CHAPTER VI. THE ARRIVAL OF THE COUNT DE LA ROCHE, AND THE VARIOUS EXCITEMENT PRODUCED ON MANY PERSONAGES BY THAT EVENT
The prudence of the archbishop’s counsel was so far made manifest, that on the next day Montagu found all remonstrance would have been too late. The Count de la Roche had already landed, and was on his way to London. The citizens, led by Rivers partially to suspect the object of the visit, were delighted not only by the prospect of a brilliant pageant, but by the promise such a visit conveyed of a continued peace with their commercial ally; and the preparations made by the wealthy merchants increased the bitterness and discontent of Montagu. At length, at the head of a gallant and princely retinue, the Count de la Roche entered London. Though Hastings made no secret of his distaste to the Count de la Roche’s visit, it became his office as lord chamberlain to meet the count at Blackwall, and escort him and his train, in gilded barges, to the palace.
In the great hall of the Tower, in which the story of Antiochus was painted by the great artists employed under Henry III., and on the elevation of the dais, behind which, across Gothic columns, stretched draperies of cloth-of-gold, was placed Edward’s chair of state. Around him were grouped the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, the Lords Worcester, Montagu, Rivers, D’Eyncourt, St. John, Raoul de Fulke, and others. But at the threshold of the chamber stood Anthony Woodville, the knightly challenger, his knee bound by the ladye-badge of the S. S., and his fine person clad in white-flowered velvet of Genoa, adorned with pearls. Stepping forward, as the count appeared, the gallant Englishman bent his knee half-way to the ground, and raising the count’s hand to his lips, said in French, “Deign, noble sir, to accept the gratitude of one who were not worthy of encounter from so peerless a hand, save by the favour of the ladies of England, and your own courtesy, which ennobles him whom it stoops to.” So saying, he led the count towards the king.
De la Roche, an experienced and profound courtier, and justly deserving Hall’s praise as a man of “great witte, courage, valiantness, and liberalitie,” did not affect to conceal the admiration which the remarkable presence of Edward never failed to excite; lifting his hand to his eyes, as if to shade them from a sudden blaze of light, he would have fallen on both knees, but Edward with quick condescension raised him, and, rising himself, said gayly,—
“Nay, Count de la Roche, brave and puissant chevalier, who hath crossed the seas in honour of knighthood and the ladies, we would, indeed, that our roiaulme boasted a lord like thee, from whom we might ask such homage. But since thou art not our subject, it consoles us at least that thou art our guest. By our halidame, Lord Scales, thou must look well to thy lance and thy steed’s girths, for never, I trow, hast thou met a champion of goodlier strength and knightlier mettle.”
“My lord king,” answered the count, “I fear me, indeed, that a knight like the Sieur Anthony, who fights under the eyes of such a king, will prove invincible. Did kings enter the lists with kings, where, through broad Christendom, find a compeer for your Highness?”
“Your brother, Sir Count, if fame lies not,” returned Edward, slightly laughing, and lightly touching the Bastard’s shoulder, “were a fearful lance to encounter, even though Charlemagne himself were to revive with his twelve paladins at his back. Tell us, Sir Count,” added the king, drawing himself up,—“tell us, for we soldiers are curious in such matters, hath not the Count of Charolois the advantage of all here in sinews and stature?”
“Sire,” returned De la Roche, “my princely brother is indeed mighty with the brand and battle-axe, but your Grace is taller by half the head,—and, peradventure, of even a more stalwart build; but that mere strength in your Highness is not that gift of God which strikes the beholder most.”
