uncommon tale: a sickly wife and a selfish husband,—a deserted, struggling wife and mother—and then a penniless widow, with no friends and poor health, that could scant make shift to keep body and soul together, whether for herself or the children. The husband had come home at last but to be a burden and sorrow—to be nursed through a twelve months’ sickness and then to die; and what with the weariness and lack of all comfort, the poor widow fell sick herself soon after, and Hilda, the young maid, had kept matters a-going, as best she might, ever sithence.

I comforted the poor thing to my little power; told her that I would give Hilda some work to do (and pay her for it), and that I would come and see her by times whilst the Queen should abide in Paris; but that when she went away must I go likewise, and it might be all suddenly, that I could not give her to wit. Hilda had sent the children forth to buy food, and there were but her and her mother. Mine husband was longer in return than I looked for.

“My maid,” said I to Hilda, “prithee tell me a thing. What didst thou signify by saying to thyself, right as we set forth from the Palace, that God must have heard thee?”

A great wave of colour passed over her face and neck.

“Dame,” she said, “I will speak soothliness. It was partly because I had prayed for money to buy food and physic: but partly also, because I was afraid of something, and I had asked the good God to keep it away from me. When you said that you and Messire would condescend to come with me, it delivered me from my fear. The good God must have heard me, for nobody else knew.”

“Afraid!” said I. “Whereof, my maid? Was it the porter’s great dog? He is a gentle beast as may be, and would never touch thee. What could harm thee in the Queen’s Palace?”

The wave of colour came again. “Madame does not know,” she said, in a low voice. “There are men worse than brutes: but such great ladies do not see it. One stayed me and spoke to me the night afore. I was afraid he might come again, and there was no one to help me but the good Lord. So I called to Him to be my guard, for there was none else; and I think He sent two of His angels with me.”

Mine own eyes were full, no less than Hilda’s.

“May the good Lord guard thee ever, poor maid!” said I. “But in very sooth, I am far off enough from an angel. Here cometh one something nearer thereto”—for I heard Jack’s voice without. “But tell me, dost thou know who it was of whom thou wert afraid?”

“I only know,” she said, “that his squire bare a blue and white livery, guarded in gold. I heard not his name.”

“Verily!” said I to myself, “such gentlemen be fair company for Dame Isabel the Queen!”

For I could have no doubt that poor Hilda’s enemy was that bad man, Sir Roger de Mortimer. Howbeit, I said no more, for then oped the door, and in came Jack, with a lad behind, bearing a great basket. Jack’s own arms were full of fardels (parcels), which he set down in a corner of the chamber, and bade the lad empty the basket beside, which was charged with firewood, “There!” saith he, “they be not like to want for a day or twain, poor souls! Come away, Sissot; we have earned a night’s rest.”

“Messire!” cried the faint voice of the poor woman. “Messire is good as an angel from Heaven! But surely Messire has not demeaned himself to carry burdens—and for us!”

She seemed nearhand frightened at the thought.

“Nay, good woman,” saith Jack, merrily—“no more than the angel that carried the cruse of water for the Prophet Elias. Well-a-day! securely I can carry a fardel without tarnishing my spurs? I would I might never do a worse deed.”

“Amen!” said I, “for both of us.”

We bade the woman and Hilda good even, and went forth, followed by blessings till we were in the very street: and not till then would I say—

“Jack, thou art the best man ever lived, but I would thou hadst a little more care for appearances. Suppose Sir Edmund or Master de Oxendon had seen thee!”

“Well?” saith Jack, as calm as a pool in a hollow. “Suppose they had.”

“Why, then should they have laughed thee to scorn.”

“Suppose they did?”

“Jack! Dost thou nothing regard folks’ thoughts of thee?”

“Certes. I regard thine full diligently.”

“But other folks, that be nought to thee, I would say.”

“If the folks be nought to me, wherefore should the thoughts be of import? Securely, good wife, but very little. I shall sleep the sweeter for those fardels: and I count I should sleep none the worser if man laughed at me. The blessing of the poor and the blessing of the Lord be full apt to go together: and dost thou reckon I would miss that—yea, so much as one of them—out of regard for that which is, saith Solomon, ‘sonitum spinarum sub olla’? (Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse 6). Ha, jolife! let the thorns crackle away, prithee; they shall not burn long.”

“Jack,” said I, “thou art the best man ever lived!”

“Rhyme on, my fair trouvere,” quoth he. (Troubadour. Their lays were usually legends and fictitious tales.) “But, Sissot, to speak sooth, I will tell thee, if thou list to hearken, what it is keepeth my steps from running into many a by-way, and mine heart from going astray after many a flower sown of Satan in my path.”

“Do tell me, Jack,” said I.

“There be few days in my life,” saith he, “that there cometh not up afore mine eyes that Bar whereat I shall one day stand, and that Book out of the which all my deeds shall be read afore men and angels. And I have some concern for the thoughts of them that look on, that day, rather than this. Many a time—ay, many a time twice told—in early morn or in evening twilight, have I looked up into heaven, and the thought hath swept o’er me like a fiery breeze—‘What if our Lord be coming this minute?’ Dost thou reckon, Sissot, that man to whom such thoughts be familiar friends, shall be oft found sitting in the alebooth, or toying with frothy vanities? I trow not.”

“But, Jack!” cried I, letting all else drop, “is that all real to thee?”

“Real, Sissot? There is not another thing as real in life.”

I burst forth. I could not help it.

“O Jack, Jack! Don’t go and be a monk!”

“Go and be a monk!” saith Jack, with an hearty laugh. “Why, Wife, what bees be in thine hood? I thought I was thine husband.”

“So thou art, the saints be thanked,” said I. “But thou art so good, I am sore afraid thou wilt either die or be a monk.”

“I’ll not be a monk, I promise thee,” quoth he. “I am not half good enough, nor would I lose my Sissot. As to dying, be secure I shall not die an hour afore God’s will is: and the Lord hath much need of good folks to keep this bad world sweet. I reckon we may be as good as we can with reasonable safety. I’ll try, if thou wilt.”

So I did, and yet do: but I shall never be match to Jack.

Well, by this time we had won back to the Queen’s lodging; and at foot of degrees I bade good-night to Jack, being that night appointed to the pallet—a business I never loved. I was thinking on Jack’s last words, as I went up, and verily had for the nonce forgat that which went afore, when all at once a voice saith in mine ear—

“Well, Dame Cicely! Went you forth in such haste lest you should be clapped into prison for stealing? Good lack, but mine heart’s in my mouth yet! Were you wood (mad), or what ailed you?”

“Dame Elizabeth,” said I, as all came back on me, “I have been to visit Hilda’s mother.”

“Dear heart! And what found you? Was she a-supping on goose and leeks? That make o’ folks do alway feign to be as poor as Job, when their coffers be so full the lid cannot be shut. You be young, Dame Cicely, and know not the world.”

“Maybe,” said I. “But if you will hearken me, I will tell you what I found.”

“Go to, then,” saith she, as she followed me into our chamber. “Whate’er you found, you left me too poor to pay the jeweller. I would fain have had a sapphire pin more than I got, but your raid on my purse disabled me thereof. The rogue would give me no credit.”

“Hear but my tale,” said I, “and if when it be told you regret your sapphire pin, I beseech you say so.”

So I told her in plain words, neither ’minishing nor adding, how I had found them, and the story I had heard from the poor woman. She listened, cool enough at first, but ere I made an end the water stood in her eyes.

“Ha, chétife!” said she, when I stayed me. “I’ll pay the maid another time. Trust me, Dame Cicely, I believed not a word. If you had been cheated as oft—! Verily, I am sorry I sent not man to see how matters stood with them. Well, I am fain you gave her the money, after all. But, trust me, you took my breath away!”

“And my own belike,” said I.

I think Hilda and hers stood not in much want the rest of that winter. But whenever she came with work for me, either Margaret my maid, or Jack’s old groom, a sober man and an ancient, walked back with her.

Meantime Sir Roger de Mortimer played first viol in the Court minstrelsy. Up and yet higher up he crept, till he could creep no further, as I writ a few leaves back. On the eve of Saint Pancras was crowned the new Queen of France in the Abbey of Saint Denis, which is to France as Westminster Abbey to us: and there ramped my Lord of Mortimer in the very suite of the Queen herself, and in my Lord of Chester’s own livery. Twice-banished traitor, he appeared in the self presence of the King that had banished him, and of the wife of his own natural Prince, to whom he had done treason of the deepest dye. And not one voice said him nay.

Thus went matters on till the beginning of September, 1326. The Queen abode at Paris; the King of France made no sign: our King’s trusty messager, Donald de Athole, came and went with letters (and if it were not one of his letters the Queen dropped into the brasier right as I came one day into her chamber, I marvel greatly); but nought came forth that we her ladies heard. On the even of the fifth of September, early, came Sir John de Ostrevant to the Palace, and had privy speech of the Queen—none being thereat but her confessor and Dame Isabel de Lapyoun: and he was scarce gone forth when, as we sat in our chamber a-work, the Queen herself looked in and called Dame Elizabeth forth.

I thought nought of it. I turned down hem, and cut off some threads, and laid down scissors, and took up my needle to thread afresh—in the Hotel de Saint Pol at Paris. And that needle was not threaded but in the Abbey of Saint Edmund’s Bury in Suffolk, twenty days after. Yet if man had told me it should so be, I had felt ready to laugh him to scorn. Ah me, what feathers we be, that a breath from God Almighty can waft hither or thither at His will!

Never but that once did I see Dame Elizabeth to burst into a chamber. And when she so did, I was in such amaze thereat that I fair gasped to see it.

“Good lack!” cried I, and stared on her.

“Well may you say it!” quoth she. “Lay by work, all of you, and make you ready privily in all haste for journeying by night. Lose not a moment.”

“Mary love us!” cries Isabel de la Helde. “Whither?”

“Whither the Queen’s will is. Hold your tongues, and make you ready.”

We lay that night—and it was not till late—in the town of Sessouns, in the same lodging the Queen had before, at Master John de Gyse’s house. The next night we lay at Peronne, and the third we came to Ostrevant.

Dame Isabel told us the reason of this sudden flight. The Queen had heard that her brother the King of France—who for some time past had been very cool and distant towards her—had a design to seize upon her and deliver her a prisoner to King Edward: and Sir John of Hainault, Count of Ostrevant, who came to bring her this news, offered her a refuge in his Castle of Ostrevant. I believed this tale when Dame Isabel told it: I have no faith in it now. What followed did away entirely therewith, and gave me firm belief that it was nothing save an excuse to get away in safety and without the King of France’s knowledge. Be it how it may, Sir Roger de Mortimer came with her.

We were not many days at Ostrevant: only long enough for the Count to raise his troops, and then, when all was ready, the Queen embarked for England. On the 22nd of September we came ashore at Orwell, and had full ill lodging; none having any shelter save the Queen herself, for whom her knights ran up a shed of driftwood, hung o’er with carpets. Never had I so discomfortous a night—the sea tossing within a few yards, and the wind roaring in mine ears, and the spray all-to beating over me as I lay on the beach, lapped in a mantle. I was well pleased the next morrow, when the Queen, whose rest had been little, gave command to march forward to Bury. But afore we set forth, come nearhand an army of peasants into the presence, ’plaining of the Queen’s officers, that had taken their cows, chickens, and fruits, and paid not a penny. The Queen had them all brought afore her, and with her own hands haled forth the money due to each one, bidding them bring all oppressions to her own ears, and straitly commanding her officers that they should take not so much as an egg without payment. By this means she won all the common people to her side, and they were ready to set their lives in pledge for her truth and honour.

At that time I was but little aware how matters verily stood. I said to Dame Joan de Vaux that the Queen showed her goodness hereby—for though I knew the Mortimer by then to be ill man, I wist not that she knew it, and reckoned her yet as innocent and beguiled woman.

“Doth she so?” answered Dame Joan. “How many grapes may man gather of a bramble?”

“Nay!” said I, scarce perceiving her intent, “but very grapes come not of brambles.”

“Soothly,” saith she: “neither do very brambles bear grapes.”

Three days the Queen tarried at Bury: then, with banners flying, she marched on toward Essex. I thought it strange that even she should march with displayed banners, seeing the King was not of her company: but I reckoned she had his order, and was acting as his deputy. Elsewise had it been dread treason (Note 1), even in her. I was confirmed in my thought when my Lord of Lancaster, the King’s cousin, and my Lord of Norfolk, the King’s brother, came to meet her and joined their troops to her company; and yet more when the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Bishops of Hereford, Lincoln, and Ely, likewise joined them to her. Verily, such holy men could not countenance treason.

Truth enough: but that which was untrue was not the treason, but the holiness of these Caiaphases.

And now began that woeful Dolorous Way, which our Lord King Edward trod after his Master Christ. But who knoweth whither a strange road shall lead him, until he be come to the end thereof? I wis well that many folk have said unto us—Jack and me—since all things were made plain, How is it ye saw not aforetime, and wherefore followed ye the Queen thus long? They saw not aforetime, no more than we; but now that all is open, up come they with wagging heads and snorkilling noses, and—“Verily, we were sore to blame for not seeing through the mist”—the mist through the which, when it lay thick, no man saw. Ha, chétife! I could easily fall to prophesying, myself, when all is over. Could we have seen what lay at the end of that Dolorous Way, should any true and loyal man have gone one inch along it?

And who was like to think, till he did see, what an adder the King nursed in his bosom? Most men counted her a fair white dove, all innocent and childlike: that did I not. I did see far enough, for all the mist, to see she was no child in that fashion; yet children love mischief well enough betimes; and I counted her, if not white, but grey—not the loathly black fiend that she was at the last seen to be. I saw many a thing I loved not, many a thing I would not have done in her place, many a thing that I but half conceived, and feared to be ill deed—but there ended my seeing. I thought she was caught within the meshes of a net, and I was sorry she kept not thereout. But I never guessed that the net was spread by her own hands.

My mother, Dame Alice de Lethegreve, I think, saw clearer than I did: but it was by reason she loved more,—loved him who became the sacrifice, not the miserable sinner for whose hate and wickedness he was sacrificed.

So soon as King Edward knew of the Queen’s landing, which was by Michaelmas Eve at latest, he put forth a proclamation to all his lieges, wherein he bade them resist the foreign horde about to be poured upon England. Only three persons were to be received with welcome and honour: which was, the Queen herself, Edward her son (his father, in his just ire, named him not his son, neither as Earl of Chester), and the King’s brother, the Lord Edmund of Kent. I always was sorry for my Lord of Kent; he was so full hoodwinked by the Queen, and never so much as guessed for one moment, that he acted a disloyal part. He was a noble gentleman, a kindly and a generous; not, maybe, the wisest man in the realm, and something too prone to rush after all that had the look of a noble deed, ere he gave himself time enough to consider the same. But if the world held no worser men at heart than he, it were marvellous better world than now.

One other thing did King Edward, which showed how much he had learned: he offered a great price of one thousand pounds (about 18,000 pounds, according to modern value), for the head of the Mortimer: and no sooner did the Queen hear thereof, than she offered double—namely, two thousand pounds—for the head of Sir Hugh Le Despenser—a man whose little finger was better worth two thousand than the Mortimer’s head was worth one. Two days later, the King fortified the Tower, and appointed the Lord John of Eltham governor thereof; but he being only a child of ten years, the true governor was the Lady Alianora La Despenser, who was left in charge of the King’s said son. And two days afore Saint Francis (October 2nd) he left the Tower, and set forth toward Wallingford, leaving the Bishop of Exeter to keep the City: truly a thankless business, for never could any man yet keep the citizens of London. Nor could he: for a fortnight was not over ere they rose in insurrection against the King’s deputies, invested the Tower, wrenched the keys from the Constable, John de Weston, to whom the Lady Alianora had confided them, brought her out with the young Lord, and carried them to the Wardrobe—not without honour—and then returning, they seized on the Bishop, with two of his squires, and strake off their heads at the Standard in Chepe. And this will I say for the said Bishop, though he were not alway pleasant to deal withal, for he was very furnish—yet was he honest man, and loved his master, ay, and held to him in days when it was little profit so to do. And seeing how few honest men there be, that will hold on to the right when their profit lieth to the left, that is much to say.

With the King went Sir Hugh Le Despenser—I mean the younger, that was create Earl of Gloucester by reason of his marriage; for the Lady Alianora his wife was eldest of the three sisters that were coheirs of that earldom. And thereanent—well-a-day! how different folks do from that I should do in their place! I can never tell wherefore, when man doth ill, the penalty thereof should be made to run over on his innocent sons. Because Sir Hugh forfeited the earldom, wherefore passed it not to his son, that was loyal man and true, and one of the King’s best councillors all his life? On the contrary part, it was bestowed on Sir Hugh de Audley, that wedded the Lady Margaret (widow of Sir Piers de Gavaston), that stood next of the three coheirs. And it seemeth me scarce just that Sir Hugh de Audley, that had risen up against King Edward of old time, and been prisoned therefor, and was at best but a pardoned rebel, should be singled out for one of the finest earldoms in England, and not Sir Hugh Le Despenser, whose it was of right, and to whose charge—save the holding of the Castle of Caerphilly against Queen Isabel, which was in very loyalty to his true lord King Edward—no fault at all could be laid. I would I had but the world to set right! Then should there be justice done, and every wrong righted, and all crooked ways put straight, and every man and woman made happy. Dear heart, what fair and good world were this, when I had made an end of—

Did man laugh behind me?

“Jack! Soothly, I thought it must be thou. What moveth thy laughter?”

“Dame Cicely de Chaucombe,” saith he, essaying to look sober—which he managed but ill. “The Annals of Cicely, likewise; and the imaginings of Cicely in especial.”

“Well, what now mispayeth (displeases) thee?” quoth I.

“There was once man,” saith Jack, “thought as thou dost. And seeing that the hollyhocks in his garden were taller than the daisies, he bade his gardener with a scythe cut short the hollyhocks, that all the flowers should be but of one height.”

“Well, what happed?” said I.

“Why, next day were there no hollyhocks. And then the hollyhock stems and the daisies both laid ’plaint of the gardener.”

“Both?” said I.

“Both. They alway do.”

“But what ’plaint had the daisies to offer?”

“Why, that they had not been pulled up to the height of the hollyhocks, be sure.”

