With these words he quitted the chapel, and the guards closing round the captives, they were compelled to follow. During their short walk Jane passionately implored her husband not to yield to the persuasions of his enemies. He hung his head and returned no answer, and she inferred from his silence that he was not disposed to yield to her solicitations. They were now close upon the Beauchamp Tower, when Dudley, pointing to a barred window in the upper story of one of its turrets, observed, “Within that room my father passed the last few weeks of his existence.”
Ascending the spiral stone stairs of the tower, they passed beneath the arched doorway, and entered the principal chamber — now used, as has more than once been observed, as the mess-room of the garrison. Here they found Gardiner awaiting their arrival. He was seated on a high-backed arm-chair between Bonner and Feckenham, who occupied stools on either side of him, while behind him stood the friar who had attended the Duke of Northumberland on the scaffold. Across one of the deep and arched embrasures of the room looking towards the south a thick curtain was drawn, and before it, at a small table covered with a crimson cloth, on which writing materials were placed, sat a secretary prepared to take down the heads of the disputation. On Jane’s appearance, Gardiner and the other ecclesiastics arose and gravely saluted her.
“You are welcome, daughter,” said the Bishop. “You have come hither an unbeliever in our doctrines; I trust you will depart confirmed in the faith of Rome.”
“I am come to vanquish, not to yield, my lord,” replied Jane firmly. “And as I shall give you no quarter, so I expect none.”
“Be it so,” rejoined the Bishop. “To you, my son,” he continued, addressing Lord Guilford, “I can hold very different language. I can give you such welcome as the prodigal son received, and rejoice in your reconciliation with your heavenly Father. And I sincerely trust that this noble lady, your consort, will not be a means of turning aside that mercy which her most gracious Majesty is desirous of extending towards you.”
“My lord,” said Jane, stepping between them, and steadfastly regarding the Bishop, “if I am wrong and my husband is right, the Queen will do well not to punish the innocent with the guilty. And you, dear Dudley,” she continued, taking his hand, and gazing at him with streaming eyes, “grant me one favor — the last I shall ever ask of you.”
“Daughter!” observed Gardiner severely, “I cannot permit this interference. I must interpose my authority to prevent your attempting to shake your husband’s determination.”
“All I ask, my lord, is this,” rejoined Jane meekly, “that he will abide the issue of the disputation before he renounces his faith forever. It is a request which I am sure neither he nor you will refuse.”
“It is granted, daughter,” replied Gardiner; “the rather that I feel so certain of convincing you, that I doubt not you will then as strongly urge his reconciliation as you now oppose it.”
“I would that not my husband alone, but that all Christendom could be auditors of our conference, my lord,” replied Jane. “In this cause I am as strong as in the late on which I was engaged I was weak. With this shield,” she continued, raising the Bible which she carried beneath her arm, “I cannot sustain injury.”
Advancing towards the table at which the secretary was seated, she laid the sacred volume upon it. She then divested herself of her surcoat, and addressed a few words in an undertone to her husband, while the ecclesiastics conferred together. While this was passing, Lord Guilford’s eye accidentally fell upon his father’s inscription on the wall, and he called Jane’s attention to it. She sighed as she looked, and remarked, “Do not let your name be stained like his.”
Perceiving Simon Renard gazing at them with malignant satisfaction, she then turned to Gardiner, and said, “My lord, the presence of this person troubles me. I pray you, if he be not needful to our conference, that you will desire him to withdraw.”
The Bishop acquiesced, and having signified his wishes to the Ambassador, he feigned to depart. But halting beneath the arched entrance, he remained an unseen witness of the proceedings.
A slight pause ensued during which Jane knelt beside the chair, and fervently besought Heaven to grant her strength for the encounter. She then arose, and fixing her eye upon Gardiner, said in a firm tone, “I am ready, my lord; I pray you question me, and spare me not.”
