But, on this very first day, after his arrival, his spirit was ruffled by a strange accident. As his Highness was returning from the Tilt-yard, accompanied by the Queen, and attended by the whole court, his harpers playing before him, a stranger came forth of the crowd, and falling at his feet, called out boldly for justice. Many there present knew him for the man who, the night before, had showed such striking signs of a disturbed mind; and now, noting his unseemly vehemence, they stopped and asked for what offence he demanded justice. The King, too, remembered him; and listening what he should say, the man, observing that, addressed his looks and his voice eagerly to him, and exclaimed, that he demanded justice upon robbers and murderers who infested the highways of his kingdom with more violence and frequency than was ever known before, so that none of his peaceable subjects were safe from them.
The King, seeing the wildness of his look and the strangeness of his gesture, guessed the man was not rightly himself; yet he commanded him forthwith into the castle, there to wait, till he should speak with him, or order some others to do so; and the procession passed on.
Meanwhile, the King determined not to leave this matter, till he should have seen something more about it, with his own discernment. He went speedily into the white hall, which was the court of justice, keeping only a few of his nobles and other attendants, where he summoned the stranger before him, and had question put to him, who he was and of what particular grievance he had to complain.
The man answered, that his name was Hugh Woodreeve, a merchant of Bristol: and then he told his story — that, three years before, travelling with a very large sum of money in his possession, and, being in company with three other travellers, two of them merchants of good repute, and the other a kinsman of his own, they were attacked in the forest of Ardenn, when about two miles from Kenilworth, and robbed of nearly all they carried. They did not part with it quietly, it was so much. His kinsman, however, was the only one of the party that had good arms; he had served in the wars, and he now manfully resisted the ruffians, who directed most of their vengeance to him; he was murdered on the spot; for the rest of his company, they escaped with some hurts. No one of the robbers was killed, but two or three were wounded.
Here the merchant stopped and seemed ready to sink. His Highness, having declared his indignation at this villany, assured the merchant, that justice should be done upon the guilty, if they could be found, and asked whether he could swear to them, if he should see them again. The stranger straight replied, that he could truly swear to the murderer, and that he had seen him in the very court, nay, that he saw him at that very instant, standing even beside the King’s chair.
King Henry, struck with astonishment, fixed his eyes sternly on the stranger, for a moment, and then looked at those around him. On his right hand, was his son, Prince Edward, and, on his left, his young favourite, Gaston de Blondeville, upon whom all eyes were fastened; for to him the answer pertayned, and to him the accuser pointed, with a look of horror, which convinced every one present, except his Highness, he did indeed believe he saw before him the murderer of his friend, whether his fancy deceived him, or not. For the King himself, he inclined to think the accuser was either disordered in his mind, or that, from some unknown cause, he was the enemy of Sir Gaston; and his Highness knew well of the unreasonable and deadly abhorrence, in which many of his subjects of Britain held some of those strangers from France, who had risen into favour.
At the boldness of this accusation, Sir Gaston stood, at first, like one stricken with dismay; then, moving his hand towards his sword, he said, “but for the presence of the King, my master, I should soon avenge me for so foul a slander.”
To which the merchant, now much more tranquil than he had been, said, “The same reason must restrain all; but I do not need it: I would not set my life against that of an assassin! I ask for justice from his Highness.”
At these words, Sir Gaston was hardly withheld from his accuser. King Henry commanded silence: and, as soon as all noise had ceased, he turned with a severe countenance to the stranger, and said, “Know you not, that he, whom you accuse is a knight of my household, advanced to honour for his valour?”
“Yea, noble King Henry,” replied the merchant, “I have heard so; but, I repeat, he is the man who killed my kinsman! I never can forget that face: if I had met him in a distant land, I should have seized him for the murderer!”
The King, more fully convinced of the unsoundness of his mind, said, “Your passion has deceived you; thus far I am willing to pardon you; if you go farther, you must be taught what it is to dishonour a gentleman and a knight.”
Upon this, the merchant fell at the King’s feet; and, with uplifted hands, again cried out for justice! Henry, hardly less astonished at the resolution of the man, than that one of his household should be thus accused, (although he might have bethought him of the law he had himself found it expedient to make heretofore at Kenilworth, respecting robberies then committed in a very extraordinary manner on the highways) — King Henry, though astonished, began to doubt. He fixed a look, in which there was somewhat of inquiry, upon Sir Gaston, whose visage was pale, though his eye was fierce; but who may say, whether fear or anger maketh some men pale?
The King held it to be the last; a momentary doubt had entered his mind; but he promptly dismissed it. His Highness was commanding, that the stranger should be removed; and, for the present, confined in the castle; when Prince Edward, who, young as he was, had closely observed all that had passed, craved humbly of the King, his father, to suffer the merchant to be further questioned; and the King consented thereto.
Then the man was asked, whether he could tell the year and the month, when the robbery he spoke of had been committed. He was ready enough with his answers, and said it was on the eighteenth of October, in the year twelve hundred and fifty-three, and on the chase; that he was sure of the time, because it was within three days of that, when he should have paid to a goldsmith the most part of the money, whereof he was robbed. Upon this, the King seemed to consider awhile, for he knew, that, about that time, a camp lay in the neighbourhood of Warwick and on the edge of the forest, and that Sir Gaston was there, he being then serving as esquire to Sir Pierse Mallory.
