Under One Sceptre
Or
Mortimer's Mission
The Story of the Lord of the Marches
BY
EMILY SARAH HOLT
AUTHOR OF
"MISTRESS MARGERY," "THE WHITE ROSE OF LANGLEY," ETC.
"The gesture was heroic. If his hand
Accomplished nothing—well, it is not proved—
That empty hand thrown impotently out
Were sooner caught, I think, by One in Heaven,
Than many a hand that reaped a harvest in,
And keeps the scythe's glow on it."
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
NEW EDITION
LONDON
JOHN F. SHAW AND CO.
48 PATERNOSTER ROW
1899
PREFACE.
A great authority once pronounced Don Quixote to be the saddest book ever written. The very word quixotic has come to imply not only unusual, but absurd action. Yet what would the world be if all the Quixotes, secular or religious, were taken out of it? There are not a few of them among the ranks of those of whom the highest authority has pronounced that the world is not worthy. They generally come to be understood at last—but it is often not till the next century.
This is the story of a Don Quixote who lived, fought, and died, five hundred years ago. Like his prototype, he too tilted with the windmills and tried to liberate the captive lions. And the windmills stood firm against his spear, and the lions turned upon and tore him. It usually is so. The energy seems totally wasted—the heroism vain and lost. Yet now and then the windmill falls, discovered to be really an enchanter's castle, revealing rotten foundations and evil things: and then men remember the dead knight who gave the first stroke. Or, more often, they do not remember him.
He would be thought indeed quixotic who should set before him as his life-work what Roger Mortimer did. Yet who can declare it impossible? Some day, the castle of the enchanter may fall, and the free air of heaven may blow into the dark dungeons and dispel the fetid mists. Ireland may be free with that freedom which Christ only gives, and which many an English heart longs to secure to her. But will any one remember the hand which was the first to strike the frowning portals of the fortress, and which has been dust for five hundred years in the vaults of the Abbey of Wigmore?
It is well for him that he has won the better reward of his Father which is in Heaven. And we know, on the word of our Master Himself, that the unfading garland will be all the fairer because no human hands wreathed earthly bays for the head which it is to crown.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
THE LORD OF THE MARCHES.
CHAPTER I.
THE TWO BEGIN THEIR JOURNEY.
"O guide me through this life's uncertain wild!
And for aught else beneath the circling sun,
So Thou in Thine own bosom keep Thy child,
Father! Thy will be done!"
That every baby enters the world with a spoon of some metal in its mouth, is an old saying which is easy of interpretation. And in the ancient town of Usk, in Monmouthshire, on the first day of September, 1373, were born two babies, not many yards apart, whose spoons were made of exceedingly diverse metal.
The baby who was born in the morning of that day, in the Castle of Usk, brought with him a spoon of gold, beautifully embossed, and exquisite in shape. He found the world—as represented by the mantle in which his nurse enveloped him—soft, rich, velvety, and fur-lined. If he cried, the sound won immediate attention; and the faintest sign of illness on his part struck despair into hearts which beat with the bluest blood.
The baby who was born in the evening, in a squalid mud hovel, one of a dozen which nestled close under the Castle wall, was accompanied by a battered old spoon of the very rustiest iron. His world was a sheepskin, extremely dirty, and not particularly fragrant. His cries were answered—when they were answered—by a rough toss in the arms of his eldest sister, a slipshod, shock-headed girl of eleven years; and the possibility of his early death neither dismayed nor grieved any one, for even his mother was of opinion that he was one too many in the hovel, which could scarcely find room for the nine persons who occupied it.
Baby Number One was baptized in the chapel of the Castle, borne in his velvet wrapper by a lady of title, with the accompaniment of sweet music and joyous bells. His sponsors were a bishop, an abbot, and a prioress. He received the family name of Roger; for a hundred and fifty years back, the heirs of that family had been Rogers and Edmunds alternately, and it was the turn for the former. Roger Mortimer—an ominous name! For this boy was the heir of the earldom of March, one of the proudest coronets of England; and his mother, a fair girl of eighteen, was a Princess of the Blood.
Baby Number Two was christened in the parish church, one of a batch of ten, and might not have been christened at all if the curate had not been one who looked sharply after his baptismal fees. He received the name of Lawrence, which was the first that occurred to his parents. Very naturally protesting in his baby style against a sprinkling with cold water, he was tumbled with no particular care into the thin arms of Mariot, who rewarded him with a private shake for his vocal performance, the only music which accompanied the ceremony. As to surname, he could not be said to have any. What did the son of a serf want with a surname? As he grew older, however, some distinction between him and other Lawrences being felt desirable, his neighbours took to calling him Lawrence Madison, or son of Maud,—his mother being a woman with a tongue, and as such a more prominent character than her quiet and silent husband.
The family physician, Master Gilbert Besseford, carefully drew out the horoscope of the young Lord. It appeared from this elaborate document that he was to be a highly accomplished and intellectual youth, since Mercury was busy about him; that he would be most fortunate in wedlock, for Venus was doing something; that he would rise to the highest honours of the State, and might possibly achieve a crown, as Jupiter was most benevolently disposed to him. At any rate, something was to happen about his twenty-fifth birthday, which would place him in a position that none of his fathers had equalled. He would have a long life and a happy one.
Two items of the horoscope were true. He was to be indeed an intellectual and accomplished youth: and in his twenty-fifth year a crown was to be his, to which few of his fathers had attained. But those around him thought of a corruptible crown, and that which God had prepared for him was an incorruptible. And the happy wedlock, and the long life, and the rise to worldly honour, were not the portion of Roger Mortimer, but of Lawrence Madison in the hovel below.
That Roger should exercise in the future considerable influence over the fortunes of Lawrence, was extremely probable; since they would some day stand to each other in the relations of master and vassal, and the former possessed absolute power over the latter. But the idea that Lawrence could in any sense sway the fortunes of Roger would have been laughed to scorn by the household at the Castle. Yet this was to be.
In a small, but very prettily furnished boudoir in one of the Castle turrets, sat the Countess Dowager of March. She was considered an elderly woman, though we should think her only middle-aged; for in the days of our shorter-lived forefathers, who looked upon fifty as old age, and sixty as advanced senility, a woman of forty was some way down the hill. From a father whose character stood high both as warrior and statesman, and a mother whose remarkable wisdom and good sense were a proverb among her contemporaries, Philippa Montacute had inherited a character of unusual power, moral and mental. Her energy was tempered by her prudence, while warm affections and shrewd common sense held sway together over her actions. The character was not transmitted, except in the affections, to that handsome, eloquent, amiable young man of one-and-twenty, who was the only one left living of her four children: but it was to be reproduced in every point save one, in the baby grandson for whose birth the chapel bells were ringing melodiously, and in whose honour all the thralls were to have a holiday the next day. Alas, that the omitted item was the one which should have been a girdle to all the rest! Warm-hearted, energetic to impulsiveness, with plenty of good sense and fine understanding, the gifts bestowed on little Roger did not include prudence.
The Countess sat alone in her bower in the September twilight, and took "blind man's holiday," her imagination and memory scanning both the future and the past.
It was not quite dark when the door of the bower opened, and a woman of some thirty years came forward, dropping a courtesy as she approached her mistress.
"Come in, Wenteline," said the Countess; for thus the medieval English pronounced the old British name, Guenllian. "Is David yet back from his errand?"
"An't please your Ladyship, he came but now, and he brings tidings, agreeably to your Ladyship's pleasure, that among the thralls be two babes to-day born. Maud, the wife of Nicholas in the huts, hath a man-child; and your Ladyship's god-daughter, Philippa, wife of Blumond the fishmonger, a maid-child."
"Good," answered the Countess, feeling for the gold and ivory tablet which hung by a silver chain from her girdle, that she might therein enter the information for which she had sent. "Then, as born on the birthday of the heir, they shall be allowed some privileges. What names are the babes christened by?"
"Please it your Ladyship, the little maid is Beatrice—so baptized by Dan Robesart this afternoon. For the knave, being born but an hour back, he is not yet baptized; but they think to call him Lawrence."
Both names went down on the Countess's tablet, after Guenllian had lighted a candle for that purpose.
"Did David give the thralls to wit of the games and rejoicings allowed to-morrow?"
"Ay, my Lady: and he saith one and all were greatly gladded thereby. My young Lord shall be right welcome to all his vassals some day to be."
The Countess drew a long breath of semi-apprehension. "May he be none the less desired, God grant, when they shall lay his head beneath the mould! O my maid, how great and awesome a thing is the life of a man on earth!"
"Madam, I heard once the parson of Ludgarshal, Dan John, to say"——
"Have on. A good man is Dan John. What said he?"
"That our Lord bound Him to care for the childer of them that feared Him; and that no prayer so made should ever be lost."
"But how answered?" was the low-toned reply. "Wenteline, our prayers be sometimes heard in a manner that crusheth the heart of him that prayed them. If the babe were to die!"