No further intimation was necessary to the Bishop, who immediately proceeded to interrogate her on the articles of her faith; and being a man of profound learning, well versed in all the subtleties of scholastic dispute, he sought in every way to confound and perplex her. In this he was likewise assisted by Bonner and Feckenham, both of whom were admirable theologians, and who proposed the most difficult questions to her. The conference lasted several hours, during which Jane sustained her part with admirable constancy, never losing a single point, but retorting upon her opponent’s questions, which they were unable to answer — displaying such a fund of erudition, such powers of argument, such close and clear reasoning, and such profound knowledge of the tenets of her own faith and of theirs, that they were completely baffled and astounded. To a long and eloquent address of Gammer’s she replied at equal length, and with even more eloquence and fervor, concluding with these emphatic words—” My lord, I have lived in the Protestant faith, and in that faith I will die. In these sad times, when the power of your Church is in the ascendant, it is perhaps needful there should be martyrs in ours to prove our sincerity. Amongst these I shall glory to be numbered — happy in the thought that my firmness will be the means in after ages of benefiting the Protestant Church. On this rock,” she continued, pointing to the Bible, which lay open before her, “my religion is built, and it will endure when yours, which is erected on sandy foundations, shall be utterly swept away. In this sacred volume I find every tenet of my creed, and I desire no other mediator between my Maker and myself.”
As she said this, her manner was so fervid, and her look so full of inspiration, that all her listeners were awestricken, and gazed at her in involuntary admiration. The secretary suspended his task to drink in her words; and even Simon Renard, who, ensconced beneath the doorway, seemed no inapt representation of the spirit of evil, appeared confounded.
After a brief pause, Gardiner arose, saying, “ The conference is ended, daughter. You are at liberty to depart. If I listen longer,” he added, in an undertone to his companions, “I shall be convinced against my will.”
“Then you acknowledge your defeat, my lord,” said Jane proudly.
“I acknowledge that it is in vain to make any impression on you,” answered the Bishop.
“Jane,” cried her husband, advancing towards her, and throwing himself on his knees before her, “you have conquered, and I implore your forgiveness. I will never change a religion of which you are so bright an ornament.”
“This is indeed a victory,” replied Jane, raising him and clasping him to her bosom. “And now, my lord,” she added to Gardiner, “conduct us to prison or the scaffold as soon as you please. Death has no further terrors.”
After a parting embrace, and an assurance from her husband that he would now remain constant in his faith, Jane was removed by her guard to the Brick Tower, while Lord Guilford was immured in one of the cells adjoining the room in which the conference had taken place.
CHAPTER XI.
HOW CUTHBERT CHOLMONDELEY REVISITED THE STONE KITCHEN; AND HOW HE WENT IN SEARCH OF CICELY.
CUTHBERT CHOLMONDELEY, who, it may be remembered, attended Lord Guilford Dudley when he was brought from Sion House to the Tower, was imprisoned at the same time as that unfortunate nobleman, and lodged in the Nun’s Bower — a place of confinement so named, and situated, as already mentioned, in the upper story of the Coal-harbor Tower. Here he was detained until after the Duke of Northumberland’s execution, when, though he was not restored to liberty, he was allowed the range of the fortress. The first use he made of his partial freedom was to proceed to the Stone Kitchen, in the hope of meeting with Cic
ely; and his bitter disappointment may be conceived on finding that she was not there, nor was anything known of her by her foster-parents.
“Never since the ill-fated Queen Jane, whom they now call a usurper, took her into her service, have I set eyes upon her,” said Dame Potentia, who was thrown into an agony of affliction by the sight of Cholmondeley. “Hearing from old Gunnora Braose that when her unfortunate mistress was brought back a captive to the Tower she had been left at Sion House, and thinking she would speedily return, I did not deem it necessary to send for her; but when a week had elapsed, and she did not make her appearance, I desired her father to go in search of her. Accordingly, he went to Sion House, and learned that she had been fetched away, on the morning after Queen Jane’s capture, by a man who stated he had come from us. This was all Peter could learn. Alas! alas!”
“Did not your suspicions alight on Nightgall?” asked Cholmondeley.