Edward smiled good-humouredly at a compliment the truth of which was too obvious to move much vanity, and said with a royal and knightly grace, “Our House of York hath been taught, Sir Count, to estimate men’s beauty by men’s deeds, and therefore the Count of Charolois hath long been known to us—who, alas, have seen him not!—as the fairest gentleman of Europe. My Lord Scales, we must here publicly crave your pardon. Our brother-in-law, Sir Count, would fain have claimed his right to hold you his guest, and have graced himself by exclusive service to your person. We have taken from him his lawful office, for we kings are jealous, and would not have our subjects more honoured than ourselves.” Edward turned round to his courtiers as he spoke, and saw that his last words had called a haughty and angry look to the watchful countenance of Montagu. “Lord Hastings,” he continued, “to your keeping, as our representative, we intrust this gentleman. He must need refreshment ere we present him to our queen.”
The count bowed to the ground, and reverently withdrew from the royal presence, accompanied by Hastings. Edward then, singling Anthony Woodville and Lord Rivers from the group, broke up the audience, and, followed by those two noblemen, quitted the hall.
Montagu, whose countenance had recovered the dignified and high-born calm habitual to it, turned to the Duke of Clarence, and observed indifferently, “The Count de la Roche hath a goodly mien, and a fair tongue.”
“Pest on these Burgundians!” answered Clarence, in an undertone, and drawing Montagu aside. “I would wager my best greyhound to a scullion’s cur that our English knights will lower their burgonets.”
“Nay, sir, an idle holiday show. What matters whose lance breaks, or whose destrier stumbles?”
“Will you not, yourself, cousin Montagu—you who are so peerless in the joust—take part in the fray?”
“I, your Highness,—I, the brother of the Earl of Warwick, whom this pageant hath been devised by the Woodvilles to mortify and disparage in his solemn embassy to Burgundy’s mightiest foe!—I!”
“Sooth to say,” said the young prince, much embarrassed, “it grieves me sorely to hear thee speak as if Warwick would be angered at this pastime. For, look you, Montagu, I, thinking only of my hate to Burgundy and my zeal for our English honour, have consented, as high constable, and despite my grudge to the Woodvilles, to bear the bassinet of our own champion, and—”
“Saints in heaven!” exclaimed Montagu, with a burst of his fierce brother’s temper, which he immediately checked, and changed into a tone that concealed, beneath outward respect, the keenest irony, “I crave your pardon humbly for my vehemence, Prince of Clarence. I suddenly remember me that humility is the proper virtue of knighthood. Your Grace does indeed set a notable example of that virtue to the peers of England; and my poor brother’s infirmity of pride will stand rebuked for aye, when he hears that George Plantagenet bore the bassinet of Anthony Woodville.”
“But it is for the honour of the ladies,” said Clarence, falteringly; “in honour of the fairest maid of all—the flower of English beauty—the Lady Isabel—that I—”
“Your Highness will pardon me,” interrupted Montagu; “but I do trust to your esteem for our poor and insulted House of Nevile so far as to be assured that the name of my niece Isabel will not be submitted to the ribald comments of a base-born Burgundian.”
“Then I will break no lance in the lists!”
“As it likes you, prince,” replied Montagu, shortly; and, with a low bow, he quitted the chamber, and was striding to the outer gate of the Tower, when a sweet, clear voice behind him called him by his name. He turned abruptly, to meet the dark eye and all-subduing smile of the boy-Duke of Gloucester.
“A word with you, Montagu, noblest and most prized, with your princely brothers, of the champions of our House,—I read your generous indignation with our poor Clarence. Ay, sir! ay!—it was a weakness in him that moved even me. But you have not now to learn that his nature, how excellent soever, is somewhat unsteady. His judgment alone lacks weight and substance,—ever persuaded against his better reason by those who approach his infirmer side; but if it be true that our cousin Warwick intends for him the hand of the peerless Isabel, wiser heads will guide his course.”