“But how could they so?”

“Miscontent hath no ‘can’ in his hornbook. Not what thou canst, but what he would, is his measure of justice.”

“But justice is justice,” said I—“not what any man would, but what is fair and even.”

“Veriliest. But what is fair and even? If thou stand on Will’s haw (hillock), the oak on thy right hand is the largest tree; if thou stand on Dick’s, it shall be the beech on thy left. And thine ell-wand reacheth not. How then to measure?”

“But I would be on neither side,” said I, “but right in the midst: so should I see even.”

“Right in the midst, good wife, is where God standeth; and few men win there. There be few matters whereof man can see both to the top and to the bottom. Mostly, if man see the one end, then he seeth not the other. And that which man seeth not, how shall he measure? Without thou lay out to follow the judge which said that he would clearly man should leave to harry him with both sides of a matter. So long as he heard but the plaintiff, he could tell full well where the right lay; but after came the defendant, and put him all out, that he wist not on which side to give judgment. Maybe Judge Sissot should sit on the bench alongside of him.”

“Now, Jack,” said I, “thou laughest at me.”

“Good discipline for thee, sweetheart,” saith he, “and of lesser severity than faulting thee. But supposing the world lay in thine hands to set right, and even that thou hadst the power thereto, how long time dost think thy work should abide?”

“Ha, chétife!” cried I. “I ne’er bethought me of that.”

“The world was set right once,” quoth Jack, “by means of cold water, and well washed clean therein. But it tarried not long, as thou wist. Sin was not washed away; and Satan was not drowned in the Flood: and very soon thereafter were they both a-work again. Only one stream can wash the world to last, and that floweth right from the rood on Calvary.”

“Yet there is enough,” said I, “to wash the whole world.”

“Verily. But how, if the world will not come and wash? ‘He that will’—qui vult—‘let him take water of life freely.’ But he that is not athirst for the holy water, shall not have it forced down his throat against his will.”

“How shall man come by the thirst, Jack, if he hath it not? For if the gift shall be given only to him that thirsteth for it, it seemeth me the thirst must needs be born ere we shall come for the water.”

“Nay, sweetheart, we all desire happiness and wealth and honour; the mistake is that we be so ready to slake our thirst at the pools of muddy water which abound on every hand, rather than go to the fount of living water. We grasp at riches and honours and pleasures of this life: lo, here the blame, in that we are all athirst for the muddy pool, and have no desire for the holy water—for the gold of the royal mint stamped with the King’s image, for the crown of everlasting life, for the bliss which shall endure unto all ages. We cry soothly for these things; but it is aswhasay, Give me happiness, but let it end early; give me seeming gold, but let it be only tinsel; give me a crown, but be it one that will fade away. Like a babe that will grip at a piece of tin whereon the sun shineth, and take no note of a golden ingot that lieth by in shadow.”

“But who doth such things, Jack?”

“Thou and I, Sissot, unless Christ anoint our eyes that we see in sooth.”

“Jack!” cried I, all suddenly, “as I have full many times told thee, thou art better man than many a monk.”

“Now scornest thou at me,” saith he. “How can I be perfect, that am wedded man? (Note 2.) Thou wist well enough that perfect men be only found among the contemplative, not among them that dwell in the world. Yet soothly, I reckon man may dwell in the world and love Christ, or he may dwell in cloister and be none of His.”

Well, I know not how that may be; but this do I know, that never was there any Jack even to my Jack; and I am sore afraid that if I ever win into Heaven, I shall never be able to see Jack, for he shall be ten thousand mile nearer the Throne than I Cicely am ever like to be.

Note 1. At this time it was high treason for any subject to march with banners displayed, unless he acted as the King’s representative by his distinct commission.

Note 2. The best men then living looked on the life of idle contemplation as the highest type of Christian life, to which no married man could attain.

Part 1—- Chapter 4.

The Glamour of the Queen.

“Hast thou beheld thyself, and couldst thou stain
So rare perfection? Even for love of thee
I do profoundly hate thee.”
Lady Elizabeth Carew.

So I was got into the Annals of Cicely, was I? Well then, have back. Dear heart! but what a way have I to go back ere I can find where I was in my story!

Well the King left the Tower for Wallingford, and with him Sir Hugh Le Despenser, and Hugh his young son, Archdeacon Baldok, Edward de Bohun the King’s nephew, and divers of his following. I know not whether he had with him also his daughters, the young Ladies Alianora and Joan, or if they were brought to him later. By Saint Denis’ Eve (October 7th) he had reached Wallingford.

The Queen was in march to London: but hearing that the King had left, she altered her course, and went to Oxford. There tarried we one day, and went to our duties in the Church of Saint Martin (Note 1), where an homily was preachen by my Lord of Hereford (Note 2). And a strange homily it was, wherein Eva our mother stood for the Queen, and I suppose Adam for the King, and Sir Hugh Le Despenser (save the mark!) was the serpent. I stood it out, but I will not say I goxide (gaped) not. The next day went the Queen on toward Gloucester, pursuing the King, which had been there about ten days afore her. She put forth from Wallingford, on her way between Oxford and Gloucester, a letter wherein she earnestly prayed the King to return, and promised that he should receive the government with all honour if he would conform him to his people. I had been used to hear of the people obeying the King, as in duty bound to him whom God had set over them; and this talk of the King obeying the people was marvellous strange to mine ears. Howbeit, it was talk only; for what was really meant was that he should conform himself to his wife. And considering how much wives be bidden of God to obey their lords, that surely was as ill as the other. Which the King saw belike, for instead of coming nearer he went further away, right over the Severn, and strengthened himself, first in the strong Castle of Chepstow, and after in the Castle of Caerphilly. For us, we went on, though not so quick as he, to Gloucester, and thence to Bristol, where Sir Hugh de Despenser the father was governor, and where the citizens, on the Queen’s coming, opened the gates to her, and Sir Hugh on perceiving it retired into the Castle. But she summoned the Castle also to surrender, which was done speedily of the officers, and Sir Hugh delivered into her hands. Moreover, the two little ladies, the King’s daughters, whom he had sent from Gloucester on his retreat across the Severn, were brought to her (Note 3), and she welcomed them motherly, or at least seemed to do so. Wala wa! I have no list to set down what followed, and will run by the same as short as shall serve truth.

The morrow of Saint Crispin, namely, the 26th day of October, the Queen and her son, now Duke of Aquitaine—whom man whilome called Earl of Chester—came into the great hall of Bristol Castle, and sat in state: I Cicely being behind the Queen’s chair, and Jack in waiting on my Lord the Duke. Which done, they called council of the prelates and nobles of the realm, being the Archbishop of Dublin and five bishops; the King’s two brothers, my Lords of Norfolk and Kent; my Lord of Lancaster their cousin; and all the nobles then present in Bristol town: thus they gathered, the Duke on the right hand of the throne and the Queen on the left, the throne all empty. Then a marvellous strange thing happened: for the Queen rose up and spake, in open Council, to the prelates and nobles of England. When she first arose (as afterwards I heard say) were there some murmurs that a woman should so speak; and divers up and down the hall rowned (whispered) one the other in the ear that it had been more seemly had she kept to her distaff. But when she ended, so great was the witchery of her fair face, and the gramary (magic) of her silver voice, that scarce man was in the hall but was ready to live and die with her. Ha, chétife! how she witched the world! yet never did she witch me.

How can it be, I marvel at times, that men—and women too—will suffer themselves to be thus led astray, and yet follow on, oft knowing whither they go, after some one man or woman, that casteth over them a manner of gramary? There be some that can witch whom they will, that God keepeth not. And ’tis not alway a fair face that witcheth; I have known full unbright (plain, ugly) folks that have this charm with them. And I note moreover, that many times he that wields it doth use it for evil, and not for good. I dare not say no good man ever hath the same; for securely I know not all folks in this world: yet of them I do know, I cannot call to mind a verily good man or woman that hath seemed me to possess this power over his fellows. I have known some metely good folk that had a touch thereof; but of such as I mean, that do indeed wield it in power, and draw all manner of men to them, and after them, nearhand whether they choose or no—of such I cannot call to mind one that was true follower of our Lord. Therefore it seems me an evil power, and one that may come of Satan, sith it mostly is used in his service. And I pray God neither of my daughters may ever show the same, for at best it must be full of peril of pride to him that possesseth it. Indeed, had it so been, I think they should have shown it afore now.

But now to have back to the hall of Bristol Castle, lest Jack, coming in to look stealthily over my shoulder as he doth betimes, should say I have won again into the Annals of Cicely.

Well, all the prelates and nobles were full witched by Dame Isabel the Queen, and agreed unto all her plans, the which came ready cut and dried, as though all had been thought on and settled long afore. Verily, I dare say it so had. First, they elected the Duke of Aquitaine to the regency—which of course was the self thing as electing his mother, since he, being a mere lad, was but her mouthpiece, and was buxom (submissive) unto her in all things: and all present sware to fulfil his pleasure, as though he had been soothly king, under his privy seal, for there was no seal meet for the regency. And incontinent (immediately) thereafter, the said Duke, speaking doubtless the pleasure of the Queen, commanded Sir Hugh Le Despenser the father to be brought to his trial in the hall of the Castle.

Then was he led in, an old white-haired man, (See note in Appendix, on the Despensers), stately and venerable, who stood up before the Council as I would think none save innocent man should do, and looked the Queen straight in the face. He was not witched with her gramary; and soothly I count in all that hall he was the sole noble that escaped the spell. A brave man was he, of great probity, prudent in council, valiant in war: maybe something too readily swayed by other folks (the Queen except), where he loved them (which he did not her), and from this last point came all his misfortunes (Note 4).

Now stood he up to answer the charges laid against him (whereof there were nine), but answer such as man looked for made he none. He passed all by as of no account, and went right to the heart and verity of the whole matter. I could not but think of a Prisoner before him who had answered nothing; and I crede he knew that in like case, “per invidiam tradidissent eum.” (Note 5). Moreover, he spake not to them that did the will of other, but to her that was at the core of the whole matter.

“Ah, Dame!” quoth he, bowing low his white, stately head, “God grant us fair trial and just judge; and if we may not find it in this world, we look for it in another.”

I trust he found it in that other world—nay, I know he must have done. But in this world did he not find it. Fair trial had he none; it was an end foregone from the beginning. And as to just judge—well, she is gone now to her judgment, and I will leave her there.

I had forgot to say in due order that my Lord of Arundel was he that was tried with him, but he suffered not till later. (This appears to be the case from comparison of the best authorities.) He, therefore, was had back to prison; but Sir Hugh was hung on the common gallows in his coat armour, in strong cords, and when he was cut down, after four days, his head was struck off and his quarters cast to the dogs. On whose soul God have mercy! Amen. In very deed, I think he deserved a better fate. Secure am I, that many men be hung on gallows which might safely be left to die abed, and many more die abed that richly demerit the gallows. This world is verily a-crooked: I reckon it shall be smoothed out and set straight one day. There be that say that day shall last a thousand years; and soothly, taking into account all the work to be done ere the eve droppeth, it were small marvel an’ it did so.

This done, we tarried not long at Bristol. Less than a month thereafter was the King taken at Neath Abbey in Wales, and all that yet obeyed him were either taken with him or dispersed. The news found the Queen at Hereford, whither she had journeyed from Bristol: and if I had yet a doubt left touching her very nature (real character), I think it had departed from me when I beheld how she received that news. Sir Thomas Le Blount, his Steward of the Household, was he that betrayed him: and may God pardon him easier than I could. But my Lord of Lancaster (whom I can pray God pardon with true heart, seeing he afterward repented bitterly), the Lord Zouche of Ashby, and Rhys ap Howel—these were they that took him. With him they took three other—Sir Hugh Le Despenser the son, and Archdeacon Baldok, and Sir Simon de Reading. The good Archdeacon, that was elect (Bishop is understood) of Norwich, was delivered over to the tender mercies (which, as saith the Psalmist, were cruel) of that priest of Baal, the Bishop of Hereford, whom indeed I cannot call a priest of God, for right sure am I that God should never have owned him. If that a man serveth be whom he worshippeth, then was Sir Adam de Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, priest of Sathanas and none other. The King was had to Kenilworth Castle, in ward of my Lord of Lancaster—a good though mistaken man, that used him not ungently, yet kept him straitly. Sir Hugh and Sir Simon were brought to the Queen at Hereford, and I was in waiting when they came into her presence. I had but one glimmer of her face (being behind her) when she turned her head for a moment to bid me send Oliver de Nantoil to fetch my Lord of Lincoln to the presence: but if ever I beheld pictured in human eyes the devilish passions of hate, malice, and furious purpose, I beheld them that minute in those lovely eyes of hers. Ay, they were lovely eyes: they could gleam soft as a dove’s when she would, and they could shoot forth flames like a lioness robbed of her prey. Never saw I those eyes look fiercer nor eviller than that night when Sir Hugh Le Despenser stood a captive at her feet.

For him, he was full calm: stately as his father—he was comelier of the twain, yea, the goodliest man ever mine eyes lit on: but I thought not on that in that hour. His chief fault, man deemed, was pride: not the vanity that looketh for applause of man, but rather the lofty-mindedness that is sufficient to himself, and despiseth other. I beheld no trace thereof as he there stood. All that had been—all that was of earth and earthy—seemed to have dropped away from him: he was calm and tranquil as the sea on a summer eve when not a breath stirreth. Wala wa! we have all our sins: and what be we, to throw the sins of another in his face? Sir Hugh did some ill deeds, belike; and so, God wot, hath done Cicely de Chaucombe; and whose sins of the twain were worser in His sight, He knoweth, not I. Verily, it was whispered that he had taint of heresy, the evillest thing that may be: but I trust that dread charge were untrue, and that he was but guilty of somewhat more pride and ambitious desires than other. Soothly, pride is one of the seven deadly sins—pray God save us all therefrom!—yet is heresy, as the Church teacheth, an eighth deadlier than all the seven. And if holy Church hath the words of God, and is alonely guided of His Spirit, then must it be an awful and deadly sin to gainsay her bidding. There be that take in hand to question the same: whom holy Church condemneth. I Cicely cannot presume to speak thereof, not being a priest, unto whom alone it appertaineth to conceive such matter. ’Tis true, there be that say lay folk can as well conceive, and have as much right as any priest; but holy Church agreeth not therewith. God be merciful to us all, whereinsoever we do err!

But now was the Queen in a sore strait: for that precious treasure that had once been in her keeping—to wit, the Great Seal—was no longer with her. The King had the same; and she was fain to coax it forth of his keeping, the which she did by means of my said Lord of Hereford. I know not if it were needful, but until she had this done, did not Sir Hugh Le Despenser suffer.

It was at Hereford, the eve of Saint Katherine, that he died. I thank the saints I was not there; but I heard dread stories of them that were. Dame Isabel de Lapyoun was in waiting that day; I think she was fittest for it.

I ween it was on that morrow, of the eve of Saint Katherine, that mine eyes first began to ope to what the Queen was in very deed. Wherefore was she present at that deed of blood? Dame Tiffany reckoned she deemed it her duty: and truly, to behold what man can deem his duty, is of the queerest things in this queer world. I never knew a cow that reckoned it duty to set her calf in peril, and herself tarry thereout; nor a dog that forsook his master’s company by reason of his losing of worldly gear; nor an horse that told falsehoods to his own profit. I have wist men that would do all these things, and more; because, forsooth, it was their duty! Now, after what manner it could be duty to Dame Isabel the Queen to preside in her own person at the execution of Sir Hugh, that cannot I Cicely tell. Nay, the saints love us! what need was there of an execution at all? Sir Hugh was dying fast. Since he was taken would he never open his lips, neither to speak nor yet to eat; and that eve of Saint Katherine had seen his end, had they left him die in peace. Veriliest, I wis not what he had done so much worser than other men, that so awesome an ensample should be made of him. I do trust the rumour was not true that ran of his heresy; for if so, then must not man pity him. And yet—

Virgo sanctissima! what is heresy? The good Lord wot.

My Lord of Lincoln was he, as I heard, which brought tidings to the Queen that Sir Thomas Wager had done him to wit Sir Hugh would die that day. Would die—whether man would or no. Holy Mary, the pity of it! Had I been Sir Thomas, never word would I have spoken till the breath was clean gone out of him, and then, if man coveted vengeance, let him take it on the silent dust. But no sooner was it known to the Queen—to her, a woman and a mother!—than she gave command to have the scaffold run up with all speed, and that dying man drawn of an hurdle through the city that all men might behold, with trumpets going afore, and at last hanged of the gallows till he were dead. Oh, the pity of it! the pity of it!

The command was obeyed—so far as man could obey. But ere the agony were full over, God Almighty stepped in, and bare him away from what she would have had him suffer. When they put him on the hurdle, he lay as though he wist not; when they twined a crown of nettles and pressed it on his brow, he was as though he felt not; when, the torture over, they made ready to drag him to the gallows, they saw that he was dead. God cried to them, “Let be!”

God assoil that dead man! Ay, maybe he shall take less assoiling than hath done that dead woman.

Man said that when my Lord of Lincoln came to tell her of this matter, she was counting the silver in my Lord of Arundel his bags, that were confiscate, and had then been brought to her: and but a few days later, at Marcle, Sir William de Blount brought from the King the Great Seal in its leathern bag sealed with the privy seal, and delivered it unto the Queen and her Keeper (Chancellor) the Bishop of Norwich. Soothly, it seemed to me as though those canvas bags that held my Lord of Arundel’s silver, and the white leathern bag that held the Great Seal, might be said to be tied together by a lace dipped in blood. And somewhat later, when we had reached Woodstock, was Sir Hugh Le Despenser’s plate brought to the Wardrobe, that had been in the Tower with the Lady Alianora his wife—five cups and two ewers of silver, and twenty-seven cups and six ewers of gold; and his horses and hers delivered into the keeping of Adam le Ferrour, keeper of the Queen’s horses: and his servants either cast adrift, or drafted, some of them, into the household of the Lord John of Eltham. Go to! saith man: was all this more than is usual in like case? Verily, nay: but should such things be usual in Christendom? Was it for this our Lord came to found His Church—that Christian blood should thus treat his Christian brother? And if no, what can be said of such as called themselves His priests, and passed by on the other side?—nay, rather, took into their own hands the arrows of Sathanas, and wounded their brother with their own fingers? “Numquid adhaeret Tibi sedes iniquitatis?” (Psalm 94, verse 20). Might it not have been said to Dame Isabel the Queen like as Moses said to Korah, “Is it nothing to you that you have been joined to the King, and set by his side on the throne, and given favour in his eyes, so that he suffereth you to entreat him oftener and more effectually than any other, but you must needs covet the royal throne theself?” (Itself.)