"Very dear Lady, it might be, elsewise, that a twenty years' space hereafter, you should heartily wish that he had died the sooner. Surely it can be no evil thing for a little child to go right to God, while he is yet lapped about with the white robes of his chrisom."
"I have buried three, Wenteline: and of them one went so. The other were pretty little childer that prattled at my knee. And it was like burying a piece of mine own heart to part with every one."
"Yet now, my Lady—would you have them back now?"
"Know I what I would? Surely it is better for them. And may God's will be done. Only to-night, Wenteline—to-night, holding that little babe, the thought came sorrowfully of my Roger, and how he faded from me like a white flower of the earth, or a star that goes out in the sky. Hand me yonder French Bible, Wenteline. Let me read a little touching the City where my childer dwell, and the King unto whose presence they be gone. May be it shall still my yearning when I think of them as there, and not here."
There were no Bibles at that date but in French or Latin; seven years were yet to elapse before John Wycliffe, to whom Guenllian had just referred, was to begin the translation of the first English Bible. But French Bibles and Latin Psalters were no unusual possession of noble families. Those families who were not noble were expected to get to heaven without any; for one of the most singular medieval ideas was that which restricted all intellect to those of noble blood. Blood and brains went together. If a man had not the former, it was out of all calculation that he should possess the latter.
Guenllian reached down from a high shelf the French Bible, bound in dark green velvet, with golden rims and embossed corners, and amethysts gleaming from every corner. The Countess unfastened the clasps, and turned to the last chapters of the book. She read, to herself and Guenllian, of the Golden City and the River of Gladness and the Tree of Life, until the world seemed to grow small and dim, and the world's conventionalities to become very poor and worthless. And then, turning a little further back, she read of the Good Shepherd who calleth His flock by name, and leadeth them out; and they know His voice, and follow Him. Then the golden clasps were closed, and the lady sat in silence for a few moments.
"Wenteline," she said, "we have tried to follow the Shepherd, thou and I, in the sunlit plains. Thinkest thou thy feet would fail if we come by-and-by to the arid slopes of the stony hills?"
Guenllian looked down, and nervously played with her chatelaine. "I cannot tell, an' it like my Lady. You look not for such troubles, Madam?"
"They that be sure of Satan's enmity had best look for trouble," was the pithy answer. "It is not here—yet. But it may be."
And it was to be. But it came not until Philippa Montacute was safe in the shelter of the Golden City, and under the shade of the Tree of Life. Then it broke fiercely on the unsheltered heads of those on the stony slope, and the baby that lay that day in the velvet wrapper came in for some drops of the thunderstorm.
The children in the Castle and in the hovel grew and thrived. They were both pretty, but had Lawrence Madison been kept as clean and dressed as nicely as the little Lord, he would have been the prettier of the two. As he grew old enough to take note of things, to tumble about on the sheepskin at the door, while his mother and Mariot attended to their duties within, and to listen and talk, a great ambition arose in his young heart. He did not envy the young heir at the Castle: an idea so lofty and preposterous never suggested itself for an instant. Lawrence would as soon have thought of grumbling because he was not an archangel, as because he was not my Lord Roger of March. But he did indescribably admire and envy the fishmonger across the street. He had a whole coat, and a clean apron; he looked like a man who always had plenty of nice things to eat, and a fire to warm himself by in cold weather. And the fishes were so beautiful! Lawrence had crept across the street and looked up at their lovely prismatic scales, as they lay in the baskets level with his head. He had seen Blumond's wife as she came to the door with her child in her arms. Little Beatrice was kept cleaner and nicer than he was. Why did not Mother give him nice things to wear like hers? And why, that evening when she and Father were talking about something—what were they talking about?—did Father look across at Lawrence, and say, with a lowered brow and a sulky tone quite unusual with him, something about letting a freeman manage for himself, and not be beholden to a villein? Now that he thought about it—and Lawrence was given to thinking about things—Father did seem more cross with him than the others. What had he done?
After many long cogitations on this and other puzzles, of which nobody knew, since he kept them all to himself, Lawrence finished by astounding his world.
Lawrence's world was very small, for it was bounded by a few yards of the street at its widest extent. The inner circle of this sphere, namely, the hovel, was built of mud and wooden laths, and was about fifteen feet in longitude. Separate rooms were an unimaginable luxury. Nine persons—Lawrence's father, mother, and grandmother, his two brothers, three sisters, and himself—ate, slept, and mostly worked, in the one chamber which formed the whole of the hut. There were also additional inhabitants in the shape of two cats, three hens, and a small and lively pig. It was not easy to move without falling over somebody or something which was apt to resent it in a way not suggestive of polished society. Perhaps it was quite as well, considering these circumstances, that the space was not cumbered with much furniture. Alike of bedsteads, chairs, and tables, the hut was entirely guiltless, and the inhabitants would scarcely have known what to do with them. A bundle of straw littered down in a corner, with a sheepskin thrown over it, was their idea of the utmost luxury in the way of sleeping accommodation—a luxury which they could rarely attain: and the ordinary bed was one of dry leaves from the neighbouring forest, which, when they were able to reach such a pitch of comfort, were stuffed into a sack. A long form, set against the wall, represented the chair element, and was reserved for the elders, the children squatting on the mud floor with the pig, cats, and hens. The minds of the inhabitants had not reached the table idea.
Nicholas, the father of Lawrence, was by trade a tanner—not a master-tanner by any means. He worked for a man who in his turn worked under another, and all were serfs, at the Earl's tan-pits, a mile from the city. Maud, his wife, was the daughter of another serf, the blacksmith who shoed the Earl's horses. To all these the Lord of Usk was a sort of minor divinity, almost too far above them to be thought of as a human creature like themselves, and much too inaccessible for any complaints or requests to reach him, except through the medium of a dozen persons at least. People of this kind were not expected to have any manners, beyond the indispensable one of making the most obsequious reverences to the meanest dweller in the Castle, or to a priest. The sailor's pithy description of the savages with whom he met—"Manners, none; customs, nasty"—were in most cases only too descriptive of the medieval villein.
Does not this manner of life among the lower orders, five hundred years ago, account for much of the power obtained by the priesthood, and the blind obedience with which the people followed the clergy? The priest was something more to the masses than he was to the aristocracy. To the latter, he was the man who stood between them and God: to the former, he was also the mediator between man and man. He was the only person among the upper ranks who treated these poor down-trodden creatures, not as machines out of which so much profit was to be ground, but as men and women with human sins and sorrows.
The children saw very little of their father. He went to work as soon as it was light, and often did not return before they were fast asleep on the leaves. They saw only too much of their mother, whose tongue was never still when awake, and was governed by a cross temper and a discontented mind. The grandmother was an old woman bent by rheumatism, and enfeebled by years of hard work and hard usage. The girls, Mariot, Emmot, and Joan, had nothing to look forward to but similar lives, and after them—they hardly knew what. They had a dim notion that there was a pleasant place where some people went at death, and where nobody did any work: this was derived from the priests. They had also a notion, dug up out of the natural soil of the human heart, that having met with very little comfort in this life, it was sure to be waiting for them in the next. Of God their principal idea was that He was a very great and rich man, above even my Lord, and was in some mysterious manner connected with hearing mass. The boys might expect the serf's usual life—hard work and many blows, with such intervals of pleasure as an animal would be capable of appreciating, chiefly connected with eating and drinking, an occasional dance or game on the village green on saints' days, and any rough horse-play among themselves.
They were not badly off in respect of food, for their master fed them, and it was to his profit that they should be in good bodily condition. They had therefore, plenty of food of the coarsest kind, and sufficient clothing of the same quality, which they had about as much notion of keeping clean as a monkey has of writing letters. Wages, of course, were never heard of between master and serf. Whatever they needed had to be reported to their superior in office, and they received it if and when he found it convenient.
Is it not a singular fact that the less a man has, the more contented he is often found to be? The majority of these serfs, thus comfortlessly situated, were more contented men than their descendants, who have privileges and possessions of which they never dreamed, and many of whom are never satisfied with them.
These were the circumstances in which Lawrence was placed, and such were the persons whom he astonished when his time came to do so.
"Get out of the way, childer!" said Mariot one night, not crossly, but like the tired girl she was, as she came and threw herself down on the sheepskin among them at the door. "I am weary as a dog. There never is any pleasure in life—our lives, anywise. Simon, have done!—and Emmot, give o'er pushing. Let a body have a bit of rest, do!"
And rolling one corner of the sheepskin into a bolster, Mariot made herself comfortable—as much so, that is, as the circumstances admitted.
"Mariot, what is a villein?"
"What's what?" exclaimed Mariot, her head coming up in astonishment. "Lo' you now, if Slow-o'-Words hasn't found his tongue!"
"What's a villein, Mariot?"
"What we all are—saving thee, little plague o' my life."
"Why amn't I like you?" said Lawrence, opening his eyes wide.