At the last words of the merchant, Sir Gaston moved towards the King, as though he would privily say something; but his Highness reproved him with a frown; and asked the merchant at what hour the robbery was committed, and what were the array and appearance of the robbers?
The knight interrupting the reply, then said aloud, “Sire! I entreat you, be mindful of the condition of disgrace, in which I must stand, if you seem to give countenance to this scandalous accusation. I know not, that I shall be able to breathe, if it be thought, that your Highness could, for one minute, think it possible I could have committed so foul a deed.”
King Henry, looking kindly upon him said, “It is right you should be cleared with those, who know you not so well as I do; and chiefly with those, who love not men of your country; and, therefore, would I examine this witless charge to the uttermost.” His Highness then made all his questions over again.
The merchant considered awhile, and somewhat of his boldness seemed to forsake him: he then answered, “the number of the robbers was three; they were most of them tall in stature; they wore cloaks about them, and had masks on their faces.”
“Masks?” said the King.
“Masks!” murmured the courtiers, with one voice.
The King, daunting the accuser with the anger of his countenance, said, “You could swear to this knight, as one of the robbers, and yet you say, he had a mask on his face! I suspect you now for an impostor more than for a moody man. If it prove so, tremble! for I swear by my sword you shall not escape. I give you one more warning, to stop before you totally plunge into your ruin.”
At these words, delivered with vehemence, the paleness left Sir Gaston’s face, and he made a profound obeisance, showing his gratitude to the King. The accuser, dismayed, could not
immediately find his voice, as it seemed. Haply, he could not so speedily send back his thoughts to the rest of his story. Incontinently, the most of the assemblage began to look ychon in other’s face.
By-and-bye, the merchant said, that in the struggle between his companions and the robbers, two of the vizors fell off, and so he saw plainly the faces of the robbers, and he perfectly remembered the face of the knight. His Highness, without telling his thoughts on this, which many there present scrupled not to hold an after-invention of the accuser, commanded him to begin his tale anew, and to tell, one by one, every particular he could bring to mind of the alleged adventure; but before he began, Sir Gaston, surveying him, asked whether, about four years back, he was not at Embrun, in the Dauphine.
Denying, that he had been at that place, the accuser then renewed his story, which purported, that he and his companions were travelling, about the close of day, through the forest, or chase, of Kenilworth, when they were attacked by robbers. He was bidden to repeat the number of them and of his company, which he did, without varying his tale. The King asked how long after sun-set it was when the assault began? which he could not readily tell; but said it was so nearly dark, that hardly could he see the figures of the robbers under the shade of the woods, from which they burst: the merchant paused a moment —
“Go on,” said the King, impatiently: —
“But I could, afterwards, see them plainly enough by a torch I took from my companions, who had lighted it, at a smith’s in a village by the way-side; an iron-smith’s.”
The King asked him if he knew the name of this village, but he knew it not; and whether he should know the smith again? and he answered, he thought he should. Then he was ordered to proceed with his story:
“My kinsman,” said he, “was the only one of us, who was well-armed; and a braver spirit never lived. He fought with his sword that man, who now stands beside your Highness; it was a trusty weapon, and had done him good service in Syria, where he had it for booty, after a skirmish, as I heard. When my kinsman first made up to that man, I followed him with the torch, and to aid him, as I might, with an oaken staff I had in my hand; but I received a blow upon the arm, that held the torch, which was knocked to the ground, and the vizor of the man fell also, that very man, who now presses behind your Highness’s chair. The torch was not extinguished, and, by its light, I plainly saw that same countenance, that now glares upon me so vengefully. I saw it while he aimed the blow, which penetrated the head of my unfortunate kinsman, Reginald de Folville.”
The merchant paused, seemingly overcome by the remembrance of this event, while Sir Gaston exclaimed,— “Was it Reginald de Folville? He was esquire to a knight of Saint John, and was then at Lydda: so much for the truth of your story in that main point.”
At the first words of Sir Gaston, the King and the courtiers had turned their faces upon him; but though his words were so strong and sufficient, they beheld in his countenance paleness and consternation. But he soon recovered; and, asking pardon of his Highness for the emotion with which he had spoken, accounted for it by saying, that Reginald de Folville had been his earliest friend.
“Your father’s friend, you must surely mean,” said the merchant; “for he was at the wars at a time, that would have made that possible. You must have been a child, when he went there.”
“I was then a child,” said Sir Gaston, averting his eyes from the stranger; “and I must ever remember the kindness he showed me after the death of my father; I owe him much. He went from Provence to Syria; I heard he fell in battle there. Sure I am he never returned: he died in battle there.”
“He died in the forest of Ardenn,” said the merchant with solemnity, “and lies buried in the priory of Saint Mary here. He died by your hand: that is his very sword by your side; I remember it now.”