Ah, what good to write such words, or to speak them? When man hath no fear of God before his eyes, what shall he regard the reasonings of men? But the day of doom cometh, and that sure.

The morrow of that awesome day, to wit, Saint Katherine, departed we from Hereford, and came to Gloucester and Cirencester, going back on the road we had come. By Woodstock (where Dame Margery de Verdon joined us from Dover) we came to Wallingford: where was the Lord John of Eltham, that had come from London, and awaited the Queen his mother. So, by Reading and Chertsey, came we to Westminster Palace, on the fourth day of January (1327). And here was Dame Alice de Lethegreve, mine honoured mother, whom I was full fain to see after all the long and somewhat weariful time that I had been away from England.

My mother would have me tell her all I had seen and heard, in the which she oft stayed me by tears and lamentations. And saith she—

“I bid thee well to note, Cicely, how much ill can come of the deeds of one woman. Deeds, said I? Nay, but of the thoughts and feelings; for all deeds are but the flowers whereto man’s thoughts be the seed. And forget not, daughter, that there must ever be one first thought that is the beginning of it all. O Cis, take thou heed of the first evil thought in thine heart, and pray God it lead not to a second. They that fear not God be prone to ask, What matter for thoughts? Deeds be the things that signify. My thoughts are mine own; who shall govern me therein? Ah, verily, who shall, without God doth, and thou dost? He that makes conscience of his thoughts, men reckon a great saint. I would say rather, he that maketh not conscience of his thoughts cannot serve God at all. Pray God rule thee in thine innermost heart; then shall thy deeds please Him, and thy life shall be a blessing to thy fellows.”

“Dame,” said I, “would you signify that the Queen is not ruled of God?”

“He governeth better than so, Cis,” saith she.

“Yet is she Christian woman,” quoth I.

“A Christian woman,” made answer my mother, “is a woman that followeth Christ. And thou followest not Jack, Cis, when thou goest along one road, and Jack goeth another. Man may follow near or far; but his face must be set the same way. Christ’s face was ever set to do the will of God. If thou do thy will, and I do mine, our faces be set contrary.”

“Then must we turn us around,” said I.

“Ay, and flat round, too,” she saith. “When thou standest without Aldgate, ready to pass within, ’tis but a full little turn shall take thee up to Shoreditch on the right hand, or down Blanche Chappleton on the left. Thy feet shall be set scarce an inch different at beginning. Yet pursue the roads, and the one shall land thee at York, and the other at Sandwich. Many a man hath reckoned he set forth to follow Christ, whose feet were scarce an inch out of the way. ‘Go to,’ quoth he; ‘what can an inch matter? what difference shall it make?’ Ah me, it maketh all the difference between Heaven and Hell, for the steps lead to diverse roads. Be well assured of the right road; and when thou so art, take heed to walk straight therein. Many a man hath turned a score out of the way, by reason that he walked a-crooked himself.”

“Do we know alway when we walk straight?” said I.

“Thou hast thy Psalter and thine Evangelisterium,” made she answer: “and thou hast God above. Make good use of the Guide and the map, and thou art not like to go far astray. And God pardon the souls that go astray! Ay, God forgive us all!”

She sat and span a while, and said nought.

“Cicely,” then quoth she, “I shall not abide here.”

“Whither go you, Dame?”

“Like Abraham of old,” she saith, “to the land which God shall show me. If I could serve my dear master,—the lad that once lay in mine arms—by tarrying hither, I could bear much for his sake. But now can I do nought: and soothly I feel as though I could not bear to stand and look on. I can pray for him any whither. Cicely, this will go on. Man that setteth foot on slide shall be carried down it. Thou mayest choose to take or let be the first step; but oft-times thou canst not choose touching the second and all that be to follow. Or if thou yet canst choose, it shall be at an heavy cost that thou draw back thy foot. One small twinge may be all the penalty to-day, when an hour’s deadly anguish shall not pay the wyte to-morrow. Thou lookest on me aswhasay, What mean you by this talk? I mean, dear heart, that she which hath entered on this road is like to pursue it to the bitter end. A bitter end it shall be—not alone to her. It means agony to him and all that love him: what maimer of agony God wot, and in His hand is the ell-wand to measure, and the balances to weigh. Lord! Thou wilt not blunder to give an inch too much, nor wilt Thou for all our greeting weigh one grain too little. Thou wilt not let us miss the right way, for the rough stones and the steep mountain-side. Thou hast trodden before us every foot of that weary road, and we need but to plant our steps in Thy footmarks, which we know well from all others by their blood-marked track. O blessed Jesu Christ! it is fair journeying to follow Thee, and Thou leadest Thy sheep safe to the fold of the Holy Land.”

I mind her words well. For, woe is me! they were nearhand the last that ever I heard of her.

“Dame,” said I, “do you bid me retreat belike?”

“Nay, daughter,” quoth she, and smiled, “thou art no longer at my bidding. Ask thine husband, child.”

So I told Jack what my mother had said. He sat and meditated thereon afore the fire, while I made ready my Christmas gown of blue kaynet guarded with stranling. (Note 6.)

“Sissot,” saith he, his meditation ended, “I think Dame Alice speaks wisely.”

“Then wouldst thou depart the Court, Jack?” said I.

“I? Nay, sweet heart. The young King hath about him no more true men than he needeth. And as I wait at his coucher, betimes I can drop a word in his ear that may, an’ it please God, be to his profit. He is yet tender ground, and the seed may take root and thrive: and I am tough gnarled old root, that can thole a blow or twain, and a rough wind by now and then.”

“Jack!” cried I, laughing. “‘A tough gnarled old root,’ belike! Thou art not yet of seven-and-thirty years, though I grant thee wisdom enough for seventy.”

“I thank you heartily, Dame Cicely, for that your courtesy,” quoth he, and made me a low reverence. “Ay, dear heart, a gnarled root of cross-grained elm, fit for a Yule log. I ’bide with the King, Sissot. But thou wist, that sentence (argument) toucheth not thee, if thou desire to depart with Dame Alice. And maybe it should be the best for thee.”

“I depart from the Court, Jack, on a pillion behind thee,” said I, “and no otherwise. I say not I might not choose to dwell elsewhere the rather, if place were all that were in question; but to win out of ill company at the cost of thy company, were to be at heavier charge than my purse can compass. And seeing I am in my duty therein, I trust God shall keep me from evil and out of temptation.”

“Amen!” saith Jack, and kissed me. “We will both pray, my dear heart, to be kept out of temptation; but let us watch likewise that we slip not therein. They be safe kept that God keepeth; and seeing that not our self-will nor folly, but His providence, brought us to this place, I reckon we have a right to ask His protection.”

Thus it came that I tarried yet in the Queen’s household. And verily, they that did so, those four next years, had cause to seek God’s protection.

On the first of February was—but, wala wa! my pen runneth too fast. I must back nearhand a month.

It was the seventh of January, being the morrow of the Epiphany, and three days after we reached Westminster, that the Queen met the King’s Great Council, the which she had called together on the eve of Saint Barbara (December 3rd), the Duke sitting therein in state as keeper of the kingdom. Having opened the said Parliament, the Duke, by his spokesmen, my Lords of Hereford and Lincoln, laid before them all that had taken place since they last met, and bade them deliberate on what was now to be done for the safety of the realm and Church of England. (Note 7). Who at once adjudged the throne void, and the King to be put down and accounted such no longer: appointing certain nobles to go with the Duke to show these things unto the Queen.

Well do I mind that morrow of the Epiphany. The Queen sat in the Painted Chamber, spinning amongst us, when the nobles waited upon her. She had that morrow been full furnish, sharply chiding Joan de Vilers but a moment ere the Duke entered the presence: but no sooner came he in than she was all honey.

“Dame,” saith he, “divers nobles of the Council pray speech of you.”

The Queen looked up; she sighed, and her hand trembled. Then pulled she forth her sudary (handkerchief), and wiped her cheek: I am somewhat unsure of the tears thereon. Yet maybe they were there, for verily she could weep at will.

Dame Elizabeth, that sat in the casement, saith to Dame Joan, that was on the contrary side thereof, I being by her,—“Will the Queen swoon, think you?”

“She will come to an’ she do,” answered she.

I was ready at one time to reckon Dame Joan de Vaux somewhat hard toward the Queen: I saw later that she had but better sight than her neighbours.

Then came in the prelates and nobles which were deputed of the Parliament to convey the news, and the Queen bowed her head when they did reverence.

My Lord of Winchester it was that gave her the tidings that the Parliament then sitting had put down King Edward, and set up the Duke, which there stood, as King. All innocent stood he, that had been told it was his father’s dearest wish to be free of that burden of state, and himself too true and faithful to imagine falsehood or unfaithfulness in her that spake it.

Soothly, she played her part full well. She greet plenteously, she wrung her hands, she tare off the hood from her head, she gripped her hair as though to tear that, yea, she cast her down alow on the rushes, and swooned or made believe thereto. The poor young Duke was full alarmed, and kneeling beside her, he would have cast his arms about her, but she thrust him away. Until at the last he arose, and with mien full princely, told the assembled nobles that he would never consent to that which so mispaid (displeased, distressed) his dear mother, without his father should himself command the same. She came to, it seemed me, full soon thereafter.

Then was sent my Lord of Lancaster and other to the King to hear his will thereon. Of these was my Lord of Hereford one, and man said he spake full sharply and poignantly to the King, which swooned away thereunder (somewhat more soothly, as I guess); and the scene, said man that told me, was piteous matter. Howbeit, the King gave full assent, and resigned the crown to his son, who was now to be king, he that had so been being thenceforth named only Sir Edward of Caernarvon. This was the eve of Saint Agnes (January 20th, 1327), the twentieth year of the said King.

Note 1. Better known as Carfax. The exact church is not on record, but it was likely to be this.

Note 2. Adam de Orleton. He and Henry Burghersh, Bishop of Lincoln, are the two Bishops whom Thomas de la Moor, King Edward’s squire, brands as “priests of Baal” and “Caiaphases.”

Note 3. I have here given the version of events which seems best to reconcile the accounts of the chroniclers with the testimony of contemporary documents. See Appendix.

Note 4. This is the character sketched of him by De La Moor, to whom he was personally known.

Note 5. “For envy they had delivered Him.” Matthew, twenty-seven, verse 18.

Note 6. Kennet, a coarse Welsh cloth, trimmed with stranling, the fur of the squirrel taken between Michaelmas and Christmas.

Note 7. The idea of some persons that the Church of England began to exist at the Reformation would have astonished the medieval reckoners “according to the computation of the Church of England,” who were accustomed to hear Parliaments summoned to debate “concerning the welfare of the kingdom and Church of England.” The former notion is purely modern.

Part 1—- Chapter 5.

The Reign of King Roger.

“She is no sheep who goes walking with the wolf.”

Russian Proverb.

And now, were I inditing a very chronicle, should I dip my quill next in the red ink, and write in full great letters—“Here beginneth the reign of King Edward of Windsor, the Third after the Conquest.”

But, to scribe soothliness, I cannot do so. For not for four years thereafter did he in verity begin to reign. And what I should write, if I writ truth, should be—“Here beginneth the reign of King Roger de Mortimer, the First in England.”

Now, here cometh an other matter I have noted. When man setteth him up to do that whereto he was not born, and hath not used himself, he is secure to do the same with never so much more din and outrage (extravagance) than he to whom it cometh of nature. If man be but a bedel (herald, crier) he shall rowt (Shout) like a lion the first day; and a prince’s charetter (charioteer) shall be a full braver (finer, more showy) man than the prince his master. Sir Roger made a deal more bruit than ever the King himself; that during all these four years was meek and debonair (humble and gentle), as though he abode his time. He wrought what he would (which was mostly ill), and bare him like those of whom the Psalmist speaketh, that said, “Our lips are of us, who is our lord?” (Psalm 9 4, Rolle’s translation.) He held up but a finger, and first the King, and all else after, followed along his path. Truly, I fault not the King; poor lad, he was in evil case, and might well enough have found hard to know the way he should go. But I do fault them that might have oped his eyes, and instead thereof, as being smoother way, chose to run after King Mortimer with his livery on their backs.

“How many of them knew the man, thinkest?” saith Jack, that had come in while I writ the last piece.

“Jack!” cried I. “What, to see him do that he did, more in especial when his pride was bolned (swollen, pulled up) by being create Earl of March—when he had larger following than the King himself, having nine score knights at his feet; when he arose from the King’s table ere the King stirred, as though he were lord and master of all; when he suffered the King to rise on his coming into the presence, all meekly and courteously, yet himself, when the King entered, kept his seat as he micht afore a servitor; when he walked even with the King, and sometimes afore him; when he was wont to put him down, and mock at him, and make him a laughing-stock. I have heard him myself say to the King—‘Hold thy peace, lad!’ and the King took it as sweetly as if he had been swearing of allegiance.”

“I have eyes in mine head, my fair warrior, and ears belike. I saw so much as thou—maybe a little more, since I was something oftener in my Lord’s company than thou.”

“But thou sawest what he was?” said I.

“So did I; and sorry am I to have demerited the wrath of Dame Cicely de Chaucombe, for that I oped not the King my master’s even.”

“Nay, Jack! I never meant thee. I have somewhat more reverence for mine husband than so.”

“Then art thou a very pearl amongst women. Most dames’ husbands find not much reverence stray their way—at least from that quarter. I misdoubt if Vivien’s husband ever picks up more than should lightly slip into his pocket.”

“Sir James Le Bretun is not so wise as thou,” said I. “But what I meant, Jack, was such as my Lord of Lancaster and my Lord of Kent, and my Lord of Hereford—why did never such as these tell the King sooth touching the Mortimer?”

“As for my Lord of Hereford,” saith Jack, “I reckon he was too busied feeling of his pulse and counting his emplastures, and telling his apothecary which side of his head ached worser since the last draught of camomile and mallows. Sir Edmund de Mauley was wont to say he had a grove of aspens at Pleshy for to make his own populion (Note 1), and that he brake his fast o’ dragons’ blood and dyachylon emplasture. Touching that will I not say; but I reckon he thought oftener on his tamarind drink than on the public welfare. He might, perchance, have bestirred him to speak to the King had he heard that he had a freckle of his nose, for to avise him to put white ointment thereon; but scarce, I reckon, for so small a matter as the good government of the realm.”

“Now, Jack!” said I, a-laughing.

“My Lord of Kent,” went he forth, “was he that, if he thought he had hurt the feelings of a caterpillar, should have risen from his warm bed the sharpest night in winter to go and pray his pardon of his bare knees. God assoil him, loving and gentle soul! He was all unfit for this rough world. And the dust that Sir Roger cast up at his horse-heels was in my Lord of Kent’s eyes as thick as any man’s. He could not have warned the King, for himself lacked the warning.”

“Then my Lord of Lancaster—why not he?”

“He did.”

“Ay, at long last, when two years had run: wherefore not long ere that? The dust, trow, was not in his eyes.”

“Good wife, no man’s eyes are blinder than his which casts the dust into his own. My Lord of Lancaster had run too long with the hounds to be able all suddenly to turn him around and flee with the hare.”

“Soothly, I know he met the Queen on her landing, and likewise had the old King in his ward: but—”

“I reckon, Sissot, there were wheels within wheels. We need not judge my Lord of Lancaster. He did his duty at last. And mind thou, between him and his duty to King Edward the father, stood his brother’s scaffold.”

“Which never man deserved richer.”

“Not a doubt thereof: but man may scarce expect his brother to behold it.”

“Then,” said I, “my Lord Zouche of Mortimer—but soothly he was cousin to the traitor. Jack, I never could conceive how it came about that he ever wedded the Lady Alianora. One of the enemies of her own husband, and she herself set prisoner in his kinsman’s keeping, and to wed her gaoler’s cousin, all against the King’s pleasure and without his licence—canst solve the puzzle?”

“I can tell thee why he wed her, as easy as say ‘twice two be four.’ She was co-heir of the earldom of Gloucester, and his sword was nearhand his fortune.”

“Then wherefore wed she him?”

“Kittle (ticklish, delicate) ground, Sissot, for man to take on him to account for the doings of woman. I might win a clap to mine ears, as like as not.”

“Now, Jack, thou wist well I never demean me so unbuxomly. Tell me thy thought.”

“Then I think,” saith he, “that the Lady Alianora La Despenser was woman of that manner that fetch their souls from the vine. They must have somewhat to lean on. If an oak or a cedar be nigh, good: but if no, why then, a bramble will serve their turn. The one thing that they cannot do is to stand alone. There be not only women of this fashion; there be like men, but too many. God help them, poor weak souls! The woman that could twine round the Lord Zouche the tendrils torn from Sir Hugh Le Despenser must have been among the very weakest of women.”

“It is sore hard,” said I, “to keep one from despising such weakness.”

“It is full hard, soothly. I know but one way—to keep very near to Him that never spurned the weakest that prayed His help, and that tholed weakness amidst other meeknesses (humiliations), by reason that it behoved Him to resemble His brethren in all things. And some of His brethren are very weak. Sissot, when our daughters were babes, I was wont to think thou lovedst better Alice than Vivien, and I am nearhand secure that it was by reason she was the weaker of the twain, and pave thee the more thought.”

“Surely,” said I; “that alway holdeth good with a mother, that the barne which most needeth care is the dearest.”

Jack’s answer, I knew, came from Holy Writ.

“‘As by him whom his mother blandisheth, thus will I comfort you.’”