“Ay, marry, did they,” replied the pantler’s wife; “but he averred he had never quitted the Tower. And as I had no means of proving it upon him, I could do nothing more than tax him with it.”
“He still retains his office of jailer, I suppose?” said Cholmondeley.
“Of a surety.” answered Potentia; “and owing to Simon Renard, whom you may have heard is her Majesty’s right hand, he has become a person of greater authority than ever, and affects to look down upon his former friends.”
“He cannot look down upon me, at all events,” exclaimed a loud voice behind them. And turning at the sound, Cholmondeley beheld the bulky figure of Gog darkening the doorway.
A cordial greeting passed between Cholmondeley and the giant, who in the same breath congratulated him upon his restoration to liberty and condoled with him on the loss of his mistress.
“In the midst of grief we must perforce eat,” observed the pantler, “and our worthy friends, the giants, as well as Xit, have often enlivened our board, and put care to flight. Perhaps you are not aware that Magog has been married since we last saw you.”
“Magog married!” exclaimed Cholmondeley in surprise.
“Ay, indeed!” rejoined Gog, “more persons than your worship have been astonished by it. And shall I let you into a secret — if ever husband was henpecked, it is my unfortunate brother. Your worship complains of losing your mistress. Would to Heaven he had had any such luck! And the worst of it is that before marriage she was accounted the most amiable of her sex.”
“Ay, that’s always the case,” observed Peter Trusbut; “though I must do my dame the justice to say that she did not disguise her qualities during my courtship.”
“I will not hear a word uttered in disparagement of Dame Potentia,” cried Ribald, who at that moment entered the kitchen, “even by her husband. Ah! Master Cholmondeley, I am right glad to see you. I heard of your release to-day. So, the pretty bird is flown, you find, and whither none of us can tell, though I think I could give a guess at the fowler.”
“So could I,” replied Cholmondeley.
“I dare say both our suspicions tend to the same mark,” said Ribald, “but we must observe caution now, for the person I mean is protected by Simon Renard, and others in favor with the Queen.”
“He is little better than an assassin,” said Cholmondeley; “and has detained a wretched woman, whom he has driven out of her senses by his cruelty, a captive in the subterranean dungeons beneath the Devilin Tower.” And he proceeded to detail all he knew of the captive Alexia.
“This is very dreadful, no doubt,” remarked Ribald, who had listened to the recital with great attention. “But as I said before, Nightgall is in favor with persons of the greatest influence, and he is more dangerous and vindictive than ever. What you do, you must do cautiously.”
By this time the party had been increased by the arrival of Og and Xit, both of whom, but especially the latter, appeared rejoiced to meet with the young esquire.
“Ah! Master Cholmondeley,” said the elder giant, heaving a deep sigh, “times have changed with us all since we last met. Jane is no longer Queen. The Duke of Northumberland is beheaded. Cicely is lost. And last and worst of all, Magog is married.”
“So I have heard from Gog,” replied Cholmondeley, “and I fear not very much to your satisfaction.”
“Nor his own either,” replied Og, shrugging his shoulders. “However, it can’t be helped. He must make the best of a bad bargain.”
“It might be helped, though,” observed Xit. “Magog seems to have lost all his spirit since he married. If I had to manage her, I’d soon let her see the difference.”
“You, forsooth!” exclaimed Dame Potentia contemptuously. “Do you imagine any woman would stand in awe of you?”
And before the dwarf could elude her grasp, she seized him by the nape of the neck, and regardless of his cries, placed him upon the chimneypiece, amid a row of shining pewter plates.
“There you shall remain,” she added, “till you beg pardon for your impertinence.”
Xit looked piteously around, but seeing no hand extended to reach him down, and being afraid to spring from so great a height, he entreated the dame’s forgiveness in a humble tone; and she thereupon set him upon the ground.
“A pretty person you are to manage a wife,” said Dame Potentia, with a laugh, in which all, except the object of it, joined.