“My brother,” said Montagu, greatly softened, “is much beholden to your Highness for a steady countenance and friendship, for which I also, believe me—and the families of Beauchamp, Montagu, and Nevile—are duly grateful. But to speak plainly (which your Grace’s youthful candour, so all-acknowledged, will permit), the kinsmen of the queen do now so aspire to rule this land, to marry or forbid to marry, not only our own children, but your illustrious father’s, that I foresee in this visit of the bastard Anthony the most signal disgrace to Warwick that ever king passed upon ambassador or gentleman. And this moves me more!—yea, I vow to Saint George, my patron, it moves me more—by the thought of danger to your royal House than by the grief of slight to mine; for Warwick—but you know him.”
“Montagu, you must soothe and calm your brother if chafed. I impose that task on your love for us. Alack, would that Edward listened more to me and less to the queen’s kith! These Woodvilles!—and yet they may live to move not wrath but pity. If aught snapped the thread of Edward’s life (Holy Paul forbid!), what would chance to Elizabeth, her brothers, her children?”
“Her children would mount the throne that our right hands built,” said Montagu, sullenly.
“Ah, think you so?—you rejoice me! I had feared that the barons might, that the commons would, that the Church must, pronounce the unhappy truth, that—but you look amazed, my lord! Alas, my boyish years are too garrulous!”
“I catch not your Highness’s meaning.”
“Pooh, pooh! By Saint Paul, your seeming dulness proves your loyalty; but with me, the king’s brother, frankness were safe. Thou knowest well that the king was betrothed before to the Lady Eleanor Talbot; that such betrothal, not set aside by the Pope, renders his marriage with Elizabeth against law; that his children may (would to Heaven it were not so!) be set aside as bastards, when Edward’s life no longer shields them from the sharp eyes of men.”
“Ah,” said Montagu, thoughtfully; “and in that case, George of Clarence would wear the crown, and his children reign in England.”
“Our Lord forefend,” said Richard, “that I should say that Warwick thought of this when he deemed George worthy of the hand of Isabel. Nay, it could not be so; for, however clear the claim, strong and powerful would be those who would resist it, and Clarence is not, as you will see, the man who can wrestle boldly,—even for a throne. Moreover, he is too addicted to wine and pleasure to bid fair to outlive the king.”
Montagu fixed his penetrating eyes on Richard, but dropped them, abashed, before that steady, deep, unrevealing gaze, which seemed to pierce into other hearts, and show nothing of the heart within.
“Happy Clarence!” resumed the prince, with a heavy sigh, and after a brief pause,—“a Nevile’s husband and a Warwick’s son—what can the saints do more for men? You must excuse his errors—all our errors—to your brother. You may not know, peradventure, sweet Montagu, how deep an interest I have in maintaining all amity between Lord Warwick and the king. For methinks there is one face fairer than fair Isabel’s, and one man more to be envied than even Clarence. Fairest face to me in the wide world is the Lady Anne’s! happiest man between the cradle and the grave is he whom the Lady Anne shall call her lord! and if I—oh, look you, Montagu, let there be no breach between Warwick and the king! Fare you well, dear lord and cousin,—I go to Baynard’s Castle till these feasts are over.”
“Does not your Grace,” said Montagu, recovering from the surprise into which one part of Gloucester’s address had thrown him—“does not your Grace—so skilled in lance and horsemanship—preside at the lists?”
“Montagu, I love your brother well enough to displease my king. The great earl shall not say, at least, that Richard Plantagenet in his absence forgot the reverence due to loyalty and merit. Tell him that; and if I seem (unlike Clarence) to forbear to confront the queen and her kindred, it is because you should make no enemies,—not the less for that should princes forget no friends.”