The Sunday after the Conversion of Saint Paul (February 1st, 1327) was the young King crowned in Westminster Abbey before the high altar, by Walter (Reynolds) Archbishop of Canterbury, that had been of old a great friend of King Edward the father, and was carried away like the rest by the glamour of the Queen. But his eyes were opened afore most other, and he died of a broken heart for the evil and unkindness which himself had holpen, the day of Saint Edmund of Pontigny (November 16th) next thereafter. Also present were nine bishops, the King’s uncles, and many nobles: yea, and Queen Isabel likewise, that caused us to array her in great doole (mourning), and held her sudary at her eyes nearhand all the office (Service) through. And it was no craft, for she could weep when it listed her—some women have that power—and her sudary was full wet when she returned from the Abbey. And the young King, that was but then full fourteen years of age, took oath as his father and all the kings had done afore him, that he would confirm to the people of England the laws and the customs to them granted by the ancient Kings of England his predecessors, the rights and offerings of God, and particularly the laws, customs, and liberties granted to the clergy and people by the glorious King, Saint Edward, his predecessor. He sware belike to keep unto God and holy Church, unto the clergy and the people, entire peace and concord to his power; to do equal and true justice in all his judgments, and discretion in mercy and truth; to keep the laws and righteous customs which the commons of his realm should have elected (Auera estu are the rather singular words used), and to defend and enforce them, to the honour of God and to his power. (Note 2.)

Six sennights we tarried at Westminster: but, lack-a-day! what a time had we at after! All suddenly the Queen gave order to depart thence. She controlled all things, and the King her son was but a puppet in her hands. How did we trapes up and down all the realm!

To Canterbury the first round, a-pilgrimage to Saint Thomas; then right up as far as York, where we tarried a matter of five weeks. Then to Durham, which we had scarce reached ere we were aflight again, this time to Auckland, and a bit into that end of Yorkshire; back again to Durham, then away to York, and ten days later whisked off to Nottingham; there a fortnight, off again to Lincoln. I guess well now, what I wist not then, the meaning of all this. It was to let the young King from taking thought touching his father, and all that had happed of late. While he was cheerful and delectable (full of enjoyment), she let him be; but no sooner saw she his face the least downfell (cast down) than she plucked him away, and put turn to his thoughts by sending him some other whither. It paid (Note 3) for a time.

It was while we were at Lincoln, where we tarried from the morrow of Holy Cross to Michaelmas Eve (September 15th to 28th), that Donald the Scots messager came from the southern parts with tidings. For some time—divers weeks, certes—afore that, had the Queen been marvellous unrestful and hard to serve. That which liked her yesterday was all out this morrow, and each matter man named for her plesance was worser than that had gone afore. I was nearhand driven out of senses that very morrow, so sharp (irritable) was she touching her array. Not a gown in her wardrobe would serve the turn; and when at last she chose which she would don, then were her hoods all awry; and then would she have no hood, but only a wimple of fair cloth of linen. Then, gramercy! such pains had we to find her a fillet: this was too deep, and that too narrow, and this set with amethysts should ill fit with her gown of rose-colour, and that wrought of lily-flowers should catch in her hair.

I wished me at the further end of the realm from Lincoln, ay, a dozen times twice told.

At long last we gat her filleted; and then came the mantle. First, Dame Elizabeth brought one of black cloth of Stamford, lined with fox fur: no, that served not. Then brought Dame Joan de Vaux the fair mantle of cloth of velvet, grey, that I ever reckoned the fairest in the Queen’s wardrobe, guarded with black budge, and wrought in embroidery of rose-colour and silver: she waved it away as though the very sight ’noyed (disgusted) her. Then fetched Isabel de la Helde the ray mantle, with corded ground, of blue, red, and green; and the Queen chid her as though she had committed one of the seven deadly sins. At the last, in uttermost wanhope (despair), ran I and brought the ugsomest of all, the corded olive green with border of grey; and forsooth, that would she have. Well-a-day, but I was fain when we had her at last arrayed!

When the Queen had left the chamber, Dame Elizabeth cast her on the nearest bench, and panted like a coursed hare.

“Deary, deary me!” crieth she: “I would I were abed.”

“Abed!” crieth Isabel de la Helde. “Abed at five o’clock of a morrow!”

“Ay, or rather, I would I had never gat out. Gramercy, but how fractious is the Queen! I counted we ne’er should have her donned.”

“She never spoke to me so sharp in her life,” saith Isabel.

“I tell you, I am fair dog-weary!” quoth Dame Elizabeth.

“Whatever hath took the Queen?” saith Joan de Vilers.

“Foolish childre, all of you!” saith old Dame Tiffany, looking on us with a smile. “When man is fractious like to this, with every man and every matter, either he suffereth pain, or else he hath some hidden anguish or fear that hath nought to do with the matter in hand. ’Tis not with you that my Lady is wrathful. There is something harrying her at heart. And she hath not told me.”

In hall, during dinner. I cast eyes from time to time on the Queen, and I could not but think Dame Tiffany spake sooth. She looked fair haggard, as though some bitter care were eating out her heart. I never loved her, as I said at the first: but that morn I felt sorry for her.

Sorry for her! Ah, I soon knew what sore cause there was to be sorry to the very soul for some one else!

It was while we were sat at supper that Donald came. I saw him enter from the high table where I sat, and I knew in an instant that he brought some fearsome tidings. I lost him in the crowd at the further end, and then Mereworth, one of the varlets of the King’s chamber, came all in haste up the hall, with a face that had evil news thereon writ: and Sir John de Ros, that was then Seneschal, saw him, and guessing, as I think, the manner of word he brought, stepped down from the dais to meet him. Then, in an other minute, I saw Donald brought up to the King and to the Queen.

I watched them both. As Donald’s news was told, the young King’s face grew ashen pale, and he cried full dolefully “Dieu eit mercie!” The news troubled him sore and sure enough. But the Queen’s eyes, that a moment before had been full of terror and untholemodness (impatience), shot out one flash of triumphant gladness: and the next minute she had hidden her face in her sudary, and was greeting as though her heart had broke. I marvelled what tidings they could be, that were tene (grief) to the King, and blisfulhed (happiness) to the Queen. Sir John de Gaytenby, the King’s confessor, was sat next to me at the table, and to him I said—

“Father, can you guess what manner of news Donald de Athole shall have brought?”

“Ay, daughter,” he made answer. “Would I were in doubt!”

“You think—?” I asked him, and left him to fill up.

“I think,” he saith in a low voice somewhat sorrowful of tone, “that God hath delivered from all labour and sorrow one of His servants that trust in Him.”

“Why, that were nought to lament o’er!” I was about to say; but I stayed me when half through. “Father, you mean there is man dead?”

“We call it death,” saith Sir John de Gaytenby—“we of this nether world, that be ever in sickness and weariness, in tene and in temptation. Know we what they call it which have forded the Rubicon, and stand safe on the pavement of the Golden City? ‘Multo magis melius,’ saith the Apostle (Philippians One verse 23): ‘much more better’ to dissolve and to be with Christ. And the colder be the waters man hath to ford, the gladder and welcomer shall be the light of the Golden City. They were chill, I cast no doubt: and all the chiller for the hand that chilled them. With how sharp thorns and briers God hath to drive some of His sheep! But once in the Fold, there shall be time to forget them all. ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee’ (Isaiah 43 verse 2)—that is enough now. We can stay us upon that promise till we come through. And then there shall be no more need for Him to be with us in tribulation, since we shall reign with Him for ever and ever.”

Old Sir Simon de Driby came up behind us as the Confessor ended.

“Have you guessed, Sir John, our dread news?—and you, Dame Cicely?”

“I have guessed, and I think rightly,” answered Sir John. “For Dame Cicely I cannot say.”

I shook mine head, and Sir Simon told me.

“Sir Edward of Caernarvon is dead.”

“Dead—the King!”

“‘The King’ no longer,” saith Sir Simon sorrowfully.

“O Sir Simon!” cried I. “How died he?”

“God knoweth,” he made answer. “I misdoubt if man shall know.”

“Or woman?” quoth Sir John, significantly.

“The schoolmaster learned me that man includeth woman,” saith Sir Simon, smiling full grimly.

“He learned you not, I reckon, that woman includeth man,” saith Sir John, somewhat after the same manner.

“Ah, woe worth the day!” Sir Simon fetched an heavy sigh. “Well, God forgive us all!”

“Amen!” Sir John made answer.

I think few men were in the realm that did not believe the King’s death was murder. But nought was done to discover the murderers, neither to bring them to justice. It was not until after the Mortimer was out of the way that any such thing was done. When so it was, mandate was issued for the arrest of Sir Thomas de Gournay, Constable of Bristol Castle, and William de Ocle, that had been keepers of the King at Berkeley Castle. What came of Ocle know I not; but Sir Thomas fled beyond seas to the King’s dominions of Spain (Note 3), and was afterwards taken. But he came not to trial, for he died on the way: and there were that said he knew too much to be permitted to make defence. (Note 4.)

The next thing that happed, coming under mine eyes, was the young King’s betrothal and marriage. The Lady Philippa of Hainault, that was our young Queen, came over to England late in that same year, to wit, the first of King Edward, and was married the eve of the Conversion of Saint Paul, the year of our Lord 1327, after the computation of the Church of England (Note 5). Very praisable (lovely) and fulbright (beautiful) was the said lady, being sanguine of complexion, of a full fair face, and fair hair, having grey (grey) cyen and rosen colour of her cheeks. She was the same age as the King, to wit, fifteen years. They were wed in York Minster.

“Where hast reached to, Sissot?” saith Jack, that was sat by the fire, as I was a-bending the tail of my Y in York.

“Right to the King’s wedding,” said I.

“How many more skins o’ parchment shall I bring thee for to set forth the gowns?”

“Dear heart!” cried I, “must I do that for all that were there?”

“Prithee use thy discretion. I wist not a woman could write a chronicle without telling of every gown that came in her way.”

“Go thy ways, Jack!” said I. “Securely, if I set down the King’s, and the Queen’s, and thine and mine, that shall serve well enough.”

“It should serve me, verily,” quoth he. “Marry, I hope thou mindest what manner of raiment I had on, for I ensure thee I do not a whit.”

“Dost thou ever, the morrow thereof?” said I. “Nay, I wis I must pluck that out of mine own memory.”

The King, then, was donned of a robe of purple velvet, with a pair of sotlars of cloth of gold of Nakes silk; the said velvet robe wrought with the arms of England, of golden broidery. The Queen bare a robe of green cloth of velvet, with a cape thereto, guarded with miniver, and an hood of miniver; her hair falling full sweetly over from under her golden fillet, sith she put not on her hood save to leave the Minster. And at the feast thereafter, she ware a robe of cloth of samitelle, red and grey, with a tunic and mantle of the same. (Note 6.)

As for Jack, that was then clerk of the Wardrobe (Note 7), he ware a tabard of the King’s livery (the arms of France and England) of mine own broidering, and hosen of black cloth, his hood being of the same. I had on a gown of grey cloth of Northampton, guarded with gris, and mine hood was of rose-colour say (Note 8) lined with black velvet.

But over the inwards of the wedding must I not linger, for much is yet to write. The latter end of February was the Lady La Despenser loosed from the Tower, and in April was all given back to her. All, to wit, that could be given. Her little children, that the Queen Isabel had made nuns without any leave given save her own, could come back to her never more. I misdoubt if she lamented it greatly. She was one from whom trouble and sorrow ran lightly, like the water from a duck’s back: and I reckon she thought more on her second marriage, which had place secretly about a year after her release, than she ever did for her lost children. And here may I say that those sisters, coheirs of Gloucester, did ever seem to me the queerest mothers I wist. The Lady Margaret Audley gave up her little Kate (a sweet child she was) to the Ankerage at Ledbury with scarce a sigh; and the Lady Alianora, of whom I write, took but little thought for her maids at Sempringham, or I err. I would not have given up my Alice after that fashion: and I did sore pity those little barnes, of which the eldest was not seven years old. Folk said it was making of gift to God, and was an holy and blessed thing. Soothly, I marvel if God setteth store by such like gifts, when men do but cast at his feet that whereof they would be rid! The innermost sanctuary of the Temple, it seemeth me, is scarce the fittest place to shoot rubbish. And when the rubbish is alive, if it be but vermin, I cannot slack to feel compassion for it.

Methinks the Lady Alianora felt it sorer trouble of the twain, when she suffered touching certain jewels reported to be missing from the Tower during her governance thereof—verily a foolish charge, as though the Lady of Gloucester should steal jewels! Howbeit, she was fined twenty thousand pound, for the which she rendered up her Welsh lands, with the manors of Hanley and Tewkesbury, being the fairest and greatest part of her heritage. The King allowed her to buy back the said lands if she should, in one and the same day, pay ten thousand marks: howbeit, one half the said fine was after remitted at the intercession of the Lords and Commons.

That autumn was the insurrection of my Lord of Lancaster—but a bit too soon, for the time was not ripe, but I reckon they knew not how longer to bear the ill thewis (manners, conduct) of the Mortimer, which ruled every thing at his will, and allowed none, not even my Lord of Lancaster, to come nigh the King without his leave, and then he had them watched of spies. The Parliament was held at Salisbury that Michaelmas, whereto all men were forbidden to come in arms. Thither, nathless, came the said Mortimer, with a great rabble of armed men at his heels. My Lord of Lancaster durst not come, so instead thereof he put himself in arms, and sent to expound matters to the King. He was speedily joined by all that hated the Mortimer (and few did not), among whom were the King’s uncles, the Bishops of Winchester and London, the Lord Wake, the Lord de Beaumont, Sir Hugh de Audley, and many another that had stood stoutly for Queen Isabel aforetime. Some, I believe, did this out of repentance, seeing they had been deceived; other some from nought save hate and envy toward the Mortimer. The demands they put forth were no wise unskilwise (unreasonable). They were chiefly that the King should hold his revenues himself (for the Queen had so richly dowered herself that scarce a noble was left to the King); that the Queen should be dowered of the third part, as queens had been aforetime; and that the Mortimer should live on his own lands, and make no encroachments. They charged him with divers evil deeds, that he had avised the King to dissolve his Council appointed of twelve peers, he had wasted the royal treasure, he had counselled the King to give up Scotland, and had caused the Lady Joan to wed beneath her dignity.

“Make no encroachments!” grimly quoth old Sir Simon, when he heard of this; “verily, an’ this present state of matters go on but a little longer, the Mortimer can make no encroachments, for he shall have all England to his own.”

The Mortimer, that had yet the King’s ear (though I think he chafed a bit against the rein by now and then), avised him that the Lords sought his crown, causing him to ride out against them as far as Bedford, and that during the night. Peace was patched up some way, through the mediating of Sir Simon de Mepham, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, my Lord of Lancaster being fined eleven thousand pounds—though, by the same token, he never paid it. (Note 9.) That same Michaelmas was the King’s uncle, the Lord Edmund de Woodstock, create Earl of Kent (marry, I named him my Lord of Kent all through, seeing he should so best be known, but he was not so create until now), and King Roger, that was such, but was not so-called, had avancement to the dignity of Earl of March. There was many a lout and courtesy and many a leg made, when as my Lord’s gracious person was in presence; and when as he went forth, lo! brows were drawn together, and lips thrust forth, and words whispered beneath the breath that were not all of praise.

Now, whether it be to fall into the Annals of Cicely or no, this must I needs say—and Jack may flout me an’ he will (but that he doth never)—that I do hate, and contemn, and full utterly despise, this manner of dealing. If I love a man, maybe I shall be bashful to tell him so: but if I love him not, never will I make lout nor leg afore him for to win of him some manner of advantage. I would speak a man civilly, whether I loved him or no; that ’longeth to my gentlehood, not his: but to blandish and losenge him (coax and flatter), and say ‘I love thee well’ and ‘Thou art fairest and wisest of all’ twenty times in a day, when in mine heart I wished him full far thence, and accounted of him as fond and ussome (foolish and ugly)—that could I never demean me to do, an’ I lived to the years of Methuselah.

And another thing do I note—I trust Jack shall have patience with me—that right in proportion as a man is good, so much doth an ill man hate him. My Lord of Lancaster was wise man and brave, as he oft showed, though he had his failings belike; and he did more than any other against the Mortimer, until the time was full ripe: my Lord of Kent was gent, good, and sweet of nature, and he did little against him—only to consort with my said Lord of Lancaster: yet the Mortimer hated my Lord of Kent far worser than my Lord of Lancaster, and never stayed till he had undone him. Alas for that stately stag of ten, for the cur pulled him down and worried him!

My Lord of Kent, as I writ afore, had dust cast in his eyes by the Queen. He met her on her landing, and marched with her, truly believing that the King (as she told him) was in thrall to the old and young Sir Hugh Le Despenser, and that she was come to deliver him. Nought less than his brother’s murder tare open his sealed eyes. Then he woke up, and aswhasay looked about him, as a man roughly wakened that scarce hath his full sense. Bitter was his lamentation, and very sooth his penitence, when he saw the verity of the matter. Now right as this was the case with him, the Queen and the Mortimer, having taken counsel thereon, (for they feared he should take some step that should do them a mischief), resolved to entangle him. They spread a rumour, taking good care it should not escape his ears, that King Edward his brother yet lived, and was a prisoner in Corfe Castle. He, hearing this, quickly despatched one of his chaplains, named Friar Thomas Dunhead, a Predicant—for all the Predicants were on the King’s side—to see if the report were as it was said: and Sir John Deveroil, then Keeper of the Castle, having before his instructions, took the Friar within, seeming nothing loth, and showed unto him the appearance of a king seated at supper in hall, with his sewers (waiters) and other officers about him. This all had been bowned (prepared) afore, of purpose to deceive my Lord of Kent, and one chosen to present (represented) the King that was like enough to him in face and stature to pass well. On this hearing went my Lord of Kent with all speed to Avignon, to take counsel with Pope John (John Twenty-Two) who commended him for his good purpose to deliver his brother, and bade him effect the same by all means in his power: moreover, the said Pope promised himself to bear all charges—which was a wise deed of the holy Father, for my Lord of Kent was he that could never keep money in his pocket, but it flowed out of all sides. Then my Lord returned back, and took counsel with divers how to effect the same. Many an one promised him help—among other, the Archbishop of York, and the Lord Zouche of Mortimer (that wedded the Lady Alianora, widow of Sir Hugh Le Despenser), the Lord Wake (which had wrought much against the King of old, and was brother unto my Lady of Kent), and Sir Ebulo L’Estrange, (that wedded my Lady of Lancaster, widow of Earl Thomas), and the young Earl of Arundel, and others of less sort. My said Lady of Kent was likewise a-work in the matter, for she was not woman to let either tongue or hand lie idle.