It being Cholmondeley’s intention to seek out a lodging at one of the warder’s habitations, he consulted Peter Trusbut on the subject, who said that, if his wife was agreeable, he should be happy to accommodate him in his own dwelling. The matter being referred to Dame Potentia, she at once assented, and assigned him Cicely’s chamber.
On taking possession of the room, Cholmondeley sank upon a chair, and for some time indulged the most melancholy reflections, from which he was aroused by a tremendous roar of laughter, such as he knew could only be uttered by the gigantic brethren, proceeding from the adjoining apartment. Repairing thither, he found the whole party assembled round the table, which was, as usual, abundantly, or rather superabundantly, furnished. Amongst the guests were Magog and his wife, and the laughter he had heard was occasioned by a box administered by the latter to the ears of her spouse, because he had made some remark that sounded displeasing in her own. Magog bore the blow with the utmost philosophy, and applied himself for consolation to a huge pot of metheglin, which he held to his lips as long as a drop remained within it.
“We had good doings in Queen Jane’s reign,” remarked Peter Trusbut, offering the young esquire a seat beside him, “but we have better in those of Queen Mary.”
And, certainly, his assertion was fully borne out by the great joints of beef, the hams, the pasties, and pullets with which the table groaned, and with which the giants were making their accustomed havoc. In the midst stood what Peter Trusbut termed a royal pasty, and royal it was, if size could confer dignity. It contained two legs of mutton, the pantler assured his guests, besides a world of other savory matters, enclosed in a wall of rye-crust, and had taken twenty-four hours to bake.
“Twenty-four hours!” echoed Magog. “I will engage to consume it in the twentieth part of the time.”
“For that observation you shall not even taste it,” said his arbitrary spouse.
Debarred from the pasty, Magog made himself some amends by attacking a gammon of Bayonne bacon, enclosed in a paste, and though he found it excellent, he had the good sense to keep his opinion to himself. In this way the supper passed off, Ribald jesting, as usual, and devoting himself alternately to the two dames, Peter Trusbut carving the viands and assisting his guests, and the giants devouring all before them.
Towards the close of the repast, Xit, who always desired to be an object of attention, determined to signalize himself by some feat. Brandishing his knife and fork, he therefore sprang upon the table, and striding up to the royal pasty, peeped over the side, which was rather higher than himself, to take a survey of the contents.
While he was thus occupied, Dame Placida, who was sitting opposite to t
he pasty, caught him by the skirts of his doublet, and tossed him into the pie, while Peter Trusbut instantly covered it with the thick lid of crust, which had been removed when it was first opened. The laughter which followed this occurrence was not diminished, as the point of Xit’s knife appeared through the wall of pastry, nor was it long before he contrived to cut a passage out.
His reappearance was hailed with a general shout of merriment. And Magog was by no means displeased at seeing him avenge himself by rushing towards his plump partner, and before she could prevent him, throw his arms round her, and imprint a sounding kiss upon her lips, while his greasy habiliments besmeared her dress.
Xit would have suffered severely for this retaliation, if it had not been for the friendly interference of Ribald, who rescued him from the clutches of the offended dame, and contrived with a tact peculiar to himself not only to appease her anger, but to turn it into mirth. Order being once more restored, the dishes and plates were removed, and succeeded by flagons and pots of ale and wine. The conversation then began to turn upon a masque about to be given to the Queen by the Earl of Devonshire, at which they were all to assist, and arrangements were made as to the characters they should assume. Though this topic was interesting enough to the parties concerned, it was not so to Cholmondeley, who was about to retire to his own chamber to indulge his grief unobserved, when his departure was arrested by the sudden entrance of Lawrence Nightgall.
At the jailer’s appearance, the merriment of the party instantly ceased, and all eyes were bent upon him.
“Your business here, Master Nightgall?” demanded Peter Trusbut, who was the first to speak.
“My business is with Master Cuthbert Cholmondeley,” replied the jailer.
“State it then at once,” replied the esquire, frowning.
“It is to ascertain where you intend to lodge, that I may report it to the lieutenant,” said Nightgall.
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