CHAPTER XXXV.
"Why then a final note prolong, Or lengthen out a closing song, Unless to bid the gentles speed Who long have listened to my rede?"
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
The fickle sun of "merrie England" shone forth in unusual splendor;and, as if resolved to bless the august ceremony on which it gazed,permitted not a cloud to shadow the lustrous beams, which, dartedtheir floods of light through the gorgeous casements of WestminsterAbbey, in whose sacred precincts was then celebrating the bridal ofthe young heir of England, with a fair and gentle daughter of Spain.It was a scene to interest the coldest heart--not for the state andsplendor of the accoutrements, nor the high rank of the partiesprincipally concerned, nor for the many renowned characters of church,state, and chivalry there assembled; it was the extreme youth andtouching expression, impressed on the features, of both bride andbridegroom.
Neither Arthur, Prince of Wales, nor Catherine, Infanta of Arragon,had yet numbered eighteen years, the first fresh season of joyouslife; but on neither countenance could be traced the hilarity andthoughtlessness, natural to their age. The fair, transparent brow ofthe young Prince, under which the blue veins could be clearly seen,till lost beneath the rich chesnut curls, that parted on his brow,fell loosely on either shoulder; the large and deep blue eye, whichwas ever half concealed beneath the long, dark lash, as if some untoldlanguor caused the eyelid to droop so heavily; the delicate pink ofhis downless cheek, the brilliant hue on his lips, even his peculiarsmile, all seemed to whisper the coming ill, that one so dear toEnglishmen would not linger with them to fulfil the sweet promise ofhis youth.
Beauty is, perhaps, too strong a word to apply to the youthful bride.It was the pensive sadness of her mild and pleasing features that soattracted--natural enough to her position in a strange land, and thethoughts of early severance from a mother she idolized, but recalledsome twenty years afterwards as the dim shadow of the sorrowingfuture, glooming through the gay promise of the present. And there,too, was Prince Henry, then only in his twelfth year, bearing in hisflashing eye and constantly varying expression of brow and mouth, trueindex of those passions which were one day to shake Europe to thecentre; and presenting in his whole appearance a striking contrastto his brother, and drawing around him, even while yet so young, thehottest and wildest spirits of his father's court, who, while theyloved the person, scorned the gentle amusements of the Prince ofWales.
Henry the Seventh and his hapless consort, Elizabeth of York, were, ofcourse, present--the one rejoicing in the conclusion of a marriage forwhich he had been in treaty the last seven years, and which was atlast purchased at the cost of innocent blood; the other beholding onlyher precious son, whose gentle and peculiarly domestic virtues, wereher sweetest solace for conjugal neglect and ill-concealed dislike.
Amongst the many noble Spaniards forming the immediate attendants ofthe Infanta, had been one so different in aspect to his companions asto attract universal notice; and not a few of the senior noblemen ofEngland had been observed to crowd round him whenever he appeared, andevince towards him the most marked and pleasurable cordiality. Histhickly silvered hair and somewhat furrowed brow bore the impressof some five-and-fifty years; but a nearer examination might havebetrayed, that sorrow more than years, had aged him, and full six,or even ten years might very well be subtracted from the age which afirst glance supposed him. Why the fancy was taken that he was not aSpaniard could not have been very easily explained; for his wife wasthe daughter of the famous Pedro Pas, whose beauty, wit, and highspirits were essentially Spanish, and was the Infanta's nearest andmost favored attendant; and he himself was constantly near her person,and looked up to by the usually jealous Spaniards as even higher inrank and importance that many of themselves. How, then, could he be aforeigner? And marvel merged into the most tormenting curiosity, when,on the bridal day of the Prince of Wales, though he still adhered tothe immediate train of the Princess, he appeared in the rich and fullcostume of an English Peer. The impatience of several young gallantscould hardly by restrained even during the ceremony; at the conclusionof which they tumultuously surrounded Lord Scales, declaring theywould not let him go, till he had told them who and what was thismysterious friend: Lord Scales had headed a gallant band of Englishknights in the Moorish war, and was therefore supposed to know everything concerning Spain, and certainly of this Anglo-Spaniard, as eversince his arrival in England they had constantly been seen together.He smiled good-humoredly at their importunity, and replied--
"I am afraid my friend's history has nothing very marvellous ormysterious in it. His family were all staunch Lancastrians, andperished either on the field or scaffold; he escaped almostmiraculously, and after a brief interval of restless wandering, wentto Spain and was treated with such consideration and kindness byFerdinand and Isabella, that he has lived there ever since, honoredand treated in all things as a child of the soil. On my arrival, I wasstruck by his extraordinary courage and rash disregard of danger, andgladly hailed in him a countryman. I learned afterwards that thisreckless bravery had been incited by a wish for death, and that eventshad occurred in his previous life, which would supply matter for manya minstrel tale."