The audacity of this assertion struck all present and none more than the King himself. His Highness desired to examine the sword, and asked the merchant why he had not sooner challenged it; to which he answered nothing. Sir Gaston, as he delivered it on his knee to the King, said— “If I know my accuser, which I think I do, he is no stranger to this weapon: he knows well that I usually wear it; but it never belonged to Reginald de Folville. My liege, it was my father’s sword; he won it in the plains of Palestine.”
The King examined it with attention. It was of eastern shape and finely wrought. In the hilt were a few jewels. Prince Edward, as he leaned over it, pointed out to his father a motto in an unknown tongue; and then, at some distance below it, a date, with the Roman letters, H. A., remarking, that probably these letters alluded to some exploit achieved in the year noted. The King addressed himself to Sir Gaston for the meaning of the motto and of these letters; but he knew not their meaning, and said they were as when his father won the sword from his enemy.
Then the King addressed the merchant with the same question, observing, that, as the sword seemed to be familiar to him, he probably had been told the signification of the letters on it. With that, the merchant was hastily advancing to receive it of one, to whom his Highness had delivered it; when he suddenly drew back, covered his eyes with his hand, and stood immovable. Those near almost expected to see him fall, as he had done before in the castle court on the night last past. Sir Gaston, at the same time, stepping forward, presumed to take it, and to deliver it again to the King, with these words:— “Your Highness will not tempt the villany of this man by putting him in possession of the sword he falsely claims.”
But the merchant claimed it not; nor could he even endure to look upon it. Heavy sighs burst from him, while with eyes still covered with his hands, he said,— “That was the sword, with which the villain murdered him; and can I endure to take it in my hand, and to look upon the blade, on which his life blood flowed?” and he groaned more piteously than before.
There were some in the hall, who instantly thought this sorrow of the merchant was a mimickry, and asked how it could happen, that his kinsman was killed by his own weapon; to which, soon as he could recollect his thoughts, he made answer, that the robber, on wrenching the sword from his friend, struck him his death-wound with it. The King, returning the sword to the young knight, bade him keep it forthcoming till he should demand it of him again, and then said to the stranger these or such-like words: —
“You, a man unknown to me and to mine, and without a name, except as far as you have declared one, have dared to come into my court, and to accuse to me one of my own servants, a gentleman and a knight, of a crime most foul and incredible. You have related your story, and I have waited patiently for some evidence, that the murderer of your kinsman, if, in truth, he were ever destroyed by violence, was Sir Gaston de Blondeville. I find none, except your story. And in this you have not scrupled to affirm, that you would have seized him for the murderer, even in a distant land, though you also say, that your knowledge of his countenance was obtained only from the sudden (and, therefore, the uncertain) light of a torch lying on the ground, at a moment, when the danger you were yourself exposed to, might, it may be readily believed, have prevented you from closely observing any face whatsoever. You must be held unworthy of credit; and I commit you into safe custody, till it shall be discovered who you are, and who those are, who urged you to this base accusation.”
When his Highness had ended, they were going to convey away the merchant from his presence, but he craved leave to speak, and it was granted.
“My liege,” said he, “at any other than that moment of horror, I might have seen the face of this stranger, without remembering it the next; but the impression made, at that moment, will remain with me, as long as the strong feelings, which then struck me, shall return with the recollection of my kinsman’s fate. On seeing the same face, I was seized with the same horror; your Highness’s people can be witnesses, that yester-eve, when I saw that knight, I fell into convulsions, and was carried senseless from your presence.”
His Highness, remembering what had happened, and, on inquiry, finding, that t
his was the very man, who had then fallen senseless, perceived, that the merchant had not spoken this untruly. He asked again whether he was known to any person in Kenilworth, also whether either of the merchants, travelling in his company, at the period of the alleged murder, was at hand. The accuser stood, for a while, bewildered, and then repeating, that he was a stranger, having only passed through the place, a few times, on his way to or from Coventry, said, that of his two companions one was dead, and the other following his merchandize, in a distant land.
“Then,” said the King, “it appears you cannot bring any evidence of the truth of your story; even so far, as that a robbery was actually committed. Your accusation of this knight is, therefore, likely to be impelled either by malice, or by some other bad motive. If it shall prove so, dread the punishment that awaits you.”
“My liege,” said Sir Gaston, “I think I know the man, and also his motive. He wronged my father at Embrun; and now his malice, — but this story is connected with family circumstances, that should only be divulged to your Highness; and, if you will suffer me to unfold them in private, I shall prove, not mine innocence only — for of that your Highness does not doubt — but that man’s former and present guilt.”
At these words, the stranger fell again on his knees, and besought aloud justice on “a villain.”
The King looked long upon him and upon Sir Gaston, and sat pondering awhile. He then turned to the merchant, and, bidding him rise, asked him, a second time, if he were not known to any one person in Kenilworth? and received for answer, “Only as a traveller.”
“An adventure as remarkable as that you have related,” pursued his Highness, “must have been known here at the time it happened, and must be remembered now. It is strange, if there be none who can recollect you also.”
“My lord,” observed Prince Edward, “he said his friend was buried here in the priory. If so, the prior must know him and his strange history.”
Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) Page 222