"The deer knows!" replied Simon grumpily.
"Well, but I know beside the deer," said Mariot. "Well, what for but by reason thou wert born on the same day as the young Lord up yonder,—thou and Blumond's Beattie—and ye were both made free therefor."
"What's free, Mariot?"
"It means, do what you will."
"Does it so? May I have one of those fishes, then?"
"Oh, well—it means not, do ill and thieve. Wait a bit, Lolly, till thou art grown bigger, and thou wilt know what free means—better than ever we are like to know it."
"Why isn't everybody free, Mariot?"
"What wot I? They aren't."
"Is Beattie free too?"
"Ay."
"But we were made free. Is nobody free that isn't made?"
"Lots of folks."
"Then why isn't everybody?" repeated little Lawrence meditatively.
"Oh, give o'er, and reive not my head!" cried Mariot. "Loll, if thou goest about to ask questions that none can answer, I shall want thee dumb again I promise thee."
"Can't nobody answer them? Couldn't the parson?"
"The parson, in good sooth! The like of thee to ask questions at the parson! Shut thine eyes, and go to sleep: I'm as sleepy as a squirrel in winter."
Lawrence crept on his hands and knees to the edge of the sheepskin, avoiding his brother Simon, who lay on his face in the middle of it, amusing himself by kicks up at the atmosphere: and looking out into the still summer evening, saw Blumond's wife Philippa carrying in the baskets of fish, and little Beatrice trotting beside her. Prettiest of the three children was Beatrice, with dainty little ways which woke Lawrence's admiration, and made her a perpetual attraction to him. In fact, he hardly knew which he liked best, Beatrice or the fishes!
As to the magnificent people in the Castle, Lawrence barely presumed to lift his eyes to them. Now and then, as he sat on the sheepskin, some squire on horseback or messenger on foot would flash past in the Earl's livery—blue and gold, guarded with white—who was to the children in the huts as good as a show at Whitsuntide Fair. But before Lawrence was quite two years old, the Castle was deserted, and the Earl and all his family had removed to Ludlow. Thence came rumours from time to time of their doings. A daughter was born, in honour of whom a holiday was given to the villeins; and two years later, a son, for whom they had a great feast. But immediately after that came sadder news, for the royal mother, yet only twenty-two, survived her boy's birth scarcely six weeks. All the bells of Usk tolled in mourning, catafalques of black and silver were in every church, and the chant of doleful litanies for the dead floated through the perfumed aisles. And after the death of the young Countess, the Earl and Countess Dowager returned no more to Usk; for two years later, the Earl was made Viceroy of Ireland, and removed thither, while his mother and children remained at Wigmore.
The connection between England and Ireland had hitherto been disastrous to both parties. Had the Pope intended by his gift of that island to punish all the royal dynasty for their sins, past and future, he could not have succeeded better; and had he desired to visit on the Green Isle the penalty for all her crimes, he could scarcely have devised a sorer punishment than the infliction of such rulers as England sent her for several hundred years. The conquerors and the conquered understood each other as little as Celt and Teuton commonly do: and what was still worse, they did not try to do so. The English notion of governing was first to kill off the Irish chieftains, and then to divide the land among a quantity of Norman adventurers whose capacity for "land-hunger" was something remarkable. When Earl Edmund of March assumed the government, it was only seventeen years since the passing of the Statute of Kilkenny, which forbade marriage between the English and the Irish, and commanded the use of the English language and customs on pain of death. Even Lionel, Duke of Clarence, who was considered one of the gentlest of men, had, as his first step on landing in Ireland, forbidden any Irishman to approach his camp. His son-in-law was a wiser man. There was Irish blood in his own veins—in small proportion to the English, it is true; still, he was the descendant of an Irish King, and the pedigree-loving Celts were not likely to forget it. He began by showing a strong hand upon the reins, and in six months had Ireland at his feet. Then he laid aside whip and spur, and permitted his natural character to take its course. The result was that he became exceedingly popular, as a ruler usually is in Celtic nations who ordinarily exhibits himself in an amiable light, and yet shows that he has power, and can use it when required. Earl Edmund shut himself up from no one. Any Irishman who pleased could have access to him at any time, and his native eloquence recommended him strongly to their easily touched feelings. But his beneficent reign did not last long, and perhaps his short tenure of power was quite as well for his popularity. Human nature, in all countries, is apt to become accustomed to kindness, and to take advantage of it. And doubtless the Earl's popularity was partly due to the fact that he succeeded rulers harsher and less attractive than himself.
One great disadvantage on the part of England was that while she realised to the full the inferior civilisation of the Irish, she failed to discover that they possessed a faith purer than her own. The true old and Catholic religion implanted by St. Patrick and others of his type had received far less corruption from Rome than the religion of England. But the English were much more concerned in improving the manners of the Irish nobles than in improving their own spirituality. That an Irish king wore no trousers, and that his attendant minstrel shared his plate and glass, struck them infinitely more than the condition of his morals. When once they had satisfied themselves that the Irish believed in the Triune God, and had heard of the existence of a Bishop at Rome who was the Pontiff of Western Christendom—points apparently of equal importance to them—they gave themselves no further trouble on the religious question. Political and social questions came nearer and pressed more heavily.
With the usual individuality of our race, they resented the use of a separate language, to which the Irish, as individual in their way, clung as for very life. If, instead of trying to suppress the venerable and beloved tongue, England had given Ireland an open Bible in it—if she had insisted on the study of Holy Writ, and had left the manners to take care of themselves under its influence, what a different future there might have been!
Are we still as blind as five hundred years ago, or shall we some day see that peace for Ireland, as for every other land and soul, must come through the teaching of the Spirit, and the blood of the Cross?
CHAPTER II.
WATCHWORDS.
"Then out and spake a gude auld man—
A gude death micht he dee!—
'Whatever ye do, my gude maister,
Take God your Guide to be.'"
—OLD BALLAD.
While Earl Edmund was governing across the sea, his little son Roger grew in health and stature under the loving care of his grandmother at Wigmore. The Earls of March had many castles and seats, but Wigmore Castle was the family seat of the Mortimers. The old Countess was extremely anxious that the boy should grow up a good man; the rather because she recognised in him a quality beyond her own energy and activity—that passionate, impetuous nature which belonged to his mother's blood. She brought him up on a course of philosophy, and above all of Scripture, in the hope of calming it down. The eradication was hopeless enough; but the Scripture sank deep. Young as he was when he lost her, Roger Mortimer never forgot those lessons at his grandmother's knee. But the quiet years of holy teaching were not long. In the spring of 1381, Earl Edmund sent letters to his mother, requesting that his eldest son might be sent over to him, as he wished him to make acquaintance with the tenants on his Irish lands. The whole province of Ulster would lie one day at the pleasure of its future Earl.
Sir Thomas Mortimer, a distant relative of the Earl, brought his noble kinsman's letters. He was appointed the governor of little Roger, and was to take care of him on his perilous journey. In order to impress the Irish with a sense of the child's grandeur and importance, he was to have a distinct establishment; and the Earl had suggested that the majority of the new servants had better come from his Welsh estates. Two Celtic races, which centuries ago were one, would, as he thought, be more likely to amalgamate with each other than either with the Saxon. Perhaps he forgot that the meeting of two fires will scarcely extinguish a conflagration.
Sir Thomas therefore had come through Usk, where he had imparted the Earl's commands to the keeper of the Castle, ordering him to have ready by a certain day, to meet him at Holyhead, such and such persons—so many men and boys to fill so many offices—much as he might have ordered as many garments or loaves of bread. The villeins were bound to serve in the menial offices; and for higher places, the neighbouring gentry and their sons would only be too glad to hear of the vacancies.
One appointment was to be made, at her son's request, by the Countess herself. This was perhaps the most important of all, for it was the choice of a woman who should look after the child's necessities, and fill so far as possible the place of the dead mother and the absent grandmother. The boy, having passed his seventh birthday, was ostensibly emancipated from the nursery: yet, with no lady at the head of the household, the presence of some responsible woman about the child became needful. The Countess's choice was soon made. It fell on her own waiting-woman, Guenllian, in whom she had more confidence than in any one else. It was an additional recommendation that Guenllian had been about the child from his infancy, so that he would feel her to be a familiar friend. Yet, though she was sending with him the person of all others in whom she most relied, the Countess suffered severe anxiety in parting with her boy, who, after his father, was her one darling in all the world. What would become of him? Suppose he were drowned in crossing the sea, and never reached his father! Suppose he were murdered by the "wild Irish," who, in the eyes of all English people of that date, were savages of the most dreadful type. Or, worse still,—suppose he grew up to be a monster of wickedness,—that pretty little child who now lifted his pure blue eyes so honestly and confidingly to hers! She thought it would break her heart. And strong as that heart was to cleave to God and do the right, yet, as the event proved, it was not one to bear much suffering.