Now, wherefore is it, that if man be rare sweet, gent, and tender, beyond other men, he shall sure as daydawn go and wed with woman that could hold castle or govern army if need were? ’Tis passing strange, but I have oft noted the same. And if he be rough and fierce, then shall he take fantasy to some soft, nesh (Note 10), bashful creature that scarce dare say nay to save her life. Right as men of high stature do commonly wed with small women, and the great women with little men. Such be the ways of Providence, I take it.

Jack saith—which I must not forget to set down—that he credeth not a whit that confession set forth as made of my Lord of Kent, nor any testimony of Friar Dunhead, but believeth the whole matter a pack of lies, saving only that my Lord believed the report of his brother prisoner in Corfe Castle. Howbeit, my Lord of Kent writ a letter as to the King his brother, offering his deliverance, which he entrusted to Sir John Deveroil: who incontinently carried the same to the Mortimer, and he to the Queen. She then showed it to the young King, saying that herein might he see his uncle was conspiring to dethrone him and take his life and hers. The King, that dearly loved his mother, allowed inquiry into the same, pending the which my said Lord was committed to prison.

The next morrow came the Mortimer to the Queen as she sat at dinner, and prayed instant speech of her, and that full privy: and the Queen, arising from the table, took him into her privy closet. Dame Isabel de Lapyoun alone in waiting. I had learned by then to fear mischief whensoever the Queen bade none follow her save Dame Isabel, for I do verily believe she was in all the ill secrets of her mistress. They were in conference maybe ten minutes, and then hastened the Mortimer away, nor would he tarry so long as to drink one cup of wine. It was not many minutes after that the young King came in; and I perceived by their discourse that the Queen his mother had sent for him. Verily, all that day (which was Saint Joseph (March 19th)) she watched him as cat, mouse. He could not leave the chamber a moment but my Lord of March crept after. I reckoned some mischief was brewing, but, purefoy! I guessed not how much. That day died my Lord of Kent, on the scaffold at Winchester. And so beloved was he that from noon till four of the clock they had to wait, for no man would strike him, till at last they persuaded one in the Marshalsea, that had been cast for (sentenced to) death, to behead him as the price of his own life.

A little after that hour came in Sir Hugh de Turpington, that was Marshal of the Hall to the King.

“Sir,” saith he to the King, “I am required of the Sheriff to tell you that my Lord of Kent hath paid wyte on the scaffold. So perish all your enemies!”

Up sprang the King with a face wherein amaze and sore anguish strave for the mastery.

“My uncle Edmund is dead on scaffold!” cried he in voice that rang through hall. “Mine enemies! He was none! What mean you? I gave no mandate for such, nor never should have done. Dieu eit mercie! mine enemies be they that have murdered my fair uncle, that I loved dear. Where and who be they? Will none here tell me?”

Wala wa! was soul in that hall brave enough to tell

him? One of those two chief enemies stale softly to his side, hushing the other (that seemed ready to break forth) by a look.

“Fair Son,” saith the Queen, in her oiliest voice, “hold you so light your own life and your mother’s? Was your uncle (that wist full well how to beguile you) dearer to you than I, on whose bosom you have lain as babe, and whose heart hath been rent at your smallest malady?”

(Marry, I marvel when, for I never beheld less careful mother than Dame Isabel the Queen. But she went forth.)

“The proofs of what I say,” quoth she, “shall be laid afore you in full Parliament, and you shall then behold how sorely you have been deceived in reckoning on a friend in your uncle. Meanwhile, fair Son, trust me. Who should seek your good, or care for your safety, more than your own mother?”

Ah verily, who should! But did she so? I could see the King was somewhat staggered by her sweet words, yet was he not peaced in a moment. His anger died down, but he brake forth in bitter tears, and so left the hall, greeting as he went.

Once more all passed away: and they that had hoped for the King to awake and discover truth found themselves beguiled.

Order was sent to seize my Lady of Kent and her childre, that were then in Arundel Castle. But the officers, there coming, told her the dread tidings, whereat she fell down all in swoon, and ere the eve was born the Lord John her son, and baptised, poor babe, in such haste in the Barefooted Friars’ Church, that his young brother and sister, no more than babes themselves, were forced to stand sponsors for him with the Prior of the Predicants (Note 11). Howbeit he lived to grow to man’s estate, yea, longer than the Lord Edmund his brother, and died Earl of Kent a matter of eight years gone.

The Castle of Arundel, and the lands, that had been given to my Lord of Kent when my Lord of Arundel was execute, were granted to Queen Isabel shortly after his ’heading. I think they were given as sop to keep him true to the Queen: not that he was man to be bought, but very like she thought all men were. Dear heart, what strange gear are we human creatures! I marvel at times whether the angels write us down greater knaves or fools.

Note 1. The crystallised juice of the aspen. Earl John of Hereford seems to have been a valetudinarian.

Note 2. Close Roll, 1 Edward the Third, Part One. The exact wording of the coronation oath is of some importance, since it has sometimes been stated that our sovereigns have sworn to maintain religion precisely as it existed in the days of Edward the Confessor. The examination of the oath shows that they promised no such thing. They engaged only to keep and defend to the people, clerical and lay, the laws, customs, rights, and liberties granted by their predecessors, and by Edward more especially. “To his power” means “to the best of his power.”

Note 3. Then not an unusual way of saying “the King of Spain’s dominions.”

Note 4. In my former volume, In All Time of our Tribulation, I committed the mistake of repeating the popular error that the Queen took immediate vengeance, by banishment, on the murderers of her husband. It was only Gournay and Ocle who were directly charged with the murder: the others who had a share in it were merely indicted for treason. Gournay was Constable of Bristol in December, 1328; and the warrant for his apprehension was not issued until December 3, 1330—after the fall of Mortimer, when Edward the Third, not his mother, was actually the ruler.

Note 5. By this phrase was meant the reckoning of the year from Easter to Easter, subsequently fixed for convenience’ sake at the 25th of March.

Note 6. I have searched all the Wardrobe Accounts in vain for the wedding attire of this royal pair. The robes described are that worn by the King for his coronation; that in which the Queen rode from the Tower to Westminster the day before her coronation; and that in which she dined after the same ceremony. These details are given in the Wardrobe Accounts, 33/2, and 34/13. It was the fashion at this time for a bride’s hair to be left flowing straight from head to foot.

Note 7. Chaucombe was in the Household, but of his special office I find no evidence.

Note 8. A coarse variety of silk, used both for garments and upholstery.

Note 9. Dr Barnes tells his readers that Lancaster was at this time so old as to be nearly decrepit; and two years later, that he was “almost blind for age.” He was exactly forty-one, having been born in 1287 (Inq. Tho. Com. Lane, 1 Edward the Third 1. 88), and 53 years had not elapsed since the marriage of his parents. We may well say, after Chancellor Oxenstiern, “See with how little accuracy history is written!”

Note 10. Tender, sensitive, either in body or mind. This word is still a provincialism in the North and West.

Note 11. Prob. aet. Johannis Com. Kant., 23 Edward the Third 76, compared with Rot. Pat., 4 Edward the Third, Part 1, and Rot. Claus., 4 Edward the Third.

Part 1—- Chapter 6.

Nemesis.

“The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.”

Longfellow.

After this, the Queen kept the King well in hand. To speak sooth, I should say the old Queen, or Queen Isabel, for now had we a young Queen. But verily, all this time Queen Philippa was treated as of small account; and she, that was alway sweet and gent, dwelt full peaceably, content with her babe, our young Prince of Wales, that was born at Woodstock, at Easter of the King’s fourth year (Note 1), and the old Queen Isabel ruled all. She seemed fearful of letting the King out of her sight. When he journeyed to the North in August, she went withal, and came back with him to Nottingham in October. It was she that writ to my Lord of Hereford that he should not fail to be at the Colloquy (note 2) to be held in that town the fifteenth of October. With her was ever my Lord of March, that was as her shadow: my Lady of March, that might have required to have her share of him with some reason, being left lone with her childre in Ludlow Castle. It was the 13th of October that we came to Nottingham. My Lord of Hereford, that was Lord High Constable, was at that time too sick to execute his office (or thought he was); maybe he desired to keep him well out of a thing he foresaw: howbeit, he writ his excuse to the King, praying that his brother Sir Edward de Bohun might be allowed his deputy. To this the King assented: but my Lord of March, that I guess mistrusted more Sir Edward than his brother (the one having two eyes in his head, and the other as good as none), counselled the Queen to take into her own hand the keys of the Castle. Which she did, having them every night brought to her by Sir William Eland, then Constable thereof, and she laid them under her own pillow while the morning.

The part of my tale to follow I tell as it was told to me, in so far as matters fell not under mine eye.

The King, the old Queen, the Earl of March, and the Bishop of Lincoln, were lodged in the Castle with their following: and Sir Edward de Bohun, doing office for his brother, appointed my Lord of Lancaster to have his lodging there likewise. Whereat my glorious Lord of March was greatly angered, that he should presume to appoint a lodging for any of the nobles so near the person of Queen Isabel. (He offered not to go forth himself.) Sir Edward smiled something grimly, and appointed my Lord of Lancaster his lodging a mile forth of the town, where my Lord of Hereford also was.

That night was dancing in the hall; and a little surprised was I that Sir William de Montacute (Note 3) should make choice of me as his partner. He was one of the bravest knights in all the King’s following—a young man, with all his wits about him, and lately wed to the Lady Katherine de Grandison, a full fair lady of much skill (Note 4) and exceeding good repute. It was the pavon (Note 5) we danced, and not many steps were taken when Sir William saith—

“Dame Cicely, I have somewhat to say to you, under your good leave.”

“Say on, Sir William,” quoth I.

“Say I well, Dame, in supposing you true of heart to the old King, as Dame Alice de Lethegreve’s daughter should be?”

“You do so, in good sooth,” I made answer.

“So I reckoned,” quoth he. “Verily, an’ I had doubted it, I had held my peace. But now to business:—Dame, will you help me?”

I could not choose but laugh to hear him talk of business.

“That is well,” saith he. “Laugh, I pray you; then shall man think we do but discourse of light matter. But what say you to my question?”

“Why, I will help you with a very good will,” said I, “if you go about a good matter, and if I am able, and if mine husband forbid me not.”

“Any more ifs?” quoth he—that I reckon wished to make me to laugh, the which I did.

“Not at this present,” made I answer.

“Then hearken me,” saith he. “Can you do a deed in the dark, unwitting of the cause—knowing only that it is for the King’s honour and true good, and that they which ask it be true men?”

I meditated a moment. Then said I,—“Ay; I can so.”

“Will you pass your word,” saith he, “to the endeavouring yourself to keep eye on the Queen and my Lord of March this even betwixt four and five o’ the clock? Will you look from time to time on Sir John de Molynes, and if you hear either of them speak any thing as though they should go speak with the King, will you rub your left eye when Sir John shall look on you? But be you ware you do it not elsewise.”

“What, not though it itch?” said I, yet laughing.

“Not though it itch to drive you distraught.”

“Well!” said I, “’tis but for a hour. But what means it, I pray you?”

“It means,” saith he, “that if the King’s good is to be sought, and his honour to be saved, you be she that must help to do it.”

Then all suddenly it came on me, like to a levenand (lightning) flash, what it was that Sir William and his fellows went about to do. I looked full into his eyes. And if ever I saw truth, honour, and valour writ in man’s eyes, I read them there.

“I see what you purpose,” said I.

“You be marvellous woman an’ you do,” answered he.

“Judge you. You have chosen that hour to speak with the King, and to endeavour the opening of his eyes. For Queen Isabel or my Lord of March to enter should spoil your game. Sir John de Molynes is he that shall give you notice if such be like to befall, and I am to signify the same to him.”

Right at that minute I had to take a volt (jump), and turn to the right round Sir John Neville. When I returned back to my partner, saith he, so that Sir John could hear—

“Dame Cicely, you vault marvellous well!”

“That was not so ill as might have been, I reckon,” quoth I.

“Truly, nay,” he made answer: “it was right well done.”

I knew he meant to signify that I had guessed soothly.

“Will you try it yet again?” saith he.

“That will I,” I said: and I saw we were at one thereon.

“Good,” saith he. “I reckoned, if any failed me at this pinch, it should not be Dame Alice’s daughter.”

That eve stood I upon tenterhooks. As the saints would have it, the Queen was a-broidering a certain work whereon Dame Elizabeth wrought with her: and for once in my life I thanked the said hallows (saints) for Dame Elizabeth’s laziness.

“Dame Cicely,” quoth she, “an’ you be not sore pressed for time, pray you, thread me a two-three needles. I wis not how it befalleth, but thread a neeld can I never.”

I could have told her well that how, for whenso she threadeth a neeld she maketh no bones of the eye, but thrusteth forward the thread any whither it shall go, on the chance that it shall hit, which by times it doth: I should not marvel an’ she essayed to thread the point. Howbeit, her ill husbandry was right then mine encheson (Note 6).

“Look you,” said I, “I can bring my work to that end of the chamber; then shall I be at hand to thread your neeld as it shall be voided.”

“Verily, you be gent therein,” saith she.

The which I fear I was little. Howbeit, there sat I, a-threading Dame Elizabeth her neeld, now with red silk and now with black, as she lacked, and under all having care that I rubbed not my left eye, the which I felt strong desire to frote (rub). I marvel how it was, for the hour over, I had no list to touch it all the even.

My task turned out light enough, for my Lord of March was playing of tables (backgammon) with Sir Edward de Bohun, and never left his seat for all the hour: and the Queen wrought peacefully on her golden vulture, and moved no more than he. When I saw it was five o’ the clock (Note 7), I cast an eye on Sir John de Molynes, which threw a look to the clock, and then winked an eye on me; and I saw he took it we had finished our duty.

The next morrow, which was Saint Luke’s even (October 17th), came a surprise for all men. It was found that the Constable of the Castle, with Sir William de Montacute, Sir Edward de Bohun, Sir John de Molynes, the Lord Ufford, the Lord Stafford, the Lord Clinton, and Sir John Neville, had ridden away from the town the night afore, taking no man into their counsel. None could tell wherefore their departure, nor what they purposed. I knew only that the King was aware thereof, though soothly he counterfeited surprise as well as any man.

“What can they signify?” saith Sir Edmund de Mortimer, the eldest son of my Lord of March—a much better man than his father, though not nigh so crafty.

“Hold thy peace for a fool as thou art!” saith his father roughly. “They are afraid of me, I cast no doubt at all. And they do well. I could sweep them away as lightly as so many flies, and none should miss them!”

He ended with a mocking laugh. Verily, pride such as this was full ready for a fall.

We knew afterward what had passed in that hour the day afore. The King had been hard to insense (cause to understand: still a Northern provincialism) at the first. So great was his faith in his mother that he ne could ne would believe any evil of her. As to the Mortimer, he was ready enough, for even now was he a-chafing under the yoke.

“Be he what he may—the very foul fiend himself an’ you will,” had he said to his Lords: “but she, mine own mother, my beloved—Oh, not she, not she!”

Then—for themselves were lost an’ they proved not their case—they were fain to bring forth their proofs. Sir William de Montacute told my Jack it was all pitiful to see how our poor young King’s heart fought full gallantly against the light as it brake on his understanding. Poor lad! for he was but a lad; and it troubled him sore. But they knew they must carry the matter through.

“Oh, have away your testimonies!” he cried more than once. “Spare her—and spare me! Mother, my mother, mine own dear Lady! how is this possible?”

At the last he knew all: knew who had set England in flame, who had done Sir Hugh Le Despenser and his son to death, who had been his own father’s murderer. The scales were off his eyes; and had he list to do it, he could never set them on again. They said he covered his face, and wept like the child he nearhand was. Then he lifted his head, the tears over, and in his eyes was the light of a settled purpose, and in his lips a stern avisement. No latsummes (backwardness, reluctance) was in him when once fully set.

“Take the Mortimer,” quoth he, firm enough.

“Sir,” quoth Sir William de Montacute, “we, not being lodged in the Castle, shall never be able to seize him without help of the Constable.”

“Now, surely,” saith the King, “I love you well: wherefore go to the Constable in my name, and bid him aid you in taking of the Mortimer, on peril of life and limb.”

“Sir, then God grant us speed!” saith Sir William.

So to the Constable they went, and brake the matter, only at first bidding him in the King’s name (having his ring for a token) to aid them in a certain enterprise which concerned the King’s honour and safety. The Constable sware so to do, and then saith Sir William—

“Now, surely, dear friend, it behoved us to win your assent, in order to seize on the Mortimer, sith you are Keeper of the Castle, and have the keys at your disposal.”

Then the Constable, having first lift his brows and made grimace of his mouth, fell in therewith, and quoth he—

“Sirs, if it be thus, you shall wit that the gates of the Castle be locked with the locks that Queen Isabel sent hither, and at night she hath all the keys thereof, and layeth them under the pillow of her bed while morning: and so I may not help you into the Castle at the gates by any means. But I know an hole that stretcheth out of the ward under earth into the Castle, beginning on the west side (still called Mortimer’s Hole), which neither the Queen nor her following nor Mortimer himself, nor none of his company, know anything of; and through this passage I will lead you till you come into the Castle without espial of enemies.”

Thereupon went they forth that even, as though to flee away from the town, none being privy thereto save the King. And Saint Luke’s Day passed over quiet enough. The Queen went to mass in the Church of the White Friars, and offered at the high altar five shillings, her customary offering on the great feasts and chief saints’ days. All peaceful sped the day; the Queen gat her abed, and the keys being brought of the Constable’s deputy, I (that was that night in waiting) presented them unto her, which she received in her own hands and laid under the pillow of her bed. Then went we, her dames and damsels, forth unto our own chambers in the upper storey of the Castle: and I, set at the casement, had unlatched the same and thrown it open (being nigh as warm as summer), and was hearkening to the soft flow of the waters of the Leene, which on that side do nearhand wash the Castle wall. I was but then thinking how peaceful were all things, and what sore pity it were that man should bring in wrong, and bitterness, and anguish, on that which God had made so beautiful—when all suddenly my fair peace changed to fierce tumult and the clang of armed men—the tramp of mail-clad feet and the hoarse crying of roaring voices. I was as though I held my breath: for I could well guess what this portended. Then above all the routing and bruit (shouting and noise), came the voice of Queen Isabel, clear and shrill.