Richard said this with a tone of deep feeling, and, folding his arms within his furred surcoat, walked slowly on to a small postern admitting to the river; but there, pausing by a buttress which concealed him till Montagu had left the yard, instead of descending to his barge, he turned back into the royal garden. Here several of the court of both sexes were assembled, conferring on the event of the day. Richard halted at a distance, and contemplated their gay dresses and animated countenances with something between melancholy and scorn upon his young brow. One of the most remarkable social characteristics of the middle ages is the prematurity at which the great arrived at manhood, shared in its passions, and indulged its ambitions. Among the numerous instances in our own and other countries that might be selected from history, few are more striking than that of this Duke of Gloucester, great in camp and in council at an age when nowadays a youth is scarcely trusted to the discipline of a college. The whole of his portentous career was closed, indeed, before the public life of modern ambition usually commences. Little could those accustomed to see on our stage “the elderly ruffian” our actors represent, imagine that at the opening of Shakspeare’s play of “Richard the Third” the hero was but in his nineteenth year; but at the still more juvenile age in which he appears in this our record, Richard of Gloucester was older in intellect, and almost in experience, than many a wise man at the date of thirty-three,—the fatal age when his sun set forever on the field of Bosworth!
The young prince, then, eyed the gaudy, fluttering, babbling assemblage before him with mingled melancholy and scorn. Not that he felt, with the acuteness which belongs to modern sentiment, his bodily defects amidst that circle of the stately and the fair, for they were not of a nature to weaken his arm in war or lessen his persuasive influences in peace. But it was rather that sadness which so often comes over an active and ambitious intellect in early youth, when it pauses to ask, in sorrow and disdain, what its plots and counterplots, its restlessness and strife, are really worth. The scene before him was of pleasure,—but in pleasure neither the youth nor the manhood of Richard III. was ever pleased; though not absolutely of the rigid austerity of Amadis or our Saxon Edward, he was comparatively free from the licentiousness of his times. His passions were too large for frivolous excitements. Already the Italian, or, as it is falsely called, the Machiavelian policy, was pervading the intellect of Europe, and the effects of its ruthless, grand, and deliberate statecraft are visible from the accession of Edward IV. till the close of Elizabeth’s reign. With this policy, which reconciled itself to crime as a necessity of wisdom, was often blended a refinement of character which disdained vulgar vices. Not skilled alone in those knightly accomplishments which induced Caxton, with propriety, to dedicate to Richard “The Book of the Order of Chivalry,” the Duke of Gloucester’s more peaceful amusements were borrowed from severer Graces than those which presided over the tastes of his royal brothers. He loved, even to passion, the Arts, Music,—especially of the more Doric and warlike kind,—Painting and Architecture; he was a reader of books, as of men,—the books that become princes,—and hence that superior knowledge of the principles of law and of commerce which his brief reign evinced. More like an Italian in all things than the careless Norman or the simple Saxon, Machiavel might have made of his character a companion, though a contrast to that of Castruccio Castrucani.
The crowd murmured and rustled at the distance, and still with folded arms Richard gazed aloof, when a lady, entering the garden from the palace, passed by him so hastily that she brushed his surcoat, and, turning round in surprise, made a low reverence, as she exclaimed, “Prince Richard! and alone amidst so many!”
“Lady,” said the duke, “it was a sudden hope that brought me into this garden,—and that was the hope to see your fair face shining above the rest.”
“Your Highness jests,” returned the lady, though her superb countenance and haughty carriage evinced no opinion of herself so humble as her words would imply.
“My Lady of Bonville,” said the young duke, laying his hand on her arm, “mirth is not in my thoughts at this hour.”
“I believe your Highness; for the Lord Richard Plantagenet is not one of the Woodvilles. The mirth is theirs to-day.”
“Let who will have mirth,—it is the breath of a moment. Mirth cannot tarnish glory,—the mirror in which the gods are glassed.”