"Very dear Lady," suggested Guenllian tenderly, "can you not trust the young Lord into the merciful hands of God? Can my young Lord go whither He is not?"
"Thy faith shames mine, my maid. May God verily go with you! Wenteline, thou wilt surely promise me that my darling shall be bred up to prize this," and she laid her hand on the French Bible. "Let the Word of the Lord never be out of his reach, nor of his hearing. Rising up and lying down—coming in and going out—let him pillow his soul upon it, and be made strong."
Guenllian gave the required promise very quietly. Her mistress knew she might be trusted.
"And if it should come—as we hear rumour afloat—that Dan John busieth himself to render the Book into the English tongue, then will I send it o'er so soon as may be. An whole Bible in English! Ay, that day that seeth it shall be a merry day for England."
The French Bible was the Countess's parting gift to her grandson. It was no mean gift, for the writing of its fellow, which was to remain with her, had cost her more than twenty pounds.
To the child himself she said comparatively little. She wished her words to sink deep and take root; and she knew that an important means to that end was that they should be few. So, as her last words, she gave him two mottoes, in the language which was only then ceasing to be the mother tongue of English nobles.
"Fais ce que doy, advienne que fourra." And—"Un Dieu, un Roy, servir je day."
And thus, with a thousand prayers and blessings, the boy left her.
"Ah, when to meet again?" she sighed, as from the castle turret she watched him go, turning to kiss his hand to her as he rode away towards Shropshire. "O my darling, mine heart misgiveth me sore!—when to meet again?"
Never any more, Philippa Mortimer, till both stand in the street of the Golden City, and under the shade of the Tree of Life.
Little Roger and his suite travelled, as was usual at the time, on horseback. The charette was reserved for short journeys in civilised places, where there was some semblance of a road; while the litter was the vehicle of ladies and invalids. A dark roan-coloured "trotter," or saddle-horse, was selected for the little lord, and fitted with a black velvet saddle embroidered in gold. The harness was also black. There was no saddle-cloth, as this was an article used on ceremonial occasions; and as the horse was going on a journey which would lie chiefly upon turf, he was not shod.
Roger himself was dressed in a long robe of dark blue damask, relieved by narrow stripes of white and red; and over it he wore a hood of black velvet. On the top of this sat a brown felt hat, in shape something like a modern "wide-awake," with one dark-green plume standing straight up in its front, and fastened to the hat by a small golden clasp. A little white frill surrounded his throat beneath the hood, which latter article could be cast aside if the weather were sufficiently warm. The sleeves of the robe were extremely wide and full, and lined with white; and beneath them were closer sleeves of apple-green, but these were far wider than gentlemen wear them now. Dark-green boots, with white buttons, and spurs of gilt copper, completed the young gentleman's costume. His stirrups were of white metal, and in his hand was an excessively long white whip, much taller than himself.[#] It was the first time that Roger had been allowed to ride alone on a journey, and he was as proud of the distinction as might be expected.
[#] This description is mainly taken from one of Creton's illuminations. Harl. MS. 1319, illum. ix.
Before the convoy went two running footmen, attired loosely in a costume somewhat resembling the Highland kilt, one of whom bore a pennon with the Earl's arms, and the other a trumpet, which was sounded whenever they drew near to any town or village. Every man carried a drinking-cup at his girdle, and his dagger served for a knife. The travellers beguiled the long day by singing songs and ballads, among which was a new song just become popular, of which the first line only has descended to us, and that has a decidedly minor tone—"J'ay tout perdu mon temps et mon labour."
Thus accoutred and equipped, conducted by two knights, eight squires, fifty men-at-arms, and a hundred archers, Roger set forth on his journey. A pleasant ride of eight miles brought them to Clun Castle, which belonged to Roger's cousin, the young Lord Le Despenser, and the keeper of the castle was delighted to show hospitality to one so nearly related to the owner. Here they stayed for dinner, Roger being seated in the place of honour at the head of the daïs, and all present anxious to gratify his slightest fancy. Eight miles more, after dinner, brought them to Montgomery, where the castle received its heir for the night.
In the streets of the towns, but especially on the bridges and in the church porches—where in Roman Catholic countries they usually lie in wait—were always congregated a larger or smaller swarm of beggars, who invariably seized upon a group of travellers with avidity. And as giving of alms, however indiscriminate, was a good work in the eyes of the Church, Sir Thomas Mortimer had provided himself with a purse full of pennies, out of which he doled twopences and fourpences to every crowd of suppliants.
The next day was Sunday; but the only difference which it made in the day's programme was that, before the travellers set forth, they attended mass in the fine old cruciform church of Montgomery. Mass being conducted in a tongue unknown to the vulgar of all nations, may be attended in any country with equal advantage—or disadvantage. The stage that day was rather shorter, but they were now among the mountains, and travelling became a slow and wearisome process. They reached before night the village of Languadan, where they stayed the night, Sir Thomas and his precious charge being accommodated at the village inn, and the guard encamping outside in the open air. A third day's journey of thirteen miles brought them to Kemmer Abbey, and a fourth, long and fatiguing, winding round the base of Snowdon, to Beddgelert. They made up for their extra work by riding only ten miles on the Wednesday, which ended at Caernarvon. Here they returned to more civilised life, and found better accommodation than they had done since leaving Montgomery. But the Thursday's journey was again long and tedious, for they had to sail across the Menai, and round Anglesey. Five boats awaited them here, the St. Mary, the Michael, the Grace Dieu, the Margaret, and the Katherine: their tonnage ran from sixty to a hundred and fifty tons. They were simply large, deep brown boats, with one mast and no deck, and neither cabin nor any other form of shelter. Sir Thomas and Roger embarked on the Grace Dieu, which was the largest of the boats, and the guard were packed into the other four, the squires going with their betters.
On arrival at Holyhead, Sir Thomas was met by the deputy keeper of Usk Castle, who presented to him two more squires, three "varlets," and a boy, who were to serve in the household of the young Lord. One of the squires was named Reginald de Pageham, and his family had been in the service of the Earls of Ulster from time immemorial. The other was named Constantine Byterre, and was the son of a squire of the Earl. The varlets were villeins from Usk. And the boy was Lawrence Madison.
If any reader of modern ideas should desire to know how or why a child of seven years old was selected for a servant, be it known that in the Middle Ages that was the usual period for a boy to commence service. He was to fill the posts of page of the chamber and whipping-boy: in other words, and practically, he was to fetch and carry for his little master, to learn and play with him, and when Roger was naughty and required chastisement,—which could scarcely be expected not to occur,—Lawrence, not Roger was to be whipped.
The combination of boy with boy was a curious one. Roger had been most carefully brought up, led by tender hands every step of the way hitherto traversed. Lawrence had scrambled up on hands and knees, as he might, with no leading at all except the rare catechising in church, and the personal influence of Beatrice and the fishes. But these three had been for good. The Rev. Mr. Robesart, the only one of the clergy of the parish church at Usk who cared to catechise the children, had been one of those rare stars among the medieval priesthood who both loved the perishing souls of men, and were themselves in possession of the Bread of Life to break to them.
Little Beatrice had repeated her lessons to Lawrence, whom she was pleased to like, in a funny, patronising little way, and they had done him at least as much good as they did to her. And the fishes had also had a share in his education, for their beauty had gratified his taste, and their helpless condition had stirred feelings of pity which do not often find such ready entrance into a boy's heart as they did into that of Lawrence Madison.
It was not on account of any intellectual or moral qualifications that Lawrence had been chosen for his post of service. It was simply because he was a pretty child, and would look well in the Earl's livery. His parents were only too thankful for such a chance of promotion for him. He was one too many for their financial resources. On Lawrence's part there was only one person whom he was sorry to leave, and that was the little playmate over the way. He had gone proudly across to the fishmonger's, to show himself in his new splendours, and to say farewell.
"Love us, sweet Saint Mary!" was Philippa's exclamation. "How fine art thou!"
"Oh, how pretty, how pretty!" cried little Beatrice. "Lolly, where gattest such pretty raiment?"
"'Tis my Lord his livery, child," said Blumond. "And what place hast thou, lad? Kitchen knave?"
This was the lowest position that a boy could have in a noble household. Lawrence's head went up in a style which would have amused most students of human nature.
"Nay, Master Blumond," said he: "I am to be page of the chamber to my Lord's son."
"Gramercy, how grand we are!" laughed Blumond. "Prithee, good Master Lawrence, let me beseech thee to have a favour unto me."
Lawrence had an uneasy perception that the fishmonger was laughing at him. He struggled for a moment with the new sense of dignity which sat so stiffly upon him, and then, speaking in his natural way, said,—
"I shall never forget you, Master Blumond, nor Philippa, nor Beattie. But I wis not when I shall see you all again. The little Lord goeth to Ireland, and I withal."
"Where's Ireland?" asked Beattie, with wide-open eyes, "Ireland" having immediately presented to her imagination a large park with a castle in the middle of it.