“Now, fair Sirs, I pray you that you do no harm unto his body, for he is a worthy knight, our well-beloved friend, and our dear cousin.”

“They have him, then!” quoth I, scarce witting that I spake aloud, nor who heard me.

“‘Have him!’” saith Dame Joan de Vaux beside me: “whom have they?”

Then, suddenly, a word or twain in the King’s voice came up to where we stood; on which hearing, an anguished cry rang out from Queen Isabel.

“Fair Son, fair Son! have pity on the sweet Mortimer!” (Note 8.)

Wala wa! that time was past. And she had shown no pity.

I never loved her, as in mine opening words I writ: yet in that dread moment I could not find in mine heart to leave her all alone in her agony. I have ever found that he which brings his sorrows on his own head doth not suffer less thereby, but more. And let her be what she would, she was a woman, and in sorrow, not to say mine own liege Lady: and signing to Dame Joan to follow me, down degrees ran I with all haste, and not staying to scratch on the door (Note 9), into the chamber to the Queen.

We found her sitting up in her bed, her hands held forth, and a look of agony and horror on her face.

“Cicely, is it thou?” she shrieked. “Joan! Whence come ye? Saw ye aught? What do they to him? who be the miscreants? Is my son there? Have they won him over—the coward neddirs (serpents) that they be! Speak I who be they?—and what will they do? Ah, Mary Mother, what will they do with him?”

Her voice choked, and I spake.

“Dame, the King is there, and divers with him.”

“What do they?” she wailed like a woman in her last agony.

“There hath been sharp assault, Dame,” said I, “and I fear some slain; for as I ran in hither, I saw that which seemed me the body of a dead man at the head of degrees.”

“Who?” She nearhand screamed.

“Dame,” I said, “I think it was Sir Hugh de Turpington.”

“But what do they with him?” she moaned again, an accent of anguish on that last word.

I save no answer. What could I have given?

Dame Joan de Vaux saith, “Dame, the King is there, and God will be with the King. We may well be ensured that no wrong shall be done to them that have done no wrong. This is not the contekes (quarrel) of a rabble rout; it is the justice of the Crown upon his enemies.”

“His enemies?—whose? Mine enemies are dead and gone. All of them—all! I left not one. Who be these? who be they, I say? Cicely, answer me!”

Afore I could speak word, I was called by another voice. I was fain enough of the reprieve. Leaving Dame Joan with the Queen, I ran forth into the Queen’s closet, where stood the King.

What change had come over him in those few hours! No longer a bashful lad that was nearhand afraid to speak for himself ere he were bidden. This was a young man (he was now close on eighteen years of age) that stood afore me, a youthful warrior, a budding Achilles, that would stand to no man’s bidding, but would do his will. King of England was this man. I louted low before my master.

He spake in a voice wherein was both cold constrainedness, and bitterness, and stern determination—yet under them all something else—I think it was the sorely bruised yet living soul of that deep unutterable tenderness which had been ever his for the mother of his love, but could be the same never more. Man is oft cold and bitter and stern, when an hour before he hath dug a grave in his own heart, and hath therein laid all his hopes and his affections. And they that look on from afar behold the sheet of ice, but they see not the grave beneath it. They only see him cold and silent: and they reckon he cares for nought, and feels nothing.

“Dame Cicely, you have been with the Queen?”

“Sir, I have so.”

“Take heed she hath all things at her pleasure, of such as lie in your power. Let my physician be sent for if need arise, as well as her own; and if she would see any holy father, let him be fetched incontinent (immediately). See to it, I charge you, that she be served with all honour and reverence, as you would have our favour.”

He turned as if to depart. Then all suddenly the ice went out of his voice, and the tears came in.

“How hath she taken it?” saith he.

“Sir,” said I, “full hardly as yet, and is sore troubled touching my Lord of March, fearing some ill shall be done him. Moreover, my Lady biddeth me tell her who these be. Is it your pleasure that I answer the same?”

“Ay, answer her,” saith he sorrowfully, “for it shall do no mischief now. As for my Lord of March, no worser fate awaits him than he hath given better men.”

He strade forth after that kingly fashion which was so new in him, and yet sat so seemly upon him, and I went back to the Queen’s chamber.

“Cicely, is that my son?” she cried.

“In good sooth, Dame,” said I.

“What said he to thee?”

I told her the King had bidden me answer all her desire; that if she required physician she should be tended of his chirurgeon beside her own, and she should speak with any priest she would. I had thought it should apay (gratify) her to know the same; but my words had the contrariwise effect, for she looked more frightened than afore.

“Nought more said he?”

“Dame,” said I, “the Lord King bade me to serve you with all honour and reverence. And he said, for my Lord of March—”

“Fare forth!” (go on) she cried, though I scarce knew that I paused.

“He answered, that no worser should befall him than he had caused to better men than he.”

“Mary, Mother!”

I thought I had scarce ever heard wofuller wail than she made then. She sank down in the bed, clutching the coverlet with her hands, and casting it over her, as she buried her face in the pillows. I went nigh, and drew the coverlet full setely (properly, neatly) over her.

“Let be!” she saith in a smothered voice. “It is all over. Life must fare forth, and life is of no more worth. My bird is flown from the cage, and none can win him back. Is there so much as one of the saints will speak for me? As I have wrought, so hast Thou paid me, God!”

Not an other word spake she all the livelong day. Never day seemed longer than that weary eve of Saint Ursula (October 20th). That morrow were taken in the town the two sons of my Lord of March, Sir Edmund and Sir Geoffrey, beside divers of his friends—Sir Oliver Byngham, Sir Simon de Bereford, and Sir John Deveroil the chief. All were sent that same day under guard to London, with the Mortimer himself.

No voice compassionated him. Nay, “my Lord of March” was no more, but in every man’s mouth “the Mortimer” as of old time. Some that had seemed his greatest losengers (flatterers) now spake of him with the most disdain, while they that, while they allowed him not (did not approve of him), had yet never abused ne reviled him, were the least wrathful against him. I heard that when he was told of all, my Lord of Lancaster flung up his cap for joy.

Some things afterward said were not true. It was false slander to say, as did some, that the Mortimer was taken in the Queen’s own chamber. He was arrest in the Bishop of Lincoln’s chamber (which had his lodging next the Queen), and in conference with the said Bishop. They took not that priest of Baal; I had shed no tears had they so done. Sir Hugh de Turpington and Sir John Monmouth, creatures of the Mortimer, were slain; Sir John Neville, on the other side, was wounded.

Fourteen charges were set forth against the Mortimer. The murder of King Edward was one; the death of my Lord of Kent an other. One thing was not set down, but every man knew how to read betwixt the lines, when the indictment writ that other articles there were against him, which in respect of the King’s honour were not to be drawn up in writing. Wala wa! there was honour concerned therein beside his own: but he was very tender of her. His way was hard to walk and beset with snares, and he walked it with cleaner feet than most men should. Never heard I from his lips word unreverent toward her; and if other lips spake the same to his knowing, they forthank (regretted) it.

That same day the King departed from Nottingham for Leicester, on his way to London. He left behind him the Lord Wake de Lydel, in whose charge he placed Queen Isabel, commanding that she should be taken to Berkhamsted Castle as soon as might be. I know not certainly if he spake with her afore he set forth, but I think rather nay than yea.

October was not out when we reached Berkhamsted. The Queen’s first anguish was over, and she scarce spake; but I could see she hearkened well if aught was said in her hearing.

The King sent command to seize all lands and goods of the Mortimer into his hands; but the Lady of March he bade to be treated with all respect and kindliness, and that never a jewel nor a thread of her having should be taken. Indeed, I heard never man nor woman speak of her but tenderly and pitifully. She was good woman, and had borne more than many. For the Lady Margaret her mother-in-law, so much will I not say; for she was a firebrand that (as saith Solomon) scattered arrows and death: but the Lady Joan was full gent and reverend, and demerited better husband than the Fates gave her. Nay, that may I not say, sith no such thing is as Fate, but only God, that knoweth to bring good out of evil, and hath comforted the Lady Joan in Paradise these four years gone.

But scarce three weeks we tarried at Berkhamsted, and then the Lord Wake bore to the Queen tidings that it was the King’s pleasure she should remove to Windsor. My time of duty was then run out all but a two-three days; and the Queen my mistress was pleased to say I might serve me of those for mine own ease, so that I should go home in the stead of journeying with her to Windsor. At that time my little maid Vivien was not in o’er good health, and it paid me well to be with her. So from this point mine own remembrances have an end, and I serve me, for the rest, of the memory of Dame Joan de Vaux, mine old and dear-worthy friend, and of them that abode with Queen Isabel till she died. For when her household was ’minished and again stablished on a new footing, it liked the King of his grace to give leave to such as should desire the same to depart to their own homes, and such as would were at liberty to remain—one except, to wit, Dame Isabel de Lapyoun, to whom he gave congé with no choice. I was of them that chose to depart. Forsooth, I had seen enough and to spare of Court life (the which I never did much love), and I desired no better than to spend the rest of my life at home, with my Jack and my little maids, and my dear mother, so long as God should grant me.

My brother Robert (of whom, if I spake not much, it was from no lack of loving-kindness), on the contrary part, chose to remain. He hath ever loved a busy life.

I found my Vivien full sick, and a weariful and ugsome time had I with her ere she recovered of her malady. Soothly, I discovered that diachylum emplasture was tenpence the pound, and tamarinds fivepence; and grew well weary of ringing the changes upon rosin and frankincense, litharge and turpentine, oil of violets and flowers of beans, Gratia Dei, camomile, and mallows. At long last, I thank God, she amended; but it were a while ere mine ears were open to public matter, and not full filled of the moaning of my poor little maid. So now, to have back to my story, as the end thereof was told me by Dame Joan de Vaux.

Queen Isabel came to Windsor about Saint Edmund the King (November 20th); and nine days thereafter, on the eve of Saint Andrew (November 29th), was the Mortimer hanged at Tyburn. He was cast (sentenced) as commoner, not as noble, and was dragged at horse’s tail for a league outside the city of London to the Elms. But the penalties that commonly came after were not exacted, seeing his body was not quartered, nor his head set up on bridge ne gate. His body was sent to the Friars Minors’ Church at Coventry, whence one year thereafter, it was at the King’s command delivered to the Lady Joan his widow and Sir Edmund his son, that they might bury him in the Abbey of Wigmore with his fathers. His mother, the Lady Margaret, overlived him but four years; but the Lady Joan his wife died four years gone, the very day and month that he was taken prisoner, to wit, the nineteenth day of October, 1356, nigh two years afore Queen Isabel.

The eve of Saint Andrew, as I writ, was the Mortimer hanged, without defence by him made (he had allowed none to Sir Hugh Le Despenser and my Lord of Kent): and four days hung his body in irons on the gibbet, as Sir Hugh’s the father had done. Verily, as he had done, so did God apay him, which is just Judge over all the earth.

And the very next day, Saint Andrew, came His dread judgment upon one other—upon her that had wrought evil and not good, and that had betrayed her own lord to his cruel death. All suddenly, without one instant’s warning, came the bolt out of Heaven upon Isabel of France. While the body of the Mortimer hung upon the gibbet at the Elms of Tyburn, God stripped that sinful woman of the light of reason which she had used so ill, and she fell into a full awesome frenzy, so dread that she was fain to be strapped down, and her cries and shrieks were nearhand enough to drive all wood that heard her. While the body hung there lasted this fearsome frenzy. But the hour it was taken down, came change over her. She sank that same hour into the piteous thing she was for long afterward, right as a little child, well apaid with toys and shows, a few glass beads serving her as well as costly jewels, and a yard of tinsel or fringe bright coloured a precious treasure. The King was sore troubled; but what could he do? At the first the physicians counselled that she should change the air often; and first to Odiham Castle was she taken, and thence to Hertford, and after to Rising. But nothing was to make difference to her any more for many a year,—only that by now and then, for a two-three hours, she hath come to her wit, and then is she full gent and sad, desiring ever the grace of our Lord for her ill deeds, and divers times saying that as she hath done, so hath God requited her. I have heard say that as time passed on, these times of coming to her wit were something oftener and tarried longer, until at last, a year afore she died, she came to her full wit, and so abode to the end.

The King, that dealt full well with her, and had as much care of her honour as of his own (and it was whispered that our holy Father the Pope writ unto him that he should so do), did at the first appoint her to keep her estate in two of her own castles, to wit, Hertford and Rising: and set forth a new household for her, appointing Sir John de Molynes her Seneschal, and Dame Joan de Vaux her chief dame in waiting. Seldom hath she come to Town, but when there, she tarried in the Palace of my Lord of Winchester at Southwark, on the river side, and was once in presence when the King delivered the great Seal to Sir Robert Parving. Then she was in her wit for a short time. But commonly, at the King’s command, she hath tarried in those two her castles,—to wit, Hertford and Rising—passing from one to the other according to the counsel of her physicians. The King hath many times visited her (though never the Queen, which he ever left at Norwich when he journeyed to Rising), and so, at times, have divers of his children. Ten years afore her death, the King’s adversary of France, Philippe de Valois, that now calleth him King thereof, moved the King that Queen Isabel should come to Eu to treat with his wife concerning peace: and so careful is the King, and hath ever been, of his mother’s honour, that he would not answer him with the true reason contrary thereto, but treated with him on that footing, and only at the last moment made excuse to appoint other envoys. Poor soul! she had no wit thereto. I never saw her after I left her service saving once, which was when she was at Shene, on Cantate Sunday (April 29th), an eleven years ere her death, at supper in the even, where were also the King, the Queen of Scots (her younger daughter), and the Earl of March (grandson of the first Earl); and soothly, for all the ill she wrought, mine heart was woe for the caged tigress with the beautiful eyes, that was wont to roam the forest wilds at her pleasure, and now could only pace to and fro, up and down her cage, and toy with the straws upon the floor thereof. It was pitiful to see her essaying, like a babe, as she sat at the board, to cause a wafer to stand on end, and when she had so done, to clap her hands and laugh with childish glee, and call her son and daughter to look. Very gent was the King unto her, that looked at her bidding, and lauded her skill and patience, as he should have done to his own little maid that was but three years old. Ah me, it was piteous sight! the grand, queenly creature that had fallen so low! Verily, as she had done, so God requited her.

She died at Hertford Castle, two days afore Saint Bartholomew next thereafter (August 22nd, 1358. See Note in Appendix). I heard that in her last hours, her wit being returned to her as good as ever it had been, she had her shriven clean, and spake full meek (humble) and excellent words of penitence for all her sins, and desired to be buried in the Church of the Friars Minors in London town, and the heart of her dead lord to be laid upon her breast. They have met now in the presence above, and he would forgive her there. Lalme de qui Dieux eit mercie! Amen.

Here have ending the Annals of Cicely.

Note 1. The chroniclers (and after them the follow-my-leader school of modern historians) are unanimous in their assertion that the Black Prince was born on June 15th. If this be so, it is, to say the least, a little singular that the expenses of the Queen’s churching were defrayed on the 24th and 28th of April previous (Issue Roll, Easter, 4 Edward the Third). On the 3rd, 5th, and 13th of April, the King dates his mandates from Woodstock; on the 24th of March he was at Reading. This looks very much as if the Prince’s birth had taken place about the beginning of April. The 8th of that month was Easter Day.

Note 2. Modern writers make no difference between a Colloquy and a Parliament. The Rolls always distinguish them, treating; the Colloquy as a lesser and more informal gathering.

Note 3. Second son of the elder Sir William de Montacute and Elizabeth de Montfort. He appears as a boy in the first chapter of the companion volume, In All Time of our Tribulation.

Note 4. Discretion, wisdom.

Note 5. The pavon was a slow, stately dance, but it also included high leaps.

Note 6. Occasion, opportunity. Needles, at this time, were great treasures; a woman who possessed three or four thought herself wealthy indeed.

Note 7. Striking clocks were not invented until about 1368.

Note 8. Had the Queen spoken in English, she would certainly have said sweet, not gentle, which last is an incorrect translation of gentil. This latter speech, though better known, is scarcely so well authenticated as the previous one.

Note 9. Royal etiquette prescribed a scratch on the door, like that of a pet animal; the knock was too rough and plebeian an appeal for admission.

Part 2—- Chapter 1.

Wherein Agnes the Lady of Pembroke telleth tale (1348).

The Children of Ludlow Castle.

“O little feet, that, such long years,
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load:
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
Am weary, thinking of your road.”
Longfellow.

Hereby I promise, and I truly mean to execute it, to give my new green silk cloth of gold piece, bordered with heads of griffins in golden broidery, to the Abbey of Saint Austin at Canterbury, if any that liveth, man or woman, will tell me certainly how evil came into this world. I want to know why Eva plucked that apple. She must have plucked it herself, for the serpent could not give it her, having no hands. And if man—or woman—will go a step further, and tell me why Adam ate another, he shall have my India-coloured silk, broidered with golden lions and vultures, whereof I had meant to make me a new gown for this next Michaelmas feast. It doth seem as if none but a very idiot could have let in evil and sin and sorrow and pain all over this world, for the sake of a sweet apple. It must have been sweet, I should think, because it grew in Eden. But was there never another in all the garden save only on that tree? Or did man not know what would happen? or was it that man would not think? That is the way sometimes with some folks, else that heedless Nichola had not broken my favourite comb.

The question has been in my head many a score of times; but it came just now because my Lady, my lord’s mother, was earnest with me to write in a book what I could remember of mine early days, when my Lady mine own mother was carried to Skipton and Pomfret. If those were not evil days, I know not how to spell the word. And I am very sure it was evil men that made them; and evil women. I believe bad woman is far worse than bad man. So saith the Lady Julian, my lord’s mother; and being herself woman, and having been thrice wed, she should know somewhat of women and men too. Ay, and I were ill daughter if I writ not down also that a good woman is one of God’s blessedest gifts to this evil world; for such is mine own mother, the Lady Joan de Geneville, that was sometime wife unto the Lord Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, whose name men of this day know but too well.