“I understand you, my lord,” said the proud lady; and her face, before stern and high, brightened into so lovely a change, so soft and winning a smile, that Gloucester no longer marvelled that that smile had rained so large an influence on the fate and heart of his favourite Hastings. The beauty of this noble woman was indeed remarkable in its degree, and peculiar in its character. She bore a stronger likeness in feature to the archbishop than to either of her other brothers; for the prelate had the straight and smooth outline of the Greeks,—not like Montagu and Warwick, the lordlier and manlier aquiline of the Norman race,—and his complexion was feminine in its pale clearness. But though in this resembling the subtlest of the brethren, the fair sister shared with Warwick an expression, if haughty, singularly frank and candid in its imperious majesty; she had the same splendid and steady brilliancy of eye, the same quick quiver of the lip, speaking of nervous susceptibility and haste of mood. The hateful fashion of that day which pervaded all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, was the prodigal use of paints and cosmetics, and all imaginable artificial adjuncts of a spurious beauty. This extended often even to the men, and the sturdiest warrior deemed it no shame to recur to such arts of the toilet as the vainest wanton in our day would never venture to acknowledge. But the Lady Bonville, proudly confident of her beauty, and possessing a purity of mind that revolted from the littleness of courting admiration, contrasted forcibly in this the ladies of the court. Her cheek was of a marble whiteness, though occasionally a rising flush through the clear, rich, transparent skin showed that in earlier youth the virgin bloom had not been absent from the surface. There was in her features, when they reposed, somewhat of the trace of suffering,—of a struggle, past it may be, but still remembered. But when she spoke, those features lighted up and undulated in such various and kindling life as to dazzle, to bewitch, or to awe the beholder, according as the impulse moulded the expression. Her dress suited her lofty and spotless character. Henry VI. might have contemplated with holy pleasure its matronly decorum; the jewelled gorget ascended to the rounded and dimpled chin; the arms were bare only at the wrists, where the blue veins were seen through a skin of snow; the dark glossy locks, which her tirewoman boasted, when released, swept the ground, were gathered into a modest and simple braid, surmounted by the beseeming coronet that proclaimed her rank. The Lady Bonville might have stood by the side of Cornelia, the model of a young and high-born matron, in whose virtue the honour of man might securely dwell.
“I understand you, my lord,” she said, with her bright, thankful smile; “and as Lord Warwick’s sister, I am grateful.”
“Your love for the great earl proves you are noble enough to forgive,” said Richard, meaningly. “Nay, chide me not with that lofty look; you know that there are no secrets between Hastings and Gloucester.”
“My lord duke, the head of a noble House hath the right to dispose of the hands of the daughters; I know nothing in Lord Warwick to forgive.”
But she turned her head as she spoke, and a tear for a moment trembled in that haughty eye.
“Lady,” said Richard, moved to admiration, “to you let me confide my secret. I would be your nephew. Boy though I be in years, my heart beats as loudly as a man’s; and that heart beats for Anne.”
“The love of Richard Plantagenet honours even Warwick’s daughter!”
“Think you so? Then stand my friend; and, being thus my friend, intercede with Warwick, if he angers at the silly holiday of this Woodville pageant.”
“Alas, sir! you know that Warwick listens to no interceders between himself and his passions. But what then? Grant him wronged, aggrieved, trifled with,—what then? Can he injure the House of York?”
Richard looked in some surprise at the fair speaker.
“Can he injure the House of York?—Marry, yes,” he replied bluntly.
“But for what end? Whom else should he put upon the throne?”
“What if he forgive the Lancastrians? What if—”
“Utter not the thought, prince, breathe it not,” exclaimed the Lady Bonville, almost fiercely. “I love and honour my brave brother, despite—despite—” She paused a moment, blushed, and proceeded rapidly, without concluding the sentence. “I love him as a woman of his House must love the hero who forms its proudest boast. But if, for any personal grudge, any low ambition, any rash humour, the son of my father Salisbury could forget that Margaret of Anjou placed the gory head of that old man upon the gates of York, could by word or deed abet the cause of usurping and bloody Lancaster,—I would—I would—Out upon my sex! I could do nought but weep the glory of Nevile and Monthermer gone forever.”