"That wis I not," answered ignorant Lawrence. "'Tis somewhere. I shall see when we be there."
Blumond was a little wiser, but only a little. "Well, now, is't not across seas?" suggested he.
Lawrence's eyes brightened, and Beatrice's grew sorrowful.
"Wilt thou ever be back, Lolly?" she said in a mournful tone.
"To be sure!" quickly responded Blumond. "He shall come back a grand young gentleman, a-riding of a big black courser, with a scarlet saddle-cloth all broidered o' gold and silver."
There was a general laugh at this highly improbable suggestion, which was checked by Philippa's query if Lawrence had taken leave of Dan Robesart.
"Nay. Should I so?" asked the boy doubtfully.
"Aye, for sure. Haste thee up the hill, for he went into the church but now."
And with a hasty farewell at last Lawrence ran off.
He found the priest pacing meditatively up and down the north aisle of the church, with folded arms and a very grave face.
"Didst seek me, my son?" he inquired, pausing as Lawrence came up and stood rather timidly at a little distance.
"An't please you, good Father, I go hence as to-morrow, and Philippa would have me ask you of your blessing ere I went."
"That shalt thou have, right heartily." And the thin white hand was laid on the child's head. "Our Lord bless thee, and make thee a blessing. May He be thy Guide and Shield and Comforter; yea, may He cover thee with His wings all the day long, and be unto thee a buckler from the face of evil. Lawrence, my son, I would fain have thy promise to a thing."
"What thing, Father?"
"Pass thy word to me, and never forget it, that in all thy life thou wilt never go any whither without asking our Lord to go with thee."
The priest had somewhat failed to realise the extreme youth and worse ignorance of the child to whom he was talking. The reply recalled him to these facts.
"Where shall I find Him?—in the church? Must I hear mass every morning?"
One of the strangest things in Romanism to a Protestant mind is the fancy that prayer must be offered in a consecrated building to be thoroughly acceptable. Of course, when a man localises the presence of Christ as confined to a particular piece of stone, it is natural that he should fancy he must go to the stone to find Him. From this unscriptural notion the Lollards had to a great extent emancipated themselves. Mr. Robesart therefore answered Lawrence as most priests would not have done, for in his eyes the presence of Christ was not restricted to the altar-stone and the consecrated wafer.
"My son, say in thine heart—thou needest not speak it loud—'Jesus, be with me,' before thou dost any matter, or goest any whither. Our Lord will hear thee. Wilt thou so do?"
Lawrence gave the promise, with a child's readiness to promise anything asked by a person whom he loved and reverenced. The priest lifted his eyes.
"Lord keep him in mind!" he said in a low voice. "Keep Thyself in the child's heart, and bear him upon Thine before the Father!—Now, my son, go, and God be with thee."
Mr. Robesart laid his hand again on the child's head, and with a slower step than before, as if some awe rested upon him, Lawrence went down to the hovel below the hill.
The journey from Usk to Ireland was a far more new and strange experience to Lawrence than it could be to Roger. The latter had taken various short journeys from one of his father's castles to another, or on occasional visits to friends and relatives of the family: but the former had spent all his little life in the hovel at Usk, and his own feet were the only mode of travelling with which he had hitherto been acquainted. The sea was something completely new to both. Lawrence was deeply interested in finding out that fishes lived in that mighty ocean which seemed alike so potent and so interminable. He wanted to go down to the bottom and see the fishes alive in their own haunts, and find out what was there beside them. But after timidly hinting at these aspirations to an archer and a squire, and perceiving that both were inclined to laugh at him, Lawrence locked up the remainder of his fancies in his own breast, and awaited further light and future opportunities.
Meditations of this kind did not trouble Roger. He found quite enough to look at in the visible world, without puzzling his brain by speculations concerning the unseen. His nature disposed him at all times to action rather than thought.
Two months were consumed on the voyage to Ireland: not by any means an unreasonable time, when that period or longer was frequently required between Dover and Calais. They were detained previously at Holyhead, waiting for a south-east wind, only for a fortnight, which was rather a matter for congratulation; as was also the fact that they were only twice in danger of their lives during the voyage. Perils in the wilderness, and perils in the sea, were much more intelligible to our forefathers than to ourselves.
Roger was growing dreadfully tired of sea and sky long before the shore of Antrim was sighted. Lawrence was tired of nothing but his own ignorance and incapacity to understand what he saw. He wanted to know—to dive to the bottom of every thing, literally and figuratively: and he did not know how to get there, and nobody could or would tell him. Surely things had an end somewhere—if one could only find it out!
The voyage came to one, at any rate; and on a beautiful summer morning, the keel of the Grace Dieu at last grated upon the shingle of Ulster. Half-a-dozen of the crew jumped out into the surf, and twice as many came to help from the land. The great boat was dragged on shore by the help of ropes, a ladder set against her side, and Roger carefully carried ashore by a squire. Lawrence was left to climb down as he best could. Both reached the ground in safety, and found themselves in presence of a crowd of officers and retainers in the Earl of Ulster's livery; from among whom in a moment the Earl himself came forward, and gave a warm fatherly welcome to his little son. After mutual greetings had been sufficiently exchanged between old residents and new-comers, the Earl mounted his horse, a superb bay caparisoned with a scarlet saddle-cloth, and Roger having been lifted on a white pony beside him, they rode away to the Castle of Carrickfergus.
Ulster was in the fourteenth century, as it still is in the nineteenth, in a much more settled, and to English eyes a more civilised condition, than the Milesian parts of Ireland: but even there, that hatred of rent which seems characteristic of the Irish race, flourished quite as luxuriantly as now. Fifty years before this date, Maud of Lancaster, the girl-widow of the murdered Earl of Ulster, and great-grandmother of little Roger, had been constrained to address piteous appeals to King Edward III. for his charity, on the ground that while nominally possessed of large property, she had really nothing to live upon, since her Irish tenants would not pay their rents.
The English mind, which is apt to pride itself upon its steady-going, law-abiding tendencies, was much exercised with this Irish peculiarity, which it could not understand at all. Why a man should not pay rent for land which the law affirmed was not his own, and what possible objection he could have to doing so beyond a wish to keep his money in his pocket, was wholly unintelligible to the Saxon mind, which never comprehended that passionate love for the soil, that blind clinging to the homestead, which are characteristic of the Celt. Those who have those qualities, among our now mixed race, whatever their known pedigree be, may rest assured that Celtic blood—whether British, Gaelic, or Erse—has entered their veins from some quarter.
The Irish, on their part, were for ever looking back to that day when they were lords of the soil, before the foot of the stranger had ever pressed the turf of the Green Isle. It was the land which they yearned to emancipate rather than themselves. In Celtic eyes a monarch is king of the land, and the people who dwell on it are merely adventitious coincidences: in Saxon eyes he is king of the people, and the land is simply the piece of matter which holds the people in obedience to the law of gravitation. The latter must necessarily be an emigrating and colonising race: the former as certainly, by the very nature of things, must feel subjection to a foreign nation an intolerable yoke, and exile one of the bitterest penalties that can be visited on man. How are these two types of mind ever to understand each other?
It has been well said that "there is not only one Mediator between God and man, but also one Mediator between man and man, the Man Christ Jesus." Never, as Man, was a truer patriot, and yet never was a more thorough cosmopolitan, than He whose eyes as God are always upon the Land of Israel, and who hath loved Zion. Can we not all learn of Him, and bear with each other till the day comes when we shall see eye to eye—when there shall be one nation upon the mountains of Israel, and one King over all the earth,—one flock, and one Shepherd?
CHAPTER III.
CAST ON THE WORLD.
"But He who feeds the ravens young
Lets naething pass He disna see,
He'll some time judge o' richt and wrang,
And aye provide for you and me."
—JAMES HOGG.
"Would it please your good Lordship to stand still but one minute?"
"No, Wenteline, it wouldn't." And little Roger twisted himself out of the hands which were vainly endeavouring to smoothe down his vest of violet velvet embroidered in silver, and to fasten it round the waist with a richly-chased silver belt.
"Then, when my gracious Lord sends Master Constantine for your Lordship, am I to say you will not be donned, so you cannot go down to hall?"
"Thou canst say what it list thee. I want to play at soldiers with Lolly."
"So shall your Lordship when you be donned," answered Guenllian firmly.
Little Roger looked up into her face, and seeing no relenting, broke into a merry little laugh, and resigned himself to the inevitable.
"Oh, come then, make haste!"
Vanity was not among Roger's failings, and impatience very decidedly was. Guenllian obeyed her little charge's bidding, and in a few minutes released him from bondage. He rewarded her with a hurried kiss, and scampered off into the ante-chamber, calling out,—
"Lolly, Lolly, come and play at soldiers!"