Well-a-day! if a thing is to be, it is best over. It is never any good to sit on the brink shivering before man plunge in. So, if I must needs write, be it done. Here is a dozen of parchment, and a full inkhorn, and grey goose-quills: and I need nothing else save brains; whereof, I thank the saints, I have enough and to spare. And indeed, it is as well I should, for in this world—I say not, in this house—there be folks who have none too many. But I reckon, before I begin my tale, I had best say who and what I am, else shall those who read my book be like men that walk in a mist, which is not pleasant, as I found this last summer, when for a time I lost my company—and thereby, myself—on the top of a Welsh mountain.

I, then, who write, am Agnes de Hastings, Countess of Pembroke and Lady of Leybourne: and I am wife unto the Lord Lawrence de Hastings, Earl and Baron of the same. My father and mother I have already named, but I may say further that my said mother is a Princess born, being of that great House of Joinville in France—which men call Geneville in England—that are nobles of the foremost rank in that country. These my parents had twelve children, of whom I stand right in the midst, being the seventh. My brother Edmund was the eldest of us; then came Margaret, Joan, Roger, Geoffrey, Isabel, and Katherine; then stand I Agnes, and after me are Maud, John, Blanche, and Beatrice (Note 1). And of them, Edmund and Margaret have been commanded to God. He died young, my poor brother Edmund, for he set his heart on being restored to the name and lands which our father had forfeited, and our Lord the King thought not good to grant it; so his heart broke, and he died. Poor soul! I would not say an unkind word over his grave; where the treasure is, there will the heart be; but I would rather set my heart on worthier treasure, and I think I should scarce be so weak as to die for the loss. God assoil him, poor soul!

I was born in the Castle of Ludlow, on the morrow of the Translation of Saint Thomas, in the year of King Edward of Caernarvon the eleventh (Note 2), so that I am now thirty years of age. I am somewhat elder than my lord, who was born at Allesley, by Coventry town, on Saint Cuthbert’s Day, in the fourteenth year of the same (March 20th, 1321). I might say I was wiser, and not look forward to much penance for lying; for I should be more likely to have it set me if I said that all the wits in this world were in his head. Howbeit, there is many a worse man than he: a valiant knight, and courteous, and of rarely gentle and gracious ways; and maybe, if he were wiser, he would give me more trouble to rule him, which is easy enough to do. Neverthelatter, there be times when it should do me ease to take him by the shoulders and give him an hearty shake, if I could thereby shake a bit more sense into him: and there be times when it comes over me that he might have been better matched, as our sometime Lord King Edward meant him to have been, with the Lady Alianora La Despenser, that Queen Isabel packed off to a nunnery in hot haste when she came in. Poor soul! He certainly is not matched with me, unless two horses be matched whereof one is black and of sixteen handfuls, and steppeth like a prince, and the other is white, and of twelve handfuls, and ambles of a jog-trot. I would he had a bit more stir in him. Not that he lacks knightly courage—never a whit; carry him into battle, and he shall quit him like a man; but when all is said, he is fitter for the cloister, for he loveth better to sit at home with Joan of his knee, and a great clerkly book afore him wherein he will read by the hour, which is full well for a priest, but not for a noble of the King’s Court. He never gave me an ill word (veriliest (truly), I marvel if ever he said ‘I won’t!’ in all his life), yet, for all his hendihood (courtesy, sweetness), will he have his own way by times, I can never make out how. But he is a good man on the whole, and doth pretty well as he is bid, and I might change for a worse without taking a long journey. So, take it all in all, there are many women have more to trouble them than I, the blessed saints be thanked, and our sweetest Lady Saint Mary and my patron Saint Agnes in especial. Only I do hope Jack shall have more wit than his father, and I shall think the fairies have changed him if he have not. My son should not be short of brains.

But now, to have back, and begin my story: for I reckon I shall never make an end if I am thus lone: in coming to the beginning.

We were all brought up in the Castle of Ludlow, going now and then to sweeten (to have the house thoroughly cleaned) to the Castle of Wigmore. Of course, while we were little children, we knew scarce any thing of our parents, as beseemed persons of our rank. The people whom I verily knew were Dame Hilda our mistress (governess), and Maud and Ellen our damsels, and Master Terrico our Chamberlain, and Robert atte Wardrobe, our wardrobe-keeper, and Sir Philip the clerk (I cry him mercy, he should have had place of Robert), and Stephen the usher of the chamber, and our four nurses, whose names were Emelina, Thomasia, Joan, and Margery, and little Blaise the page. They were my world. But into this world, every now and then, came a sweet, fair presence—a vision of a gracious lady in velvet robes, whose hand I knelt to kiss, and who used to lay it on my head and bless me: and at times she would take up one of us in her arms, and sit down with the babe on her velvet lap, and a look would come into her eyes which I never saw in Dame Hilda’s; and she would bend her fair head and kiss the babe as if she loved her very much. But that was mostly while we were babies. I cannot recollect her doing that to me—it was chiefly to Blanche and Beatrice. Until one day, and then—

Nay, I have not come to that yet. And then, at times, we should hear a voice below—a stern, deep voice, or a peal of loud laughter—and in an instant the light and the joy would die out of the tender eyes of that gracious vision, and instead would come a frightened look like that of a hunted hare, and commonly she would rise suddenly, and put down the babe, and hasten away, as if she had been indulging in some forbidden pleasure, and was afraid of being caught. I can remember wishing that the loud laugh and the stern angry voice would go away, and never come back, but that the gracious vision would stay always with us, and not only pay us a rare visit. Ay, and I can remember wishing that she would take me on that velvet lap, and let me nestle into her soft arms, and dare to lay my little head on her warm bosom. I think she would have done it, if she had known! I used to feel in those days like a little chicken hardly feathered, and longed to be under the soft brooding wings of the hen. The memory of it hath caused me to pet my Jack and Joan a deal more than I should without it.

Then, sometimes, we had a visit from a very different sort of guest. That was an old lady—about a hundred and fifty, I used to fancy her—dressed in velvet full as costly, but how differently she wore it! She never took us on her lap—not she, indeed! We used to have to kneel and kiss her hand—and Roger whispered to me once that if he dared, he would bite it. This horrid old thing (who called herself our grandmother) used to be like a storm blowing through the house. She never was two minutes in the room before she began to scold somebody; and if she could not find reasonable fault with any body, that seemed to vex her more than anything else. Then she scolded us all in a lump together. “Dame Hilda, what an untidy chamber!”—she usually began in that way—“why don’t you make these children put their playthings tidy? (Of course Dame Hilda did, at the end of the day; but how could we have playthings tidy while we were playing with them?) Meg, your hair is no better than a mop! Jack, how got you that rent in your sleeve? (I never knew Jack without a rent in some part of his clothes; I should not have thought it was Jack if he had come in whole garments.) Joan, how ungainly you sit! pluck yourself up this minute. Nym, take your elbows off the table. Maud, your chaucers (slippers) are down at heel. How dirty your hands are, Roger! go and wash them. Agnes, that wimple of yours is all awry; who pinned it up?”

So she went on—rattle and scold, scold and rattle—as long as she stayed in the room. Jack, always the saucy one, asked her one day, when he was very little—

“Are you really Grandmother?”

“Certes, child,” said she, turning to look at him: “why?”

“Because I wish you were somebody else!”

Ha, chétife! did Jack forget that afternoon? I trow not.

I had a sound whipping once myself from Dame Hilda, because I said, right out, that I hated the Lady Margaret: and Joan,—poor delicate Joan, who was perpetually scolded for stooping—looked at me as if she wished she dared say it too. Roger had his ears boxed because he drawled out, “Amen!” I think we all said Amen in our hearts.

Sometimes the Lady Margaret did not come upstairs, but sent for some of us down to her. That was worse than ever. There were generally a number of gentlemen there, who seemed to think that children were only made to be teased: and some of them I disliked, and others I despised. Only of one I was terribly afraid: and that was—mercy, Jesu!—mine own father.

I should have found it difficult to say what it was in him that frightened me. I used to call it fear then; but when I look back on the feeling from my present state, I think it was rather a kind of ungovernable antipathy. He did not scold us all round as Lady Margaret did. The worst thing, I think, that I remember his saying to me was a sharp—“Get out of the way, girl!” And I wished I only could get out of his way, for ever and ever. Something made me feel as if I could not bear to be in the same room with him. I used to shiver all over, if I only heard his voice. Yet he never ill-used any of us; he scarcely even looked at us. It was not any thing he did which made me feel so; it was just himself.

Surely never did man dress more superbly than he. I recollect thinking that the King was not half so fine; yet King Edward liked velvet and gold as well as most men. My Lord my father never wore worsted summer tunics or woollen winter cloaks, like others. Silk, velvet, samite, and cloth of gold, were his meanest wear; and his furs were budge, ermine, miniver, and gris. I can remember hearing how once, when the furrier sent him in a robe of velvet guarded with hare’s fur, he flung it on one side in a fury, and ordered the poor man to be beaten cruelly. He always wore much golden broidery, and buttons of gems or solid gold; and he never would wear a suit of any man’s livery—not even the King’s,—save once, when he wore the Earl of Chester’s at the coronation of the Queen of France, just to vex King Edward—as it sorely did, for he was then a proscribed fugitive, who had no right to use it.

It is a hard matter when a child is frightened of its own father. It is yet harder when he makes it hate him. Ah, it is easy to say, That was wicked of thee. So it was: and I know it. But doth not sin lead to sin?—spring out of it, like branches from a stem, like leaves from a branch? And when one man’s act of sin creates sin in another man, and that again in a third, whose is the sin—the black root, whereof came the rotten branches and the withered leaves? Are we not all our brothers’ and our sisters’ keepers? Well, it will not answer to pursue that road: for I know well I should trace up the sin too high, to one of whom it were not meet for me to speak in the same breath with ugly words. Ay me! what poor weak things we mortal creatures are! Little marvel, little marvel for the woe that was wrought!—so fair, so fair she was! She had the soul of a fiend with the face of an angel. Was it any wonder that men—ay, and some women—were beguiled with that angel face, and fancied but too rashly that the soul must be as sweet as it? God have mercy on all Christian souls! Verily, I myself, only this last spring-time, was ready to yield to the witch’s spell—never was woman such enchantress as she!—and athwart all the past, despite all I knew, gazing on that face, even yet fairer than the faces of younger women, to think it possible that all the tales were false, and all the past a vision of the night, and that the lovely face and the sweet, soft voice covered a soul white as the saints in Heaven! And men are easier deluded by such dreams than women—or at least I think it. My poor father! If only he had never seen her that haled him to his undoing! he might, perchance, have been a better man. Any way, he paid the bill in his heart’s blood. So here I leave him. God forgive us all!

And now to my story. While I was but a little child, we saw little of our mother: little more, indeed, than we did of our father. I think, of the two, we oftener saw our grandmother. And little children, as God hath wisely ordered it, live in the present moment, and take no note of things around them which men and women see with half an eye. Now, looking back, I can recall events which then passed by me as of no import. It was so, and there was an end of it. But I can see now why it was so: and I know enough to guess the often sorrowful nature of that wherefore.

So it was nothing to us children, unless it were a relief, that after I was about four years old, we missed our father almost entirely. We never knew why he tarried away for months at a time. We had not a notion that he was first in the prison of the Tower, and afterwards a refugee over seas. And we saw without seeing that our mother grew thin and white, and her sweet eyes were heavy with tears which we never saw her shed. All we perceived was that she came oftener to the nursery, and stayed longer with us, and petted the babies more than had been her wont. And that such matters had a meaning,—a deep, sad, terrible meaning—never entered our heads. Later on we knew that during those lonely years her heart was being crucified, and crucifixion is a dying that lasts long. But she never let us know it. I think she would not damp our fresh childish glee by even the spray of that roaring cataract wherein her life was overwhelmed. Mothers—such mothers as she—are like a reflection of God.

I remember well, though I was but just seven years old, the night when news came to Ludlow Castle that my father had escaped from the Tower. It was a very hot night in August—too hot to sleep—and I lay awake, chattering to Kate and Isabel, who were my bedfellows, about some grand play we meant to have the next afternoon, in the great gallery—when all at once we heard a horse come dashing up to the portcullis, past our chamber wall, and a horn crying out into the night.

Isabel sat up in bed, and listened.

“Is it my Lord coming home?” I said.

“What, all alone, with no company?” answered Isabel, who is four years elder than I. “Silly child! It is some news for my Lady my mother. The saints grant it be good!”

Of course we could hear nothing of what passed at the portcullis, as our window opened on the base court. But in a few minutes we heard the horse come trotting into our court, and the rider ’lighted down: and Isabel, who lay with her head next the casement, sat up again and put her head out of the curtain. It was a beautiful moonlight night, almost as bright as day.

“What is it, Ibbot?” said Kate.

“It is a man in livery,” answered Isabel; “but whose livery I know not. It is not ours.”

Then we heard the man call to the porter, and the door open, and the sound of muffled voices to and fro for a minute; and then Master Inge’s step, which we knew—he was then castellan—coming in great haste past our door as if he were going to my Lady’s chamber. Then the door of the large nursery opened, and we heard Dame Hilda within, saying to Tamzine, “Thou wert better run and see.” And Tamzine went quickly along the gallery, as if she, too, were going to my Lady.

For a long, long time, as it seemed to us—I dare say it was not many minutes—we lay and listened in vain. At length Tamzine came back.

“Good tidings, or bad?” we heard Dame Hilda ask.

“The saints wot!” whispered Tamzine. “My Lord is ’scaped from the Tower.”

“Ha, chétife! will he come here?” said Dame Hilda: and we saw that it was bad news in her eyes.

“Forsooth, nay!” replied Tamzine. “There be hues and cries all over for him, but man saith he is fled beyond seas.”

“Amen!” ejaculated Dame Hilda. “He may win to Cathay (China) by my good will; and if he turn not again till mine hair be white, then will I give my patron saint a measure in wax. But what saith my Lady?”

“Her I saw not,” answered Tamzine; “but Mistress Robergia, who told me, said she went white and red both at once, and her breast heaved as though her very heart should come forth.”

“Gramercy!” said Dame Hilda. “How some folks do set their best pearls in copper!”

“Eh, our Lady love us!” responded Tamzine. “That’s been ever sith world began to run, Dame, I can tell you.”

“I lack no telling, lass,” was Dame Hilda’s answer. “Never was there finer pearl set in poorer ore than that thou and I wot of.”

I remember that bit of talk because I puzzled myself sorely as to what Dame Hilda could mean. Kate was puzzled, too, for she said to Isabel—

“What means the Dame? I never saw my Lady wear a pearl set in copper.”

“Oh, let be!” said Isabel. “’Tis but one of the Dame’s strange sayings. She is full of fantasies.”

But whether Isabel were herself perplexed, or whether she understood, and thought it better to shut our mouths, that cannot I tell to this day.

Well, after that things were quiet again for a while: a very long while, it seemed to me. I believe it was really about six months. During that time, we saw much more of our mother than we used to do; she would come often into the nursery, and take one of the little ones on her lap—it was oftenest Blanche—and sit there with her. Sometimes she would talk with Dame Hilda; but more frequently she was silent and sad, at times looking long from the casement as if she saw somewhat that none other eyes could see. Jack said one day—

“Whither go Mother’s eyes when she looks out of the window?”

“For shame, Damsel (Note 3) John!” cried Dame Hilda. “‘Mother,’ indeed! Only common children use such a word. Say ‘my Lady’ if you please.”

“She is my mother, isn’t she?” said Jack stubbornly. “Why shouldn’t I call her so, I should like to know? But you haven’t answered me, Dame.”

“I know not what you mean, Damsel.”

“Why, when she sits down in that chair, and takes Blanchette on her knee,—her eyes go running out of the window first thing. Whither wend they?”

“Children like you cannot understand,” replied Dame Hilda, with one of those superior smiles which used to make me feel so very naughty. It seemed to say, “My poor, little, despicable insect, how could you dream of supposing that your intellect was even with Mine?” (There, I have writ that a capital M in red ink. To have answered to Dame Hilda’s tone when she put that smile on, it should have been in vermilion and gold leaf.) Howbeit, Jack never cared for all the airs she put on.

“Then why don’t you make us understand it?” said he.

I do not remember what Dame Hilda said to that, but I dare say she boxed Jack’s ears.

Deary me, how ill doth my tale get forward! Little things keep a-coming to my mind, and I turn aside after them, like a second deer crossing the path of the first. That shall never serve; I must keep to my quarry.

All this time our mother grew thinner and whiter. Poor soul, she loved him well!—but so sure as the towel of the blessed Nicodemus is in the sacristy of our Lady at Warwick, cannot I tell for why. Very certain am I that he never gave her any reason.

We reckoned those six months dreary work. There were no banquets in hall, nor shows came to the Castle, nor even so much as a pedlar, that we children saw; only the same every-day round, and tired enough we were of it. All the music we ever heard was in our lessons from Piers le Sautreour; and if ever child loved her music lessons, her name was not Agnes de Mortimer. All the laughter that was amongst us we made ourselves; and all the shows were when Jack chose to tumble somersaults, or Maud twisted some cold lace round her head, and said, “Now I am Queen Isabel.” Dreary work, in good sooth! yet was it a very Michaelmas show and an Easter Day choir to that which lay ahead.

And then, one night,—ah, what a night that was! It was near our bed-time, and Jack, Kate, and I, were playing on the landing and up and down the staircase of our tower. I remember, Jack was the stag, and Kate and I were the hunters; and rarely did Jack throw up his head, to show off his branching horns—which were divers twigs tied on his head by a lace of Dame Hilda’s, for the use whereof Jack paid a pretty penny when she knew it. Kate had just made a grab at him, and should have caught him, had his tunic held, but it gave way, and all she won was an handful of worsted and a slip of the step that grazed her shins; and she was rubbing of her leg and crying “Lack-a-day!” and Jack above, well out of reach, was making mowes (grimaces) at us—when all at once an horn rang loud through the Castle, and man on little ambling nag came into the court-yard. Kate forgat her leg, and Jack his mowes, and all we, stag and hunters alike, ran to the gallery window for to gaze.

I know not how long we should have tarried at the window, had not Emelina come and swept us afore her into the nursery, with an impatient—“Deary me! here be these children for ever in the way!”

And Jack cries, “You always say we are in the way; but mustn’t we be any where?”

Whereto she makes answer—“Go and get you tucked into bed; that’s the only safe place for the like of you!”