Before Richard could reply, the sound of musical instruments, and a procession of heralds and pages proceeding from the palace, announced the approach of Edward. He caught the hand of the dame of Bonville, lifted it to his lips, and saying, “May fortune one day permit me to face as the earl’s son the earl’s foes,” made his graceful reverence, glided from the garden, gained his barge, and was rowed to the huge pile of Baynard’s Castle, lately reconstructed, but in a gloomy and barbaric taste, and in which, at that time, he principally resided with his mother, the once peerless Rose of Raby.
The Lady of Bonville paused a moment, and in that pause her countenance recovered its composure. She then passed on, with a stately step, towards a group of the ladies of the court, and her eye noted with proud pleasure that the highest names of the English knighthood and nobility, comprising the numerous connections of her family, formed a sullen circle apart from the rest, betokening, by their grave countenances and moody whispers, how sensitively they felt the slight to Lord Warwick’s embassy in the visit of the Count de la Roche, and how little they were disposed to cringe to the rising sun of the Woodvilles. There, collected into a puissance whose discontent hard sufficed to shake a firmer throne (the young Raoul de Fulke, the idolater of Warwick, the impersonation in himself of the old Norman seignorie, in their centre), with folded arms and lowering brows, stood the earl’s kinsmen, the Lords Fitzhugh and Fauconberg: with them, Thomas Lord Stanley, a prudent noble, who rarely sided with a malcontent, and the Lord St. John, and the heir of the ancient Bergavennies, and many another chief, under whose banner marched an army. Richard of Gloucester had shown his wit in refusing to mingle in intrigues which provoked the ire of that martial phalanx. As the Lady of Bonville swept by these gentlemen, their murmur of respectful homage, their profound salutation, and unbonneted heads, contrasted forcibly with the slight and grave, if not scornful, obeisance they had just rendered to one of the queen’s sisters, who had passed a moment before in the same direction. The lady still moved on, and came suddenly across the path of Hastings, as, in his robes of state, he issued from the palace. Their eyes met, and both changed colour.
“So, my lord chamberlain,” said the dame, sarcastically, “the Count de la Roche is, I hear, consigned to your especial charge.”
“A charge the chamberlain cannot refuse, and which William Hastings does not covet.”
“A king had never asked Montagu and Warwick to consider amongst their duties any charge they had deemed dishonouring.”
“Dishonouring, Lady Bonville!” exclaimed Hastings, with a bent brow and a flushed cheek,—“neither Montagu nor Warwick had, with safety, applied to me the word that has just passed your lips.”
“I crave your pardon,” answered Katherine, bitterly. “Mine articles of faith in men’s honour are obsolete or heretical. I had deemed it dishonouring in a noble nature to countenance insult to a noble enemy in his absence. I had deemed it dishonouring in a brave soldier, a well-born gentleman (now from his valiantness, merit, and wisdom become a puissant and dreaded lord), to sink into that lackeydom and varletaille which falsehood and cringing have stablished in these walls, and baptized under the name of ‘courtiers.’ Better had Katherine de Bonville esteemed Lord Hastings had he rather fallen under a king’s displeasure than debased his better self to a Woodville’s dastard schemings.”
“Lady, you are cruel and unjust, like all your haughty race; and idle were reply to one who, of all persons, should have judged me better. For the rest, if this mummery humbles Lord Warwick, gramercy! there is nothing in my memory that should make my share in it a gall to my conscience; nor do I owe the Neviles so large a gratitude, that rather than fret the pile of their pride, I should throw down the scaffolding on which my fearless step hath clomb to as fair a height, and one perhaps that may overlook as long a posterity, as the best baron that ever quartered the Raven Eagle and the Dun Bull. But,” resumed Hastings, with a withering sarcasm, “doubtless the Lady de Bonville more admires the happy lord who holds himself, by right of pedigree, superior to all things that make the statesman wise, the scholar learned, and the soldier famous. Way there—back, gentles,”—and Hastings turned to the crowd behind,—“way there, for my lord of Harrington and Bonville!”
The bystanders smiled at each other as they obeyed; and a heavy, shambling, graceless man, dressed in the most exaggerated fopperies of the da