The two boys, master and servant, were very fond of each other. This was the more remarkable since not only their temperaments, but their tastes, were diverse. Roger liked noise and show, was lively, impulsive, ardent: he had no particular love for lessons, and no capacity for sitting still. Lawrence was grave and calm, gifted with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and of a quiet, almost indolent physical temperament. The one point on which their tastes met was a liking for music; and even in this case Roger delighted in stirring martial strains, while Lawrence preferred soft and plaintive airs. Playing at soldiers, therefore, was rather in Roger's line than in Lawrence's: but the latter never dreamed of setting his will in antagonism to that of his master. The game had gone on for about half an hour when a young man of twenty presented himself at the door of the ante-chamber. He was clad in a blue tunic reaching nearly to the knee, and girded with a black belt round the hips, studded with gold; a red hood encircled his neck; his stockings were diverse, the right being of the same shade as the hood, and the left of green stripped with black. Low black shoes, with very pointed toes, completed his costume.
"Now, Master Constantine, you may go away. I want nought with you," shouted little Roger, still struggling with Lawrence, whom he had almost forced into a corner.
"Please it your Lordship," returned Master Constantine with an amused smile, "I want somewhat with you. My gracious Lord hath sent me to fetch you to hall."
"O you bad man, you have spoiled my fun!" cried little Roger. "I had nearly won the battle.—Come along then, Lolly, we will make an end at after. Draw off the troops—right about face! March!"
A smile broke over the somewhat weary face of the Viceroy, when, two minutes later, his little son came marching into the hall, shouldering his toy spear, and followed by Lawrence, who carried a long stick in a manner similar as to position, but dissimilar as to the appearance of interest. At the edge of the dalts Lawrence dropped his stick, made a low bow to his master, and retreated among the household beneath. Roger bounded on the daïs, kissed his father's hand, and squatted himself down—for half a minute—on a hassock at the Earl's feet. The father's hand lingered tenderly among the fair curls on the boy's head.
"Little Roger," he said, "I have somewhat to tell thee."
"Is it a battle?" exclaimed Roger eagerly.
His father laughed. "Of a truth, thou art cut out for a soldier, my lad. Nay, 'tis not a battle; it is a journey."
"Shall I take a journey?"
"Not yet a while. Perchance, some day. But what sayest? Canst do without me for a month or twain?"
"Whither go you, my Lord?"
"I set forth for Cork this next Wednesday."
"Where's Cork?"
"There shall be nigh all Ireland between us, little Roger."
"But musn't I go?" said Roger in a very disappointed tone.
"Not yet a while," repeated his father. "Cork is wilder by far than Antrim. I must ensure me first that it shall be safe to have thee. If so be, I may send for thee in time."
"But must I be all alone?" demanded the child in a changed tone.
"All alone—with Wenteline and Master Byterre and Lawrence—for a little while. Then thou shalt either come to me, or go back to my Lady thy grandmother."
"Oh, let me come to your Lordship! I love not women!" cried Roger, with the usual want of gallantry of small boys.
"In very deed, I am shocked!" said the Earl, with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes which made more impression on Roger than the accompanying words. "Howbeit, we shall see. Thou shouldst dearly love thy grandmother, Roger, for she loveth thee right well."
"Oh aye, I love her all right!—but women wit nought of war and knighthood, and such like. They think you be good if you sit still and stare on a book. And that is monks' gear, not soldiers'. I am a soldier."
"Art thou, forsooth?" responded the Earl with a laugh. "Thou shalt be one day, maybe. Now, my doughty warrior, run to thy nurse. I have ado with these gentlemen."
Two years had passed when this dialogue took place, since little Roger came from Wigmore to Ireland. He was growing a bright boy, still not particularly fond of study, but less averse to it than he had been, and developing a strong taste for military matters, and for the lighter accomplishments. He danced and sang well for his age, and was learning to play the cithern or guitar. He rode fearlessly, was a great climber and leaper, and considering his years a good archer, and a first-rate player of chess, foot-ball, club-ball (cricket), hand-tennis (fives), mall battledore and shuttlecock, and tables or back-gammon. As to drawing, nobody ever dreamed of teaching that to a medieval noble. The three Rs were also progressing fairly for a boy in the fourteenth century.
The small household left at Carrickfergus had but a dull time of it after the Earl had ridden away for Cork. Two months, and half of a third, dragged wearily along, and not a word came from either Cork or Wigmore. The third month was drawing to its close when, late one snowy winter night, the faint sound of a horn announced the approach of visitors.
"The saints give it maybe my Lord!" exclaimed Constantine Byterre, who was as weary of comparative solitude as a lively young man could well be.
The drawbridge was thrown across, the portcullis pulled up, and Sir Thomas Mortimer rode into the courtyard, followed by Reginald de Pageham and various other members of the Earl's household. They had evidently ridden a long way, for their horses were exceedingly jaded.
"How does my Lord Roger?" were the first words of Sir Thomas, and the porter perceived that he was either very tired, or very sad.
"Well, sweet Sir: in his bed, as a child should be at this hour."
"Thank God! Bid Mistress Wenteline down to hall, for I must speak with her quickly."
"Sweet Sir, I pray you of your grace, is aught ill?"
"Very ill indeed, good Alan." But Sir Thomas did not explain himself until Guenllian appeared.
It was necessary to rouse her gently, since she slept in little Roger's chamber, and Sir Thomas had given orders that if possible he should not be disturbed. Fearing she knew not what, Guenllian wrapped herself in a thick robe, and descended to the hall.
"Mistress, I give you good greeting: and I do you to wit right heavy tidings, for Lord Edmund the Earl lieth dead in Cork Castle."
A low cry of pain and horror broke from Guenllian.
"Surely not slain of the wild men?"
"In no wise. He died a less glorious death, for he took ill rheum, fording the Lee, and in five days therefrom he was no more."
It was as natural for a Lollard as for any other to respond, "Whose soul God pardon!"
"Amen," said Sir Thomas, crossing himself. "I trust you, mistress mine, to break these tidings to the young Earl. Have here my dead Lord's token"—and he held forth a chased gold ring. "I am bidden, if it shall stand with the King's pleasure, to have back his little Lordship to my Lady his grandmother at Wigmore."
"Poor child!" said Guenllian tremulously. "Poor child!"
"Aye, 'tis sad news for him," was the answer. "Yet childre's grief lasteth not long. Methought, good my mistress, it were as well he should not hear it until the morrow."
"Trust me, Sir. It were cruelty to wake a child up to such news. Aye, but I am woe for my little child! Mereckoneth he were not one to grow up well without a father—and without mother belike! The morrow's tears shall be the least part of his sorrow."
"Ah, well! God must do His will," replied Sir Thomas in a fatalistic manner.
To him, God's will was only another term for what a heathen would have styled inevitable destiny. In connection with the expression, he no more thought of God as a real, living, loving Personality, than he would have thought of Destiny in like manner. It was simply as an impalpable but invincible law that had to take its course. But on Guenllian's ear the expression came with a wholly different meaning. That Almighty Being who to the one was merely the embodiment of stern fate, was to the other at once God and Father—the incarnation of all wisdom and of all love. It was His will that little Roger should be left fatherless. Then it was the best thing that He could do for him: and He would be Himself the child's Father. The very thought which was the worst part of the sorrow to the one was the greatest alleviation of it to the other.
Little Roger's grief was according to his character—intense, but not abiding. Novelty had for him the charm which it has for all children; and he soon began to look forward to the coming journey to England, and the meeting with his grandmother, and with his brother and sisters, who had been left in her care. But before the journey could be taken, the royal assent and formal licence were an absolute necessity. By the death of the Earl, the viceroyalty devolved on his successor in the earldom until a fresh appointment was made; and the Viceroy must not leave his post except under leave of the Sovereign. Master Richard Byterre, squire of the late Earl, was sent to England to tell the news, and obtain the necessary authorisation, and until his return the household at Carrickfergus was occupied in quietly preparing for the change which was about to come upon it.
But before the return of Byterre, Reginald de Pyrpount arrived from England with the heaviest news of all.
The coffin of the Earl had been taken by sea direct from Cork to Milford Haven, and thence to Wigmore. Perhaps too suddenly, the tidings of the death of her last child were broken to the widowed mother. She came down into the hall of the Castle, whither the Coffin had been carried: the lid was lifted, and she gazed long and earnestly on the face of her dead: but through it all she never shed a tear. When she had regained her own rooms, her squire asked if it were her pleasure that the funeral should be proceeded with on the next day.
"Nay, not all so soon," was the answer. "Wait but a little, and ye shall bear my coffin too."
Despite all the efforts of her anxious suite, the Countess Philippa refused to be comforted. She would go down, into the grave unto her son, mourning. She took to her bed on the second day. Her confessor came to reason with her.
"This is not well, Lady," said he. "You are a rebellious subject unto your heavenly King—a child that will not kiss the Father's rod. Submit you to Him, and be at peace."
"Not a rebel, Father," answered the low pathetic voice. "Only a child too tired to work any more. Let me go to Him that calleth me."