Jack loudly resented being sent to bed before the proper time, whereupon he and Emelina had a fight (as they had most nights), and Kate and I ran into the nursery to get out of the way. Here was Margery, turning down the beds, but Dame Hilda we saw not till, an half-hour after, as we were doffing us for bed, she came, with her important face which she was wont to wear when some eventful thing had befallen her or us.

“Are the damsels abed, Emelina?” saith she.

“The babes be, Dame; and the elders be a-doffing them.”

Dame Hilda came forward into the night nursery.

“Hold you there, young ladies!” saith she: “at the least, I would say my three elder young ladies—Dame Margaret, Dame Joan, and Dame Isabel. Pray you, don you once more, but of your warmest gear, for a journey by night.”

“Are we not to go to bed?” asked Joan in surprise: but our three sisters donned themselves anew, as Dame Hilda had said, of their warmest gear. Dame Hilda spake not word till they were all ready. Then Meg saith—

“Whither be we bound, Dame?—and with whom?”

“With my Lady, Dame Margaret, to Southampton.”

I think we all cried out “Southampton!” in diverse tones.

“There is news come to her Ladyship, as she herself may tell you,” said Dame Hilda, mysteriously.

“Aren’t we to go, Dame?” saith Blanche’s little voice.

Dame Hilda turned round sharply, as if she went about to snap Blanche’s head off; and Blanche shrank in dismay.

“Certainly not, Dame Blanche! What should my Lady do to be worried with babes like you? She has enough else on her mind at this present, without a pack of tiresome children—holy saints be her help! Eh dear, dear, this world!”

“Dame, is this world so bad?” saith Jack, letting his nose appear above the bed-clothes.

“Go to sleep, the weary lot of you!” was Dame Hilda’s irritable answer.

“Because,” saith Jack, ne’er a whit daunted—nothing ever cowed Jack—“if it is so bad, hadn’t you better be off out of it? You’d be better off, I suppose, and we shouldn’t miss you,—that I’ll promise. Do go, Dame!”

Jack spake these last words with a full compassionate air, as though he were seriously concerned for Dame Hilda’s happiness; but she, marching up to the bed where Jack lay, dealt him a stinging slap for his impudence.

“Ah!” saith Jack in a mumbled voice, having disappeared under the bed-clothes, “this is a bad world, I warrant you, where folks return evil for good o’ this fashion!”

We heard no more of Jack beyond divers awesome snores, which I think were not altogether sooth-fast: but before many minutes had passed, the door of the antechamber opened, and my Lady, donned in travelling gear, entered the nursery.

Dame Hilda’s words had given me the fancy that some sorrowful, if not shocking news, had come to her; and I was therefore much astonished to see a faint flush in her cheeks, and a brilliant light in her eyes, which looked as though she had heard good news.

“My children,” said our mother, “I come to bid you all farewell—may be a long farewell. I have heard that—never mind what; that which will take me away. Meg, and Joan, and Ibbot, must go with me.”

“Take me too!” pleaded little Blanche.

“Thee too!” repeated our mother, with a loving smile. “Nay, sweetheart! That cannot be. Now, my children, I hope you will all be good and obedient to Dame Hilda while I am away.”

It was on Kate that her glance fell, being the next eldest after Isabel; and Kate answered readily—

“We will all be good as gold, Dame.”

“Nym, and Hodge, and Geoffrey,” she went on, “go also with me; so thou, Kate, wilt be eldest left here, and I look to thee to set a good ensample to thy brethren,—especially my little wilful Jack.”

Jack’s snoring had stopped when she came in, and now, as she went over and sat her down by the bed wherein Jack lay of the outside, up came Jack’s head from under the blue velvet coverlet. Our mother laid her hand tenderly upon it.

“My dear little Jack!” she said; “my poor little Jack!”

“Dame, I’m not poor, an’t like you!” made answer Jack, in a tone of considerable astonishment. “I’ve got a whole ball of new string, and two battledores and a shuttlecock, and a ball, and a bow and arrows.”

“Yes, my little Jack,” she said, tenderly.

“There are lots of lads poorer than me!” quoth Jack. “Nym himself hasn’t got a whole ball of string, and Geoff hasn’t a bit. I asked him. Master Inge gave it me yesterday. I’m going to make reins with it for Annis and Maud, and lots of cats’ cradles.”

“You’re not going to make reins for me,” said Maud from our bed. “Dame, it is horrid playing horses with Jack. He wants you to take the string in your mouth, and you don’t know where he’s had it. I don’t mind having it tied to my arms, but I won’t have it in my mouth.”

“Did you ever see a horse with his reins tied to his arms?” scornfully demanded Jack. “You do as you are bid, my Lady Maud, or I’ll come and make you.”

“Children!” said our mother’s soft voice, before Maud could answer, “are you going to quarrel this last night when I have come to say farewell? For shame, Maud! this was thy blame.”

“Oh, of course, it is always me,” muttered Maud, too angry for grammar. “Jack’s always the favourite; I never do any thing right.”

“Yes, you do—now and then, by accident,” responded Joan, who was sitting at the foot of our bed; a speech which did not better Maud’s temper, and it was never angelic.

Jack seemed to have forgotten his passage-at-arms with Maud. He was always good-tempered enough, though he did tease outrageously.

“Why am I poor, Dame?” quoth Jack.

“Little Jack, thou must shortly go into the wars, and thou hast no armour.”

“But you’ll get me a suit. Dame?”

“I cannot, Jack. Not for these wars. Neither can I give thee the wealth to make thee rich, as I fain would.”

“Then, Dame, you will petition the King for a grant, will you not?” saith Meg.

“True, my daughter,” saith our mother softly. “I must needs petition the King, both for the riches from His treasury, and for the arms from His armoury.” And then she bent down to kiss Jack. “O my boy, lay not up treasure for thyself, and thus fail to be rich in God.”

I began then to see what she meant; but I rather wondered why she said it. Such talk as that, it seemed to me, was only fit for Sunday. And then I remembered that she was going away for a long, long time, and that therefore Sunday talk might be appropriate.

I do not recollect any thing she said to the others, only to Jack and me. Jack and I were always fellows. We children had paired ourselves off, not altogether according to age, but rather according to tastes. Edmund and Meg should have gone together, and then Hodge and Joan, and so forth: whereas it was always Nym and Joan, and Meg and Hodge. Then Geoffrey and Isabel made the right pair, and Kate, Jack, and I, went in a trio. Maud was by herself; she paired with nobody, and nobody wanted her, she was so cross. Blanche was every body’s pet while she was the baby, and Beatrice came last of all.

Our mother went round, and kissed and blessed us all. I lay inside with Kate and Maud, and when she said, “Now, my little Agnes,”—I crept out and travelled over the tawny silk coverlet, to those gentle velvet arms, and she took me on her lap, and lapped me up in a fur mantle that Meg bare on her arm.

“And what shall I say to my little Agnes?”

“Mother, say you love me!”

It came out before I knew it, and when I had said it, I was so frightened that I hid my face in the fur. It did not encourage me to hear Dame Hilda’s exclamation—

“Lack-a-day! what next, trow?”

But the other voice was very tender and gentle.

“Didst thou lack that told thee, mine own little Annis? Ay me! Maybe men are happier lower down. Who should love thee, my floweret, if not thine own mother? Kiss me, and say thou wilt be good maid till I see thee again.”

I managed to whisper, “I will try, Dame.”

“How long will it be?” cries Jack.

“I cannot tell thee, Jack,” she saith. “Some months, I fear. Not years—I do trust, not years. But God knoweth—and to Him I commit you.” And as she bent her head low over the mantle wherein I was lapped, I heard her say—“Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis, Jesu!”

I knew that, because I always had to repeat it in my evening prayers, though I never could tell what it meant, only, as it seemed to say “Agnes” and “Monday,” I supposed it had something to do with me, and was to make me good after some fashion, but I saw not why it must be only on a Monday, especially as I had to say it every day. Now, of course, I know what it means, and I wonder children and ignorant people are not taught what prayers mean, instead of being made to say them just like popinjays. I wanted to teach my Joan what it meant, but the Lady Julian, my lord’s mother, commanded me not to do so, for it was unlucky. I begged her to tell me why, and she said the Latin was a holy tongue, known to God and the saints, and so long as they understood our prayers, we did not need to understand them.

“But, Dame,” said I, “saving your presence, if I say prayers I understand not, how can I tell the way to use them? I may be asking for a basket of pears when I want a pair of shoes.”

“Wherefore trouble the blessed saints for either?” saith she. “Prayers be only for high and holy concerns—not for base worldly matter, such as be pears and shoes.”

“But I am worldly matter, under your leave, Dame,” said I. “And saith not the Paternoster somewhat touching daily bread?”

“Ay, the food of the soul—‘panem supersubstantialem da nobis’” quoth she. “It means not a loaf of bread, child.”

“That’s Saint Matthew,” said I. “But Saint Luke hath it ‘panem quotidianum,’ and saith nought of ‘supersubstantialem.’ And surely common food cometh from God.”

“Daughter!” saith she, somewhat severely, “thou shouldst do a deal better to leave thy fantasies and the workings of thine own brain, and listen with meek submission to the holy doctors that can teach thee with authority.”

“Dame, I cry you mercy,” said I. “But surely our Lord teacheth with more authority than they all; and if I have His words, what need I of theirs?”

Ha, chétife! she would not listen to me,—only bade me yet again to beware of pride and presumption, lest I should fall into heresy, from the which Saint Agnes preserve me! But it doth seem strange that folks should fall into heresy by studying our Lord’s words; I had thought they should rather thereby keep them out of it.

Well—dear heart, here again am I got away from my story! this it is to have too quick a wit—our mother blessed us, and kissed us all, and set forth, the six eldest with her, for Southampton. I know now, though I heard not then, that she was on her way to join our father. News had come that he was safe over seas, in France, with the Sieurs de Fienles, the Lady Margaret’s kin, and no sooner had she learned it than she set forth to join him. I doubt greatly if he sent for her. Nay, I should rather say he would scarce have blessed her for coming. But she got not thus far on her way, as shall be seen.

His tarrying with the Sieurs de Fienles was in truth but a blind to hide his true proceedings. He stayed in Normandy but a few weeks, until the hue and cry was over, and folks in England should all have got well in their heads that he was there: then, or ever harm should befall him by tarrying there too long, he made quiet departure, and ere any knew of it he was safe in the King of France’s dominions. At this time the King of France was King Charles le Bel, youngest brother of our Queen. I suppose he was too much taken up with the study of his own perfections to see the perfections or imperfections of any body else: otherwise had he scarce been so stone-blind to all that went on but just afore his nose. There be folks that can see a mouse a mile off, and there be others that cannot see an elephant a yard in front of them. But there be a third sort, and to my honest belief King Charles was of them, that can see the mouse as clear as sunlight when it is their own interest to detect him, but have not a notion of the elephant being there when they do not choose to look at him. When he wanted to be rid of his first wife Queen Blanche, he could see her well enough, and all her failings too, as black as midnight; but when his sister behaved herself as ill as ever his wife did or could have done, he only shut his eyes and took a comfortable nap. Now King Charles had himself expelled my father from his dominions, for some old grudge that I never rightly understood; yet never a word said he when he came back without licence. Marry, but our old King Edward should not have treated thus the unlicenced return of a banished man! He would have been hung within the week, with him on the throne. But King Charles was not cut from that stuff. He let my father alone till the Queen came over—our Queen Isabel, his sister, I mean—and then who but he in all the French Court! Howbeit, they kept things pretty quiet for that time; nought came to King Edward’s ears, and she did her work and went home. Forsooth, it was sweet work, for she treated with her brother as the sister of France, and not as the wife of England. King Charles had taken Guienne, and she, sent to demand restitution, concluded a treaty of peace on his bare word that it should be restored, with no pledge nor security whatever: but bitter complaints she laid of the King her husband, and the way in which he treated her. Well, it is true, he did not treat her as I should have done in his place, for he gave in to all her whims a deal too much, where a good buffet on her ear should have been ever so much more for her good—and his too, I will warrant. Deary me, but if some folks were drowned, the world would get along without them! I mention no names (only that weary Nichola, that is for ever mashing my favourite things). So the Queen came home, and all went on for a while.

But halt, my goose-quill! thou marchest too fast. Have back a season.

Note 1. This is the probable order of birth. The date assigned to the birth of Agnes is fictitious, but that of her husband is taken from his Probatio Aetatis.

Note 2. July 8th, 1317; this is about the probable time. The Countess is supposed to be writing in the spring of 1348.

Note 3. This word was then used of both sexes, and was the proper designation of the son of a prince or peer not yet arrived at the age of knighthood.

Part 2—- Chapter 2.

The Lady of Ludlow.

“Toil-worn and very weary—
For the waiting-time is long;
Leaning upon the promise—
For the Promiser is strong.”

So were we children left alone in the Castle of Ludlow, and two weary months we had of it. Wearier were they by far than the six that ran afore them, when our mother was there, and our elder brethren, that she had now carried away. Lessons dragged, and play had no interest. It had been Meg that devised all our games, and Nym that made boats and wooden horses for us, and Joan that wove wreaths and tied cowslip balls—and they were all away. There was not a bit of life nor fun anywhere except in Jack, and if Jack were shut in a coal-hole by himself, he would make the coals play with him o’ some fashion. But even Jack could fetch no fun out of amo, amas, amat; and I grew sore weary of pulling my neeld (needle) in and out, and being banged o’er the head with the fiddlestick when I played the wrong string. If we could swallow learning as we do meat, what a lessening of human misery should it be!

No news came all this while—at least, none that we heard. Winter grew into spring, and May came with her flowers. Ay, and with something else.

The day rose like the long, dreary days that had come before it, and nobody guessed that any thing was likely to happen. We ate eggs and butter, and said our verbs and the commandments of God and the Church, to Sir Philip, and played some weary, dreary exercises on the spinnet to Dame Hilda, and dined (I mind it was on lamb, finches, and flaunes (custards)), and then Kate, I, and Maud, were set down to our needles. Blanche was something too young for needlework, saving to pull coloured silks in and out of a bit of rag for practice. We had scarce taken twenty stitches, when far in the distance we heard a horn sounded.

“Is that my Lady a-coming home?” said I to Kate.

“Eh, would it were!” quoth she. “I reckon it is some hunters in the neighbourhood.”

I looked to and fro, and no Dame Hilda could I see—only Margery, and she was easy enough with us for little things; so I crept out on tiptoe into the long gallery, and looked through the great oriel, which I could well reach by climbing on the window-seat. I remember what a sweet, peaceful scene lay before me,—the fields and cottages lighted up with the May sunshine, which glinted on the Teme as it wound here and there amid the trees. I looked right and left, but saw no hunters—nothing at all, I thought at first. And then, as I was going to leave the oriel, I saw the sun glance on something that moved, and looked like a dark square, and I heard the horn ring out again a little nearer. I watched the square thing grow—from dark to red, from an indistinct mass to a compact body of marching men, with mounted officers at their head; and then, forgetting Dame Hilda and every thing else except the startling news I brought, I rushed back into the nursery, crying out—

“The King’s troops! Jack, Kate, the King’s troops are coming! Come and see!”

Dame Hilda was there, but she did not scold me. She turned as white as the sindon in her hand, and stood up.

“Dame Agnes, what mean you? Surely ’tis never thus! Holy Mary, shield us!”

And she hurried forth to the oriel window, where Jack was already perched.

The square had grown larger and plainer now. It was evident they were marching straight for the Castle.

Dame Hilda hastened away—I guessed, to confer with Master Inge—and having so done, she came back to the nursery, bade us put aside our sewing and wash our hands, and come down with her to hall. We all trooped after, Beatrice led by her hand, and she ranged us afore her in the great hall, on the dais, standing after our ages,—Kate at the head, then I, Maud, and Jack. And so we awaited our fate.

I scarce think I was frighted. I knew too little what was likely to happen, to feel so. That something was going to happen, I had uncertain fantasy; but our life had been colourless for so long, that the idea of any thing to happen which would make a change was rather agreeable than otherwise.

We heard the last loud summons of the trumpet, which in our ignorance we had mistaken for a hunting-horn, and the trumpeter’s cry of “Open to the King’s troops!” We heard the portcullis lifted, and the steady tramp of the soldiers as they marched into the court-yard. There was a little parleying outside, and then two officers in the King’s livery (Note 1) came forward into the hall, bowing low to us and Dame Hilda.

The Dame spoke first. “Sir Thomas Gobioun, if I err not?”

“He, and your servant, Dame,” answered one of the officers.

“Then I must needs do you to wit, Sir, that in this castle is neither Lord nor Lady, and I trust our Lord the King wars not with little children such as you see here.”

“Stale news, good Dame!” answered Sir Thomas, with (as methought) a rather grim smile. “We know something more, I reckon, than you, touching your Lord and Lady. Sir Roger de Mortimer is o’er seas in Normandy, and the Lady Joan at Skipton Castle.”

“At Southampton, you surely mean?” said Master Inge, who stood at the other end of the line whereof I made the midmost link.

The knight laughed out. “Nay, worthy Master Inge, I mean not Southampton, but Skipton. ’Tis true, both begin with an S, and end with a p and a ton; but there is a mile or twain betwixt the places.”

“What should my Lady do at Skipton?” saith Dame Hilda.

“Verily, I conceive not this!” saith Master Inge, knitting his brows. “It was to Southampton my Lady went—at least so she told us.”

“Your Lady told you truth, Master Castellan. She set forth for Southampton, and reached it. But ere a fair wind blew for her voyage, came a somewhat rougher gale in the shape of a command from the King’s Grace to the Sheriff to take her into keeping, and send her into ward at Skipton Castle, whither she set forth a fortnight past. Now, methinks, Master Inge, you are something wiser than you were a minute gone.”

“And our young damsels?” cries Dame Hilda. “Be they also gone to Skipton?”

I felt Kate’s hand close tighter upon mine.

“Soft you, now, good Dame!” saith Sir Thomas—who, or I thought so, took it all as a very good joke. “Your damsels be parted in so many as they be, and sent to separate convents,—one to Shuldham, one to Sempringham, and one to Chicksand—and their brothers be had likewise into ward.”

To my unspeakable amazement, Dame Hilda burst into tears, and catched up Beatrice in her arms. I had never seen her weep in my life: and a most new and strange idea was taking possession of me—did Dame Hilda actually care something for us?