"Let us hear it, let us hear it!" interrupted many eager voices, butLord Seales laughingly shook his head.
"Excuse me, my young friends: at present I have neither time norinclination for a long story. Enough that he loved, and lovedunhappily; not from its being unreturned, but from a concatenation ofcircumstances and sorrows which may not be detailed."
"But he is married; and he is as devoted to Donna Catherine as she isto him. I heard they were proverbial for their mutual affection anddomestic happiness. How could he so have loved before?" demanded,somewhat skeptically, a very young man.
"My good friend, when you get a little older, you will cease to marvelat such things, or imagine, because a man has been very wretched, heis to be for ever. My friend once felt as you do (Lord Seales changedhis tone to one of impressive seriousness); but he was wise enoughto abide by the counsels of the beloved one he had lost, struggle toshake off the sluggish misery which was crushing him, cease to wishfor death, and welcome life as a solemn path of usefulness and good,still to be trodden, though its flowers might have faded. Gradually ashe awoke to outward things, and sought the companionship of her whomhis lost one had loved, he became sensible that, spiritless as he hadthought himself, he could yet, did he see fit, win and rivet regard;and so he married, loving less than he was loved, perchance at thetime but scarcely so now. His marriage, and his present happiness, arefar less mysterious than his extraordinary interference in the eventwhich followed the conquest of the Moors--I mean the expulsion of theJews."
"By the way, what caused that remarkable edict?" demanded one of thecircle more interested in politics than in individuals. "It is a goodthing indeed to rid a land of such vermin; but in Spain they hadso much to do with the successful commerce of the country, that itappears as impolitic as unnecessary."
"Impolitic it was, so far as concerned the temporal interests of thekingdom; but the sovereigns of Spain decided on it, from the religiouslight in which it was placed before them, by Torquemada. It iswhispered that Isabella would never have consented to a decree,sentencing so many thousands of her innocent subjects to misery andexpulsion, had not her confessor worked on her conscience in anunusual manner; alluding to some unprecedented favor shown to one ofthat hated race, occasioned, he declared, by those arts of magic whichmight occur again and yet again, and do most fatal evil to the land.Isabella had, it appears, when reproached by Torquemada for her actof mercy, which he termed weakness, pledged herself, not to interferewith his measures for the extermination of the unbelief, and on thispromise of course he worked, till the edict was proclaimed."
"But this stranger, what had he to do with it?" demanded many of thegroup, impatient at the interruption.
"What he had to do with it I really cannot tell you, but his zealto avert the edict lost him, in a great measure the confidenc
e ofFerdinand. When he found to prevent their expulsion was impossible,he did all in his power to lessen their misfortune, if such it may becalled, by relieving every unbeliever that crossed his path."
An exclamation of horrified astonishment escaped his auditors. "Whatcould such conduct mean? did he lean towards unbelief himself--"
"That could hardly be," replied Lord Scales. "Unless he had been aCatholic, earnest and zealous as herself, Isabella would never have soesteemed him, as to give him as wife her especial favorite, CatherinePas, and place him so near the person of her child. When I left Spain,I entreated my friend to accompany me, and resume his hereditary titleand estate, but I pleaded in vain. Some more than common tie seemed todevote him to the interests of the Queen of Castile, whom he declaredhe would never leave unless in England he could serve her better thanin Spain. At that time there was no chance of such an event. He nowtells me, that it was Isabella's earnest request that he should attendthe Princess; be always near her, and so decrease the difficulties,which in a foreign land must for a time surround her. The Queen isbroken in health, and dispirited, from many domestic afflictions; andit was with tears, she besought him to devote his remaining years, tothe service of her child, and be to the future Queen of England true,faithful, and upright, as he had ever been to the Queen of Spain.Need I say the honorable charge was instantly accepted, and while heresumes his rank and duties as a Peer of his native land, the gratefulservice of an adopted son of Spain will ever be remembered andperformed."
"But his name, his name?" cried many eager voices.
"ARTHUR STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY."
The Vale of Cedars; Or, The Martyr Page 36