"But there is much for you to live for, Lady——" resumed the confessor, but she interrupted him.
"I know. And I would have lived if I could. I would have lived for my little Roger. But I cannot, Father. Heart and brain and life are tired out. God must have a care of my little child. I am too weary to tend him. Let me go!"
They had to let her go. On the evening of the third day, with one deep sigh as of relief in the ending of the struggle, she laid down the weary weight of life, and went to Him who had called her.
The House of Mortimer of March was represented by those four lonely little children, of whom the eldest was only nine years old. It seemed as if every vestige of a shield for the tender plants was to be taken away and they were to be exposed to the full fury of the winter blasts.
For a whole year little Roger was detained at Carrickfergus, nominal Viceroy of Ireland, with his future still undetermined. This was not the fault of the King, a boy only just fifteen years of age; but of the commission of Regency which governed in his name. At the end of that time orders came from Westminster.
Sir Thomas Mortimer was to bring home the little Viceroy, to receive his exoneration from the arduous honour which had been thrust upon him, and to deliver him to the Earl of Arundel, whose ward he had been made, and with whom he was to reside till his majority. To Sir Thomas this news was indifferent: he desired the child's welfare, which, as he understood it, was likely to be well secured by this arrangement. But as Guenllian understood it, there was fair chance of the boy's ruin. If there were in the world one layman more than another who hated Wycliffe and Lollardism from the centre of his soul, it was that Earl of Arundel to whom Roger's future education was thus entrusted. And the astute statesman who was really—not ostensibly—the ruler of England, knew this quite as well as she did. This was Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest and cleverest of the sons of Edward III. And we have now arrived at a point in our story which makes it necessary to interpose a few words upon the state of politics at that time.
The King, as has just been said, was a mere boy, and the reins of power were in the hands of his three uncles. Of these Princes, the one whom nature and fortune alike pointed out as the leader was the eldest, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. And had he really taken the lead, the disastrous reign of Richard II. might, humanly speaking, have ended very differently. His next brother, Edmund, Duke of York, was so extremely weak in mind as to be little better than half-witted, and was entirely under the control of whoever chose to control him. The youngest, of whom I have spoken above, was clever in the worst sense of that word: but the only man whom he feared was his brother John, and had John chosen he might have reduced the active wickedness of Thomas to a point of merely nominal value. He did not choose. Never was a finer character more completely rendered useless and inert by moral indolence; never were such magnificent opportunities of serving God and man more utterly wasted—than in the case of John of Gaunt.
The word "moral" is used advisedly. Of physical or mental indolence he had none. His greatest delight, on his own authority, was "to hear of gallant deeds of arms" or to perform them: and few, even of royal blood, were more thoroughly well educated and accomplished according to the standard of his day. But all was spoiled by this moral indolence—this laissez faire which would take no trouble. Too much has been said of the libertinism of John of Gaunt. He was not a man of pure life; but he was not so bad as he is usually supposed to have been. Yet in one point he was a perfect rehearsal of Charles the Second—that so-called "sauntering," which I have termed moral indolence, and which it is said that Charles loved better than he ever loved any human being. And in the case of John of Gaunt it is the sadder to relate, because he had more perfect knowledge of the way of righteousness than most of those around him. The one instance in which he broke through the bonds of his besetting sin was in order to stand by John Wycliffe in the hour of persecution. Oh, how terrible is the reckoning for him who was not ignorant, who was not even in doubt of the right—who knew his Lord's will, and did it not!
In consequence of this sad lapse, the reins of power fell into the hands of Gloucester. And Gloucester was one of those men who know how to wait, to feel the pulse of circumstances, and when the right moment comes, to strike a decisive blow. How far he ever loved any one may be doubtful: but that he was a splendid hater is beyond all doubt. There were a few men whom he trusted and favoured; and of these—with one exception, the chief of them—was Richard Earl of Arundel.
The wardship of little Roger Mortimer would much more naturally have been given to one of his only adult relatives—his two grand-uncles, William, Earl of Salisbury, and Sir John de Montacute. But in the eyes of Gloucester, no Montacute was a person to be trusted. The family were by tradition favourers of the Boin-Homines—or, in other words, among the Protestants of that period. And Gloucester was a "black Papist." It is true that the Earl of Salisbury was an exception to the family rule in this particular: but it did not suit Gloucester's views to allow little Roger to reside in his house. He had a wife whose mother was one of the most prominent Lollards of the day: and he was himself much under the influence of the Lollard Princess of Wales, whom he had loved in her brilliant youth. His surroundings, therefore, were dubious. And deep down in Gloucester's crafty brain lay a scheme in which poor little Roger was to be chief actor, and if he were brought up as a Lollard there would be very little hope of utilising him for it. He must be made the ward of somebody who would diligently cultivate any sparks of ambition latent in his mind, who would give him a bias in favour of his uncle Gloucester personally, and against the King, and who would teach him to hate Lollardism. So the child was consigned to the care of the Earl of Arundel, and to make surety doubly sure, was solemnly affianced to his daughter.
A very clever Jesuit is recorded to have said, "Let me have the education of a child till he is seven years old, and you may have him for the rest of his life." The child thus plotted against had passed the test age. It might have been thought that his ruin was sure. But graven deep down in that fervent heart, below all the digging of Gloucester and his myrmidons, lay the mottoes of Philippa Montacute: and no efforts of theirs would ever efface that graving. "Un Dieu, un Roy"—and "Fais ce que doy." They were a hedge of God's planting around the tender shoot. He seemed to have said to the enemy, "Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his moral life."
It was a bitter sorrow to Guenllian that the Earl of Arundel gave her a civil congé. He had not the least doubt that she would be invaluable to the younger children: he could not think of depriving them of her. And little Roger would be amply provided with care. The Countess herself would see to him.
Guenllian was not reassured. The Countess was one of those soft, languid, placid, India-rubber women who would lay aside a novel deliberately if they knew that their children were in danger of drowning. She was not fit to bring up Guenllian's darling! She pleaded with the Earl piteously to allow her to remain with the child. She was sure the old Countess would have wished it. The Earl inquired if she had made any actual promise to this effect. In so many words, Guenllian could not say that she had: but that the tacit understanding had existed she knew full well. And she had distinctly promised that Roger should read constantly and diligently in the French Bible. The Earl assured her with an insinuating smile that there was not the least difficulty about that. He had a French Bible, and read it. Just then, Lollardism was walking in silver slippers, and the Bible was ranked among fashionable literature. Guenllian knew well that the reading with and without her would be two very different things. There would be all the difference in them between a living man and an automaton. But she was powerless. The matter was out of her hands. She must let her darling go.
She lifted up her soul as she turned away.
"Lord, they cannot bar Thee out of Arundel Castle! go with this child of many prayers! Teach him Thyself, and then he will be taught: save him, and he will be saved! Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He,—in heaven and in the earth and in the sea, and in all deep places. Let them curse, but bless Thou!"
And so, having touched the hem of Christ's garment, Guenllian went in peace.
CHAPTER IV.
WHAT CAME OF SELF-WILL.
"Are not the worst things that befal us here,
That seem devoid of meaning, or contain
The least of love and beauty, those from which
The heavenly Alchemist extracts the gold
That makes us rich?"
—REV. HORATIUS BONAR.
It was not in the old Castle in Sussex, the ancient home of the Earls of Arundel, that little Roger Mortimer found his home at first. The Earl was about to reside for a time in Town. His city residence, Bermondsey House, was situated on Fish Wharf, near to that delicious part of the City of London now known as Billingsgate. It may be safely asserted that no member of the English peerage would be likely to select this locality in the present day for the site of his town house. But, five hundred years ago, matters were very different, and the banks of the river near London Bridge were pleasant and airy places. This was, in fact, a fashionable part of the City: and here the premier Earl of England held his court, almost rivalling that of the sovereign in costliness and magnificence. Little Roger, for the past year a comparatively lonely child, found himself suddenly transported into the midst of a large and lively family. Liveliness was not, indeed, a characteristic of the Countess, a near relative of Roger, for her father and his grandfather were sons of one mother. She was a calm, imperturbable specimen of humanity, who spoke, moved, and thought, in a slow, self-complacent style, which would have sent an impatient person into a passion.
The Earl was almost the antipodes of his wife. The Fitzalans of Arundel were anything but faultless persons as a rule, but too much slowness and caution were assuredly not among their failings. He was an extremely clever man, gifted with much originality of conception, as well as talent in execution: not unamiable to those whom he loved, but capable of intense harshness, and even cruelty, where he hated. Energetic even to passion in everything which he did, a "whole man" to the one thing at the one moment, capable of seeing very far into that which he chose to see, but of being totally blind to that which he did not. Richard, Earl of Arundel, was one of the last men to whom such a charge as Roger Mortimer ought to have been entrusted.
The family of this dissimilar pair amounted to five in number when little Roger joined them. These were, Richard, a youth of sixteen years; John, aged fourteen; Elizabeth, aged ten, and already married to Roger's cousin, William de Montacute; Alice, aged five; and Joan, aged three. Both the boys were too old for Roger to feel much sympathy with them, or they with him; while the girls, both as being younger, and as being girls, were in his eyes beneath his notice. He therefore remained a speckled bird in the family, instead of amalgamating with it; a fact which drew him closer, despite all inequalities of position, to the one boy whom he did like, Lawrence Madison, the only one of his old acquaintances who was permitted to accompany him to Bermondsey House. The Earl had meant to cut all the old ties; but little Roger pleaded hard for the retention of Lawrence, alleging truthfully that he played at soldiers with him. It was just because this one item was so utterly insignificant that the Earl permitted it to escape the general doom: and thereby, little as he knew it, rendered inoperative all the rest of his cautionary arrangements. It was Lawrence who helped Roger more than any one else to keep true to his grandmother's early teaching. When Roger went astray, Lawrence either refused aid altogether, or went only so far as he thought right, and then stood like a granite rock, immovable by commands or entreaties. When the former was less obstinate, and more capable of being influenced, the look of earnest remonstrance in Lawrence's eyes or even his disapproving silence, were often enough to turn away the versatile and sensitive mind of Roger from a project of doubtful character. The little servant did not appear to care for hard epithets, passionate words, or even blows, to which naughty Roger sometimes descended when his temper got the better of him: but he did care deeply to see his little master do right and grow wiser. The influence of the young Arundels—which was small, since Roger never liked any of them—was often bad, and always doubtful: but Lawrence could be relied upon as a force ever on the side of right, or at least of that which he believed to be so.
It was Alice, the little girl of five years old, who had been solemnly affianced to young Roger Mortimer. She was the only one of the children who in character resembled her mother, nor was this resemblance perfect. It made her physically idle, and mentally dull; but it did not save her from that moral intensity which was the characteristic of the Arundel family. In her, instead of expending itself in mental and physical energy as it did with most of them, it formed a most unhappy combination with those features inherited from her mother. Passionate with a passion which was weakness and not strength, with an energy which was destructive and not constructive, with a capacity for loving which centred in herself, and a perversity of will which only served to lead astray, she went to wreck early, a boat with no compass and no rudder. It was well for Roger Mortimer that however men might think to order his future life, God had not destined Alice of Arundel for him.
It is scarcely necessary to say that notwithstanding the unction wherewith the Earl had expatiated to Guenllian on his possession of a French Bible, he did not see the least necessity for bringing Roger in contact with that volume. He had indeed come upon certain passages therein which he theoretically regarded with reverence as "good words," but which he was nevertheless far from elevating into rules for his daily conduct. It never occurred to him that his Bible and his life had anything to do with one another. He would have thought it as reasonable to regulate his diet by the particular clothes he wore, as to guide his actions by that compilation of "excellent matter" upon which he looked as supremely uninteresting and hardly intended for laymen.
About a week had elapsed since Roger became an inmate of the Earl's household. He and Lawrence slept in a small turret chamber, with a young priest, by name Sir Gerard de Stanhope, whom the Earl had appointed governor of his youthful ward. The boys, who went to bed earlier than the governor, very frequently employed the interval before his arrival, not in sleep, but in confidential conversation—the rather since it was the only time of day when they could talk together without fear of being overheard.
"Lolly!" said Roger on the night in question. He lay in a blue silk bed embroidered with red and gold griffins; Lawrence in a little plain trundle-bed which was pushed under the larger one in the day-time.
"My Lord?" obediently responded Lawrence.
"How doth this place like thee?"
"Please it your Lordship, it liketh me reasonable well," answered Lawrence, in a tone even less decisive than the words.
"It liketh me unreasonable ill," returned Roger in a voice wherein no want of decision could be traced.
"What ails you thereat, my Lord?"
"Lolly, I like nobody here but thee."
"That grudgeth me, my Lord." By which Lawrence meant to say that he was sorry to hear it. "Loves not your Lordship neither my Lord nor my Lady?"
"My Lord's a big lion, and they sometimes bite and claw you. And my Lady's a hen, and all she cares for is to snuggle her in the sand and cluck. Beside, she's a woman, and women be no good. I would there had been some lads."
"So there be, saving your Lordship's pleasure."
"They aren't lads, they are men. My Lord Richard were not so ill, if he were younger, but he is a grown man: and as to my Lord John, he doth nought but make mowes[#] at me. I tell thee, Lolly, there is nobody here, out-taken[#] thyself, that I would buy for a farthing."
[#] Grimaces.
[#] Except.
"Truly, I am sorry your Lordship is of such ill cheer."
"Lolly, what was it—didst hear?—that my Lord spake to Sir Gerard, mighty low, when thou and I were going forth of the chamber this morrow?"
"I heard not all of it," said Lawrence. "Only it was somewhat touching Mistress Wenteline, that had desired your Lordship to be well learned in the French Bible."
"Doth he look to cause me learn long tasks thereout by heart?" asked Roger, with a wry face. "I reckoned thou shouldst hear, for thou wert nearer than I."
"In no wise, my Lord, so far as I might hear, for he bade Sir Gerard have a care you touched it not."
"Then I'll read it right through!" cried Roger with childish perversity. "That cannot be an ill deed, for my Lady my grandmother was set to have me do the same."
Lawrence made no reply.
Though nothing on earth would have drawn the confession from him, yet for all his expressed contempt for women, little Roger sorely missed Guenllian. She had been his virtual mother for so long that, suddenly deprived of her, he felt like a chicken roughly taken from under the brooding wings of the hen. He was far more inclined to respect her wishes than he would have been had she remained with him: and there was also a certain zest added by the instinctive knowledge that what was good in the eyes of Guenllian was not unlikely to be bad in those of my Lord Arundel. Little Roger felt as if he had the pleasure of doing wrong, without the conscientious reaction which usually followed.
The impulsive little mind was made up that he would read that French Bible. That it was locked up in a tall press, at least four feet above his reach, was rather an additional incentive than a hindrance. To be always on the watch for a possible leaving about of the keys formed an object in life; and the subsequent scaling of the shelves like a cat was decidedly a pleasure to be anticipated. The keys were in charge of Sir Gerard, who was the Earl's librarian; and he put them every night beneath his pillow. He need not have taken the precaution, so far as Roger was concerned; for to possess himself of the keys by theft would have been utterly dishonourable and unchivalrous in the eyes of the future knight. Yet with odd inconsistency—are we not all guilty of that at times?—he had no such scruple as to possessing himself of the Bible, if he could only find the keys. But weeks went on, and this hoped-for discovery had not been made.
It came suddenly at last, when one morning the Earl had occasion to send for Sir Gerard in haste, at a moment when that gentleman, having just finished his dressing, was about to put the usual contents into his pockets. He left the articles lying on the table, and hurriedly obeyed the summons: which he had no sooner done than the small Earl of March pounced upon the keys. He had been watching the process with considerable fluttering of his little heart; the next moment the key of the press was slipped off the ring, and was safe at the bottom of his pocket. Lawrence looked on with very doubtful eyes, the expression of which was easily read by Roger.
"Now, Loll, hold thy peace!" said he, though Lawrence had not uttered a word. "I must have it, and I will!"
It will easily be surmised that Roger's ambition involved no particular desire of learning, least of all the study of divinity. The delight of outwitting the Earl and Sir Gerard was great; and the pleasure of doing something that Guenllian and his grandmother had wished him to do, deprived the action of all wrong in his eyes, and added to it a sentimental zest. Had the two motives been weighed in a balance, the first would have proved the heavier.
The press containing the Bible stood in a large room which opened off the hall. The expedition to secure it must remain a future gratification for the present. If only Sir Gerard would not miss the key! Was it safe to carry it in Roger's pocket? Roger consulted Lawrence, who agreed with him that it was a serious risk to run. He advised its restoration, but to that hypothesis his young master would not listen for a moment.
The study of the garden wall now became sensationally interesting; likewise of sundry old trees within the enclosure. The alternatives seemed to have equal chances of adoption, when a little hole was discovered in the wall, at the further end of the garden, delightfully hidden by a small loose stone which just fitted nicely into the crevice. The key was safely concealed, and Roger, with the most angelic innocence of face, returned to the house to repeat his Latin lesson to Sir Gerard.
Roger had been taught that to hide any thing from his confessor was a sin of the most deadly type. Conveniently for him, his confessor was not his tutor Sir Gerard, but the Earl's family chaplain, Friar Thomas Ashbourne, a fat sleepy old priest, who never inflicted a penance that he could help, and was more frequently than not employed in mental wool-gathering during the process of confession, merely waking up to pronounce the absolution at the close. It was not at all difficult to get on the blind side of this comfortable official, especially if a morning could be selected when his thoughts were likely to be preoccupied with some subject interesting to himself.